on writing: the first existential crisis of 2015

it's a little early in the year, right? to be wondering if i'm doing anything of value in this new year? 

well, no. i'll be working through this now:

i've been asked to be public with my work at an upcoming event. i want to do this, keeping in mind that while i'm not a stage poet, i'm still someone who writes and preaches that examples should be public and one should not turn down an opportunity. i'm doing it, and that's causing these anxieties. 

respect for poetry 2014. photo by maite jacobson

nearly everything i've written from april - december 2014, i find, is bullshit. i'm not moved; i'm annoyed, and not in a productive way. what will i have to read? nothing, because there is nothing there. in my phases of writing, i've successfully moved on from the "i'm displacing my misery onto other people and making it seem like they're the cause of things they don't have anything to do with because i'm not entirely willing to talk about myself yet" and i don't know what there was between april/december, but it was confusing and irrelevant. 

i only had one question for 2014...

CAN I FUCKING LIVE?
and, god damn, how i lived.

 

i genuinely dislike most holidays; i am still a sad little girl who misses her grandparents and still have yet to see the joy in a holiday without them. that has slowly started to change, but is happily a work in progress.

 

the one holiday i absolutely love, however, is new year's eve. i love the anticipation of the current year finally ending and getting a whole new one to go through. instead of christmas eve things (we don't do that here), i'm getting a head start on my year-end reflection/gratitude.

 

"can i fucking LIVE?" was the mantra for 2014. it was loaded with the intention of living a good year after two long, dark, bad ones. it was the first time i had the intention of doing anything positive for myself, and with that intention, the best year of my life transpired. this is not even a gross exaggeration - i made 2014 my bitch.

 

appetite for destruction - one year later, still insatiable

great legs are what we stand for; i believe in legs

quite a few people have written generous things (so many generous things) about outrageous, and even more have simply told me ridiculously kind things. some of these things:

1. "i feel so at home and i have so much fun"
2. "i've never felt like i could read my poetry, or that people would even like it"

3. "i've never been able to be myself like that"

4. "i've never felt so accepted for who i was"
5. "you've changed the way i think about poetry"
6. "you have great hair" (the tone of the show is dictated by how i feel about my hair that night)

i love hearing those things. all of those things are what i wanted to make reality, but never actually realized it could happen...and it still isn't entirely obvious to me that my ideals came to fruition.

as much as the show has apparently done something for many people, it has most certainly done a great deal for me. again, it's not much of a show - the bar is transformed into a big commune of love, appreciation, and creativity. i've had days where i wanted it to stop - i fucking hate planning, i'm tired, i have school/work, i want to sleep. i've had days where i thought it sucked - really, what's the point of this? what the fuck am i doing? and i've had days where i was certain november 29, 2014 would be the very last show - seriously, will it be any better?

...and then, it happens, and people are there. pictures are taken. beer is spilled on me. it's loud and all you hear is laughter/screaming. there are moments when the poems make me roll my eyes and there are moments where i start tearing up (essential to poetry: reactions of any kind). there are way more moments when i could not be more grateful that outrageous has become "a thing" than there are moments when i want to punch myself in the face for doing this.

without the humans of outrageous, i would not have been able to live 2014 as richly as i have. it picked me up out of my suicidal hole and threw me into my full self. i've happily graduated university, kicked ass at my job, brightened the friendships i had, created a ton of new/strong friendships, embraced self-love in many forms, wrote some damn good words, and excelled at a million other things i felt i didn't deserve to do.

essentially, the humans of outrageous have let me do what i think i'm really good at: create space for others. i'm honored that what i'm putting out there is not just a show, but an experience. an experience that makes them excited to get up and do what they want to do. i just facilitate it. everyone who attends does the rest.

i don't know what else to do with the show in the new year (and probably won't until a week before each show), but i know outrageous has become somewhat of a catalyst for many opportunities we (as a big commune of love) wouldn't have had otherwise. i also know that i'm not ready to give that up, so...i'll hopefully see you january 26, 2015 :)

...i also think i'll be changing the name. i've really started to hate the word.

a boring title for a first post

my inaugural post was to be a review of my experience getting a brazilian wax, but i decided that i wanted to skip my friday appointments and enjoy my half-day off of work. instead, i offer a slightly less interesting post regarding a very interesting thing that i do and love doing (since, in reality, no one loves getting a brazilian).

i owe outrageous a proper explanation.

a dear ex-boyfriend once told me that i have “too many ideas.” the anxious self-hating me wondered (feared) at length if there could there be such a thing as “too many ideas.” does this propensity for indulging in every whim i feel like jumping into signify something (not a “someone;” you become not-human when you have “too many ideas”) unworthy of human interaction?

after much of everything in the past year and a half, i have come to an ultimate conclusion: there is no such thing as “too many ideas.”