Hi.
Coffee: Maxwell House Drip, Office Coffee
Countdown to my reading as featured author at the Third Wednesday Open Mic:
WHERE: Fig Raleigh, Raleigh NC
WHEN: 04/17/19; 6:30p.m. (open mic sign-ups start at 6:00p.m.)
DAYS REMAINING: 1
Come out and support the Coffee Log!
Tomorrow’s always a day away. This particular tomorrow, though, is a big one.
I’ll be reading as a featured author at the Third Wednesday Open mic in Raleigh, NC tomorrow (see above for details). Though I’ve been reading at open mics for over a year, this will be my first time in the spotlight. I’m excited and nervous. If you can make it, I’d love to have you in the audience.
Sometime around my third job after college, I had a theory: most of life is a performance.
I was shelving clothes back then. I was fresh back from Japan, working at a Saks Off 5th, trying to write a book. I’d get up at four in the morning and start work just before six. I’d spend seven hours stripping designer clothes out of excessive packaging.
I realized something: all these eyes were on me – customers when I was on the floor, coworkers whenever else. They looked on with entire lifetimes of expectations and would wait for me to meet them. Sometimes I did, sometimes I didn’t. I wasn’t trying to put on a show but they filmed me anyway. Prime-time TV.
These days, I lean into it. I like to act. However I act becomes a part of me. There’s this line in our society about being ‘authentic,’ but I don’t buy it. A person isn’t something you dig deep and find buried inside yourself, it’s the clothes you wear, the comb of your hair, what words you pick to say ‘I love you.’ We’re all active expressions of being. ‘Dasein,’ if I’m flirting with turn of the century Germans. What’s so surprising that those expressions might change day to day?
All of that is to say: I’m looking forward to performing for you tomorrow night. I’ll be reading some selections from the Coffee Log. Also, I’m damn terrified, so just know that if I make an utter fool of myself it was only an act – something avant garde – a kind of self-expression, intentional or not. You’ll see a different side of me the next go-round.
Novel Count: 38,047
Currently Reading: The Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes
Support Relief for Family Suffering at the Border – RAICES DONATION CAMPAIGN
But remember that in order to symbolize everything to everyone, you will be both loved and hated.
Bonnie Huie, Four Essays
Livesay Writing 
Wish I’d perfected my teleportation system. Would love to be in the audience to enjoy your performance. Enjoy a quality moment in the local literary spotlight! It’s brave and generous to get up in front of others to offer bits of your consciousness to them.
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I like the idea of reading something being ‘generous.’ I like the idea of sharing things with people. It’s a two way connection, audience and performer. I want to think it’s part of the purpose of all this mess, to create something meaningful with other people.
(Thanks for the well wishes. The reading went well 🙂 )
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