eamillikin

Practice makes practice

January 3, 2013January 4, 2013 eamillikin2 Comments

I thought MySpace angles were supposed to be slimming. — Does this MySpace angle make my strings look fat?

The week before I set up this blog, a challenge was issued. Write a blog post every day.

I protested half-heartedly. “Every day? That’s ridiculous. I can’t come up with good content every day… And then to do a good job editing…!”

“It doesn’t have to be good writing!” was the retort.

Now, I’m keeping a blog. This blog. I don’t write in it every day… Because some days I chicken out. Some days I’m distracted or busy or I completely forget. But I’m remembering more often already. And growing more comfortable with the idea that I’m chatting away to myself where you can hear.

This is all good practice, and I realized that practice really takes practice. I wrote about it over here not to long ago, but I’m writing again to remind myself.

I’m impatient when it comes to matters of my being. I expect myself to do well the first time. To succeed immediately and move on to the next task. Sometimes, this approach is awesome. I get shit done. But, there’s something to be said for the slower approach. Imagine taking a bite of your favorite food (mine’s steak); do you close your eyes and savor the sensations? From your tongue and teeth to your nose… the fork heavy against your fingers…

Practice can be like that. It’s a way to be aware of the sensations… The peculiar way I hold my breath as a write, as if afraid of blowing the words off the screen on an exhale… How my voice seems to change if I write rough drafts on a computer versus paper, or even between types of pens.

It’s a really cool process, and reading other peoples’ resolutions only reminds me of my list of 25 things to do before I turn 26. I wish “practice” was on it.

Maybe that can be my New Years Resolution – to practice practice and to savor every bite.

What about you – what are you practicing right now/this week/this year?

Hello 2013

December 31, 2012January 4, 2013 eamillikinLeave a comment

Every December 31st, I listen to this song. It’s a sad goodbye to the year behind, and a sweet wistful prayer for the new year.

Goodbye, 2012. You were an exceptional year, full of strange and beautiful surprises.

It’s nice to meet you, 2013. I’m ready for you.

•

It’s been a long December and there’s reason to believe

Maybe this year will be better than the last.

I can’t remember all the times I tried to tell myself

To hold on to these moments as they pass.

Ticket to Ride

December 30, 2012 eamillikinLeave a comment

Star Trek reference. — The next generation.

All I wanted for Christmas was to put my nephew on skis… And guess what? I got my wish.

It was windy as heck at Jay Peak with snow falling the whole day, but Dad, Grandpa, and Auntie Liz took to the Magic Carpet. The little dude did awesome – even making it up the Metro Quad.

It’s crazy to think that 24 years ago, my father was teaching me to ski just as he taught my older brothers years. And now, again, he’s helping to teach his grandson. Some day soon, that little bugger will be following us into the trees.

I’m feeling pretty gosh darn sentimental. If you’re a skier/rider, do you remember learning? Or have a particular memory of teaching someone else? I’d love to hear your story.

(Here’s the live action version, by the way.)

Living Soy-Free (ish…)

December 29, 2012January 4, 2013 eamillikin2 Comments

I’m really bad at having a food allergy. Especially when it’s an ingredient as common as soy. I’m constantly eating things I shouldn’t. Slabs of sashimi dunked in soy sauce, as an obvious example, but also slope-side bites of granola bars, Wheat Thins, pasta sauce… I don’t even bother asking for an ingredients list when I go out to eat.

Did I mention that many lotions, soaps, shampoos, conditioners, makeup, and lip balms contain soy? Pretty awesome, eh?

This food allergy thing is all new to me. I only noticed something was amiss last year, although the symptoms – queasiness, skin irritation, acne, exceptional palor – have been going on since freshman year of college. In college, it was all so weird. I fet sick to my stomach near constantly and suddenly struggled with itchy, zitty skin. But after a day eating Mom’s home cooked and serendipitously soy-free meals, my stomach would settle and I’d feel bright again.

More recently, I noticed the skin on my legs getting more and more irritated, no matter how much lotion I used. Turns out, Vitamin E and Tocopherol are soy-derived and in most skin care products, including the little lubricating strip on razors. Again, pretty awesome.

I haven’t given up on all soy-foods yet. I’m too lazy to search through the aisles to find a new, soy-free shampoo. And I’m much too attached to Oreo cookies to stop eating them for any reason.

Soy milk's gross anyway. — At least lattes are easy to get soy-free.

But I will miss golden fried tofu, edamame, and the Thai chicken pizza from Leonardo’s.

