Sunday, May 30, 2010

Sweet Disposition

today was a great day.  and it’s only 1:04pm as I type.  started off waking up pretty late.  8:24am with a church service that started six minutes later.  needless to say, i rolled in 20 minutes late, coffee in hand, Bible in the other.  i had the sunroof down the whole way; it’s glorious out.  how can you not smile on a day like today?
when i got home, i was feeling not so excited for a long run.  the temps had already climbed to mid-70s by 10:30am, and i become a SAUSAGE when I run (ask anyone who’s run with me in July), but after a conversation with Moo, she put me in the right head space.  She was about to run out to Teller Farms, so we decided we’d run together, separately.  I cut my run a liiiiitle short (9mi) because my skin was on fire and i wanted to drink the entire Atlantic Ocean minus the salt, of course.  
Now, I’m waiting for my good friend, Claire Wood, to arrive so we can hit up the York Beaches and catch up, talk about the move, gab on about The National (which we are going to see on Thursday - SO excited) and discuss life in general.  It’s always better with the ambient sounds of gulls and waves.  And laughter.  Between Pois, Moo and I, we could feed small countries with our laughter.  If laughter was food.
I’m up to my ears in picture frames, sundresses and old journals.  Packing is so hilariously tedious.  I came across old journal entries I’d written back in 2004 - when I’d gone off to Montana for a week, when I reminisced about my college soccer experience, my first work crush.  Oh gosh, it was heartbreaking and so sweet to read my thoughts from six years ago.  How much I have grown; how much of me remains the same.
Signing off.  Feeling good.  My psoas gave me NO TROUBLE today and I was sure to stretch the salmon filet for a long period of time today.  I think I’ll name my psoas muscle Sockeye.  Not only is it a type of salmon, but I’d also rather be socked in the eye than have it act up on me again.  Sockeye stay stretchy for me.
enjoy your day!
xkayoh

ps check out "sweet disposition" by The Temper Trap.  Finished my run with this one.  I love its happiness.
embed was disabled, so you'll have to get to youtube all by yourself:)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxKjOOR9sPU

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Psoas, They Say

Short post tonight lads n’ lassies.

Psoas muscle is going haywire.  Last two days have been beeeee-rutal.  On Sunday, I was dropped off 4-miles from home for what was going to be the start of my long run and five minutes into it I had to turn around and hobble/walk for a while before I was finally warmed up enough to canter my sucker-self home.  Pathetic.  Feeling valiant, I tried yesterday and the same thing happened.  My psoas was wound as tightly as a violin string and played the familiar notes of “Kay It’s Not Your Appendix Bursting; It’s Just Me”.
Yes, this psoas thing is “at that point” where I start seriously wondering the extremes, “will I ever run normal again????I”  and I replay the warning signs.  I should’ve seen this coming a few weeks ago at the Cape 13 Relay on my last leg when I felt the familiar gut wrench the first few miles and slowed it down until it went away, not giving it a second thought once I’d finished.  Well, I’m on my 200th thought about it now and here’s what I know: I really should’ve stretched more.  I should’ve known that day that it wasn’t the last I’d hear from the little salmon filet attached to my L5.

So today I just laid at the beach.  Best day off ever.  Now it’s 11:43 pm and I’m itching to run in the morning and praying I can run without halting half steps.  Only two days of serious complaining and I miss the untetheredness of lacing up the boots and moving in sweatbreaths and chestheaves toward the horizon line and the black curve of road, with nothing but the sweet motor of muscles working harmoniously to keep me company.
We’ll see what the dawn brings.
Keep it real and stretch your filets.
xokay 

psoas major (top) is where i get hit with a baseball bat then stuck with a swiss army blade then shredded with a cheese grater every time i pull my right leg forward.  it feels great.

"Having a true faith is the most difficult thing in the world. Many will try to take it from you."

-Steve Prefontaine, American middle + long distance runner

Sunday, May 23, 2010

i'll explain everything to the geese

hello friends!  

