Missy's First Talk

Grand Madam of La Dance and of La La Dance Academy of La Dance, Mkidza Mlaf, is getting Missy ready for her first post-graduation talk. The first talk is an important step because, as a student of la dance, it is the first opportunity afforded to you in your entire educational trajectory when you would be aloud to speak. Speaking is not only an important step to cutting a prominent figure in business and society, but also an essential first step toward becoming a ceremonial, half-feral monster, which everyone pretty much knows by now will be Missy's path. 

As Mkidza tries to poof Missy's wiry top hairs to help cover the as-yet unfurled reptilian mating sail beginning to protrude colorfully along the center ridge of her skull, and as Mkidza fluffs Missy's feathered collar to align with the harsh edges of her emerging spine horns, she whispers some pointed tips of her own into Missy's ear flap: 

"My Missy. If you want to sound smart, make sure to begin with the word 'so.' This will signal that you need no further introduction, that everyone present probably can't wait to hear what you have to say, and in case any question or comment comes at you before you are ready to end the talk, the word 'so' acknowledges that other words than yours were spoken but also signals that those words were an interruption, not an addition, not significant, maybe even stupid, and that you intend to continue on with what you were saying, midsentence, without breaking stride. You are saying all of that with this tiny, two-letter coordinating conjunction. Do you see? Say it for me Missy. Sss... good. Take your time. Start with that."

Missy clack-clocks past the front row of the makeshift auditorium at Friends Hangar and up the steps to the podium fully en point. She then faces the audience of her peers and slowly lowers her heels without allowing her head to lower as well. In fact, her neck seems to grow before their eyes. 

[MISSY'S FIRST TALK]

So... i place myself in what i successfully refer to as the borderlands of epistemological theory. This works even and maybe especially when i can't remember what epistemology is or which one it is. There's epistemology, ontology, oncology, existentialism, lyricism, a whole variety of tautologies, including many redundant ones, the tyranny of empiricism, and then extracurricular activities, in which I got an A? meaning where was I? But before that question mark there is indeed an A, an A for Assumption that whatever, wherever it was i'd run off to, it must have been good and it must have been crazy fun—this assumption my temple instructors may have based solely on my verve and personality as well as their own lack thereof.

So... because of the fact that the only way I could possibly be pursuing proper epistemological methods as i journey forward in La Dance would be by pure accident or divine intervention, I just feel like if my true behavioral underpinnings were ever to be discovered, measured and understood, I would most likely place outside the mean. Borderlands. Epistemological. Theory. 

So... how besides frequent disappearances and charm did i attract such close attention, such whispers of promise from my educator-abductresses, in all my profound ignorance? Was it a case when your poor life choices are being overly admired by those whose job it is to hold you back? Just as they themselves were held back? Held back from living their best lives, from singing their own kinds of music, from hacking new temporary passages through the thicket of vines overgrowing our most cherished brutalist structures, held back from carrying a burning torch forward for all to follow, held back from burning it all, every last village and tree, as far as the eye can see?

Umm, so... the problem with this type of developmental approach is a situation where these powerful and covert admirers who call themselves instructional architects want to see the entire arc, not just the money shot. They know why they'd never dare surrender to their own curiosities, their own vulnerabilities seedy passions; they knew why it made so much more sense for them to stay at temple chomping on grapes spitting out the seeds and remain simply well with la dance. It was a thrill for them to watch me, and even better to imagine me, a singularity at La La Dance Academy of La Dance, burning through my youth in a more spectacular fashion than they had ever dreamed of attempting for themselves. 

But, so... even as they cringed and looked away, they imagined shielding their eyes from much more elaborate aberrations of virtue, more brazen adventures in indecency, a sweeter masochism, a scarier narcissism, more enthusiastically bottom-seeking personal associates than i could or would imagine or have within me. The inherent bias of course, of their point of view, is that there must then be a crash, a comeuppance, a heavy consequence, a final judgement to equal in dramatic effect all the umami of their most prurient fantasies—a judgment in their favor, not yours!

Missy is sent off to her next life journey by a warm round of applause from her audience of underdancers, all the nuns of Mthyuh, and especially her beloved Her Grand Madame Mkidza. Now Missy leapt from the stage as if she would take to the winds sure as La Pegyuh of legend abandoned her kids for glory. Mkidza, waiting in the wings, made sure to pull Missy aside before she headed to the first-talk reception of the shiv. "I couldn't be more proud of you," she gushed as they embraced. 

MKIDZA MLAF: You read us for filth, Missy.

MISSY: So... that's Ms. Missy to you, mister.

BOTH: HAHAHAHA...! HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Phyliss [embedded]