A KStew absence makes the heart grow fonder

Yes I know. It stings a bit. There is an emptiness and an ache during these Kristen-less days. The last public sighting we have of Kristen is from the bowling alley and that quirky-cool man's reference to Kristen as "that punky chick from Twilight".Thank the Goddess for these newly released EW outtakes (outtake because there is just too much Pretty?)

and peeps say she doesn't smile. pffft.

Also thank The Goddess again for the soothing (at least for me, anyway) knowledge that Kristen is not on the streets dodging Vulture-Papz because instead she's safely ensconced and immersed in her current job: filming On the Road. I am so pleased to know that Kristen is submerged in a new role, and it's just an added bonus that the role is of one of the fair and feisty Marylou in the Kerouac classic. Filming began on Monday in beautiful Montreal, and word on the street is that these first days dive into some of the grittiest moments between the threesome. While writing this essay, pretty UH-MAY-ZING casting news surfaced: Viggo Mortensen (um, YESSSS) and Amy Adams are joining the cast for On the Road! Talk about high calibre projects!! Kristen has been attached to filming OTR for a couple years now, and I can only imagine how excited and thrilled she is with the way this film is shaping up. I personally feel this film has the makings of legend, much like the book on which it is based. Ok..but anyhoo, we know what Kristen is doing, and it is so much greater than anything I can claim to have done. But with Kristen out of the spotlight, and Rob waving goodbye to the WFE set yesterday, what can we Muse about, lovelies? mmm. lemmmeee think...lemme think....

Helllooo, Garrett. Road tripping with you will NOT be a problem.

Return of the King indeed, Mr Mortensen

Idle hands make...

Well, some folks have certainly found new topics to muse about...In these brief moments where Kristen has been out of the limelight, bewildering events have occurred amongst the fandom. The Not-A-Fans and the Disturbingly Focused folks managed to assist in the creation then subsequent spreading of false stories about Kristen, and Kristen herself is not available to clarify. Plus, absence leaves lots of room for elaboration by the especially creative storytellers. Sadly, those are the tamer actions of the idle and the bored. The most distressing actions I've witnessed above all, happened within these past two days.

Some "fans" were quite busy offering distractions in the form of petty tweet-wars; libelous, vile photo manipulations; side-choosing in arguments that they created regarding whether they know more private information about Kristen and Rob than other people. This same information that Kristen and Rob themselves have worked so excruciatingly hard to keep private.

I won't spend more than a moment thinking too hard about it all, because I have more fulfilling Musings to entertain, but out of a mental health professional's curiosity, I ask:

WHAT'S UP WITH THAT?

People who refer to themselves as "fans", but whom are also engaged in this harmful, hurtful behavior towards both Kristen and Rob and their supporters:

Are you unhappy? Is it anxiety,

boredom, or a shattered spirit? Needing a power boost? Do you simply stir the pot while your favorite target is indisposed, because you need something to do?

The arrows will only go away...

When I cause trouble with KStew and Rob fans.

The arrows will only go away....

If I draw their chaos elsewhere...

Dr Glenn R Shiraldi is an author, Pentagon faculty member and university professor, with an expertise in stress management and self esteem. It is from his work The Self Esteem Workbook from which I draw some of my thoughts about the harmful self-proclaimed "fans". Per Dr Shiraldi and Coopersmith, People with efficient self-esteem tend to be healthier, friendlier, more expressive, more active, more self-trusting, trusting of others, and holding little to NO hostility. Makes sense. Essentially, the more assured and grounded one is in her own decisions and beliefs, the less likely she is to harbor distrust and hostility. So could this be a key contributing factor to the hate and need for destruction that some of these Vultures, Not-a-Fans and BullShit People feel towards a young woman and a young man who just happen to be public figures? A great absence of security and conviction in self? Perhaps. In my years of providing therapy as well as receiving it, I did learn one significant concept: It is

impossible to obtain true inner strength and confidence when one is searching outside the self for it. Moreover, it's a disservice to everyone when malicious intentions are injected into the Great Wide Open. Why tempt the Omnipresent Consequence??

Uh, Me? Meet Confidence.

Basically it means all the energy poured into role-playing MEAN GIRLS by creating high school hierarchies within this supposedly "supportive" community, detracts from the energy in supporting betterment of humanity and oneself... It also detracts from enjoying the gifts of a precocious woman and a soulful man that are the most unique, intelligent and atypical talents we've had the pleasure of observing in many, many years. Which is truly too bad.

TIME'S. UP.

