"Things just break sometimes. Maybe we should blame that third person we became, that personality we shared together. Maybe it's their fault because you're a good person and I think I'm a good person too. We just weren't made for this."
- From pleasefindthis.blogspot.com/Photography by Bryan Hainer
Today was so amazing. I helped to raise over 100,000 for Music Education in Nevada schools! I am so proud. Today was of course, one of the greatest inspirations to dance, Michael Jacksons Bday + the city of Las Vegas + the performers from many shows on the strip came together and pulled off a SOLD OUT show at the Pearl Theatre at the Palms. It was something else- the energy was sick + our number from PEEPSHOW was super badass. We danced to PYT + had 4 girls who were the PYT's and then four hiphop girls, we kinda played it as a West Side Story Sharks vs. Jets thing. It was awesome. My other favorite pieces were the 8 year old who plays Simba in Lion King singing, the gospel choir doing "Man in the Mirror" (I cried!) and this rad Las Vegas Band called the Higher and their cover of "Give in to me". It was really badass and they got a crazy standing O from the crowd. Very cool.
I am happy and inspired. My last 3 days in Vegas are all jam packed with shows, parties and packing! I never thought I would say this but I am actually going to miss this crazy city. I am never ever planning on being out here again for any extended period of time + I am just so happy that I got to hang here for the past few months. Sort out alot of my heart, spend nights building what I think is a pretty kickass website, dancewear line and read some really great books. I have missed NYC so much but I almost feel like I needed to spend all this time away from my city dealing with all my unfinished business so that when I get back this week I am hungry, focused and excited.
We were talking in between numbers tonight about how everything happens for a reason. People always say that, and I hate it. I like to fight the universe all the time. I will kick and scream to make things happen. Sometimes it is important to just sit back and let the tide take you where you need to be. I was planning on staying in Vegas right up until I left for ROX tour and instead took a leap of faith, decided to take 2 weeks off and just bum around NYC, on the slight chance that I might book something for the VMAS, or that I would meet someone who owns a yacht on the street corner and they would wisk me away to Greece for 2 weeks. Lucky me! One of those things happened and now I get to work with one of my favorites Taylor Swift and also spend the night with one of my besties (and most kickass Makeup artists ever Sarah Appleby) who is making Cobra Starship look very pretty for MTV. What a small small little world it is. Also talked to my second favorite director of all time Mr. Furgeson and get to give him a huge hug too! It is going to be so funnnnn!I hope you all will follow along as I am guest Tweeting and video blogging for the rolling stone of dance- DANCE SPIRIT MAGAZINE all week long!
I heard that Travis Wall is doing something for the VMAS also. Mission Meet Travis Wall. Isn't he AMAZING. Best new Choreographer. Wish I was him. Want to pick his brain and be his best friend. I want to dance with him and do something to these guys singing this. So brilliant.
"Kelts-congrats on the Vmas. Thanks for 4 first dates, 3 am phone calls and all your four-eyed hotness."
Someone found out where I work, somehow found the theatre and somehow managed to get these all the way from NYC to my station in my dressing room.
I am going to tell you a story about trust. Once upon a time (5 years ago) I met a super amazing man in NYC. This guy had a girlfriend and our group of friends all hung out all the time. I made it very clear that if said man didn't have said girlfriend that I wanted to go out. I made that VERY CLEAR. He made it very clear that he had a wonderful girlfriend and would never do anything to hurt her. Years later tables had turned and this guy did everything he could to woo me, when I HAD a boyfriend. He sent me opening night flowers, flowers of my birthday, and supported me in everything I did. The timing was just so wrong. I was caught up with someone else. I made it very clear that I would never do anything to ever hurt my boyfriend and that I would never cheat.
I have some serious trust issues. I think that if I am ever going to be able to trust anyone it might be this fellow. Maybe sometimes the universe tries to tell us things over and over again and we are simply not listening. Maybe if we just open our eyes then the master plan will slap us in the face and say "WAKE UP! I have good things for you!" Maybe I am just a hopeless romantic. Maybe... but I certainly am flattered.
They say when one door closes another one opens. It doesn't mean that the closed doors hurt less, it just means that we all have to just keep moving forward in order to overcome the adversity that life throws at our hearts and our lives. I refuse to give up on my dream of having it all at the same time.
Dress rehearsal for the MJ tribute at the Palms! Very exciting!
Last night I went and saw the indie flick "(500) days of summer". I loved this movie so much. I adored the part of the movie when Tom is talking about all the things he loves about Summer. "i love her smile, I love the way she laughs, I love the heart shaped birthmark on her chest" and then at the end of the story he is saying " i hate her smile, I hate her stupid laugh, I hate the cockroach shaped blob on her chest". I think we have all been Tom's and Summers. Tom, believer of true love, magic and hope. Summer, running away, doesn't want a commitment, wants to keep it light. I think what is funny is that we think as humans we can change people. As if we can love someone into loving us back. Tom is my dreamguy mostly because I think at one point, for a very long time, I was Tom. I spent years being amazing in hopes that at some point amazing would be enough to save other people hearts. I exhausted myself for love, but it never seemed like work, it seemed exactly like it was for Tom, like the best thing ever and means to have a song and dance montage in the morning. What happened next of course is that, I turned into a Summer. If you get hurt enough you just don't even have the energy to give an honest try to anyone. Summer didn't believe in Love. Summer kept everyone at arms length so that no one could really get close to her. Summer kept it really light.
At the end of the movie, Tom is sitting by himself, more successful than ever, looking cute as a button in his suit, still having everything remind him of Summer. You feel so bad for him because Summer has moved on and is getting married to someone else and Tom is still so gutted over all of it. When they speak Summer says that the reason she is okay being serious with her new guy is because "She is sure of all the things she never was with Tom". How gutting. I have been there. It is a terrible thing to hear.
But I think, as sad as I was for Tom, and myself, I was really happy. We all deserve someone who is sure. We deserve to be ready and accepting of Love. We all deserve a Tom who adores us and is our perfect dream boat of a guy. I have to believe that when I meet my match that there won't be any Summers in the picture, it will be just two Tom's (except, well you know).
So I am going to focus on the things I can control and be like Tom and work instead on creating my dream life. All I need is a giant chalkboard as a wall in my bedroom! Starting here! So excited to have my good friend Stacey Tookey rocking my line from Sugar and Bruno on "So You Think You Can Dance Canada" last night. She is rocking the Peace.Love.Dance. heathered Tee and it is available here. http://sugarandbruno.com/pages/keltie-colleen-series
Tell me something and I will never ask another question.
Why is it whenever I go out of my way to be a big person, I always end up feeling incredibly small? I should wish for broken hearts, broken dreams and ten times the hurt ever caused to me, and yet I can only find care, concern and well wishes in my heart. I am one of the smartest stupid girls that have ever kicked bal-changed through life.
Packing. Packing. Packing. Brunette. Reborn as a gypsy. Someone told me that I am incredibly incredible. I don't feel that way, but I am choosing to believe them today.
Reasons I love this performance! This chick does it all. Costume Change. The greatest F.U song ever. Rain. Looks hot in a FLAT shoe (yea tall girls!) This was epic and even more epic is going to be this years MTV Video Music Awards because that is right I WILL BE SHARING THE STAGE WITH TAYLOR AND DANCING FOR HER!!!!
I am so excited to work with Taylor. I am also excited to work again with the amazing choreographer Danielle Flora. Danielle has been the calling card to my great career. I got my break with her dancing on the VMAS in 2006, and then she hired me for Saturday Night Live, Comedy Central, Ben Stiller, a bunch of music videos and a whole wack of other stuff. She has some of the best energy I have ever worked with.
This is going to be my fourth year at the Video Music Awards. I can honestly say the two years I attended wearing a pretty dress and as arm candy killed my heart. All I wanted was to be dancing. It was hard to sit an be a spectator when inside me heart I am 100% performer! I have been thinking about making your own destiny. Attending the vmas on someone elses coattails was never very fun. I was never a very good sidekick. I have leaned lately that if u want anything, to be anything, to own anything to create anything it has to be your own. I was there the last 2 years but it had nothing to do with me and therefore I felt like a little tagalong. I'm not meant to put on a pretty dress and be arm candy. I want so much for myself. Nothing feels better than something you achieve on your own.
There are many girls sitting around, I see alot of them in Vegas, waiting for a man and his career, his money and his cool life to sweep them off their feet. Why? When we can concentrate on creating all those things on our own. I have a cool life, a cool career and lots of money...remind me why I need a man?
I was talking with Nicole about how cool our lives as dancers are because we never have to endure the downfall of being a has-been. How many different artists have a worked with that have faded into music oblivion? Many. How many dancers? Not as many. The dancers get to shift and get to keep working the best events with whoever is hot at the moment. Besides the blisters, harsh competition and sore muscles it is sort of a win win situation for me.
I cannot wait to be back on the stage at Radio City Music Hall. How strange the events since '06 have been. To me the VMAS are the pinnacle dance job. We didn't get alot of American tv growing up in Canada but we did get the VMAS. Every year I watched the epic dance numbers by Paula, Madonna, j.Lo, Britney, and I dreamed of the day that I would "make it" and be up there too. I think in my heart I was waiting for something like this to come to me again so that I knew that my first VMA's was not a fluke and that I could prove to myself, and everyone around that, I have what it takes to continue to be successful, even on my own.
Sometimes people are mean and they say I get alot of things because of my social life. I assure you. This one was all me. This one had nothing to do with twitter followers, myspace fan sights, or how many kids wrote in. This one was all me beating out the other 300 girls at the audition. It is nice to FEEL that. It is refreshing to stand on my own two feet and make it.
Here is a story. A few years ago I gave myself the goal of wanting to book a Broadway show. The problem was that my whole life I have been known as the tone deaf one. The only place you would catch me singing was in my car and in the shower. I love musical theatre and it has always been a dream of mine to sing something by Jason Robert Brown, or play Mimi in Rent. When I was in high school I sang a little bit but I was shy and fearful of what everyone would say.
Two years ago I started talking voice lessons from an amazing woman in NYC. I cried through the first 5 lessons where I was told I was doing almost everything wrong and would sing at the top of my lungs to her recorded piano tracks each night walking through the streets of NYC. I was so scared of singing in front of people that I figured that the strangers on the streets of my favorite city were the best people to help me beat this fear. I saw another singing great who helped me get my songbook together and I began attending all the big Broadway auditions. My agent asked me to come in and sing for him, and I almost cried I was so afraid. It was the worst audition of my life. He actually said to me, what about TV? You have such a great personality! (I think that was his way of saying, eeeek your voice sucks!)
I kept on working, and here I am. My voice is still pretty bad, I am learning, working on it. Today I am overcoming a huge fear and letting you all hear me. I just learned how to play this on the UKE. One night Me, Sprout and ShuSHU had sing along night. It was alot of fun. I am sad that things didn't work out the way either of us hoped between sprout and I, but real life means alot of work, and focus on our careers and alot less focus on dates. Maybe someday, or maybe we will just always be friends. Like my Daddy says... You can have it all, but you can't have it all at the same time. So true. Love will have to wait because right now, career needs all my attention. Life feels a little bit empty, maybe it always will, but I think it is really good for me. Somewhere over the rainbow...the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true....
Thanks to the amazing Chelsie Hightower for the rad sweats from her line for Sugar and Bruno. Super comfy and perfect for hanging out...She makes them LONG for us TALL girls! woo hoo!
Friday, August 21, 2009
I just finished an amazing memoir called "Perfection" by Julie Metz. I was struck by the cover art and the use of the word "renewal" on the cover and brought this story home to enjoy. I read this passage at the end of the story and was struck by how well it fit into my heart
"Forgiveness is a wonderful thing, the only truth that saves us from eating ourselves alive and causing damage to everyone we love. I continue to work on forgiveness. I do not, however, wish to forget any of this. I have concluded in the aftermath of everything that I am a terrible judge of character. My friends laugh and assume I am joking when I declare this, but it is not a laughing matter for me. The problem is those brief fits of exuberant optimism that sometimes cloud my first impressions. I won't always see through the beautiful smile, the clever remark, or the practiced gesture. I find that I need to allow myself many meetings to make the right measure of a person. Cathy and Henry remain in my mind as toxic person, the likes of whom I hope to never encounter again at an intimate level. I believe that I have, at last, learned ti identify other such persons. I see them now at parties, in shoppes. I try to observe their confusion, and connect it to my own confusion as another struggling human. I can engage such people in polite conversation if required, but I do not want them in my life. On a good day I can tell myself that Cathy is another imperfect human, for whom I have a good deal of sincere compassion. On such a day I can remind myself of the bottomless tragedy of Henry's choices. On a great day, I do not think of him at all. I am doing my best, living my life, in the present moment."
It if funny that I got to this part of her story just today, after writing and thinking about this yesterday. Sometimes I think that there is a magical universe that switches around the ends of books and made for tv movies so that they fit directly into whatever my heart wants to say that day. If you have time check this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXfbmBCMMvI amazing by emily shock. can't post it.
I have been so overwhelmed by the Fearless Essay's. Remember you have until the 31st to enter.
I spent 12 hours in New York this week and it reminded me why I love it there so much. In those short hours I was able to pay a trip to my delicious agents over at Clear Talent Group, coo over beautiful things at Topshop, nap on loftiss's couch, have dinner with the amazing director/producer/inventor of all things Story Pirates, Mr. Jeff Tomsic, enjoy a cup of tea at the Bowery Hotel and meet a bulldog named Stella and Cheri O'terri (Go spartans?) File into an early morning audition with 300 other gorgeous NYC dancers and kiss and hug most of them. (Maybe I am a Scene Queen? It just isn't the scene that spends time on Buzznet!) I got to audition for MTV and my good friend Danielle Flora, run into Jerry Mitchell on the street! run to the airport and fly on a plane holding me, My dance captain Nick, Wayne Brady and one of the most perfect men I have ever laid eyes on Jamile Mcgee, back to Las Vegas.
Speak of the devil. below.
That is why I love NYC. There is always something to do, something to be said, some dancing to do, and even though I wander through most of life alone, in that city, it never feels that way. The little bitty dance community might seem daunting to some, but to me it feels like a home cooked meal. I have spent a whole great deal of energy trying to fit into places, and scenes and worlds where I did not belong. I have felt like that if I stood close enough to something great, I would be great. I have tried with everything I have to make broken records play. I can honestly say this. You fit somewhere. Just like I do. Maybe it isn't exactly where you want to fit. Maybe you find yourself look over at the green grass wishing you were somewhere else, with other people, doing something else. I have begun believing that our purpose isn't to do things so that all the different groups will watch, but instead to do things and make art because there is nothing else we could ever do. Dance for me is not a choice. Dance is my air. There are people, in jobs, in schools, in life who do things and say things just so that someone will watch and they will feel important. I am learning a new game called "doing things because I want to". Instead of hoping in a cab from the Bowery I walked the 28 blocks it took me to get home last night. I looked at the buildings, the sky, the taxis and the people. I could have rushed home to check my phone and email and do some blogging and live my life through means of mass connection, and instead, I just lived...
Try it. It is really pretty amazing.
Ps. I guy actually hit on me on the street with the pick up line " Honey, I think you dropped your drugs." Only in NYC!
So I've been packing, deciding what things will accompany me on tour, and then back to NYC. Which things can stand to live under the stairs in my parents basement for a few more years till I settle down. Which things can go away forever to strangers at the salvation army.
I feel really lucky that I get to do this. I like being able to choose what I get to lose. Of course, this isn't always the way it works is it. Sometimes, other people get to choose for us. I have been blamed for many things but never those are hurtful as ruining things I believed in more than I ever believed in myself. I only have the best intentions for everyone in my life, always. I am a really strong person, some man in some suit that controls peoples records said that "I know how to make boys fall for me". That is sort of funny. I wonder if that really is my talent then how exactly it comes to be that I am the one who is alone? I am a strong character, I get that. I know what I want, I am somewhat of a control freak. I find it weird that people could ever think that someone like me with maybe one of the most insane work ethics around could ever make someone else lose focus. I guess I do not see that. It's ok. I am better off alone. Thanks for trying, it was fun, a little too close to home perhaps, and it made me realize that, my heart knows how to feel. It is still working somewhere in there. This will be just another chapter in my never ending set of journals and collections of random things that remind me of something memorable. I guess when I am lonely at night I will just snuggle up with these journals. Try not to get any paper cuts.
I sat up scanning some of these, in case I never see them again so that I could always remember them.
This is a picture I carry in my wallet. This is me, in ballet school at age 8. You will notice that I was about 4 inches taller than everyone even then. I also refused to wear the proper ballet clothes to class. I wanted to wear my "people of the world skirt" this skirt has little people from all over the world in it's pattern. I have always kept this with me because it reminds me that since I can remember, I have been weird, have not fit in, and have had a different outlook on life then the rest of the universe. That is okay to just be that way. I have always been like this.
A couple of years ago a guy gave me some mittens for xmas. It was the only time I have ever spent Christmas in NYC and at home and not in a random hotel room on some tour. I had a tree. We went ice skating in central park. It was snowing, and I had it all. My favorite city, my favorite season, and all that. Funny how things, and mittens seem to unravel with time.
A few years before that I was rehearsing for Rockettes and an old friend had come thru my town, I was in love with him, still, but he didn't know it. I didn't know it but at the time he was about to admitted into rehab and would come out shiny, new and pristine. At the time when he looked me in the eyes with yellow eyeballs, shaking hands and a green face from the booze and drugs and told me "Kelts. You gonna know about Jeff Buckley" and wrote this on this napkin I was completely unaware that Jeff Buckley would change my life, almost as drastically as the writer did. More than the record title is the reminder that, people in life are only as bad as you let them be. That walking away gracefully is so important. I haven't learned to do that yet. Or maybe I just did.
I like to make lists. I make them almost everyday. Some of them are for only a day, and others are for weeks and months into the future. I found this in the front of an old journal. Life list. Only one thing is crossed off. Sadly. I am almost about to cross off writing a book. I can play the UKE- although I don't know if I do that "well". The rest of these things are yet to be done. Do you make lists? I have this obsession with religions. I want to know all about them all. I also heard they are closing the pyramids to the public so I really need to get over there to climb before they do. I did learn how to say something is Spanish, but it is of course, inappropriate. I have added a few things to this list. I mostly will never, ever skydive. Ever.
I have a few steps I go through each time my heart aches. First, I read through old journals, I survived then, I will now. Then I got on the websites of all the dance agents in NYC and I look at all the things everyone has been doing and I get really fired up. I mean, REALLY fired up. Then I want it all, all of it, really badly all over and I feel so stupid for getting distracted with things that never seem to make sense. Then I get my ass to work.
packing. peeping. flying to NYC. meeting with agent. dinner with director. loving loftiss. sleeping. auditioning. flying back. Peeping. all in 30 hours. WERK.
Hi. I have been really sick. It takes alot for a workaholic girl like me to not get out of bed, or even open my laptop for 3 days. I've missed you. What I have been doing besides getting utterly behind in all aspects of life is sleeping about 20 hours a day in puddles of my own feverish sweat and then watching LOST. I actually turned on my tv. Pretty amazing. I am about half way through season two (don't ruin it for me kay?).
I think what is so interesting about lost, and about life is this huge fear of the unknown. People scrambling worried about what might be out there, what is gonna happen and what the future holds. I am more of a John Locke myself. I feel like I got dumped into this world, this world where really, alot of it doesn't make sense, not to actually ever make sense of it. Instead to enjoy it and to experience it. It was MY destiny to be apart of all this. Granted I am not tying other people up, or blowing up hatches but, I see so many people running around with the same sentence on their lips "what am I gonna do now?", maybe they are speaking of their jobs, their houses, their families, losing something they love or even their hearts questions, the answer is so easy and there for all of us to see..
"whatever you want."
Many years ago when I was first starting my dance career in NYC I would constantly worry, I would sit with my best friend spagatti and talk and talk about what was next, what would happen to us and worry, worry, worry, he would say to me, and still to this day says to me "You are Keltie Colleen, dammit, something always comes up."
I guess we need to realise that the unknown isn't scary because it is bad. It is scary because we make it that way. Instead of fearing the future, try this instead, open your arms and heart to what is next. Keep those lessons you have learned from the past and proceed faithfully into whatever is next. Everything is ok. Something will come up. I promise.
PS. I am starting to read all the fearless essays tommorrow. You have until the 31st to enter. Go here. www.sugarandbruno.com to enter.
PPS. Bent- Matt Natahson is the best medicine. If he could just show up on my doorstep and sing I am pretty sure I would be able to get out of bed. Maybe not.
It is becoming clear to me that I am a control freak. I think I have covered this up by saying I am "driven" when in fact. I just tend to control everything. I take care of everyone even when they do not need it. It is really getting to me. It means that I create the outcome of every situation I enter into. Last night, in just a few hours I created an afterparty with endless supplies, got the guys a gig playing for Robert in Cancun at the hard rock, got a suite so no one had to drink and drive and then some... It gets kinda boring always being the "go to". I am waiting patiently for the world to come and knock me off my feet and give me a life changing expirence that controls me.
The last time I felt that way was in Hawaii when I went swimming with a pod of wild dolphins. I was completely small and scared and amazed. I have never felt so alive.
I guess this is why I get so obsessed with the things that I cannot have. What a human fatal flaw I possess. I always want more. I give too much. I expect too much. I can be way too charming for my own good. Charm is a dangerous, dangerous thing.
People always say that we control our own destiny. I love that. But for once I would love destiny to come sweep me of my feet and completely surprise me with something delicious. I would love to live without a self made map.
Last night was the movie premiere of "The Goods" here in Las Vegas. It was alot of fun and a really funny movie. I got to meet Dane Cook + Kid Rock and a bunch of other rads and it was awesome to share this fun expirence with my new castmate (and very old, very good friend) Kristen. We walked the carpet, saw the movie, went to the after party and then I met the owner of the "koi" and we were treated to an amazing dinner and drinks all night long. I am a homebody but I adore a fun night out, getting dressed up and acting silly.
Salsa Night was epic. Carolyn killed the Samba. I Salsa'd all night. This guy surprised the smile out of me but getting up and dancing! I was talking about how special our little salsa club is and how what is missing from modern day romance is a man asking a woman to dance and leading her onto the dancefloor. How we spent money and time standing in lines at swanky clubs to stand packed in with a bunch of strangers, who all move their heads to the same lame beat, drink overpriced bottles of grey goose and cannot even speak to eachother. I would much rather drink water all night, dance, be inspired by people who cannot HELP but move. It is in their blood, their culture and their hearts. If I could I would pack little salsa club up and keep her in my back pocket.
"I'm ready to embrace this, I'm ready for repair I've got so many layers left by amateur painters who covered over what was there I stuffed myself sick on your memory and the beautiful mess we'd made But I'm so tired of being inspired only when things slip away" - Matt Nathanson
Life will take you down a million different roads. You will meet all kinds of people. Some of them will come into your life just for a few months, years or even days. For me all this coming and going sometimes makes me sad. But sometimes this coming and going makes me very happy. I think it is wonderful when the universe all meets up and a bunch of your fleeting friendships all end up in the same place. I have been so lucky to meet some of the most talented dancers in America and have them inspire me. These friends include the soloist in the brand spankin new ELVIS circ show, my friend Ryan who is on tour with WICKED and of course, the one and only Shu-shu, sister and rockette. It was a blast hanging with them and reinventing some wall-ography.
In other news, I have had the pleasure of watching my friends play the house of blues on sunday night. I was blown away by how many people came up to me with words of love, adoration and CUFFS! It was so amazing. I had mom come up to me and tell me I have inspired them and their daughters to dance! I am sort of blown away by all of this and like I told me new friends..."does anyone really know what the fuck they are doing?". The answer is no. I do not know. I just live, enjoy, think everyday. Thanks for following along...
More amazing was watching my friend Alex up there. He sang one of the best shows I have ever seen him play. Perfectly pitched to a tee. There are some singers that never disappoint me an he is one of them. More than that, he is one of the nicest people I have ever met. I ave known him for years and he is one of the only people to constantly treat me with love and friendship no matter what. I admire him so much. I couldn't contain my pride to see how far they have come and see the house of blues bursting at the seams at how powerful and energetic the show was.
I met some amazing people last night. Makes me remember why I do what I do. I couldn't believe how many hot chicks were rocking cuffs at the show! It was so amazing to see/meet/dance along with you. Love.
Monday seems like a really good day to write a poem, song, or essay and enter this contest. Sugar and Bruno sent me this pic today. Go to www.Sugarandburno.com to enter.
Ps. I know if you follow me on here you most likely read my fav blog I wrote this for you. I thought today was the most beautiful photo/entry yet. http://pleasefindthis.blogspot.com/2009/08/bibliography-of-strings.html
A very exciting this is going happen at the Pearl theatre at the Palms this month. I am happy to be raising money to benefit music education in Nevada school by dancing in las Vegas's tribute to the king of Pop. A few dancers from Peep have gotten together and are working on a piece to P.Y.T. Here is an inside look at our first rehearsal. It looks pretty yuck right now, but trust me in a few weeks we shall be the hit of the show! If you live in Vegas come! Tickets are on sale at Ticketmaster!
Ps. I also wanted to say a HUGE shout out to Wurtland Middle School! Wildcats! I asked a while back if anyone knew of some underprivileged dancers in need of some sugar and bruno gear to start of their season on the right foot and my friend Cristina helped connect these guys with me. I am proud to say that Sugar and Bruno sent some HUGE boxes of gear out to these kids. I hope that it makes your dance season all the more special! Go wildcats! Thanks to the amazing folk at S+B for being so cool and giving.
pps. I am rocking a new haircut I call the extended bowl cut. What do you think?
ppps. How many times can one group of 3 girls say sh$t.
pppps. I love it when people call me kelts. Thats how I know they really care.
...your head is on my stomach and we're trying so hard not to fall asleep
This is my 200th post. This is very weird because I spent most of yesterday attempting to purchase an anniversary gift, for myself. This proves how fiercely independent I am. I just signed my contract for my fifth year of being a Radio City Rockette. Being that the Rockettes were my childhood dream, idol, and goal all in one I thought that I would celebrate my anniversary by purchasing myself a very beautiful piece of jewelry. I am looking to get a huge stone of some sort, maybe a smokey topaz, to celebrate my dream coming true. Happy Anniversary me!
So, this post is about me getting the wind knocked out of me. I realized something profound today. I've never been in a relationship. I have however created these perfect little worlds where I could exist as fierce independent me and sort of hover around the outside of the semblance of something intimate with someone who I really cared about. I have felt great love and at the same time I have created this love within a great distance. I have never actually been able to invite someone into my inner world because there is this great fear inside of me that in doing that I would have to make some sort of sacrifice in my career. You can call it being determined, focused or unstoppable, or you can call it selfish. He did.
I have been asked to play many roles in my few adult relationships. I have turned all these roles down. No I won't learn to cook. No I won't dye my hair black and wear more leather. No I won't move across the country to live with you. I am always going to be putting dancing first. Take it or leave it. Taylor Swift said in an interview that " she can only really give someone what is left." I can imagine that Miss. Swift is much busier than I am, but I really understand what she is talking about. When you spend so much time focusing or your profession which just happens to also be your art which also happens to be your passion which also happens to be your one true love, what do you have left to give?
I wonder why my guys always stray. It might be because I am crazy, or it might be because after all my talk of I don't NEED you, I have my own life, I have my own thing, See ya when I see ya, well, maybe a man really feels like he wants to be needed. I have a really hard time accepting anything from anyone but myself. Maybe I scare people because my role as a woman is not typical. I don't need to be saved, taken care of or kept. I just wanna hang out when we are done doing all the other things life keeps us busy with.
Long story long, I got called out on this fatal flaw today. Big time. I was asked what it was I wanted in life and I answered my typical keltie answer, I just want to keep working and focusing on dancing and being successful at it.
He asked me "but what is success?"
