christy frink

Today is July 26th and today was a good day.

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 23:43:39 -0500

Today was a good day for a number of reasons, but it was an especially good day because I discovered I’d lost enough weight last week to hit my 10-pound benchmark. I know everyone’s probably getting sick of hearing about it and I promise I’m not turning into one of those girls who obsesses over things like this, but seriously? Celebration. On so many levels. One, I feel awesome. Two, it means I’ve stuck with it for two months. I can’t really remember the last time I made myself do anything for two months. And eating out less has saved me a ton of money—money I can save or use to do things like travel or pay off my car sooner or something. I just feel like I’ve accomplished something that’s pretty big for me, and I’ve still got a ways to go, but I know I can get there now. It’s not about the weight so much as the challenge and the discipline it’s taking. And the endgame of knowing I’ve actually done something good for myself. And knowing that by the time next summer rolls around, maybe I can actually enjoy a pool day and not feel gross. That would be cool.

This song makes my smile hurt.

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 19:49:01 -0500

This song makes my smile hurt.

Love. popestvictor: via (http://popesaintvictor.com)

Tue, 20 Jul 2010 17:19:59 -0500

Love.

popestvictor:

via (http://popesaintvictor.com)

Today is July 19th and these are some things about life that I am enjoying:

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 19:13:40 -0500

- Walking out to my Fit, every single day

- This chicken casserole from my mom’s recipe

- New lunchbox! With a ladybug-shaped refreezable ice pack!

- Sick fish on the mend thanks to some betta meds that smell like cough drops

- Dropping another pound this week

- Songs in 6/8 time

- Exclamation marks!

Audio

Sun, 18 Jul 2010 21:59:50 -0500

Today is July 17th and it has been a good music year

Sat, 17 Jul 2010 17:39:48 -0500

Every year, I put together these mixes that are about the closest thing to scrapbooks that I have from the past six years. Since July and 2010 are more than half-over (today is the 198th day of 2010) I decided it was time to update this year’s mix. I hadn’t been keeping it current because I’ve basically listened to two or three different artists excessively for the entire year and a mix full of two or three artists seems wrong. And then I remembered that it’s a mix of things I’ve been listening to and that’s the entire point, so I can fill it with whatever makes sense. If it ends up being half Avett Brothers and half Jónsi, then that’s cool. But it didn’t! So here it is:

- The Avett Brothers - I And Love And You
- DJ Earworm - 2009 United State of Pop
- Mumford & Sons - Winter Winds
- The Avett Brothers - Salina
- Fanfarlo - The Walls Are Coming Down
- Broken Bells - Sailing To Nowhere
- Jónsi - Boy Lilikoi
- Jónsi & Alex - All The Big Trees
- Jónsi - Go Do
- Cloud Cult - Running With The Wolves
- fun. - Benson Hedges
- B. o. B. - Don’t Let Me Fall
- Parachutes - Where Were You?

And somewhere along the way, I realized it’s been a really good year for me in the music department. And not just music, but happy and inspiring music. I don’t listen to past years’ playlists too often because they’re super depressing. And that’s not because those years were depressing, but the music was. The 2010 mix (so far) just makes me smile. I did ring in the New Year with the Avett Brothers in Asheville, so I guess that started things off on the right foot.

Good morning, haters.

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 07:27:52 -0500

Good morning, haters.

Oh and also, I finished my last episode of SVU today. The...

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 23:19:19 -0500

Oh and also, I finished my last episode of SVU today. The current season won’t be released until the end of September. There is a gaping Elliot Stabler-shaped hole in my heart already. On a related note, how did I already finish 224 episodes?

Last week, I drove to Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana,...

