Birthday Week - Day Seven (6-17)

Work. Blah blah blah. I did manage to have coffee with Auto though. He was working that afternoon and came all the way up to big bad Midtown Manhattan to humor me a tiny bit during Birthday Week. I admire that in a person. Humoring me, stroking my ego, giving me the mad love. Good things. If y’all want to be friends with me, brush up on that stuff.

I was going to go to Taekwon Do class after work but Muppet and Mr. Muppet and Park were heading for pre-Karaoke dinner and won me over to their dark side. Beer and food and friends or sweating and hurting. I love the Taekwon Do but c’mon. It is Birthday Week. So, off to Heartland Brewery for beer and onion rings and stuff. And because Park hates the subway we all trotted to the garage to get her car. And while I would love to mock her a little bit for the whole germ/subway thing, she gave me a ride in the pouring rain to Karaoke AND dropped me off right at the door. So the mocking will happen later.

I was the first person to arrive at Planet Rose from my party and the second person to arrive who didn’t work there. Some cute little man was at the end of the bar chatting with the bartender as she made him some blue drink. I ordered a vodka tonic and waited for the gang to appear. And read through the song book pondering all the songs I would NOT be singing that night.

See, I hate Karaoke. Well, I hate singing in public. Singing in the shower is awesome. I rock at that. When no one else is in my home. And I like watching other people sing in public. But I don’t like doing it. And so going to Karaoke where you KNOW someone is going to make you embarrass yourself just isn’t fun for me. It also doesn’t help that I know a ton of people who are excellent at Karaoke. ‘Cause they rock out and then I have to get up and sing and it’s just so sad in comparison. It’s actually sad without the talented folks but they just make me look even sadder and who needs that really? But a lot of people requested a Karaoke night for Birthday Week and I mistakenly thought that it being my BIRTHDAY WEEK I wouldn’t be forced to sing. Yeah, I’m cute but not so bright sometimes.

So, folks arrive pretty quickly and the awesomeness begins. BigD rocks out as is his way as does Rock Star Fran. Mr. Muppet sings The Highwayman as wonderfully as ever (it’s his Karaoke thing, you see). The Muppets and Park get me to help on the back-up for Love Shack. BigD sings some Neil Diamond and Rock Star Fran loves the performance but mocks the lyrics, which is as it should be. Rugby hid on the zebra couches hoping that no one would make her sing. Smart girl. One of the highlights was BigD & Rock Star Fran’s duet on You Don’t Send Me Flowers. Such emoting. Such lovely singing. I couldn’t stop cracking up. Buzz and SuperVixen showed up at some point. As did ButtKicker and Chuck. Lots of fun folks. And there was more singing. A bunch of the girls did Faith and Rock Star Fran had to do a lot of voiceover chatter about George Michael’s ass which seemed to be appreciated. Buzz sang me some Britney Spears and my buds actually dedicated quite a few songs to me. Rock Star Fran started to get a little tired and made me join her on Country Roads. The bar was pretty crowded (with at least two other birthday parties) and I felt for their poor little ears at this point. Then, someone not in our group dedicated a song to Amanda “whoever she is”. It was the little guy who was in the bar when I arrived. He just sat at the end of the bar on his little stool singing numbers every now and then all night long. And then ended up dedicating one to me. Cracked me up.

BigD decided to do Satisfaction (I think? - I’d been drinking a lot at this point) as his finale and danced and rocked all around the whole bar. We were all kind of in awe. The whole bar was kind of in awe. And he was pretty wiped out after that. Poor li’l guy. But it was excellent.

Oh, and earlier in the evening ButtKicker had put in The Tide is High under my name. Rock Star Fran promised to sing it for us while we did back up but then she bailed before the song came up. Buzz said he’d do it, but he was lying. So I ended up doing it while ButtKicker and SuperVixen helped me a little bit. Mean. And after that I don’t think any of the rest of us could take it anymore. And the last of the stragglers trotted on home. I got into bed considerably before dawn, but a bit after midnight. Respectable for Day Seven I think. Yes? And despite my little hate of Karaoke I had a really good time.

Want to die

Right now I'm so tired I can barely see. I don't think I've had more than about 5 hours of good sleep in a night since early June, if that. I always used to say I'd sleep when I was 30. I apparently lied.

Anyway, LA was awesome, time with Dad was awesome, Ed's Shirt is covered in mud stains and I'm going to steal Turnip's future boyfriend. All is right with the world. I think. I just can't form enough coherent sentences about it. So, today I'm going to surf the net, inhale caffeine and just try to get through the day until I can pass into a coma in my own bed at 9:30PM. Just want to let y'all know I'm alive and plan to catch up on all the day description blog entries by Monday. Oh, wait, no. Going out of town this weekend. Hmmmm... I plan to have them all caught up before my next trip after that which starts on July 15th. Ugh. So tired. No more trips.

Can I please just stay in New York for the entire month of August? Please?