Dear Internet,
Remember to tell yourself how awesome you are everyday.
The above was the very first note I put in Evernote, from April 18, 2010. I wanted to remind you of that and that I love you, too.
x0x0,
Lisa
"I'm not going to tell the story the way it happened. I'm going to tell it the way I remember it." -Finnegan Bell in Great Expectations
Dear Internet,
Remember to tell yourself how awesome you are everyday.
The above was the very first note I put in Evernote, from April 18, 2010. I wanted to remind you of that and that I love you, too.
x0x0,
Lisa
During the Renaissance, cabinet of curiosities came into fashion as a collection of objects that would often defy classification. As a precursor to the modern museum, the cabinet referred to room(s), not actual furniture, of things that piqued the owners interest and would be collected and displayed in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes is my 21st century interpretation of that idea.
Dear Internet,
This week is the last week of my staycation (go team academia!), and in addition to working on my plans for kicking ass in 2013, I’ve been doing a lot of reading on the web, by cleaning out my Pocket and Evernote stashes along with attempting at some organization of my gReader account. I ditched Delicious and signed up with Licorize to start a workflow for all of my projects, which also includes cleaning out old saved articles and sites.
When I posted the first CCC, the idea in my head was to have one post for links and another post for my reviews of the week (what I’m reading/listening/watching). Then I realized that was a stupid idea and I should just consolidate everything in one entry instead of two.
Reading
By Nancy Marie Brown
Sometime in 2010, I started getting interested in medieval history in a very big way, which lead to my interest of Norse mythology (and other origin stories as well as fairytales), and of course, Vikings. There were two things that I loved the most about my recent trip to England: My Cambridge University library reader’s card and seeing the iconic Sutton Hoo helmet in person. (This also explains why I want to learn Anglo-Saxon.) I stumbled upon The Far Traveler when I read Brown’s Seven myths we wouldn’t have without Snorri Sturluson on Tor, Google stalked her, and had this immediately sent via interlibrary loan before the holidays.
This isn’t a straight biography, but a delicate weave of history, stories, ideas, and possibilities that surround Gudrid and her time, based on the various Norse sagas and archaeological fact. Finding bits of cloth at a Viking longhouse sends Brown into how the cloth is made, its purpose, and why it was made. The boats that have been found in digs gives way to how those boats were constructed, what they were used for, and how modern boat makers have constructed similar vessels to understand how the Vikings pillaged the seas as they did. You find yourself not only learning about the period, but also about current archaeological / historical tools and advancements, customs, society, explorations, food, religion and everything in between. Everything is connected in Brown’s world, which is glorious as it allows Brown’s peeling back of layers to make for a very entertaining as well as educational read.
Watching
One thing I’ve noticed about my taste as of late in movies is I’m more apt to watch if it is animated over if it is not. There are some exceptions (period pieces anyone?), but almost always I put seeing the cartoons over anything else. Pro tip: Don’t walk into a matinee showing with your 6’6 husband and no child in tow. We got murderous looks from parents and one snobby bitch who kept trying to shuffle seats about in our row. Overall? I loved it, and in many ways it reminded me of Up with its overly hokey positive message, but who cares! It’s hard to not like a movie where Sanata is a Russian iconoclast tattooed within an inch of his life.
Borgia
This is NOT the Showtime series, which I rather like, but a French-German concoction staring the American actor John Doman, Rawls on The Wire, as Rodrigo Borgia. As I said on Twitter the other night, it’s all over the place. But strangely, despite the fact no one has an Roman or Italian accent, and there may be some fudging with the historical details, it’s strangely compelling. It was produced for Italian TV
Hearing
Not much this week, sad to report. I’ve been working on the metadata on my mp3s for my AudioMusicBiographically podcast, which looks like will be up by the end of January. In the mornings, when we’re working out, I’ve been making sure to listen to Girl Talk station on Pandora. But a lot of the time, I’ve been working in silence.
Links
What have you read/watched/listened to this week?
x0x0,
Lisa
Dear Interent,
Mary Robinette Kowal (on whom I have a bit of a fangirl crush), came up with an idea of writing and sending a letter every day in the month of February. She explains it a bit more here.