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 23:10:43 -0500

Last week, I drove to Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, Illinois, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky and back to Nashville in that order. As you can probably tell, I spent a considerable amount of time in Illinois because I drove through it from top to bottom and it is probably the most boring state other than Kansas (maybe more boring that Kansas, even), but boring is what I was going for on this trip. However, midwest-boring is kind of a novelty when you’re used to Tennessee-boring and Virginia-boring because there’s just pavement, corn and sky and you can see for miles. I saw a couple of Great Lakes I hadn’t seen before and bumped into another Nashville (in Illinois!) and visited my old friend the Giant Superman Statue, in Illinois. And see that beautiful beach up there? That is also in Illinois. And I listened to Sufjan’s Illinois record, in Illinois. It gave me a much greater respect for anyone who can make that state sound magical.

The bulk of my time in Illinois was spent in Chicago with my parents. Between my mom’s tour book and the Droid, we managed to cover a lot of ground by bus and by boat and by train and by foot and by Segway. I experienced a Cubs game at Wrigley Field with a bunch of German rocket scientists, hit up the aquarium and the planetarium and the art institute, sunburned my eyeballs (true story!) looking at some neat buildings on the architecture cruise, hunted down coffee with my dad, nearly crashed on a Segway a few times with my mom (pro tip: If someone hands you Segway, make sure it is not in “turtle mode” before you step on), and wound up in the middle of a gang fight near Grant Park. I’ve got lots of pictures and lots of stories, actually, but that’s the short version.

As for the other states, Michigan was probably my favorite. The sun set around 10pm and I didn’t expect Lake Erie to be that pretty. But something about sitting on a beach in a sweatshirt when it’s 65 degrees outside in June is just good for you, I think. Especially when Nashville is somewhere out there in the triple-digits, melting, with an Air Quality Alert. Wisconsin seemed alright, but I only ventured about 10 feet into it. I was essentially on a country road and there was a gas station right on the border. Then I drove on the border with Illinois on my left and Wisconsin on my right for a ways until I hit the interstate again. I also didn’t spend much time in Indiana but they didn’t appear to have a welcome sign in that little bit you have to drive through to get to Chicago; you have to go hunt it down at the welcome center/rest area which is gross. Missouri was Missouri and Kentucky was Kentucky, I guess.

At any rate, it was about 1,600 miles of driving and I’d do it over again tomorrow if I could.

And now it’s past my bedtime.

I drove five-hundred and three miles today to get away. I...

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 23:02:32 -0500

I drove five-hundred and three miles today to get away. I didn’t have anywhere to be or anyone to see in Michigan, which is probably what made it appealing. I drove here, I checked into my hotel room, and then I realized that I just spent the better part of nine hours sprinting away from God-knows-what and now here I am in Michigan. I’m in this little town called Monroe that contains mostly rusted railway bridges and I’m in a hotel that contains mostly no one and I’m on the fourth floor on the backside of the building that conveniently faces West, where the sun sets. I have every intention of getting up at 5:30am to see the sunrise over Lake Erie because I’m not sure when I’ll have the chance to do that again, but that’s awfully early and it’s getting late.

I saw Jesus today and he was burnt to a crisp, which I suppose is what happens when you build a structure out of a conductive material and cover it in something flammable, even if that flammable thing is shaped like Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Photo

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 22:01:00 -0500

Welcome to Ohio.

Burnt-to-a-crisp Drowning Jesus.

Ankle-length ponytail sighting in Dayton

Monroe, Michigan.

9:30pm sunset out the hotel window.

This is how much I’ve lost since June 1. Celebrate the...

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 20:55:57 -0500

This is how much I’ve lost since June 1. Celebrate the little things, I say.

Today is June 20th and it is the day before the longest day of the year.

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 20:23:00 -0500

The Summer Solstice occurs exactly when the Earth’s axial tilt is most inclined towards the sun at its maximum of 23° 26’. Though the Summer Solstice is an instant in time, the term is also colloquially used like Midsummer to refer to the day on which it occurs. Except in the polar regions (where daylight is continuous for half of the year), the day on which the Summer Solstice occurs is the day of the year with the longest period of daylight. Thus the seasonal significance of the Summer Solstice is in the reversal of the gradual shortening of nights and lengthening of days. The summer solstice occurs in June in the Northern Hemisphere, in December in the Southern Hemisphere.

