The Curious Mind of Xta

Summer season of hooping kicked off with a gorgeous day up at Whistler on April 23rd, dancing to the Wasabi Project and Michael Franti and Spearhead.... SO good. Such a lovely day, so much hooping.. and a great road trip with a handful of other Vancouver Hoopers that I'd met at my workshops or online... Managed to avoid getting burned, except for just a teeny little area just at the bottom of that "X" on my top...




If you asked me a year ago if I would be a successful professional hooper within the next 12 months, I probably would have snorted and replied "Uhm, nooo...." and wondered what you were smoking.

Today, I had three hoop-work-related surprises:

1 - emails started flowing in at around 10:30am. Apparently, my roomie's g/f had submitted info about my hoop classes to something called Vitamin V, which is a daily email newsletter about hip happenings in Vancouver... requests to register in classes, queries about birthday parties, and an invitation to join a business network followed. (that last one, I declined... even if I COULD knit during the hour-long weekly meeting, I still wouldn't get up early enough to get downtown for 7:30am to listen to a bunch of people whose skills I can't afford and don't really need..)

2 - got a call from Heidi at Public Dreams... she was the Volunteer Coordinator for a few years, so I did a lot of volunteer work under her, and she is now the Performance Coordinator for their big signature events, in charge of organizing artists (say, hoopers who may or may not hoop with fire) to perform at Illuminares and the Parade of Lost Souls.. and she wants me to either be a small-scale performer in a garden-themed area of Illuminares, or to be part of and help organize one of the main fire shows! Oo! Note to self: hurry up on building that fire hoop, dammit!

3 - showed up to the first night of my four-week set of Beginner Hooping, expecting four people.. and got SEVEN! Three of them bought hoops, too! Like, Wow! I can actually pay mself something reasonable after expenses for this session! Wooooooo....



This is a continual reminder to me to have faith and express gratitude to the universe, for putting me on this path and sending things my way just when I am ready to experience them... it has been an amazing year so far, and according to a tarot reading I had done on New Years Eve, the rest of the year is supposed to be Most Excellent as well. I can't wait.

(wonder if that last bit causes any cringes in my parents, who identify as Christian and are deeply involved in the work of the United Church.. but who have stopped asking if I'm going to start going to weekly services at a local church here in Vancouver.... my idea of religion and spirituality doesn't involve a leader and followers.. more of a one-on-one relationship with the Supreme Omnipotent Being.. with or without noodley appendages.. and if you don't get THAT reference, Google "spaghetti monster" and have a good giggle :) Anyway... having put dreadlocks in, and THEN done a bit of reading up on it, it seems that my views are pretty similar to those of Rastafarians. Who knew, eh?)

Happy spring!

Weather: overcast, moving to sunny... which will be welcome after the last two weeks of dreariness.

Chai's: one, cold, in my knockoff Nalgene bottle just before tonight's hoop class.

Water: tub, plus a trip to the pool for what was supposed to be just a hot tub, but wound up including an hour of passing with Ali, Claudia, and LV from the polo team.. and LV taking time to do some drowning (er, I mean teaching) while showing me the finer points of getting rid of the ball quickly while having a big man pushing you underwater.

Wardrobe: tie-dye tank dress covered by handknit heavy-cotton sweater 'cause the house is still chilly in the evenings...

Craft in progress: Oopsie, have finished neither the Dink hat nor the hippie bag, but am 80% done a sweater that I will be giving to Vince in exchange for the use of ALL his camping gear for my trip to Burning Man. Only problem is, I ran out of the wonderful handpainted yarn, and the store doesn't have the same dyelot anymore, so I'm doing major fudging.. ripping out the hem, using that yarn to hopefully finish up the neck, replacing the hem and cuffs and collar with a coordinating solid.. It just ain't so beautiful anymore. Ah well.

