granted i've been only going to the SCSC for like a month but ngl I'm so jealous you've gotten to talk to sid so many times! what is your secret lol

my secret:

BLIND CONFIDENCE

yeah, i’m nervous, but i’m not shy from behind a computer screen. i’ve learned to believe the things i say have value and that whoever i’m speaking to would be interested to hear it. the rest of life holds me back, so, given an opportunity, i do not hold myself back. i will create opportunities for myself if none exist. if done nicely, people tend to appreciate being offered assistance or content or entertainment. all they can really say is yes or no.

plus, well... it obviously helped that the first thing i did the first time i talked to sid was say hello to everyone else watching, and then said i was just as excited that the people saying “elmieeeeee” in the chat read my stories as i was excited to talk to him, because it took him like 3 minutes (or less?) before he invited me back the next week for a frickin half-hour chat with the audience??

people usually just get 15 minutes to talk to him, but the half-hour audience questions overran by 15 minutes, so in the space of 1 full week i somehow clocked in a full hour in sid’s direct sunshine presence.

which was definitely not my doing, any of it. he wanted more community stuff and i was like “hello community” and he noticed everyone already knew me so asked me back as some kind of ~public figure~ idk

two of those five times have been very brief open mic questions, where i already had a question in mind and nabbed the mic in a relevant silence so i had a segue. again, blind confidence. apparently this is a scary thing for people to do?? didn’t notice. i just wanted my questions answered and knew he’d have a good answer. i mean my heart was pounding and i was shaking like a leaf but HELLO SID I HAVE A QUESTION

and the fifth time, yesterday, was only the second time i’d signed up to talk, and, being acutely and painfully aware that i’m hogging sid and other people still haven’t spoken at all, i requested only 2 minutes to tell sid my script was done, but mel obviously told him beforehand and also told him it was my birthday, because he told ME about my script and wished me happy birthday before moving on to someone else, so those “2 minutes” were actually 30 seconds but holy shit the amount of information crammed into those seconds has still not been fully processed.

i’ve heard people say they’d feel guilty for talking to sid twice. and that makes me think that perhaps the personal healing i’ve done for my own mental health really helps in this matter. over the last 10 years i’ve slowly learned to let go of a lot of guilt about my medical situation, being dependent on others, and asking for things, and perhaps i no longer have that thing in my brain that tells folks to feel bad for taking up space. (and i’m sure that guilty feeling is especially strong in women, nonbinary folks, queer people, people of colour, disabled and neurodivergent people, young people, and those without professional experience, real-life experience, or official qualifications. i am all of the above.)

kick that guilt in the ass, my friend. you deserve a voice.

buuuuut also i’m gonna try and not talk to sid for a while, unless there’s a thing involving me happening, or he calls on me. because holy shit five times in six weeks is kind of a lot of times when there’s 100 to 150 people trying to do basically exactly what i’m currently doing.

i say it’s blind confidence. but the stars just aligned for me, i think.