After heading off to see the world for a bit, I’ve come back home with a sense of renewal and calm about most of what’s going on in my life. I’ve been asking some big questions and confirming some equally big answers. I’ve also been getting in touch with some of the fruits of my labor, like having a bigger well of patience toward myself. Periodically, lately, I’ve been feeling like I’ve recently hopped another hurdle in life.
During a long overdue conversation last night, the disparity between what we think others think about us and what others actually think about us was illuminated.
This reminded me of my long forgotten Johari and Nohari windows, which are essentially an interactive personality profile to assist in uncovering holes in your perception of self vs. how you come across to the people around you.
I’ve posted about these windows a few times over the years, when I’ve experienced profound changes in how it feels to be living life. I’ve recently felt that again, and would appreciate the input of my friends and associates. Perhaps especially if you’ve done so before.
You can answer these anonymously. I also give props to those who choose to identify themselves. It helps very much to know the length and breadth of our relationship when cultivating how my personality effects those around me at varying levels of familiarity.
I have a few more minutes to spare on the little internet terminal I’m using – Another reminder that I will need to get another EeePC for my next long trip somewhere. So, time for a little update.
I’m in Bristol now, heading to the home of the first couch surfer I’ve connected with since joining the site. It was nice to get to know C&J better and lovely of them to share their home with me. Julie and I particularly got along well and had a lot of nice chats about things. I am also ready for a change of scenary and pace. I leave in 3 days, so I’ve got a little time to explore a bigger city and get to know some new people.
My favorite part of the trip so far was being in Amsterdam and meeting others in the hostel and through Zoe. I’m hoping for a bit of a boost from my final Euro pit stop before returning home later this week after feeling a bit of a downturn in the last few days.
I have been thinking about my Seattle return as far as Artful Touch goes, and also committed to a perfomance gig in June that I am excited about. Looking forward to my own bed, my own country, my own rules, and my awesome cat.
Of the many things I’ve gained from this trip, one of them is a deepended appreciation of the life I’ve built for myself and why. After trying on a few different styles since being here, I like who I am, where I come from, what I am becoming and how I’m living my life. And that truly is a beautiful thing.
Submitted by courtnee in status updates - 04.30.10 - 11:48 pm
I am so, so tired of watching people, and being a person, spending so much damn time thinking and talking about how other people should behave. It’s grueling, tiring, hypocritical, and pointless. One thing watching all this go down (and often times being gloriously enraged over it) has shown me is that the people I am the most annoyed with are the people who are displaying similar coping behaviors that I frequently have – arrogance, entitlement, self righteousness, avoidance and contradiction, to name a few.
Personal relationships are a personal thing. Whether it be due to my feelings being hurt or because of the politics involved, my relationships with other human beings and how I choose to handle them are ultimately none of anyone elses fucking business, and neither are yours. What businesses a person recommends to their friends and clients are none of anyone elses control, either. It’s hard to keep those lines crisp, but it helps to at least try.
When I am ready to approach and attempt to mend my relationships, I do, and so does everyone else. If I want a mediator in that process, I ask for one. People need time to repair fractured trust, and sometimes it simply isn’t possible. Having their personal challenges blown up in the spotlight and putting social pressure on people to get along is rarely an effective way to expedite the process, even if it is supposedly in the name of “community” (which usually just means ‘I’m tired of allowing the ebb and flow of your personal problems to effect me, so I’m declaring that it’s in the best interest of everyone that you get over it’).
Human beings are designed to judge and make meaning out of things, and boy, is there a LOT I could be saying about how some people are acting right now – and a lot of it might be true and maybe even a bit funny. The key I’ve found is to keep tabs on how much validity I assign my judgments and how much I let them inform how I behave toward other human beings. It’s easy to forget that – but hey, this time, I remembered.
Rather than continue to take that automatic white noise and spew it anywhere, I’m choosing to trust the people around me to do what they feel is right for them, and focus instead on being the best me I can be. That includes disengaging in the gossip, disengaging from giving unsolicited advice, and no longer creating stories around situations I frankly don’t know dick about.
I am choosing to respect the ability of the people involved in these struggles to resolve their differences – or not – without my benevolent help. AND I am choosing to respect my desire to have no part in the unbelievably uncomfortable social event that is being planned. When I am ready to mend my fences, I’ll do it where it is appropriate to me – in person, one on one.
Take care of you.
