This is the scariest question I get asked every time I meet someone new. I sit there and wonder how to answer. Scrolling through my brain for the most accessible and/or acceptable answer. In all the pretend conversations I have with myself on a daily basis, I always forget this is the one that needs the most work. I am always meeting new people, some of them I meet at work though, so they never ask me...Well they ask me what ELSE I do, cause no one can sustain themselves by acting alone. For them I have many well rehearsed but still cockeyed responses. The problem I have is with everyone else asking. Cut to a nice girl or inquisitive boy struggling to make conversation with the socially awkward me...
"So, what do you do?" Suddenly the world's magnetiscope shifts to me, I begin to perspire, my bones quake, and all I can think about is how my Mama looks forward to the day when I settle down and open a restaurant (which I think is way more stressful than acting). The seconds tick by and a gurgle of response starts building. Ultimately, I sell myself short. But legitimately, what do I do? I mean I Do a lot of different things, but is the questioner really asking what I do to pay my bills or what I do because no one pays me? The things I do because I want to? I guess that's a question for them, why are you asking what I do? Because it's a question you know with an answer longer than "yes"? Or because society has taught us that a person is what they do? Instead of what they eat, which kinda stinks, cause I would like to be a peach for a few sunshiny days. I try never to ask what a person does, cause even though I am very nosy, I find most things people do boring. And I don't mean I find most people boring, 'cause I love people, I just find 78% of jobs to be soul sucking and time consuming and resent filling for most people.
A perfect example, let's look at the GO Train at rush hour. There isn't a smile on board, no conversations (which I thought surely there would be, Hello: Train 48, which was one of my dirty little secrets) no one sings or solves mysteries to the dining car, just a bunch of commuters pretending to sleep. If that is any indication of what those people Do, I don't want to do it. I want to go bopping down the street with Jilly on a Thursday afternoon, belting out Karmin and know that I worked on me today.
"So, what do you do?" I do ME, I am a liver of life (though I am not sure liver can be a verb), I am a goal oriented me-aholic. Is that an acceptable answer? As I am apt to do, I answer my own question, "yes".
"So, what do you do?" Suddenly the world's magnetiscope shifts to me, I begin to perspire, my bones quake, and all I can think about is how my Mama looks forward to the day when I settle down and open a restaurant (which I think is way more stressful than acting). The seconds tick by and a gurgle of response starts building. Ultimately, I sell myself short. But legitimately, what do I do? I mean I Do a lot of different things, but is the questioner really asking what I do to pay my bills or what I do because no one pays me? The things I do because I want to? I guess that's a question for them, why are you asking what I do? Because it's a question you know with an answer longer than "yes"? Or because society has taught us that a person is what they do? Instead of what they eat, which kinda stinks, cause I would like to be a peach for a few sunshiny days. I try never to ask what a person does, cause even though I am very nosy, I find most things people do boring. And I don't mean I find most people boring, 'cause I love people, I just find 78% of jobs to be soul sucking and time consuming and resent filling for most people.
A perfect example, let's look at the GO Train at rush hour. There isn't a smile on board, no conversations (which I thought surely there would be, Hello: Train 48, which was one of my dirty little secrets) no one sings or solves mysteries to the dining car, just a bunch of commuters pretending to sleep. If that is any indication of what those people Do, I don't want to do it. I want to go bopping down the street with Jilly on a Thursday afternoon, belting out Karmin and know that I worked on me today.
"So, what do you do?" I do ME, I am a liver of life (though I am not sure liver can be a verb), I am a goal oriented me-aholic. Is that an acceptable answer? As I am apt to do, I answer my own question, "yes".
RSS Feed