BedBug Saga No.137

For those who can't stand obscenities, please cover your ears.

!##**!!**!!Mother Fucker!!!***##!!!!**!!


I woke up this morning with a bite. It might have been two bites, but one for sure, on my neck. The first bite in so many nights. Right after I got cocky enough to go to Ikea and buy new rugs. A bite on my neck. And suddenly, the darkness descended.

I went to work, came home and with the help of mom -- ooooo, TWO Konkin women on a rampage is a formidable thing - flipped over my stupid, god-damned headboard and YOU KNOW WHAT I FOUND????? Two cracks that I hadn't realized were there and they were filled with, you guessed it, bedbugs. I saw red. There was fury. There was despair. There was me finally losing it and demanding that mom help me lift the entire freaking bedframe out to the back dumpster. Which we did. And then we washed everything we could find in bleach and then went and bought a brand new bed frame made of metal (they - meaning those little hateful bastard bedbugs - hate metal). I don't know?? Will it help?? It had better. BECAUSE THIS IS RIDICULOUS! I want my house back. I want my bed back. I want to fall asleep without looking like I am going out to build a snowman. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

And, you know, all I want is to have a soul mate who will wrap his wonderfully strong arms around me and tell me that it is going to be alright. I don't care if this is totally, absurdly ANTI-FEMINIST of me, I want it. But do I have it? Noooooooo. Nope. Not even kind of. What I have is bedbugs. Yup. That's right. It is INSANE that this is my life. Really, I almost feel like calling up Brent David or some other adorable male friend of mine and just striking a deal. "Look," I would say to them, "I need to be cuddled and held and protected in some regressive, pathetic knight-in-shining-armour kind of way. It doesn't have to be about love. Hell, you don't even have to LIKE me like me. Just think of it like casual sex without the sex. I am in need of some casual PARTNERING. Can you pllleeeeeaaassseeee just come over here and play the role of concerned and considerate boyfriend and let me rest my head on your chest for awhile and then take me back to your place and tuck me into a non-infested bed where I can safely cry myself to sleep while you do something really sensitive and new age like recite me poetry or stroke the hair off my face or some such thing? PLEASE. I beg of you. The next morning no one needs to know and we can pretend like it never happened. LET ME USE YOU. NOW." Maybe I could even try the barter system. One full night of being my pseudo-boyfriend for a month of laundry.

Un-freaking-believable.

Whatever. I know I don't need a male to tend to my BedBug TRAUMA. Sigh. It's just....oh...I dunno. At least my mom is here. Maybe I will just rig some sort of hammock outside on my patio. Maybe I will quit my brand new job and really, truly finally just MOVE TO DAWSON CITY and become a miner. The price of gold is good these days. I dunno. I have caulked, bleached, powdered, laundered, vacuumed, heated, inspected, fumigated, sealed and sanitized. I have healed a broken heart. I have gotten hired by people I hardly understand and I have been brave enough to volley the ball into a brand new court...even if it isn't being volleyed back.

I deserve this.

Give me back my bed Dear God or The Baby Jesus or The Ghost Of Kurt Cobain or WHATEVER OUT THERE IS HOLY AND TRUE.

Give me back my home.

Give
Me
Back
My
Life.

Go Goh

I got a job.

Boom. Just like that. I ended Ptarmigan on Friday and on Monday I was offered the position of Public Relations/Marketing Administrator at the Goh Ballet. The Goh is two blocks from my apartment and the pay is better than I expected. It is all happening very quickly. I am thrilled and blessed and overwhelmed.

It begins with a one month probation period to see if it is a fit. Hardest thing right now about the job is the language barrier as it is run by the Goh family who are all Chinese and speak very little English. There is alot to learn and can be very disheartening to not understand the answers to my questions. But I am breathing and being brave and just doing what I can do. I figure I have nothing to lose. If they fire me, they fire me. If they keep me, I take home a pay cheque. Annemarie seems to believe that I will eventually start to understand their very heavy accents. I hope so. Otherwise, everyone is very kind and being back in a dance studio is like rewinding back into my best childhood memories. So, we will see. We will see.

This means, of course, that I am not going home to Saskatchewan. I was looking forward to it and am disappointed to have to cancel my plans with Leanne and Darryl and to not see Lanita and Cory and Monica and Greg. Thing is, I booked the trip home when my heart was at its most broken. When I couldn't stand being in my apartment and in this city. I feel differently now, if not completely free of those wounds, and don't have the same urge to hide that I once did. In fact, with the crisp fall crackle in the air today, all I want to do Is celebrate that I haven't gotten bitten in a long time by bedbugs and nest, nest, nest. Vancouver is my home now. The decision to stay feels right.

