Sex, Lies and Videotape

Happy Halloween Y'all!

Here is the trio costume that went down famously...Sex, Lies and Videotape.



A costume not to be easily forgotten.

Special thanks to Jennie who allowed her skirt to be cut unbearably short and Jordan, who, in his American-ness, understood the portrayal of lies uncannily well.

And to them both for wrapping me in videotape.

Love you guys.

Content Like The Ocean

Perhaps my problem is that I have always been that little girl that wanted MORE.

I never wanted what so many of my friends wanted. I didn't dream of a wedding or a husband or babies. Or if I did I dreamed that they would come only after I had travelled the world and had adventure and made some sort of difference to the world. When I did imagine partnership, I Imagined a real partner, not a man I didn't understand who lived a parallel life in the same house as myself. Definitly not a man that watched sports on TV and couldn't talk about his feelings. I wanted sensitive, artistic partners who adored me. I wanted the life of a glamorous theatre professional hobnobbing in the circles of Canada's greatest Creatives...

...and in a way I have gotten all these things. And I am changing. At 29, I do think about a baby. ONE baby. I am still enjoying my sensitive, new-age partner choice and I still get to hobnob with some of Canada's greatest creatives. It is just that I don't know where or how I belong in any of it. I am on the outside looking in and I am not sure how to get inside.

I suppose I should pat myself on the back for not shying away from all this silence ... as I have nowhere to run when all the stuff that keeping busy has muted starts to shout loud and clear. For this I am proud of myself. This is painful - the stuff I am facing right now - and I am not drinking or doing drugs or working or shopping to numb it. Sometimes wish I could. Sometimes think that if I was an alcoholic my pain would be taken seriously. What a gross thing to think!

And everyone has different advice for me. Some say - stop searching and just enjoy the vacation. Some say, get a job, any job just to give you some purpose for now. Some say, go back to school. Some say, you're enjoying this! Some say, you aren't abnormal.

What do I say? You know what I say, because I say it right here on my trusty old blog. I say something different everyday. I say, that it hurts, but hurting just means you're really living.

So that is where I am at today. Monday. Caitlin moves in. Leslie moves in. Our 404 community grows. I pay bills, I take naps, I do my Real Estate homework. I wonder how much longer I need to wait.

I exist in my wanting of more.

And I practise loving what already is.

Like Darryl Would Do It

Inspired by Darryl's Blog (found on the Scrumptious Websites page) I think I am just going to freaking rant without trying so hard to be enlightened about it...

I am so fucking tired of feeling lost. And no, I refuse tonight to believe that I must on some level be hanging onto the lost-ness for some unconscious payout. I AM TRYING! I am sorry to all of you who are sick of my negativity, for my month after month of discontent...I am tyring to change behaviours, make new choices, shake it up a bit, clear my head of negative thinking, fill my days with pleasurable things, honour my chioces YADDA YADDA YADDA .... but I feel what I feel and tonight I feel trapped and alone and stupid and self-centered and bored and isolated and misunderstood and like shit. I do. I still do! God!! When does this end? I KNOW I KNOW I KNOW it ends when I make a choice to end it, but I have been trying to do that and it isn't working! What now? Where do i go from here? What is my next step? I crave change and adventure and something more than this .... I want more and thus my discontent. Do I get a job? Do I not get a job? Do I continue studying? Do I do it part time and work part time? Do I study RE or Design and If I study Design how and when and where do I do this where I am not attempting to teach it to myself in the silence of this apartment day after day after day after day. I am 29 years old and I don't have a clue. I want to punch people sometimes for telling me how wise they think I am when I am so freaking Clueless. I want out of my life. I want to go back to Grade 3 and start again. Tonight I hate everything and everybody including Jordan and God and, mostly, myself.

I do not believe I am a victim. I know I am creating this hell and the gates are locked from the inside. I just don't know how to unlock them. Or maybe I know, in my head, but I can't seem to live it. Fuckityfuck. I AM SICK OF WAITING. I AM RUNNING OUT OF PATIENCE.

That is about all the fire my anger has tonight. For now.

"Anger as soon as fed is dead - 'Tis starving makes it fat."
Emily Dickinson

Fine, Em, Consider it fed.

HomeSick

Why homesick? Why now? I don't get it.

In talking out this present feeling, I think it may be because of a few reasons...

