Monthly Archives: October 2011

Halloween 2011

Posted in autumn, characters, festive by

No one ever comes to our house to trick or treat. And I kind of have no reason to dress up this year.

But I wore festive socks to work today.

And I plan on watching a festive movie. (Though I can’t find my Coraline DVD so that’s out).

Last year I was Luna Lovegood. This year I was going to be Hello Kitty (love my headband?).

Last night I went on a Ghost Train ride at a place in my town. It was fun to ride through the woods in the dark and hear historical stories (whether or not they’re real stories, I’m not really sure).

How’s your Halloween looking?

Make Life Sweet

Posted in autumn, festive, food, love by

20111028-074922.jpg

This is what life should be like:

Cute – may your days be filled with an adjective you adore. Tiny houses, energetic puppies, endless fiction, lasting love, cute interactions (or cute boys or cute girls, etc.)

Peanut butter frosting – may you stick with someone you adore (but not be permanently attached all of the time)

Cupcake – individual but room to adapt

Pumpkin – the essence of Autumn (okay, or any season you like)

Spice – excitement! Lust! Life! Emotion! Exclamation marks !!!

Whipped cream is the cherry on top, it’s the final puzzle piece, the sweetness that’s necessary in life.

What do you think life should be like?

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark and other Festive Goodness

Posted in autumn by

Have you guys noticed that it’s fall? I mean, we’re already a month in and I haven’t made 200 posts about my favorite season yet. Obviously I’m falling behind!

That being said, everything I was going to post about, I’ve pretty much already posted about last year. So without making this a cop-out post, I’ll write about the last scary movie I saw.

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark

I’m a huge fan of Guillermo Del Toro’s work (Pan’s Labyrinth and The Orphanage) so when I saw there was a new moving coming out that Del Toro wrote the screen play for (and also produced) I knew I had to see it right away. Unfortunately, it took me until this past weekend to see it, long after the movie was out of most theaters.

Sally has been sent to live with her father in Rhode Island in a house he’s remodeling with his interior design girlfriend. Sally thinks she’s just there for a visit, and when she learns she’s there to live, she becomes even more upset. She begins to feel she is unwanted. And then she starts to hear whispering of her name. The whispers tell her they want her to play with them. They lure her into the basement so she can free them.

Once Sally tries to befriend the source of the whispers she soon realizes their intentions aren’t pure.

I’m terrible at summarizing so I’m going to stop there. I enjoyed this movie. It wasn’t terribly scary (to me at least) but it was haunting and enchanting and it definitely pulled me in. It’s something to watch that’s festive but not just a cheap thrills murder story.

Moving on, my greatest complaint about Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is the creatures they used. I hoped the movie would be more ghost/spirit based (though by the end of the movie I had less complaints about that factor because it does rework itself so that the creatures aren’t really random).

If you’re looking for suggestions for other Halloween movies (though none of them are really horror stories) here are the ones I can’t do without.

If you’re looking for more fall reading, be sure to check out last years posts:

Easiest Pumpkin Cupcakes Ever
An Open Letter to Daylight Savings
Fall in Massachusetts Part 1
Fall in Massachusetts Part 2
Pumpkins!


Airports!

Posted in blogging, wanderlust by

It’s been a while, guys, I realize. I’ve been scatter brained and just plain scattered but I’m closer to getting everything together. I’m planning on working on a consistent posting schedule Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday Seven posts and the occasional song on Sundays. So tomorrow Melanie Kristy will return to some sort of consistency, but in the mean time here’s a list of things I enjoy about airports.

 

* Random restaurant choices (in Detroit there’s a peanut butter sandwich stand)
* Looking in the stores for magazines and souvenirs that are sometimes nicer an cheaper than the ones you find in the city.
* Cute boys with glasses wearing green argyle sweaters (and then end up sitting next to me on the plane. But I’m too shy/ awkward/ self conscious, etc. to say or do anything aside from turning on his overhead light).
* There are electric outlets all around (as opposed to here in Barnes & Noble where I had to sit with a draining battery for twenty minutes until there was a seat free near an outlet).
* Free wifi? I think. There is in Memphis at least.
* The people. I love to see how they dress, how many carry-ons they have, etc.
* Tears, hugs, reunions, goodbyes
*Drivers holding the last name of the person on a sign (do they still do that?). Update: I totally saw one person with a hand written sign when I was leaving last night.
* The opportunity to upgrade to first class is always there. I never feel like dropping the cash, but I like that it’s possible (and someday I’d like to fly first class).

