Crazy Eyes

After moving to VA in 2008, I had to find all new doctors. I started going to an eye doctor that was located near my house. This particular eye doctor is crazy about dilating eyes. I swear he went into optometry just so he could dilate people’s eyes. I had never had my eyes dilated prior to seeing him. But since becoming his patient, my eyes have been dilated on multiple occasions. Even when he doesn’t dilate my eyes I can sense that he’s secretly thinking about his dilation drops.

The first time my eyes were dilated, I didn’t know what to expect. He didn’t warn me not to go into the sun or not to drive. I know it’s pretty common knowledge that eye dilation impacts a person’s vision, but because I didn’t receive special instructions I assumed the dilation drops had worn off. He had already allowed me to put my contacts back in, which I took as a sign that my eyes were returning to their normal state. So, I ventured outside. My eyes were instantly assaulted by the glaring southern sun. They couldn’t handle the amount of light being forcibly shoved into the giant pupil holes.

I scurried off to my car.

Things were better behind the shelter of my car’s windshield. I decided to get myself home so that I could recover in a sun free environment. I pulled out of the parking lot and started my journey home. Quickly, I realized this was the wrong decision. My eyes were not performing at an acceptable level. The small amount of light that was managing to sneak into my eyes was debilitating. I had to find somewhere to allow my eyes to take cover. There was a Target coming up on my left, so I decided to pull in.

I rushed into the store and began wandering around to kill time. I tried to look as normal as possible; unfortunately it wasn’t possible to look very normal. My pupils had swallowed up my irises and I looked like some kind of nocturnal jungle creature.

I bumbled around the store trying to keep my balance.

Down one aisle a woman looked at my face and then directed her child away.

I had become a monster. My fellow humans had turned their backs on me. I secluded myself and concealed my face, so as to not horrify any more shoppers.

Snow Surfing: The Next Great Olympic Sport

While on my last ski trip – at Big Sky, one of my favorite places in the world – I came up with a new sport: snow surfing. The idea behind this is extremely simple and extremely poorly thought out. Snow surfing is the act of surfing an avalanche down a mountain. In order to do this, you will need the following:

1) One snow surfboard (a regular surfboard placed in the snow)

2) Dynamite charges to trigger your very own avalanche

3) A friend to set off the charges. “Friend” is a strong term since this person will likely be sending you on an extremely dangerous ride down a frozen hellscape.

The setup is straight forward:

1) Place the snow surfboard in an avalanche chute.

2) Stand on the snow surfboard. No bindings are required. Let’s face it; this isn’t going to work out either way.

3) Give your friend the thumbs up.

Your friend will then launch the charges. This is the pivotal moment. This is when the peaceful slope becomes a hungry snow beast, swallowing everything in its path. This is when your life will undoubtedly change.

At this point you have one goal: survival. You’ve made nothing but bad decisions leading up to this moment, so things aren’t looking good for you. There’s still a glimmer of hope though. There are two options for the remainder of this “event.”

1) You ride the snow wave to the bottom of the slope and become the most amazingly awesome person to have ever existed.

This will not happen.

2) Disaster. The snow beast succeeds in swallowing you whole.  Hopefully you and your friend remembered to pack avalanche beacons! My money is on no.

Disclaimer: Do not try this. If you try this you will die.

Ski the Sky

I updated Big Sky Resort’s 1970s advertisement. The song is pure gold, so I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to use it.

Here’s the original version:

Yes, it is over 12 minutes long. Who doesn’t make 12 minute ads?

Here’s my version:

Feel free to use this Big Sky…my treat to you.

The Legend of Tree Man

When my legs are functioning, and not suffering from shin splint related implosion, I like to go running. It’s something that I do alone. I refuse to run with people. Some of my friends like to make a game out of “who can get Cristy to run with us.” I’m a very competitive person, so running with people will cause me to go into “I’m the champion of everything” mode and focus only on coming in first in the imaginary race I’m in. I’m not an actual competitive runner though. I’m not training for any races, I use running as a form of exercise and stress relief. So, I’d rather not launch myself into a competition that only I’m aware of.

