The last couple of weeks, I have become an emotional hot mess. My mind, and my dreams, has been everywhere and nowhere at once, shifting the lines of reality and maybe madness. My thoughts have not been racing, as they were wont to do in the past, but I am having trouble focusing on any particular thing longer than a few seconds. I’ve come out of a dead sleep several times in the last month or two when I’ve thought I’ve seen or felt things in the dark, only to discover they weren’t there. Then I feel like a fool for when I tell people about what I see/heard, because I sound ridiculous. The other night, I had a nightmare bats were dive bombing the bed and I could feel the bed shiver as each bat landed on the mattress. But of course, after waking with a gulping start, there were no bats, there was nothing over head, and the only sounds in the bedroom were the teeter-tottering snores of TheHusband and the pug.
Tonight, I heard the sound of something scratching at the wood inside of the walls in my office, some kind of persistant “scratch, scratch, scratch” that sounded more like something was trying to free itself from its wooden prison, but I couldn’t find a source of the sound. The sound was coming near a joint in the window in my office, and it was loud!, but of course as soon as I called Justin in to investigate, the sound immediately disappeared. Justin reasoned it was probably a squirrel or some other varmint hanging out in the gutters and the noise was ricocheting down into the office, since my office is in a corner room. To appease me, Justin pounded on the wall around the source of the alleged noise but nothing stirred at his thumps, and nothing has stirred since he left.
In the past when I felt like I was going slightly insane, at least my insanity had a rational to it – I could manage the craziness. But this time is different, between the dreams and the sounds, because what if this all in my head? How do I manage that?
It hurts to think. Sometimes, it hurts to read. I feel like I am drowning in information, struggling to clutch on to what is important rather than what wanted. The air is murky here, because there are no clear paths for me to go, there is vague directions, and no real sign for which way for me to wander.
I need a purpose.
Month: April 2012
Bagged & Boarded: House of Night
[If you’ve been following me on Twitter lately, you know that I’ve really gotten into comics in the last six or so months for personal reading as well as I’ve also been collecting graphic novels for work. Starting today, and every Wednesday, I’ll be reviewing comics and graphic novels that I’ve recently read. Some will be new stuff, some will be old, others will be about the theory and practice of sequential art, with the goal to not only learn more myself but to help other comic virgins navigate this world.]
House of Night (5 book miniseries) | 3.5/5
Quick Summary: Miniseries that takes place behind and between the scenes of Betrayed, the second novel in the HoN series by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast.
I picked up House of Night for two reasons: Issue #1 was staring at me in my face AND I liked the cover art. Since House of Night was released in November, I was able to find all five issues fairly quickly and read the series in quick succession. The story was pretty simple: main protagonist, Zoey Redbird, has become the unwilling leader of the Dark Daughters, an elite society at her vampire boarding school. Each issue covers Zoey’s journey to leadership while she masters the five elements bestowed on her while figuring out the lesson behind each element. As each element has its own goddess attached to it, much of the comic is spent on that back history of the goddess and the lesson Zoey is to learn. Think of this as Hex mashed with Twilight.
Continue reading “Bagged & Boarded: House of Night”
Bagged & Boarded: House of Night
[If you’ve been following me on Twitter lately, you know that I’ve really gotten into comics in the last six or so months for personal reading as well as I’ve also been collecting graphic novels for work. Starting today, and every Wednesday, I’ll be reviewing comics and graphic novels that I’ve recently read. Some will be new stuff, some will be old, others will be about the theory and practice of sequential art, with the goal to not only learn more myself but to help other comic virgins navigate this world.]
House of Night (5 book miniseries) | 3.5/5
Quick Summary: Miniseries that takes place behind and between the scenes of Betrayed, the second novel in the HoN series by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast.
I picked up House of Night for two reasons: Issue #1 was staring at me in my face AND I liked the cover art. Since House of Night was released in November, I was able to find all five issues fairly quickly and read the series in quick succession. The story was pretty simple: main protagonist, Zoey Redbird, has become the unwilling leader of the Dark Daughters, an elite society at her vampire boarding [Continue Reading]
Originally published at: Lisa @ EPbaB
Commonwealth of Lisa
I turn 40 in a couple of months.
WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?!, I yell while shaking angry fists to the sky.
And there is no answer.
At least not one that I can audibly hear.
The Caravaggio Project
Before I started my undergrad, I never understood art. I never understood the appeal, the intricacies, why certain strokes of paint across the canvas were better than others, or why any of those things were important.
My discovery of Caravaggio changed all of this. So much so that I changed my singular major to a dual one with intent of heading to graduate school to get my MA in art history.
Which would have happened if I did not have an irrational fear of learning a new language, as you do.
