“Find out who you are and do it on purpose.” – Dolly Parton
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February 20, 2012, 2:35 am in quotes
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“We celebrate the death of a crack addict because she could sing. This isn’t to persecute Whitney Houston. It’s to persecute us for persecuting all the other crack addicts who can’t sing. Think things through.” — Urban Samurai February 18, 2012, 1:22 am in public
I’ve been approached to perform for this event in support of Planned Parenthood, and while I am unsure whether I can get back in the air in time for this after recovering from recent health issues, I want to show my support for the project regardless. PINK CARPET PROJECT: $25 Standing // To purchase tickets please visit: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/225926 February 13, 2012, 4:47 pm in updates
That was the best half hour I’ve spent on Vita in a long time. This is going to be fucking awesome. February 9, 2012, 2:05 am in updates
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Is there anyone out there with whom you can’t imagine life if it didn’t include knowing they were living it? Have you told them? February 3, 2012, 7:03 pm in quotes
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“My abusive and shitty past ultimately helped me develop any faith in humanity at all. If I stayed a good person with all the shit I went through, there’s probably a seed of it to water in most everyone.” – Courtnee Papastathis January 17, 2012, 6:10 pm in public
This video has been circulating a lot lately, a few times from me as well, and every time I see it I get another boost of the rage I feel when I see this excessive shit being pumped into our friends, our lovers, our roommates, our sons, our daughters, ourselves. This is why I’ve not sought out a modeling agent, why I take a lot of my own pictures and am incredibly picky about who I allow to photograph me, and control (as well as it’s possible to) where images of me and my work go as well as what they’re used for. It’s also one of the reasons I fucking HATE television, especially commercials, and despise mainstream porn. Tell people about this video. Everyone should see this. December 15, 2011, 6:11 am in public
“It’s ironic to me that along with the strides and increased stability, my low points almost seem more lethal and real now. I don’t tell anyone. Anyone. Until much later, if ever. And it happens more often than I want to admit. More often than even I realize.” — Me, June 2008 They seem more lethal and real now because they are. Or rather, they have the potential to be. Especially now that it’s rare that I become so low, and I don’t expect it. However, sometimes I still go through this, like last weekend while sick, and I’m so conditioned to the feeling of it, I’m so used to considering suicide as a way to get out of an emotional hellhole, now it almost doesn’t register that I’m doing it when it happens. That I’m actually falling asleep fantasizing about a stomach full of pills that won’t wake me up. I think it’s natural to consider your options. I really do. And if that happens for a day or two when I’m sick and can’t move and don’t know how to reach out, I’ve very little concern that I’m capable and ready to take my life. Honestly, what concerns me about this pattern is how much it *hurts*. It hurts a lot. It’s agonizing and horrible to lay alone in bed thinking about dying, whether the likelihood that you’ll really attempt to do it is there or not. And I’ve gone underground with it, I don’t talk about it and call it out like I did when I was a gun slinging diarrhea mouthed filterless teenager. In those moments I’m convinced in myself that it’s a stupid, petty waste of anyone elses time, that people will overreact and take it personally, that I’ll end up with the men in white coats asking me questions and trying to take away everything I’ve worked so hard to build. In those moments I’m convinced I’m not worth the effort if I’m incapable of giving more, I’m convinced I’ll lose my friends if they know what I’m thinking, I’m convinced people will get mad at me and I’ll feel even worse. In those moments I’m convinced I’m too old to still do this, that I should be over it by now, that if I were worth a shit I’d have figured a way out of ending up in this place or fucking done it already. I’m convinced the hurt would overwhelm anyone I’d bring into it, I’m convinced its my cross to bare, that unless I’m truly ready to hang myself and need immediate, extreme saving, my plight isn’t worthwhile to burden others with. And being convinced of all those things makes me feel, well.. worse. And that’s why suicidal thoughts are so lethal. I think that’s the real reason why most people end up driven to do something about them. I wish suicidal thoughts were recognized as the natural coping mechanism they can be. I wish it made