With the desire to nest, comes my desire to partner. The boy that I have alluded to in many posts, but not fully written about, is still in my head and my heart and my inbox ... but is a very busy busy busy boy and is having a hard time being in my life. I can't help but wonder if that is the universe's way of telling me that I am not quite ready to manifest a new partner, interest, lover, WHATEVER you wanna call it. It sent me a wonderful boy to remind me that my heart CAN heal, but is keeping him just out of my reach to keep me focused on the rest of the healing I still have to do. That said, it could also just be the fact that I met a boy that works in the film industry and the film industry is a time whore that sucks the life blood from anyone and everyone that works within it. Hahahaha. Again, we will see. We will see.

Employed girl is now going shopping with visiting Mom. If there is one really nice thing about making an income, it is spending it.

Just for Laughs

Created a cheesy slide show thing for myspace...thought I would post it here too...

Get Your Own! | View Slideshow

Fun!

And, ohmygod, I just saw this last night and I laughed and laughed and laughed...



In a blog full of intense self-analysis, heart wrenching confessional blathering and some pretty serious soul searching, I figured it might be a good idea, today, to just CHILL OUT.

Happy loooking.

A Haven for My Hope

God, how do I leave this place? This place that saved my life? This place that wrapped its Island arms around me and held me as I shook and cried and vomited despair from every pore? How do I leave these people who are so much strangers and so much family? How do I get on the ferry tomorrow and know I won't have this place to escape to next week when real life and all the leaving and those damn ghosts bring me to my knees?

I hold on to a summer I will never get back. Why is it I am always being asked to let go? Why can't anything good just continue?

Against my chest I hold the sunset walks along rocky shores and overgrown fields. Inside my suitcase I pack the games of late night scrabble and that crazy barn dance. With such care, I handle the memories of those mornings that I clung to the sides of my bunk bed willing myself not to throw up as images of Him and Her sent waves of nausea through my body. Oh, those mornings that seemed impossible until I walked outside and sat on a dew drenched picnic table and inhaled the oxygen from the surrounding trees and allowed the a.m. sun to carry me. Protectively I hover over the Bible Boys and their wild pool jumping while I laughed in the hot tub. In a back room of my heart I store each day, evening and afternoon filled with the music making that reminded me of why I love to sing and why music is my surest path to God. Beneath a blanket of joy sits every moment spent with my trio, voice soaring, my heart healing. I tuck into my pocket the office... the 1 a.m. viewings of Greys Anatomy with my feet roasting on the baseboard heater and a basket of walnuts in my lap, my desk, the mess, the dog. On my sleeve I wear every first that I've had and every day that I healed and every friend that I made. Like a cloak, I wrap around me each hot shower I took, that lasted as long as I needed, to cry and cry and cry. Oh, the brilliance of emerging out of that steamy bathroom late at night, tears spent, left only to sit on the chapel steps and pray for Something Bigger Than Me to help me get through it. Within my soul rests the stars I wished upon, the cricket chorus, the bonfires that made this a magical summer.

How do I leave the place that gave me the strength to move on?

It was here that I discovered what I love to do again. It was here that I remembered why I am strong. It was here that I found a part of me that had gotten so lost. It was here that I woke up and saw that it was HIS loss, silly boy. It was here that I began a dialogue with a maker of poetry so true that I forgot to feel alone. It was here that I befriended, again, Spirit. It was here that I left behind my twenties. It was here that I concluded that walking away from Real Estate was the right thing to do. It was here that welcomed me, heart broken, and is sending me away, heart full.

To say I will miss it would be to diminish how this place has changed me.

So I say thank you, sweet Island, for I am changed.

Thank you, sweet summer, for now I'm whole.

Quickly

I am speed-blogging as I speed outta here and get ready for what will be the Final Supper with Ptarmigan and Haven of Hope staff. A couple of things on my mind that I wanna get out there so that I don't have to carry them with me to dinner...

I have reread my previous blog and want to say that It was written with much emotion and is not addressed to any one person...mostly, it was a reaction to having the softest most vulnerable place in my heart touched by having to say goodbye to Jennie. You see, when it comes to men leaving, like Jordan, I hurt, but I guess I am not as knocked over backwards by it. When my best friend who has always made me feel so unconditionally loved is packing to move across the country, it hurts on a whole different level. Jen and I have talked about it and we both agree that I have to look closely as to why I attribute her leaving Vancouver with her leaving me. I can only make excuses and say that it is me in overload - Jennie leaving so soon after Jordan leaving - that is causing me to have such erratic and intense saddness and anger and panic. I gotta look at all these things...which is why I blog because it puts my neuroses out on the table for observation...and forces me to heal my own shit. I know that I need to...I am aware.

Ultimately, I love Jennie and wish her all the best. I love Jordan and wish him all the best. I love the bandages on my feet and everything that they stand for and the person they were born for and I love each and every one of the people I say goodbye to tonight. I hate being vulnerable and still find myself in attack-mode when I end up there...but it is because I love and love so much and love so deeply. To love is to sometimes hurt. I am learning. I am graceless sometimes in my rough, raw ways. But if any and all of you could ever know just how much I love you...