I am not specifically homesick for Moose Jaw, but for a slower, simplier way of living my life. Here I am, at home, immersed in this self-directed learning, living at a very slow pace right now and it feels like I am trying to stand still in the raging river of a city. I left Toronto in 2003 because the city was getting me down and here I am, living in another city. Ug.

I am mostly feeling lonely, isolated, not really homesick. Spending most of my time in the quiet and solitude of my apartment, I can reach a capacity for alone-time where my heart starts feeling like it will burst if I don't get a chance to connect to someone! This is also linked to my days not being terribly busy or involved, so my mind has much time to acknowledge the s p a c e .

In this feeling of lost-ness (is that a word?) my little Krista inside longs to go home. Home where my mom is and my familiar world and back to a town that is more sleepy than ambitious. I am glad to say that we have booked our tickets home for Christmas, but Lord that feels like a long way away.

Must make note of something else that I have been running into: visitors to my site that are saying to me "how and why do you choose to live all your initmate, personal feelings out in public?" It is freaking some people out. And I know that this says more about them than it does about me. I see so clearly that we believe as a people that to keep something sacred is to keep something secret. I suppose I am pushing the buttons of our tribe to question if the most sacred thing you can do is hurt and bleed and laugh and search and BE REAL in front of a world that is terrified of that exact thing.

I also wonder if it a worthiness button that is being pushed? Like a 'who-are-you-or-who-am-I-to-think-that-anybody-else-is-or-should-be-or-could-be-interested-in-the-inner-workings-of-my-most-personal-heart's-journey???? Evidence of this are the countless people that I talk to that say that they haven't submitted to my Konkin Question because they wouldn't have a good enough answer, or that nobody wants to hear what they have to say or their idea might not be as creative as everybody else's etc, etc, etc. It makes me infintily sad to know how many of us really don't think we are fabulous. How many of us think we need to be painters or sculptures or somethin' to be considered creative. It is a mirror for me as I then get a chance to see all the ways that I still don't measure up to my own standards of 'good enough'...

This was meant to be a site dedicated to learning, searching and finding our way...

and if your not pushing buttons, your just being Nice and Nice only ever taught us to wear masks.

Glad to see this site is working.

Quiet Room

The house is so quiet right now.

Jordan is gone out somewhere tonight. I have had a quiet day and now it looks like I am going to have a quiet night. Post-weekend, the world has seemed to get so much quieter, and I am not sure if I like it.

I mean, I DO like it. It is much more peaceful. But sometimes this life that I have chosen of being at home a lot alone, of studying by myself and such, it is very isolating. I have these friends that live in my building, but they are busy with their jobs and when they get home they mostly just want 'quiet' time, which is what I am looking to break out of. I wonder what I can do about being isolated? Join things, I know. But I think me and choir have come to a close and the classes I take are very few hours in a week. Maybe I need a pet. Maybe I need a baby.

Maybe I should knock on wood.

Can't think of a worse reason to have a child. Loneliness. Which brings me to the subject of Alex, my niece. She is failing out of Grade One because of this ADD thing they have labelled her with...and my brother's not happy and the whole household is barely hanging on by a string. My heart breaks when I consider her, alone, longing for the attention of someone, being so clingy that she drives everyone away from her...She is only a little girl!!! I wrestle with the guilt of not being there to rescue her somehow, be the love she needs, heal her heart. In a small moment of self-hate creeping back, I am disgusted at my self-centered FINDING ME shit when it means that I don't have any money or power to help someone other than myself.

Then I come back to my new life intention. Stop beating up on myself. Love me so that I can love her so that she can love herself and ultimately love everybody else. Hard to do.

Especially tongiht when the house is so quiet.

One Of Those Emails

A is for age:  29

B is for booze: I have consistently watched it ruin life after life after life. I choose to find my fun elsewhere. 

C is for career: Still figuring that one out

D is for dad's name: Wayne

E is for essential items to bring to a party:   Non-alcoholic drinks. No one ever has any good non-alcoholic drinks.

F is for favorite song at the moment: Waiting by Karen Drucker 

H is for hometown:  The Jaw

I is for instruments you play: Piano just well enough that i can accompany myself

J is for jam or jelly you like:  Strawberry

K is for kids: no, thank you.

