a suntan

after reading a book with my dad before bed, he'd tell me stories about his childhood. mostly about his friends, brett and boo, who he would get into all sorts of harmless trouble with; breaking their arms falling out of tree houses and the like. think dennis the menace. he had many, many stories to share about growing up. friends, family, school. all entertaining enough to become bedtime stories.

one story that i remember: a boy from his school, in preparation for a dance, used a [first generation?] self-tanner that turned his skin orange. everyone laughed at him at the dance and, after countless requested story-repeats, so did i. every time. an orange boy? ha. just think, that self-tanner tale was so memorable that my dad used it as a bedtime story, and i still remember it over 15 years later.

and still, i laugh, because i [countless times] have had an orange hue. at the start of my job, i willingly tried every tanner that passed through the office doors. nobody else would. streaky skin and orange palms were just a part of the job. i am now more discerning, i swear. there were also the unseasonable [winter in vermont] spray tans from body le bronze in preparation for ultra-glamorous nights out in college. and i still get slightly nostalgic every time i smell some variant of that jergens gradual-tan moisturizer. i was champing at the bit to buy it as soon as it hit store shelves. oh and of course, sally hansen airbrush legs. clearly i am no stranger to an enhanced complexion.

but, i can not fail to mention my first dabble into the world of self tanning at age 11. bizarre to think that i even cared about tanned skin at that age, especially only years before i was laughing at the thought of changing your skin's tone. but, it was a purchase from [now defunct] limited too. they had just launched a collection of personal care products, va-va-vanilla shower gels and berrylicious body sprays, which oddly [since its target customer was more/less 10 and this was before the reign of paris hilton] included a self tanner. it came in a sky blue tube and had a yellow sun squiggled on the packaging. i remember using it several times, without any truly noticeable difference, before it remained untouched in a bathroom drawer for several years.

though i am no longer in search of the perfect faux glow, a hint of color is always nice and i can't get enough of dr. dennis gross skincare alpha beta glow pads. they provide a reasonable amount of warmth to winter's skin-sans-sun without the risk of leaving streaks or orange hands; and offers a dose of vitamin d. see? i am now discerning.

the fair

let me show you a few scenes from the orange country fair! day-to-day life can be drastically different, no? emily and i went home to my parent's house in connecticut this weekend for my favorite event on the town's calendar. it's kitschy, sure, but the fair is filled with so much pride and love. do you remember when i wrote about the fair two years ago? time flies, and things change, but i'll have you know: the orange country fair does not. ever*. change. and that's the best part of it.

the rabbit wall

dreams come true: i am petting a lamb

emily and my parents gazing at misshapen veggies

prized pies

the grease pole (really!)

the largest pumpkin in town:

family fun

*they reinstated third-place ribbons.

josie

before i started at the magazine (where i've been able to attend fashion week and meet miss america, etc.), i spent the summer after college working for my dad as his dental assistant.

and these are the shoes i wore:

1959

mom, 1959
bonjour

lauren+matt

my cousin got married yesterday and the entire day was beautiful and perfect. 

congratulations to lauren and matt!

ferris wheel

on the way to sit in the tuileries garden, i spotted the ferris wheel. and even though i don't love heights, i knew that my mom and i had to go on.

she thought the ride would be more like this:

but i didn't give her the option of missing out on the beautiful sights of paris! so we hopped in.


and the views were truly amazing!

and well worth any uneasiness about the safety/height. because if we got injured (or worse) riding the ferris wheel overlooking paris, then so be it.

oscar

oscar
june 20, 2010
orange, connecticut

re-inspired

i went home for father's day weekend (happy father's day, dad!!!) and had such a pleasant time. i think pleasant is the only/best way to describe the weekend. the weather was gorgeous and i spent 80% of my time outside. my mom and i went to the farmer's market, i picked up new craft supplies (including tons of feathers!) and we bbq'ed. yum. jenna and i laid out on my deck and jumped in the (new!) pool. i read through time out, russh, and lula (i can't say enough how absolutely obsessed i am with this magazine! it is such a treasure!)

and i now feel completely inspired, my creativity has been rekindled.

oh and we saw toy story in 3-d! which i thought was surprisingly sad?