So what about you, do you have any particular feelings about airports, or maybe I’m just a strange one?

Charm Bracelet of Memories

Posted in love, melanie kristy, moments like movies, music, passion by

They dont know what it's like to love one band, one silly piece of music so much that it hurts - Almost Famous

I’m always trying to put into words the way I feel about my favorite band. I saw them twice this past week end and it was amazing, as always, maybe even more amazing than usual. I met up with lots of friends and used up $70 worth of gas in two days (it was worth it!) and took a million pictures.

If my life and my love for a certain band were a charm bracelet of occurrences it would look something like this:

When you’re twelve you discover the meaning of life, or at least how it applies to your twelve year old self. It’s from an album, a fandom and lots of songs that are fun to dance to/ kind of silly/ or everything you needed to hear in lyric form.

You begin to actually finish novels. What used to be strings of scenes and characters falling in love over and over starts to become something more real.

You’re fifteen you’re an extra in a college movie. The cute guy recognises the pendant around your neck and tells you he was in their music video.

The album that was released in 2004 smells like a dark room, it looks like the faint red light inside a dark room from all the times you developed film in there while playing the album on repeat.

Your friend’s mom accidentally becomes e-mail buddies with the keyboardist’s father in law. A meet and greet is set up and you’re set, after six years, to shake hands and share a picture.

They are playing at Mayfest in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where they live. You go to Houston with a friend and drive up to Tulsa for an amazing weekend, live music and a really bad sunburn (newsflash: Oklahoma in May is a lot warmer and sunnier than Massachusetts in May). There is also the very first Members Only Event: the screening of their documentary.

You get a ride with a fan club member from Sonoma County to LA. Sleep on the street. See two of their shows in one night (acoustic and then electric).

Somehow you acquire all of their phone numbers. You never use them, but they stay in your phone contacts for a while.

Shirley Temples become the signature drink of the Boston shows. You sit in the balcony every time and enjoy the show from above where you can both see and hear.

Outside the venue you’re by the beach hanging around waiting for appearances. All of a sudden the drummer is right there playing with an air soft gun. He’s running around cars, dodging people and shooting at one of the tech guys. Instead he hits your friend in the chest.

You start buying tickets for friends so you won’t go alone to shows. It’s fun but not the same. You count the connections you’ve made in the past on your hands. Maybe this is growing up, you think.

There are lots of members only events you aren’t invited to because you aren’t a member anymore.

And then there’s this year. Twenty-six hardly looks any different than the years before. You may be older, you may be more mature, but a string of songs live can bring you back far enough to remember everything you were about and everything you’ve lost and miss about yourself.

Church Protests a Funeral

Posted in Uncategorized by

I try not to get too involved with politics. Usually whatever is going on makes me so angry that I guess I choose ignorance. Only sometimes, though. (And I’m hoping to figure out the best way to change that). When I came into work today Kristen was talking about an article  she read and we all started talking so much about it I was sick to my stomach.

I don’t understand hate. I really don’t. And maybe I’m naive because of this, but I also choose not to understand it because it destroys. It destroys people. It destroys faith. It destroys families. It destroys humanity.

There was a man from Plymouth who was killed in Afghanistan recently. He arrived home on Wednesday and his services are set to happen this upcoming Sunday and Monday. And there is a Baptist Church from Kansas who is protesting the funeral of this soldier on Monday. They don’t agree with the war that’s going on and they are going to protest against the support of Steven Gutowski, our fallen soldier.

I don’t want to share the name of the website because it makes me sick, but I’m going to anyway for that very same reason. God Hates Fags.

I honestly can’t even form a coherent post about this, I’m writing just to raise awareness. There’s plans to protest the protest on Monday, but I’ll be at work so I can’t go. If anyone can go, I urge you to. Feel free to read that article and vote on their poll or leave a comment, too.

Has anyone else heard about this? What’s your opinion? have you heard about other protests like this? Apparently this same group protested Steve Jobs’ funeral. I can’t even begin to wrap my head around this type of hate.

Shake It Up

Posted in aspirations, lists by


(weheartit)

Oh my god, guys, we’re already halfway through October! Where did the beginning of fall go? How did my time to write posts and schedule them and take pictures and upload songs etc. all go by too fast for me to take any action? Don’t you feel like sometimes the days just blur together. Like today is almost the exact same as yesterday or Wednesday of last week.