I'm done giving any more of today's Musings to the contemplation of motivation behind unprovoked attacks on our Royal Rebels. I transition out of this convo by saying: Dear idle, bored, and anxious folks out there, let us please commence with remembering why Kristen is our Other Queen, and celebrate all her Offenses of Otherness that are blueprints for accessing our own Majestic Misfit-ness.

Kristen looks in a mirror every single day.

Do you?

The Beauty that Kristen brings

So I say, as I have from day one, instead of focusing on any absence or perceived shortcoming of our Reigning Other Queen, let's focus on the beauty and goodness that has enhanced our lives as a result of being a Kristen Stewart supporter. My world Pre-KStew Discovery was lovely, entertaining and exciting, sure. But my world Post-KStew Discovery is just more. In the past two years that I’ve been on the Twilight and Team Kristen rollercoaster, I have been infinitely blessed. As I wrote last week, my appreciation of Rob and Kristen ultimately brought me to the creation of Musings, therefore, you Beatific Rabble Rousers.

Since discovering and becoming a supporter of Kristen Jaymes Stewart, I have met the nicest, kindest most passionate people from all corners of the world. I mean, I'm a traveler, and have been to a few pretty exotic places, but it wasn't until joining Team Kristen and Team Other, that I've truly met the most gifted and beautiful people in the world. I speak on a daily basis with some of my Cyber Sisters and Readers, more than I speak to my own family, outside of my husband. I read FAN FICTION! The glorious, smutty, brilliant creations of daydream believers and warrior poets. I exchange late-night texts and tweets with my fellow fiction addicts while we sob into the last tissues in the house, and nibble on Toblerone chocolate while discussing the virtues and complications of Mob Life.

Dear: EP, I don't know how, I don't know when it became so.

But you OWN me. That is all.
Love, Me.

Since creating and Musings and spearheading the campaign to defend my fellow Others like you, Kristen, Rob, and this week's featured Rebel, Ryan Gosling, I see brilliant moments of "Other" everywhere. Opportunities to take the atypical path, make an unconventional decision, take a chance on idea I wouldn't always. When I was out to dinner one night with Kathryn, My Welsh beauty and "Manager", our waitress put her two hands behind her back and said to us, "Pick one. Odd? Or Even?"

Can you guess which one I picked? The waitress handed me some lovely candy and my silver setting for the evening. And we ended up having an soulful conversation about pursuing the art of Creative Living. But you know what? When given the choice, I will always, always, choose "ODD".

Odd has never looked sooo sooo right.

I have almost daily, conversations with soul mates and kindreds. This was a conversation that Cynically Convivial of KStew Is Better Than You I had a while back. It went something like this:

Me: I feel like I have so much to learn each day. Each day brings me something new. I love it.

CC: I love to learn. I love words. I love books. My dad always tells us that if you didn't learn ONE thing by the end of the day then you've failed as a citizen of the world.

Me: Oh I love that. I move through each day with a similar guiding energy.

CC: One of my dad's favorite quotes, by W. Markiewicz is: "Its better to be an authentic loser than a false success, and to die alive than to die dead." It's how I became obsessed with the phrase "Own It". I know what my flaws are. I know everything that's wrong with me, and I own it.

Me: Much like our girl Kristen. You, my lovely, are a Rebel Queen as well.

CC: Kristen appreciates authenticity and different-ness. I appreciate her unwillingness to concede.

Then I write stuff like this in the sand in Kauai.

Let's continue to build our Rebel Army, as we began a couple months ago with the first-ever Musings, shall we?

Featured Royal Rebel: Ryan Gosling

This soulful, soft-spoken, unassuming man was born and raised in London, Ontario, Canada. Having no formal performance training, Ryan found himself snagging the spot in The New Mickey Mouse Club alongside fellow Mouseketeers Justin Timberlake, Keri Russell, and Christina Aguilera. Okay, maybe you don't recognize him from his awe-inspiring singing and dancing with the MMC (or maybe you do?), but you probably do recognize him here:

He garnered critical acclaim for his work in films such as Murder By Numbers (a role in which he played a teen aged murderer) and The Believer in which he played a Jewish Neo-Nazi before he landed the role as Noah in his most mainstream movie to date, The Notebook. His propensity for choosing unusual, broken and imperfect (Other) characters in smaller independent films before choosing to work in a well-known film is a very similar trajectory as our Reigning Other Queen Kristen. According to Internet Movie Database, Ryan was a victim of teasing and bullying when in grammar school, and was relegated to home schooling until he was 16 years old and his family moved to Los Angeles, CA. In California, his high school nickname, appropriately so, was: "Trouble". He dropped out of high school at age 17, and went to New Zealand to work on the TV show Young Hercules.

