There is no net. There is only you.

There are moments in every day when time resets itself. No matter what you did that day, after a certain point, the outcome will be the same. I could have bought the robe at Ganz to wear backstage. I could have showed up earlier and run my tricks a few more times. But no matter what, the show would have started 10 min late and I would have started my act when I did and I would have finally felt good about it. I would have finally felt confident that I could land my flip solid.

And I did.

But the mat just wasn't under my left foot.

And I'd like to blame the stage hands, but I checked its positioning before I went on. Someone could have kicked it, but nothing looked out of place. I just went crooked. Straight enough that I landed solid and strong, but crooked enough that my left foot missed the mat. Or that both feet would have landed but the mat moved when my right foot hit. I don't know. All I know was that my first thought was one I've had before..."Can I finish this act".

If you're an artist and you've never had this thought, consider yourself lucky. Usually the realistic answer is no, but the response screaming in your head is "OF COURSE YOU CAN! YOU ARE FINE! DO NOT BE A PUSSY!" And so you do. I did.

The last time I actually couldn't. At Sea World (my high school football game moment that I will relive forever), I slid helplessly down the pole and had to be carried off stage. Tonight, though, I did finish. I walked to the front of the stage and bowed, imagining the audience giving me a standing ovation for being so brave and strong. They didn't, either because they are German or because they didn't even notice anything was wrong. I can only hope it's the later.

The fucking mat is too small. I mean, it's the same size as the mats I use at home, and twice as big as the one I usually travel with, but still...it's too small. AND I was an idiot for not ensuring that I was lined up with it. The act was going so well and I didn't want to kill the flow.

Doing this show is my dream. I know that might seem lame to people that have worked over here for years, but it's all I ever wanted. Since I started hanging from shit I wanted to hang from shit in Europe. And now, 3 shows in...

Whatever...my foot is NOT broken. Tomorrow I will change my act a little bit, and in a few days or weeks I will add my salto back in and I will make sure I am lined up with the mat before I let go.

Ich spreche kein Duetsch

The biggest sections of the grocery store by my new house are the chocolate section and the booze section. The sausage section comes in a close 3rd. I love it here.

When I was learning German before I left(by Rosetta Stone, which is awesome) I was a bit dumbfounded by the randomness of the words I was being taught. Sink=Spulbecken (not responsible for misspellings in German). When would I have to use the word for sink?

When I have to ask if it's safe to drink the water from the sink, of course, which I happily turned to my roommate and said yesterday, hardly able to keep myself from jumping up and down with pride when I said it. “Can I drink the water from the sink? Does it taste good?” FUCK YES! I speak German so awesome!

“What is your name, man selling produce?” “Where is my mat, stage manager?” “See you tomorrow, people in the cast!” “How much does swimming cost, pool boy?” “I'm sorry, I don't speak German, lady slicing my bread at the bakery.”

I can't understand a word anyone says back to me unless it's a number up to 50. That's when that last sentence comes, quickly, regretfully, apologetically, into the conversation. If someone said, “The boy has red hair” or “The man washes the car” I'd be on it, but sadly, in real life, no one really speaks in the present tense. It's all “I did this” or “I'm going to do that”. I'm all in the moment, all the time in Germany. I'm a now person, damn it! The rest of you are just pining for the past or wishing for the future, but I AM wearing socks and I AM reading a book and I AM learning German RIGHT FREAKING NOW!

So, boo-ya, Bensheim! Behold my powers of the present. I might not speak German at all, but at least I'm not doing it RIGHT NOW.

Debut

12/3/09

I'm five hours away from my first show in Europe. (Unless you count a “gala” I did for Air France in the Bristol Airport where I did some cheerleading/partner acro, or circus school shows. I don't.) I should probably play my cards a bit closer to my chest on this one, but I just can't. I'm freaking out. The most nervous I've ever been must have been before my show at Moisture Festival, when I thought the casting director for Zin Zanni was in the house. It's the only time I thought I would puke from nerves. I didn't puke, and the casting director wasn't in the house, but the casting director from Pegasus Variete was, and here I am in Germany! Whew.

Essentially, this is where my rope act began. When Nils and I went to Germany and Spain forever many years ago, I packed a rope. I wasn't particularly in love with rope at the time, but I was for sure not into tissu, so rope was the next most portable thing. Apart from hanging it from Nils' mom's balcony in Barcelona I didn't really get on it until we were in Berlin and I found Katakomben. It was a great place to train on a very terrible rope—it felt like it was made of sandpaper, rocks and razor blades. However, so am I, so I smashed my teeth together and started piecing together bits of what is now my act. Berlin was the first place I started throwing my back flip off the rope. Back then I was trying to re-catch it. Eventually, I grew to like just landing on my feet. It would be nice to learn a catch, though.