exciting news:  in one week I am moving back to Boston, to a sweetly beautiful apartment on a street i used to walk down with my parents when we'd go down to visit the big twinkling city, back when we first moved to Maine.  I was nine years old.  I loved the brownstones and the wrought iron lamp posts that dimmed slightly as I walked past, as though they were winking, as though they knew in 20 years I would be seeing them again.  Older, wiser, hipper.
The countdown begins!  
Memorial Day is fast approaching and this girl has no plans other than to enjoy these last few days of beautiful weather.  I may head up to the Pineland Farms Trail Running Festival and partake in the 10k on Saturday (i'd LOVE to try the 25k but I’ve sort of dropped the ball on quality running these last few days due to many crazy events that have taken place like my bro’s album release show, and then an early AM haul to Boston to check out the apartment of my dreams, but I can’t complain with the results of my real life ironing out quite nicely!)  Anyway, the races last two days and range in length from 5k to 50-miles.  Though there is camping available, I may just ride up early morning style.  My bro is playing some music at the event on Sunday so an overnight post run might actually be an option.   It’s supposed to be brilliant skies this weekend.  So I’ll let that be my focus, and not the hardship of the hills:)
The other day I went to the beach with my mom.  The waves were the biggest I’d seen in a while, the sky was on it’s way to twilight and the saturation of it’s yellows brought out beautiful shadows and a buttery wash over everything.  I couldn’t stop clicking, so I thought I’d post some of my favorites here (the rest will be posted on Flickr)...I’ve also added my favorite shot from later that night - when Pete Miller played his show at One Longfellow Square...
more to come on the move later this week.
make it a good day:) 
xokay





Thursday, May 20, 2010

...the shutter pre-development, the ink full in the pen...

it’s been a while since i’ve talked real stuff up in here.  that’s mostly because the last three weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind and dorothy didn’t quite know where to put the bowl of oranges while her furniture was still up in the air.  are you with me?
anyway, the tornado that is my life has left me alone for a hot minute, so this hot minute will be used on the blog.
I started this blog 6 months ago with the idea that it could be (should be) a place for me to put my crazy on paper.  disassemble my musings one by one and contemplate their design - kind of like what you do with russian nesting dolls.  there really is nothing else you can do with those dolls, except put the smaller one inside the bigger one and the smaller one inside that one, and so forth, until you end with the baby.  the beginning.
so here’s my beginning:  nine months ago, i left a very good early/kind of early professional career.  i left because i could feel my heart change...there were things i’d always loved that started to gather cobwebs, there were fears i never had that started to fill the room under my ribs, there was this filament of Not-Kay that started taking over and there was that d r e a d f u l thought of, “is this it?”  that filled my joints every morning and sat with me at night when i’d land exhausted on the couch (quite nimbly holding a giant glass of wine in one hand, however; i surprise myself with this ability) only to wait for tomorrow’s stresses.  not fun.  most of you who know me know I am a pretty happy person.  well, I was not happy.  
so i left.  it was the most reckless thing i’ve done.  i don’t even have a tattoo.
and i thought when i was leaving that i would only need three weeks to figure out the rest of my life, would spin a plastic globe beneath my fingers, fly to wherever my pinky pointed with camera in tow, and document the world’s ramblings so i didn’t have to figure out my own.  
but instead, i traveled (nationally), caught up with and met so many awesome and talented humans, fell in love with a non-profit that helps kids, lived life with my camera around my neck, drank more water than I have in years and ran the country roads around my town so hard I swear there is mizuno tread prints in the tarmac edges forevermore.  and then two days ago, i accepted a job.  in boston.  in advertising.
it’s funny how God works.  and yes I say God because I believe He is absolutely real and a part of my life.  Because everything that happens in my life could not possibly be by coincidence or fate or fault, and because I am perfectly imperfect, and there’s no way that happened by accident.
ask me six months ago if i’d ever get into advertising again and i’d shake my head and your shoulders so hard we’d both get kicked off the team.  but timing is everything and over time, i experienced the building up of a confidence i thought was out the window for good.  i experienced friendships that grew and held mirrors for which to see the reflection of a girl who has a TON OF AWESOME to share with the world, and most importantly, i reconnected with Kay Miller, you know, that girl in that girl in that girl who somehow found that she made herself smaller to fit other people’s visions of where she needed to be, and it’s weird how easily that can happen.  but as easily as i slipped into a sea of inauthenticity, i began living out in small ways, gaining my sense of self back.  i came to realize how much i actually loved aspects of old job; the building up of brands, working with clients and creative teams, collaborating and having the ability to affect change.  i started finding myself on long walks with ex-ad execs trilling on about what brands were successful and why.  i became a bit of a dork about it, actually.  but the love was coming back.  i was dating the idea of returning.  it was nice. 
so here i go, back to boston, into something so similar, yet so different.  i’ve made a list of who I am to me.  it’s pretty hilarious...but i have learned too much about this fantastic woman that I am and am becoming, that i certainly do not intend to water her down ever again.  i’m excited.  there are new adventures to be had and if there’s one thing i know for certain:  there’s always room for a good adventure.
xo
KAY

Sunday, May 16, 2010

acronymin the spectacular you in my vernacular.

It's amazing what you can do when you don't feel like it. Remember how awesome you are, even though you're name is relatively normal (I'd like to thank Krista, Adam, Alyssa, Paul, Leah, Caitlin and myself for acronymin' practice)*

K angaroos
R ide
I n
S tyle
T o
A ntipasti restaurants

A rmadillos
D ig
A nt
M armalade

A rachnids
L et
Y ou
S leep
S oundly
A nd then attack!