So, in 2009 when I was running down my usual route and encountered “Tree Man” I had only myself to rely on. I could see him from a distance, but didn’t know what I was looking at until I was too close to leave many options for an escape. As I approached him, I thought I was coming up on a man stretching against a tree.

What I was actually approaching was a man who was violently and purposefully shaking a tree.

Because I grew up in Pierce County, WA – a place the Economist describes as an environment where “toothless addicts roamed quiet rural roads, stealing everything that was not nailed down” – my mind is prone to jump to the assumption of “that’s a meth addict” when I see a deranged individual. On a side note, I never once saw a toothless addict stealing anything in my time in WA. But still, I assumed this man was strung out on methamphetamines.

When I came to this realization, I was close enough so that he could take notice of me. I had two options:

1. Keep running, directly past him.
2. Turn around and sprint home.

If he was indeed on meth – which I had convinced myself he was – he could react in two ways.

1. Remain in his own tree fantasy.
2. Attack!

If he was going to attack, he’d pursue me in either direction I was heading. While turning around would leave me on the correct side of him in a “sprint home” situation, I wanted to finish my run. No Tree Man was going to stop me.

I ran past him and he didn’t even break stride in his tree assault. I turned around up the road to return home, which required one more pass in tree territory. Tree Man was gone. But he had left a trail of destruction behind him. Tree branches littered the sidewalk and street, leading to the other side of the road.

The next time I ran past that tree, there was a dead bird near the base. I’m going to assume this was Tree Man’s doing.

I like to imagine he’s since moved to a tree farm, where he can shake trees to his heart’s desire.

Spider Season

I don’t know why spiders incite such a reaction in me. It might have something to do with their obviously sneaky, yet quick movements. To an individual not trained in the art of spider behavior interpretation, a spider could come across as a seemingly harmless creature.

I know what the spider is thinking though.


I definitely jump and panic. But then I attack. In a spider situation, I think most people trigger the “fight or flight” instinct – some people seem to have no reaction because they’re either made of stone or have no soul. When I see a spider I have a moment of panic where a shudder moves down my spine and I shake my arms and legs around. My “fight” instinct quickly kicks in though and I sprint to grab the nearest shoe or piece of toilet paper/Kleenex. And then I destroy the spider. I squeeze it between my fingers (if I have toilet paper or Kleenex) until they’re shaking. When I’m killing a beetle I know I’ve won when I hear the crunch. Unfortunately with a spider there’s no crunch. Once the spider has been smashed I throw it in the toilet and flush it so that it can’t come back to life for a follow up attack.

Spider attacks come in many forms. Most of the forms are sneak attacks.




I live in the south where spiders thrive. So every spring, summer, and fall (or as I call this extended period of time – spider season) my balcony become a quarantined horror zone. It fluctuates between being infested by spiders…


…and being an inhospitable environment filled with enough bug poison to a kill a mid-sized rhinoceros.


It’s such a shame too. Just as soon as I’d want to spend time outside, I’m forced to become a shut-in to defend my apartment from the descending spider army.


And just when you thought things couldn’t get any worse, there’s such a thing as a jumping spider. Jumping spiders like to hide in grass. They’ll jump on you and bite your feet when you’re wearing flip flops.

I can now watch TV and draw pictures at the same time

I went to Target tonight and bought a TV tray table. The only TV I have is in my bedroom, and I don’t have a table in my bedroom. I considered drawing pictures on my bed, but I have to use scissors on the construction paper. As much as I enjoy my TV I don’t think it’s worth cut up and blood soaked sheets (I’m sure once I cut my sheets I would panic and cut myself).

So here it is:

I started drawing pictures already! The story I’m working on now has a lot of pictures, so it might take a little bit of time.  But since I have no plans tomorrow, I’m hoping to get a lot of pictures done. Either that or I’ll work on a less picture intensive story and get something up sooner.

