I have a horrible sick feeling in my stomach that I haven’t felt in a couple years. I don’t like it.
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Submitted by courtnee in status updates - 08.13.10 - 12:04 am
Singing my FUCKING FOOL GRUMPY SCORN ASS OFF Submitted by courtnee in public - 07.01.10 - 1:36 pm
Submitted by courtnee in public - 06.29.10 - 10:43 pm
Just found the original, had lost the digital copy when I wiped out my drive a year or so ago. “Isolation” – Acrylic on paper, 2004. Submitted by courtnee in status updates - 06.04.10 - 1:01 pm
Some days sure do present more challenges than others. Submitted by courtnee in public - 05.12.10 - 11:28 pm
*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you, John Cornicello, for the lovely images, and for allowing me to post produce them) NOTICE: racy, lengthly, or outdated content ahead » Submitted by courtnee in public - 02.12.10 - 9:41 pm
I try to be a big girl and stay focused, do good work and be a good person. I’ve spent a lot of time, energy and money on forward progression and overcoming a lot of shit, in therapy and beyond. Sometimes, it’s just really demoralizing to be 30 fucking years old and still dealing with the ramifications of this in my life. Sometimes, it really does feel crushing and terrible and helpless. Still. Hug your kids. It’s worth it. http://www.helpguide.org/mental/parenting_bonding_reactive_attachment_disorder.htm Submitted by courtnee in public - 02.07.10 - 10:49 pm
Updated 2/10/10 – My initial labs are normal. Now to decide which of time, or more extensive testing are the better option. I’m going with time, and a short vacation to San Francisco. —- I seem to have something like a glitch in my problem delay mechanism. Or maybe I am too hard on myself when I’m being measured and reasonable about things before I decide there’s something going on. But I’ve had something going on for a little bit now and I’ve recognized it as a potential problem and started to talk with people about it today. So, time for a braindump. About 6 weeks ago, while I was receiving a massage, I had a strange sensation, like my skin was half numb at my hip. I could tell there was pressure there, but the sensation wasn’t right. Later in the night I realized it was happening at my knees and the tops of my hands, too. Since then, I’ve noticed that superficial sensation has remained dull, and changes/spreads seemingly randomly. My forearms are almost always blunt feeling, and often slightly tingly and dense. Last night, I was feeling numbness and almost a vibrating sensation all the way down my leg from my hip. Right now my neck is dull, too, but my face feels right. I’ve been almost constantly cold for 3 weeks. Not “You live in a basement and it’s winter” ‘cold’, I mean my hands are often fridged through the second leg of a massage in a heated office with a table warmer when they’re normally up to temp by the time I’ve finished my first upper leg ‘cold’. I sleep with a heating pad at my feet most nights. When I lay on my side my low back is often annoyingly cold, despite the covers. I’ve waxed twice since that night at the spa when I noticed this, and it hurts less. A lot less. I can feel it, but it’s simply nothing like waxing has felt for the last 2.5 years. Wouldn’t mind hanging onto that symptom, actually.. I hadn’t much mentioned it since the first time I noticed this. It’s subtle compared to the raging infections and crazy shit I normally end up worried about. And I’ve been so incredibly busy and stressed. I was thinking of trying to find a neurologist or something, but first I want blood work and a fucking day off. Honestly, I’m scared. I know too many people with things like MS and Celiac not to consider those things. I’ve put my body through a lot in the time I’ve had it. I think part of me is just waiting for the shoe to drop and for this resilient, triumphant facade to crumble away. I know it’s probably a pinched nerve and shit circulation. I know that. It’s silly but.. honestly, I’m still scared. It’s probably nothing. But I wanted to throw it out anyway and not carry it alone. You know, in case it’s not nothing. Or something. Submitted by courtnee in public - 01.14.10 - 6:23 pm
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. Submitted by courtnee in public - 11.07.09 - 11:43 am
Since about the age of 22, upon attempting the Depo-Provera birth control shot, I have had severe cystic acne. The breakouts have changed over the years. I used to get a few deep nodules on my chin and cheeks that took months to heal, every few months – so I usually had 1-3 I was nursing at any given time. Most of the time when I left them alone, they just hurt like hell but generally didn’t pose too much of a cosmetic problem. Now I get a couple breakouts a year that are very severe acne conglobata, generally on one cheek at a time. They quickly develop into a pus-filled network of abscess’s that take about 6 months to heal to scarring. In the last year I’ve had one on each cheek. 
