Year: 2013

MRY: The Packing List

Dear Internet,
I hopscotched my way from Monterey back to Grand Rapids more smoothly than a baby’s bottom, which surprised and delighted me as my past experiences with United have been awful. They have totally picked up their customer service, planning, and execution of getting people on their way which now puts them back in the front for airlines when I go looking for flights.
After TheHusband picked me up late Thursday afternoon, we had an early dinner and then went right home. Not long after I had unpacked and gotten settled from the trip, I slept for nearly 14 hour straight with no breaks even to pee. I was that fucking tired. Some of the people I met at IL were coming down with various and sundry colds and sniffles, so I’m hoping I shook enough of that nastiness out while sleeping, drinking Vitamin C to help (and also helps with potential cases of scurvy), and congratulating myself for having the foresight to take the day after I came home off from work.
For this trip, I was smart enough to grab pictures of my bags once I got to the hotel, before unpacking, and what the bomb explosion looked like after I had unzipped. Exhibits below:

Before.
Before.

After.
After.

Tom Bihn bag:

  • Tolietries bag
  • Make-up bag
  • Drug case
  • Jewely box
  • Loofa sponge
  • 1 Chucks
  • 1 Tieks
  • (1) dress boots
  • 1 (2) scarf
  • (1) hoodie
  • (1) leather jacket
  • 1 pair of leggings
  • 1 pair of Jammie bottoms
  • 1 skirt
  • 1 jean jacket
  • 1 umbrella
  • 1 ice bag
  • 1 pair of sunglasses
  • 1 pair of glasses
  • 1 brick for Mac Air
  • 2 (3) bras
  • 2 dresses
  • 2 cardigans
  • 2 tank tops
  • 2 (3) pairs of pants
  • 3 pairs of tights
  • 6 (7) pairs of socks
  • 7 (8) pairs of underwater
  • 8 (9) tshirts
 (Not seen.) Rickshaw bag:

  • Mac Air
  • iPad
  • Work notebook
  • Personal notebook
  • BBC History magazine
  • The Whale Road (book)
  • Fountain pens
  • Pencil case
  • Clutch with money
  • Bag o’cables
  • DS3
  • Portable recharger brick
  • Quart bag with toiletries
  • Pouch with miscellany

And I’m sure after all is said and done, I’m missing a few items.
There is a couple of key things when packing minimally: Roll everything, bring items that can be worn multiple times, pack as many solid toiletries as possible, and bring as much neutrals as you can stomach.
I was in Monterey for 6 days/5 nights, but ended up with enough clothes for over a week AND I had at least two clean outfits left when I came home. There were a couple of things I didn’t think about when I packed, such as while wearing my dress boots to Monterey, there may be a chance I didn’t want to wear them coming home, which ate into my luggage space. Packing a leather jacket, a jean jacket, a hoodie, and several cardigans seems like overkill, and also eats space, which could be consolidated by getting one neutral jacket that will work for just about all weather types.  I also packed more layers with the outwear because not one weather site was consistent with the constant changes of weather happening while I was going to be there.
Could I have done better? Always can do better. The brilliancy of bringing solid shampoos, body lotions, and body soaps opened up ton of space in my quart bag. Plus I wasn’t feeling cheated out of my toiletries. My clothing choices could have been streamlined more by quite a bit and if I didn’t have this burning desire to dress like a Lifesavers roll every day, it would be a lot easier.
But considering a similar trip taken 18 months ago to a similar place with similar weather had me lugging around a 50lb+ checked bag with all of MUST HAVES, this is bloody brilliant.
 
xoxo,
Lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe in: 2012, 2011

Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes: November 2, 2013

Johann Georg Hainz's Cabinet of Curiosities, circa 1666. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Johann Georg Hainz’s Cabinet of Curiosities, circa 1666. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

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 I’ve been at a conference and have hardly been online, so this weeks CCC is on the thin side.