The word solstice derives from Latin sol (sun) and sistere (to stand still).

Tomorrow marks the first day of summer and the longest day of the year. It’s not really any longer than other days, but the sun is out for longer, which makes it feel longer than the other 364 days. Since I graduated from college and got on some semblance of a regular schedule, time has become a bigger deal because it moves so much faster. Months go by like weeks. People come and go. I look forward to things and then they’re gone. I look back on things and then they’re gone. The machine keeps churning away. “We’re all moving forwards and we’re never ever coming back.”

I’ve made a conscious effort to slow it all down this month and I’m surprised at how much energy it’s taken to just chill out. There are some parts of it that I’m good at and some that I’m not. I’m eating better and sleeping better and exercising better and not yelling in my car and cutting people some slack and cutting myself some slack and sitting outside watching this baby rabbit in my yard instead of inside getting worked up about whatever Thing Of The Day I can’t fix. Life’s too short, even on the longest day of the year. On Tuesday, in less than 48 hours, the cycle reverses and these days that are now long will start to get shorter again. And the machine churns on.

A byproduct of all this slowing down has been having time to think about things I haven’t thought about in a long time. One of those things is that I have a grandmother out there with Alzheimer’s Disease who doesn’t know who I am anymore when I talk to her on the phone. I’ve adjusted to it pretty seamlessly over the past few years because I knew it was coming for a while. And then something I was doing this week jogged my memory about how she would take me to this pond when I was a kid and we would feed the ducks. More often than not, she would feed the ducks and I would catch these caterpillars that were blue and fuzzy with boxy black spots. She’d be ready to leave but I wouldn’t want to leave my bugs so she’d get out some paper plates and help me gather them up in one plate and put the other plate on top like a clam shell. Then we’d drive home with the plate-clam full of bugs teetering on my lap and I would probably let them out in the back yard.

When I remembered that, memories did what memories do and a few dozen others fell out of my brain along with it. Late nights watching baseball games on TV, eggs and Eggos in the mornings, her loud snoring that kept me awake from across the house, making Christmas ornaments out of pine cones, the smell of roast beef every Sunday, singing me “Deep and Wide” a dozen times over to get me to fall asleep, her weird slippers, seeing her face out in the audience at my band concerts, the time she accidentally maced me out in Yellowstone, the time she bashed her head on a sign in Canada and was more worried about me being freaked out than about herself, spirited games of Monopoly with my grandfather, the way she’d scold him when he tried to stir things up, hiding from her in the top of her magnolia tree, rolling my eyes when she and my mom stopped to snatch rocks or moss or wildflowers from somewhere they weren’t supposed to, picking up shells at Topsail Beach… just a lot of memories, amazing memories. I get that she’s old and that this happens, but I do miss her. It’s weird for me to even say that out loud (to the internet) because I know she’s not gone. But those times are gone and her memories are gone and we’re all moving forwards and we’re never ever coming back.

The thing I struggle with the most is knowing that I can’t get any of that time back, but I think the trick is learning to appreciate it for what it is and for all of the future things that wouldn’t be the future without it. I remember my grandmother as an adventurous, ballsy, opinionated and fiercely compassionate woman. She grew flowers and watched birds and cooked circles around me and chased down squirrels with a spatula and kept her pantry stocked with all my favorite things and laughed with me when my granddad got his dentures stuck together from eating my bubble gum ice cream. Much of that might be buried deep inside her head somewhere now, but if I’m lucky, maybe I inherited a fraction of it. Someone has to pick up where she left off and I think it’s time to move on. So I’ll talk to her on the phone and see her over holidays and she won’t remember who I am, but I’ll remember who she is and how much she gave me and then I’ll work on doing some stuff with my life that maybe someone else can remember.

And I guess that’s about all.

Took a spur-of-the-moment mountain vacation to Gatlinburg this...