My fingers are crossed that soy allergy will go the way of gluten intolerance… and become the next big dietary craze. It’s one of the most common food allergies after all. It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch.

But, it could be worse. I could be allergic to steak. Or cheddar cheese. Or the cold. Now that would be truly horrible.

Ski Problem? It’s more of a Ski Solution.

December 20, 2012January 4, 2013 eamillikinLeave a comment

Killin' it with the old man the day after getting my wisdom teeth out. — Killin’ it with the old man today, the day after getting my wisdom teeth out. (That’s as much of a smile as I could manage.) @ Jay Peak

My non-skier friends think I have a problem.

Heck, even some of my friends who ski think I have a problem. But I don’t really care, because no matter how I do the math, skiing comes out the solution.

My first (reliably datable) memory is of learning to ski. My parents, loathe to miss out of a ski vacation just because of a toddler, stuck me in French Canadian ski school. It didn’t matter that I didn’t speak a word of French. I figured it out.

I grew up in the flatlands of Massachusetts where skiing isn’t a common family activity, especially if you’re starting your kids as young as we did. My first time on skis, I was 15 months old. The rest is glorious, powdery history.

I think it’s miraculous that I’m able to live in Burlington, just 45 minutes from my current ski-area of choice. And I think it’s miraculous, too, that I have family and friends with whom to share my runs.

I’m so happy to have been born a skier.

Goodbye to this girl’s best friend

December 16, 2012December 16, 2012 eamillikin1 Comment

14 years ago, I opened a door and a tiny, strawberry-blonde barreled into my legs. She was a ridiculous little thing – tiny legs, a stump for a tail, and two soft ears folded forward… I was a a sweaty 11 year-old just getting home from a soccer game. The last thing Dad or I expected to come home to was a puppy.

I got the news last night – Sophie was put down. Her degenerate spinal disease had progressed to the point where she could no longer use her back legs. To walk her, Mom looped a long scarf under her stomach.

In short, I knew it was coming.

Sophie was my friend and companion. Then, when I turned 16, she would sit in the passenger seat of my first car, her head on my hand as I shifted gears. We’d go for walks in the woods together when no one else could come along. She’d follow gamely along in our tracks as we went snowshoeing through snow deeper than she was tall. She slept on my bed every night.

When I came home from college, she ignored me. She jumped all over my mother, but took one sniff of me before walking away. I was devastated the first time this happened. But, just like old days, come bed time, she slunk into my room and I lifted her up. The next day, we were friends again.

She was terribly bad behaved. Barked incessantly. Had a sick obsession with toys that squeaked. Not a meal went by where she didn’t put her front paws on our laps desperate for handouts.

And death i think is no parenthesis — Sophie Grace Millikin 1998-2012

Oh, and she never got along with other dogs. She wasn’t a dog’s dog. She was a people’s dog.

If we lived in a world where Philip Pullman’s daemons were born with us, Sophie wouldn’t be my daemon. From the start, she was my mother’s. While Sophie loved us, her family, she loved my mother best. Truly she was my mother’s dog… but she was my little sister.

I love you, girl. I’ll miss you always.

Distance & Trans-Atlantic FaceTime

December 10, 2012December 10, 2012 eamillikinLeave a comment

This Sunday, after 14 years of knowing one another, I finally met my friend K.

Chances are, that sentence doesn’t make sense to you. How can I claim to be friends for 14 years with someone I haven’t met before now? No, there’s no disrupting of the space-time continuum and I’ve taken no poetic license. The answer is much more simple. The internet.

Way back in 1998, a socially awkward, lonely eleven-year-old got lost in the Fire Temple in the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. At her wit’s end, she turned to a now-defunct website called The Temple of Light (ToL). There, she found detailed dungeon walkthroughs, and a small online forum. After a few weeks of accessing the walkthroughs and lurking on the forum, she opened her first forum account and came to be known as Skyrah.

Spoiler alert: little eleven year old Sky grew up to be me.

The five most active members of the ToL forums – Blade, Mew, Catoo, Sky, and Twist – became fast friends, calling themselves the Guards and embarking on chaotic, ridiculous, highly-disorganized adventures in which nothing ever really happened,but at least we enjoyed ourselves.

This went on for years, with guards appearing and disappearing as our so-called-real-lives merged and emerged. That’s just how online communities work.

Whether or not I ever acknowledged it, Catoo was my character’s best friend, and for a little while there, K was one my closest friends, too. When it was my turn to disappear from the forums to devote my time and energy to something called “high school,” K was one the I kept in touch with. Not much, mind you. Just the occasional email or AIM chat conversation. Then, for a few years, nothing at all. Until in a fit of nostalgia I casually typed his name into Facebook search.