Ah, so many other things to tell you...a job interview that might turn into an offer that might keep me from going to Saskatchewan...my mom and I being let into the sweetest little cottage in the woods for the last few days here on the island...having the WHOLE GANG together again in #206 and how blessed I felt...the anonymous letter I got from a guy in Calgary about this blog (so cool to think unknown people read these words!)...my monkey mind as I head into the last day of the greatest job and wildest summer of my life...

But in the spirit of speed blogging, I say adieu...

And say it as quickly as possible.

Care, They Ask

Do not ask this of me. Do not ask me to care so that you can be in your power as you pack mine into a small suitcase and catch the first plane out. Do not disappear and then use your weakness as an excuse or your strength as a justification. Do not pull me out of my protective covering so that you can step inside your own armour and watch, fascinated, as I disintegrate.

Do not give me reason to believe and then pull the proverbial rug out from beneath my feet. Do not kick me while I'm down and then rush to hold me as I ache and then stand up and kick me again. Or If you must then do not question me when I flinch in your presence. Do not question me when I kick back. Do not question me when I stop caring altogether.

I am just one girl. I seem confident, energized, clear and strong. But I am just one girl and underneath what seems to be true is the truth. I am scared, confused, self-hating and weak. Do not rough me up because you think I can take it. Do not put me last on the list of people to consider because you think it won't affect me. Do not convince yourself that I am above hurting. I am just one girl. I hurt. I hurt so much. Do not forget that.

So do not talk to me today if you're too busy to talk to me tomorrow. Do not ask to share my home if you are sure to steal my life. Do not tell me that I am everything to you as you rip the packing tape with your teeth. Do not ask me to bare my soul when all you plan to do is set it on fire.

Do not make me wait just because I will. Do not make me love you just because I would. Do not throw your hands up in defeat and then blame it on your own self-worth issues. Do not pretend that you wouldn't fight harder for something that mattered enough.

Do not talk to me unless you are here to give me back my heart. Do not talk to me unless you have changed your mind. Do not talk to me only when it's convenient for you. No means no.

I am treading water now in the oceans of pain that a short time ago drown me. Head above water yes. But just barely. Do not fool yourself into thinking that I am leisurely doing the backstroke. Do not fool yourself into thinking that I have the strength to save anybody else. Do not fool yourself into thinking that I am doing the front crawl to safety. And please, do not dangle a life jacket over my head if you don't intend on dropping it.

Do not act surprised when in the morning I have nothing left to say to you. Do not write about how I have done you wrong. Do not forget that I am here and always have been. Do not love me while you leave me, do not like me if you can't show up and do not miss me when I am right in front of you, heart in hand, willing.

I am just one girl.
So, please, don't.

Chalking It Up

I had a bad day yesterday.

It started out okay, but by about 3 o'clock on it just took a downward spiral. You know those days. Bad news begets bad news begets .... yadda yadda. The interesting thing was that Sunday had been the highlight day of the week, the day I was looking forward to for a few reasons. None of which occurred.

Here are some samples of my Sunday...finding more bedbugs hiding in my bed after almost being convinced that I was getting rid of the bastards for good, getting an email from HTSNBN full of polite, neutral words that reminded me that I am missed as FRIEND, but not even kind of as PARTNER, my final notice that I owe EI over $500 of money they apparantly overpayed me back in 2005, discovering that a job I applied for has not only not called me to offer me the job, but the guy doing the hiring (who I met through friends) did in fact take my advice as to where he could post the job to maximize his response which means I helped someone figure out how to hire someone other than myself AND plans I had Sunday were postponed and postponed and finally just didn't happen leaving me dressed up and asleep on the couch, remote in hand, a bad rerun of King of Queens blaring in the background.

Unbelievable.

Ah well. I guess If I was to put a positive spin on the above I could say that despite finding the BBs I haven't been bitten in many nights which has got to be a good sign, a polite email from an ex is better than an evil, stalker-ish email from an ex, the overpayment notice may be able to just be garnished off my furutre income tax returns hopefully, good karma will be mine for helping this guy find the employee(s) he is looking for and the person who postponed/cancelled our plans does feel awful about it.

Life is about positive spin. Perspective. Even Brent David has decided that the new black eye has added to his Bad Boy rocker image and he hopes that, at the very least, he will be left with a sexy, mysterious scar over his right eyebrow. See, perspective.

Wayne Dyer is always reminding me that when life doesn't seem to unfold the way you had planned that there are usually even bigger plans unfolding that you haven't been able to step back far enough from to truly appreciate.

Ok, Wayne, stepping back. Stepping back and chalking it up to a bad day...

...with the potential for greatness.