Sun, 13 Jun 2010 22:07:00 -0500

Took a spur-of-the-moment mountain vacation to Gatlinburg this weekend. This is the view from the balcony of the cabin we stayed in. It was the prettiest thing I’ve seen since, well, the last time I was in Gatlinburg. It started out on Tuesday night with me whining to my friends about how I wanted to go see the synchronized fireflies and then we just made it happen. The fireflies were a little bit of a letdown (or maybe it was the 92,384,280,391 camera flashes going off on the side of the otherwise-dark mountain and the baby screaming), but they were still pretty. Back at the cabin, it was dark enough to see the Milky Way and a couple of shooting stars. I wanted to take a picture of the sky, but then I realized that there are just some things that aren’t that impressive when you’re not looking at them in real life.

Other things of note:

- I left my computer at home this weekend. Even though I have a fancy phone that keeps me connected now, this was a big step. I was worried that getting a smartphone would mean being more plugged in than I want to be, but at least this weekend, it sort of helped me unplug. And having a fancy phone with maps also lets me run around the state without getting lost, so that’s a big plus.
- Took the long, long, long, long way home today. Life’s too short not to take the scenic route, right? Bypassed Knoxville, which I didn’t even know was possible. I would be a happy lady if I never had to drive through Knoxville on I-40 again. Even if it tacks on about four extra hours.
- Discovered by way of the internet that Brandon is a fatty because I’ve been feeding him too much. As of today, I’m cutting him back to one meal a day and he’s already giving me the stink eye. I can’t believe I have an obese fish.

Today is still June 6th and this a thing I forgot to write about:

Sun, 06 Jun 2010 23:41:01 -0500

While I was weaving the Fit in and out of Nashville traffic last weekend trying to find someone to remove the wheel locks, I came to a stop at 14th and Church. I was sitting next to a beat-up red pickup truck at the light, and I saw the passenger side door open out of the corner of my eye. A person walked behind my car, across the street and onto the sidewalk before I turned to look. She had her hair wrapped in a scarf and she was wearing dark green sweats. I think she was a hooker (or maybe just someone who needed the money.) I watched her walk away until I couldn’t see her anymore and then I looked ahead at the light. The window of the pickup truck next to me rolled down and I could see a person waving and motioning for me to put my window down and I have no idea what he wanted. The light turned green and we drove in two different directions. We are Nashville.

Today is June 6th and these are some boring updates about some attempted life improvements:

Sun, 06 Jun 2010 20:17:00 -0500

A week into my June punch list, and I think it’s started out pretty well. I did the gym Monday-Thursday and even though I thought I was going to die on Monday and Tuesday, by Wednesday I was actually looking forward to it—partially because it made me feel like i was accomplishing something and partially because it actually felt good. I think the difference this time around is that it’s something I’m doing 100% for myself and not just because I know peripherally that it’s something I should be doing. I also found some cheap 5 lb. weights at TJ Maxx and found a few upper-body exercises I can do at home, while watching TV (the best kind of exercise, no?), and I can already tell I’m going to be sore. But it’s okay, it’ll be worth it.

Other things that have gone well this week: Quelled the road rage all week. Ate breakfast all week. Cooked a couple of things. Brought lunch most days. Finished a (good) book. Took a picture every day. Uploaded and organized photos. Backed up my computer for the first time in months. Started to work through some residual frustration. Did some yoga.

And now I will post some more Jónsi, since that seems to be the soundtrack of May and June. Can’t find a recording, so Youtube will have to do.

To commemorate the Post-Flood Natural Disaster Thing that haunts...

Wed, 02 Jun 2010 21:58:53 -0500

To commemorate the Post-Flood Natural Disaster Thing that haunts me in my dreams. (via)

Today is June 1st and these are the things I will tackle, for myself, this month:

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 21:54:00 -0500

- I will exercise at least four days a week: Gym, sidewalk, yoga, cartwheels, whatever. And at least 30 minutes of that.

- I will take my multivitamin every day: Because that’s easy enough, right?

