Never One to Make Plans

In recent days, a bout of cowardice has plagued me regarding my hunt for work, shelter, and my mind. One Katie Rodgers, a dear old friend who told me when I was 6 and singing along to Killing me Softly that I was good, and who is responsible for roughly one fifth of my musical confidence, came out for a beer with me.

Amongst our girly catching up and many gin and sprites, two things became overwhelmingly clear: our current dramas are almost in complete parallel (yay for grown-up responsibility and youthful confusion), and, we were at an open mic night.

How did this happen to little ol' me without my knowledge? Well it was strategic, to be frank. I knew what was afoot. And I decided to trick myself into a position where the temptation for song would outweigh my fear. It worked.

Several brews into the evening, and my lust-on for the tunage only growing (and this particular brand of acoustic soulful bluesy rock and pop at the Old Nick on Danforth) Katie begged me to go up. I won't lie; it gives me worry lines. I feigned nervousness. I pulled out all the stops with my feminine blushing and fake protests. I mulled over what songs I had in my back pocket that would further reconcile the common commisteration we had been indulging in all night. The petite plucky pixie-cut brunette who hosts the evening stepped out from the street-lit window stage and I bombarded her with 'you were fantastic' and 'how does one get on up there' and 'all i need is a guitar' and my name was inked into the list.

After a fantastically soulful, Dolly Parton-sounding Sarah Harmer-looking too-little-for-her-guitar but with a voice that cracked perfectly on cue, I wandered up with my napkin-written setlist. I felt too drunk to remember the chords to some of the songs I'd considered, but I knew suddenly that this long journey from our table to the 3inch step-stage was less about me and more about my old and dear friend, and what she wanted from me in a time of some cloudiness. So I suppose I played as much for her as for me and the 20 people in the room.

I started with a particularly apropos tune for the audience, in keeping with their twangy country-tinged blues, and covered a Sam Cooke ditty called "Thats It, I Quit, I'm Movin On." I felt it in my gut that I was emoting myself with every line. Katie's eyes met mine with a knowing smirk on some of Sam's words that had really been ours that night. I couldn't help but look into the crowd at their attentiveness. It was freeing. A glimpse of two men at the bar, nodding their heads in appreciation or perhaps recognition, then a sight of myself breifly in the mirror to my left, and back to the barkeep, a quirky blonde brit named Siouxie (who entirely deserves to spell it like the Banchees did.) A look back to my scrawled song list. I fucked up some chords on Dreams. I belted my heart out on Basement Apartment. I was there for nobody but me, and then I was there for the room, and for Kate.

I ended up unsure of where to end my little dream and played off a few random chords I really love and put the guitar back in its holster, having left a few bullets in it for next Tuesday.