-nee
Submitted by courtnee in public - 03.25.10 - 9:03 pm
Sometimes it hits me that I’m really going! I get this wave of awesome that sweeps across my skin, and permeates into my core. I get this happy, calm, purposeful feeling.
Lots of good things going on for me now. It’s the 25th and I am stable, focused, energetic. I think the maca is helping me, the awareness and attention as well. I’m finally well after a massive sickness, in which I discovered whole heartedly that I will indeed survive being bedridden ill without a partner to care for me. I’m connecting again with my body, my focus, my dreams (literally) and my rhythm. Remembering that I do know how to love myself, and that I’ve done it before.
One of my favorite massage clients got me this journal and pen as a gift, after I shared with him my plans to get a journal specifically for my trip to Europe. It makes me smile. It’s been really nice to soak up the support and favorable responses to my doing something so fulfilling for myself.
Additionally, I’m reading “The Wise Wound” by Penelope Shuttle and Peter Redgrove. It took a bit to get into, it’s written in a manner that diverges from my aesthetic. I can tell it’s making a huge difference in how I perceive myself as a woman, and how that relates to my experience of life.
If every person, male or female, read this and took away a few nuggets of perspective, I think the world would be a much more reasonable place. Even better if every person had the inclination to read empowering things like this.
I’m even beginning to enjoy being alone! No wandering eye! I can spread out on my whole bed! I have to wash my sheets less often cause I don’t have another person mucking up the bed with me! I sleep soundly! And I LOVE waking up with my cat, who sleeps under my arm religiously, like a wing, sharing my heating pad with me.
This is about the time when someone has come along to fuck it all up, historically. Some tasty, emphatically irresistible obstacle course to frolick within. Not this time. I’m off the market until 2011, and that’s if you’re lucky. It may even be longer than that depending on how much fun I’m having.
It’s a relief to be connected, again.
Submitted by courtnee in public - 11.19.09 - 5:20 am
It really floors me how much I accomplish in the middle of the night, when I feel so fried I wouldn’t think I could concentrate on anything. I’ve been sewing a lot the last few days. Pictures aren’t much.. but it is almost 4:30 in the morning afterall.
Thanks for the birthday present, Chrissy.
Submitted by courtnee in public - 11.18.09 - 5:31 am
For my birthday, my trapeze partner Bev took me to try out flying trapeze at SANCA’s brand new flying rig. It was super fun, and pretty scary at first. Mostly, I thought the heavy bar was going to take me down before I was ready to take off. I got over that pretty quick, and graduated onto tricks faster that I’d expected.
I am turning 30. I am having a party. Are you confident I would not want to burn the house down upon your arrival, considering my guests collateral damage for wiping you off the planet? Then request an invitation from the facebook event to RSVP!
In addition, back by popular demand because you asked for it… wishlist for my 30th. See you guys on Nov 2.
UPDATE: I have chosen my ‘warm climate’ destination – Thailand. I’d like to go there to teach English to children for two weeks. The Cost is $550, plus airfare (~$1200).
Money is a social necessity that becomes less and less of a priority as I age and develop my sense of what I find important in my life. I make very little, and generally do not have much left over after my modest monthly bills. One of my largest projects is a volunteer position as a founder of a non-profit, and often my performances are unpaid – I have chosen to do what fuels me, and have worked hard to reduce my financial footprint to where I can live how I want and not have to worry (too much) about making a lot of money or making my decisions based on that.
That said, money is a great gift for me. There are things I enjoy and/or would benefit greatly from that are difficult to acquire by means of trade or barter, and money is as versatile as my interests at the time. There is a stigma about money being a cop out gift, and in some respects I can see why. However, for me, money is great. I can use it to stroll the produce section and get my food for the day, shoot myself into space, go see a movie with you, get some new paint colors, or pad the bank account for vita-arts.org. Neat stuff!
So if you’re stumped, strapped for time, across the country or whatever and a simple ‘happy birthday’ doesn’t float your boat, just send me a fatass check. I’ll totally dig it, and promise I will do something cool with it.
Here’s to making it this far!
Submitted by courtnee in public - 09.26.09 - 10:32 am
A few weeks ago, Bev and I modeled for David Peterman, a photographer who is pursuing an interesting self censorship photo project. The idea behind the project is to give people the opportunity to censor themselves how they wish to, and to eventually create a print project of some sort. The “Censored” bars range from sad to ridiculous.
