Snippets, forty

Here are some short pieces based on things that have happened in my life recently. 

Caffeine?

I haven't had a full cup of coffee yet today, but I feel energy coursing through my veins. Or is that anxiety? 

I used to say that my anxiety felt like poison pumping through my veins and then my doctor was like, "No, girl, that's adrenaline." Adrenaline of course makes more sense as if I'd had that much actual poison pumping through my veins, I would not be here. Also, anxiety is your body's way of telling you that you aren't safe and need to be on alert--so adrenaline makes sense as it'll help you bolt away from danger.

But for this morning on a day off (for what it's worth, I wrote this on Friday), I don't need to have this much energy teeming just under my skin.

I have valid reasons to be anxious including that over the past two weeks or so my mom had (planned) surgery and I've had three friends in the hospital (including ICU and ER).

The logical part of brain tells me that there is nothing I can do to solve these things. I'm not a doctor (nor do I really want to be) and hospitals still give a relatively high level of additional anxiety as they just make me think of the countless times I was at my dad's bedside as he cried out in pain and tried to free himself from being strapped to the beds.

I hope that maybe this feeling is excitement for going on a trip this weekend, but it's difficult for me to free the thoughts telling me something is wrong.

Photo Shoot

I had a photo shoot last weekend to take new photos for (primarily) dating profiles. As a plus size lady who has a lot of negative self-talk about her body, I was not thrilled to do this. I acknowledged that having a professional photographer snap the shots would improve the overall quality of them, but I also knew that there was a danger of amplifying the mean voices in my head either during the shoot or when I saw the final photos.

The photographer was running late, but he let me know so it was all good. But when we went to take the first few shots just to test lighting etc. he told me I had something in my hair. My hair was down and this didn't surprise me as we were outside and there's lots of bits of plant stuff floating around that can get ensnared.

I told him I couldn't see it so I asked him to get it out for me. He came over and then paused. He said perhaps I should get it out of my hair as it looked like some sort of hair product. I held my hair out--I had not used anything in my hair that morning--and then I saw it.

Bird shit.

Excellent.

No, great.

I already wasn't excited for this and now a bird had shit in my hair.

The photographer kindly went to a nearby restaurant to get a plastic cup of water and paper napkins so I could clean it out of my hair.

I messaged my friends and they said it was good luck.

I pointed out that we tell people lots of annoyances are good luck (e.g. rain on a wedding day).

Sigh.

Talent Show

I've been rewatching a fair bit of RuPaul's Drag Race--no regrets. A fair few seasons start with a talent show (sometimes even split into two parts).

My favorite acts tend to be more than lip syncing and dancing. While the queens who do lip sync and dance as their talent are unquestionably great at it, I guess I don't find it a great way to get to know the queens. I see the talent show as a chance for them to show off something that they may not get to do at any other time in the competition.

Some of the highlights I remember include: roller skating, martial arts, and making a dress (it's important to note that the queens have only a minute or two to perform their talent).

But whenever there is stuff like this on reality TV (and Drag Race is far from the only show that asks its contestants to do a talent show) I tend to wonder what would I do if I had to.

I cringe as I remember being forced to do one at summer camp and I had nothing to share.

I giggle at remembering how some friends and I (in first or second grade) performed part of a scene from Macbeth and then put a twist on it (what if the three witches were sad when Macbeth called them hags?).

But what would I do now?

I know one card trick which is fun, but is not super flashy and it takes a while to get to the fun part.

I can make my hands look like a snake and dragon, but, again, that's not super cool.

I do think I'm funny, but that's more in conversation than in a performative sense and it's so much easier when you have someone to bounce off of.

I do like to write, but certainly not live. Perhaps I'd write a parody of a song and perform that? I'm a terrible singer though. Autotune?

Anyways, what talent would you do if you had to perform in a talent show?

(Prompt by Kimisha Cassidy)

Photo by Mitchell Johnson on Unsplash