L is for living arrangements:  One bedroom apartment in a three story that I share with my honey

M is for mom's name:  Helen Cecilia Joan

N is for name of your best friend:  Jennie Grado. Jordan Lewin who is both lover and best friend. My mom who is more bestest and more friend than any of the above.

O is for overnight hospital stays: Once. Tonsilectomy. Grade 4. 

P is for phobia[s]: Needles. 

Q is for quote you like: "I hate quotes. Tell me what you know." --Mark Twain

R is for relationship that lasted the longest: Just over three years with Aidan Simpson

S is for favourite childrens storybook: Anne of Green Gables

U is for unique trait:  My ability to ask even the most closed down people Konkin Questions...and having them answer me...

V is for vegetable you love:  garden peas...shell and all

W is for worst trait: Critical of myself and others

X is for x-rays you've had: ya, i'm a dancer so i have had about eleventy gillion

Y is for yummy food you make: My apple crumble fresh from the oven

Z is for zodiac sign: Gemini

Firsts

First job: Music Theatre Performer

First screen name: Krista May

First funeral: Some stranger from my babysitter's church

First piercing: ears age 5

First tattoo: none 

First credit card:  Visa

First kiss:  Mark Kalanuk

First enemy: My Dad

First favorite musician: Micheal Jackson

Last kiss: Jordan Lewin this morning in bed all squishy with sleep when we first woke up

Last movie watched:  Forest Gump

Last beverage drank:  Water

Last food consumed:  A Christmas Orange!

Last phone call: The CEO of Maverick Marketing

Last CD played: Ben Folds Five

Last website visited: inkstudios.ca

Single or Taken: so very very taken

Sex:  Last night

Birthday:  June 15/76

Siblings:  one bro 

Hair color: Blonde

Eye color: Blue

Shoe size: 7

Height: 5'5"

Right now what are you wearing: Jeans, an aqua tee and my bright, multicolored zip up sweater

Drinking: A cold ice tea on a hot day - nothing compares to this...

Wiping the Mirror Clean

You know when you wake up Monday morning and can't talk because you lost your voice releasing primal screams of fear and anger and saddness and exhaustion all weekend, that your last three days have been anything but normal.

My eyelids feel that sorta puffiness that occurs when you have cried and cried and cried.

Amidst the tears and screaming and healing, I found peace. Today the world feels different.

I almost lost my relationship this weekend. Jordan was going through another bought of doubt about (hey, i rhyme!) us. About his attraction for me, his ability to commit to us for the long haul, all of it. Being the third time we have faced this now, I knew that a scary leap was going to be needed from him in one direction or another. I knew I had to allow him to go if he needed to go. It was terrifying. I went to the workshop and screamed and cried and let go of my resistance. I reminded myself that If he left that did not need to mean that I am worthless. I breathed in the plans to go to Moose Jaw early and allow him space to move out...

But before I said goodbye I told him that I thought he should stay. I told him that he could go find a new partner and she could be lots more compatible in lots of ways, but there will always be something that would convince him that forever could never work, there would always be days and moments when he would look at this woman he loved and feel very little love or passion. I told him that what I have learned is that it is faith that brings you through those moments --- you know you feel it because at some point you have and you hang on believing that you will feel it again. You remember that distance created is always about stuff in yourself that needs healing and that you can find each other again, by loving yourself first. I told him that there have been times in my life that I have walked away because I was scared and hopeless and moments I have walked away in utter peace that I needed to go a different direction. I asked him - if you can walk away today and feel peace and see me with other men and be hardly affected...if you don't love me anymore, than I give you my blessing to go. But don't go if you are scared. I have done this and the regrets still haunt me. I said alot and listened alot and on the other end of these conversations...

He decided to stay. But not just stay. Stay in a deeper sense than ever before. To Love What Is and enjoy the fact that I make him happy, that We make him happy. He decided to love himself. And that, i believe, will make all the difference.

So, we booked tickets home today. And I did laundry. I will do my Real Estate homework and look forward to my Design class and when he gets home we'll meditate together and make some supper. Life is good and good and good and good.

I am wiping my mirror clean.

When Not Having An Answer Is The Answer

I am about to attend a weekend workshop called Free The Heart.

