This is Her Reality

The cheap perfume lurked in the background as he put on his thick black, false eye lashes. He could still smell the harsh white musk prowling around the small box-like change room. “Two minutes Georgia,” a muffled voice demanded from behind the hollow fake wooden door. He had two minutes. Two minutes until the blinding yellow light washed away his week. Two minutes until he didn’t have to pretend. Two minutes until he was Georgia Glitter.

Greg Rendell was brought up in a household where the sheets were bleached every Sunday, and Friday nights consisted of family bonding around a game of scrabble. Greg was never a fantastic speller, his mother always won. She always got the most points for spelling the word excel – something Greg never did according to them. But then again, he never did anything accordingly.

He did one last outfit and makeup check, his eye liner was perfect. It was a deep navy, highlighted with gold shimmer eye shadow. The gold shimmer matched his new gold gemmed dress and cherry pumps. During his weekly lunch breaks he use to scope out the new fashions in the fancy lady’s store down the street from his office. On Wednesday he saw the gold dress and knew, he just knew. He looked like perfection. The kind of perfection that would have made Diana Ross leave a bar.

It was time. Georgia opened the door and headed towards the stage. He never felt as comfortable as he did when the heels clicked on the floor echoing behind him. This was who he’d been since he was 10. A person he could never admit to being, a person his parents wouldn’t have accepted, and a person who was finally in their own skin.

He stood waiting for the red curtains to unravel his true self. There was only seconds left now until his debut. Within these seconds questions colonized his mind – did he tell his wife it’s poker night? Is there going to be anyone he knows who would recognize him, and ultimately ruin the only reason he got up every morning? Did he remember to put his make-up remover in his bag?

Flash. Bright yellow lights stung his eyes. He heard the music dim and a deep, mind numbing voice began, “And now, the moment we’ve been waiting for since last Thursday night, please welcome Georgia Glitter.” He walked up to the microphone, looked out onto the crowd and let his mind go. Greg Rendell is Georgia Glitter.

Cold Gold

You

could

see

everything.

The smell of locally brewed, bitter wheat beer, with a twist of stale cigarettes leaked up your nose. You could feel the aroma gripping onto to your clothes, the same aroma that would later soak your sheets for a Sunday morning reminder.

Dim musty yellow lighting blurred with the grey tones of smoke filled the room, as the sound of her raspy, deep voice, layered with guitar sounds pierced your ears. Each string stroked echoed off the four walls, birthing snake like vibrations that slithered across the floor, biting your heels and crawling up the backs of your sticky legs.

Conversations circled around tables, spiraling into the air and fuming towards the ceiling, as pounds of glasses hit the bar. Cold gold was going to be your only saviour tonight and you needed to get in line.

Sliding between the moist bodies you placed yourself against the sticky wood. The left over beer attached it’s self to the lower half of your right arm, as you leaned in to catch a glance of who was in charge. Hand up, confirmation nod down, and the look around.

You gripped the gold and gulped a bit down. The wet, fuzzy bubbles were racing down your throat, quenching your over heated body, as the beads of sweat saturated your shirt. You were going to need more.

She's Easy

We could all be legends. It’s an easy concept when you take the time to deconstruct it. You act in a very unique and sometimes bizarre manner and create a situation that leaves a lasting impression on a person or hundreds of people. Sounds pretty easy, right? Well, the idea is easy, but getting the right outcome is where we hit the wall.

Think about the “She’s Easy” legend. That sucks, because let’s be honest legends and reputations are directly linked – and talked about. Think about it, legends are everywhere. We have the “Douche-bag Professor” legend, the “Ass kisser” legend, the “sleaze-bag” legend… and the list goes on. The only problem with all these shitty legends is just that- they’re shitty.

So, I thought about it – how do you become a “positive” legend. First I’m thinking of the word legend in terms of personal achievements, actions and reputation, not Greek mythology. Of course, if you wanted to be the next Zeus that’s cool too. I’m not going to stop you.

