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| - Last night I went to Tina's for a friend's birthday party. There was a guy there who I had very drunkenly hooked up with almost a year ago, but we really hadn't run into each other since, so it was a little awkward. Not bad, but awkward, where you know you have no hard feelings, but you're not sure about the other person. We didn't make eye contact till we had both been there for at least two hours. Finally he came over to say hi, while I was outside smoking, and he introduced his friend, who was there for the first time and slurring incoherently about how one of my friends was the girl he was going to marry. I looked this guy in the eyes and said "Tina's is a black hole from which all drunkenness comes and all drunkenness goes, Nothing that happens at Tina's counts." And one night stand guy and I looked at each other as I was saying it, and like magic, everything was all good. Because at Tina's everyone understands each other. Not only are you there to get wasted on super cheap drinks and sing 90s songs you haven't thought about in two decades, to watch the people you came with murder Biz Markie songs and watch old neighborhood folks sing sad country, but the karaoke shame we are all subjecting ourselves to equally opens up the rest of your soul for doing other shameful things. Karaoke is a gateway drug. This is just how it is. If you can't accept the darkness that lives in your own soul, the inherent vulnerability and resentment of rejection and childlike embrace of shallow enthusiastic praise, you don't belong there. Don't THINK at Tina's, just be there.
Later my sister sang Whitney Houston and everyone danced. Sort of.
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