Now, for any of you that have read my blog for awhile and remember what happened when I went to Awakenings in January, you'll know without me needing to tell you that I can have resistance to being asked to feel and process all my stuff in front of other people. I am not sure what to expect tonight. I am not sure what I am even signing up for, but, this time, I am not as resistant. This time I promise to honour myself and whatever I choose moment after moment. If It is brilliant I will pat myself on the back for having the foresight to go and if it is a disaster I will pat myself on the back for even trying.

I must start committing to being kind to myself first and foremost.

Which is why I ask the following question...if your partner came to you and told you that they loved you, but did not see you as their life partner, did not see you as the one that they wanted to spend their life with --- would you be kinder to yourself by saying 'I deserve more than that. I deserve someone who clearly knows that I am their life choice' and then end the relationship or would you be better to yourself by not allowing their assesment of you to define how magnificent you are and, since you still desire the partnership, stay with them until they make the movement to leave?

Wish I could tell you that my question is merely hypothetical, but it isn't.

The hard part about answering hypothetical questions is the fact that you don't have much of the history or the feeling tone of the situation. It the above case, what you might not know is that this isn't the first time that this partner has stated their ambiguity toward the relationship. What you might also not know is how happy they have been in the Now, when not looking at the Big Picture. Each little detail adds more grey to an already difficult choice. You would think that one could simply choose whatever would bring them happiness, but even that isn't clear cut. Sometimes what hurts the most initially is simply the bandaid being ripped off -- once the wound is revealed it begins to heal and once it is healed you are happier than you ever were wearing a bandaid.

Or am I just making this more complicated than it needs to be?

Anyway, I am off to what may be a very large, altering weekend. Or a very fun, exciting weekend. Or a very dull, what-am-I-doing-here weekend. I am off to find out how to be kind to myself and to ask myself if I have the capacity to love and pour energy into someone who doesn't feel the same way back...

So here goes..

If I Had My Life To Live Over

If I had my life to live over
I'd like to make more mistakes next time.
I'd relax. I would limber up. I would be sillier
than I have been this trip. I would take fewer
things seriously. I would take more chances. I
would climb more mountains and swim more
rivers. I would eat more ice cream and less beans.
I would perhaps have more actual troubles, but
I'd have fewer imaginary ones.

You see, I'm one of those people who live sensibly
and sanely hour after hour, day after day. Oh,
I've had my moments, and if I had it to do over
again, I'd have more of them. In fact, I'd try to
have nothing else. Just moments, one after
another, instead of living so many years ahead
of each day. I've been one of those persons who
never goes anywhere without a themometer, a
hot water bottle, a raincoat and a parachute.
If I had to do it again, I would travel lighter
than I have.

If I had life to live over, I would start
barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way
later in the fall. I would go to more dances. I
would ride more merry-go-rounds, I would
pick more daisies.

--Nadine Stair, 85 years old, Louisville, Kentucky.

Avery Ann Mary

Welcome, dear heart...

May you always have the conviction to choose peace, the knowing to choose love and a belief in yourself that can conquer all the doubters out there.

I send you a lifetime of all-over-your-face watermelon and unexpected footrubs.

Love and Kisses and I will see you at Christmas!

Your Kinda-Auntie Krista

God, That's Great!

On this Thanksgiving, I am grateful for the following:

I am grateful for my arms and legs, for my toasty little apartment, for a building filling with community. I am grateful that I can wake up tomorrow and spend a whole day learning. I am grateful for wet leaves and candlelight.

I am grateful for every time my heart has been broken and for every experience of total dispair. I am grateful that my mother remains healthy and more positive every day. I am grateful for free samples that come in the mail.

I am grateful for my voice, my rhythm, my ability to tell a good story. I am grateful for the financial abundance that seems to be supporting my wild, zany life choices. I am grateful for this laptop and all the worlds I get to touch through it.

I am grateful for Doritos and naps and orgasms and Saskatchewan. I am grateful for a season filled with the smell of wood burning fires. I am grateful to myself for giving myself persmission to fall in love again. I am grateful that I can dance with my partner in the middle of public streets. I am grateful that not only CAN I do this, but I DO do this.

I am grateful for an ignited passion and interest in Design, for possibility, for my total health, for a land without hurricanes.

I am grateful for funny movies, Jo's new found love of the OC, HGTV and the privacy of our thoughts.

