Monthly Archives: June 2012

Things I Love

Posted in lists, love, tilt by

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One of my friends is going to Paris on Monday. The list I made her of things she needs to bring me back include: postcards, Macarons & the Eiffel Tower.

It’s Saturday. The weather is beautiful. The night came softly. It’s not too hot. Not too humid. My room is a huge mess (I definitely don’t like that). And I feel like I may be returning to myself. At least maybe a little bit.

Things I Love Today:
Indian buffets
dresses to wear as cover ups
trips to the beach
taking chances and messaging new people
blindly dling new music and digging it
planning to reread novels I love because sometimes that’s better than trying to find new loves
beards & glasses on men. apparently it’s my thing
shimmer powder all over my arms
my two new favorite TV shows are:
HBO’s Girls and ABC Family’s Bunheads.

Girls is just brilliant. Lena Dunham is the creator/ part writer (complete writer? not sure) and main character in Girls, about a group of twenty somethings living in New York City. The sex is awkward and the relationships aren’t glamourized. The characters are pretty awesome. Watch it.

Amy Sherman-Palladino created Girlmore Girls and she’s back with another awesome show called Bunheads (with a few repeat actors, might I add) about a showgirl who marries an admirer on a whim and moves to the town called Paradise where he lives.

finally sitting down in Starbucks and writing a SCENE. If I could do this every day, or even 4/7 days a week for the summer, I might actually have a book by the end of it. A rough rough draft at least.

What do you love today?

On Running…

Posted in aspirations, festive, goals, melanie kristy by

photo courtesy of The Color Run dot Com

Have I told you that I signed up for a 5k? No?

I’ve never been able to run. In grade school I was that girl who finished twenty minutes after everyone else’s 8 minute run with my steady walk. I cheated around the corners of the track and fields we had to lap, I decided that one lap really meant to, I didn’t give a shit about stupid health exams. They ask you to run once a year and record your time. Like that means anything in the grand scheme of healthiness.

But anyway. I still can’t run. And the 5k I’m doing is in a month from today. I realized yesterday that it’s been a month (!!!!) since I attempted my Couch to 5k program.

The 5k I signed up for is called The Color Run. (Because Gala was talking about it, really). It looks amazing. And the only reason I signed up really is because at every kilometer people on the sidelines throw colored talc-like powder at you. And you end up all sweaty… but colorful at the same time. And I’ve always wanted to do a 5k. It seemed like the perfect motivation.

Obviously it hasn’t been the perfect motivation.

Because my sneakers started to hurt, I needed to wait until I had the money to buy running sneakers (and be properly fitted and run on a treadmill while a girl videotaped my legs running), and running is hard, man. And then I got a cold. I can run for about 30 seconds at a time. In intervals between that and walking, I Can do about twenty minutes. Something tells me that won’t get me very far.

So I figured out what 3 miles is near my house (if you didn’t know, a 5k is 3.1 miles). I plan to walk around the blog every day I can, timing myself and aiming to go faster and faster. If I do it in under an hour, that’s 20 minute miles,  out of shape me walking very fast. (While my out of shape friend Karen, who agreed to get all rainbow-y with me is aiming for a 35 minute 5k. I am practically running this thing ALONE).

So I’m still not a runner. I’m not even really a fast walker. I’m a girl with a cold whose throat is too dry to allow her to finish sentences who weighs too much to really run who has a month left to “train” to get colored talc powder thrown at her.

I’m hoping it’s not one of those 95+ degree days like the ones we were having last week. But otherwise, I’m still pretty damn excited.

I’ll update you in a month, assuming I survive this endeavor.

xo.

Are You There, Blog? It’s me, Melanie.

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Have you read a really really good book lately? One so great you want everyone to read it?

Have you stumbled upon an awesome blog post, a song that makes you cry or a movie that inspires?

It’s summer time. Have you been burned yet?  Gone to the beach? Scratched off some mosquito bites? Have you made a summer bucket list, written in your diary, tried a new recipe?

Have you sent out pictures of yourself attempting to be creepy to guys?

Have you deleted Facebook, complained on Twitter, gotten a cold, bought new sun glasses, changed the background picture on your desktop, asked for time off, planned a trip to Myrtle Beach, boxed up most of your books into boxes that are sitting on the floor, drank enough water, lost the weight you put on after joining Weight Watchers, forgotten medicine and vitamins?

Has someone to like ignored your existence, someone else haunted your thoughts, more of the same old same old. Have you taken out The Secret and decided to manifest your own life? Have you looked at your old hoop that’s in the corner of your room behind your desk and thought about relearning how to dance with it.

Have you taken some ballet classes, thought about taking tap, asked about buying a condo, let your clean clothes pile up around you in your bedroom?

Has anyone asked you about you, blog, lately? Has anyone asked if you’re still blogging, where you are, how are you.

I’ve done most of these things in the past month or so. Or I’ve been asked these things. Stuff has happened. I have done things. I have lived or not lived. I have bought new prescription classes and got a new car.

I’ve eaten a lot of Indian food. Maybe I’m addicted. I also tried Ethiopian.

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And somewhere in the middle I just disconnected. I turned off Facebook, I deleted (and then readded) my Twitter account. I stopped writing. I let an advanced writing class kind of go to waste as I sat and allowed work to pile up around me. I made a lot of outlines. And I gained weight. And kind of lost it. And lost a little more because having a cold is incredible on the appetite. I changed locations at work, I ate some lobster. I caught a fish, tried on some hats and sunglasses. I saw a swan in the parking lot of Dunkin Donuts. I baked two cupcakes, attended a wake, signed up for graduate classes (did I already type this one?) and bought more books.

All of these are things, little things, big things, influential and trivial. They’re parts of every day. Parts of moments that aren’t always heard of.

How have you been spending all of these important moments?

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ps. Can I add that I’m amazed that I still have a steady flow of readers here? Even after deleting my Facebook and only posting one other time in the entirety of June. This is the perfect time to introduce yourself, readers! (Or reintroduce, or just say hello). I can’t wait to meet you.

BRB

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You ever have those nights where you are reading or remembering or hearing or thinking and thoughts and emotions just click into some sort of place… that can’t be explained or put into words? I’ve been reading old words tonight, old fiction and online journal entries from my freshman year of college.

I just need to reconnect with the girl I used to be.

& Then I’ll figure some things out, I’m pretty sure. Here’s to connecting.

 

Things I don’t know if you know about me:
I used to refer to myself as Lady Ivory, if you aren’t familiar with the name, it comes from Girl Goddess #9, the short story by Francesca Lia Block. I had an Alabaster Duchess to my Lady Ivory.
I used to have short hair that I kind of spiked in the back, I straightened the bangs to the side
My hair has been red, blue, purple, a poor attempt at blonde, various shades of brown and also black.
I used to try and make awesome images in photoshop and other programs, I haven’t for a while
I can always use song lyrics to describe me better than I can use my own words

So I’ll be right back. While I’m gone, tell me about you.

 

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freshman year of college, 2003. i was freshly nineteen

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2006 in San Francisco with freshly dyed red hair (I dyed it in the hotel bathroom in Chinatown)

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I used to experiment a lot with makeup. This was 2003/2004. But I think the makeup and smile was actually because I was about to, or had performed in the Dance Company I was a part of at MCLA

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again, at MCLA freshman year. not always smiling

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sometime in Ohio, (I think it was Christmas time 2004/2005) this was evidence of my first cellphone, large and chunky!

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these aren’t tickets from shows I went to, as I made this for someone else, but it’s an example of my attempted graphic editing genius.