My view on the project is more political/social than the site, http://theyareonlypixels.com, talks about. I like how open ended the project is from the photographers point of view, it’s nice to see someone doing a community project for the sake of allowing others to express what they’d like out of it, rather than saying “This is meant to tell all the nude haters to screw off” or the like.
Strange. I just got deja vu.
Submitted by courtnee in public - 08.27.09 - 1:22 am
Inspired by Sara Olson, costume and clothing muse, I spent a couple hours tonight converting some pantaloon things I got at Value Village for $2 into cuteass pants.
The crotch of these were originally way too low, and the lace hems at my ankles. I cut the top off and deconstructed another pair of little shorts which had a white elastic waist to comebine them. To color match I stained the white lace with tea (Bengal Spice bitchez!). They are still kinda damp. :)
They are rad, and crazy comfortable. The seam in the butt is a little off center, and when I try to straighten it the pants wrap around me funny, but I totally don’t give a shit. I am right crap at sewing things, so I’m happy with these.
Submitted by courtnee in public - 05.07.08 - 10:12 am
Right now, we’re going through the visioning portion of the curriculum at Brian Utting, which has us all thinking about what our life mission is and how a massage career (not to mention the process of massage school) fits into what we’d like to do in the world and who we are.
I’ve created a set of Johari and Nohari windows for myself today. I would very much appreciate the input of my friends and associates in filling them out. It’s essentially an interactive personality profile to assist in uncovering holes in your perception of self vs. how you come across to the people around you.
Some may recall that I did this many years ago, when I was struggling with what in the world to do with myself and my life. I got a lot of useful feedback. I am interested in comparing what has changed since then, and what hasn’t. I feel quite different, quite evolved, from the person I was when I last asked myself and my friends what most applied to me as a person.
I love this kind of stuff, and I encourage those who choose to participate to be completely honest, even with the Nohari, which is considered the ‘negative’ one of the two. Your opinion is invaluable, even if you only know me online or not very well. Thank you for considering taking the time and thought into participating. I’m happy to return the effort for anyone who wants to make profiles for themselves, also. It’s simple, and free.
I’m open to sharing the old windows, for anyone who’s interested in seeing them, after filling out the ‘new’ one. Just ping me for the urls. Namaste, motherfucker.
Submitted by courtnee in public - 09.10.07 - 12:05 am
I have decided on my next tattoo, to embellish the one I have on my lower back. It will be a cherry blossom branch, stylized and colored. I’ve decided to put the piece on my credit card so I can get it done right away, once I find the artist. It’s going to be fucking gorgeous.
Simply put, the cherry blossom represents “Spiritual Beauty”. The symbolism in both Chinese and Japanese culture is lovely, and well suited for me;
For the Chinese the cherry blossom is a very significant symbol of feminine power, beauty and sexuality and often holds an idea of feminine dominance. Herbal lore describes the cherry blossom as often being the symbol of love.
For the Japanese it represents the transience of life, as the cherry blossom is a very delicate flower that blooms for a short time. An example of great beauty and sadness, the samurai saw the cherry blossom as a melancholy reminder of death amidst life. Coming to terms with their mortality allowed them to live their lives fully, with little use for pettiness, argument, callousness or cruelty.
The cherry blossom is a reminder that our life will not last, a representation of beauty in feminine form, and it captures the sense of dignity and strength contained within something so fragile and fleeting.
It’s perfect. I am so ready. It’s time to own that I am a delicate flower, to come to real peace with it and treasure how I am in my soul and honor that – always. I can still joke about being a “delicate fucking flower, you shitlicking fuckhole!”, but all the progress and work I’ve put into myself over the last few years has been to come to terms with my vulnterability and delicacy, see it as a strength than a weakness. I want a reminder of how far I’ve come, that I have everything I need inside myself, and that often it resides in the last place I think to look for it. At this point, what holds me back the most is forgetting
I want something beautiful and feminine and complex and sexual and blood fucking red that wraps around me and embraces my body like I visualize myself comforting my inner child. I am so excited. Just telling people about what the thing means to me will remind me that I know how to be a better person.
Submitted by courtnee in public - 05.06.06 - 3:07 pm
For the last few years, ever since the days of Hole/Nirvana/AiC/etc, I’ve been kinda starved for new energetic music.
Sure, Massive attack is great and all, but I’ve been listening to Mezzanine for like 10 years now or something.. and there is just something to be said for a decent rock trio type sound that can really kick my ass and make me wail in the car like a banshee on crack. More raw sounding stuff that.. I dunno… Uses real instruments. I haven’t felt that since Hole decided to start sucking and then died a drawn out death.