Reading

thewhaleroadThe Whale Road (Oathsworn #1) by Robert Low
(Amazon | WorldCat | GoodReads | LibraryThing)
Status: Finished
What attracted me to reading this series was the author is a journalist, is passionate about the time period, and the best part? He’s a an active Viking reenactor. So we’ve got someone who can write and knows their history well.
But just as one can be a journalist and be a terrific writer, it does not necessarily  mean they can write fiction. Low is not one of those people, but this is not to say his story is without problems. The story meanders at times with no point, the character development isn’t there, and the plot seems thin on the ground. BUT, it’s intriguing. I love the historical aspect that is being presented, and there is a lot of promise to the series. So it’s not great, but it’s good and will keep you entertained.

Watching

Weekly watching: American Horror Story: Coven, Breathless, Atlantis, Homeland, Masters of Sex, Elementary, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Sleepy Hollow, Survivor, Downton Abbey, Boardwalk Empire, Doc Martin, QI, Peaky Blinders, The Newsroom, Sons of Anarchy,  The Vampire Diaries

x0x0,
lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe in: 2012, 2012, 2011, 2010, 2010, 1998

Kalendae Januariae: November Update

Dear Internet,
When I started writing the Kalendae Januariae, I didn’t really have a plan in mind on when to update other than I should do it often. Scarily, I find myself  now almost an entire year gone since the first entry; since the first of the month is about renewals, it was seemed like a good time to see how I’m progressing.

Buy Nothing in 2013

In 2012, I placed 114 orders from Amazon. This did not include digital files, or orders placed with other vendors which would push that number even higher. As of November 1, 2013, I’ve placed only 29 orders via Amazon and I’ve hardly bought any t-shirts this year! A dramatic drop in spending compared to the year before and obviously I’m beyond thrilled that I could cut my spending so drastically. Am I reaping any benefits from the lack of shopping? Sadly, no. My income drops dramatically in the summer and I’ve had to pay for work conferences galore. Thus all cash saved from not spending it on me, went right into travel, lodging, and conference fees. It’s frustrating.
I do find myself being more conscientious on making instant spending decisions. The question of, “Do I need another pair of chucks?”, almost always has the answer of, “Probably not.” My biggest problem is, and has been, going out to eat since I do so many work related meetings around lunch or meeting up with friends for drinks after work.  So while I’m not spending money on frivolous things galore, I am still spending a lot of money on entertainment and food.
I decided to hook up You Need A Budget (YNAB) and start implementing the practice as soon as possible. TheHusband has said if I want to do any big trips next year, like Europe, I’ll have to come up with half the cash for the trip and he’ll match it. Right now I’ve saved approximately $92.32, which will pay for the cab to the airport. I started on/off on keeping track of what I am spending and I’d like to boost that up again to actually better track how my disposable income is being spent.

2013 will be the year of creativity (even if it kills me)

2013 has been a crazy year, emotionally, mentally, and physically.
But you know what? That’s okay.
I did not get the opportunity to do the projects I had set out to do this year for this task, but I’m not giving up hope. They are still things that interest me and still things that need to be done. Now that I’m off of Lithium again, and my moods have evened out, I’m feeling a lot better to tackle these projects.

Year of the written word

Read all the books/comics I own before buying more For the most part, this has been kept true. My book/comic buying have been reduced dramatically, but my reading for the year is still as haphazard as before. I still do not think finishing a book a week is out of the question, but again, this year has been a crazy year of emotional, mental, and physical ups and downs. While I may not be reading as many books, I AM reading our delivered newspapers and magazines regularly, so there is some comfort in that.
In January, I said I wanted to

  • Write 10 hours a week  (Does not include blogging)
  • Write 250 word blog entries 5x a week (Get proficient enough to knock it out in 1/2 hour).
  • Keep notes on everything
  • Write a short story a month.
  • Write a poem a month.
  • Get something published by my birthday in June

While I have not followed these steps exactly, again I don’t think these goals are not unreasonable, I am pretty proud of the output I did this year. According to a word stat counter, since January 1, I:

  • Wrote 82, 261 words over
  • 108 posts (average 11 posts a month) and 17 pages

This does not include any notes, work done on paper, editing of pre-2013 posts, and so forth. Add another a rather conservative estimate of 25K words for over 100,000 words this year alone and for that, I’m really proud. Sure, I didn’t get a poem or prose published, but that’s also okay. I’ve got a better sense of what I want to do and what I want to write, and I know I can always do better. Produce more. Leave a mark on the world. Keep pushing forward.
Strangely the thing I’m most proud of is I have not skipped a week of Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes. I set a goal to do something every week and I did it. It’s small, but as this is the first time I’ve ever actively worked on something to the end.

teh interwebs

Unsubscribe from unnecessary mailing lists Always ongoing, I’ve been unsubscribing left and right with the intent of getting my mail in order. But, and there is always a but, my mail is still a bloody mess. One thing I have discovered is my filters were part of the problem, so I removed filters from all incoming mail which has worked tremendously. But my mail is still a mess, but a more manageable mess.
Delete unused social media accounts Always ongoing. Like the mailing list conundrum, I’d get a random email from some company I had signed up with years ago to find out they are now active/selling their business/something and I have to go in and scrape my data. Or I discovered I am not actually using the site all that much anymore. In becoming ever vigilant in being able to control my data
Stop following people/services/accounts/blogs that no longer hold my interest/are not engaging  The mass culling is constant still. I’ve either moved companies/people/brands to separate feeds or stopped following them altogether.  I found, however, that I don’t actually follow or read the separate feeds and you know, I don’t miss it. I’m also being more aggressive in getting stuff out of my RSS feeds by reading them in a more timely basis / cleaning up uninteresting things. I stopped apologizing to myself for unfollowing people who aren’t my cup of tea anymore.
Get the archives back up  YES! I have been doing this! Anyone following the Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes knows without fail I’ve been diligent almost every week getting some of the archives up. It’s slow work, a lot slower than I had anticipated, but it is going on.
Stop buying domains No new domains were purchased in 2013. Huzzah!
Stop obsessively checking social media accounts  Not as much as a problem as it was earlier in the year, but still a problem. I’m finding myself more and more with having time on my hands, checking FB/Twitter and the like, and then having nothing else to do despite the fact I have over a 100 apps on my phone. Because this is where it becomes problematic is when I’m out and about and not always in the position of carrying a book, magazine, or something
Overall, not a bad start. Next year is going to be even better.
x0x0,
Lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe in: 2012, 2011, 2011, 1998