In addition to what happens to my face, I also get ovarian cysts, usually monthly, and have high androgen levels – both things indicative of PCOS. After tweaking and trying just about everything under the sun, my acne breakouts appear to be largely controlled by 100mg of Spironolactone a day to inhibit my androgens, and heavy supplementation of Vit A, D and Zinc. I’ve not gone the accutane route. That shit freaks me out. I have tried all kinds of prescriptions, topicals, antibiotics, supplementing and home remedies attempting to avoid that option – but this combination, at least for now, seems to be working. Which is really nice. It’s hard to convey to someone who doesn’t know, how painful and maddening it is to have a constant festering wound on your face and how much it hurts – and that’s aside from managing the cosmetic aspect. So what about the scarring, then? I couldn’t do a thing about it until I started having calm periods in between breakouts. Once that started happening, however, the scarring left behind was much deeper and long lasting than anything I’d had before due to the type of acne I’d developed. At the suggestion of a coworker, I’ve been pleased with the results of TCA peels. There is a ton of research to be had on the subject via the wonder of google. I am not one to shy away from experimenting with my body, even when there is some amount of pain involved, and I’m very body aware. So, I’ve done these peels at home. I do not advocate everyone do this. If you can’t follow directions, for instance, or can’t be accepting of a negative result if you screw yourself up, suck up the dough to get it done by a pro. For me, I’d usually rather have my fate in my own hands than those of someone else, even if it means I don’t have anyone to point a finger at if things don’t go my way. I bought a tiny bottle of 100% TCA off ebay with instructions for maybe $14. The bottle has lasted me about 9 peels and barely seems to have a dent in it, partially due to the dilution of 50% I’ve generally used. I’ve experimented with both lower and higher percentages, and find this to be a good one for my face. I cut my TCA with mainly with lactic and glycolic acids rather than just water – they are mild enough for me to do so. Some times I will do lighter peels if I’m performing or have something important happening, other times I do deeper ones to get quicker results in exchange for an uglier peeling time. My favorite peel was one of my first, which was deep enough that the peeling was all one piece which got dry, dark, and sloughed off all at once in the shower a week later. It was ugly, but not fussy, dry enough to cover with makeup while on vacation after the first few days (in which you constantly keep the burn lubricated with bacitraycin), and effective. The lighter peels tend to peel like sunburn and have flakiness, but the color change is less severe. I think that peel was actually 100% TCA with marathon rinsing after a couple seconds – when I dilute the TCA I leave the solution on my face longer and often layer it over the course of a few minutes. Yes, I put 100% TCA on my face. No, I didn’t keep it on longer than about 5 seconds. No, I didn’t die. I also don’t recommend it. If you aren’t quick you can really screw yourself up. Once I did a quick spot peel when I was in a hurry, using 100% TCA on a q-tip. My face was red spotted for 3 months. Read some of the TCA forums. I got off lucky. My typical TCA peel looks something like the “age spot” example at http://www.tcapeels.com/ My scarring is much worse than the example, so I am doing multiple peels over time. The most often I peel is 3 peels two weeks apart, then a break for a month or three. I started my 4th set of peels today, which prompted me to write this up. There aren’t a lot of pictures out there of my facial scarring without makeup, and I lost all my snapshots for the last few years in a drive crash not long ago. Here is one photo from last may, that shows the scarring on my left cheek after two TCA peel sets:
I thought maybe it might be helpful for people who deal with this to know that a) There is hope in finding some relief eventually and b) Even seemingly glamorous people who spend time in front of cameras and live audiences go through this, manage this, and continue to do what they love despite it. No doubt about it, acne sucks. There’s also a lot more to life than acne sucking. Good luck. Submitted by courtnee in public - 05.14.09 - 10:13 pm
And here I thought I had chosen serial monogamy in committed relationships throughout my life because I was just too fragile and wasn’t capable of the self esteem to handle anything else. It sure did bug me, though, cause I had lots of fantastic ideas for many different kinds of things. Recent events have shined quite a different light on that belief. Now I’m beginning to wonder if what I felt I couldn’t handle was more along the lines of lack of communication and manipulation. Aha. Also; I <3 New York. 
