{bazima.com}

I was on the Bowery with Kyuti and Lisa at an Oblivio Series reading. Kyuti sat behind me and Lisa stood behind Kyuti. That's not important. I watched and listened as Michael Barrish stood seemingly confident onstage reading into the microphone in front of a crowd full of faces. He couldn't make out the faces because there was a big spotlight shining in his eyes. It's better when you can't see faces. It helps with nerves. I know this because I've been in that spotlight before. I've been without it too.

A few years ago I helped curate a photographic educational exhibit at The New York Historical Society and I had to give a speech in the auditorium at the opening. I was hella nervous. Someone videotaped it and watching it made me cringe. My nervousness manifested itself in my monotonous tone of voice. It would have been better if I had been acting. But it was a speech not a script. I'm not good at speeches.

Several years before that I sang with my friend's band in college. We did "The Bazima Song" in the cafe in front of The Lunachicks who went on after us. Despite the 'chicks delicious dinner of a lead singer Theo Kogan sitting on the side of the stage watching me, I wasn't all that nervous because I'd been cavorting with my friend Jack Daniels beforehand. Although, in photographs from that gig in which I had my arms raised I was clearly sweating like a little piggy. There was a spotlight then. Wait. Was there a spotlight? No, there were no spotlights in the cafe I don't think. But I remember not really being able to see faces in the crowd. Maybe it was the Jack Daniels.

Another time I sang with the band was at a house party and not only could I see faces but the faces were so close we were practically touching noses. The microphone shook in my hand but I pulled it off as evidenced by the screaming and pogo-sticking of my peers.

Two years before that I was a go-go dancer at a friend's party. That was scary.

Two years before that I was in a high school production of "Guys and Dolls." Actually, I was in "Guys and Dolls" twice. Once in high school and once in sixth grade. Both times I was cast as a Hot Box Girl (insert your own hot-box-as-euphemism-for-vagina quip here). In the high school production I had a big dance number. For this number, two of my girlfriends, who had also been cast as Hot Box Girls, and I were paired up with three guys. Out of the three of them, my partner was the shortest and the skinniest. And the least coordinated. I was really mean to him because I thought I deserved a better partner. I only talked to him when I had to. I kind of bullied him, too. Then, during a dress rehearsal he dropped me on the dip. I went crashing to the hardwood floor of the stage and he came toppling down over me. I was humiliated. It was an "I Never" moment. Stupid, stupid dance partner. Years later I found out that he'd had a crush on me all that time. I found this out because, strangely enough, he's been dating one of my good friends for the last five years. They are gay together. I'm much nicer to him now. He's tall and not scrawny but I think he'd still have trouble dipping me.

When I was in "Guys and Dolls" in sixth grade the Hot Box Girls had to supply their own costumes for the "Bushel and a Peck" song and dance number: a solid colored leotard and cut-off denim shorts. The school supplied the straw hats. The night before the first dress rehearsal I tried to find the best pair of jeans to cut up for my costume. The first pair I cut was totally uneven. The second pair I cut just didn't look right. By the third pair my dad was pissed because I was running out of jeans. During "Bushel and a Peck", there was a point at which the Hot Box Girls, standing in line, had to turn our backs to the audience and wiggle our butts. After that first dress rehearsal Mrs. Caragher the director, who was also my sixth grade homeroom teacher, took me aside to tell me that my short shorts were too short. "When you guys do that butt-wiggling thing," she said, "I don't actually want the parents in the audience to see your butts."

In fifth grade I was in a play about George Washington. It was called "Let George Do It." There was a chorus of cheerleaders who were the narrators of the story. I played one of the cheerleaders. Together we spelled George Washington with felt letters pinned to our sweaters. I think I was the "O" in George. We had this song that we had to sing which I still remember. It went: "Take a G and an E and an O/And add a little R-G-E/To a W/A-S-H/I-N-G/When you add two thousand pounds/That makes a ton/So what have you got?/You've got a lot!/George Washington!" Anyway, at the first part of that song where you take the G and the E and the O, the girls with the G and the E and the O had to do this little leap and step forward out of our chorus line as we all sang out the letters. During our first performance I blanked out and when my letter was called, I didn't move muscle. Finally I made out the silhouette of Mrs. Carter glaring at me from the back of the auditorium madly motioning to me to step forward.

Oh. I was in "West Side Story" during my junior year in high school. That was really good. I excelled at all the dance numbers and I had lines and I was good. Plus, I'd seen "West Side Story" so many times. It was one of my favorite movies. We got standing ovations for all four performances.

I had a radio show in college with my friend Tim. It was called "Hungover with Tim and Bazima" and we were live every Saturday at 3pm. But that was different because, of course, no one can see you. That same year my friends and I planned a Punk Party and my old roommate and our friend Adam who is like a rock star now made up a song to announce and advertise the party called The Punk Rock Party Song and we went around to all of the dining halls and sang it.

I studied dance in college, if studied is the right word. I was asked to be in a performance called "The Black Parade" based on New Orleans funeral processions. There were several sections to the piece and I was in most of them. In one, I was one dancer in a trio. It was sort of a Josephine Baker type number and I was downstage in a black flapper dress.

When I was little I used to perform all of the time for anyone who would watch. I'd call my mother into the living room to watch me do my well-rehearsed ballets to her Beatles albums or my dance interpretion of "My Fair Lady" to the original motion picture soundtrack. When I was very little I made up a dance to a song from one my mom's Billy Preston albums. She told me I should show my dance to my weekly ballet class full of other five-year-olds. I did, but I performed the entire thing facing the wall.

At this reading the other night with Michael and Lisa and Kyuti, a man -- a stranger -- sitting next to me turned to me with a look of recognition and said, "Are you Bazima? I've been reading your site for a long time."