Live Action Sexual Harassment

Dear Internet,
It started out innocently enough.
I was standing outside of a karaoke bar with some friends, when an obviously drunk guy invades my personal space, got into my face and said, “Can I ask you a question?” I said sure and he asked how I liked his football jersey. I replied I had no comment on it. He said he liked my shirt and wanted to know if I would take it off for him. I said no. He said how much would it take for me to take it off. I replied a million dollars. He said he didn’t have that much and wouldn’t I just want to take it off for him? Again I said no, and as I was speaking started inching closer to a male friend of mine who was near me. A girlfriend who was also with me interjected and said I wouldn’t have anything to wear if I took off my shirt. Drunk guy gestured to his jersey and said I could have his jersey in trade if I wanted. I again replied in the negative while by this time, standing so close to my male friend I could feel the fabric of his clothes on my bare arms. Mr. Drunk got distracted for a brief moment and I took this as my opportunity to get the fuck inside. Bouncers figured out what was going on and started steering the guy into a waiting cab.
This all took place under the span of five minutes. Probably even less.
I’m in California for a conference; presenting on sexual harassment with the emphasis on being a woman in technology, a primarily male dominated profession. The irony of the exchange above is not lost on me.
The rest of the evening took a dark turn in my head. I’ve been in a really great space for a few weeks now and I’ve been enjoying this conference immensely. While this is the first conference I’ve attended in a long time solo, meaning I had no obvious conference buddy or TheHusband with me, I’ve not been alone. I’m seeing a lot of old friends while meeting new. I am pissed that out of all the obvious places for this could have happened, it had to be here.
Getting sexually harassed is not a new thing to me and I would argue it’s not a new thing for any woman. But in that scant amount of time, this jerkoffs attitude towards me stripped me emotionally naked and for that I am angry. I was made to feel like an object of someone’s whim, someone who could have hurt me, someone who felt I could have been bought for a few dollars. Someone who took away my power as a person.
In the beginning of the evening, the hours had flown by but now, the rest of the evening slowed to a crawl. Several of us were game on closing the bar down but all I wanted was to get back to my hotel room and protect myself. I tried to shake off the fact perhaps I was overreacting – I continued with the facade of happy go lucky: Guinness was still consumed, I still sang at karaoke, and to the world it seemed like nothing had happened but internally, I no longer felt like me but a piece of meat being appraised, valued, and reappraised again. To Mr. Drunk, who will have forgotten it by the morning, it was probably nothing. He was drunk. He didn’t mean it. He was not that type of person. He’s a married man.
Excuses will be made, by him. By me.
Once I made it safely to my room, I stripped down and took the hottest shower possible. I scrubbed myself several times over and brushed my teeth so hard, my gums were almost bleeding. When I get back to Michigan, I’ll probably throw the shirt away.
Being overly self-aware, this stripping of power by Mr. Drunk has accelerated the feeling of fragility. I’m clawing to not feel anxious, to not feel exposed, to not feel sub-human. He obviously doesn’t know my story – because why would he? I was just a random woman who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. But I know my back story, I know how I struggle with my own emotional boundaries, and all of the protection I have worked so hard has now been weakened, my borders are compromised. I start to question how even my most benign of clothing choices became the object of his attention, his needs, his wants.
Some are going to read this and think,”What’s the big fucking deal? You were at a bar, some drunk asshole was a dick, you weren’t hurt physically. Get over it.” But that’s my fucking point, it IS a big deal. This has NOT been the only instance of sexual harassment that’s happened since I’ve been here. Shortly after I presented on my panel, I was out with a group of people, many who were at my panel. Without fucking fail, several of those in our group spent longer than necessary staring at my rack. Yes, I do have a nice rack. It’s pretty apparent I have a nice rack. But when I’m sitting there having a conversation with you and I’m watching your eyes flick from my tits to my face and back again CONSTANTLY as we’re talking; when it becomes clear you’re not really paying attention to “me” but the aforementioned nice rack, then any respect I’ve ever had happened for you has been stripped.
As it was, so it will be; this will be fodder for future panels, for examples and illustration purposes. The cycle continues.
xoxo,
Lisa

Of broken bricks and forgotten combs

 

My view of the ocean from the Monterey Marriott.