A Random Act of Violence

On Friday night, around 2am, my dearest ex-boyfriend-turned-darling-friend was jumped by a group of six guys as he was walking home on Clark after rehearsal. It started with one of them turning around and asking the classic "What the fuck are you lookin' at?" Brent David attempted to ignore the guys and keep on walking, minding his own business. This of course infuriated them even more and before he knew it, the biggest of the six flew at him and within seconds BD was unconscious on the sidewalk. The eye witnesses, two young women who had been across the street and were ultimately responsible for calling 911, told the police that even after they had knocked him unconscious, they continue to beat him up for several more minutes. They stole nothing. When they got bored they left. After the girls called the ambulence BD was taken to VGH. He remembers none of it.

As I was driving off the ferry yesterday, I collected my messages. The only message I had was from Brent David calling me from the VGH later that night/morning, wondering if I was in town to come and pick him up. I, of course, was not around having been on Pender over night. The message made me sick to my stomache. It occurred to me suddenly how many times I have failed to be there to help friends in crisis. But I was also sick because, like so many things in this world, it made no sense.

I am about to go and pick Brent David up and spend some time with him on the beach. He says he looks pretty awful. I don't care. I am flooded with questions about violence and forgiveness and mob mentality. I am flooded with memories of the countless times I have been asked that same question "what the fuck are you lookin' at?" as I walked down dark streets late at night. I am flooded with images of all the ways those moments could have turned into nightmares. I am flooded with saddness for a group of men, so lost and so angry, that they would randomly beat someone up as sport. I am flooded with questions about fighting in sports and men that hit women and how someone like Brent David heals from this incident without become another one of our fear-filled society.

I send out a protective layer of energy to all those I love. Stay safe. Heal anger, your own and others. Address saddness before it becomes bitter. Know the Truth.

Namaste.

After The Concert

On Pender: I am typing this as Caitlin sleeps in a bunk bed beside me and the space heater whirs steadily, trying to keep us warm against these August evenings on the ocean. We have performed tonight, snapping and singing, being terribly cute and funny, lugging gear and hunting for food. The evening even ended with Jaime, Pat, Caitlin and I smuggling champagne down to the dock and having a nightcap under the stars. Well, I didn't have any, but I observed them and the stars and had a couple of laughs. Tomorrow morning, early, we are getting on the ferry, picking up Carman in Vancouver and road tripping all the way to Kelowna. The nights might be getting colder, but summer isn't yet done and there are adventures still to be had.

Note: seems my Konkin Questions page isn't allowing the submissions to go through...some sort of database error. This means I either need to contact Jo and see if he knows how to fix it or hire someone else to untie the SQL knot. It is humbling when something like this happens (or something like bumping into him on Saturday night at the swing dance) and I realize how dependant/tied to/emeshed I STILL am with my ex-boyfriend. I wonder if there will ever be a day when I can think about him leaving and not feel hurt. I wonder if I will ever be okay with having him look at me like I am a genderless neuter. On good days, I believe this time will come. On worse days, I am sure it won't. Right now, I just wish I knew more about PHP and My SQL so that I didn't have to find out.

My Current Challenge: Trying to keep from blogging about this kind of new and wonderful thing I am experiencing and feeling. The whole freaking Controversail Post about HTSHNBN and TWHWTRMW has got me all paranoid and I am finding myself editing. Which sucks. But I guess it is also because when something is so new, I hesitate out of doubt. Kinda like women finding out they are pregnant and waiting until the 2nd trimester before announcing it. When you have had a metaphorical miscarriage like the one I've had this year, you don't want to count your chickens before they've hatched. All this to simply say that I am falling asleep with smiles in my heart and I can't wait to share the why with y'all. But not quite yet. Sigh.

Help: Everyone send me good employment energy. Remind me that the perfect source of income is already unfolding, even as I type this. Be it more Ptarmigan or something all together different, I ask for your consciousness in this.

Things To Do Before I Die (stolen idea from kdh): trip to broadway, write a book, build my magic cottage, have my last first kiss, run my own business, swim naked in Kawaii, forgive him, love What Is simply and unconditionally.

Things To Do Before My Battery Dies: end this post.

5 More Days 'Til Unemployment

Ok. I am kinda freaking out.

Not full scale freaking out, but just tiny little waves of freaking out. I have five more days of this job. This wonderful, wonderful job. And then...

This is what everyone keeps asking me. What are you doing in the fall? And I skip around the answer because the truth is I wish I could keep doing exactly what I am doing, but I can't and so I am back to square one. Right? I mean, aren't I? Or is there a way that I can keep doing what I am doing? Find Ptarmigan some grant money to keep me employed I suppose. Something. Because I will tell you this much, people, I do not, can not go back to my life pre-ptarmigan. Day after day stuck in my apartment trying to figure out who I am and what I want since leaving theatre behind. Nope. No freaking way. I will move before I let that happen.

