Do the things that interest you and do them with all your heart. Don’t be concerned about whether people are watching you or criticizing you. The chances are that they aren’t paying any attention to you.
—ELEANOR ROOSEVELT
“I just came away from the weekend wishing I was more like my friend Bill,” I said wistfully.
“And what qualities does Bill have that you admire?” Dr. Bob asked.
“Well, the man has almost no fear. And he’s just . . . goofy.”
“When was the last time you did something truly goofy?” I opened my mouth to reply and he added, “While not under the influence of alcohol.”
I closed my mouth and reconsidered the question. “Probably right before college. Yes, definitely, the Yale video.”
“Video?” he repeated, confused.
Of all the colleges I applied to, Yale was the last to respond. I’d already been rejected from Duke and Georgetown, which sent terse letters regretting to inform me of my subpar credentials but wishing me luck at a school with lower standards. So I was bowled over when Yale wait-listed me. Immediately I unleashed an aggressive letter-writing campaign upon the admissions office. Every other day for three weeks, I mailed a letter detailing why Yale would be making a terrible mistake if I wasn’t admitted. Then I got creative. I’d always loved the Dr. Seuss book Oh, the Places You’ll Go! So I wrote my own version called Oh, the Places I’ll Go!, rewriting the words so that the poem was about me getting into Yale. An example of one stanza:
There are other schools I’ve looked over with care,
but I’ve made my decision: I don’t wanna go there.
My university? It must be the best.
Positively, absolutely, it must top all the rest!
A place like Yale where my thoughts can be grown,
guided and nurtured, but still be my own.
I won’t lag behind,
No, I’ve got the speed.
Give me the chance
and I’ll take the lead!
Then I acted out the poem on video. The film was shot with the help of a few friends and the special effects amounted to my mother holding a sprinkler over my head to emulate a storm system, but the trampoline sequence more than made up for it. A week after I sent in the video, I received a call from an admissions officer.
“Anyone who puts forth that kind of effort to get what she wants is clearly going places,” he said. “Welcome to Yale University.”
While I recounted this Dr. Bob was leaning back in his chair, laughing. “What a fan-tas-tic story!” he said with obvious delight. “That took balls, girl!”
I felt a twinge of jealousy for my former self, which I hadn’t even realized was possible. “Yeah, I had more nerve back then.”
These days I only thought about doing goofy things. Sometimes during serious situations—church sermons, job interviews, even sessions with Dr. Bob—I’d torture myself by imagining doing something completely stupid like standing up and shouting, “Oooga Boooga Pee Paw!” while shaking my hips and beating on my chest like King Kong. Then I’d struggle to keep a straight face and the smile out of my voice when it was my turn to talk.
Dr. Bob asked, “Where did you learn to stop being silly? When did you start taking yourself so seriously?”
“Actually I think it started at Yale. I just”—I paused and searched for the right words—“folded inward somehow. It was so intense, you know? Everyone had to be number one at everything. Students didn’t just play the violin. They played Carnegie Hall at age twelve. I knew I couldn’t compete, so I stopped putting myself out there.”
“And after college?”
“I went to work for a newspaper. The staff prided themselves on being intellectuals. People who didn’t take themselves seriously weren’t taken seriously by others. Whenever I goofed off, they’d roll their eyes. So I stopped, and that part of me never really came back.”
Dr. Bob nodded thoughtfully. “Goofiness is threatening to people who want to be in control of themselves all the time, who want to be serious. What stops us from acting goofy is our fear of being evaluated. But silliness can be empowering. I think you need to stop being afraid to be goofy.”
I considered, right now in this moment, doing the Ooga Booga dance; but I suspected he wouldn’t see this as goofiness, but as a sign I needed a referral to a neurologist. Instead I asked, “How do I do that?”
“By practicing doing goofy things.” Grinning, he held his hands out to each side and I feared he was going to make jazz hands. He did. “Hey, it works for me. I’m a goofy therapist!”