A gifted guitarist and singer in his band Dead Man's Bones, Ryan has quietly but steadily gained admirers in colleagues and industry critics alike. Our own Poet Warrior Rob Pattinson includes himself among Ryan's fans. He was nominated for an Academy Award and became the recipient of the Independent Spirit Award for his work in Half-Nelson, in which he played a heroin-addicted high school teacher. He received critical and public praise for his role as Lars in my personal favorite Gosling film: Lars and the Real Girl, in which he portrays a socially awkward and painfully shy man who claims a blow up doll as his girlfriend. He is compelling and gently surprising in his contrasting roles: a self-proclaimed traveler and lover of solitude. He is both the advocate for freedom of Darfur refugees under the reign of a murderous army; and, a partner in a Beverly Hills restaurant serving Moroccan food. He walks the line of appearing in small independent Indie films as well as big-budgeted Hollywood productions. In a move I find magical, he chose at one point to live alone in a south central Los Angeles apartment because he felt "closest to real people" there, and because the Vulture-Papz would not seek him out.

Offenses of Otherness:

Introspective and methodological,

Quiet and Press Shy,

Articulate and flinchingly honest

"Do something that you're afraid of, at least once"

Our NinjaStew frequently tackles something she's admittedly afraid of: Red Carpet events flanked by aggressive, insulting paparazzi.

Reigning Other Queen: Kristen Stewart

Our reigning Ambassador of Other has a drive and dedication that is both bewildering and impressive. Her colleagues and past cohorts have expressed concern for Kristen's health, as she completely embodies the characters she portrays. Because she "cannot project feelings she herself does not possess", New Moon director Chris Weitz says, "I have found myself concerned for her at moments". She quite infamously carries a spot-on "bullshit detector" and can identify false friends and inauthentic souls immediately. This translates into her ability to run through scenes with several pages of dialogue, and finding the one moment in which it rings untrue. Catherine Hardwicke, Twilight director laughs, "There was quite a bit of rewriting on set. Kristen will not say any dialogue that she cannot respect".

Offenses of Otherness:

Self Assured and confident in self,
Refuses to downplay her intelligence,
Only accepts projects she wholly believes in.
"Nobody cares more than I do"

Offensive Together

Instead of letting fissures and fractures deter or define our community, I say we choose "odd" and seek reminder of all the common characteristics we actually share with our Rebel Royals, our Hellcat Misfits. Because I observed and then wrote about, to finally internalize so many of Kristen's "Beauty Marks" and "Offenses of Otherness", there is no way in hell I'm going to discard the valuable lessons now. Kristen and Rob, and Ryan, all our Ambassadors are moving forward, living their own lives, embracing and representing Other. We should be doing the same. And with all the blessings that supporting Team Other has brought me, why would I ever dwell on any negativities? Its ALL good here.

Because I will always choose the unconventional path, and feel compelled towards "Odd", I am a Royal Rebel.

Because he gracefully and consistently embodies several contradicting roles, Ryan is an Ambassador of Other.

Because she will never speak a word--whether in-role or in every day life--that does NOT resonate with her personal truth, Kristen is our Reigning Other Queen.

I am Other.

Ryan is Other.

Kristen is Other.

Others will not search outside themselves,

for confidence that resides within.

Embrace your Other.

Question: How has being on Team Kristen blessed you?

A/N: How is GrooveShark working out for you, my lovelies? If the music is important to you, and you're struggling with the mechanics of the widget, let me know, ok? Just like you let me know when the comment sections fucking up the flow.

Birthday wishes to my girls: @Randommama who was not feeling well AT. ALL for weeks, and she couldn't really celebrate her own day. Happy Birthday, my Sister. To Iris: @Just2CUSmile and Amy @EvaLola80, I love you girls and even though we've distance between us, you are close always. Happy Birthday.

To my CyberSisters/Readers: You give me energy, inspiration, passion and guidance, and this is just when talking about FOOD! Your support of Musings and Team Other transcends and you school me every day in daily blessings.

Julie, my constant. You KNOW. My Possum Besties, you inspire. ClogWieldingQueen, you honor me.

Buff_82. You bring so much pretty. I need your address. Seriously. Bellasmummy86, kisses and gropes. Kindred. And to my soul sisters, and reasons for me to be BETTER: Bouffant and CynicallyConvy, NONE of this is possible without you. I wouldn't even know how to begin if you weren't holding my hands.