Currently it’s 3:30 in the afternoon, and I’m sitting in the Verizon Ballroom on the University of Arkansas campus in Fayetteville. My friend Matt is teaching a private dance lesson with a couple several feet away, but otherwise the room is empty. I’m not sure I’m supposed to be in here, but no one’s asked me to leave. Earlier there was a group class for intermediate dancers, but I didn’t get around in time for it. Whatever, I needed to sleep. Moving on. After the lesson, Matt and I are supposed to eat with some friends, then there’s a beginner lesson tonight and a dance with a live band. That’s the part I’m really excited about.

The dance.

Last night, despite being tired, tired, tired, I stayed up til one watching the FX series Pose, which is about transvestites, homosexuals, drug dealers, prostitutes, AIDS, and the “ballroom” world of New York City in the late 1980s. (Not ballroom dancing. “Balls” were a place where the outcasts of society could compete, strut, and “pose” for acceptance, recognition, and prizes.) Anyway, the series is fabulous. My therapist told me about it. When she first brought it up, I said, “Okay, I’ll watch it. You haven’t steered me wrong yet.”

In last night’s episode, several of the main characters got tested for HIV/AIDS after one of them had a scare. They had to wait two weeks for their results. Ugh. This kind of anxiety is awful. I’ve experienced it, waiting in the health clinic for your name to be called. It’s so cold and clinical there. Not encouraging at all. Thankfully, I’ve personally always been fine, but once I was convinced I was about to hear the worst news possible, since I could have sworn I saw the word “positive” on the inside of my folder. But then the nurse said, “You’re negative.” It was that quick and easy. Like, bye now, have a good day.

I really didn’t mean to start talking about getting tested for STDs. But having been tested for a number of diseases and physical problems this last year and currently feeling tired, worn out, and simply “off,” I know that the mind–at least my mind–has a STRONG tendency to fantasize, awfulize, and imagine the worst possible outcome. My dick is going to fall off. I’ll never have any energy again. I’m going to die cold, broke, and alone. And I just know what a relief it is to realize that you’ve been blowing a lot of smoke up your own ass. Even in the face of bad news–your cholesterol is high, you have hemorrhoids, whatever–it’s never as bad in reality as it is in your head.

After the Pose episode, I watched an episode of The Power of Myth with Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers. It’s a series of interviews Moyers did with Campbell during the last two years of his life. During last night’s interview, Campbell says that the best thing you can give the world is an example of how to live in it. Because, as Campbell says, the world is a mess, and it’s always been a mess. Not that you can’t work to change it, but that it’s always going to be filled with both wonders and horrors, moments of absolute relief and elation and moments of unspeakable tragedy. So that’s what I’m working on, not rejecting an experience simply because it’s uncomfortable or painful, being open to whatever comes along.