This is it: I don't want to move. I hate the bedbugs, yes. But I love BC. I love Vancouver. I love my 404 Gang. Sure, this city holds painful memories of HTSNBN, but, seeing that I gave him free reign of my heart, I don't want to give him my city, too. I want to stay. I want to stay and be employed in a creative industry and watch as my Girlz figure out their futures and keep writing controversials blogs and find someone who I can share my perfectly healthy, balanced and joyful life with. It feels like I am asking for a miracle. Which is fine. I am cool with asking for a miracle. I have cried rivers of tears and picked myself off the ground of a suddenly half empty apartment and summoned strength from I-don't-know-where to get out of bed and not give up and now I want a miracle.

And for those of you who have asked in reaction to my previous post - no, I do not have a boyfriend. Gee...already?? From heart broken to totally in love and set for life in one weekend - now that would be a miracle. ( In fact, that could be the title for a very successful workshop. ) I am smiling alot lately, though. And I do have a lot of blisters on my feet. But that is all I am saying on that. For now.

So my plan right now. Concert on Friday night. Kelowna on Saturday to see an overpriced production of Cats and support a friend. Sunday and Monday - combat bedbugs (only one bite all last weekend!), hug Caitlin lots because she was robbed (404 not always a grand place to live) and hopefully spend more time smiling and getting blisters (sans the blisters). Tuesday Mom comes to be with me and Jennie has her going away party. Still can't believe she is choosing Toronto over Vancouver. Sheesh. Then, my last week of work, tears shed and many panicked resumes sent out. Theoretically, mom and I will leave Sept. 3rd for Saskatchewan - unless a brilliant job falls in my lap - and I will be gone for most of the month. Project Healing Through Avoidance. Then back in October. Unless something brings me back sooner. Or unless there is no reason to return at all.

I ask myself again - probably for the millionth time on this blog - why I didn't just marry some dude from Moose Jaw, move a block away from Mom, become a dental hygenist and look forward to BBQs on Sunday as the highlight of my life.

Oh right, because I wanted to be a tapdancing, fishnet wearing star.

That and I can't stand Pilsner.

My Feet

I stare down at my feet
and the thirty plus bandaids
holding them together
and I think about hope
and I think about healing
and I think about the million and one
things that were said
      that were not said
and the cobwebs
and the barn
and Matthew and the knife
and faith hill on the phone
and conflict in empty hallways
and the broken vibrator
and ohgod the need to pee

I stare down at my feet
and the thirty plus bandaids
holding them together
and I think about safety
and I think about certainty
and I think about the million and one
things that were done
      that were not done
      that were undone
and the wasp dinner guests
and the Oliver Stone boxset
and Ryan and the tent
and the bowl of oranges
and fooseball table furniture
and the bisexual roommate
and a melted chocolate bar in my purse

I stare down at my feeet
and the the thirty plus bandaids
holding them together
and I think about timing
and I think about patience

and I can not bend my knee

and I think about running
and I think about falling

and every single muscle aches

and I think about you
and I think about me

and I stare down at my feet
and I can not help myself
and I stare down at my feet

and I smile.

-- KJ Konkin, August 14th, 2006

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If They Stood There in the Rain

You ask yourself this question:

If that person - that person that drove away with your heart smeared on their front bumper - if that person showed up tonight on your doorstep in the pouring rain, weeping, and begged for you back -

would you take them?

Would you suddenly forget about every hideously cruel thing they did to you and fold them back into your arms and hungrily crush their lips to yours and fall back into that cherished rhythm, familiar and safe? Would all the new attractions and interests become obsolete the very second that they said 'I was wrong'. Are you truly over them or are you just moving on because it hurts too much to be left in the dust?

Or would the desire to have them back end the moment they decided they did want to come home? Or is it that you are further along than you think and, even if they did weep on your doorstep in the rain, giving you your forever, going back just wouldn't feel right?

And if you did take them back, given that they showed up on your doorstep in the pouring rain, could you, would you ever totally trust them again? Knowing how easily they walked away once, would you not watch them forever more for fear that if you looked away for a second they'd be gone?

You ask yourself this question because

before you wrap yourself in someone new you need to know what you would do if that person -

the one who can suck the breath from your body by simply sitting two feet away -

if that person showed up on your doorstep in the pouring rain, weeping,

finally clear and finally ready.