sense in this society to express those thoughts seriously, to talk about them and let people know, and that the social climate enabled doing that more. I wish more people understood more about this UNBELIEVABLY COMMON phenomenon and what it really means for us all. And I wish more people had the balls to ask one another if this is happening, to say that they care even if it is, to inject reality and perspective into an isolating, alien, personal hell. If you’re wondering if someone you care about is struggling with suicidal thoughts:Stop wondering. Pick up the phone and ask, gently and directly, if they are suicidal. Allow them the space to not answer, or to deny it — let them listen. Tell them you love them and appreciate what they contribute to the world around them, not just to you. DO NOT make it about how much you’d hurt if they were gone, your friend already knows that and it’s part of the reason they feel they can’t talk with you. DO NOT make it about how you’ve been there, how you know what they’re going through — you don’t, and your friend is possibly the most acutely aware of that right now than they have ever been. Instead, show them your strength, that they matter enough for you to share it with them. Show them that you’re available and take their pain, confined and protected or not, seriously. Let them know you want to know how they are, even if they’re suicidal, and that, perhaps most importantly, you’re paying attention. If they don’t answer, tell it to their voicemail. Because sometimes, all it takes to derail that train, a train that someone may not even realize is out of control, is one brief, direct, supportive phone call, from someone like you. June 27, 2011, 12:43 pm in public
Since last year, there has been a Be The Match campaign at DEFCON. This year, my dear friend Matt Lewis/Barkode has been diagnosed with PNH< the only cure for which is a bone marrow transplant. You can test yourself at home with a cheek swabbing kit, the donation process is easier than you may think, it's FREE to join the registry (donations appreciated) and you do NOT have to be a blood match to be a marrow match. To join the bone marrow registry and order the at-home cheek swab test, go here. You may also register during any of the BTM drives, INCLUDING THE ONE THAT OCCURS AT DEFCON To get tested for matching Matt without joining registry, you must seek out private testing, preferably with Matts oncologist. 
You know what to do. September 27, 2010, 2:38 pm in public
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I want to do something like this for the depressive, drug addicted, high risk taking, masochistic, loner, awkward, sad, lonely, weird kids out there, and tell them – it gets better. July 1, 2010, 1:36 pm in public
May 24, 2010, 10:15 am in public
Steady growth over the last two years. In the black since establishing my business in 2008. Clients trickling in from Yelp finally. Groupon return rate holding at 10%. Attracting the kind of clients I want. Booked in advance. Hitting my ceiling of 12 clients a week consistently. Doing awesome, creative, challenging work with people. This is good. This is really good! Thank you to everyone who’s helped facilitate my growth in being self employed. I’m very grateful to be steadily moving toward my goals, especially in this economy! Please keep helping! Here’s how:
Promoting yourself is hard work. Discounts, freebies, extended hours, and other compensations take their toll when you’re invested in building a new practice. All that hard work is really starting to pay off. I’m excited and hopeful. Thank you for your support. I’m here if you need me! May 15, 2010, 9:14 am in public
TED Talks Nathan Myhrvold and team’s latest inventions — as brilliant as they are bold — remind us that the world needs wild creativity to tackle big problems like malaria
May 12, 2010, 11:28 pm in public
*sigh* Man.. this is probably going to be kind of a ramble.. “Courtnee Papastathis has performed as Zita the Aerialist since 2005. During
Others, I have insecurity and doubt to deal with, or I’m worried about my body being hurt, or I’m highly invested in the emotional weight of the work I am presenting and going out there feels heavy, sometimes even scary. Last night I had all of those things. It was potentially the last aerial performance I will do, and surely the last one I will do for a while. That was hard and sad and exhilarating at times, and it made for some emotional components to be present that I hadn’t gone through in a while.
That said, some of these girls can do things I will never be able to do in less time than it took me to learn how to do a fucking hip lock – things I’ve wanted to do, tried to do and, depending on my perspective, failed at. In a way it can be hard to follow up someone who’s produced a rope act that embodied what I wanted to bring to rope the first 4 years of my aerial experience and never could.