I am grateful for Emma and Alex and that I had a brother so smart and neurotic and such a good teacher. I am grateful for every Brady and Jane and Jamie and Candace that has challenged me to not feel left when it was their time to go...

I am grateful. This I am. For all of it, even the stuff that stinks.

I now commit to remembering this more often and more fully.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Falling To Joy

Pulling myself out of a deep, other-worldly sleep with a distinct need to blog.

Yesterday was a strange day for me. A day that pushed so many buttons all at once that my exhaustion at the end of it was far beyond physical. The day started with Jennie telling me that at some point she may need to spend so much time in Toronto for work Honeywell may rent her an apartment there...those buttons were abandonment, fear, anger. Then I went with Jo to a wedding he was hired to shoot. The wedding was very different...so laid back and casual that I kinda didn't know what to feel. The bride and groom and their buddies just hung out in the chapel until they pressed play on a ghetto blaster ... then they all sauntered to the back of the room to "walk down the aisle" and everybody present was in the wedding party. I was the only one left in the pews. It was so different. But the biggest buttons it pushed in me were about marriage. Suddenly, I had an overwhelming urge to be married. To stand in front of other people and commit to a life partnership. I watched Jo taking pictures and I felt overwhelming certainty followed by fear and then saddness.

Last night, I sang at our fundraising concert for CSL. My friends were in the audience, the place was packed and the music was inspirational. I enjoyed myself, but all the old theatre buttons were pushed. I was connected, yes, but I was also annoyed and jealous and self-depreciating. I am glad to have the concert over. On top of all this, I started a bit of a panic around going home for Christmas. The tickets are expensive, the weather dangerous to drive in and I want to take Jo home more than I can tell you. This triggered all levels of homesickness, lack consciousness, frustration that I went to Colorado so he "should" have to come to Saskatchewan...

Ya, yesterday was filled to the brim.

This morning I have what feels like an emotional hangover. The skies are grey, the apartment is quiet and today/tomorrow we celebrate Thanksgiving. I think I will dedicate today to contemplation and to

Loving What Is.

Oh, and maybe to taking a nap. You know,the important stuff.

Student Number

Ah, the student number. I have one now. I have quit my job and replaced it with a student number. This, my friends, is what I think I have been searching for the courage to do for a long time. This, my readers, Is why I now believe I have been so conflicted and resistant to working.

There is a season for everything. Right now, 'tis the season to learn.

I want to be a designer. A designer of many things, but mostly a Communication Designer. I want to be like my boyfriend. Oh god, is that wierd? I don't care. I love to help him with his projects, I love to learn the theory and see it applied and embody an energy of a person or company or message in color and visuals and word and movement and...well, like theatre. It is like still life theatre - except people pay you really well.

And I will keep taking my Real Estate course. Something tells me that RE may still play a part in my life and that getting this course under my belt would be a smart move. Not that it is an enjoyable thing to study being that is primarily Math and Law. But it feels good to stretch my brain in ways I haven't been asked to since high school. Yes, learning all these new things feels like stretching out after being locked in a tight litttle box for years. If feels goooooooood. So, learning it is. Classes at Emily Carr leading to potentially a full time degree program next fall (big decision, i know), Science of Mind classes start this Tuesday, my Real Estate course and different projects worked on with Jo which are probably by largest source of learning. Plus, there is my life coaching sessions which is basically learning about ME. Lots of learning. Learning, learning, learning.

Now, not completely sure where the income part comes in. I have enjoyed my Vancouver experience of having money to spend, not fretting over my account balance and a general feeling of abundance. I don't want to lose that. If I am not working a job job, then my income needs to come from something else. What else? Hmmmmmm. Still sitting with that one. I suppose I could just be in faith that all I am going to need will be supplied to me and that I will be taken care of by the universe. Follow your heart and the money will follow kind of thing...I am determined not to let money fears guide my choices. For now, I am safe, fed, and sheltered. We will stay in the Now.

Just as I typed the words "We will stay in the Now" the sun burst though our perpetual grey Vancouver sky. Interesting.

I'll take that as a Yes.

)(*#JHhnj98#*@#*[J

I am sooo avoiding doing my Real Estate homework.

Who am I kidding? I am avoiding doing any of my work. I resist my new job, I resist my chores, I resisted unemployment, I avoid dealing with all things unpleasant like our plugged toilet this morning, I find reasons not to have to leave my apartment...I feel like I am walking around having a three-year-old Krista temper tantrum inside my head all freaking day long.