Dear Internet,
Despite all the scrupulous packing (and re-packing) and organizing, I discovered upon my arrival in Monterrey I had forgotten a comb. Now granted my hair is short and doesn’t really need a good brushing, but as the gods willed, if you forget something that may not have been that big of deal now it becomes a massive big deal later. Thankfully I was able to make my way to Walgreens before my world collapsed from 3″ strands of hair not being properly sorted out, which could have proved disasterous.
I’m in Monterrey, sitting in a Starbucks around the corner from my hotel on my one day off this week. Tomorrow kicks off the conference in full gear, and I wanted this day to be one of me time and relaxation as I knew as the week wore on, the conference would wear me down. While my energy levels have reappeared since I came off the lithium, I’m more conscious of personal space and needing to escape into my own world for awhile before any major social interactions are going to occur, even more importantly when there are large groups of people I do not know.
I arrived in Monterey after a very full day of traveling, which started at 8AM EDT and ended at 5PM PDT, which mainly included my hopscotching my way around the US.  As I was checking in and getting sorted, I ran into one the panelists who will be presenting with me, and his partner, both whom graciously invited me out to dinner.  After the hopscotching around various airports, I was delighted to get a chance to get a bit of a stretch around the area before heading to bed. We had dinner on the wharf and I was so determined to have my bit of vodka and Guinness, which I made happen, before anything else occurred. By the time the evening wore down, combined with jet lag, travel lag, and other wordly lags, I was hoping to fall asleep when I got back to the hotel and make it a fairly early night.
But nothing is ever really that easy as the fates again decided I had not sacrificed the correct amount of virgins to satiate them as not only was I not able to fall asleep at a reasonable hour, I was wide eye awake starting at 7AM local time despite the alcohol consumed the night before and coupled with jet lag meant I was running on 5-6 hours of sleep.
I laid in bed most of the morning, pondering what I was going to do for the day while watching terrible reality television that I seem to only care about when I’m not at home. I caught  an episode of SECRET PRINCES, which turned out to be the pilot of the second season. Later, I gleefully regaled my breakfast companions the background stories of four unlucky in love royals who came to America, Austin specifically, to find love while undercover from their true identities. The whole show is a bit daft, of course, but there is some kind of glee about these bumbling fish out of water experiences that I can view like Margaret Mead, except all virtual and not with binoculars in the grass.
The rest of the day has been lazy, walking around the downtown core and grabbing coffee to keep the energy going. The weather, and as one must always talk about the weather when travelling, turned for the worse, I ended up back in the hotel earlier than anticipated because sitting in a coffee shop with my back against the drafty window is neither noble or smart and the outcast seemed to huddle on rain for the rest of the day. It was like I had never left home.
I decided to use the rest of my time to work on personal and work projects, only to discover my charging brick for my MacBook Air is dead, which explained why some of my other devices were not charged this morning when I grabbed them on the go. Here I thought the problem was with the room outlets but that is turned out to not be the case. Even with next day shipping, I missed the window to get a new brick to me via Amazon tomorrow as it won’t show up until Tuesday and I’m leaving ungodly early (4:30AM) Thrusday morning fot the airport.  Thankfully I brought along my iPad, so the laptop will only get used in extreme emergancies while I mainlined everything else elsewhere.
I had some cause of worry for this trip, not of the conference or the people I was going to see, but the worry of my own behavior the further I get from my last dose of lithium. The same week I was first drug free, I was hit with PMS enough to cripple me and the mood swings enough to remind of all the 100s of reasons I wanted to be on mood stablizing drugs. Once that was over, and my inner world was smooth again, I’m finding myself feeling much more of myself than ever before.
I am desperate to not let this be a manic episode stemming from coming off the drugs, but it’s difficult when I’m only sleeping on 4-6 hours a night, I don’t get catch up sleep when I can sleep in, and I seem to exist on zoom the entire day with very little caffeine. The crash will come, there is almost always the certainy with that, but I’m praying to whatever will listen to not let it be so terrible that it is crippling and more importantly, I can have the forsight to be self-aware of it as it happens. It seems like a lot to ask, but if the drugs are not helping then I need something to guide me through the uncharted spaces to get me back on track again.
x0x0,
Lisa
 

Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes: October 26, 2013

Johann Georg Hainz's Cabinet of Curiosities, circa 1666. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Johann Georg Hainz’s Cabinet of Curiosities, circa 1666. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

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,

Writing

Ephemera – Prose Companion to The Lisa Chronicles

  • astrology
  • the autobiography
  • bluespot
  • idea book
  • manic/depressive
  • the players
  • women

Short Fiction

  • in stereo

Watching

  • Project Runway
  • American Horror Story: Coven
  • Breathless

Weekly watching: Atlantis, Homeland, Masters of Sex, Elementary, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Sleepy Hollow, Survivor, Downton Abbey, Boardwalk Empire, Doc Martin, QI, Peaky Blinders, The Newsroom, Sons of Anarchy,  The Vampire Diaries

Links

x0x0,
lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe in: 2010

 

Indy, Chicago, Chicago, and Chicago: The Packing Lists

Chicago, October 2013.
Chicago, October 2013.

