I have an arch nemesis. Her name is “Norah Jones”

I have an arch nemesis. Her name is “Norah Jones”. I can’t go through one day without reading her name, seeing her face, or hearing her music. And furthermore, I can’t go through one day without comparing my life to hers. Today is no exception.

I am, well, was, a traveling singer/songwriter, a troubadour, in every sense of the word. I drove the entire United States alone, performing at universities and small venues, sleeping on the couches and floors of kind strangers. But after four years of handling all my own booking and driving through West Texas so many times that the gas station attendant in Van Horn mistook me for a trucker, I burned out from the travel and no longer derived satisfaction from my perpetually disappointing profession. Meeting other musicians on the road that sought refuge in New Orleans, an artistically vibrant and economically feasible place to live, I thought it best to take some time off and relocate to record my third album. Armed with a college degree, but no other ambition in life except my proven useless desire to write songs, I was seeking a side job for the first time in three years.

Which brought me here to the Santa Fe Restaurant. It’s my first night on the job and though I was hired as wait staff, for some reason, I’ve been asked to scrape dishes. The manager explained that this was all part of my “training” so I would know how the kitchen ran. But the truth is, someone didn’t show up for work, so the new girl, that’s me, is filling in. It is a disgusting job, a rapid resurgence of dirty dishes stacking in mounds proportionate to my ensuing self-loathing. And while I am scraping half-eaten burritos, enchiladas, and quesadillas off plates, with sour cream and guacamole under my nails, salsa and refried pork-fat beans slopped over my hands, I can’t help but wonder where Norah is tonight.

Norah and I went to high school together in Dallas. I never knew her, as she was a freshman when I was a senior, but we were both jazz pianists and women, needless to say her music career has proven more fruitful than mine.

I left for college in the summer of 1994 and didn’t visit my high school again until the spring of my sophomore year. When I did, my old music teacher, Louis asked, “Hey, have you heard Norah?” And in his 70s musician slang typical of all our teachers at the Arts Magnet High School, he added, “She’s smokin’ !”

That was the first time I’d heard of Norah Jones. Louis took me down the familiar fluorescent-lit hallway and into my past music theory classroom, a room I hadn’t seen, nor smelled, since my senior year. Beyond the row of wobbly wooden chairs was an upright Wurlitzer, hiding a quiet homely girl. That homely girl was Norah Jones. She was practicing piano on her lunch hour, like I often did when I was in high school. An awkward looking teenager, she wore glasses, no make-up, and her hair was haphazardly pulled back in a ponytail. I don’t even remember if we spoke.

The next time I saw Norah’s name, she was featured in the Dallas Observer, a Village Voice of sorts for the Big “D.” The woman in the picture was hardly recognizable. She looked nothing like the plain girl I had met behind that banged-up Wurlitzer 5 years ago. Her hair was long, lush, and curly. She got rid of her glasses. She was air-brushed and beautiful! The article revealed that Norah had scored a record deal with Blue Note, the premiere jazz label, representing legends like Miles Davis and Thelonius Monk, and now, Norah Jones.

From that point on, Norah became a staple in the daily commercial diet of the all-American consumer, each feature, blurb, or advertisement a personalized painstaking reminder of my failures as a musician. I’d log-in to my e-mail account and the homepage would read “See why you’ll want to ‘Come Away’ with Norah.” I’d tune into my favorite program on NPR, and guess who’s on “Dueling Divas” with Bonnie Raitt? Magazine racks quickly became off-limits, a terminal danger zone bubbling with deliberate catalysts, any one of which could catapult me into a raging fit of jealousy. And while exchanging Christmas presents, my sister-in-law bought Norah CDs for all the ladies in the family. “Thanks,” I said, glaring at the sultry profile on the cover.

It appeared as though her cross-marketing campaign had been aimed directly at me. Everyone was in on it, People, Rolling Stone, National Public Radio, my family. Her multiple faces seemed to pop up out of the various magazines and trades, and surround my head as they swayed from side to side, taunting me in an evil chant: “Hi Kristy. What are you doing today? I’m going to play in Rome tonight and make all kinds of money and stay in a big, fancy hotel.”

My personal life was suspiciously bombarded, everyone, friends and strangers, singing the praises of Norah Jones. While attending my high school reunion, a table of old friends decided to make Norah the centerpiece of our dinner conversation. One girl went on the high school Italy trip with her. One guy bragged that she once had a crush on him.

And just the other day, while at Kinko’s, trimming four hundred flyers for one of my shows here in town, an older man, waiting to use the paper-cutter, picked up a flyer.

“Is this you?” he asked.

I nodded.

“Hmm…Kristy Krüger…So, what kind of music do you play?”

“Oh, I’m a singer/songwriter. Acoustic music, piano, guitar.”

“Hmm,” he said, scrutinizing the flyer, “You know who just blows me away?”

I clenched my jaw, in resistance of his surely-to-be “Jones” response.

“That Norah Jones. I mean she just blows me away!”

“Ya, she’s good,” I said quickly trying to end the conversation.

“Good? She’s unbelievable! I mean I put that CD in, and it was the best music I ever heard! I mean really. I just can’t get over it.”

He placed the self-made flyer back on the table, “Well, good luck to you anyhow.”

Right after that I walked into the local record store and noticed that the humble poster for my upcoming show, which I had posted with their permission just two days before, was replaced with a Norah shrine. When I confronted the store manager, he apologized saying there just wasn’t enough room. “Can’t you take down one of hers?” I asked, noting over twenty Norah’s staring back at me. Laughing at me.

