Note: this covers the events of Tuesday night, 12/17/19.

I'm glad I went to karaoke Tuesday night. That really improved the night after the day I had.

I was surprised when I got there that the bar was actually pretty full (to the point where I had to park at the bottom lot). Lately it's been more and more empty as the weather sucks and has been kind of down to the bare minimum of karaoke regulars + a few randoms, which is what I was expecting to find. But nope, pretty busy!

Matthew wasn't there--something came up, I guess--so Jim was substituting in. I sat with Ashley in the back since I figured I'd be alone all night, which was a delight. Her theory on the bar being full was that all the out of towners are now on break and back for the holidays. There was a inflatable balloon banner in the rafter saying "Getting Jingly With It," which I texted to the karaoke group text in lieu of any whiny "Is anybody coming?" texts. I already knew Robert wasn't going to (still sick) because I'd texted him earlier and I never got any response from Sarah that night (she did surface the next day to send me a heart potato pic).

Who did surface, surprise surprise, was Scott, asking who all was there. I took that as well, probably asking if anyone other than me was there and if so, would he show up or not. I said "nobody else from theater, I assume nobody else wants to," and then said there were other people in the bar that we knew, etc. He did not text back at the time so I assumed he probably wasn't coming if I was the only one there, but he did eventually come and sit next to me, so huzzah! That said, he did spend a lot of time wandering around outdoors listening to whatever he was going to sing next, or just pacing around, or pretending he was about to play baseball ("he does that," I said when Ashley wondered), or something. Who knows. I have no explanation for some of that other than "I guess he's like, brooding or something?" He said he'd been shopping at the Hallmark store, which might have been before he came over, I'm not sure. I was just amused that he'd also been to said store, albeit picking up different merch than I did. There was some brief touching and hugs at the beginning/end of the night.

In other news at the bar:

(a) Frank and Stephanie attempted to sing "Baby, It's Cold Outside," but somehow all the versions Jim kept finding were doing it waaaay too quickly. Stephanie could make an attempt at speed, but Frank just could not (his karaoke doppelganger is Johnny Cash), so they tried something like four different versions until they finally found a slower-ish one.

(b) Badger was in (presumably since Matthew was out), but behaved nicely.

(c) There was some other dude at the bar that offered Ashley a drink (she, being nineteen, said no), and later asked me if I was her mom. "No, but that's her dad, and she's nineteen," I said. The guy's uncle, who was apparently so drunk he couldn't keep his eyes open, kept trying to high five me and said he liked my singing. Oooookay then. I would have been more worried except they left about five minutes later.

(d) Meghan Trainor Girl briefly came in and belted out "All I Want For Christmas Is You," making me very glad that I did it last week when nobody else was in the bar. Scott high fived her afterwards. Though I must say that during her singing, he made a crack to me about the "toy" mentioned in the song presumably being of the battery-operated variety, so we had some snark going on about how I assumed the singer wants a live action one and how those things are very, very loud and everyone in the building knows what you're doing if you use one. (A literal buzzkill, I say.) Welp, now there's something dirty to think about every time I hear that song now :P

I am not Meghan Trainor Girl when it comes to singing. I read a story in this book about a world where you were utterly a loser if you could not sing and the heroine basically traded her life to get a singing voice, and while I wouldn’t go that far, I get the urge. Also I've had fantasies along the lines of this cartoon to get a better singing voice. Incidentally, while trying to figure out what book that story was in, I found ah... this “The Secret” link about someone magically/randomly getting a singing voice. Uh...I wish? Though at some point during the night, even Scott, whose voice is goddamned marvelous, was all “I hate my voice.” I know we all hear our voices differently in our own heads and everyone hates theirs by default for that reason, but damn.

Anyway: where I’m going with that is that I did "Last Christmas" again since Matthew was out, and then "Mercy" by Duffy, a song Ashley normally does but I talked to her about trying it out and she was fine with that. And finally, I sang "When You Say Nothing At All." I don't normally try to look around and check out anyone's reactions to anything while performing--and if I look over at Scott, he's reading memes on the phone again like, all the time. He doesn't really pay attention to when I am on, I presume my doing it is ah, rather painful to his better trained ear anyway.

But in this last case, I will say that he did look up when I got back, quietly applauded and gave me this warm look... To quote from another song, it was an "I know what you're doing" sort of look. I just looked down, all embarrassed, and went back to my seat.

Did I want him to realize what I was doing? I don't know. Did it anyway though, obviously.

Like I said, I can't say shit about any of this...whatever...that is quietly going on here behind the scenes to him, or anyone*, unless he changes his mind on this whole thing. Which, who knows. Later in the night when Stephanie asked us to sing in a group with her and gave us a choice of "Shut Up And Dance" vs. "Play That Funky Music White Boy," I asked Scott if he wanted to pick because I assumed he'd want the latter and he was all, "I can't make decisions!" We did the latter song, on my decision there :p

* I forgot to mention yesterday after recounting my conversation with Jim to my therapist that she thinks Jim figured out I like Scott, given the “don’t tell Scott I said this” bit. I was horrified and would assume no on that one....

I asked when he's going to auditions--he said Wednesday so I said I'd go then too--and he asked if I'd go to the cast party and I said yes. So we've established when we see each other next, at least. He did not escort me down to my car, but when I said I was parked out back said he'd seen my car and I briefly thought, "He was looking for my car?" until it occurred to me he probably saw it when he was outside on the back patio, duh.

Anyway, I feel better now. I needed this.

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