Positive legends, like Zeus, create meaning and share it. They want to make a lasting impression that strikes you right between the eyes and rattles your cage. They want you to search yourself for the questions you’re afraid to answer. Legends are influencers and leaders. Think about Obama, he’s a legend now. Oprah? Yuppers. Bono? You got it. Even the dead, like Marilyn Munroe, Elvis, JFK. They're all NOW in the legendary, household name column. But it wasn't always like that.

Becoming a negative legend isn’t a difficult task, being a positive one is. It's achievable, you’ve just got to want it. It’s all about your intentions. Good intentions lead to great achievements, leading to legendary actions and people. Legendary isn’t a given title, it’s a created one. We could all do this; we could all be positive legends. It all comes down to choices and intentions. Think about it.

His main course was my head.

Do you remember that time you spent 48 hours straight working your ass off for what was going to be the best project of your life, only to get your head chopped off and served to as the main course? I do.

When asked to write about a moment in a job that I could not forget, this is mine. My job right now is school. That’s what I do on a daily basis, Monday to Friday. Sure, I don’t get paid to go to class and spend five hours a day, seven days a week doing homework, but I do get to advance my status within the world and someday get paid enough to afford my dreams.

So, this one time at band camp. Okay, just joking. This one time in my Not-For-Profit class my professor assigned a project that involved creating our own Not-For-Profit, environmentally friendly business. I was so excited. I mean, I come up with ideas like Oprah Winfrey gives away money to charities.

My class partner and I met right away; I wanted to get down to business. We came up with this great idea about an energy efficient bus, that the city would buy and transport volunteers to their volunteer destination. We created a Gantt Chart and mapped out strict deadlines for ourselves. We’d meet every week and have the project finished four days ahead of time. We figured this would give us time to make serious edits and polish it off with gold dust.

Our professor decided that it would be a great idea if she invited a panel of business and environmental experts to our class, to judge our businesses and presentations. She had done this with her class last year, and thought it gave realistic insights to how businesses are developed and judged. Yeah, I found out how they were judged alright. Pretty sure I wanted to jump off the school roof after my presentation.

Earlier on in the week, I asked around about what last’s year’s presentations were like. The soon-to-be graduates, who had taken the class, told me about the horrifying judge who basically burned their self-esteem alive with his fire breathing criticism. Was I scared? Not really. I’m not a big believer in fear. I seem to lack it all together. I wasn’t scared; I had confidence in our little “happy feet” bus.

The day came for the presentation. My partner and I were ready. We tested our PowerPoint presentation ahead of time, had a printed and electronic copy to give to our professor and looked our “Sundays’ best” (to be honest I never really look the best on Sundays).

We didn’t go first. We didn’t go second. We went third. We went to the front of the room, fired up our project and began presenting. I closely watched the judges’ eyes and body movements. It didn’t look that bad and thought that maybe we had done a superb job. I mean, I only had about three hours sleep each night, working on this project like a Richard Simmons workout.

The presentation came to an end and the commentary started. The first judge threw a comment at us, like a knife in our leg- you can survive a knife in your leg. He claimed we didn’t have a solid basis for our market. The second judge gave us a black eye. She claimed the city could never afford an environmentally friendly bus for one purpose only. The last judge ripped out our eyes, chopped off our legs and fed them to our classmates. Swear to god, he even marinated them. He started with, “This is impossible, how you could ever think this could ever exist,” and ended it with, “This is ridiculous, I can’t even believe someone would think this would work. Sorry, but there is no way I’d ever give you two a chance at creating a business like this.” I think he may have eaten my heart for desert, when he was finished with my head.

I stood their. I didn’t know what to say, so I said, “Thank you for your feed back.” What else could I say? They were right. Had we really thought this through in realistic terms? No. Did we give a solid presentation? No. Could we have been more specific and accurate? Yes.

Lessons learned: Think more in-depth about the accuracy of a project. Provide handouts for those to whom you are presenting and question every idea you have. Ask yourself, “does this work today? Could this work tomorrow? Will this work in ten years?”

I learned a lot about how I handle situations and most importantly, how I evaluate my work. I didn’t jump off the school roof that day, but I did learn to think more critically.

Fifty People, One Question

While doing my daily YouTube browse I stumbled upon this...

A short film titled, Fifty People, One Question.

You'd never expect this question.