I applied this act to a zillion festivals and either heard nothing, or got rejections from all of them. I didn't give a shit, though, because before those letters started coming in, I'd gotten this contract. Somebody thought I was good! Everyone else could eat me.

So, it's with that in the back of my mind that I try to calm my nerves today. “They asked me to come here”. “They already like my act.” “I just have to do it how I've done it a million times.” Okay, so that's working now, with 4 hours to go. I'm sure in about 3 hours 45 min, I'll be holding back the vom.

Picture Pages

I've been slacking at writing, so here's some pictures of tour. I'll be writing more on the train tomorrow. Yes, the train...





We made people stop reading on the beach.





Booze sprained elena's toe.



So Emily and I had to do all the rigging in Portland...without a ladder.





This is Laura when she's in a bad mood.





And this is Laura in a good mood. (Moment captured by Mari Provencher)



Looking like sorority girls in Vegas.





This is how much acrobats eat.




WE MADE IT!

9/29--Dear Portland

Congratulations! You are officially off my shit list. You behaved yourself very well this time around and I'm glad to see that you have grown up.

That said...grow up. You are an oblivious 9 year old in a precocious princess dress. You read magazines about cool stuff and you make your mom buy it for you but you don't know how to organically evolve as a city should. Festering endlessly in a utopian dream, someday you'll have to move out and pay your own rent. Then you'll see...

Normal cities are grouchy and dirty. Thank god for all the homeless people downtown keeping you a little bit real. They are the constant reminder of Portland past...a city that's never really given a shit about the poor, preferring to build condos and freeways than maintain affordable housing.

Maybe I'm being harsh. Maybe I'm jealous that people here can trip over a sushi roll and land face first in a cup of coffee by just stepping outside their door. If you hate your clothes you can inhale really hard and suck a new vintage dress onto your body. Okay, fine. I'm sorry if I'm being unfair. I'm just a visitor, reaping the rewards while not having to sort any of the trash into recyclables, compostables or turn-it-into-art-ables.

It was a close call, though, Portland. Friday night was certainly a challenge, when you brought your most unentertainable minions to our 10pm show. We could almost hear the eyes rolling. You know, most people at least clap when a girl hangs from the back of one heel! I know you show your appreciation in a different way than most cities—the harder your arms are crossed over your chest, the more it means you like something...but it's just disconcerting for non-natives. Cameron almost whipped out a dental drill to start pulling teeth.

But, all is forgiven, and you have the Kennedy School to thank. Only in such an idealistic city would people think they could take an old school and fill it with bars, ahi tuna tostadas, a movie theatre, $4 mircobrews and a swimming pool and NOT have someone drown. But, Portland, you did this very commendable thing. I kicked back in the pool with 12 or so other tattooed, vintage-bathing-suit wearing 25-35 year olds and let some of my problems with you slide under the water and die.

The ice coffee with ice cubes made of coffee that I had the next day also helped.

So let's make a truce. I'll stop shit talking you to everyone that says the word “Portland” if you stop gentrifying neighborhoods and building ugly condos. “Too late,” you say? Well then, game on.

Love,
Shayna

My phone iS plugged in behind a mini fridge and I know there are many spelling errors below. Sorry.

I'm wishing I had my computer here. I haven't posted anything  in ages and now I'm in a bar in arcata California and it smells like shit. I'm glued to my iPhone because I've forgotten how much I hate the outside world. I've lost all survival mechanisimz for dealing with it after only having to deal with peole I like for the last 3 weeks. I have methods for I dealing with the 7 people on this tour and that's all I've been able to focus on. Hippies, college kids, crusties? No way. Emily, Elena and Laura, bring it on. 

Only, i dont know where they are. There are 4 bars in this town and they are all rigtht next to each other, but I've lost them. I only seem to want to get drunk in swanky bars lately and that's a far cry from here, so I picked the swankiest of the 4 Nd here I am. Blogging. I am what people talk about when the way that technology drive us from reality comes up  in conversation. "I was at this bar Nd it was so awesome And there wA this girl sitting there and she did t take her eyes off her iPhone the whole night. Oh, and she looked like a fat old lady."

That's the mood I'm suddenly in.

I haven't been running since I left. I've hardly doNe shit outside doing shows. I'd be totally happy with this if I didnt have examples of athletic ideals taking their clothes off everytime I turn Around. . 