And aside from Hole, where are my Flaming Lips? My Folk Implosion? Where did it all go? And why the hell is Green Day still popular?
I mean, even KEXP, who claims to be all alternative and non-biased, generally plays the same 20 fucking songs unless you’re listening to some specialty show. Especially John in the morning. I mean that guy seriously needs to get over himself. Listen man, you’re cool and all, but you play the fucking Death Cab for Cutie singles like 5 times a day, and they’re not even that damn good; you can stop touting yourself as the worlds independent music messiah now.
Well, it’s more like.. where did I stop looking? Cause it seems after half a day of searching around for the bands mentioned in the Questionable Content (.net) forums, I’m finding all sorts of fun summer music that I am liking. Interpol, Apples in Stereo, Of Montreal (Whom I’d heard of but never heard), Slint..
I feel kinda dumb about it. I only started looking around for this stuff because I am enamored with the lives of the characters in a fucking web comic (I’ve spent the last few days reading all the archives).
But you know, I’m always searching for better things anyway, and who cares where the answer came from. I’m feeling energized and inspired by music again, and it feels like it’s been a long, long time. I even dusted off my copy of Live Through This and totally belted out a spot on rendition of “Violet” just now. Yeah, there’s a reason they called me “Courtnee, Love!”. Hah.
Anyway, all of that was mostly just leading up to a new site I found that looks really friggen neat: http://www.last.fm/
I wish they had a plug in for Music Match. Not because I like Music Match really, though their library system is unrivaled as far as I’m concerned, but because that’s the client I have to use for my Wireless Media system upstairs to connect to.
I am thinking about getting Winamp again and using that for most of my listening so I can start using http://www.last.fm/ to track and find new music I will like. I think it will really beat the crap out of http://pandora.com, which, while it is cool and all, is just not all that great at suggesting new music.
Anyway. If you’re into music, I suggested checking out http://questionablecontent.net. It’s like Penny Arcade for the indy music scene, but it also has an actual storyline and characters you can get invested in – people who are not unlike the ones you probably know. I’ve enjoyed it.
Now to go back to sitting around avoiding life by searching for music that I can imagine living life to. Ironic.
Go take a drive with the windows down.
Submitted by courtnee in public - 03.23.06 - 6:43 am
It’s the day and age where, not only is music so putridly awful that it’s rare to see an album that’s listenable all the way through, the advances of mp3, iTunes, Pandora and the Internet mean you no longer have to drop $17 for one good song on an album full of total crap. But there were some albums that were worth every penny. These are the “top” 10 that changed my life, or just helped me get through it. There are tons more, but I think these are the most influential, cause they came to mind first.
Hole – Live through this
I liked Pretty on the Inside, but Live through this was the most empowering ass slapping chick rock album I had ever heard or really heard since actually. It was still raw and gritty but not quite so ‘shock jock’ as Pretty on the Inside had been, very listenable, and very inspiring to me. I was gonna form my own band and scream and play guitar because of this album, though I later realized that I’m more suited to soft cooing than screaming any day. I could play the entire album on my fat acoustic pawn shop guitar that was way too big for me front to back and have many excellent memories of doing so. Lollapalooza 95 was all about Hole, my first crowd surfing experience and being groped. It was fucking awesome. God damnit Courtney what the fuck happened to you, girl.
Alice in Chains – Dirt
Want to know what my life was like as a teen? Put this album on repeat, spend a couple of years on speed, stop showering, cut yourself a lot, overdose on anything you can get your hands on, and decide to commit suicide a few times a year – you’ll pretty much have it. Dirt was one of those ‘I’m not alone’ albums that I still cherish to this day, and the melodic excellence of the band has given it the staying power that other staple bands of the time, like Garbage, just didn’t have. I still listen to this one sometimes, though for reasons I suppose are rather obvious I don’t choose to go there very often. I like the other AiC albums as well, but none were as hard hitting to me as Dirt, which for all intents and purposes put a soundtrack to my miserable drugged existence for the first time. It’s still incredibly potent to me, and I’m still a riddle so strong you can’t break me.
