This piece is a prequel to my concept on a talk series.
The Talk Series That Takes You Around, Part 0: The Prequel
“Oh, for sure, you? Hosting a talk show? Definitely. You’re a natural little Wendy Williams, TK,” my high school hairstylist said to me as I sat in her chair on a visit home from college.
“Well, not Wendy Williams, I don’t see you doing mean or messy gossip, that’s not how you are, so not her, but that level of talent and personality, you know what I mean?” Ms. Teomi continued. “That’s you. You have it.”
I didn’t know what she meant. Not at that time, not in my college sophmore mind.
Wendy Williams was a household name. Though I wasn’t any sort of avid Wendy watcher myself, as I’ve never been a big TV watcher in general, I was exposed to her — whether it was walking through my grandmother’s door after getting off of the school bus, or a friend’s house where her mom was tuned in to Ask Wendy, or in the hair salon where it was playing and the ladies were cackling about the Hot Topics, or even in the right doctor’s office on a good day, the Wendy Williams Show was on somewhere around me in my adolescence.
A grown woman with a grown kid and apparently some sort of whole grown career previously under her belt to have a daytime talk show in her own name playing in people’s living rooms across the nation?! [eyebrows scrunch together] You could look at this lil’ girl from the ghetto that’s not even fully sure about having changed her college major for the third time and see… hunh? A bit too abstract for me to conceptualize.
Choosing one thing never worked for me.
When I went off to college, I was majoring in Chemistry, only because St. James Parish School System’s Science and Math Academy had thee absolute best chemistry professor for dual enrollment, having us earn plenty Chemistry course credit at Nicholls State University before we even crossed the high school graduation stage. Gut, as we affectionately called him, short for his very Louisiana last name, Gauthreaux, had us all believing that Chemistry was the superior science, and more importantly, that we could do it!
(One of my high school classmates, K-la, is a Nuclear Chemist somewhere ‘round/for Louisiana’s state capital or something important down there ‘til this present day, and she’s crazy as bat shit, so he wasn’t lying).
When reality set in, away in Acadiana without Mr. Gauthreaux in my pocket anymore, I soon realized, oh hell no. It was cutting up in Gut’s class that was fun, not Chemistry — at least not for a lifetime, not for me.
What do I want to do?
Hm. I enjoyed putting on shows with and for my dolls and whatever other inanimate objects would listen.
Buttoned-up, debate team, Youth Government me, would end up on some squiggly personal creative journey?! [changes major to Performing Arts: Theatre]
Well…
These artsy fartsy fake deep aloof a** f*ckers bouta work my darn nerves. Uhnt uhn. NEXT!
(Note: Studying theatre in college wasn’t all bad. The coursework, even in classes such as Movement for the Actor and Stagecraft, was fanatastic and have made a lasting impact on ways of treating my instrument (body) and creating things with my hands, or being resourceful. Yeah, the courses, cool. The crowd? Eh… For example, none of the Theatre nerds wanted to go to the Q Dawg parties until they shut down, then over to The Quaters off-campus college apartments to continue mixing and mingling until the police came. Shoot, the Chemistry kids may have been more fun.)
[changes major to Mass Communication: Broadcast Journalism]
Okaaaaaay, here go my muhfuggin’ negronis!
Hold up… I went to a PWI, making every class predominately white, but why do more brown faces come to mind for that last major? Maybe because I stayed in it the longest, giving me more time to meet more people. Or, because the Broadcasting concentration brought all the negros, that couldn’t play a sport, over here to give Sports Broadcasting a go.
Wait, that’s funny, my indecisive behind didn’t simply switch majors three times, I switched whole colleges! How do you go from wanting to pursue a Bachelor of Science to a Bachelor of Fine Arts to end up graduating with a Liberal Arts degree?!
I’m toe up.. I been toe up.^
I still want a Science degree, yeah... even as an already messy multidisciplinary creative. If I’d found myself put up by some wealthy man that I’m sharing with other women, instead of a superflous amount of luxury bags and shoes, that’d be tuition payments. I’d be well on my way to a Masters degree from USC, if it weren’t already hanging on the wall.
The conversation in Ms. Teomi’s chair had started from me telling her about my latest, and little did I know, final, degree major change.
“Now, about what, I don’t know, but you having your own talk show, yeah” my hairstylist poured into me, “yeeup, you have it ma’am.” Her face straight. Her voice calm. Not an ounce of forced niceties, simply saying what she has seen.
Girl, my mind hadn’t gone in that direction at all. I hadn’t thought much into a set plan or path that I wanted to follow, not way down the line, the future was too far. Sure, I had plenty of big dreams, but they were always different things. Even as a little girl, in early conversations of career exploration, I said I wanted to be Barbie, she gets to do it all. Why do I have to choose?
Structure and Rebellion
One of them, I have to seek. The other, simply happens.
I can’t fathom doing one thing and one thing only for the rest of my life, but in college, that’s what it feels like, that’s what they want you to do. We all know “deciding what you want to do for the rest of your life can be overwhelming,” yet, it is what they ask us to do.
Two major changes in, I scheduled a meeting with Career Services on-campus for help finding the right fit for my interests, skills, values and personality.
The first of those helps nothing. What am I interested in?! Are we trying to make this harder?! You see, everything interests me, from cell biology to sociology to ancient archaelogy. If there’s something to be learned, I’m interested.
It’s a blessing and a curse that, as a result of truly loving to learn, anything that can be taught, I can learn… and excel, giving me a wide range of skills. The what are you skilled in self-reflection question doesn’t narrow down much either.
Now, those last two, mm hmm, values and personality, can start scratching some career paths off the list. I have strong feelings about A LOT and the way I move through the world, including how I don’t shy away from expressing myself, allows room for people to have strong feelings about me. From preschool on up, I’ve never been a person that can stay below the radar, go unnoticed, not ruffle any feathers, or leave folks feeling indifferent. People tend to love the sh-t out of me or hate my stinking guts. Less of the latter, as of late, thankfully.
[une semaine plus tard]
It’s a week later that I’m opening this draft since beginning it (and writing the bit that you’ve read above) with the intention to talk about AROUND, the original interview series that takes the audience around… with athletes… by bike. Just shooting the sh-t. But I never got to it. And though, it wasn’t on purpose, this character origin story (if I were to be analyzing the plot of a script) is warranted. Maybe you don’t need it as a reader, the interview series audience won’t need it as a receiver, but me, it seems, I needed it as a believer.
Genuine curiousity takes the lead.
Following a career ladder has never been me. What I can do, what I’m realizing that I’ve always done, is follow my curiousity. From science to arts to journalism, from seeking structure and finding rebellion, I’m discovering patterns within the way that I work, proving to myself that I have the credibility (without validation from an established company), and realizing the core tension that may have slowed me down is what will keep me in… for the long haul.
Consider this a prequel to the talk series that takes you AROUND. In an actual introduction of AROUND, over the course of a 3-part written series, I will give you the backstory of how this talk series came about in time, define the difference in mine, then wrap it up with an outline. (Is it a crime that I can’t resist a rhyme?)
Other writers have readers, on aroundwithTK, this public journal (today), I have riders. I’m so glad to have you join me, and I hope you’ll stick AROUND.
Glossary
^ toe up = torn up; toe is an intentional misspelling to emphasize not pronouncing the last two letters of the word. if a shirt is torn up, literally, it is tattered — it’s a mess; if a person is torn up, she’s a mess. example: Why did you invite both of your boyfriends to the seafood boil? B*tch, you is toe up fa dat. slang in New Orleans and surrounding South Louisiana.