I Am That I Am

I am hungry. I am hungry and I am cold and I am unable to motivate myself to do anything about it.
I am angry. I am pissed off that my heart was broken by someone I trusted. I am so angry.
I am tired. I am kept awake at night with racing thoughts and race around during the day trying to bury them.
I am confused. I am confused about everything and it seems everyday I just get more confused about everything.
I am curious. I am curious how one simple blog brought a human sitting at Main and 49th into my life.
I am aching. I haven't had sex for months and months and months. Screw sex, I haven't been TOUCHED in months. I ache.
I am slow. Slow at letting go, slow at healing, slow at forgiving, slow at moving on. Or maybe it is just that I am lazy.
I am worried. I am worried that my life, post-ptarmigan, might slip back into its void of job hunting and frustration. Oh God.
I am thankful. Thankful for my Girlz, the 404 Gang, this job, my health, the sun, my tan. I am so thankful.
I am excited. I am excited for the day when I wake up and I no longer care who he loves, where he is, what he is feeling.
I am waiting. Waiting so patiently. Waiting to be kissed again, hand on the back of my head, with certainty. Hmmmmm.
I am sad. I don't show it as much these days. Sometimes I figure everyone's had their quota filled of my saddness. But I am.
I am pathetic. Pathetic how excited I get when there is new mail from The One I Have Plans with On Sunday. Am I in Grade 5 again?
I am trying. I am trying. I really am. I don't always get it right. Sometimes I fully screw up. But I am trying.
I am scared. Scared to love again like I did because I really don't know if I could ever survive once more this kind of pain. Seriously.
I am interested. I am interested to see what comes next. Becauase I don't have a clue.
I am happy. Or at least I have more and more happy moments. That's a start.
I am hurt. Hurt that she decided to leave me right after he left me. Like dominos. Hurt that I was not enough for them to stay.
I am female. I am female and I am convinced that that means having casual sex for only physical pleasure, with no strings attached is impossible.
I am hopeful. Hope is a loaded gun, I know. But better than sleeping pills.
I am controversial. I say out loud what others keep to themselves. I admit to jealousy, to lust, to rage. I am controversial.
I am human.
I am spirit.
I am both.

OK,
I am done.

Some Like It Safe (AKA Two Tight Paragraphs on Kittens)

(Prologue Note To Reader: Good God, this post was an attempt to write about something safe and non-controversial. A total failure. Maybe I just don't have it in me?)

Kittens are very cute and cuddly. I have always liked kittens. When I was a little girl, I rescued a sick kitten at my Grandma's farm in Saskatchewan. It was broken and bruised and I called it Tipsy Topsy Turvy because of the way it couldn't quite walk. Every day I brought it food to the shed and made it a bed in an old doll carriage. My mom even helped me learn how to clean her eyes which were both infected. Everyone in my family thought I was crazy for falling in love with something that was so clearly doomed. But I did, fiercly. Holding her close to my chest, I sang to her and fed her milk with an eye-dropper because she was so small. Someone told me that she was the 'runt' of the litter and that her mother had abandoned her because of it. I had never heard of anything so awful and I swore I would never leave her alone. I spent day after day after day in that shed, only appearing when TTT became strong enough to be brought into the living room of the main house.

Then, one morning, I woke up and couldn't find Tipsy Topsy Turvy anywhere. She wasn't in her bed in the living room, she wasn't it the shed and she wasn't under the couch where she would sometimes go when she got scared. My aunts and uncles had not seen her and my 8 year old self became panicked. I looked everywhere. At some point, I think I knew in my gut something awful had happened while I was in bed the night before. That is when my mother found me or I found my mother, I don't remember which. My mother sat me down and explained that my Grandma had killed Tipsy Topsy Turvy very early that morning because the kitten was just too ill to survive. My mother tried to explain to me that my Grandma was a farm woman who had a certain bitterness about cats due to their rampant reproduction and over-population on the farm. She tried to explain that my Grandma just wasn't the kind of woman who saw the point in keeping alive another cat, let alone a very sick and very weak one. I was to even learn that day that one of the methods that my Grandma used to kill litters of kittens on the farm was to drop them into a rain barrell full to the brim and let them drown. I am not sure if that is how she did away with Tipsy Topsy Turvy. I am not sure I was told. All I knew was that I had allowed my kitten to die.

I cried. I raged. I was confused at the cruelty. I was confused at the heartlessness. I felt so different from my family. I learned that to have a heart was to have it break. I learned I was weak for caring about that which was labeled 'doomed'. For the rest of the trip I walked around the farm house like a lost soul instead of an 8 year old. Jesus, what a horrible memory.

As an adult, I don't much like cats. They shed fur and ruin furniture.

Don't Worry, It's Fiction

It was just that kind of night, ya know? The kind of night where anything seemed possible - including actions without consequences. And it was him and you know how we are with each other. We were weak and we were desperate and we were silly. Mostly, we were dizzy from years of holding our breath.

So, there we were, on that night, giddy with our weakness and I made the mistake of thinking I could allow him to trace the palm of my hand with his index finger. We sat there for much too long watching his finger on my hand, not able to exhale. When I finally looked up, he caught my eyes and pleaded silently for me to not overthink this moment away. He looked sad and determined and I knew I shouldn't kiss him, so I pulled away my hand. But I was shaking and he knew that I would not go and that is when he layed me down and wrapped himself behind me. I tried to ignore his breath on the back of my neck. I tried to ignore the hearts that would be broken if they were to walk in the door right then. I tried to ignore the good girl in me that always plays by the rules. I tried and tried and then, finally, I turned to face him.

"What are we doing?" I asked him, placing my hand in middle of his chest, keeping him at arms length.

"Absolutely nothing." he answered and raised himself above me. "I promise."

