New Year, New Intentions

January 31, 2023January 26, 2023thisiskrys Leave a comment

I don’t know why I keep making these damn New Year’s resolution posts when I so rarely wind up accomplishing much of what I set out to do. It feels very performative, more about who I wish I could be or who I want you to think that I am than it is about my true self. I even considered not making this kind of post this year at all, but, well, as you see, here we are. It’s as if by making these grand statements I’ll magically become a better person, or at least convince you all that I am one, the words a beautiful incantation that’ll make it look like I really have my shit together, but it’s all just a farce. If nothing else, we are here because I am a creature of habit and blogging some goals is what I do in January in time for my birthday at the end of the month.

Usually in these annual posts I try to look back on my intentions for the previous year and evaluate how I did, but fuck that. I don’t remember everything that I wrote, but I have a sense that I perhaps didn’t do very much of it and will only feel guilty and disappointed in myself if I go down that road, so we’re only looking ahead here this year.

I’m not focusing so much on goals in the realm of traditional “adulting,” like changing my job or moving out for a few different reasons, one of which being that I don’t want to set goals that require the input/decisions of others to succeed, because I could put in a lot of effort and still come up short and it feels unfair to put that pressure on myself.

But what do I want to do this year?

A. Write 12 blog posts: In 2022 I posted 10 blogs, which is very respectable, but of course it would always be nice to hit that one per month marker. I do feel like I’m improving as a writer and like I’m more often able to make my weirder concepts work in a way that I’m pleased with (even if I don’t think they’re totally perfect). I also don’t cringe nearly as much as I used to when I reread posts months later, which has to mean something, lol. In addition to my usual kinds of blogs, I posted a long bit of fiction this year about one of my D&D characters and I’d like to do something like that again. If I have to pick just one favorite post from 2022 to point you to it’s probably the avocados one but I’m quite pleased with my output overall. (And you can easily reach them all from my archive page!)

B. Watch less YouTube and watch more of the movies and shows I’ve saved to my streaming service watch lists: Self-explanatory, I suppose. I frequently say “oh I want to watch something, but everything’s too long for the time that I have” so I never watch anything. But, like, it’s okay to watch things in more than one sitting if I have to, so I should just do that!

C. Play more finishable video games: This is a similar situation to the previous point. I have a decently sized backlog of games that are contained experiences with a set endpoint, but instead of playing those I play open ended games like Groove Coaster or Fall Guys or Minecraft. One of the reasons I love games is because I love stories, and I love that experiencing a story via gaming is so different than experiencing stories in any other medium. I want to get back to stories.

D. More movement: I started following a bunch of plus sized influencers on Instagram in 2022 because I had a sudden rush of feeling that I wanted to see more people who looked like me on my social media feeds. Reading their posts has got me reframing some of my mindsets. This includes reframing the idea of exercise as a depressing chore used for intentional weight loss and “health” (which don’t even get me started on how loaded that term is when it comes to body size). Instead I’ve been thinking about it as the general idea of movement, of choosing activities that bring me joy without a focus on weight loss. For me this might mean getting out into my local woods more for walks, maybe trying to find online Zumba class because I miss dancing, or doing yoga routines off of YouTube because who doesn’t love a good stretch after being hunched over a computer all day? I don’t care about losing weight and frankly I don’t want to because I don’t want to spend money on a whole new wardrobe or worry about the loose skin I’d have if I had significant weight loss. But I know more movement will only benefit me, even just from an “endorphins make the brain happier” standpoint.

E. Journaling: I searched for a planner-type journal with calendars in it, but couldn’t find one that I like. Why are they all so focused on elaborate goal setting? All I want is big dated blocks to write in with calendar grids between each month so I can jot in things like doctor’s appointments and my friends’ birthdays. (No, I don’t want to do a bullet journal so I can make my own layouts. I tried it for a year and it’s not for me.) Instead, I’ve just been using a regular notebook. I give myself grace for missing a day or two, but I try to not let much more than that go by without writing at least something about how my days are going or how I’m feeling. I don’t have any mental goal in mind for journaling; it’s not a mindfulness thing. I just would like to have a record of my life, because I often get to the end of a year and wonder what the hell even happened.

F. More self-indulgent photoshoots: This is just a little thing I’ve done a few times over the past couple of years, and I want to do more of it. The pictures in this post are an example of this. I’d never done photos like this outside because I feel self-conscious, but I said screw it and brought a tiny tripod to the beach with me and got some images I really quite like! I have ideas for some more concepts that I’m trying to flesh out. I still don’t really know what to do with my face or poses, but it’s a fun creative outlet. I’m the friend who always remembers to take the pictures at events, and I feel awkward asking other people to use the camera so I can be in some of them, so it’s nice to have some recent pictures of me that aren’t just phone selfies.

