Good news this week, our vaccines held last week. The one Covid case in the family was just one Covid case. It was mild and it ended quickly. We’re really thankful that no one else became ill. That was especially important. There’s a grandbaby on the way.

Outside concern for the pregnancy, this pass wasn’t as personally scary as last year when we were unvaccinated and more afraid. This year we were vaxed and boosted and the protocol as well as the prognosis are much better. I hope this disease can become a worldwide non-event for everyone one day, as much as this turned out to be for us. Sooner is better, of course.

3-4 Minutes, How Hard can That Be?

We focused on the video to submit to Kickstarter this past week, to the detriment of getting out to ride. I was laughing at having had the idea that that getting over myself and vlogging instead of blogging would keep supporters informed and maybe get my weekly workload for the project down closer to 40 hours a week. I’ve deleted so much video. This 3-4 minutes of first impression is driving me mad and has been a part of our delay in getting ourselves out there and in front of people.

I’m a little bit in front of people for the video, but my voice is primarily narrative, not connected to the face. That makes it like a phone call in that intonation needs to be more exaggerated for the listener to feel the emotion without visual facial cues to communicate. I don’t speak well in the first place.

And, I am a spaghetti brain, so, I have to have a script, or I will drift longer, and at the same time forget to say great big important parts of what I need to say, then people will click way when I don’t make sense. So I’m trying to be cool and professional, while reading a script (that I wrote myself with intense feeling and sincerity) and, trying not to sound rote, like I’m reading a script or projecting it with exaggerated intonation to make up for the lack of facial communication like I learned in the phone job I had that one time. Wait. No, I had two of those.

IOW, it’s a real head trip, trying to dampen the hoaky sincere intensity with which I want to pursue this awesome project so that I don’t sound soap opera dramatic, while at the same time exaggerating intonations so that sincerity can be perceived. I’ve done it over and over, more times probably than I’ve ever re-written anything. And there weren’t just technique difficulties, there were technical difficulties too because we’re newbs. And when we finally got something to work with, it needed cutting by 30% for length.

I’m okay with knowing that this won’t look or sound like Disney did it. There seems to be room at the table for a variety of skill and experience levels. It just doesn’t feel natural to be trying techniques that are supposed to make me seem excited and natural to get my real sincerity across naturally…It’s like some circuitous antithesis to method acting, and… If my mother were to read this, I can imagine her saying “okaayy” with a look that speaks so much louder than her words, those eyes saying something somewhere between “Why do you do this to yourself?” and “WTH are you talking about?” And, while we’re talking about my mother, I talk to her almost every day. I’ve been planning this project and working on it for more than a year and a half, and I haven’t mentioned it to her. Not once. I’ll say that I’m going to ride my bike, but, for right now, it’s a big enough stretch to put myself out there for the judgement of strangers. Family is a whole ‘nother thing.

So, on that note, let me go try to record this audio one more time, so I can get to the part where I decide which version I dislike the least.