What Do I Do With My Hands?

Los Angeles is full of people watchers. I, myself, am well-versed in staring down strangers, assessing and judging their appearance, attire and mannerisms. So, sometimes, when you're walking down the street, by yourself, it's easy to feel a little self-conscious.

Last Thursday, I was having one of these moments. I was walking from my friend's apartment in West Hollywood to the Whole Foods on Santa Monica Blvd. People sitting at restaurants to my left, people sitting in traffic to my right. A lot of awkward eye-contact occurred.

To make the situation worse, I couldn't figure out what to do with my hands. I started with them in my pockets, as it was a cloudy day and it seemed the appropriately schlumpy move. This would have been fine if it weren't for the fact that I suffer from severe ADD and need to change my hand position, check my blackberry, etc with an overzealous frequency.

Ok, still not a big deal. Except for the fact that the pockets on my army jacket have buttons on them that I have never bothered to unbutton; thus, when I put my hands inside them, they kind of get a little bit stuck. I have to do the whole pull down on the bottom of the jacket with my other hand while pulling the trapped hand out of the pocket. You know what I'm talking about.

So awkward.

Especially when you then realize that the blackberry you wanted to check is still inside of that pocket, forcing you to repeat previous steps.

Basically, I was having a big, huge Will Ferrell moment.

Fast forward to my acting class that evening.

One of the actors was suffering a similar fate with her hands and our acting coach stopped the scene to discuss this predicament. He referenced the above scene from Talladega Nights, noting that the reason this scene exists is because it is a common experience shared among actors. He also went on to say that it occurs when we are acting because we are aware of the fact that everyone's attention is on us - that during our general daily lives, we don't think about our hands, because we don't assume that everyone is looking at us.

...

Right. Of course not.

...

I chose to remain silent.