I’m finally making a thing. It’s been in my mind for months. This is me doing the prep to make the thing.

I didn’t make the actual thing tonight, only the demo. The workweek starts tomorrow, and I started later than I intended to. Actually, I made less than a demo, because as I looked for angles that would at least make me look the way I look in my head (tall order for a short person), I forgot to turn on the camera for most of it. So I only shot part of it.

That’s good. Why? Because I got to practice, and run to get the things, and create a real-life picture of how to share the little dab of knowledge that up to now only existed in my head.

I think I felt so shitty yesterday in part because I didn’t work on the thing. My various issues flared up, and I felt heavy and unlawful, and plain out of luck.

That was yesterday. Today, I woke up feeling the same way, then, just did this odd…leap…over how I was feeling. I didn’t stop feeling it. I just pretty much put it to the side, and said, nuh-uh, not now.

I need to make a thing.

So, I puttered and glided through prepping (that is my place, prepped, so yeah). Then I listened to a bunch of good stuff that kept me close enough to the creative impulse and far enough from the Resistance my body manifests as various issues.

Because I’m a podcast person, here’s what I listened to:

The Professional Left with Driftglass and Blue Gal https://professionalleft.blogspot.com/ politics podcast — true, down to earth and sometimes all I can stand

Seth Godin’s Akimbo https://www.akimbo.link/ podcast — y’all know who he is

The Read: http://thisistheread.com/ Kid Fury and Crissle on pop culture from an unapologetically Black perspective

Benjamin Walker’s Theory of Everything: https://theoryofeverythingpodcast.com/ I like the lens he uses to dive in-depth on lots of cultural stories

I Made It by Jay Acunzo for Podia https://www.podia.com/podcast — candid interviews with creators, not asking the same questions everyone else asks

Code Switch https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch: Journalists of color telling deeper stories about race and identify

Yo, Is This Racist? https://www.earwolf.com/show/yo-is-this-racist/: unfortunately, nine times out of ten, it is.

I didn’t listen to just about any of these all the way through. They were my curated soundscape as I went out and got the things I felt I needed to make my thing.

So, anyway, yeah, I started making the thing. I feel brighter, even though I didn’t finish it. I already knew a demo was going to be important. Now I have a better sense of what to do next.

But the main thing is, I finally actually stopped messing around, and start making the thing. And it feels wonderful.

Here’s to you taking that leap and making your thing!