12 posts tagged “vox hunt”

I knew there was a reason why there was a green pair of pants set out at the foot of the bed, but being a Monday morning and fresh off the weekend - it did not compute. So, leaving the pair of greens where I found them, I grabbed for gray instead.

I get to work...and there's green.

Everybody is wearing green.

Today, I am a collection of gray and black...with an off chance of leaving the office black and blue.

And I wonder: Huh, what's with all the...

- PINCH! -

"Son of @$%$@%!!!!!!"

So I improvised...

No more pinching, I mean it!

This really is on my bed.
There's matching sheets and pillow cases, too.
I told you...
I ain't ever growing up.

Stage Fright.

Yup, I've got it. That's me.

And, I'm pretty sure I've always had it. My palms sweat, my knees knock together,  I get the tremors, I get sick to my stomach and dizzy due to erratic breathing that bangs around in my chest. Dizziness complicates, kicking that sick stomach feeling into nausea and a fear of fainting on stage.

Mmmm...vinegar poured over an open wound.

But, I wanted to do away with it. I wanted to find a way to move past it. So, I took up drama in middle school and did it into my high school years. I auditioned for choirs. Taking the Feel the Fear and do It Anyway approach. A class I never took in college though it came highly recommended. Highly recommended and costly. Money I didn't have and becoming a street performer (due to Stage Fright) was out.

So, I felt the fear and did it anyway. I made a complete ass out of myself during some of it, got injured on stage during part of it, and had wardrobe malfunctions near the end of it. Good times. Good times. (<---Insert Sarcasm Here) But, fear and all... I never did shake it. I just learned to cope.

However, coping did not come in the wisdom of drama teachers or choir coaches. Though I tried their methods. My least favorite...the one where you're supposed to imagine your audience in their underwear (or worse, naked). That did not help. There were some people in the audience I already knew what they looked like in their underpants. Others whom I was afraid to apply imagination, knowing that to do so would turn my lines or memorized lyrics into lukewarm piles of crap in my head. And...there were some that shouldn't be imagined in either form. The Underwear/Naked Method two that provided traces of trauma and at least three months worth of counseling. On occasion, I've still been known to wake myself up screaming from dreams...those terrible scary dreams.

What I learned instead was to pick or sing things that either make most people uncomfortable or will send them into fits of laughter. If people are feeling or doing either of the two, they are less inclined to ogle you on stage.

And thus...the aforementioned song became my Karaoke Jam. One of the few I'd get up in front of a room full of strangers and sing, which to my friends horror and delight - they always wondered why. My friends always pointing out: You do know what the song is about right?

Yes. Yes, I do.

And it makes people both uncomfortable and amused. It's a song I don't take seriously and moaning into the microphone and making really bad 'O' faces...that distracts me as well as the poor audience who has to listen. It's also this really great repellent from feeling the clammy hands of Stage Fright on my still susceptible form.

Because unlike the song...when I think of Stage Fright...I DO NOT touch myself.

- Moans In Microphones

Oh hands.
Two that I have.
Always busy.
Seeking out things to do...
...because when left idle -
Trouble. Trouble. Trouble.
That which they do.