Dreadlocks: Good news: no mold. Bad news: not particularly dreaded, due to lack of wax.. I've been in the water so much in the last month (due to teaching a bunch of courses) and have another month ahead of the same, that I've been afraid to wax, lest I trap water in my dreads and lett them molder. So.. spent three hours the other night re-backcombing them, and haven't gotten them wet since, so they're doing OKAY.... but not great. But not moldy! Oh, and sunburned diamonds on my scalp may look interesting if/when I shave the dreads off.. but all the flakes of peeling sunburned skin don't look so hot while stuck in dreads. :( Again, ah well. :)

# posted by Christa Giles @ 12:06 AM 4 comments

Presents everywhere! First, a hoop cart, made from an old kiddie trailer that Heather scooped from somewhere up in Williams Lake, and then Dad took over the work of ripping off the tent-like stuff, and doing a little chopping and fabricating of crossbars to allow the hoops to be loaded in and out, and then pinned in place. Add bungee cords, and more air in the tires than I had on the first day of use (gasp!) and I'm rolling!

Second present: a new-to-me CPU from Kyle. The previous computer that Paul gave me was wonderful, super-speedy, great for processing videos and graphics and stuff... but was buggy (I knew this when I accepted it) and refused to run Word or Excel or Outlook.. not so good for work stuff. SO, after a day of mucking around (two CPUs, one keyboard, one mouse, one functional monitor) getting files transferred back and forth, I'm mostly on the new machine (might have a few iTunes that need rescuing) and VERY happy!

Third present: an email out of the blue arrived on Wednesday morning, asking if I did birthday parties and if I was available on Friday afternoon. Off I went, on the bike cart with some new smaller-person-sized hoops in tow, and had a lovely time with the girls (and their moms, and the occasional dad)... twas fun!

Fourth present, and why this feels like two days before Christmas: the article in the Vancouver Courier that I was interview for, back in March, will be coming out on Wednesday. A photographer came over on Thursday and took some shots of me INSIDE that big bundle of hoops in the cart, and from what I could see looking at his digital display, they look pretty cool.. of course, I have my fingers crossed for the cover photo, but I'll accept anything, with all this amazing publicity that is about to be generated for hooping in Vancouver, and my Hoop Play classes! Wooooo!

Oh, yeah.. and the sun has been shining :) Freckle time again, and SPF 45...

Weather: Sunny and windy today... though I didn't get outside til after 5 in the afternoon, due to new computer setup.

Chai's: one, in my mug... I think I broke my resolution by accident on Saturday morning. Went out Friday night, buses took FOREVER to get Linz and I back home, and then waterpolo had switched to mornings so I had to get up EARLY on Saturday to get there... stumbled into the cafe between bus 1 and bus 2, and got an iced chai to go... in their disposible plastic cup... realized about five minutes later what I'd done. (hang head in shame)

Water: polo in the outdoor pool all weekend... rain, fog, mist on Saturday, nicely sunny on Sunday... and no swimming today! Hope to make some time tomorrow, before bellydance class and the hooping playdate afterwards...

Wardrobe: navy yoga pants that were the most amazing find in a regular-size store.. XL, long enough to actually puddle over the tops of my feet, and $10! Woo! Only problem now is that the waist is loose and I have to hike them up all the time, grr. Also from the same store: black skinny rib T that is long enough to stay DOWN while I'm hooping, worn over the wonderfully supportive bra that has handily cross-over-able straps to hide behind all my racerback hooping shirts!

Craft in progress: actually finished knitting the Dink hat, so now have to embroider the letters onto it... the non-felted bag has been set aside, since I realized I got the proportions wrong.. and I'm playing with hemp and wool blended yarn, to make a hippie summer bag :) I'm SO into this new look, its funny.. but that brings me to the newest catagory:

Dreadlocks: Counted them the other day, while retwisting after washing, and I have at least 82... might have miscounted, but I restarted on the low side. They are badly in need of rewaxing, but while I meant to let them dry all day yesterday after polo, I forgot my wax at the pool, so I've got 1-2" untwisted roots and ends, and still decently twisted middles. Getting fuzzier, too, with the occasional hair root sticking up (hair that would normally fall out and be brushed away now stays with the dread forever... kinda yicky, but whatever :) They'll help to fatten the dreads up eventaully)