WHAT. THE. #!*#. IS. UP. WITH. ME??

I hated being unemployed. But I don't want to be doing what I am doing right now. Not that it isn't the coolest job ever. Most people my age would LOVE an opportunity like this. Vancitylofts.com is the website of the people I now work with...I mean, I get that I should be grateful. I like Neal and Katie alot. I need work. Real Estate can be fun. But I just don't wanna. Why? What exactly do I wanna do? Well, design. Learn how anyway. Full time. But I can't not make money right now, right? I mean, I gotta eat??

((*99u3ij dnuc8&#YeyyiPIOPijwend

I am even having morbid, real dreams at night. In last night's dream, Jordan's mom decided to end her life, but wanted us all to be there when she ascended, so she arranged this funeral-thing where she lay in the coffin alive at first so she could experience the memorial part and then the coffin lid shut so that gas could be pumped into the coffin to put her to sleep. Forever. Half way through Caroline started to doubt the decision and Jordan went to her side, but by then it was too late and he just sorta climbed in beside her and held her as she died.

Ya. I know. I am telling ya. Something is up with me.

I am even resisting Somersizing and am back to eating whatever whenever. Jo is super bitchy these days, too, so together we are just a whiny, grumpy, snappy mess.

Tonight I changed my Finds list and added on an article about pursuing happiness. Basically it says that to be happy, you gotta stop pursuing happiness. You gotta want nothing. You gotta just sit back, breathe and let happiness come to you.

I resist that.

Tracie, my life coach, asked me at our last session, what I would look like if I was someone who unconditionally accepted whatever was in front of me. Like for most of her questions, I am drawing a blank. I got nothin'. My life would feel good to be in, I know this much. But how to get from here to there? This, I am not sure on.

So, I leave you with this quote from me...

"&*((*EHhiuhHIG98h*EUEY&76&*^%^*%(&yonpn."

I know, the wisdom is astounding.

Crushes and other such Phenomenon

This post is for any of my loyal readers that have been reading this for the last year.

Remember my Crush?? The one that i blogged and blogged about? The one who's journey you watched me go through as I obsessed and obsessed and finally confessed? It seems like a lifetime ago. So soon after I confessed my feelings to the Crush (and he had zero reaction if I do remember correctly) I met Jordan. Then I fell in love with Jordan. And then I pretty much all together had something new to obsess over. LOL.

Thing is, my Crush, Mr. Jamieson, has always remained mine and Jordan's swing teacher. So, it wasn't like the Crush went far far away or anything. And as life went on and things changed and I evolved and my relationship grew stronger, I had to wonder...do you ever really stop having a crush?

I think you do. I think you do stop crushing. Your mind is not totally occupied. You don't have trouble breathing when they are in the room. In fact, you can see them with their new somebody and be really happy for them. But I am not sure you ever stop being attracted to them. It is just the attraction doesn't CRUSH you. It is just a familiar note in the chord of life.

I am bringing this up, because last night, Kevin asked me to dance. Now, this seems pretty minor, but I think this may have been the first or second time we have ever danced together. It is unusual, trust me. And not only did we dance, but it was fun. We laughed and danced and I didn't care if I fucked up and he just sorta did what he does and it was amazing. At the end of it, I hugged him and thanked him and couldn't stop but wonder why the dance had happenned at all. Then I went over to talk to another mutual friend and I found out. Kevin is leaving Vancouver. He is moving to Toronto. Somehow I am sure that that has something to do with our dance.

So, another level of finality comes to this strange journey that I have been on (or not been on) with crush-boy. I felt sad to know he was leaving. I felt glad that we got a chance to dance before he left. Maybe in our dance we got to say alot of what we weren't gonna say otherwise. I was even amazingly glad that, after it all, I got to leave the dance holding hands with the sweetest one of them all. It has all been perfect, this journey. I know that. And yet, It leaves a bittersweet taste in my mouth.

Adios Kevin J. May Toronto bring you what it brought me so many years ago. A fresh perspective in an otherwise shrinking world. Thanks for being my teacher in more ways than one. I guess now I will just have to crush on Adam Brody from the OC...

seeing how I like younger men.