Dear Internet,
I’ve been remiss in keeping up with my packing lists for various travels this summer and for that, I apologize. As I’m flying to a conference in California this week, it seemed like a good idea to get you updated on how my minimalist packing project is going. I’m pretty pleased on my accomplishment so far as I can make it work for a weeks worth of clothes solo in the Tom Bihn Aeronaut. The goal is to get it to two weeks.
In April, I went to Indianapolis by car and Chicago by train, both for conferences. In June I was back in Chicago for another conference (travel by train) and earlier this month, TheHusband and I went away for a long weekend to Chicago (also by train). Whether alone or packing for two, my Tom Bihn Aeronaut has been a damned champ!  While we had splurged for the extra duty cross body strap, I found that I really liked the backpack straps when I’m flying about stations and terminals. I keep the cross body strap inside the bag just in case.
The one change I did make was swapping out the Tom Bihn Imago with a Rickshaw Medium Zero messenger bag. I needed something slightly bigger and with inside pockets. Luckily for me, Rickshaw had a 50% off flash sale on the Zero so I splurged on getting the coveted bag along with two modular zipper pockets. I was also able to get, at no extra cost, a longer cross body strap (I need something roughly 50″ or longer due to my tallness; most cross body bags run between 42-46″). I love this bag to pieces!
When TheHusband and I went to Chicago a few weeks ago, we were gone for four days/three nights. I packed the Aeronaut for both of us, and I also brought my Rickshaw bag to hold electronics, books, etc as well as a purse for me.
Here’s what I was able to get into the Aeronaut (this does not include what we we were wearing on our person):

  • Three pairs of jeans (two for me, one for TheHusband)
  • Cardigan (me)
  • Two hoodies (one for me, one for TheHusband)
  • Four pairs of underwear each
  • 2 pairs of socks (me)
  • Bra (me)
  • One pair of shoes (me)
  • Pajama bottoms (me)
  • Skirt (me)
  • Button down (me)
  • Eight t-shirts (roughly half for each)
  • Toiletries

When all was said and done, we had enough clothes between the two of us to mix/match for five or six days and with toiletries to boot.  Back when I had long hair, the number of actual toiletries to bring was significantly less than what I carry with me now, which of course makes packing problematic when flying. For my trip to California, I bought solid shampoo, body soap, and lotion to open up some space in my quart bag. It never dawned on me to go solids for a lot of my beauty care, which is actually pretty brilliant since they do not count towards the 3-1-1 rule.
My biggest problem with toiletries is getting the right bottles/jars for the job as sometimes the products marked for travel are too bulky. For example, my regular sized bottle of make-up remover is 2 liquid oz while not technically travel sized is under the 3 oz rule, but I’ll use maybe 1/4 of an oz during the course of one week, so why drag the entire, ill shaped bottle with me? Same with body lotions and other goops. As we don’t have a Container Store in my vicinity, I searched through dollar stores, Target, and other like stores for purchasing various sized travel bottles and jars in small quantity for my trips. As I couldn’t find anything under 3 liquid ozs or at least a variety of sizes under 3 ozs, I went to the internets and found this: a travel bottle and jar set. As I require a lot of goops, creams, and potions to maintain the lifestyle I’m currently living, getting this set will allow me to get more bang out of my space. Experiments with using only one type of lotion for everything or going without something has proven I don’t do well when missing beloved items.
In the accouterments area, I took my Air and my iPad on my most recent trip to Chicago, along with my 3DS, phone, journal, pen case, and a paper book. I also carried a purse with me which proved to be more hindrance than useful, and resorted to using a favorite clutch everywhere we went. The Air was overkill as I had thought I would be getting some work done at the hotel or on the train, but circumstances were not in my favor that weekend. While as a to-go machine, my iPad (along with its leather keyboard case) is pretty durable for doing some work but there are some things that do not translate well and that mainly has to do with how a lot of cloud services and websites handle rendering for a mobile device, even if it has a 10″ screen. But again, as I’ve done for other trips, I tend to over pack in this area with the thought I’ll do X,Y,Z and either do not make time for it or forget to do it or something else.
I’ll be doing a run through pack before my trip on Saturday, and I’ll report back on how that goes.
x0x0,
Lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe in: 2010, 2003, 2003, 2003, 2003, 2003, 2003

a drink that gives one courage

Street graffiti, Rome, circa 2005.
Street graffiti, Rome, circa 2005.