I stumbled on this last year and I think it was a bit too late in the game to start, but knew that I wanted to do it in 2013. I started warming up in the late fall by sending random post cards and letters to various friends around the world.
Many of you already know how much I love office supplies (and stationery), so I took inventory before Jan 1 so I could squeak in under my imposed deadline if I needed to buy any paper goods. This decision turned out to be a good thing since some of my paper stock, having traveled with me through many many moves, was not in the greatest of shape. In addition to assessing my paper stock, the warm up also illustrated I was/is a pretty verbose letter writer, so when looking for paper I knew stationery sets (which tend to be two pieces of paper for every one envelope) would not work out for me, neither would simple note cards. I ended up at Kate’s Paperie, where I could buy paper by the sheets. I will not be constrained by any medium!
Now pens, pens are my (one of many) first love. For the holidays, TheHusband bought me an Allegory fountain pen from their Kickstarter, which is probably one of the best presents I have gotten in a long time. Today while playing with the pen, I ended up with ink all over my hands and face, which TheHusband then witted I should be wearing Flintstone underpants and having chocolate smeared all over my face. Since we thought the pen was dry (turns out we were wrong), I broke the buying fast to pick up fountain pen cartridge refills. Now, this wouldn’t be so bad because I could argue that it was something I needed to replace (as the original was thought to be dried out), but I ended up picking up five packs in varying colors.
If you want a letter/postcard from me, you can participate in the following ways:
Here’s to the written word! Literally.
x0x0,
Lisa
P.S. I decided that every letter that I send will include a trading card that will hold snippets of a short story. As people get the letters, I want them to register the card with me so I will reveal that card to the world. At the end of the month, all cards will be revealed, making the story whole.
Dear Internet,
For the last couple of days I’ve been on a big digital cleaning kick, partially because I needed something fairly mindless to do as to not think about a few future Kalendae Januariae posts I had started writing. One is on attaining a healthy body and the other on obtaining a healthy soul. I struggle with how much I want to discuss, how much I want to reveal, and how much even just thinking these things is giving me false fear and shame for things I have yet to publish. While I shouldn’t give any fucks about what the world cares about weight or body image, it does and therefore I end up feeling cagey about discussing it. The same goes for anything spiritual, for if you talk openly about how you truly feel, a lot of dynamics shift in relationships because of the splintering of beliefs.
Also, people tend to be assholes.
In a couple of small digital communities I’ve helped build in the last year, one of the main themes I strongly advocated was for safe space. This had to be a place you can dump out your soul and you will not be judged, blamed, or threatened for how you feel. Trying to maintain that kind of safety in an open space, such this blog, is much, much harder. And it’s funny for I have no problems discussing ANYTHING except when it comes to body image and spirit. Sometimes the wounds of abuse are much shallower than I lead you to believe for it takes but the wrong slight word to bruise me these days.
So instead I wander aimlessly around the internwebs, reading about my Scottish forefathers and mothers.
A problem with this mindlessness it doesn’t really push the fear away to a safer distance, it instead bottles it in another place to be accessed at another time when I’m least suspecting it. Fear and shame are so integral to our lives, on so many levels, I sometimes want to punch the bubble that seems to be keeping me trapped here in this place. Write everything, write nothing, look like this, don’t look like this, be this kind of professional, don’t be this kind of professional: the conflicting messages are driving me insane! Sometimes even the Zen minimalists piss me off for they are like here, have a few easy steps to let everything go, and then you will be free. And oh, have a cookie (if it’s whole food, gluten, dairy, sugar, and egg free).
Friday I call Dr. H. to give him my update on how lithium and Concerta have been working and see if he needs to adjust my meds. Tonight, over dinner, I grilled TheHusband on how I was with this new combination. “Insufferable as always,” he says. On further reflection, he said I was significantly less moody. I have also seen that in myself as well, I’m not getting all riled up as easily anymore when people irritate the fuck out of me. Rather, I remove myself from the situation in some fashion, whether it is unfollowing, unfriending, or just choosing to not respond when a comment is directed at me.