Fancy Dancing

I was on vacation for a week and a half and am still trying to get back into the swing of things back at home now. I have some stories written…but no pictures to go along with them. So, I figure the easiest thing to do is share a video. I know my posts have been more “real picture” intensive lately, but don’t fear. I have my construction paper and scissors waiting for me on my plastic table (I have a plastic table) and I’ll get back to work this weekend.

A little background on the video: Amrita and I like dancing to Bollywood videos. This passion was sparked during our sophomore year in college when we moved in together. I don’t know if this was before or after the mega bed. It definitely wasn’t during the mega bed phase. I’d like to think that we could both be normal functioning members of society on our own. But, because we moved in together we ended up the way we did…and made videos like this. This isn’t the weirdest video I have of us. I’m not sure if that makes you feel better or worse about us. Probably worse. Maybe you’ll feel like dancing, dancing the night away.

I hit my hand during the video, but per Amrita’s advice I “keep dancing!”

Boo boo, boo boo!

Cristy - child style icon of the late 80s and early 90s

I was very clear on the way on wanted to look and how I wanted to present myself as a child. I didn’t necessarily make all the right decisions, but the point is that I made those decisions. I didn’t let my friends or parents influence what I wore or how I wore it. So, if you’re anything like me and are looking to emulate my childhood flare for all things fashion, then you need to follow a few simple rules.

Accessories make the outfit

From the time I could move my arms in a controlled enough manner to put stuff on my head, I knew hats were going to be my thing. It didn’t matter if the object placed on top of my cranium was actually a hat or if it was simply something that I could manage to balance on my head/wrap around my head, to me it was a hat.

Here’s a ton of pictures of me wearing hats:

It’s funny how things change as you grow up. I stopped wearing hats altogether when I was in my teen years. But I recently started sporting beanies fairly often in the winter months. And I just bought a new hat…and my mom made me about a billion beanies! I think I’m past the point of wearing basketball hoops around my head though.

Statement pieces

Before I started 1^st grade in Washington State, we did the standard school year clothes shopping trip. I think my mullet was gone by this point. In Utah (where I had given myself a mullet) we had ‘year round” school which has a lot more breaks, but no huge summer break. So when we moved to Washington, which has the standard school setup, the school year hadn’t yet started and we got to start up the school year again. It was at this point that I decided that cowboy boots was the look for me. I picked out my one pair of everyday shoes with pride. My mom warned me that I’d have to wear the white cowboy boots every day, so I needed make sure I really liked them. I really liked them. There was no question in my mind about what shoes I was going to leave the store with. I don’t think they ever caught on, but I was happy with my choice every time I slid my foot into my pair of white, fringed, cowboy boots.

I don’t have a picture of the cowboy boots, but here’s a picture of me with one sock on:

(It’s definitely not my birthday.)

And here’s a picture of me with a construction helmet on my head.

Here the statement I’m making is: “I like chocolate!”

Create a unique look

I had a look that was so uniquely Cristy that it required my mom to go into school to get the okay from my teachers. I liked wearing tights as pants. Clearly I was ahead of my time – now we have the leggings. I also liked to wear sweatshirts as dresses. Again, I’m ahead of my time – sweater dresses. I remember one morning arguing with my mom and throwing a tantrum over whether or not I could wear a sweater/legging combo to school. She agreed to allow it if my teacher said it was okay. Luckily for me, my teacher was on board.

I regularly went to school looking like this:

My mom has told me that sometimes it was just easier to let me dress like a crazy person than argue with me. If the outfit was appropriate enough to be worn in public and I was happy with it, then I was often allowed to wear it. I had a unique flare for fashion. I liked to combine polka dots with stripes, red with yellow with blue with pink, gloves with scarves, tights with shorts, etc. Although I was completely comfortable with the way I was presenting myself to the world, my parents were actually aware of social norms. Before we had moved to Washington, my mom attended a parent teacher conference and my teacher brought up my unique style. My mom explained that I was very vocal about what I wore and she went along with it because it made me happy. My teacher then informed her that some of the other little girls in my class had picked up on my style and were beginning to come to school dressed as absurdly as I was. Apparently the schizophrenic clown look was taking off! The other parents had become concerned about the new style and had talked to the teacher who explained that it was my doing and it would pass – for the other children at least.

