If You See Her, Say Hello

December 17, 2015

I’m going to tell you something and I need you not to laugh or roll your eyes right away. Give it a couple of seconds, ok?

I’m starting a YouTube channel.

I SAID DON’T ROLL YOUR EYES.

I know what you’re thinking. Believe me, I’ve been thinking it, too. Repeatedly.

Go home, Crazy Brain. No one wants you here.

Stephanie, Have You Really THOUGHT About This?

1. You know you get that weird, frozen look in front of cameras, right? And you know about your forehead vein? Well. Yes. I have been known to forget how my face muscles work every time I see a lens.
2. Don’t you think this is a little presumptuous? Well. Yes. Although I can’t say no one asked for this to happen, because at least three people did and only one of them was my grandma.
3. Aren’t you really more of a writer? Well. Yes. I like writing a lot because it gives me a long time to figure out what I’m going to say, and also because it disguises my forehead vein. I’m much smoother in writing. For example, I can write scythe, scythe, scythe all day long and you’d never know that up until last Thursday I was pronouncing that word as “sith,” like it was going to fight a Jedi and not help a farmer.
   

   In fact, the Sith are notoriously unhelpful to farmers.

4. Aren’t you, like, really busy? Well. Yes. I like to have so many projects going on that there’s no time to slow down and think about the inevitability of death. So in all honesty, this is a welcome addition.
5. Who doesn’t have a YouTube channel? It’s pretty hackneyed. Well. Yes. At this point, I guess it is kind of ubiquitous (you-bike-wit-Taos?). Let me tell you a story. In middle school, all I ever wanted was a hoodie. All the other kids had hoodies and that should have stopped me, but instead it only fueled my desire for one. I’m not sure what I’m trying to say here, except that middle school is a bad place and I still appreciate a good hooded sweatshirt.

Variations on those five themes keep popping up in my head as I get farther along in the planning process. If I had to describe myself right now, I would say that I am basically an anxious meatball with a pixie cut.

But I’ve got a good team behind me and we have approximately one-third of a plan, so I am also pretty excited, as far as pixie cut-sporting meatballs go.

I was going to Photoshop a pixie cut onto a meatball, but I couldn’t find a meatball picture that really spoke to me, you know?

Why are you doing this, Stephanie? Why?

1. For the same reason George Mallory attempted to climb Mount Everest. Because it’s there. Unlike George Mallory, however, I do not much care for extreme physical activities at deadly altitudes in weather that hates humans, so I am vlogging instead. And that is why one of us is alive and sitting on a couch next to a cat, and the other has been dead for 91 years, lying frozen on the side of Mount Everest.
2. Because — and I never thought I’d say this — sometimes you can’t say it all with a list. It’s taken me five years to admit that, but it’s true. Listful Thinking will live on, of course, because you can say 99.8% of things with a list, and I frankly cannot stop writing them. I’ve made three of them since I came home from work this evening.
3. Because I think I can bring a new voice to YouTube. Specifically this monster voice. (See? That joke did not work in this format because you could not hear the monster voice. If this was a video, it would have killed. Trust me.)
4. Because there’s a group of people out there who feel uncomfortable all the time, in every situation, except maybe when they’re petting small, fuzzy mammals or watching someone on the internet who is obviously equally as uncomfortable as they are. Those are my people.

“Life and Steph” will launch on YouTube in early 2016. It may crash and burn a few weeks after that. I don’t know! But I’m excited to find out.

In the meantime, I’m in the market for a good forehead vein concealer. Recommendations are welcome. If it’s relevant, you should know that sometimes it throbs.

Written by Listful Thinking Posted in Feeling Awkward, Life and Steph, Over-Thinking, Social Media and Technology Tagged with Humor, Listful Thinking, lists, nerves, vlogging, YouTube