The next day I signed up for a tap dancing course. In terms of goofiness, it’s hard to top a group of adults wearing Mary Janes hopping around and performing elaborate routines for a nonexistent audience. One of the routines involved a phenomenally absurd knee-slapping move, then walking across the room in an exaggerated manner while waving, bringing to mind one of those cartoon frogs pumping a top hat and cane. I also put on a Santa costume left over from college and wore it around during the day. But even as I tried to distract myself with other goofy tasks, a sense of dread lurked in the pit of my stomach. There was no getting around the inevitable.
I was going to have to karaoke.
Most people start out as goofy children and grow more serious with age. Eleanor went the opposite route. One of my favorite stories about her is from a memoir by novelist Fannie Hurst. In Anatomy of Me, Fannie described her visit to the White House in 1933. After lunch Fannie accompanied Eleanor to the hospital, where one of her sons was recuperating after an appendectomy. Next they attended an opening of a Picasso exhibit, where Eleanor gave a speech. Then the duo returned to the White House to host a delegation of about forty educators from the Philippines and meet with an African American Baptist minister from Atlanta. After a quick change of clothes, they went out to dinner with a Roosevelt family friend. At eleven o’clock, Eleanor and Fannie returned to the White House to see the first screening of a “talking picture” from a projector that Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer had recently installed for the president. Well after midnight, Fannie crawled into bed in the Lincoln bedroom, “deciding for once to retire without even removing my makeup.” Then came a knock at the door.
“Come in,” Fannie said uncertainly . . .
Eleanor strode in wearing a black bathing suit, a towel draped over one arm. “Remember when I promised . . . to show you my yoga exercises?” she asked, spreading the towel on the floor. Then, to Fannie’s surprise, the forty-nine-year-old First Lady “stood on her head, straight as a column, feet up in the air.”
“You just have to go up there and have fun, baby!” Matt said a few days later, ushering me into a shadowy karaoke bar. Earlier in the week Matt had asked his friend Jesse—a theater critic and passionate karaoker—to recommend a place.
“Actually, I’m karaokeing this weekend with some friends I know through work,” Jesse had told Matt. “They’re big drama queens, but I’m sure they’d love to have you along!” Jesse’s work friends, it turned out, included several real-life cabaret singers.
“I can’t believe that for my return to karaoke, you brought a bunch of professional singers,” I grumbled at Matt as our group settled in around a few purple velour banquettes.
“I thought he was calling them drama queens because they were high maintenance!” he said defensively. “Besides, how good can they be if they’re doing karaoke?”
“How good can they be?” I repeated. “That guy over there was actually in Cabaret!”
Matt was one of those people who excelled at everything he tried. Usually I tried to avoid people like that, but this flaw was revealed to me slowly over the course of our relationship: The picture at his parents’ house of him in high school winning the Manhattan 800-meter championship for the second year in a row. The time his college roommate asked, “Matt, what was your thesis about again? It won an award, right?” The day he took me sailing. The night we played pool and he ran the table. By the time he won a Pulitzer Prize—as part of a team of reporters, but still—I was onto him, but already in love with him. In addition to all this, he played guitar in a band and had a terrific singing voice.
Rather than argue with Matt any further, I turned my attention from him and took note of the emergency exits. It was surprisingly tony for a karaoke bar, a neon-lights-and-martinis kind of place. At least the stage wasn’t very high, just a raised platform about a foot off the ground.
Dr. Bob once told me that all our fears—no matter how irrational they may seem to us today—are in some sense survival based. These impulses helped our ancestors avoid all sorts of unfortunate consequences. Claustrophobia, for instance, is related to our ancestors’ vulnerability to predators while trapped in tight quarters. But in a civilized setting, the same impulses appear somewhat neurotic. In ancient times, the primitive urge to remove yourself from danger was critical to survival. In modern life, it makes you look like a flake. You duck out of an awkward social gathering with a lame excuse. If you don’t feel prepared for an important exam, you fake an illness to get out of it. By obeying this instinct, you missed out on an important lesson, which was that you did have the ability to learn how to handle difficulty.