Hizzuh! Submitted by courtnee in public - 10.08.08 - 4:13 pm
Submitted by courtnee in public - 08.17.08 - 11:06 am
So many years ago it pains me to say, because it means just that much life has passed my way already, I was a guitar player. I came into the world of original music through synth, and my first instrument was piano taught by my mother as a child, but I started out expressing my personality on guitar. It was a frustrating time. I could pick up other peoples songs in minutes, but my original works always found me with a scowl on my face and a knot in my gut and were quickly thrown away. I hated how shrill and girly I sounded, how sad and painfully child like my voice was. I wanted to be a rock star, with driving Marshall stacks behind me, screaming to the world the rage that I held in my guts day, after day, after day. But my voice was “angelic”, and well, I hated it. I stuck mainly with covers in guitar work, though there was a guitar song on Altercations. My method of covering on synth is to deconstruct, essentially distill what I internalized from the music I honor in others, and for that part I really enjoyed covering songs on guitar. But the lack of originals caused excessive feelings of failure and hackery. I didn’t feel I was remotely a ‘musician’ until I started producing original work. And well, even then… even now, I have my doubts that I really consider myself that. Then came the performances of that work. It pained me to be present when someone listened to my music. Though I pushed myself otherwise on rare occasion, I hid behind the protection of the Internet so I never had to see any ones reactions in the flesh to it. I knew it was haunting and striking and that it had a tendency to peel down into the center of peoples melancholy. I liked that, I like invoking depth in people in most everything I express in my life. But I couldn’t handle the praise, and I felt embarrassed to the point of physical discomfort when I heard my own voice. Slowly, starting with that first show for my friends and coworkers in my living room 6 years ago, I have worked toward overcoming my stage fright, my self deprecation, and learning to be comfortable with my unique powers as an artist and musician. It has been an extremely painful, fulfilling, almost mystic practice in my life. I’ve since learned why it was, that I struggled so much with owning my music to other people. It always conflicted me, to know that my music was good, that I had something special, but to assume that it had to be bad because sharing it caused me feel so awful. It was the child in me crying out. Unsupported, alone, afraid, unsure. She needed me, cried out for me, and I wasn’t really there. Listening to my own music was like being in a locked cell, listening to the frantic and desperate cries of the greatest love in your life as they’re tortured down the hall. I had abandoned her, just like long ago, when I had needed someone who wasn’t there for me. And when I showed myself like that to people, it was shame and regret I felt. I didn’t understand how to help her. I was hoping they could. I understand now. And it shows. Last night, I covered three of the most influential guitar songs of my youth with the grace, poise, and dignity. I faced my audience with appreciation, warmth, and a genuine truth and strength that I have never shown any audience, ever. I gazed around the room at people while I sang and strummed and bore my very soul, cradling her and holding her aloft proudly. She was no longer cold, shivering, hidden, alone, being displayed like a fearful caged animal, with my eyes squinted shut to drown out the magnitude of her cries. God, I wish I had pictures. Symbolically to this, and not by accident, I was not alone, either. I had a special guest, a new and dear friend, an amazing guitarist and vocalist, Andrew Cardillo, with me – cradling me, holding me aloft proudly, supporting my vision for these songs and trusting me as an artist to do him proud in our first collaboration together. I’ve so often sought that, so often wanted a connection with another musician that I could hold, someone geographically close enough to perform with, someone trustworthy. For now, I seem to have found that person, that spark to ignite this deep well of potential I’ve flirted with for years in my online collaborations. Someone with similar sensibility to explore new frontiers with, to exercise my musical limits with, to add dimension to what I’ve already been doing, to have fun with, to support in his endeavors as well. Thank you so much. To my friends who have supported my music, to my fans who have brought me so much warmth and jaw-slacking