The fact that I can’t even come close to doing the splits, that I don’t have a gymnastics or dance background and that I was a professional drug abuser in my youth rather than an athlete inspires and comforts my beginning aerial students. I have a triumphant and inspiring story to tell. That’s why I like teaching beginners – I want them to know that you don’t have to be a superhuman contortionist to be an aerial performer, and I want them to know that a lot earlier than I did.
Stay tuned for more events. Maybe this is the time in my life where I learn to be graceful on the ground. *sniffle* (Thank you, John Cornicello, for the lovely images, and for allowing me to post produce them) May 12, 2010, 1:43 pm in public
Published on May 04, 2000 Sunday, April 30, 2000 Many letters have been sent to the Valley News concerning the homosexual menace in Vermont. I am the mother of a gay son and I’ve taken enough from you good people. I’m tired of your foolish rhetoric about the “homosexual agenda” and your allegations that accepting homosexuality is the same thing as advocating sex with children. You are cruel and ignorant. You have been robbing me of the joys of motherhood ever since my children were tiny. My firstborn son started suffering at the hands of the moral little thugs from your moral, upright families from the time he was in the first grade. He was physically and verbally abused from first grade straight through high school because he was perceived to be gay. He never professed to be gay or had any association with anything gay, but he had the misfortune not to walk or have gestures like the other boys. He was called “fag” incessantly, starting when he was 6. In high school, while your children were doing what kids that age should be doing, mine labored over a suicide note, drafting and redrafting it to be sure his family knew how much he loved them. My sobbing 17-year-old tore the heart out of me as he choked out that he just couldn’t bear to continue living any longer, that he didn’t want to be gay and that he couldn’t face a life without dignity. You have the audacity to talk about protecting families and children from the homosexual menace, while you yourselves tear apart families and drive children to despair. I don’t know why my son is gay, but I do know that God didn’t put him, and millions like him, on this Earth to give you someone to abuse. God gave you brains so that you could think, and it’s about time you started doing that. At the core of all your misguided beliefs is the belief that this could never happen to you, that there is some kind of subculture out there that people have chosen to join. The fact is that if it can happen to my family, it can happen to yours, and you won’t get to choose. Whether it is genetic or whether something occurs during a critical time of fetal development, I don’t know. I can only tell you with an absolute certainty that it is inborn. If you want to tout your own morality, you’d best come up with something more substantive than your heterosexuality. You did nothing to earn it; it was given to you. If you disagree, I would be interested in hearing your story, because my own heterosexuality was a blessing I received with no effort whatsoever on my part. It is so woven into the very soul of me that nothing could ever change it. For those of you who reduce sexual orientation to a simple choice, a character issue, a bad habit or something that can be changed by a 10-step program, I’m puzzled. Are you saying that your own sexual orientation is nothing more than something you have chosen, that you could change it at will? If that’s not the case, then why would you suggest that someone else can? A popular theme in your letters is that Vermont has been infiltrated by outsiders. Both sides of my family have lived in Vermont for generations. I am heart and soul a Vermonter, so I’ll thank you to stop saying that you are speaking for “true Vermonters.” You invoke the memory of the brave people who have fought on the battlefield for this great country, saying that they didn’t give their lives so that the “homosexual agenda” could tear down the principles they died defending. My 83-year-old father fought in some of the most horrific battles of World War II, was wounded and awarded the Purple Heart. He shakes his head in sadness at the life his grandson has had to live. He says he fought alongside homosexuals in those battles, that they did their part and bothered no one. One of his best friends in the service was gay, and he never knew it until the end, and when he did find out, it mattered not at all. That wasn’t the measure of the man. You religious folk just can’t bear the thought that as my son emerges from the hell that was his childhood he might like to find a lifelong companion and have a measure of happiness. It offends your sensibilities that he should request the right to visit that companion in the