Hella Stella

Something lovely happened over the weekend. Well, something other than the happy combination of eating, drinking and family. That is also lovely.

My BH and I went to visit the house where we used to live. Our cousins live there now - we just got to hang out in the house while they were out of the country for a few years. I digress.

I have a lot of great cousins. Is it possible to have bad cousins? I suppose so.... But I've always been spoiled with choice. I have eleventy million cousins, all of whom I like.

We walked in the door and greeted my cousin's wife. The phone rang and someone asked for her husband. "He can't come to the phone right now," she said. "He's meditating."

Like I said: great cousins.

Anyhow. I was chatting with said cousin when he finished meditating. He asked how I was, and I sort of blathered on about my stressers, my plans, how I was stressed about my plans, how sometimes things are stressful.... I said "I'll probably need to wait at least four years to get [my plans] started."

And here comes the lovely part.

He said, "Four years seems like a long time. Why don't you just start sooner?"

He took my shocked silence as a sign to elaborate.

"For example, you could just [do this clever thing] and [do this clever thing] and have all your bases covered. And then you can get on with life."

You know what? He was right. I CAN do those things. A lot of my dreams are projected into the future, to commence at some unknown time, if I get a lot of other stuff done first. But waiting endlessly to start living your dreams can, for lack of a better explanation, suck a lot. You feel like you're in a holding pattern. You wonder if you'll ever get to live your dreams at all. You lose purpose.

My cousin has led an extraordinary life, largely due to his attitude. He's a "yes" kind of person. He dreams big, and then follows through. He is calm, but driven too.

It was nice of him to nudge me along. I'm pleased to report that my dreams are well within reach, and in the name of seasonal appropriateness, I'm giving some serious thanks.

Hey, look at these two lovely people I had dinner with the other night. The talented Ian, the magnificent Shawna. I am a lucky girl.

So, most of you are familiar with my cousin Brian right? The one who plays in my band? The highly skilled interpreter of Prince covers?

Brian is also a massage therapist. He has a studio in his home, and works from there while also doing his musical thing. Today, I mosied on over to his place and got a much-needed massage on my legs, which have a habit of going numb.

Dudes. DUDES. Do you need a massage therapist? Because Brian gave me one of the best massages I've ever had, and not only that, but he sang along to a wicked playlist of songs the entire time. My favourite line of the session was the following: "This is going to sound weird, but now I'm going to have to punch you in the butt for a while. It will help, I promise."

And it did!

Brian lives in Centretown and is a registered MT. E-mail me (hello.hella.stella [at] gmail [dot] com) and I'll give you his digits. The man kicks (and punches) ass, people. Don't be shy.

Last night was my final night of the Blues fest. I had fun, but holy hell, I'm glad to be done. My body was not happy about the late nights and early mornings. I saw the National and K'naan yesterday, and while I adore the National, K'naan blew them out of the water. He is so fracking amazing, I got all bouncy and bopped along like the short white chick I am. Fitting.

I ended up with a total of two lost cell phones in my possession over the course of the festival. One has already been picked up by its owner, and the other one belongs to a spacey hippie who is going to be tough to contact. We've played phone tag through her spacey hippie friends, but the girl no longer has her own phone with which to call me. When I finally got through to one of her friends and told them about the lost phone, she said "Duuuuuuude, you are totally like the fairy of lost cell phones, man!"

Mmmm hmmm. Yes. That's me. All I need now is a fucking tutu.

I'm off to a drunken wedding shower in a moment. I'm not really doing my body any favours this week. Here's to weddings and booze! It must be summer.