So those are my intentions for the next 12 months. Let’s see if I can pull any of them off so that when we’re here again this time next year I can feel like less of a fraud. (Maybe.)

Summer Has Arrived

June 21, 2018November 3, 2019thisiskrys Leave a comment

At the end of the day when I enter the lobby of the building where I work, I can feel some of the heat while I’m still a couple of yards from the revolving door. I push through, freeing myself from my air conditioned office prison, and for the first minute or so the heat is a refreshing contrast. But by the time I’ve crossed the courtyard and properly entered the parking lot, I’m wilting. Halfway across the asphalt that separates me and my car, I feel sweat pooling on my forehead, on my upper lip, under my arms.

All of the photos in this post are from more pleasant summer times than the sticky week I’m currently enduring. Here’s the first Dippin Dots I ever had, taken at Six Flags in 2009.

I make it to the car and haul myself inside, desperately turning the key in the ignition as quickly as possible so I can roll down the windows. I feel blood rushing to my face and the sensation of all my pores opening up like I’ve just steamed them for a skincare treatment. The breeze from driving with the windows open calms my heat borne agitation (the AC is reserved for only the hottest of days, or when it rains).

I get home, and do I get to go inside where it’s cooler? Not yet — I have the task of pulling the rest of the family cars into our long narrow driveway once mine (the last to leave in the morning) is properly situated at in the back of the property. My brother’s car is black, with a black vinyl interior. Even if he remembers to crack the windows and park in the shade, I feel like I am sitting in hell.

Here’s a weird baby head that was on one of the carousel horses in Dorney Park. This was the second carousel, way in the back of the park, that played hilariously out of tune music. Taken 2010.

Once that’s done, I go inside and eat dinner before going up to my room and cranking on my big boxfan. Last summer I successfully shunned the window air conditioner on the floor of the spare room that has my name on it, as it dries me up inside and out, usually giving me a cold. Hopefully this year I shall remain strong again. I’m usually wearing long pants or a cardigan in the interest of being office appropriate, and I curse them as I peel the sweaty cloth from my body. I flop down on my bed in my undergarments and let the cool air of the fan blow over my sticky skin.

Yes, I hate being cold. But I hate the heat even more. When it’s cold you can put on a sweater or grab another blanket. But when it’s hot, you can remove all of your garments and still be miserable, and I am absolutely not about that life.

A beautiful view from the fortress of Wulzberg in Germany. Taken in 2012.

Bring Me the Sun!

March 22, 2018November 3, 2019thisiskrys Leave a comment

Hello, as I write this it is the first week of spring, and where I live in New Jersey is about to get slammed with our THIRD Nor’easter this month. (My posts go live on Thursdays, so by the time you read this, it’ll be over.) One of the storms was only rain, but it was the heaviest, windiest rain I’ve witnessed in a long time. It broke my umbrella!

As much as I’d like to get a snow day, I have to say, I am fucking tired of snow and cold. I want to have the choice to spend time outside, to feel the sun on my face, to drive with the windows down. So here’s a photostream post of the kind of weather I’m missing. All photos were taken by me at various points, I’ll be sure to write in proper informative captions!

Taken in my backyard in Spring 2011.

A view from up high, taken on my Summer 2012 trip to Germany.

On a trail at the Cape May Lighthouse, trying out my camera remote for the first time, September 2017.

This was a fun time! In 2015 the New Jersey Renaissance Faire came to visit my town, and my friends and I spent the day there. (These are the Lords of Adventure, and they are amazingly funny, fyi.)

Taken in 2014 at a picnic with my friends in a local park.

Rainbow over Cape May Beach in 2015.

Beautiful sunset sky at Pt. Pleasant Beach, 2013.

And let’s end on a bit of as self-indulgent note — I found this cute selfie in the same folder as the previous sunset sky photo, and wanted to share it!

This post is basically a wish I’m putting out into the universe for better, warmer weather! I hope it gets here soon!

–Krys

The First 10,000 Miles

December 28, 2017November 3, 2019thisiskrys Leave a comment

In September 2016, I reluctantly gave up my 20 year old Ford station wagon. I didn’t want to get rid of my car, but after years of reliability (I was the third in my family to drive it), it had suddenly decided to need repairs almost every single month. We were coming to a crossroads where the station wagon was coming up on its biennial inspection, and it needed a costly repair that wasn’t life threatening, but which caused the “check engine” light to be constantly on. This little light will cause you to instantly fail inspection. So after some consideration of all my various options, I decided to go in on a car lease, and my 2016 Nissan Rogue came into my life. It was a big adjustment (being high off the ground being one of them!), but I’ve come to love it dearly.