- I will drink at least 64 oz. of water every day: Already over halfway there on a normal day. I just forget to do this most of time.

- I will eat breakfast every day (and eat less disgustingly for the other two meals): This means that I actually have to get up early enough to do that, and that I have to keep the necessary groceries in my fridge.

- I will make my own lunch three times every week: At least. It’ll save money and I don’t own a deep fryer, so that should help me out with the previous goal.

- I will not use my lunch break to explore the internet: Monitor goes off for 60 minutes. I can drive around, read a book, zone out, or whatever else. But I need a midday internet break.

- I will read before bed: At least a half-hour. Again with the needing an internet break.

- I will take one picture every day: June 365 starts here, on the first day of June. I’m not messing around this month.

- I will not holler or honk at other cars in traffic: I get angry when I’m stressed out, and vice versa. Neither of those is productive. And Dashboard Jesus is watching.

- I will leave myself enough time to not be late: I get stressed out when I am in a hurry. And when I get stressed out, I get angry. Again, not productive.

I woke up and felt relaxed enough to be productive, so I was. I ...

Mon, 31 May 2010 17:59:00 -0500

I woke up and felt relaxed enough to be productive, so I was. I finally got the Fit’s tires rotated (long story involving my wheel lock key rolling under my floorboards and repeated [frustrating!] attempts to find some place that would remove them for me and finally finding that place, which was the one place that was open today, on Memorial Day). I was so happy about that happening that I then visited a car wash that was (illegally?) open before 4pm and gave the Fit a much-needed bath. I needed it to have a bath more than it needed to have a bath, probably. And once that happened, I spent another 45 minutes cleaning out the inside, vacuuming every possible surface, wiping down every surface that couldn’t be vacuumed, Windexing the windows, Rain-Xing the windows, and treating a few spots of winter (or maybe flood?) mud, and Scotchgarding the upholstery. Then I opened up a new air freshener and clipped it on the air vent. Then I (briefly!) hosed down the plastic floor mats.

And not that anyone out there cares about every detail of what I did to my car, but I can’t believe how much it did for my sanity. I don’t think it’s been that clean since I brought it home from the dealership almost a year ago (!). The Fit is officially ready for the next adventure.

While I was waiting on the tires, I started reading The Raw Shark Texts. I liked this:

Every single cell in the human body replaces itself over a period of seven years. That means there’s not even the smallest part of you now that was part of you seven years ago.

Everything is changing.

In the early days of my second life I noticed how the shadow of a telegraph pole would inch between the gardens of two houses across the street - from 152 to 150 - over the course of several hours, from lunchtime into evening. After watching this a few times I did the maths, the shadow movement from one garden to the next meant that both houses, the telegraph pole, the street, all of us, had traveled one thousand, one hundred and sixty miles around the earth with the turning of the planet. We’d also traveled about seventy-six thousand miles through space around the sun in the same period and much much further as part of the wider spiraling of the galaxy. And nobody noticed a thing. There is not stillness, only change. Yesterday’s here is not today’s here. Yesterday’s here is in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. It’s behind the sun, it’s in deep space, hundreds of thousands, millions of miles left behind. We can never wake up in the same place we went to sleep in. Our place in the universe, the universe itself, it all changes faster and faster by the second. Every one of us standing on this planet, we’re all moving forwards and we’re never ever coming back. The truth is, stillness is an idea, a dream. It’s the thought of friendly, welcoming lights still shining in all the places we’ve been forced to abandon.

Today is May 30th and life is loud.

Sun, 30 May 2010 14:22:46 -0500

Life has felt very loud lately. Ideas are loud, people are loud, busyness is loud. I’ve been trying to filter out the noise this weekend and it’s been nice, but it still manages to get in through all the things I have that plug into the wall. I bought the Riceboy Sleeps record yesterday and I’ve had it on a loop for 24 hours now and there are no words (or really even tunes) to the songs. It’s the good kind of noise. I would like to go away for a while.