And then there is a blur in my memory. I only remember that we invented a thousand ways to touch without touching. We didn't kiss, but he brushed his lips against the inside of my wrist and made a noise in his throat that sounded like anguish and I decided I could overthink this thing later and placed both my hands on either side of his face. I looked at him and knew full well what I was choosing and there was no black and white, just the grey of so much want and so much history and so much breath held.

Part of me wonders if we didn't both go a little mad that night. Or maybe that is just what it feels like to be a control freak not in control.

At ten to six in the morning, when we could no longer justify laying in each other's arms, he walked me to my car. The night air felt heavy with all my guilt. He opened the driver's door and stared at me, daring me to love him. But girls like me don't love men like him and I shoved my desire into the glovebox and tried to make light of the situation. Back in control, back in the driver's seat, I made plans to have dinner with him and his partner later that week. The pain on his face was fierce, but I tried to ignore it. On my way home, I noticed that I smelled like him and ran a red light.

I seldom think about that night, which is to say, I think about it often. I try to reget it, but can't seem to bring myself to. Sometimes these things are not so much secrets as they are just unexplainable stories. Sometimes these things are not so much stories as they are a whole lot of truth wrapped in a little bit of fiction...

with a dash of denial on the side.

For My Cousin Leanne

To have a faith so deep that, despite the tripping and falling and the one hundred reasons to become bitter, you awake each morning and still believe - that is a miracle. That kind of faith is a blessing in our cynical age and that kind of faith will lead you to a life filled with moments magestic.

It is a faith in Love, you have. A faith that in every new soul with which you collide there waits an angel. Some might call you naive or too trusting or a sucker for punishment. I say you are lucky. With every new beginning you taste the possibility and see a future when so many people would be already be writing the ending. Those same people, though, secretly spend their nights staring at the beige, stucco ceilings above their beds and long to be swept away. Oh, have no doubt. We all want to know magic. But, you, my sweet cousin, still believe in the Santa Claus that we all killed so long ago.

There is only Now. Enjoy it. Surrender to what you are feeling and swim inside of what he is feeling and let the melody write itself. It will last as long as it will last. If it does not you are not a fool for believing it could. Believing it could, believing it can...it is the only real way to live. And at the end of your life you are left holding a glass jar of moments and magic, you are left holding more than most of us even dared to see.

You could also be left at the end of your life holding the hand of an angel believed in and us, new followers of a faith in Love that would not buckle under the strain of our cynical age. The outcome is not the goal. Many cross the finish line and feel empty. The goal is to sweep the soft hair off his sholder and believe once again. He will either rise to the challenge of so much sweetness or, like so many before, fade back and away. I can not promise there won't be tears. But you are not the type to close your eyes when there are stars for the fear they may blind you. There is only Now. The others that have hurt you no longer exist. There is only this. Open up your eyes and catch the one that falls.

If not for a faith in Love, then I ask, why else are we here?

My Afternoon at GF Strong

Yesterday I promised myself that I would go see my buddy Dan who is currently at the Vancouver General Hospital's Rehab Clinic - GF Strong. He is recovering from GBS Syndrome, a neuroskeletalmuscular disease that took over his body all of a sudden one day a few months ago. With no warning signs, with no obvious cause, Dan just fell down one day when he started sprinting for the bus he was going to miss. He just fell down. It feels so random to me. I am sure it feels random to Dan, too.

Anyway, I was nervous and even though I am the daughter of a nurse, I really don't like hospitals. I wasn't sure what state I would find Dan in, but I went. Dan The Swing Out Man. One of my favorite Lindy partners in Vancouver. I had to see him. And I saw him. It was still Dan - much skinnier and in a wheelchair - but it was Dan's spirit, Dan's smile, Dan's way of looking at the world. We sat, we caught up, he showed me around GF Strong. It was good. I told him about my rock climbing experience the day before. I felt proud to know that, in honour of what is happening to Dan, I pushed myself to climb that rock face. It became very obvious to me, as I walked around that hospital filled with wheelchairs, that the only difference between the people in there and myself, was one bad day. We are all one bad left turn in heavy traffic or one bad extreme sport mishap or one bad fall while we run for a bus - one bad day away from GF Strong. It became very obvious to me that if we, who are healthy and strong, allow fear to stop us from enjoying every inch of our bodies capabilities, then we insult our good fortune. We ignore our blessing.

Another moment stuck out there. I had just gotten into the elevator when two guys my age-ish entered the elevator with me, both in wheelchairs. I immediately deducted that these guys were athletes - I mean the wheelchairs didn't change the Jock Energy that exuded them - and I couldn't help but notice that these guys were hot. 'Hot' is such a juvenille word, I know, but that word fit these guys...cocky, young, snowboarder types. So, they get in the elevator with me and I can tell that they are doing the young, cocky guy thing by checking me out -- and, suddenly, I wanted to burst into tears. Which was disgusting because I am pretty sure pity was the last last last thing they would want from anybody. And I am not even sure if it was pity I was feeling or just the overwhelm of my own discomfort or my anger at not understanding WHY these things happen or my saddness that when I walked out of GF Strong later that day I would have no one to go home to, to hold and to protect.