praises over the years, even when I had no idea what to do with them but argue. To my audience who never fails to share with me the deep stirring movement I invoke in them when I perform. To my supporters at Little Red Studio for believing in my abilities, their unyielding support and guidance, to the wonderful artists of all vocations and styles who have welcomed me into their worlds over the years, to the people behind the scenes that make it all happen. Thank you to the universe for its infinite possibility and clever, cunning manner in teaching and keeping me on my feet. To teh int0rnetz, to mp3.com, to all the other musicians out there who inspire and continue to inspire people like me to have tried my hand at being as brave as they are. To my Dad for buying me my first guitar, to my ex husband and lifetime confidant for his everpresent support. To Scott, Stu, and Dan, for their particularly focused efforts in helping me lay the groundwork all those years ago. To my Mother. I know you did your best. To my lovers, and to my enemies, and especially my lovers turned enemies, for giving me so, so much to write about. To Jamie, my brooklyn born drummer and incredible friend. To Chrissy and her unending pool of tranquil, loving support, and her beautiful voice, for finally pouring past my barriers and giving me a cause to open my music to others. To Andrew, my Scorpio kindred with so much left to show me. To Kimba, for letting me straight into his beautiful heart. To Jeff – You are so very dear to me. And to Clayton. Nothing I could say here would be sufficient. You know how I feel about you. Thank you for all of it. And so much more. I hadn’t meant to make this a long stream of thank you’s – but, there you go. I know I’m missing people. I accomplished a dream last night, one that had always felt just out of reach. I hold this in my hands now, in awe, and I’m moved to a silent flush of tears. It’s one of the the most beautiful things I’ve ever felt. Thank you for sharing it with me. I’m brimming. Magnetic. Glowing. Thank you Thank you Thank you. And thank fucking god for yoga! I am so pleased to have discovered it again. There is so much more to say, but I will leave this now. Take care of each other, Submitted by courtnee in public - 10.15.05 - 6:16 pm
I listened to a really fascinating segment on kexp this morning, in the “community forum” portion of Mind over Matters. It was about death and mortality, and how the awareness of which effects the human race and has contributed in a massive way to the state of the world, such as it is right now. I’m trying hard to find a transcript online but to no avail. There was so much information there that connected with things I’ve been seeing other people taking about – The oppressiveness of most education, the loss of connection between humans, the fact that we are in “the apocalypse” RIGHT NOW and all that lovely shit. But the gist of what they were saying, and have been spending a lot of time and energy studying and proving, is that the reason we find it so difficult to get on with folks who don’t share our beliefs in how reality is perceived is because it threatens the viability in our approach to internally resolving the matter of our mortality and how we handle that day by day, as opposed to the viability in how we think life should be lived. Conflict that leads to wars and genocides aren’t so much about about life and liberation and the freedom to live how we want, they are much more about the freedom to believe in our own homey version of death and what it means and what, if anything, happens after. Fighting over territory/food/power happens, we are animals after all. But, we are the only animals on the planet that understand mortality and live with that terrifying, looming fact most of our lives, we are the only animals who war over belief matters and worship methods as opposed to territory and basic survival/reproduction, we are the only animals who make these mistakes and perpetuate our own miseries. Because, think about it, if I believe that there is no heaven/hell and that I may possibly have a second chance at life, have probably lived a few already, and base my lifes work and choose how I feel I may be important in this world on how I rationalize and manage this eventual fact of dying, a person who believes otherwise and lives much differently would be a threat to my way of life, not because they want to pray seven times a day to some guy I don’t think is listening, but because if they are right in their beliefs on mortality, than I AM WRONG and so is everything I base my life upon. I think the humans in this world are fear-based because of