Podcast and a bit of Coffee news

I listened to the podcast for February’s Beat the Dust. It was quite a surreal experience. It’s such a strange thing to hear someone reading words you’ve written. I closed my eyes and pretended I was being read on the radio. I felt all goosebumpy for about an hour. Melissa read it EXACTLY as I would’ve. Well, obviously a lot better, actually, but she got it all. She got everything. I’m still quite giddy about it now.

It’s weird how the medium of something can change it, without the thing actually changing at all. They’re the same words. But speaking them out loud has given them something else. At the weekend I went to a spoken word event at a coffee shop in town. Poetry is something I used to write a lot of, but now I don’t feel confident about it. I think because I wrote so many terrible poems when I was younger, I’ve stopped trusting in my ability to write poetry. Maybe it will change. I will give it another go, and I will try not to take it so seriously and just have fun with it. I think that’s the trick. There were some brilliant poets and performers at the event. It made me quite nervous, because we’ve got a launch planned for Coffee where we will be reading out loud, and watching others “do their thing” hammered it all home. Public speaking terrifies me. I get The Fear reading stories to kids at the library. So the idea of standing up in front of people and reading something I’ve written is just insane. Maybe I can persuade Melissa Mann to do it instead of me. I could get her to wear my bumblebee costume and everyone will just assume it’s me and then I can take all the credit. Or maybe not.

If we practice, and if we have enough other stuff going on, then I think it will be okay. We made the first prototype up on Monday. I stitched it together with brown thread. (We have decided to go with brown instead of silver for this one. I am okay with that. I’ll use silver next time.) I can’t believe we’ve got it together in such a short amount of time. My ‘zines used to take me ages. I think it helps that there are three of us. Even if one or two of us feel like slacking off, there’s always one left to kick everyone into shape. It’s good. I can’t wait for it to be ready.