Really clothes never stood a chance with them. Fabrics are made to disintegrate off such perfect bodies, so it was really just matter of time. And it was a matter of time until I started feeling totally aweful about my lack of clothing disintegration. I've always been uncomfortable naked and I've always been uncomfortable with my body, so how wonderful for both these issues to be poking me in the ee these days.

I don't understand how peole can just let all their floppy parts flop around. I prefer to be encAsed in layers of elastic and straps and performance Lyra/spandex blends. Naked in front of anyone for a second and I almost go internally deaf from my brain screaming "OH MY GOD! What are they thinking about my body!?!?"

Mental calipers size every photo ofe to the bodies around it. At home I measure every dimension of my body everyday. The slightest increase equals a meltdown. There is a tiny bit of leeway there, and I have no idea if I am withi ln those boundries and it's making me crazy.

To make matters words, here I am, sneaking up on Portland like a ninja in the night. I'm doing this to reclaim the one part of my life that I feel totally withdrawn from, bUt strangely victimized by. For the last week iv drempt about the place. Apartments and people and record stores And streets. I've been trying to open my mind to the flood gafes of memories boring up against the levy. When my apart
Ent got broken into. My bike got stolen. 3 times. Suicide attempts. Breakup. Lives i destoryed because of my bullshit feminist politics. Research. Learning trapeze. Light rail. Bad e. Mostly bad e. Not e the drug, e the destroyer.  

And playing music. My former life. I'd spend every penny onnew I struments. Organs. Banjos. RotAting leslies. Spend every second in basements. Inventing new tuning and awesome band names. Trying to organize a collective and painting the walls of new venues before the owners grAbbed the money and took off for Mexico. 

And my last memory of Portland. Coming back after being awY for 4 years or so. Having an akward dinner with bad e at his shitty yuppie new apartment then going to a club. Hitting it off with his best friend and finally seeing someone else who could see through his bullshit for the insecurity it was. Then being treated like utter shit. Possibly worse than the cmbination of all those years of being treated like utter shit. Just a few moments of total disregaurd for my wellbeing of happiness that synthasized everything. I stumbled with black eyes to my rental car without saying goodbye. I'd said that goodbye a million times before. Laying and hyperventilating in the front seat I called the one person I knew would never disregaurd me. He talked me through it. He put his feeling for me aside and made the most important thing my safety. Maybe it sucked for him to hear me so upset about such a dick, but I couldn't read that from his voice. He just tLkex me through the steps of getting out of the cAr, getting a cab, And  getting into bed. Alone. I knew I'd fou d a good one. 

I swore to myself I'd never ever speak to bad e again. Now I'm having dreams that he shows up at my show in portland And nils walks out to kick his ass. So do my 7 best friend. 

I should probably leave the safety of my iPhone and go find them.        

9/16/09-Waking Up in Vegas

It's like herding cats. There are so many flashing lights to distract and trips to the bathroom to make. It takes us 3 hours to leave Circus Circus, which is of course where we stayed for our night in Vegas.




Lizzy and I were working in super-fast motion the night before and had to break off from the group. We went to every bar that sounded familiar as a celebrity hang out from Us Weekly. We bought saketinis at glowing bars and got guest listed into Lavo—hoping to bump into Britney or Mischa.
The other ladies blew their wads on blackjack and fake motorcycle rides, resulting in hilarious photo keychains.




We drove another white-knuckled 300 miles from Vegas to LA...about 50 miles per hour the whole way, the van still feeling like trying to do rola bola on a rolling globe. At one point I was driving a straight line and swerved, for no reason at all, into the next (thankfully empty) lane over. It was like an invisible giant came from out of nowhere and pushed us as hard as possible. WTF?! (I can't believe my mom is reading this right now...mom, we're getting it fixed tomorrow!)

Pulling up to Elena's sister's house in LA, I hardly stopped the van before I jumped out and ran away from it as fast as possible. And what I ran into was literally an oasis at the end of a desert trudge. From the front door I could see out into the back yard where a pool and a trampoline awaited us. A beer was placed into my hand. Four adorable children between 2 and 7 were buzzing around my feet begging me to play Barbie with them. Three old dogs lazed on the back porch. A huge dinner of pasta and meatballs and broccoli and salad and rolls was placed before me.

I'm in LA and it's 75 degrees and sunny. I remember why it was nice to live in Southern California. Tomorrow I'll probably remember why it wasn't, but for now, another perfect end to another insane day.