(jenna, please move here)

friendship bracelets! and such

hard to believe (as i write this from my LES apartment) that yesterday morning i was lounging on jenna's porch in cut-off shorts (that i would never wear in the city), getting a sunburn and making friendship bracelets. and that last night for dinner, my parents barbecued and we sat out on our deck to eat. i love going home for a few days but it really makes me miss being there and being with my family. it makes me miss summers in connecticut and nature, in general. jenna and i talked about the great outdoors and the wonderfulness of returning to connecticut after being in manhattan for a while and the thought that parks are nice for city folk who don't have lovely backyards. and i must say, the community garden on avenue c/9th street is rather idyllic and may be the best green space in downtown manhattan. but really, nothing beats actually being in nature.


in any case, i made countless friendship bracelets this weekend (in tompkins square park with brooke and richard, on the train to connecticut, with jenna, on the deck while my mom read/meditated, on the train back to manhattan, etc) and i've become quite the pro! so i'm taking requests from now until i run out of string!

years ago, jenna and i went to summer camp together in maine and yesterday we went through her camp autograph/address book. we wondered where some of our old friends are now and then wondered about this loopy advice from our counselor:

and then we had cones!

love jenna's formal living room.

pippin-kate olsen.

then i dashed back to the city late last night, quickly caught a cab downtown and made it back just in time to see emily's brother's band, a locomotive, perform. ideal.


oh and a very happy birthday to molly! a beautiful and wise friend (and my freshman year roommate!) whom i love, love, love!

teevee

after living in the city for almost a year and a half, emily and i have not had television. some people like to boast that they don't own one. it's lowbrow and they have far better things to do than watch it. but not us, we love television! but a) we didn't have a living room until we moved out of the west village and b) now that we do have living space (and a tv!) cable is so expensive, man. we'd rather use our monies for other joys. so after a few months of having a tv in the living room (which only the dvd player had been used), dad suggested and bought us an antenna and, to our delight setting it up last night, we receive twenty one channels. free!

curious/scared to see how this changes life. will we watch it for hours each night? will we never turn it on? we've gotten along just fine without it but now...

lindsey elizabeth

when i was in first or second grade, i wanted to legally change my name (lindsey) to my middle name (elizabeth). i thought it was more fancy. i remember my mom telling me that if i could spell 'elizabeth', than i could change my name to it.

e-l-i-z-a-b-e-t-h.

but i couldn't. yikes. so lindsey, it is!

hair

significant cuts and styles.
(traumatic and otherwise)

1. see age four. thanks for the pigtails/glasses combo, ma. real cute.
2. age five. thought it would look nice to cut off the entire left side of my hair and leave the other side long. hairdresser would not go for it, as much as i tried to convince.
   
3. age six. visiting my grandma in brooklyn and went for a hair cut. the hairdresser said that i had fine hair. i said "thank you". years later realized it was not meant to be a compliment.
   
4. age ten. by myself, i cut my very long, curly, beautiful hair to my chin. i look fabulous! i think. my mom is angry/shocked/upset. i tell her that i should now become a model. she said no. well then, how about a beauty pageant? no. fill out beauty pageant application regardless.
   
5. age twelve. cut my own bangs after seeing lindsay lohan cut lindsay lohan's (?) hair in the parent trap, you know, so they could pass as themselves/each other and visit their mother/father. scraggly bangs for the next four months.
   
6. age thirteen. received my first hair straightener for christmas. hours before midnight on new years eve, i straighten my hair because if y2k really brought on a power outage, my hair would have to be straight.
   
7. age seventeen. cut off entire ponytail on a whim at jenna's house. lookin' good.
   
8. age nineteen. long, long, long hair cut to above my shoulders without my knowledge while going for a "trim". cry and cry. accuse hairdresser of ruining my life. on purpose. sob for three days after, seriously consider hair extensions but settle for blond highlights and a spray tan. sophomore in college, clearly very stable. hair will grow. will now laugh/cringe when thinking back to this.
   
