Doing things that scare you always sounds like a Good and righteous thing to do (for “self-actualization,” in the words of Mia Thermopolis) until you’re actually doing it. And then it feels like the most futile, most who do I even think I am thing in the world. I deal in enough mundane unpleasantries just to live and now I’m parading my insecurities about for what—personal growth? People are sick.
The other week I was asked to do a “reading” at a bar in Bushwick where someone hosts “readings” once a month. Before thinking of thoughts, the picked-last-at-gym part of my brain sent my eager fingers zipping across my DMs, sure why not! I mean, as a writer, I have never read my work aloud because how embarrassing. Also, I write articles for the Internet. Like, what am going to do—read a GQ article about Adam Levine’s leaked sexts or a NYT piece about fighting climate change with perfume and vodka aloud to a room full of poets and artists? Lol no.
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