Looking at myself on screen

I record people all the time, for interviews. I never much like listening to these tapes; I hear muffed questions, missed follow-ups, interruptions, and of course my own voice, unfiltered by my inner ear and jarring for it. I have found I also don’t like watching interviews I’ve done on stage. I don’t have to go watch those, since they don’t involve paid assignments.
But today I found myself looking at a Google Zeitgeist presentation as part of some research for a piece, and I thought, ‘I should go look at what I did there, even though I was awful. It’s been two years. I’m here. It must be time.’ So I did look at one of them.
It wasn’t as terrible as I thought. I didn’t look as nervous pumped as I remember feeling [the word ‘nervous’ kept popping up after I wrote this, and I thought, ‘it wasn’t nerves, I know how to deal with nerves.’ It was sheer adrenalin and it surprised me, because in years of acting in plays I was always flat before a performance, had to get myself pumped up.] Not that it was great. I needed to spend more time in front of the mirror practicing. I left out a couple of things I meant to say. I wasn’t smooth.

You can see for yourself here: