this is me in grade 9 baby.

here is the truth...

I am happy to report that at my high school reunion not one person remembered that I lost my final adult tooth just shy of the start of grade 12 and I spent most of my senior year with a wire connecting the giant HOLE in my smile with my bottom tooth in hopes that with a little extra nudge that it would come in before graduation photos. whew.

Evenutally, you forget it all. first you forget everything you learned- the dates of wars and pythagorean theorem. you especially forget everything you didn’t really learn, but just memorized the night before, you forget the names of all but one or two of your teachers, and eventually you forget those too.
That the guy that dumped you will finally, ten years later tell you that all these years he has been thinking of you and has regretted it. He will be way less cute. whew. The guy who you never stood a shot with went bald and isn’t even half as cute as he was sitting in the lunch room with that red tshirt on. Wear sunscreen, stay cute girls.

You forget your class schedule and where you used to sit and your best friends phone number and lyrics to the song you played a million times, and eventually, but slowly, you forget your humiliations. they just fade away. It seems that no one remembers the time that in front of my entire grade 12 english class in a pair of white pants I got my period for all to see. Sadly though, no one remembered my awesome rendition of Santa Baby at the holiday showcase. damn.

I can honestly say that I remember almost nothing I learned in school (I was an honor student, and now have trouble spelling and forming sentences...sad) , I remember CRYING over my scientific calculus and studying for hours to ace the biology finals. you forget who was cool and who was not, who was pretty, smart, athletic, and not. ones you said you loved, and the ones you actually did, they’re the last to go, and once you’ve forgotten enough, you love someone else. People will get older and they will get married to people they meet at college, at work and travelling. Not one person from my class actually ended up with their high school sweetheart...pressure is off! Almost everyone at my reunion is married and has one, or two kids, some of my best friends from school are super preggers right now. Giant parts of me feel like I am still the same outcast, social extrovert, work-a-holic introvert from school, maybe some things never change. There are huge pieces of me that feel like I am behind the times, no husband, no babies, no house...but then again, my plans never really included any of those things...

I spent the better part of my reunion telling the same story, the answer to what do you do now?

well I live in LA, I have a dog, a little place to live, and I do some dancing, some making up of dancing, I work with celebs sometimes, I have a clothing line, a radio show, a blog, a dvd, I teach, I judge, oh...and I just signed a 40 episode deal for a tv show that will actually air in canada...

to which most people answered, so you pretty much did exactly what you said you were going to do then?

yea pretty much.

we all dream different dreams, and that is what makes life so exciting, so hold true to what you really want to do with your life and focus on that. Fall in love and make babies, or travel the world in sport. But more than anything, be nice to everyone you meet, throughout all of your life, because one day, you might be in a room with 200 people who represent your growing up years and just think of how those people will remember you. I was happy as a clam to hug every single person in that room. I have never, and will never believe in groups, cliques or hating on people just because they are different. I didn’t in school and ten years later I still don’t. There is beauty in all of our dreams, all our differences and in all of us!

bev facey forever!

my favorite thing to do is this. always has been. always will be.
dance is my first love. my best friend. and my own personal lifesaver.
i cannot find sense in most of life but I can always make sense out of steps and music. always. there will always been a million stories to tell. a million steps to take.


you should take it like a man.

leotarded.

this week I am shooting the new ads for discount dance + last week at my fitting I sat down with my them + made this with brett. we are cooking up some mega rad dancer stuff for DDS, a place where everything dance can come together in one easy, make it happen, see dance, live dance, make dance dreams happen place. it will be epic, and afterwards I will need a nap.

things you should know: i forgot my makeup. i am not wearing pants, during any of this. my smile is crooked. leotarded is my new word. get into it.

"wow."



"exactly."


That's what it feels like when you touch me. Like millions of tiny universes being born and then dying in the space between your finger and my skin. -#iwtfy

you.

These are a few of my favorite things:






I am so madly in love with you my little army. Thank you for the constant inspiration. The love, the photos of you in my gear, the letters you write, the thoughts you send my way. I am constantly in awe of all of you. It is such a dream come true for me to create these designs that people seem to love so much. I promise only more radness in the future.

Courage. Passion. Hard Work.

http://keltiecolleendance.com/page/the-keltie-colleen-mantra-cuff

I'll get the globe.

i live for moments like this.

"so... you look cute in the morning, just as I would have expected"

Here is the magical thing about life,

there are gonna be times where your heart is so broken you cannot stand alone in the shower long enough to wash your hair without jumping out to call a friend because the loneliness is threatening to move from its place in your throat to somewhere all over the bathroom floor. you will be broken. you will be messy. you will be tactless. you will say the first thing out of your mouth and the last thing out of your heart and nothing will make sense. Your vocabulary will consist of only these words. why+how. during those moments and months you will lose hope that one day you will wake up and your heart will not hurt or that your eyes will not be swollen from crying inside your dreams.

but, I promise you, if you just hang on. keep your chin up and solider on there will be times where you feel like the most perfect, prized thing in the universe. where your dreams match up perfectly with a plus one, and where your vocabulary consists only of the words right+amazing. you will spend hours with someone and none of those hours are enough, as in, there are not enough moments your eyes could be on top each other. Where you will catch yourself smiling and laughing out loud, when no one else is around, simply because your happiness is threatening to burst out of every single cell in your body.

so... thanks to you, past loves, who threw my heart into the battlefield. without you, I am not sure I would be the version of myself I am today. without you, and the tears I cried over you, I would have never known just how lucky I am to feel this way now. I've watched all the movies, I've heard all the songs, I've read all the books. I thought I had a pretty good grasp on what boy plus girl is supposed to make, I was completely wrong. That wasn't love, that was me giving love and getting small moments of debatable emotion in return.

The falling out of love is a hellish beast, but I will never be defeated, not when the falling is so delicious. I would break my heart a million times more to feel your hand holding mine.

It all makes sense.
It is all worth it.

You were a bandaid for someone, and this someone will be a bandaid for you.

sorry I have been MIA. I was away at a thing (it was awesome), and then yesterday I was shooting a thing(it was also awesome), and then today i am moving my things to a new place. (right above c.perri's head!) So many things to do...

Remember when you saw that movie where the prince charming stole the girl away and covered her eyes and took her somewhere magical and when he opened her eyes she gasped because it was all so movie-like, even for the movie? And then he leaned into kiss her, and wrap his arms + whole self around her and then she just glowed from the inside to the outside? And even though they were looking up at a million stars are the moon and Saturn's rings, even the night sky was no match for their light?

That happened to me. yesterday. people stare at us whenever we are together because i think the light that shines from inside us must blind the other people in the room. when you asked me what I was thinking, I was thinking...

I am just so lucky to know you.

Have you ever felt that way about a person? like, my life force in increased just by knowing that someone like you exists, and then on top of it, knowing that I get to sit and dream and plan adventures and bounce ideas off of a brilliant mind like his. To look in someones eyes and know that they are listening, really listening. When I look at his face sometimes I have to look away because I am afraid that I am going to start crying, screaming, laughing or yelling, I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU...FOR SO LONG, WHERE WERE YOU? at the top of my lungs.

When someone or something is wrong it will gnaw at the back of your heart+head+thoughts all day? I like you...but. and then a list of all the things you wish were different.

I am playing a game with myself called, when you are about to let someone in and you get really really scared and you want to run the other direction, don't. Stay. See what happens because what happens my friends, is magical.

people told I wouldn't be able to really get over my lack of heart, until someone came along that made me forget, or that stole my heart away. I think that might be true.

sigh. swoon. gulp.

"You're no longer someone I'll remember
but someone I'll regret."

on how I feel about you...

" so where does that leave us? Why do I need this man at all? I need him only because I happen to adore him, because his company brings me gladness and comfort, and because, as a friend's grandfather once out it "Sometimes life is too hard to be alone, and sometimes life is too good to be alone."...By unnerving definition, anything that the heart has chosen for its own mysterious reasons it can always unchoose later-again, for its own mysterious reasons. And a shared private heaven can quickly descend into a failed private hell. "

-Committed, Elizabeth Gilbert

This makes sense.
We look for someone to love us.
and our definition is vast:

love
hold
inspire
kiss
prioritize
gift
fawn over
make believe with
laugh with
skip with
admire
be attached to
be captivated by
be crazy about
be enamored of
be enchanted by
be fascinated with
care for
cherish
choose
dote on
glorify
idolize
put on pedestal
think the world of
thrive with
treasure
worship

Maybe it is just me, but it seems like Elizabeth is right. We are asking for so much from just one person. One imperfect person, just like us. There is not one person on this planet that is perfect. I am not. You are not. He is not. She is not. It is simply asking too much for someone to be your everything. I think the secret is to be your own everything, and to invite someone you adore- along for the wild ride. Then, if they leave, you still have everything and are only missing a few small feelings of adoration, which can be replaced, for the most part, pretty easily.

the news:

Update time:

First of all I will be at Everything Dance this weekend in RENO, NV for a signing. Come see me!

Second of all, I am currently designing NEW fresh things for Sugar and Bruno. There are so many rad styles at sugarandbruno.com right this second. Make sure to use the discount code KC5678 to get 10% off.

Third, are you following my rants on twitter? If you do I would love the support of you suggesting to your friends to follow also. The more the merriest!
twitter.com/keltiecolleen

Fourth, I would really like it if you would join my fb fan club. It is the best way for me to reply to you and send you news and links. I really like it. Right here on this very page is a link!

Fifth, I would really love it if you would tell your friends about this blog. The more readers I have the easier it is for me to attempt to show a publisher that my book is worth it. Thanks.

Sixth, make sure to email me keltiecolleen@gmail.com with the photos you take of you in your gear + cuffs, I post them all on my website and mostly they make my belly giggle with happiness when I see them.

Okay. That is all. Thanks for reading.

OXKC

maybe it's me.

We have all fallen victim to the "it's not you, it's me" scenario. Somehow this is supposed to make one of the people feel better about something. For me, the end of anything, a relationship, a cup of tea or LOST is all equally disappointing. But I realized today that I have been sitting here in life for quite sometime verbalizing my disenchantment with all the people I meet, sometimes date, and eventually find some major reason to use the "it's not you, it's me" with. It isn't that I couldn't have a one-of-a-kind awesome boyfriend if I wanted one, I can think of 5 guys I have been out with in the last few years that are all absolutely amazing, and yet each time, after some time, the thought of being with them has me running the opposite direction.

So maybe I keep saying, I just haven't found what I am looking for yet. That isn't true. I totally have, I just am not sure I even have the parts inside me to really even realize how good I have it most of the time.

Honestly, it isn't you. It's me.
I am impossible.
I am restless.
I am an idiot.

Currently I am reading Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert. I want everyone to read this book. Now. First off, I love Elizabeth Gilbert- I loved Eat, Pray, Love + I love all her online motivational speeches. Committed is about her, a skeptic making peace with marriage. hmmmm...sound familiar?

More than marriage, the book talks alot about relationships through history and how much the west has changed them. Not only do we live very solitary lives but we expect that ONE person to LOVE us for all of time and inspire us daily. Honestly, I have a hard time inspiring loving myself and inspiring myself daily. I think Liz is right, this is a really tall order and something perhaps is misguided in our thinking of what exactly a relationship is.

Anyways, last night I got to have a cup of tea with my beachwood babe and bask in the glow of her glow and my glow and even though i have renamed us the 'girls who cried love" the bottom line is that all we really have is this day. So if you are happy, skipping, giddy with love and kisses and yummies then I think it's okay to let yourself be happy. There will inevitably be the days that are the downfall of this feeling, but if today isn't that day then we should just celebrate and enjoy our smiles.

and just in case you needed some brilliance this morning

this is the first day of my life.

I had the kind of night that takes all the things that live inside you, pulls them out, and mixes them around. There is something about this very moment in which I know that nothing is every going to be the same. This night has taken in the inner workings of my heart, who I am, who I consider myself to be and changed them in a way that is beyond an explanation. I know it is difficult but it is so important to not fight fate. We get exactly what we all deserve.

When you fight the universe your life will be filled with disappointments, lies, questions, fights, confusion, tears, fiona apple songs, long conversations with friends trying to decipher the language of other peoples intentions.

When you allow the universe to unfold as it should you spend the night feeling beautiful, smart, funny, happy and it ends with a walk around the block with your dog + your heart beating four zillion times faster than is should. Most importantly, you are not afraid, of the future of your heart or what might be.


I can finally see exactly what the universe was planning for me. I felt is wrap itself around me like a warm, snugly yummy blanket and the only thing that needed to be, was.

Thank you universe.

radio radio radio!

big news!

I will be hosting my very first radio show this SUNDAY on blogtalkradio!

keltie colleen's popular blog www.highkicksandhighhopes.blogspot.com/ comes to life in podcast form! call in and ask keltie your dancelife + lovelife questions! We will talk about books, boys, the biz, kicks, auditions, resumes, agents, friends, music, determination + all kinds of other yummy stuff!


go here
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/highkicksandhighhopes/2010/05/17/highkickshighhopes-radio

to join, remind and chat+ then call in to chat LIVE on the air with me sunday night! I cannot WAIT to speak with you all!

swoon. sigh. cry.

dear self,

there are going to be weeks, just like this one, where you want to quit. where you get cut, first round, too many times at auditions. where you think all your decisions were the wrong ones. where you will doubt everything about yourself from the top of your head to the tip of your pointed toes. where all the things that once seemed so magical will fall from grace.

please remember that in these moments the universe is giving you exactly what you need. it isn't always what you THINK you need, or what you want but just trust.

you might look up and be pleasantly surprised by what fate puts in front of you.

I am.

give yourself to me.

wow. wow. wow.
had a magical night.
plans to have another seeing this amazing band.
i woke up electric.




a year went by, you take your time, but I know not to give you mine, cause i already stood in line for you.

silence.

thanks to a late night revelation from c. perri. sigh.






You won't hear my voice.
You won't know where I am.
You won't get an answer to your late night crawling words.

because you don't deserve any of it, or any of me.

...and i learned to let go...it was the hardest lesson of all.

fire.

last night I woke up to the sound of a fire alarm. I ran to the door to open to it to see what was going on and the hallway was filled with smoke and smelled like burnt wires. my legs wanted to be paralyzed with fear but I grabbed my phone and ran to the stairs. the stairs were packed with dance dads and moms carrying little dancers with pink rollers in their hair, and most people were without shoes or coats. The scary part was that the stair was not moving. We were stuck. I've considered myself particularly brave but for some reason I knew the most important thing was to get all the children out first, I stood at the top of floor 9, smoke behind me, pushing the moms and dads in front of me, so that the kids would get to safety. i knew that if need be I could crawl, do a jete out a window or at the very least inhale a ton more smoke than their little kid lungs ever could. I was shaking and it was terrifying to see the fear in the kids, and parents, eyes. I called my friend Christina to tell her my parents phone # just in case. I honestly had no idea what was going on and what might happen. I was scared.

Eventually, the line started to move and I made it down the 9 flights and out onto the street to safety. I started taking off my clothes and giving them to the little ones who were freezing, I even gave away my socks, and stood barefoot looking up at the night sky and thanking the universe for all our safety.

People will often try to preach about remembering what is truly important, that things are just things, and the importance of remembering the things that really count. We all get lost don't we? In some messed up way I feel like the fire was the universes way of getting my lose LA head back on straight.

In my moments of fear I thought about two things. 1- how if all the kids made it out and I didn't, that I would go down being proud of the way I lived my life. 2- how the most important thing we can ever hold onto is our spirit. running down the hallway in our pajamas, we are all the same, didn't matter if I was the judge with the dance career, and that was the parent with the gucci shoes, or the parent who worked two jobs to afford to send their daughter to ballet classes- we are all the same.

It got me thinking about what I would say to people if I only had a few minutes left, or what they might say to me. Three things came to mind.

I love you.
I miss you.
I am sorry.

So, if you have something to say, say it. If you have something to do, do it. If you have something to dream, dream it. Be it. Live it. We are precious, precious little things, and you just never ever know when things might change.

so pretty, so smart, such a waste of a young heart...

someone yesterday told me that the way I felt about the way love + commitment + sex + trust should work is insane + that I won't ever find what i am looking for. that the world works one way and that I believe in something that doesn't work. i think they are wrong and even if I am totally wrong and I spend the next 60 years searching for this insane version of what I think relatonships are all about, then at least I spent my life doing what I believed was right, and not being some fake version of myself to please the "way things are". I am my own person and I make my own rules.

Stay true to your ideals my little army. People are going to try to change you, and pull those specail pieces of you away bit by bit, but you are who you are and stand proud in your dreams + goals + ideals, at the end of the day, what anyone else thinks of you is just mushmush and how you feel about yourself is the most important thing.

so pretty, so smart, such a waste of a young heart...

take this chance to take my hand

the other day on formspring someone asked me how many songs have been written about me, I have no idea. I have had tons of musicians in (and out) of my life. Wes Hutchinson was musician #2 for me and is known as "singer" in my book. He was wonderful then, and we split, and he is still wonderful to this day. I think Wes is the best songwriter I have ever known, honestly. I've never met anyone who had so many stacks and stacks of amazing demo tapes. I am still in awe daily that he isn't a huge star.

Singer and I started hanging out and things moved very slowly. He sat patiently as I told him my tales of being burned. I had a collection of war stories from inside my heart and an equally messy collection featuring my feet. I had been fighting against myself on two fronts, in love and in my career. Singer he was a great listener and we cautiously showed our scars to each other.
We spent our evenings sitting in his tiny studio apartment, just talking and talking. He never called me by my full name and instead called me, “KC.” I liked this pet name and I liked being his pet. He was just as lost as I was and every big break and misstep I took in the dance world paralleled Singer’s experiences as he struggled to make a name for himself in the music world. He was my boyfriend and I was his girlfriend, but really we were cheerleaders for each other’s dreams. We simply would not let each other give up and I was so thankful for that because there were many days I thought about lying down in the middle of the street and calling it quits.
Singer's East Village studio apartment had red walls, a pull out bed, and no windows. I remember thinking he was like Donald Trump for having a place like this all to himself and in the coolest neighborhood in New York City. A night at the studio was like a night at the Four Seasons, compared to my apartment back in Queens. We frequented a small store in neighborhood called Tiny Spaces, which sold mini-cups, desks, and couches perfectly suited for 8x6, New York City apartments. We sat on his tiny couch, drinking tiny cups of tea, and saving the small amount of money we each had. It took me almost an hour to get to his place from mine, and yet I still came and left every night. I would walk down St. Mark's Place and my heart would yearn for Rocker and the day we had spent together in NYC, rummaging through old CD's at vintage rock and roll shops, back when everything was simple, before I loved him and before he left. Back when I was a whole Keltie.

In my happiest moments with Singer, I never once thought about Rocker, but as soon as I was alone, his memory would perch on my shoulder and whisper sweet nothings and what might have been's into my ear. I was living in the past reminiscing about what we once had and living in the present falling for another guitar playing skinny jean wearing musicman. They were completely 100% different and completely 100% the same. I wondered if my heart would ever truly heal or if I would just keep finding new people to help fill in the gaps. I was missing one long haired shaggy rock and roll artist and had replaced him with one long haired shaggy rock and roll artist. Less than brilliant.



The first song ever written for me:

a few of my famous friends...

there are people who read gossip magazines and gossip sites and spend their life trying to be picture perfect versions of the images they see. i feel sorry for these people because they are trying to live a life that does not really exist. photos + publicists + gossip show us only the side of someone that they care to show. it is easy to look happy in a photo. it is easy to pay a publicist to get you on a red carpet so that people can think you are important. i've been there. it is mightily glamorous but also pretty disappointing. it did not make my life any better. promise. that is what bugs me the most about our 'celebrity' obsessed culture. why is it cooler to be a coke-snorting train wreck who is in rehab who was either a child star or some rich Hollywood dudes daughter than it is to be philanthropist or heaven forbid sitting at home working on your talent? i hang out with some of the best + most well known dancers in America and none of us have any time to party- we spend our days in class-working-auditioning-creating-watching-pilating-yoging-doingbenefits-inspiring.

case in point: my most of the time roomie miss mollee gray. she's from SYTYCD. She was in all the high school musical movies. she's in camp rock. she's in everything. EVERYTHING. I have never seen her in anything but sweatpants and anywhere but in class. fame is a fleeting beast. it rarely stays. even rarer is anyone that you see out there in hollywoodland being anywhere near the kind of person that is worth your time.

bottom line: stay in class. stay focused. you are good enough. talented enough. pretty enough. you don't need a coloured carpet to tell you that because I am telling you right now.

now enjoy. mollee.

alive.

tonight I met my christina at the 101 for a quick meal and half way through my green beans she was telling me a story and she looked up at me and said "are you crying?"

sure was.

i used to say. i hate what he/it/they life did to me. but I was wrong. i hate what he/it/they did to the way i feel about everyone else. Sometimes it is hard to remember that what we see and hear is very rarely the whole story. I can make everyone believe anything I want out here in the interwebs but that girl is very different than the one who was sitting in the booth at the 101 tonight. So, if you feel like you need to break me down, or build me up, you really do not need to try that hard. there is not much left of me that is capable of feeling.

"i learned to live half alive"- c.perri

Believe in the best parts of yourself and the worst parts of everyone else.

if you asked me how I am I would say fine.
if you asked me what is new I would say nothing much.
if you asked me if I am happy now I would say yes.
if you asked me if it still hurts I would say everyday.
if you asked me if i would change anything I would say no.

you asked me if I was around in your town.

is it possible to live in the same place but be nowhere close to the same place? i wonder what it is about fellas- they have this sick 6th sense and some alarm must go off inside their heads when they sense that us women are happy.moved on.notthinking aboutthem64timesday. where they need to just "check in" and remind me that they are not infact DEAD which I have completely fooled myself in feeling- you are gone, i buried you and all your bullshit 6 feet under.
but that they are alive, existing and sometimes wondering about me. I can say this...when it comes to matters of the heart, nothing is ever going to make sense- but the best thing you can do for yourself is to cut the romantic self induced magical world crap and along with it straight out cut the toxic people from your life. If someone says they care about you, love you, want to marry you, will always take care of you and then BLATENLY contradict their words with their actions it is best to believe in the best parts of yourself and the worst parts of everyone else. There are amazing people to meet, know and love out there but you won't ever see themif you keep looking backwards at the toxic, tragic trainwrecks in the yesterdays of your lovelife.

my regrets are few.