The Ultimate Selfie

The Ultimate Selfie

By Sheryl McAlister, a writer based in South Carolina

A short piece I wrote titled “The Ultimate Selfie” was selected for inclusion in a new chapbook called The Collective I, published and distributed by Gallery West in Columbia, SC.

Sara Cogswell is the director of Gallery West, and her gallery “…specializes in the unique, offering exquisite objects for every budget. Whether shopping for the home, a holiday or your own heartstrings, you will enjoy art, antiques, and artisan-made objects, just across the Congaree,” according to its website.

For those unfamiliar with Columbia, the Congaree is a river. You can travel by kayak if you’d rather, but the bridge over the Congaree is the Gervais Street Bridge. Eclectic and warm with a casual vibe, Gallery West is nestled in a stretch of State Street surrounded by a group of businesses catering to just about anyone with an appetite for good food, fun art and a slow groove.

Gallery West gave me permission to reprint my entry “The Ultimate Selfie.” The chapbook is part of the gallery’s exhibit Selfies: Real or Imagined, and the publisher has indicated in the chapbook that the works included are “…products of the imagination. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.”

Well — in my case at least — it’s pretty much dead on.

The Ultimate Selfie
By Sheryl McAlister, a freelance writer and editor of Old Broad & New Trix

She walked the Great Wall of China, went on safari in Africa and climbed the Sydney Harbor Bridge. She celebrated birthdays during Munich’s Oktoberfest, kayaking Kauai’s Waimea Canyon and drinking Guinness in Dublin.

She hung out with the monkeys on the Rock of Gibraltar, cycled in Tuscany and danced to the Sound of Music in Salzburg. She snorkeled on the Great Barrier Reef and rode camels in the Australian Outback.

A sports fan to the end, she appreciated the beauty of a well-trained, finely tuned body on the courts, the fields or on the track. Unaccustomed to personally having a well-trained, finely tuned body herself, she made it her duty to criticize officials who blew an errant whistle on those who did. Not that either player or official paid the slightest attention.

A former sports editor and recovering corporate public relations executive, she wrote stories about sports, hardships and life and the lessons brought to each from the other. An original Carolina Panthers fan, she went to the Super Bowl, the Olympics and covered the Kentucky Derby & The Preakness. She had a brief stint as a private investigator. And she was prone to hyperbole.

She pissed off more than her share of people, but had more than her share of friends.

In lieu of flowers, she hopes you’ll adopt a homeless shelter animal, but only if you’re an animal lover.

She ate too much, drank too often and laughed too loud. And she didn’t apologize for any of it.
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Visit: Gallery West at 118 State Street in West Columbia, on Facebook or the Gallery West website. The Selfies exhibit runs through June 7, 2015. Tell Sara I sent you.