P latypus
A lgae
U ndermines
L ichen

L lamas
E at
A rtichoke
H earts

C arebears
A ren't
I llegal
T il
L ies
I nvolve
N uns

K oalas
A pply
Y armulkes



* a dedication to my former rockstar team at arnold.  one day when we were bored, when we had nothing to do, we discovered truth about animals and fake animals, too.  this is also on my fbook page.  i found it and refell in love with it.  i love it when that happens.  i also love the word refell, because it sounds like refill, but like, it's totally not.


xosmile.
kay

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

a buffalo belief

never, ever, ever give up.


(it's tempting to rush through and skip to the "good" parts, but watch it as it happens. worth it.)
xokay

Monday, May 10, 2010

10 kilos of kay, tonight only.

i am alternating hands tonight - one wine, one water crocs hang on one bare foot black leggings and an Urban Outfitter sweatshirt that was waaaaay too expensive for the hole that I found in the armpit days later which may or may not have been caused by rough-housing on Sanitas Trail two years ago and which may or may not have lost its duct tape bandage in the wash last month.  i still wear it with love and memories.  the skull on the back freaks out small children.  i pay no mind.  skulls are a fact of life.
so is the tip of the tongue, the lips and the teeth and so is the fact that my college acting coach made us say this exact line every day during warm up.  it works.  i pronounce things better when i say this a few times.  i get my m’s working for me.  I get my communication on.  i will do this on wednesday at 10:30am while sipping coffee and staring at my resume.  i will be cool.
but will i be tall?  i can’t decide between flats or heels because i’ve got some verticalness on my bones and i like the sky up here and i prefer to see over heads on elevators and in lines but i hate staring down at people and hunching when i shake their hands or before i sit and start to talk about me.  and unless you’re tall that is what happens.  and it’s good to not intimidate and it’s equally good not to self yourself short, pun intended. 
now my drawers are open and a very large banana republic bag sits on my bed with clothes i bought and have yet to try on.  i almost got hives when i tried on a blouse in the dressing room and judy, my favorite salesperson of all time ever who’s known me for ten years and i know all about her successful son in new york with the sweet apartment and new puppy i wonder what job he has (probably banking) judy doesn’t believe my severe discomfort in button-downs until I show her the blouse and i feel claustrophobic and i start to sweat.  i hate tailored clothes so my life will be lived out in funky clothes.  it will be written on the jar that bears my ashes “She Wore Funky Clothes”  but I bought the blouse for this one day. first impressions are everything and I have a nickname i need to live up to.  i’ll try it on tomorrow, or at Poison’s when my nervous energy decides to show up.  always late and right on time.  
speaking of time here i am with a nice malbec and i’m thinking i should go to bed or go to argentina make the wine and forget about this interview that has me happy and wondering if kay miller will rock the real world ever/again?  the malbec says yes, the water says drink more of me and since i head to the bean tomorrow to eat dinner with my good friend and prep for the magical wednesday meeting, water wins.
xokay

Sunday, May 9, 2010

The Cowboy



"The harder the heart, the longer it lasts," he said to me while walking past.


I looked at his hands as he sanded the pine and I thought to myself, "The tree's?  Or mine?"


xo,
©kmills

Friday, May 7, 2010

You You You





i talk about my sister all the time.  how we're twins, wombmates, bff's and life adventurers on different paths but sharing the same Miller zest that i swear swims in our veins.  I haven't really talked about my brother, Pete, who's a few years younger and the coolest bro God could ever give me.  He endured a lot of sisterliness from Mary and I growing up...especially from me.  Mary wanted to be a teacher, taught him math in our make-shift "school house" in the basement while I played with Heart Family Barbie and listened to NKOTB, while he wrote his 123s, no big deal.  My middle sister (technically) role was the School of Hard Knocks.  I kicked him in the kidney's when I was 7 because he was totally pointing his hand in front of my eyes while I was trying to watch Duck Tails and it was, like, a really cool episode.  Although it was cut short because we had to sit around and wait for him to use the bathroom to determine if I'd actually busted kidney #1 and therefore would need to mad-dash it to el hospitale.  I was the unruly one.