Nirvana – Unplugged in New York
Let me be fair. ALL of the Nirvana albums and the various bootlegs that floated around for most of the mid-late 90′s were the center of my universe for quite some time. But Unplugged was different. It was more my style of music as I grew older, and it represented a “Look what could have been” aspect that I feel is at least partially responsible for my surviving my teens. It really made me think about the price of burning out so early while still connecting with my depressive roots that continued to hold me firmly below the ground that everyone else seemed to be walking on, but it showed a promise that somehow kept my head above water, too. I would not make the same mistakes.
Tool – Aenema
Man, this one is just so amazing I don’t know that words will cut it. Finding this Album was like finding the God in myself. It was the first time someone elses music spoke directly to my soul, carried me away and fucked me like a passion-gorged lover returning from an extensive leave. It was sexy, fairly simple, cerebral music that I still turn to again and again for the warm tingling sensations it brings. By far the best concert I’ve ever experienced. Sober, too!
Soul Coughing – El Oso
Holy shit! Music that is upbeat makes you feel good?! WOW!
Dead Can Dance – The Serpents Egg
Who can REALLY describe their first introduction to Dead can Dance? I’ll just say that learning there was interesting, vocal, landscaping, gibberish music out there that wasn’t fucking Enya changed my life. Lisa specifically inspired me to use my voice more, and allowed me to stop being embarrassed that it frequently sounded sad and forlorn.
Fiona Apple – Tidal
This album got me the fuck out of Baltimore, and got me the fuck out of the most difficult relationship I’d ever been in. By far the most intelligent lyrics I’d ever heard, and to top it off, she was crazy. One of the greatest compliments I received during this time in my life was from a friend who saw Fiona in an interview and swore to god she was me incarnate. She was also the mirror image that caused me to realize, I didn’t want to be quite as fucked up as I was, and in turn really changed my life for the better. I still cry every time I hear certain songs on the album, “Never is a Promise”, “The child is gone”, “Sullen girl”.
Paul Oakenfold – Transport
This album was a major step for me. I went from music that helped me wallow to music that made me feel alive. It’s also the album that got me through many lonely, dehydrated late nights at Microsoft as a Software Test Engineer. This entry comes with a neat little story. A couple years after I’d pretty much taken the album out of rotation, I got an email though mp3.com (RIP) from some guy with the return address dreamtraveler@, asking if I’d be interested in doing some vocals for him. It turned out to be the same person who did the first, and my favorite, track on this album. We made a few tracks together that can be found on http://notapplicable.info to this day, and I’m sure we would have made more if I didn’t hate all of humanity back then, particularly the ones in the music industry.
Moby – Play
New meets old in the most endearing and entertaining way. This album was my companion for some time, the concept still amazes me, and I really liked that I was listening to Church music without wanting to barf in my own fist and throw it at someone. Play opened my mind to new things, particularly arts, and cemented my desire to spend more time in New York. I met Moby and his band during the height of my infatuation with Play, which was pretty much the coolest thing that could have happened to me like EVER, and they remembered me later too. :) Real fun times. Play reminds me of summer driving with the windows down and just.. feeling almost free, finally.
Massive Attack – Mezzanine
Once tired of trancy-clubby electronica, Massive Attack was the perfect step up, and represents my current musical tastes well. It is sensual, universal, applicable music that can be the center of attention, or the background noise, depending on your mood. “Angel” is my anthem, and was to be my wedding march had we had an actual wedding. It is currently stuck in my car stereo, as that’s what was in it when some fucktard stole my car and ripped up the dash.
I grew up listening to the classical station, and Adult contemporary 80′s music. There was nothing specific album-wise from that time period and mostly what I listened to was the radio anyway. My first CD? UB40 – Promises and lies, when I was in 8th grade. Other influential albums include Portishead – Dummy and Cowboys, tons of Movie Soundtracks (Memento, Donnie Darko, Batman Begins, etc), The Gorillaz albums, anything Pink Floyd, anything Radiohead, most of Bjorks stuff, and a bunch of other stuff that I just can’t think of at the moment. And of course, the release of my own albums on mp3.com were pretty significant for me as well.
Albums that I liked for a while but don’t really connect with anymore would be like, Green Day – Dookie, The older NIN stuff, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Marilyn Masons albums, classics like Zeppelin and old Aerosmith, mostly popular albums that didn’t have as much staying power in my tastes. I can still listen, but I don’t seek the stuff out, and when I do it’s one or two songs, not the whole album.
Amazingly enough, it took me til this year to really discover Depeche Mode. I am so behind. And so not goth anymore.