Recently my Rogue and I drove our 10,000th mile together, a landmark crossed while I was looking for parking at my friends’ apartment complex. (It somehow feels appropriate, lol.) I thought it might be nice to look back at some of the places my car took me in our first 1.25 years together, which also kind of serves as a 2017 retrospective as well! So without further ado:

This is from Halloween at Target. I’m at Target at least once a week, usually popping over during my lunch.

In October ’16 I housesat for my Aunt, looking after this big boy named Romeo.

Work. Every fall the people who run my office building put one of these outside both buildings in the complex. I call it the Sacrificial Altar.

These weird mosaics are in the lobby of the school where the community center housed guitar lessons.

I was only gonna include one picture from each place, but this bizarre painting in the music room at the school was too good to pass up, lol.

My favorite locally-owned burrito place!

This isn’t a place I went, per se, but I this spring I discovered the quiet joy of spending my lunch reading in my car.

The field that I park in when I want to run away from home, but don’t have the time. I remember I texted this picture to someone and they said, “Don’t get lost.”

A sad day at the beach, when I really just needed to run away from home and actually did it. Perhaps someday I’ll blog about it.

Jury duty! Which I actually weirdly enjoyed, probably because I mostly just got to sit in a corner and devour a book all day.

A happy day at the beach! There were a few of these in this particular town.

In September 2017 I took a vacation alone for the first time — two nights in one of my favorite faraway shore towns!

A trip so good it deserves two pictures in this little retrospective. I’ll try to remember to blog this trip soon!

Spent one Friday night on emergency trip to Ikea to replace my beloved lamp, which I smashed in a stupidly clumsy accident.

Countless visits to my friend’s apartment to visit them, and their two lovely little bean boys. So precious. ❤

This is from my office’s Christmas party last week! The fancy restaurant we were at had this massive, beautiful tree in the foyer, so you know I had to strike a pose.

As human beings, we mostly tend to take pictures of good moments, so this photo set doesn’t really betray how hard 2017 was for me. But the fact that I was able to revisit all of these good moments when I looked back for these pictures gives me a little hope that next year could have even more positivity in it.

–Krys

New England Nostalgia

October 18, 2017November 3, 2019thisiskrys Leave a comment

I went to college (university, for you non-Americans) in a tiny town in northwestern Massachusetts called North Adams. It’s just about as far from Boston as you can get and still be in the state — many of the students came from upstate New York and the town is so close to the Vermont border that some of the faculty lived there.

My first semester of college my mom wanted to make the four hour trip to visit me on Columbus Weekend, since it was a long weekend for both of us, and when she couldn’t get a hotel room in the immediate area we found out about the phenomenon known as “leaf peeping.” Leaf peeping is a form of tourism where people travel to go look at the changed leaves in the autumn. On the East Coast, New England is a popular area for this, probably because the comparatively lower temperatures cause the trees to change earlier.

In most instances, I think travelling a long distance just to look at some trees is pretty silly. However, I never miss North Adams more than I do in the fall, and when you see the photos below maybe you’ll see why!

These are all photos that I took when I was in college (mostly even before I had my nice DSLR) — I haven’t been back in the fall since I graduated at the end of 2012.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA (I remember that I liked this tree because it looks sort of like a paintbrush partially dipped in paint.)

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA (A nearly leafless tree with some kind of berries on it, taken from inside the library. It looks like a spring picture, but I swear it’s not, lol.)

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA (This yellow tree was my favorite one on campus every year, and that’s why I’ve included two photos of it! When I picture fall in North Adams, this tree is usually the first thing I think of.)

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA (A view of the quad.)

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA (Path in front of one of the main classroom buildings.)

(This picture is kind of crummy quality, because I took it through the window of an elevator lobby, but I fucking love the cloud clinging to those mountains.)

(The view from my dorm window my last, happiest semester of college. Those trees on the left were gorgeous study companions!)

(A friend wanted to take some cosplay photos down by the train tracks that we definitely weren’t supposed to be near, but that people hung out by / used as a shortcut for walking to Walmart anyway.)

I hope you’ve all enjoyed this little nostalgia trip into my photograph archives! I’ve taken so many photos and they’re mostly just rotting away inside my hard drive, so I think I’ll pull together little posts of old photos like this in the future.

How do you guys feel about fall?

Much love,
Krys

This is Krys

Doing my best.

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