Market your look

I had a monopoly on stick on earrings in 1^st and 2^nd grade. I would bring in sheets of the treasure and ration it out during recess. This didn’t lead to any monetary gains for me since I wasn’t selling them. What it did do was encourage all the little girls at my school to approach me and acknowledge what I was wearing. This gave me the opportunity to influence the other children to follow my lead in the fashion department. I think the cowboy boots went wonderfully with the stick on earrings.

So there you have it. With a few easy steps you too can become a style icon.

Disclaimer: While stick on earrings worked well for me as a child, this strategy will likely fail for an adult.

Rope burn is like fire with pieces of rope in it

In elementary school we had a very special week in P.E. One week out of the year, the rope would be lowered from the ceiling and we were given the opportunity to compete for extreme dominance through the rope climbing challenge (it wasn’t actually a challenge or a competition, but in my mind I had to be the top rope climber). This was my time to shine. I could maneuver a rope like a spider monkey can maneuver a tropical tree.

Every year our teacher would warn us not to slide down the rope. He would explain that such a choice would cause us to horribly disfigure our hands. “Sliding down the rope will cause rope burn. You don’t want to cut up your hands, so don’t slide down the rope!” Almost every year I listened. My last year at that school I did not heed his advice.

We had all already had our opportunity to climb the rope, but there was still time left in our class. So, the teacher let us have the option of playing various P.E. games or continue rope training. I’m a champion. Champions do not need to play games. Champions need to train to fend off future would be champions that won’t get the chance to be a champion because the champion is training to prevent this. So, I opted to continue honing my monkey-like climbing skills.

I powered up the rope a second time, and I heard the voice of my teacher in my head the whole time: “Don’t slide down the rope. Cristy, don’t slide. DON’T SLIDE!” As I progressed further and further up the rope, the advice became more and more meaningless. For some reason I was no longer able to distinguish the difference in allowing my legs to slide down the rope (which I regularly did) from allowing both my legs AND hands to slide down the rope (which I never did). I convinced myself that I had always allowed my hands to slide down the rope and there were never any consequences. “I just slid down the rope and my hands feel great, they feel better than great, they feel powerful!”

I began sliding.

Things were all right for about 2 seconds. Then things started to get painful, and shaky, and scary. How had everything gone from so great (being the best in the world at rope climbing) to so bad (skin melting off my hands due to hand against rope sliding heat production) so quickly? I began to panic, but I didn’t want to show any weakness.

It didn’t matter how well I was hiding my panic. My teacher began to panic “Stop sliding, Cristy!” My classmates began to panic “Stop sliding! Stop sliding!”

But it was too late. I was no longer able to remember how to use my hands. It was as if a tiny lumberjack climbed into my ear and severed the portion of my brain that knows how to tighten a fist from the portion of my brain that actually executes on that knowledge. I realized that I shouldn’t be sliding, but my hands refused to behave accordingly, partially due to the fact that the skin was all melt-y.

I hit the mat at the bottom of the rope with tremendous speed and hobbled around before catching my balance. I was horrified about what had just happened and almost didn’t want to look at my hands that were now pulsating with pain. I took a quick glance in the moment I had before my classmates gathered around. This is what I saw:

I didn’t want to show my hands to anyone. I acted like there was nothing wrong and asked my teacher if I could go to the bathroom, while holding back the pain induced tears building up in my wincing eyes. He wanted to see the damage and made me hold out my hands. No longer trusting my judgment, he sent another little girl to the bathroom with me to help sort out the messy stubs at the ends of my lifeless arms. I put them under the faucet in an attempt to get all the rope pieces out of the cuts, but quickly succumbed to the pain and decided to live with melt-y, rope-y hands.

When I got back to the gym, my teacher put band-aids all over my hands and I sat down to watch the other kids run around with their functioning bodies.