knowledge, more than of ignorance, and that’s the conscious, crystal clear understanding that we are going to die, so I really wanted to hear more when I noted what the subject matter was. They conducted many studies where they talked to people in controlled environments and gaged a persons willingness toward violence, mass destruction, nuking other countries, and even voting for Bush, against whether they had recently considered death. People who had not been asked to think about death or something equally unpleasant answered questions VERY differently. When these same questions were asked, such as “Would it be worth it to wipe out a city of tens of thousands if it meant eradicating Osama Bin Laden”, people were much more supportive of the notion if they had been asked to think about their own mortality first. They also talked about symbols in cultures, and how they are effecting us, and how cultures, particularly ours, are going so astray. When the $ symbol is one of the most important in a society, and children have been being taught this for decades and centuries, it’s a wonder we’re not even more disconnected with the earth and our own species than we are. They touched on the civil unrest in our society, liberals and conservatives and all that. How the Olde Beliefs are obsolete in the face of science and freer thinking, which is threatening the realities of the Christian Right and so forth, and how this is an even bigger problem due to the fact that no viable alternative belief system has been offered or contrived. It was an absolutely fascinating, revolutionary piece with lots of very sobering and informative notions and facts. In the quest to understand what the fuck is going on with all this insanity and all this fighting and all this horror, the timing was just perfect and information like this is so desperately needed right now, I’m just really touched. There was so much more to this segment and I really hope that every human on the planet eventually comes to know of what these people are trying to say. It got me thinking about a lot of things, including why I’m so conflicted, annoyed, afraid of and obsessed with money and the obligatory need for making it, having it, and spending it has had in my life and our society. I want to be free of the burden of needing and/or wanting money to survive, I don’t agree with its place in our world and I feel it’s extensively evil and causes massive amounts of problems, I don’t understand why it’s become such a big fucking deal, and I don’t know how to master being financially secure. Even just having this instinct and belief causes more problems and internal conflicts for me; having this misplacement of “$” in the ranks of what’s truly important as a human being presented the way it was really clarified a lot of why I feel and act the way I do in regards to money, why it’s one of the first things to cause unrest in relationships, why I hate owing it to people or asking for it, and why I fucking want it so bad anyway. And how, we are fighting and dying and suffering over nothingness, over things we cannot prove, over things that ideally would have no bearing on our lives, tripping over our own feet, our afflicted ignorance, our frustration over not knowing something that feels so very important to understand, over our arrogance that we have the answers to the unanswerable, and our inability to just not worry about it. We are all frightened, hissing, spitting, confused children hurting each other over things we will never control. If only every person were to have the means to understand how truly futile and ridiculously unnecessary war and murder really is – so few of us when moved to express this have the focus to explain in terms that make logical sense, but there are some and hearing about this gave me .. faith, in people, to hopefully figure it out before that is futile as well. Just really a fantastic way to wake up in the morning. I had forgotten how much I liked waking up at 7:30am on Saturday to lay in bed with my cat and listen to that show. Here are the few urls I was able to dig up on the guests, their award-winning (and that’s an understatement) film documentary “Flight from Death” about this subject, and the people who have inspired them: http://www.flightfromdeath.com/ – Site for the documentary http://ernestbecker.org/ – The mission of the Ernest Becker Foundation is to bring advances in social http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nietzsche/ – “He believed in life, creativity, health, and the realities of the world we live in, rather than those situated in a world beyond.” |
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