I'm Just a Fake

I seldom try things that I know I won't be good at. Take music for instance. When Kristin was a baby, she'd cover her ears when I sang to her. It wasn't because it made her ears feel so good that she had to touch them to see if they were still there. It probably hurt her.

My phobia of singing may come from the same place my phobia of math came from. Elementary school. My 5th grade math teacher didn't bother to tell me that you could drop the hanging zeros when multiplying decimals and it would be the same answer. Obviously, I didn't understand the underlying rule of zero so I got zeros on all my decimal multiplication homework assignments. Had he simply took the time to look at my homework assignments, he could have told me that I wasn't as stupid as I thought I was.

Same grade, different class: Music class consisted of singing. Now, Mom sang to me when I was a kid and she has a beautiful voice. So does Dad. He would play the guitar to Eddie Arnold albums and sing country western songs to me. I sang along and never noticed that it was bad.

But in Music class, we learned little rounds like Hot Potatoes.

Hot Potatoes
Burn the Fingers
Careful Because It's

Hot Potatoes
Burn.... (you get the point)

Over and over and over and in a round, it sounds cute. Rounds get boring so the teacher had us learn Pop songs. Kum By Ya was a popular folk song so she was trying to teach it to the class.

Kum by ya my Lord, kum by ya
Kum by ya my Lord, kum by ya
Kum by ya my Lord, kum by ya
Oh, Lord kum by ya
Someone’s crying Lord, kum by ya
Someone’s praying Lord, kum by ya
“ singing “
“ laughing “
Come by here my Lord, come by here.

I had learned it in Girl Scout Camp. I mentioned to the teacher that there were hand signs to the song. She asked me to sing it and show the class. I did. It's seared, branded, burnished into my brain. Like the instant I saw Jack Kennedy die or when I watched the Space Shuttle disintegrate. I started out OK, then I realized what I was doing. Holy Freaking Shit! There are 30 people staring at me and that's my puny little voice trying to do something that I CAN'T do well at all. And to top it off, I'm showing all these people hand signs and they ALL already know them but they were smart enough NOT to mention it. It felt like the class filled with grotesque laughing faces. I just about passed out.

From then on, I just mouthed the words to all songs. Years later, I learned that if you don't know the words, you just have to mouth the word Watermelon and it looks complicated enough to make people think that you knew the words. I know the words to Watermelon really well

That same year, my music teacher tried to put us in sections for chorus. The Sopranos were always the cute girls that dressed well with sweet voices. They were Mormons and they had to sing in church every week so they got unintentional practice. And then there were the rest of us non-Sopranos. Me and the ugly girl who sucked her hair. (I was slightly less ugly but I sucked my hair too because of the Kum Ba Ya episode.) The two of us were designated as Altos and told that Altos are the quiet voices so since we got to sing long sustained deep notes, we didn't need to do it very loudly. We also got to stand in the back by the boys with the big voices. There were only two those too.

So, pea brain figures out that music sucks if you have to sing. And so I protected myself from grotesque laughing faces and any subsequent music classes always had a clarinet involved. With notes coming out my blow hole, lyrics couldn't escape. I eventually gave up the clarinet because, well, that's another post. Every thing in childhood screws you up for life.

So I took up things that I knew I had a better potential for success. I wrote poems; I babysat; I played kick the can; I sewed; I read; I discovered that I could create about anything because I figured out the essence of creativity. I wrote songs but never sang them; I learned to kiss and shared that with boys; I danced; I skiied and biked and jumped from airplanes; I wove baskets; I quilted; I cook and drink, I...., yeah, I do lots of things, okay.

And I still do. But my point is that I don't try things that I know I can't do even remotely well like I don't bowl, swim, scrapbook, or run. Christ, I don't even walk anymore and I sure as hell don't sing.

What do you do that you don't do well? Inspire me to sing, would you? Prove that people really do try things that they know they won't do well.


OK, now for the short explanation compliments of J.D. He said, "Not trying things that you know you will fail at is human nature. And people that try everything are usually not really good at anything. And those that are good at everything usually don't have any friends."

It took me 1,000 words to say that. Damn, I'm not even a good writer.