I literally did not have a response. Is there a mathematical equation I should insert here? Of course not, that is the challenge of life. By many dancers standards I have a dream career. Most of my friends from my hometown write me on facebook and tell me how cool and exciting my life is, how successful I am. I see them and their high school sweethearts that they married and their babies and houses and I think about why it seems like there is a choice out there between one or the other. Then I start thinking about the level of success one can I say maybe I have in my profession, but does it feel slightly meaningless to me right now? yes. It really does. What good is selling out of my clothing line the first week if I come home to my empty apartment, drink tea by myself and pat myself on the back. Yay me. Pathetic. What good is having nice things, nice clothes, money to see nice shows with if I can't have someone to go with. I tried sleeping with my Chanel purse and it certainly didn't snuggle back.
I am all about the independent woman. I had a righteous babe sticker on my first beater car when I was 16. People ask me why I act the way I act and my excuse is always the same. Well, if I keep all these pieces of me separate from my relationship then when he leaves me I won't really be alone. I won't lose it all. It is time for me to realize, when someone breaks your heart, you lose it all anyways. The heart is the MOST important thing and it doesn't matter if you are walking around being Rhianna for heavens sake, a broken heart sucks. Tears your insides apart. No amount of padding, protection or predetermined fierceness is going to make this better.
He told me today, that I walk into everything with him just waiting for him to mess it up. That I meet someone and then just wait, and expect them to fail. He says that he walks into everything thinking this could be the one and only thinks the best of me. People say I am strong, optimistic and positive. I am far from those things living in a world where I hold someone guilty for crimes they have yet to commit.
So here I am to admit to the world all the things I want. I want it all. I want to learn how to intertwine the different aspects of my life so that they function as a little well oiled keltie heart/dream machine. I am not entirely sure if it is possible but I am willing to try. Wish me luck, and wish me happy anniversary.
I have been complaining to Nicole for the last 30 minutes about how badly my feet are aching. I knew that the days would come in my dancelife where I hurt for no reason, or that the reason that my body is worn out, tired and wants an office job! I am having huge issues with my arches, feet and tendonitis everyday. I wake up hurting. I walk around hurting all day. I got to sleep hurting. When my mom was visiting she told me I woke her up in the middle of the night rubbing my feet in my sleep.
The first thing my very smart, fellow Rockette friend Nicole says to me is " Are you icing, heating and stretching them really well before and after shows everyday?". My answer is of course no.
I came from the kill it till you break it school of dance. Shelley filled us full of aspirin when we hurt something and we kept on dancing. In the last 5 years the Rockettes and the amazing physical trainers that work for them have been advising us on treating our bodies so good so that we can prevent any future injuries. We do active warm-ups, tape BEFORE we get blisters and ice bath each day so that our muscles can be renewed each day and reborn the next day.
This got me thinking about my most powerful muscle. What kind of physical training am I doing for my heart? It seems to me that we go through life running from situation to situation fixing what is broken and not much else. We get our hearts broken and we tried to fix it. We mend, bandage and try to put our pieces back together at the end.
I was just thinking about what a better state we would all be in if we treated our hearts the way the rockettes make us treat our bodies. What if we looked at ourselves each day and honestly put in the effort to prevent these breaks. I mean, let us all be honest, we have all felt that "something is wrong" feeling in our guts. What if instead of pushing that to the back burner and waiting for a huge outcome we addressed it right when it was nudging at our hearts. If we read the books, followed the rules and took really good care of our souls right from the get go. Instead of depending on someone to make us feel better, more complete, or loved- What if we spent time doing these things for ourselves each day? What if life forced us to visit the "training" room each day and spend sometime working on those little nagging voices in our heads before we got to the point where we are singing sad songs crying on the phone to our best friends?
I think this is what is beautiful about meditation. Something I seem to never do enough. I like to think meditation is my little "heart therapy" room. But I have to think to myself why am I not visiting each and everyday. It feels so great to get focused, enlightened and feel peaceful. It is refreshing. Almost like jumping in a 47 degree ice bath at the end of an 8 hour rehearsal day. You think it is going to be brutal, but you leave feeling like you have fresh legs. Some days I need a fresh heart!
I was thinking about what relationships would be like if you and your partner had to spend time each day in the "training room". What if you just sat and kinda checked in to make sure you were both on the same page, get all those " it really hurt me when you did this" out and look each other in the eye and say " this is still really where I want to be, let's go have another really great day". I think there would be alot less broken hearts and miscommunication.
So. maybe it is because my name is Keltie and that is Irish. But for the past 5 months it seems everything I love and listen to is Irish. Frames. Damien. The script. LOVE LOVE LOVE this song. Found this amazing cover of the tube. I love the line "finally met a girl who is gonna put him first". This will be the downturn of my life. I have heard the, "it's just it doesn't seem like you have time for me." + then me have to have the " I can't put you first, I've been in a relationship with my dreams since I was 3 years old, that is my priority relationship, I am sorry." I swear. One day I will be with someone who thinks this is great and is strong enough and has enough of a life that he doesn't need a girl following him around 24/7. I will never be that girl. It is kinda sad, as maybe this means I will always end up alone. It is kinda amazing because I really love dancing.
