after writing stuff on this site since may of 2004, almost FOURTEEN YEARS, i’ve finally come up with an “about me!”\u00a0 yaaaay for me!\u00a0 \u00a0so try to take a moment to read it, but only if you feel like it.<\/p>\n
i’m feeling excited about things today, because i gave another “gracetalk” last wednesday, and then on thursday morning i thought about it and had an epiphany.\u00a0 i don’t have epiphanies very often, and if\/when i do, i usually forget them or sink back into my general inertia about things.\u00a0 but i have a good feeling that maybe this time it’ll stick, because i’m still enthused and it’s been three whole days already, a long time for me.<\/p>\n
after i did my very first gracetalk, way back in 2004 (that was really a monumental year for me, i suddenly realize), i was enthusiastic about doing them, and did another two right after that.\u00a0 but then i didn’t do another til new year’s eve of 2006, and then i waited til new year’s eve 2012!\u00a0 a six-year break.\u00a0 hmm, not so great…and then i did another one new year’s eve 2013.\u00a0 i did one more in april 2015, i’m pretty sure, but it was a talk for a women’s event called “girls’ night out” and i didn’t call it “gracetalk,” but i still talked a lot.<\/p>\n
when i was in the second iteration of\u00a0 performing in the hilarious play”dixie swim club,” this on at new salem in the summer of 2016, a woman e-mailed me, asking if i’d talk at a meeting of her group, the petersburg women’s club.\u00a0 she said they were booked for all of 2016\/17, but was i interested in doing one in 2018?\u00a0 and i thought, gee, that’s a million year away, but i agreed.\u00a0 then last july she wrote to me again, and we set the date, march 7th, 2018, once again this seemed like such a long time.\u00a0 last august i had to come up with a title, and i chose “a walk on the wild side: a grand hiking adventure in wales in ireland.”<\/p>\n
and that’s all i did about it until january, as far as i recall.\u00a0 and then it was OH NO I’D BETTER GET TO WORK!\u00a0 as i started to write i quickly realized that there was no way i could tell the story of our trip in the 30 alloted minutes, so i pared it down.<\/p>\n
and here’s where the epiphany comes – i memorized all the other gracetalks, which caused me a great deal of stress and worrying and anxiousness.\u00a0 trying to remember all that stuff, it took a toll and i think that’s partly why i took those long breaks in between.\u00a0 that and my lack of motivation.\u00a0 but this time, i decided i’d read it.\u00a0 i rehearsed a few times and felt pretty confident.\u00a0 i was a little concerned that people would be bothered by the reading, but i think i made it seem like i wasn’t nervous (i was more nervous than i thought i’d be), and they were entertained and laughed and stuff.<\/p>\n
so i got up too early the next morning, thursday, and it suddenly struck me that THIS IS WHAT I SHOULD BE DOING.<\/p>\n
last summer i did this “storytellers guild” thing with my friend erica, who is wise beyond her years and has created this interesting guild, but the great thing i got from that was reading stuff instead of memorizing it.<\/p>\n
when i did my very first gracetalk, my friend phil helped me and thought of it as a one-woman show, but then i by the time i did it, he felt it was really stand-up comedy.<\/p>\n
but now, i feel that i can continue forward cause i don’t have that burden of all the memorizing.\u00a0 stand-up comics always memorize their material, but they’re always honing it and doing it over and over and over again.\u00a0 that’s not what i want to do; part of the joy for me is to write, and there’s so much i want to write\/ should have written, that i don’t want to do one thing over and over.\u00a0 i kind of think it’s more like the late, great Spaulding Grey, who performed autobiographical monologues.\u00a0 i went to see him in Pasadena, in a big auditorium to a packed house.\u00a0 he just read from his notebooks, but his stories about himself were engaging and funny.\u00a0 so i think that’s more like what i want to be.<\/p>\n
except i’ll continue to have photos, plus videos – i created some videos for most of the “gracetalks,” which was fun, but i can also use videos i’ve already shot.<\/p>\n
maybe down the road i’ll do some of the talks more often and will want to memorize them, but like i said, huge breakthrough, no burden of memorizing.<\/p>\n
mom, kevin and i went to an early dinner after the talk on wednesday, and kevin’s idea was that i should approach the Queen Mary II and see if i can be a speaker, since i talked a little about sailing on the ship.\u00a0 I think that’s just a tiny bit unattainable right now, but so that can be my long-term goal.<\/p>\n
my immediate short-term goal, beside writing more stuff, is that i want to be comfortable stopping to take a drink of water during a talk.\u00a0 i know i did this in previous talks, but on wednesday i suddenly got incredibly parched.\u00a0 kevin had supplied me with a great music stand with an attached water bottle holder, and i had planned to use it, but then i panicked and didn’t know when i could possibly stop.\u00a0 i did manage to open the bottle at some point, but then i never took a drink and managed to complete the talk without coughing.<\/p>\n
so…short term-goal, drink water.\u00a0 long-term goal, perform on the QM II.<\/p>\n
and right now, lots of work to do…<\/p>\n
ok then,<\/p>\n
mrs. empowered at least for the moment hughes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
after writing stuff on this site since may of 2004, almost FOURTEEN YEARS, i’ve finally come up with an “about me!”\u00a0 yaaaay for me!\u00a0 \u00a0so try to take a moment to read it, but only if you feel like it. i’m feeling excited about things today, because i gave another “gracetalk” last wednesday, and then […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[488,39],"class_list":["post-15863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-epiphany","tag-kevin"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6JLYy-47R","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15863"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15864,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15863\/revisions\/15864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}