9. age twenty three. annie is visiting and she gives me a haircut at one in the morning. at least four inches shorter. just for fun and i love it! it was genius! feel like a new woman.

grand

a month ago, i wrote how weekend time was practically perfect. well, i found something even better. grandparent time. similar to hours spent on the weekend, everything is at a leisurely pace - except with an abundance of food and stories about the good ol' days.

i spent the weekend with my grandparents, who live fairly close by in brooklyn. it was wonderful! i haven't spent time alone with them at their house since i was seven, it has always been with my entire family. this visit was long overdue. i would say meals lasted hours, but they really lasted the entire day. (lindsey, would you like scrambled eggs for breakfast? yes! would you like a bagel? yes! would you like waffles? no! would you like another bagel? no! ice cream?...) i heard many lovely stories about the first dates my grandparents had together and what my mother was like when she was younger. they kept my mom's room fairly similar to how, i imagine, it was when she was growing up, so there were tons of drawers to explore and pictures to look at. and it was all at a very slow and thoughtful pace.

then i traveled happily back to manhattan, toting an assortment of treats (including lovely embroidered handkerchiefs, knitted shawls and various symphonies on record).

and, the pièce de résistance, nana re-enforced all of the buttons on my coat! love!

to my mama!

dear mom,

you are the best. i hope you have the happiest birthday.

love,

lins

surprises

i absolutely love surprises. when i turned sixteen, my dear friends threw a party for me. i had absolutely no idea. i came back from vacation and thought i was going over to ashley's house and surprise! all of my friends were there to celebrate. i've had many surprises since then, but i think that was the sweetest sixteen and will always take the cake.

but, there is a certain type of surprise, that may always be problematic for me, of the hoilday sort.

examples:
sixth grade: final two presents left. me and classmate must choose. i got to go first, i pick the bigger box, and simply for that fact. i got puzzle. she got a gift certificate to super-fabulous claire's accessories. just as i was discovering tacky late-90s jewelry. i was angry. stupid puzzle. (note: i would love a puzzle now)
eighth grade: spanish class secret santa. my santa secreto left my present at her casa. received two weeks later after winter vacation. christmas themed lip glosses. after christmas. of course, i was no longer in the spirit.
ninth grade cheerleading secret santa: "i accidentally left your present at home." surprise never received.

but these instances don't even compare to the frustration felt at my dad's dental office's holiday party '08.

emily was staying with me in connecticut at the time and i convinced her to go to the holiday office party. just a luncheon. no big deal. but there was going to be a grab bag.

now i must say, emily has had awful grab bag experiences, as well. she had to participate in two grab bags our senior year, leaving our house with nice, thoughtful gifts. what she had received was less than desired. for the first exchange, she came home with two packs of axe body spray playing cards. the next time didn't go much better, she received a paper bag filled with magic hat bottle caps and a single peacock feather.

yikes.

so off shopping we went! we purchased wonderfully generic gifts, and thought, if it comes down to it, we would take our own presents if they were not chosen at that point. we may both have had awful experiences in the past when it came to this holiday tradition, but this year, we had a plan.

we came home and had shown my parents what we were going to be giving. great. my mom had also bought gifts for this. she showed them to us and then we all wrapped them up together. perfect. i am really excited at this point to get my surprise tomorrow at the holiday lunch.

holiday lunch 2008: it's time. i start getting anxious. i step up to the gift table. i have five presents left to choose from. it is obvious that three are bottles of wine. one is emily's gift but i wanted the mystery. i was really excited for this surprise. i quickly grabbed the fifth present. and as i opened up my gift, i realized that i had taken the present my mom had contributed. agghhh. emily laughed at me and thought that i had known the whole time. in reality, i was too flustered to make the connection that this is what we had wrapped the night before. i was under too much pressure! it was too much to process! my mom gave a wonderful tea set that i would have been happy with in any other situation. very thoughtfully, emily traded with me. but it wasn't about the gift, it was all about the surprise.

and there you have it.
lindsey adams is good at many things, but one is not the grab bag.

wholesome fun

this weekend i went to my hometown of orange, connecticut's country fair with jenna, emily and my mom. though incredibly hokey, there was something so charmingly sentimental about it. livestock. hay bale tosses. tractor pulls. prized flowers. misshapen vegetables and third grader's crafts. running into old friends and eating fried dough.

when we arrived, the first exhibit we went to was the crafts. it was so wonderful to see the work of the townspeople on display. everyone got a ribbon. either first or second place. the last time i went to this fair, many years ago, there were definitely third place ribbons. it made me smile to see that they were eliminated. every exhibit, from the largest pumpkin in town to drawings by kindergartners, really had a delightfully simple appeal to it. these were the proud accomplishments of the town that they wanted to show off!

orange is a rather idyllic town, especially to grow up in. life is easy there and i can really appreciate it.

me and my mama

the fair wouldn't be the fair without fried dough (with sauce and sugar) or fried oreos!