Chris sidled up next to me. “Plotting your escape route?” He elbowed me playfully in the ribs. He’d been at the karaoke bar that night when I’d fled in terror. Next to him, his boyfriend, Cub, grinned broadly, revealing two rows of dimples. As always, I had to make an effort to keep my eyes from lingering on Cub’s face. Chris is very attractive with his delicate features and lanky body. But Cub has one of those athletic bodies and wholesome, handsome faces that made you proud to be an American. They are the best-looking and best-dressed couple I know. Their chic, preppy style is so similar they’ve been known to show up at parties inadvertently wearing the same outfit.
“Oh, you came!” I squealed, throwing my arms around them. Just the sight of them made me less tense. The cocktail waitress arrived with their Bombay Sapphire and tonics, and Chris nudged me. “Care to fortify yourself with a beverage, Mariah?”
“I have to stay sharp for my fans,” I deadpanned as they clinked their glasses together to toast. Dr. Bob also said that if you use alcohol to shield yourself from embarrassment or criticism, you’re not really facing the fear. And the only way to get over a fear is to feel it. Which was why, against my better judgment, I was going up there sober.
“Just go after Cub and me,” Chris suggested. “We’re so terrible that we’ll make you look good.”
I flipped through the song list book. A ballad? No, something more goofy, but not trying-too-hard goofy. I was overthinking this. Finally I picked a song that I suspected would invite ridicule, wrote down the number code on a slip of paper, and followed Chris to the karaoke machine.
“If you punch in your code after me, your song should come up right after ours.” He picked up a remote control, pressed some buttons. “There are some songs in the backlog, though. It’ll be at least twenty minutes before your turn.”
The first member of our group, a meek-looking fellow named Michael, did a booming rendition of “Some People” from Gypsy. It was over four minutes long, but he held the audience’s attention the entire time. Another guy went and did something from Sweeney Todd that I didn’t recognize, but he sang it well.
Matt patted my arm reassuringly. “Don’t worry. I’ll go put in something less . . . stirring. Mix it up a bit.” He left but came back a minute later looking sheepish.
“Hey, what’s your song code? I think I pressed the wrong button and accidentally erased a few songs.”
Without taking my eyes off the singer, I rummaged in my back pocket until I found the crumpled slip of paper and handed it over. He returned and we watched a trio of NYU coeds giggle along to Madonna. When Chris and Cub’s song came on, I couldn’t help but smile. They performed a duet of Meat Loaf’s “I Would Do Anything for Love,” and Chris had been right—they were monumentally and wonderfully bad. And I loved them for it. When they eked out the last off-key note, I gathered myself and stood up. Might as well get this over with.
Matt slapped me on the ass. “Go get ’em!”
But then—something was wrong. Flashing across the screen was the title “Creep” by Radiohead. This wasn’t my song.
“This is my song!” Matt said, standing up in surprise. “I’m sorry, honey. When I erased your code and put it back in, it must have logged it in after mine.” He shrugged apologetically and hurried up to the stage to take the mic from Chris and Cub, who looked confused.
“What’s going on?” Chris asked, sliding into my banquette with Cub. “I thought you were going after us.”
“Matt accidentally swapped the order of our songs,” I said uneasily. “He’s going before me, not after me.”
Matt stepped into the spotlight and smiled smoothly at the audience. A natural performer. “How are you folks doing tonight? Listen, I’m going to need some backup on this one. Can I get a volunteer to come help me out up here?”
“I’ll do it!” The guy from Cabaret charged to the front where he greedily snatched up the second mic. The first moans of guitar filled the room. Any hopes I had of Matt dialing it back for my sake were dashed as he crooned soulfully into the mic, instantly quieting the room. Cabaret guy kicked in a few moments later with a truly beautiful tenor. They were incredible.
“I can’t believe it!” I turned to Chris, aghast. “It’s happening again! I have to follow a showstopper!”
“And he brought a backup gay!” Chris gasped. “That ain’t right.”
I spent the rest of Matt’s song trying not to think bad thoughts about him. And then . . . thunderous applause. My turn. I didn’t look at Matt as he handed the microphone over. I was scared of what I’d do with the mic if I did. Instead, through gritted teeth, I muttered, “Thanks, babe.”
