cure for a bad day/week/life

Get in the bathtub. Balance your toes on the tap. Put on your iPod. Find some 90s music. And -- here's the real trick -- sing along as loudly as you can, damn the neighbors. Then text some boys.

Works, I swear.

let's go with that

"Your voice," he texts me, "sounds nothing like I had it in my head."

I sigh, and answer:  "I get that a lot.  People who've only heard me on the phone invariably assume I'm older than I really am."

I have a voice that is described on good days as merely "deep."  On bad days, I get, "You sound like a man."  (Coincidentally, my sister says that more often than anybody else.  Something about being the most genetically similar person to me on the planet exempts her from being tactful.)  The voice is an advantage in my professional life, since I work with a lot of clients exclusively via phone, but in most other situations I'm just a bit of an auditory oddball.

I have a standard response to comments on the subject. "Well," I’ll say, "it comes in handy when you want to do the Jessica Rabbit thing, but a career as a famous soprano is out."  When singing, in fact, I'm a contralto -- although applying that term to my warbling is probably an insult to any number of leading ladies.  Per Wikipedia, there are quite a few of them.  Fiona Apple, Toni Braxton, Judy Garland, Lady Gaga, Patsy Cline, Etta James, Alicia Keyes, Chaka Khan, Annie Lennox, Reba McIntire, Stevie Nicks, Katy Perry, Carly Simon, and Amy Winehouse are (although the meanings of the term are a little looser outside of classical music) also considered contraltos.

This boy and I have been trading texts and the odd voicemail for weeks.  At some point, I make a cheeky comment about whether or not we'll ever see each other in person.  He answers:  "Yes, Clare, we are going to hang out, you with your sultry voice."

Sultry.  That sounds good.  Let's go with that.

anthem

Morgan and I are spending a Friday night at our favorite karaoke bar in Culver City.  This is the kind of place where you can show up wearing a cocktail dress or pajama pants, and you'll blend in either way.  Tonight, we're in jeans and ponytails, sloughing off the stress of another long week.

We're just complaining about the song selections this evening -- everyone seems to want to sing depressing ballads, and we're not in the mood to cry into our cups -- when the heroine of the night stands to take the mic.  She's a girl about our age, and she's going to do Goodbye Earl, by the Dixie Chicks.

We instantly appoint ourselves her unofficial backup singers.  We wave our glasses and, from our table, join in the chorus:

Goodbye, Earl!

Those black-eyed peas?

They tasted all right to me, Earl.

You feelin' weak?

Why don't you lay down and sleeeeeep, Earl.

Ain't it dark?

Wrapped up in that taaaaarrp, Earl....

Adam and a couple of his buddies are there, too.  They stare at us, then start edging away uneasily.

Concern written all over his face, Adam's friend asks, "Why does every girl know every word to that song?"