Performance from the Nerdlesque Festival (Patreon)

I am TERRIBLE about watching myself on film. I hate doing it. I avoid it as much as possible. All I can see are the mistakes I make. One of the reasons Joker is my most popular act is that I actually got video of it on a night when I didn't make any mistakes, and so felt like I could actually submit it to BHOF.

So when I got the video from the Nerdlesque fest, I almost didn't even open it. I already have a video I like. I know that this performance, while really good, had some deviations from the original choreography. So I didn't really think I needed it.

Until remembered the intro that Nasty gave me. And I had to check to see if they left it in. They did! So if you want to see the entry that made me tear up, here it is.


This next part is less happy, so feel free to skip if that's not the head space you want to be in. I bitch about burlesque a lot on here and then keep on doing it so it's totally valid to skip this. 

The NYC burlesque scene has gotten next level unpleasant recently. And yesterday, when really stressed about it, I realized that this Saturday is my last performance of the year, and a little voice whispered that it very well could be my last performance *ever.* An that thought didn't make me feel relieved, but it also didn't make sad or scared. I just sort of thought "Yes. That option is available to me."

But I had lunch with Nasty today, and we didn't talk about burlesque drama at all and it was REALLY nice! I get to be friends with one of my artistic heros and work with her sometimes. That's a great blessing.

I've been reading a book called Growing Gills, that has exercises to help you be more creatively productive. One of the things they tell you to do is take a one inch square of paper and write down the names of the people whose opinion you *truly* care about. and I think that's what I need to do with burlesque. There's a limited amount of people I *really* want to work with. And their actions and opinions are the only ones I really need to care about. Hard as it is, I need to let everything else slide.

I know this is yet another case of me saying "Maybe I should stop doing burlesque. No, wait, I should only do burlesque I *really* want to do." Even though I'm sure you're all excited to read my next wording of this revelation in a month, I hope this time I really get the hint.