For my karaoke debut I’d chosen Salt-N-Pepa’s “Shoop,” a rap song from my formative years. I looked out at the audience without really seeing them. When the music began, the drama queens gave a low cheer of approval, bopping in their seats to the backbeat.
Taking a deep breath, I recited:
“Here I go! Here I go! Here I go again! Girls, what’s my weakness?”
“Men!” the drama queens answered.
“Okay then,” I continued, “chillin’ chillin’, mindin’ my bidness. Yo Salt, I looked around and I couldn’t believe this . . .”
So overpowering was the music that I couldn’t hear my voice coming through the speakers. I couldn’t even hear the words coming out of my mouth, which threw me at first. But soon I was totally invested, doing both parts of the duet myself, seamless in my transitions, changing the octave of my voice to indicate whether we were hearing from Salt or Pepa. I was doing some moves, too, holding my free arm straight out in front of me, slicing through the air as the hip-hop artists do. A little hip gyration action. I was taking it down to the floor! I was owning this! I even sang the part where the random guy interjects to give his ringing endorsement of fellatio. Oh wait—the karaoke version skipped over the guy’s line! Censored it. Now I was way behind on the lyrics! I’d overreached! I stopped the dancing shenanigans and studied the teleprompter intently, stumbling through the words, trying to regain my vocal footing.
I could hear myself now. It was my voice but not my voice. Too thin, watered down. The same one I heard every time I transcribed one of my tape-recorded celebrity interviews, cringing at my voice, high pitched and nervously asking questions. From the audience, Chris’s familiar laugh rang out above the music. It cut through my anxiety. The ridiculousness of what I was doing became clear, and the most amazing thing happened: I stopped caring. Just like that.
I caught up—gloriously!—on the chorus. “Shoop shoop-be-doop, shoop-be-doop, shoop-be-doop-be-doop-be-doop,” I sang. “Baby baaaaby! Don’t you know, I want to shoop baby!”
Then the song was over, sooner than I expected. With a sheepish grin, I handed off the microphone. There was a smattering of applause from the rest of the audience. The drama queens, sensing the momentousness of the occasion, hooted and hollered as I made my way back to my seat. The guy from Cabaret intercepted me with a hand on my shoulder, saying he respected me for “fully committing to a vision and going with it,” which may or may not have been a compliment. No matter. I felt liberated in some small way, having confronted this moment I’d been sidestepping for so long.
“Nice, babe,” Matt said as I settled in next to him. “I think you could’ve gone bigger with it, though. Less head voice, more projection.”
“What?”
“I’m just saying don’t be afraid to come from the diaphragm, you know?”
“The diaphragm,” I repeated.
“You just sounded a little pitchy, that’s all. Maybe focus less on the dancing next time? I think it threw you off your game and, to be honest, it was a little distracting.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“You’re giving me notes? On my karaoke rap song? And after what you did to me up there?”
“I’m just trying to be helpful.” He looked genuinely confused. “What did I do?”
“Bringing down the house like that with fucking Tommy Tune on background vocals—”
“He volunteered!”
“After you asked for a volunteer! It’s like no matter what we do, you always end up being the star.”
“Well, I don’t mean to be.”
“I know! That’s the worst part!” I let my head fall back against the wall. “Sometimes I just wish you were a little less . . . perfect.” But I said it with a smile, willing away my irritation so it didn’t ruin the mood.
He leaned over and kissed me on the lips. “Sorry, honey, I’ll try to be better from now on. Or worse, rather.” He turned back to the stage, but I continued to watch him.
The only thing Matt didn’t excel at was being impressed. It took a lot to wow him. He was supportive, which was not exactly the same thing as admiring; he was also critical. I’d always thought that a couple should be, to put it simply, big fans of each other. But what happened when one person was more of a fan? I wondered, not for the first time, if Matt and I were a bad match. He was the prizewinning reporter and I larked around writing fluff. I creaked out ridiculous ’90s rap songs while he brought an audience to its feet with a soulful ballad. My accomplishments would always look duller next to his, my faults more glaring. Would being married to him be like attending Yale for the rest of my life? Would I always feel like I was struggling to keep up and didn’t quite deserve to be there? And would he eventually grow weary of my slowing him down?