But he endured.  He even loved me long after I used to hide under his bed (which was made in 1801) and would push on the springs once I thought he was asleep and he would be TERRIFIED that a monster was under there.  I did that at least once a week for a year and he still never caught on.  Although he did launch himself onto his bed from the hallway, too afraid to get near the bed skirt for fear of The Monster (which was me holding my nose with tears streaming down my face from laughing so hard at the stunt I was about to pull).  Sometimes I could convince Mary to join me.  Anyway, Pete grew up and so did I and no longer was he the brother I saw fit to torture in my small little ways  - though always I loved him.  My dad used to  say, "He's going to grow taller than you, Kay.  And then you'll be in for it."  He did grow taller - much taller than me.  But at that time, we sort of each started realizing how important we were in each other’s lives.  And we became great friends.  The Three Sibs: Mary, Kay and Pete.  
Today we talk on the phone all the time.  Right now, Pete is in the throes of absolute awesome opportunities and I am so so so proud of him and this beautiful creative gift of voice God has given him.  A few years ago, Pete wanted to learn to play the guitar (I think the initial reason was so that he could carry forth the long-held tradition of musicality that runs in our extended family - mainly in the patriarchs - which is on great display during our every-other-year Miller Family Reunion held all over the country), and it stuck and he played it through college with his really good friends who are in a really successful band and he just kept practicing and playing and writing and learning and jumping out on that long skinny scary branch called "New" and rocked it out.  A few days ago, Pete Miller released his FIRST album, "Shake the Dawn".  He's written the lyrics, he created the cover, he collaborated with various musicians (some of whom have played with Rustic Overtones...totally) and bit by bit, the beast was built.  It was reviewed this week by the Portland Press Herald, a beautifully written review, complete with constructive criticism and honest praise.  He’s also having a CD release party up in Portland, ME.  If you’re interested you should come.  He won’t disappoint and I can guarantee you’ll have a blast.  
Pete, I love you, bro.  And I am SO proud to call you my brother.  Keep reaching for the stars.  Keep shaking the dawn.
XOKAY 

ps - check out his site!

Thursday, May 6, 2010

cherry lip gloss & egyptian sandals!

Ran the York Beaches yesterday, ice bathed in the Atlantic and stopped off for a DQ chocolate-vanilla-swirl-in-a-sugar-cone-please-and-thank-you treat.  i annihilated the ice cream in half a heartbeat.  I noticed freckles on my shoulders, yesss.  Green leaves warm breeze giant sneeze and dairy freeze.  It’s officially my summer!

horses walking my favorite beach. just another day in Maine...

xohyes,
kay

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

I will endure the night...

I promised myself that i'd write a reader’s digest version of the Cape 13 Relay that took place this weekend, and would omit such trivialities like the discussion of Jamie Foxx’s tongue trick as seen on Oprah, Van #2‘s car alarm going off at 2am and requiring a wire to be cut out of the vehicle because the electronic key’s battery died, which also required our Runner #8 to hitch a ride with another van to the transition, which also required Runner #9 to ride a bike to his transition due to vanlessness. Yes, true story. Van #2 was dubbed JV Van. Van #1 was full of Twizzlers and empty water bottles and knives with peanut butter still on them and halves of bananas turning brown on the floor, bibs pinned to seatbelts, sweaty sports bras slung over seats; afterthoughts of quick wardrobe changes. We smelled like chocolate cruellers, chicken parmesan and sweat. We were drunk on the oxygen of the final notes of Girl Talk’s “Feed The Animals” and LCD Soundsystem. We were in love with our toughness:) We were part of a the centipede of Road Warriors of all shapes and sizes! We were Land Vikings! Oblivious to the water crisis just north of us, but wondering why the “1 mile to go!” signs were actually 1.5 miles. Ugh so defeating:)  


What I will tell you are the importantly fun things, like how cool it was, as a relay veteran, to witness the magic of eleven people taking on this great big thing, something they have never ever done before, and watching their doubts turn to unbridled energy because they saw that their body CAN. that their mind CAN. That they are bigger than the fear of being bigger than something. It was so inspiring.


It was also really humbling to see the fruits of my own day-in, day-out training come to fruition for my three runs of the relay. I have been on this training program for no real reason, no race in mind, just wanting to build my endurance and speed.  My body has gotten fitter and stronger, and I was completely blown away in seeing firsthand how constant practice and hard work can make those few glimmering moments of racedom amazing. I told Mary (gave me a training program back in January) how this weekend is a real testament to the mantra I’ve repeated in my head for weeks when my body wanted to take a few days off and eat chocolate for hours: consistency breeds results.


i wasn’t even supposed to run this relay this weekend. I thank God for the opportunity. He knew I needed something and He knew I was ready for this - not just in running but in hanging out with cool peeps and perfect strangers.  To be able to say YES, and to have done it, feels good. So does meeting new incredible humans, sharing sweat and candy bars with said humans, and so does the reminder of how beautifully sweet s-l-e-e-p is once it’s all over:)


And with that, here’s a song that was consistently thrumming in my hypothalamus throughout the race. How can you not run joyfully into the great expanse? And no, I didn’t wear headphones. I have music playing in my head always & happily.


x+oh,
kay