And then came the nightmares. I mean, I’m convinced the bitch is haunting me! After my first job interview at the Santa Fe, I dreamt that she came into the restaurant, sat in my section and ordered a Grammy salad. Or there was the one where I was getting my hair cut, which ended with the hairstylist running my credit card, then handing me the receipt. She leaned over, pointing at the “X” for my signature, but instead of asking me for my “John Hancock,” she said, “And, if we could just get your ‘Norah Jones’ right here, that’d be great.”

Believe me when I tell you, there was no safe, Norah-less haven where I could retreat undisturbed. Even with the fresh start of a new job, my restaurant manager, while introducing me to the “Santa Fe Family,” asked that I tell everyone a little bit about myself. After sharing I was a pianist and singer, he turned to the staff and said, “Well, there you have it everyone. Our very own ‘Norah Jones.’”

All of a sudden, she was on a big tour bus, singing duets with Willie Nelson, with a manager, an agent, and actual roadies. She was playing real stages with real soundmen, for real audiences on a real piano with a real band. And me, I was still picking up the occasional paying gig whenever and wherever it could be found, from hotel lobbies to college cafeterias, and middle-aged male gay bars to stuffy corporate bookstores. The only duets I ever experienced were unwanted ones with inebriated audience members. The only “load-in” I’ve ever known involves me making a minimum of 6 trips to my car, hauling sound gear, speaker, mic, and keyboard stands, guitars, merchandise, and a keyboard that must weigh more than myself and all the previous equipment combined. All of this to set-up, start playing and 15 minutes into my set some housewife comes up and asks: “Do you know any Norah Jones?”

It does happen. In fact, it happens almost every single show. If someone hasn’t requested Norah then they’ve asked me if my CD is like hers, if she’s a big influence, or pick any one of my personal favorites, (insert girlish squeal), “Oh, she’s like a little Norah Jones!” “So, are you trying to be like a Norah Jones?” “You sound just like Norah Jones!” “Hang in there, you’re gonna be the next Norah Jones.” But they never ask me if I like her. It appears as though there is some unwritten law that, just like apple-pie, everyone likes Norah Jones. And because I sing, because I play piano, and because I am a woman, everyone must include me.

And the irony is, everyone does include me. It’s true, after thoroughly documenting my envy, both pitiful and perpetual, I must admit that I like Norah Jones too. Her voice is unmistakable. And though I never knew her personally, everything I’ve ever heard about her, from old classmates or other musicians, is that she is the nicest person. Of course she is. It would be much easier to justify my vendetta were she a wretched diva.

I have been the cornered minstrel for nearly a decade, wading through phases of ever changing requests and comparisons, gritting my teeth with a forced smile as espresso and beer-drinkers alike, link me to the current female singer in the spotlight. From “Alanis Morrisette” to “Jewel,” and “Fiona Apple” to “Vanessa Carlton,” but the mention of no name makes me want to put a bullet in my brain more than, “Norah Jones.” How can I not compare my life to hers when everyone else does? And as much as I try to dodge those comparisons, or conduct Norah-free conversations with music fans, unless I move to Indonesia, I am going to hear about her for the rest of my life, whether my slowly dissipating childhood dreams of being a successful musician come to fruition or not.

We all have someone to be jealous of. Someone whose life we use to measure our progress of where we are and where we want to be. But no one should have to live up to Norah Jones. That’s just not fair. The standards now imposed on my life are virtually unattainable and there’s always someone or something around to remind me just how far off the mark I am. And somehow while she’s out sweeping the grammy’s, her number one complaint being that she wishes all those people would stop camping outside her New York City apartment, I am scraping dishes, my only claim to fame being a 3-month stint where I opened for Gennifer Flowers’ off-Bourbon cabaret act. Our lives couldn’t be more opposite.

So tonight, here at the Santa Fe Restaurant, I have finally been cut. It was my evening of paying dues in the restaurant business, as if paying dues in the music business wasn’t enough. I dig in the silverware bucket one last time, grabbing the soaking forks, knives, and spoons, dish water and salsa dripping from my hands, place them in the rack and hand them over to the fresh ex-convict that is my co-worker. Spreading sour cream all over the counter as I attempt to wipe it down with a dirty dish rag, I can’t help but wonder how I got here. All the waiters and waitresses keep asking me if I’m alright. I don’t lie. “I’m miserable,” I reply.

Though I haven’t exactly given up on my musical ambitions, I am fairly certain I will probably never see an eighth of the success in my entire life that Norah has seen in these last few years. And it’s not that I don’t want Norah to do well. I do. If I could dig past the overwhelming desire to scratch out both her eyes and my own, I’m happy another woman out there has pushed her way to the top in the dog-eat-dog world that is the music business without taking off her clothes. I just wish that I could do well too, or at least better than this.

In the restroom, I scrape the crusted guacamole out from under my fingernails, wash my hands and take off my soiled apron. Walking into the dining room, I watch tipsy customers laugh, downing the last of their margaritas. Seems like such a happy place out here, so different from my hellish evening in the kitchen, which I saw as the perfect opportunity to expand my self-hatred to new, impressive horizons. Nothing provides a more encouraging environment for circular self-sabotage quite like mind-numbing work.

Taking a seat, finally, I wait for my tip out, and then light up when the stingy German owner offers me a margarita on the house! I step up to the bar and from the first sip, the sweet tequila targets all the right brain cells, giving me a much-needed dose of giddiness I’ve happily mistaken for optimism. Flirting with the bartender, I begin to feel for a few moments that perhaps everything isn’t so bad, perhaps Norah Jones isn’t intentionally haunting me in an attempt to make my life unbearable. But the bright outlook is short-lived as a familiar voice comes through the speakers. The bartender leans over and turns up the volume, “Don’t you just love Norah Jones?”

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