Boom. All of a sudden, there he was. Full profile. Family photos and everything. I friended him immediately.

Facebook and Twitter offers a wonderful window into the lives of friends living far away, offering a level of closeness that text alone can’t create. After a few messages stretched out over the span of several more years, yesterday, K and I had our first face-to-face conversation. As far as I’m concerned, we’re “real-life” friends now – but then again, we’ve always been real friends.

The internet – and the social web that it spawned – changed the face of person-to-person interaction. While there has been plenty of discussion on the dangers of the internet and it’s apparent erosion of real-life, in person interaction, I don’t think enough attention has been given to the positives (and I argued this all of the time as a Social Anthropology undergrad). The social web enlarged the possibilites for forging unique, lasting, and valuable friendships that are every bit as meaningful, lasting, and real as those forged in the lunch room. (But that’s a topic for another blog post…)

It was great to finally meet you, K. Here’s to 14 more years!

(PS – sorry I wrote a blog post about you. Consider this pay back for the time you posted my 6th grade school picture on the forums. Now we’re even.)

There’s no W in Skiing

December 8, 2012December 8, 2012 eamillikin2 Comments

While my girliness has grown exponentially in the past few years, I still hate overtly girly design . Frills and ruffles and pastel anything are simply not my bag.

Which is why I like my new skis – Head Sweet Ones – so much. They’re orange. Not pink. Not baby blue. Orange.

I can pretend they’re not peppered with weird crayon-scribble daisies and irrationally swoopy grasses that look like they came from the default Photoshop brush library. Because they’re orange and they ride wonderfully.

But there’s one problem. This thing.

Why is there a shiny winged W on my skis?

These are not bird or airplane themed skis. Nothing about the art or the name belies any relationship to wings or the letter W.

The only possible explanation for this Wonderful addition is that the W stands for Woman and the wings stand for WTF WERE YOU THINKING.

It looks ridiculous, but really wouldn’t be very noticeable if it weren’t so freaking shiny. It’s difficult to tell in the photo, but it’s shiny to the point of distracting. It’s a tiny vanity mirror. I could clean my teeth in it if the W wasn’t in the way.

Really, the wonderful wacky winged W isn’t a big deal. I’ll just cut some vinyl or buy a Ski The East sticker big enough to show Mrs Shiny who’s boss. But it’s the principle of the thing that bugs me the most. Random, tacky tack-ons are really common in women’s gear. (You don’t see great big ol’ winged Ms on men’s skis, do you?)

Everyone on the mountain knows I’m a chick – especially the bro I just smoked. I don’t need a shiny medallion to broadcast my femininity. Ugh.

So – if you happen to be a designer… stop putting ditzy kitsch on my gear. It’s a waste of your time and seriously pisses me off.

What’s this thing about, anyway?

December 7, 2012December 7, 2012 eamillikin3 Comments

I’ve been writing a novel(la). It’s slow going – a paragraph here, a page there. It’s a disjointed, discombobulated mess right now, years from being editable, yet alone done. It doesn’t even have a proper title yet. Right now, I simply refer to it as #muse. (Yes, I have a hashtag problem.)

It’s not often that I talk about my leisure writing, but it has come up in conversation a few times in the past month. More often than usual, at least. And, of course, I am always asked “what’s it about?”

Every time, I’ve skirted the question. Don’t want to brag, but I’m pretty good at avoiding topics I don’t want to talk about.

My friend Nate wrote a really great post about the question “What is it about?” a while back. I reread it… and it got my mind to thinking.

What is it about, anyway?

I think a story is about more than its plot, because “what’s the plot?” is a much easier question to answer. The plot of #muse is this: through a post-modern narrative that follows the protagonist as she criss-crosses the globe, a young woman explores in retrospect a failed relationship and grapples with the love (and life) that remains.

But… that seems so… lame. Plots are pretty drab; they’re just a string of point A to point B all the way to Z.

Put this way, plot is just the what happens.

But that doesn’t answer what the story is about. The about is more abstract and ephemeral. It’s the reason the writer is sweating over the damn thing in the first place. I think the fancy academic term for this is “theme,” but I’m not sure. Maybe the about is the story’s Platonic form… The highest ideal it is born to reach.

So, what’s #muse about?

It’s a kind of Pygmalion myth in reverse. It is about how distance and time turns the people we once knew and loved into statues. It’s about how we are able to keep loving something that no longer qualifies as real. It’s about realizing this, and doing something about it.