Here are some little things you can do to shake up your routine a little bit and make it so not every day is just like the day before it:

Set your alarm so you wake up to one specific song on Wednesdays. Or your favorite song on Mondays. I’m so much more willing to wake up when good music is playing, and how you wake up sets the mood for your entire day.

Eat a sandwich for breakfast. Peanut butter and banana? Egg and cheese? Turkey and mustard? Why not? The protein will keep you full longer and you might just find a new favorite breakfast.

Take a walk during your lunch/break. Go outside if you can and enjoy the weather before winter takes over. You could probably use the vitamin D.

Visit your local library and check out a book on something you’d like to learn about, or take out language CDs and learn a new language. Make that what you listen to on your commute or at the gym or while you’re doing housework.

Take an entire day away from the Internet. Turn off your phone and set out into the world with just yourself (and the rest of the world) as entertainment. Use this “new” free time to clean your car or go for a hike.

Do something festive. It’s fall! It’s almost Halloween. Go to a haunted house, carve a pumpkin.

Go to ticketmaster.com (or Google) and look up a concert or a show or just something different to spend your Sunday day.

Make soup in the crock pot for an easy lunch to last you all week long.

Buy a new shirt in a different color than you usually wear. (I tend to wear black/ grays/ blues/ purples/ teals all the time).

Drink pumpkin coffee instead of regular. Or try hazelnut. Or see if your local coffee shop will let you blend flavors with like mocha hazelnut (it would be like a Nutella coffee!) or mocha coconut almond, or cinnamon. All of these options sound delicious. I think I might have to give the mocha hazelnut one a try.

Getting to know Melanie

Posted in lists, love, melanie kristy by

So Erica from Star-Stuff posted that she’s always wanted to do a 100 Things About Her list and she’s decided do to it in parts. I thought this was a brilliant idea and I’ve decided to do the same. So feel free to tell me about yourself, too! This is the first of ten parts.

You can read some other facts about me that I posted a few months ago here.

1. My name is Melanie and my middle name is Kristy. It’s possible my mom stole my name from Melanie the artist in the 70’s who sang about her brand new pair of roller skates.
2. It was in second grade that I decided I was going to be a writer. I also decided somewhere around then I wanted to be a librarian. Both of those things hold true for me today (though I currently work at a bank, I am writing — more than just blog posts).
3. Travel is the only other thing to makes sense to me regarding the question, “What do you want to do with your life?” (although lately I’ve been dreaming about opening a bakery or a coffee shop or some independent library of sorts)
4. I have a bachelors degree in English. To attain that degree I attended three different colleges (spending two amazing semesters in my favorite parts of California).
5. I’ve been single for most for my life and most of the time I really enjoy it, though that doesn’t mean I’m not looking, it just means I’m okay with not being married or engaged or moving in with a significant other right now.
6. Since I was twelve, Hanson has been my favorite band. At this point in my life, I’m sure they will always be my favorite because 1. their music has been there during the times when I needed it most 2. I continue to relate to most of their music and 3. I can’t un-love something I’ve loved for fifteen years.
7. I am left-handed
8. When I exaggerate numbers, I always use 5 and 8 and I have no reason why.
9. It’s rare you’ll find me without a book and notebook in my purse (or in my car… if I took it out of my purse).
10.  I danced from 6th grade all through high school into college (mostly jazz and hip-hop). I miss it every day and I’m trying to figure out a way to do it again (Zumba does not count as filling the void for the dancing I miss, sadly).

Fall Mixtape

Posted in love, music by


(weheartit)

Music has always had a strong grip around my heart. It’s helped me through an array of emotions and disappeared for moments at a time. But it always comes back. And I always remember thoughts, feelings, memories and smells based on songs that I constantly listened to during a certain time period. For example, songs from Vanessa Carlton’s Harmonium album will always remind me of driving home from school in the fall of 2005. Jay-Z’s New York will always remind me of the summer of 2009. So I think that having a mix cd, or a play list for those who have graduated from compact disc usage, tends to encompass the time person that it’s on constant replay.

This is why I like sharing mixes. And besides, you never know what gems you’re going to find while you listen.
http://8tracks.com/mixes/405059/player_v3