The Lost Art of Storytelling

I used to be one of them, you know. I was the life of the party. The go-to story-teller. Everyone gathered around, laughing, intently hanging on to my every word. Reliving life’s most amusing moments in a colourful anecdote that people remembered for years to come. People were always saying Tell Janice that story about the time you met Snow! Let’s hear the one about when you got stranded at the Chinese cemetery on Halloween Night! Tell that one about how you got hit with ricocheted bird poop at the Hippie Market again! That was my thing; my niche. I am an English Major for gosh sakes! I DO consider myself an Authoress. I am looking for a profession that allows me to tell stories for a living. But for the life of me, I can’t remember how.

I’m not sure why, how or when. But I’ve lost my mojo. It’s vanished quicker than a line of coke at the casa de Lohan. My stories have gone from producing howling hysterics to plodding, blubbering and the occasional awkwardly-long “Huh?” Remember that time I had that S & M twin? No? Well, yeah I had this twin and she was always wearing leather and people always mistook me for her. Great story huh? You know what this reminds me of? You know what this is totally like? Remember that episode of Family Guy where the baby was like being mean of something and then something totally random happened? Uh… yeah…..

I don’t know how to get it back. Mojo, Mojo where art thou, Mojo? Blame it on drugs. Blame it on my self-imposed isolation. But the real culprit is harder to shake than any of those vices. The real culprit behind by social stigmatism, my verbal retardation, I believe is my job.

S4L has done this to me. S4L has punctured my socializing and replaced my storytelling with the re-hashing of celebrity blogger news and images of New York indie kids being edgy. Here’s the thing about S4L. I don’t speak. Ever. I mean I say, “hey” “how’s it going?” “Good,” and “I’m going for lunch” a few times a day; but beyond that, it’s just me, my computer, my music and my Internet.

Slowly the repetition of keyboard strokes; the humming of my monitor and the buzzing of the florescent lights have captured my soul. The humdrum-osity of my office environment has captured my soul and that part of my brain that made me interesting; that made me an interesting and vivid storyteller. They stole that part of me so that I would be forever chained to this dungeon. Mute and dumb to the array of possibilities the world is offering me.

Well no more! I have been a social midget too long. It’s time to grow tall! Take back my personality! Take back my conversation skills! Take back my life!