 
Dear Internet,
Benadryl is a cruel and demanding mistress.
TheHusband and I dove into chocolate bars last night, rescued from the cabin this past weekend when we cleaned it out for the winter, with the intent of having a late night snack. TheHusband, his will and stomach of pure iron, was fine. I, on the other hand, started going to into allergic sensitivity mode: My throat started closing, I started scratching, and I was trying not to panic.
In hindsight, I SHOULD have used my EpiPen, but I doubled down on the Benadryl and waited for it to kick in before making any formal decisions, my throat started relaxing and I eventually fell asleep.
This is not the first time this has happened to me, but it is becoming more frequent. Some of it is my own stupidity: Eating a milk chocolate bar when the first ingredient is milk fat or having a slice of Chicago style pizza, but others times it seems overly innocuous when eating a candy/spiked water/crackers/chips where milk/whey/lactose are so far down the list and ergo in minute proportions I don’t even think it would be harmful but yet. Yet here come the symptoms and the signs, and the double dosing of Benadryl.
This is the second time in a month I’ve called in sick due to the effects of my stupidity: Eat something I’m not supposed to, start early stages of anaphylaxis, drug up to cure it, and surrender to whatever effects the drugs give, and then fall asleep. I slept 12.5 hours after taking the Benadryl last night, waking up long enough in the morning to email work I wasn’t coming in and then I was back down for the count.
I always feel so off and surreal when the drugs empty out of my system, not quite 100%. Hell, not quite 50%.
Two years ago I revealed my diagnosis of my dairy allergy and for the better part of that time, I’ve been mostly good. Lately, I’ve gotten fast and loose on what this allergy means when I’m starving at work, nothing is open except the vending machines, and I want some kind of crunch. Hello Doritos. When there is no repercussions, then, of my indulgences  or if the repercussions are small, I store that bit to remind me it could be okay to eat Doritos/spiked water/whatever again.
According to my allergist, the milk protein is so fragile, that being able to eat pizza makes sense since there is so many processes into making it while eating ice cream, which is hardly processed, sent me into various sick modes. Why eating chocolate cake at a restaurant was fine, while eating bars of chocolate is not.
It would seem most prudent then to stop eating/drinking/using anything that contained milk in any forms or context, which means going back to being strict even with non-food stuffs.
I never want to go through this again, Seymour. Never again.
xoxo,
Lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe in: 2008, 2008, 2008, 2003