When I went to Rome in 2005, I made it my mission to see all the Caravaggios available in the city, since the damned place is lousy with them. This sparked a bigger idea of tracking down and seeing, in person, all the Caravaggios available in the world. This is how The Caravaggio Project was born, and to date, I’ve seen Caravaggios in five or six countries and two continents, with many future trips planned around this theme.
I decided to keep track of the project online so that I can better figure out what I have and have not seen, plus I need to feel that certain sense of accomplishment. The chronology of Caravaggio’s work is from Wikipedia, but I plan to keep verify the entries once I get the data all established. It also helps that there has been a resurgence of interest in his work, such as the recent travelling exhibition, Caravaggio and His Followers in Rome and books such as The Lost Painting.
The listing for The Caravaggio Project isn’t complete yet, but should be soon.
If you’re wondering why Caravaggio, actually it’s pretty easy: He was a conflicted man that worshipped his own pleasures under the umbrella of the Catholic church. He was a hedonist, lecherous, bisexual, and narcissistic (many of his paintings feature his own likeness in steed of a model). He was the Byronic hero several centuries before Byron. His life was that of passion and torment, and the fact that he had an artistic ability that was almost supernatural is actually secondary to the man himself. He lead a tragic life and died quite young. If one could be a Caravaggio groupie, that would be me.
Judith Beheading Holefrenes is probably my most favorite of his paintings, though I’m fond of his Bacchus series as well. I picked up a nice print at the Borghese Gallery of Judith Beheading Holefrenes that used to hang in my bedroom before it was nearly destroyed due to mold and damage from improper storage while I was in-between places.
I thought it sent a nice message to current and future suitors.
Watch out for the falling divs
[Update: 19:21] Seems like I caught and found most of the errant pixels driving me batty, but everything is not perfect. If you or someone you know is a web developer, comfortable with WordPress & CSS, contact me ASAP. I’ve hacked the fuck out the CSS for this theme but my fixing the themes mistakes keeps breaking it! I know it’ll take 2-3 hours to fix the CSS (at max). The framework could also be tweaked as well to clean it up.
Currently tweaking the blog’s theme, which is causing it to morph in and out of various themes for the last hour or so, and will continue on and off for the rest of the day. If you find something isn’t where it was a moment ago, that is why!
-lisa
It’s all about the hair.
I never thought I’d write a post about my beauty process1, however, a large number of my Twitter girlfriends and I haven taken to having unplanned and very random discussions lately on everything from being anxious to our periods to whatever else our vaginas demand we talk about on the twitters. As the conversations are often spontaneous2, and it typically starts out with one writing a blog post, another commenting on said blog, then more entering the fray with their thoughts and the threads go on for ages. Thus, when Carolyn recently wrote about that she doesn’t use shampoo, I commented that at some point I should write about the fact that I wash my hair once a week. Several of them said I needed to do such a post because it would be very important, natch, to note that not all of us are created equal, hair wise.3 Since I’m a writer with consistant writer’s block, if writing about my girly acts gets me back to writing on a more regular basis, who am I to argue?
When I say “I wash my hair once a week,” I mean specifically that: I wet and lather my hair once a week. I do not wet or wash it during the course of the week, with the odd exceptions here or there, but usually I have to set aside time for THE WASHING not so much that I have so much hair but that it can be a fairly long process. When I first met my friend Jessica, this past January we were attending the same workshops together in California, and one night we were planning on doing something or another and I mentioned that I had to get back to our hotel early to wash my hair. She looked at me like I was crazy, as it does sound so damned ’50s. Though, to be fair, I have been toying with the idea of setting my hair in juice cans for curls that won’t quit but that is neither here nor there.
Continue reading “It’s all about the hair.”
angry girl is angry
“You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.” – Winston Churchill
My primary work husband let some words slip today, in regards to me, that is currently traveling around our place of work. I wasn’t terribly surprised to hear what was said, though to his credit he gave generalities over specifics, knowing that if I knew more about the situation(s), it would or could make it uncomfortable for me in future interactions. He did, however, throw me a bone in that a female in a similar level and power as myself was, instead of clutching me to her bosom, also responsible for some of what was said. I wasn’t terribly surprised to hear that she was making noises about me, but, I was genuinely distressed to hear that she felt it necessary to gingerly throw me under the bus rather than embrace our uniqueness.
This is also not the first time, nor will it be the last, where my character has or will be called into question. Not in this current postion, nor in the past positions I’ve held. In the past, I’ve typically placed the blame on myself: I was too opinionated, too honest, too many whateverits and thus, it almost always got me in trouble. My work ethic and job performances were never criticized, no, but my personality often was. I’ve always taken responsibility and the blame for these things when it has happened, even if I was in right, because work politics is work politics, no matter how inane and how misguided they may be. As Omar from The Wire keeps saying, “You’ve got to play the game before the game plays you.”
Continue reading “angry girl is angry”