Ps. My feet still really hurt. My sweet guy told me that he is going to just carry me around so that I don't have to stand on them anymore. I have never been treated so nice. It is really, really, really strange. and wonderful.
something not finished. the fearless tank in motion. me spitting on floor.
You get to a point in life where you just have to laugh. You get to a point where you see things for what they are + they are a tabby cat (Bukowski. go read it). You know it is crazy when Bukowski starts to make sense. Crazy doesn't look good on anyone.
I have been reading + crying through "my sister's keeper". Being someone who had an ill fsmily member for many years I can relate to the wanting so bad to fix someone you cannot fix. Jodi Picoult says the most amazing thing on page 368. "...because I don't know how to say what I really want to: that the people you love can surprise you everyday. That maybe who we are isn't so much about what we do, but rather what we are capable of when we least expect it."
I love loving a book so much that I get excited to crawl into bed at night to read it. Like going on a great date or spending time with a good friend. I get to jump back into the story each night. Love that. Thinking about what Jodi said, I couldn't help but be moved by the fact that when I least expected to, I found parts of me that I thought were gone forever. My good friend Mel said on the phone to me today, "Keltie! You are back! Oh how I missed you so!" I am smiling for no reason. I am skipping. Laughing. I have a small army of incredibly witty oddballs who totally adore me. It's enough. :)
A story about everything making sense (since it so rarely does)
Yesterday a very old friend of mine was in Vegas. His name is Rob Dawson. Rob and I have been friends since the womb, as our parents are besties. I spent each summer growing up sitting beside my brother and his 2 brothers doing boy stuff. Things like watching startrek, playing guitar and lighting things on fire. Rob is on tour right now and was coming through vegas on the CRUEFEST tour. Nifty.
We spent the day, hanging, visiting and reminising and finally spending some time at guitar center picking out my new uke. Here is the story that makes sense...
After I picked out my new baby and brought her to the register I took a look at her and spoke about that I thought she was a girl and that it seemed to me that her name was lily. The only people who heard me were Rob and the cashdude. I paid for her. Posted a tweet about "what should I name my new uke?" and went on my way with Rob.
A few minutes later I got a text from my other favorite Dawson that said " I think you should name her Lily, If I had one that is what I would name her."
I stopped in my tracks. When things like this happen you just have to be open to the universe and the messages that it is sending you. Looks like I am on the right track.
My friend Loftiss talks about "creating moments" alot. I think this is a fatal flaw in girls and dreamers alike. We tend to try to create these magical movie moments in our lives. I know I do. I can make excuses for someone, or myself until the cows come home. I can draw out one nice gesture for a month and turn my head to every lie, forgotten phonecall or missed event. I am the queen of "yea but...he sent me flowers!" I have learned and am learning to stop doing this. To just accept it as it is and to just live the day you are given instead of some day in the future or some day months ago. As we get older we are supposed to be getting better. Not worse. We are supposed to be getting smarter, stronger and more enlightened. There are parts of me that will always be caught in the immature Keltie phase. I think because, I grew up so fast. Moving the big city by myself really young, and just started working, dancing and hustling. I grew up in my profession, and never in my heart. I still fall in and fall out of love like I am looking at Jordan Knight at the New Kids on The Block Concert in 4th grade.
I have been sitting back the last few months and sort of just accepting life as it comes, not trying to force anything, even though, it surely would have been easier to find a rebound, an delicious beverage, or some sleeping pills. I really want to be as strong in my heart as I am in my determination.
Brilliant things:(write these down!) -You can love someone into loving you back. -never make someone a priority if they only see you as an option. -How you spend your days is, of course, how you spend your life.
PS: Steve just informed me that I just beat out Lacey Schwimmer in page views on www.sugarandbruno.com and am now the most viewed signature series collection on the site! Thank you so much for the support and love! Gonna do some giveaways this week. Thanks to everyone at the Dance teachers summit in NYC and Ihollywood in LA for all the support of my line...SHOCK!
"do you do anything special?" "nope just an alligator car" "It's okay, I'm just keltie colleen, I dont do anything special either"
Chelsie and I took over the Sugar and bruno world headquaters like fools to show you behind the scenes at the place that creates out clothing lines. (have you seen chelsies stuff, its super cool) Come along on this adventure with us that exposes just how dorky we really are. Make SURE TO SUPPORT MY GIRL CHELSIE ON DANCING WITH THE STARS THIS SEASON AND VOTE VOTE VOTE!!!
