In which it’s nice to be seen 🙂
My first piece of hate mail arrived in the form of a google document from my partner’s former grad school weightlifting friend. It articulated all the terrible traits that he observed during the long weekend we stayed with him. It included such gems as, “There were multiple occurrences of him saying something to the effect of ‘this happened because of some thing you did Nikki’ or ‘whose fault is this?’ And because he was saying it in a silly way it is expected to be a joke.”
I read this criticism to a clown school friend of mine, who asked, “Oh, so you were doing bits?”
“Yes,” I replied. “One was blaming Nikki for absolutely absurd things that were clearly not her fault, like the weather.”
“That’s a pretty good bit.”
“I agree.”
—
Then, two months ago, I received a second piece of hate mail. This one came as a series of text messages from a fellow clown student. She derided my blog, my relating to other humans, and my analytic approach. I hadn’t spoken with her in ~a month (I had broken my foot and stepped away from clown school), and before that, I recall only neutral-to-positive experiences. Apropos of nothing, she sent me this diatribe.
I have since shared that letter with a few friends. To a person, they describe it as “unhinged” (or various synonyms).
In her hate mail, she made a few good points. My writing was likely alienating to some clown students. Clown school is a beautiful place and a precious gift.
She also took some shots. Specifically, she said I “wasn’t funny yet” (the newsletter was called “Am I Funny Yet?”) and she described my blog as “very public and mediocre”.
After I received that letter from her, I of course didn’t reply. I also of course didn’t alter my writing or publishing schedule. The article I published that day prompted a second screed from her the next day. She – in whatever reality she was experiencing – thought my intervening post had been about her (it had not).
This second screed brought me great joy.
“Ah,” I thought. “How wonderful it is that she reads my blog every day!”
—
I like to live my life in public. I adore New York partly for that reason: meeting strangers and living in an environment where big, bold people are appreciated. I take my shirt off in public. I do so even though I’ve grown breasts.
I also think it’s funny to call a blog about someone’s daily struggles “mediocre”. It’s not polished. It’s not complete. It’s not intended to be either of those. It’s a documentation of my attempts to do new and challenging things; a collection of my thoughts and observations and learnings and experiences. I’ve never been accused of waiting for perfection (and my partner, at least, thinks my life is better for it). That’s one of the clowning lessons: fail more, and befriend your flops.
To quote my partner: “Being mediocre is the first step towards being kinda sorta good at something”.
At present, I have 21 Substack subscribers and 168 subscribers.
I’ve never looked at my stats before. I haven’t cared. I still don’t. But it’s nice to know that her estimate is also true numerically.
So yeah, with my hundred of fans and my abnormal life, I’m proud to be:
Very Public & Mediocre.
Julian Wise 