Tomorrow I have to present my project. I’m not looking forward to it. It’s not just that I’m anxious (though I really, really am) and it’s not just that my project isn’t finished (and won’t be for a long time), but more the fact that I’m going to have to talk about myself. In order to properly introduce my project, I’m going to have to properly introduce myself.
I don’t speak up often in class. This has less to do with my social anxiety and more to do with how my brain works. I think carefully before I speak. I haven’t contributed to seminar as much as some of my other classmates. Maybe I’m paranoid and projecting my insecurities, but it seems like when I do speak up the rest of the class goes silent. I don’t know if it’s because I’m not a very likable person or if it’s because the things I’ve been waiting to say aren’t as interesting to others are they are to me.
Either way, I don’t think my classmates have gotten to know me very well this quarter. Even Caryn didn’t know as much about me and my work until we met up to talk about my project.
I don’t know if anyone reads these or not (I do – is that weird?) but just in case someone else does make a practice of reading these posts, I’m going to write now what I’ll have to say tomorrow. Hopefully that will make things easier:
In order to understand my project you need to understand a few things about me. So hello, I’m Kathryn. I’m 25 and I’ve been working as a freelance artist for about ten years now. I’ve worked in different mediums and have been moderately successful in each. I’ve been a painter, a musician, a writer, a model, a photographer. I’m glad I’ve stayed in touch with the different artists I’ve worked with over the years because when I first announced that I would be doing this project, a bunch of people volunteered to help. I’ll have professional musicians, actors, designers, and cinematographers working with me on this.
I’ve also worked as a consulting forensic anthropologist for two different local coroner’s offices – both Lewis County and Thurston County. I have encountered a lot of sexism in my 25 years. I don’t know if that’s because I’m drawn to hobbies/practices that are typically thought of as being “for men” or “a man’s world” or if I just encounter the same amount of sexism as any other woman. Either way, it’s something I’ve noticed. It could be that I’m hypersensitive to it because I’m a survivor of sexual assault, or because of my background in anthropology, or maybe it’s just something about me.
I was going to write a film about my divorce but I scratched that early on and started working on a crime drama. The script I’m writing now tells the story of two detectives that are tracking down a serial killer. It’s going to have the same tropes that we’re all used to seeing, but my victims are all going to be male and my killer is going to be female. The story jumps through time, showing the detectives when they first find the case, to years later when they are retired and tracking down the killer as vigilantes. I’ve got calendars showing the different time lines, sketches of what the crime scenes look like, and photos of the different characters hanging on my wall. My room probably looks a lot like Rhust Chole’s storage unit.
When I worked as a forensic anthropologist I had to deliver a lot of bad news to people. I had to knock on stranger’s doors and tell them their loved one(s) had passed. People react differently to this kind of news. I’ve been yelled at, I’ve held strangers while they’ve cried, I’ve watched people react with complete indifference. When you see enough dead bodies and you witness enough autopsies and you meet enough people something weird happens. You notice the differences between people but you also know the cold, honest truth – we’re all the same. Meat wrapped around skeletons, gifted (or burdened) with consciousness. It makes seeing/experiencing the hatred humans have for each other all that much harder to understand.
I’m hoping my story will make people think about sexism, guilt/innocence, gender roles and expectations, and what it means to be a victim. I’m trying to get at the heart of humanity – the things that make humans human.
So there we go. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll be able to say all this (or most of it) and read a scene or two without letting my anxiety get in the way.