It was a loaded hour for me and by the time I got to my car I didn't know WHAT I was feeling.

This morning, I sorta just want to go home, curl up in my mother's lap and have her stroke my hair and make it all seem less cruel. This morning I want to regress. Being an adult is all together too hard.

Dan,

if you are reading this, and I think you are...you are an inspiration. You have taken what life has handed you and, instead of falling into worlds of despair and questioning, you are simply doing what has to be done. You are getter better, you are getting stronger and you are going to beat this thing. In a year or so, we are going to Lindyhop again and maybe even go to Squamish and climb some rock. I love you and it is by no accident that you are in my life.

Oh, and brick red is a great color to paint your kitchen.:)

To read more about Dan's journey battling GBS visit his blog Lead With Your Body.

In Awe

Rumi said - sell your cleverness and purchase bewilderment.

Ok, then, Rumi. I am bewildered.

Sitting on the beach with Raphsody in Blue filling my mind, these fireworks filling a dark space in me where innocence used to live. Feeling sorry for everybody who doesn't live here, anybody who would choose to leave. Peacefully, a city walked hand in hand home. Knowing that the one that broke my heart was walking, too, somewhere other than beside me that night. Knowing that another someone is filling my thoughts. The uncertainty in an instant becoming magical.

An email, a poem, a red warning that reads New Message and I catch my breath. Perfect summer sounds in through my window and creates a melody and it heals me, but, no, it has no title. Not yet. Not yet. But this sad heart does not care for it has waited for its chance to say goodbye to The Fool and hello again. Hello and Hello and...

A rock face and a girl and a lifetime of stories of how she is and what she can and can not do. Determined hands jammed in sharps cracks, she climbs in her anger to the first ledge (ihateyouforleavingihateyouforleavingihateyouforleaving) and sways in fear at how far up she already is. Pinned back against a right angle and her left leg doing an 'Elvis' she pushes up into less anger and into pride (ohmygodicandothisohmygodicandothisohmygodicandothis) and before long she is looking down at that which she has left behind. It seems so small. To the top she carries on and now there is only silent concentration. Everyone will be shocked that someone like her could accomplish something like this...but that no longer matters because bruised thumb and bleeding knee, she knows now that he was wrong.

A movie with a phone booth and the choice to stay instead of leave. A movie with that awful airport ending where we once again celebrate the leaving instead of the staying. Summer days and summer nights and a slow dance on a computer screen. Watching from afar, eyes wide, you're a child again and you free fall. Wait for me are the only words whispered and so you burn the memory of those fireworks into your palm and the cool rock into the sole of your shoe and you wait.

Of course you will wait.

That's all that can be done.

A Day of Healing

I have had a happy day today.

Two highlights of my day so far: I started Wayne Dyers new book Inspiration - Your Ultimate Calling and like always when reading Mr. Dyer, I instantly feel like I have it in me to be a kinder more connected Krista. That is always a good thing. Second, I just got home from a matinee of An Incovenient Truth. Determined to see that movie, Shell agreed to attend it with me so that I didn't have to go it alone, which I was fully willing to do. We walked there, discovered little urban gems along the way, breathed and sighed and shook our heads and shed tears a little through the movie and walked home arm in arm only to stop for some coconut gelato. It was a profoundly moving cinematic experience and a delicious afternoon. Yum.

Actually, another highlight: spending two hours on a coffee house patio laughing my ass of with The Girlz. We made fun of ourselves and the fact that we are all in our 30's now with no real career labels attached to us, no husbands, no babies, no real estate and not a whole lot of 5 year plans in place to make any of those things happen. We used humour to heal the parts of our hearts that hurt when we wonder if we there is something wrong with us or if we are running out of time or what exactly it is that we are trying to achieve. We laughed because we have no answers and because we have each other and because sometimes you laugh instead of cry. I love those women more than they can know.

Interesting to note how happiness feels like a kind of excersise that my heart muscle isn't used to...sitting here I almost feel like my insides are sore from the joy. Perhaps it is like biking...if you are consistently biking you become conditioned, but if you bike a long hard ride after months of being inert, your body reacts like it has just been taken through some foreign terrain. I am unaclimatized to feeling happy! How's them apples?

So I am alone. So I am kinda terrified to date. So my job ends at the end of this month. So I am not completely clear what I want to do every single day for the rest of my life. So I don't own real estate. So I don't have the perfect husband carrying around my perfect baby in one of those perfect baby-carrier-papoose thingys. So what??!

I have the sun in the morning and the moon at night.

The second season of Grey's Anatomy to watch instead of dating.

Two more paycheques.

A big, central one bedroom with incredibly low rent.

The freedom to sleep in.

A building full of The Girlz.

And potential. Lots and lots of potential.

Today is a happy day.