hospital, to make medical decisions for him or to benefit from tax laws governing inheritance. How dare he? you say. These outrageous requests would threaten the very existence of your family, would undermine the sanctity of marriage. You use religion to abdicate your responsibility to be thinking human beings. There are vast numbers of religious people who find your attitudes repugnant. God is not for the privileged majority, and God knows my son has committed no sin. The deep-thinking author of a letter to the April 12 Valley News who lectures about homosexual sin and tells us about “those of us who have been blessed with the benefits of a religious upbringing” asks: “What ever happened to the idea of striving . . . to be better human beings than we are?” Indeed, sir, what ever happened to that? Sharon Underwood’s e-mail is: sundervt@hotmail.com. I had the chance to speak with her yesterday. Her son is doing fine now, the first in his family to graduate from college. January 14, 2010, 6:23 pm in public
I can’t say I really know when it happened, but somehow along the line in the last year, I seem to have reverted to a kind of post-modern version of myself. It seemed not long ago I was feeling open and loving and free. Now I feel insecure, judgmental and threatened. They say self esteem can be defined as being capable of maneuvering the challenges in life, accompanied with a sense of being worthy of happiness. I’ve got the first part down in general, I’m alive afterall, but the second, I don’t know so much right now. I’ve been unplugged and cut off, guarded and gun-shy. It doesn’t feel good. It feels sad. I’m hurting because of it. It seems some deep part of me has been thinking of Love lately as weakness. Showing mine makes me vulnerable and others showing theirs for the likes of me makes them crazy or completely stupid. That notion is preposterous, to use one of Beaus favorite words, and knowing that doesn’t seem to be stopping my guts and instincts from living there a lot more often than I deem acceptable. So it’s an emotional concern, one of those things that intellectual pick pocketing isn’t going to solve. Even then I don’t know how much I’ve actually been considering what’s been going on versus just letting my moods dictate how little I’ve reached toward others or allowed them to touch me. It takes a lot of energy to be down on yourself. I appear self absorbed because I am. The part that isn’t as easy to see is that I act that way not because I feel the world doesn’t deserve my brilliance, but because I don’t believe I deserve the brilliance of others. In an age when I am managing to support myself through a recession as a self employed healer and artist, I am all too frequently made frozen by a lack of confidence in regards to the worth of what I have to contribute in the world. I’d like to think it doesn’t show. But I suspect it does. So it’s out there now, cultivating focus. That usually gets things moving. Time to see what happens. December 27, 2009, 11:00 pm in public
5 things you can do NOW to change the world:
December 26, 2009, 8:36 pm in public
Dear friends, I have very much enjoyed the interactions and access I’ve had with the people I am close to in my life by using Facebook, and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to connect with them all in such a way. I will miss the interaction and ease of having so many people in the same place at once online. Due to privacy concerns, I am no longer maintaining a personal profile on Facebook. A bit more detailed information is included in the comments of this post. People who have utilized my fan page and personal Facebook profile are highly encouraged to subscribe to the Neevita Mailing List, which I will keep up to date in light of taking a step back from corporate owned social media as a means of community. Thanks so much for your support. If you find a good alternative, let me know and I’ll follow you. November 17, 2009, 5:30 pm in events
Now offering REDUCED PRICE tickets, for people who don’t want to multitask by eating food while they watch the show! $15, available on Brown Paper Tickets and at the door. Who: Friends of Vita Arts, 21+ How Much: $30 with food, $15 without! We’re working on getting circus insurance so we can teach aerial in our Workshops! Juggling, singing, aerials, clowning and other performances, all infused with the cheesiest of sentiments. Will it be silly? You bet your fluffy cotton socks it will be! I’m directing the show which is sure to be a night of fun and frivolity, with all the proceeds going to Vita Arts. Obsidian was my dark and dwelling masterpiece; this is just going to be a shitload of fun. Two courses of Snacky-food will be provided, and a cash bar with beer and wine will be available. Don’t come starving your faces off, but be prepped to graze and drink responsibly. NOM! |
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