Lithium has a tendency to make people feel warm. Lucky me: I’m still freezing all the time. My hands are so cold, I’m knitting a pair of fingerless mittens in the next few days. I layer like the dickens, and started wearing long pants and socks to bed. My right hand feels like ice is flowing through it even though when TheHusband touches me he feels warmth.
The Concerta/lithium is supposed to do two things: Stabilize my mood and then get me focused. As I’ve been off caffeine for nearly three weeks now (?!?!), in theory since lithium acts as a downer, I should be falling asleep earlier. This is not happening. One day last week, I made the mistake of Concerta after 11AM, did not go to bed until nearly 5AM and woke up at nearly noon the next day. I skipped that day’s dose and righted my body, somewhat, but I still cannot seem to get to sleep before midnight. Even now, TheHusband and I have been getting up at 6AM and working out, and I’ve been taking my Concerta when I wake up so in theory, I still shouldn’t feel like I’m on fire and yet I do.
My sexual libido is also still lacking.
Sometimes I feel like this huge disconnect in my life is because I see the world as it is being perceived and when I hold it up to my own, as it doesn’t match that image, my life than is not enough. Or it’s a sham. Or it’s falling apart. If my husband and I are not out hob nobbing it every night, does that mean we’re not living life? If I’m not out donating everything I own to every worthy cause, does that mean I’m incredibly selfish? If I’m not consoling everyone who comes to me with a sob story, or is in pain, or hurt, does that mean I’m a terrible person? Where and when does it end?
The question I then need to ask is: Is it me or is it the drugs?
x0x0,
Lisa
Dear Internet,
When Kristin talked about getting off the internets, as it is “Another linchpin to bad times,” she wasn’t too off course on how I feel about it myself. I love what the Internets can give me, but on the same token, when I’m feeling an attack of The Sads, or a variation of it, I can spend hours scrolling through Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr, and randomly reading Wikipedia articles with no real return on my investment of time. Back in 2009, I went off Twitter for a month and found that my attitudes towards it didn’t change nor did my habits, things just shifted else where.
I know several people who were able to get rid of various big social media sites, either by deleting Facebook, Twitter, or something else, and felt like they were able to control getting their life back. While I’d love to ultimately do that, I’d like to be realistic on my own uses and be more prudent on how I not only utilize social media, but how I am best using my time online. And it’s not just about social media, blogs and mailing lists are almost just as bad clutter in my digital life as paper can be in my physical one.
x0xo,
Lisa
Dear Internet,
Happy New Year.
I knew my brain had fizzled out on me when I stopped doing two things: Reading books and listening to music. I’ve really, really missed being able to finish a book or listen to an album. Since the music part is covered by Automusicbiographically, I had to find a way to get into all the books, comics, magazines, and other bits that have been floating around here forever. So for 2013, I op to:
Read all the books/comics I own before buying more.
According to GoodReads, I read (or attempted to read), about 17 books in 2012. I used to read about 10 books a month. Touching on the “Buy Nothing in 2013” moto, no more new OR used books/comics are to be purchased in 2013. I get this means I’ll probably be missing out on a lot of awesome new releases but I just can’t keep up at the pace I’m at now (and this is why Amazon wishlists are for). I don’t have a set goal to read by end of 2013, but if I can read at least one books a week, I can cut through my TBR stack pretty quickly. I’m also adding in that I need to do 50 word reviews on GoodReads for books and do reviews here under Bagged & Boarded for comics (which will appear Wednesday when available).
Second on my list under this theme is:
Writing.
Back in August, Anne and I worked worked on our own personal SWOTs – her for going into business herself, me for writing. Since I did my SWOT by hand, I pinned (or rather taped) the pages on the wall above my desk. The ultimate goals were simple.
I’ll also add in the following:
You can participate by signing up to be a beta reader to help a girl out.
I was talking to Kristin about how to best track our goals, because as this list continues, it seems overwhelming about how much I want to do in 2013. So for the first few months maybe the goals will be more to get one short story finished rather than write a short story every month or write thoughtfully online twice and build up to five entries a week. I have put together a schedule (daily and monthly) for writing online that will help, but much of that is going to stuff that’s built up over the course of a week (Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes) or can be stacked weeks in advanced. The soul will still be bared, but I want less thought provoking content up as well.
x0x0,
Lisa