Ok, first, I’m on this Prince kick, so open this tab and watch this video after you watch the one above and read my ramblings below. Shit, take yourself to Spotify and just listen to it ALL. I’m about to get all of this Prince & The NPG. By the way, make sure you watch that one up there till the end so you get the message.
Look, I know it’s bright and early on a Monday and maybe it’s not your preferred time to get all hot and bothered watching Prince be the sexiest person that ever lived, but this is how I roll and honestly, if you ended up on this blog, you already know that. If not, welcome to the party. I mean, how could it not be a party when the DJ (me) is playing all the Prince you ever wanted?!?! ALL of it. All that Spotify has anyway. I’m going back to when he did the soundtrack for Batman, y’all. Batdance is the shit! If it wasn’t six fucking minutes long it would get some choreography.
Anywho, on to the stories. Today, let’s chat about compliments. I wonder why we never learn to gracefully accept them? I know that I am as guilty as anyone. Truthfully, who of you can say you haven’t deflected? Nice clothes or shoes? Do you automatically say where you got them at a discount or do you say thanks? Your hair/makeup looks nice today. Do you say you look a mess or do you just say thanks? Now that you’re on the road with me, I know that we could travel on it a long time together, but let’s not do that. Let’s both get off of this road of self-deprecation and learn to say thank you and believe what we’ve been told. Sound good? Cool. I’m still working on it. Don’t worry if it takes a while.
SIDEBAR: Darlin’ Nikki is on right now. It’s 9:20 am. I can’t see that the neighbors (or hubby for that matter) would be thrilled if I started blasting this. I really want to though. It just isn’t enough in the headphones. Dammit! Can’t wait until we have a house.
Yeah, yeah, I get sidetracked. Back to compliments. Once upon a time, I liked to listen to a lot of live music. I still do when I can find it. Well, at this time, I frequented some small venues and it was kind of a small town so it was an everyone knew everyone kind of situation. I was part of everyone so I got to know everyone. Everyone included most of the bands that came through. Some bigger names than others but for the most part, of local fame only. Some bands friendlier than others, some people in some bands friendlier than others. No one was ever mean or rude, just some folks’ arms were more open than others.
One band had ALL great people so I saw them at multiple venues around the city. Hellos on set breaks and that sort of thing. Ha! Almost forgot about this. Once, I had a friend in town from NY so I took him to see said band. I think it was a Thursday so my friend still had to work the next day so we were cutting out a bit early mid-set. (Let me preface this by saying that there weren’t a lot of Black folks where I was so I wasn’t hard to find.) The band was finishing a song and the singer saw that we were leaving. I gave a nod and he busted into a “Sit the fuck down” ditty. Freaking hilarious. We still had to go. Some people had a regular job at that time…but not me.
Same band, same singer said that he was going to write a song for me. I laughed it off because, that’s what I did with anything that even resembled a compliment. Fuck naw, you ain’t gonna catch me slipping and think you can compliment me and I won’t get all freaking stupid about it! Fast forward a few weeks and the conversation pops into my head while I’m chatting with said singer. And out of nowhere, I bust out with, “HEY! Where’s my song?!?! You said you were writing me a song!” And without missing a beat, he said that Prince beat him to it and that he certainly couldn’t do better. Of course, I was intrigued by this comment although my face was probably just in a state of confusion. After a beat, he said that the song was Sexy MF.
Awwwwwww! Yeah, even that, as sorta weird as it is, counts as a compliment. And honestly, it’s one of the better ones that I’ve received. This past weekend, I received another that ranks up there in the top five. You see, I had a photoshoot on Saturday. Every now and then, I get a bug up my ass and feel like I should have some professional pole pics done. I started pole back in about 2009. Yikes, on and off I’ve been poling for 12 years?!?! And still I don’t apply myself so I’m not where someone else who’s been poling for 12 years might be. But I’m ok with that. Do you know why? Listen closely. For every thing that someone can do better than me on the pole, there is something in another arena that I do better than they do. The same thing holds true for you. Quit comparing yourself to other people. You’re only in competition with yourself. But I digress.
Per my usual, I was, umm, less than prepared? I guess some people know how to prepare for this sort of thing, but I kinda don’t. I figure if I got myself there and I made an attempt at makeup, I was doing pretty good. Over those 12 years, I’ve been purposely in front of the camera for the explicit function of taking pictures five times and one of those wasn’t pole-related. Four pole shoots. Four times I’ve had the opportunity to think about poses ahead of time. Four times I have done no such thing. Sorry, that’s just not me. I’m gonna put on some music and move around and whatever we catch, we catch.
As I watched the end of the session of the person before me, I started to be concerned that perhaps I should have prepared. I was doing that comparing thing again. Me. I knocked my own confidence down about three notches. Why? Why did I do that to myself? Why do we do that to ourselves? Ugh, I don’t know. But do you know what? I did all that for nothing. And do you know why? Because towards the end of my session, I received that other compliment that goes in the top 5 of all time. For someone who has struggled to feel comfortable in her body, someone who has felt like they would never be enough, someone who has looked at others and wanted to look or move like them, to hear the phrase “Have you modeled before? You just know how to move your body. You don’t need direction” was SUPER HIGH PRAISE that I wasn’t expecting for sure. But damn if I didn’t feel like a billion bucks for the rest of the day and the rest of the weekend, and shit, I’m still feeling pretty damn good today. I know that feeling is gonna explode once I get the pics back too. We’ll see how many I can post publicly LOL.
Ok, get on with your day so I can get on with mine! What are you doing for yourself today? Do something for your body, something for your mind, something for your soul. See you tomorrow!