weekenders on our own, it’s such fun

Dear Internet,
It wasn’t until the day was almost over that I realised today was a pretty perfect day.
I was intent on waking up early this morning, hopefully naturally, so I could spread out my day in larger chunks rather than waking up at noon, zombifying it around the house until I realize it’s almost 5PM and then it’s time to get ready for the week.  Nothing ever completed, nothing ever done, not even relaxation. The almost insurmountable stress of trying to do ALL THE THINGS in a short amount of time while feeling strangled with reproach.  There is always some residue guilt of not having done laundry, waxed my ‘stache, vacuumed the house, or the million of other chores. Somehow this week I wasn’t feeling that pressed to get much done chore wise other than swap the sheets on our bed and I felt totally okay with that.
I got my wish for an early rising when one of our smoke alarms started chirping it had a dead battery at 730AM. Not too ungodly early, it seemed, and instead of rolling over and hoping it would magically die on its own, I woke up and got ready for the day. And by getting ready for the day, I mean put on my glasses, yoga pants, and stealing one of TheHusband’s hoodies when I took the dog out for a walk in the drizzly mess outside and not taking it off when I came back into the house.
TheHusband, who was grumpily complaining he did not want to wake up at some inhumane hour while the alarm continued to annoyingly chirp, was fixing the broken alarm when I came back from the dog’s morning constitutional. We foraged for breakfast, which was simple since we had thrown boxes of Yummy Mummy and Count Chocula into our grocery basket last night. Coffee percolated, bossa nova on the home stereo, some kind of vanilla concoction candle lit, and I settled on the couch to read the New York Times.
Four hours of near vapid article reading later, coffee was consumed, toast nibbled, and paper tossed into the recycle bin, and it wasn’t even noon.
With my afternoon free, I opted to do some organizing on the site and work on some back-end work, which I did while catching up on podcasts. When was the last time I sat down and really listened to a podcast, more importantly, for longer than say 30 minutes? Months maybe, if not years. I was able to plow through five or six of the BBC History podcasts, putting me firmly now in July 2013.
I had no plan on mind rather thinking I’d start cleaning up some of the broken links, several consisting of near full nude of pics of me from the past when I was getting photographed for my earlier tattoo work and a NSFW pic of my very spanked behind. The images are not going to be easy to find — the content of the pages, tags or titles doesn’t lend itself to the images at hand. Consider them easter eggs linked somewhere in the nearly 700 pages on this site. Happy hunting.
(I remember the spank picture, hysterically so, for it was taken with an analog camera on a roll of film that had everything from pictures of flowers to sexy time pics. The boyfriend at the time was near lunatic thinking the processing place was going to turn in the images for their content or refuse to print them. Neither of course happened and I have both the images, complete with very vivid date stamp, and the negatives still on hand. Ah, the momentary discretions of youth.)
TheHusband had started slow roasting a roast beef dinner this morning (which ended with smashed sweet potato/squash and amazing green beans for sides), which was filling up the house with delicious smells. For the rest of the afternoon until dinner, I plugged away at cleaning up broken links, adding new to the site content, and whatever other miscellany the rabbit hole took me. Including a link to TheHusband’s 1997 Geocities site.
It is becoming increasingly clear I need to set up a plan of what work I’ve got up and how it is formatted as well as a more concrete path. I came across a folder today I had forgotten about, while cleaning the broken links, containing works written for the web but were not blog pieces but more prose and flash fiction. I ended up scrapping a few of these that were already up as blog entries, turning them into pages to make the work consistent, and viola! A new section, Ephemera was born. Stylized as the prose companion to The Lisa Chronicles, this contains pieces that were written as mainly non-fiction creative prose rather than a diary entry as well as some earlier flash fiction I had written for contests and the like. Most of this stuff hasn’t been up for a decade, and a list of the works added will be on this weeks Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes, so please do keep your eye there.
Dinner rolled around, which was delicious as almost always (the one incident of TheHusband adding corn to chili has kept me on guard on his cooking for the last few years), and by 6PM, I was back to finagling some more back-end work on the site and mulling over other ideas.
I did have plans on doing some fiction writing today, but I got so wrapped up on getting the site back-end cleaned,  but time just slipped by.  And for once I do not feel guilty about losing that time, for finding that trove of written work I had forgotten about was a brilliant replacement. Now the question is – what to do with it?
The day meandered slow and steady, there was no rush, no plan, no agenda. TheHusband and I, and of course the hate-pooping dog, just went our own ways, meeting up in the hallway or in one of our offices for stolen kisses. Neither of us bathed, brushed our teeth, and the bed was only made because I changed the sheets. My desire to treasure the day, even if the day glossed over with the seemingly mundane and the wink of a cliché, was a success.
x0x0,
Lisa
 

This day in Lisa-Universe in: 2010, 2003, 2003

Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes: October 19, 2013

Johann Georg Hainz's Cabinet of Curiosities, circa 1666. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Johann Georg Hainz’s Cabinet of Curiosities, circa 1666. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

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,

Writing

The Lisa Chronicles

Watching

  • Vicious
    An ITV series starring Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi as a gay couple who have been together for nearly 50 years and enjoy a love/hate relationship with each other. A short series, only six episodes and each episode 30 minutes long, I knocked this out in no time. Campy? Yes. Predictable? Yes. But the banter between McKellen and Jacobi is glorious. Thrilled to find out this has been renewed for a second season planned for 2014.

Weekly watching: Atlantis, Homeland, Masters of Sex, Elementary, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Sleepy Hollow, Survivor, Downton Abbey, Boardwalk Empire, Doc Martin, QI, Peaky Blinders, Project Runway, The Newsroom, Sons of Anarchy,  The Vampire Diaries

Links

x0x0,
lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe in: 2003, 2003