…I let the girls play Kidz Bop songs at dinner. The music is infuriating.
Pia says, scrolling, I wonder if they have Love on Top.
It will not be as good, I say.
No. No way, she agrees.
Once, in the before times, I picked that song to sing at a karaoke evening with a group of women I am now longing to be in an enclosed room with. As the song began, as Bey sang Bring the beat in!, I knew I’d made a terrible mistake. Well, I went with it. There was no turning the ship around. As the song progressed, I kept at it, just blindly reaching for each key change, wild like an animal, laughing maniacally because this song shouldn’t even be an option for anyone else to sing, but wait — this was it. This was my moment! I was failing and flailing and it was in front of everyone and I was alive and laughing and loving that room and all the people inside of it and they were laughing too and we met once a month until the holidays came and folks got busy and then everything changed.