July 2015 – A Most Unreliable Narrator

I need to be in the town where they know what I’m like and don’t mind

Dear Internet,
It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve done a serious update, thus it’s time to keep everyone abreast of what’s happening in my little world.

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First up, I’m moving. Again.
I’ve been holed up in Kentucky these last six weeks, staying with TEH, as I’ve run out of day to day living money.The GR apartment was pre-paid for a year and I received my refund for the remaining six months, but that would only cover monthly expenses sans rent/food so it was time to go. The plans is I would be responsible for paying my bills and TEH would cover food/housing/gas. (We have the weirdest divorce, ever.) One of the conditions of me living here was keeping up daily chores and job hunting, which I’ve been doing with aplomb.
TEH decided to head up to the cabin for a month or so, starting in the first week of August, in which I would fly to CT to stay with TheBassist as I could not take a break from job hunting. Then TEH decided he was going to go up later than planned after which my open return ticket had been purchased. Since we’re now looking at me being out in CT for roughly two months now, I decided to cancel and swap the ticket over to TheBassist, whose flying out here on Sunday with planning on driving to CT that day.
Follow that? Okay good.
Right now my packing is skilled enough that it’s frightening. If you ever need help to pack for a trip or a house, I’m your girl.

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Speaking of jobs, as of July 30th I am up to 113 applications from everything to librarianing to content curation and (now) retail (bookstores). I’m also heavily looking for positions as a tech/copywriting/content. No stone unturned and etc.
My interview rate is about one in ten, which is above average. I often get second interviews and then! Rejection. One place rescind an offer 24 hours later after extending said offer exclaiming I did not “show enough interest in the job” though I drove an hour one way for a 30 minute interview. So yep, totally not interested. I was shopping for apartments in Lexington, KY when they called to rescind the offer. Was it because of the case?
Probably.

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Speaking of writing, I sold my first writing piece to a web ‘zine and I’m super excited about it (natch). I cannot publish the piece here nor do I know when it’s going to be published, but I can tell you the title is, “How I Divorced My Mother in Three Easy Steps.” It is non-fiction and clocks in at about 1800 words before editing. My beta-readers said, “It’s impossibly dark.”, so that should give you an idea of the atmosphere of the content. As always, I keep it real.
In other writing news, I’m doing reviews for No Flying No Tights, mainly in adult graphic novels. I assumed I had spread the word for this but apparently not! This is not a paid gig, but it will help with my bibliography (or clips) page. I’m super excited about this possibility.

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Flipping back to the job thread, I am using Udemy.com to build my own education, concentrating on front end web development, content, and SEO to extend my skills. TEH and I purchased bundles from them over the years as well as taking advantage of free classes is allowing me to do this on the cheap. I know, I know. I KNOW. I was on the defense war path that coding was not the only technical thing and yet, here we are! I do apologize deeply to those who got tired of that schtick. It’s pretty clear a lot of jobs require some if not all of these for the typical unicorn they are trying to catch, so why not?

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Mentally, things have been more or less okay. Last week was awful with the mania where I was hopping off the walls while crying for entire days. The only recourse, at the time, was to drug up on Klonopin and sleep with Ted E. Bear.
Things came to a head when TEH and TheBassist both insisted I up my Lamictal to the last dosage as approved by doctor in Grand Rapids and take myself to the free clinic to talk to someone.
The free clinic in Louisville is designed mainly for the homeless and those on their last hopes. As a walk-in, I was told they could see me when first available slot came open. Four hours later I requested more info to discover the therapists were all at lunch and they closed at 3:30. Would I liked ot make an appointment? Sure, why not. Okay, we can fit you in two weeks. Two weeks? Yes. What if I came back tomorrow? You’ll have to start the waiting process all over again.
(…)
I called six places in Louisville and every single one was booked out for weeks and months. If I was suicidal, which I wasn’t but I was in crisis, I could check myself in at the local emergency room who could throw me in a locked ward for 48-72 hours. THEN I could get help.
(I don’t know if I told you all this but I was stuck on the east coast during a massive blizzard back in January with an appointment with a medicating therapist in GR the following day. I called and canceled and explained why, they said they couldn’t fit me for another five months. This is an emergency I insisted. Doesn’t matter they said. When I finally say said medicating therapist and told her about the run up, she said they had policies in place and times open for just things. It should not have taken me five months to see her.)
Thankfully I had an appointment set in CT JUST IN CASE if I happened to come back that same time, so I’ll be okay in CT. I’m also set up in CT with a local bipolar support group.
I’ve, and others, have said over and over again the state of mental health wouldn’t be this tenuous unless the pain was physical and obvious. It’s frustrating, anxiety inducing, and pointless. But that is a rant for another day.

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That’s pretty much it for me at this time and juncture. Sunday is the 12 hour drive day so it might be a few days before I post here again. Happy weekend everyone.

xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2014, 2014, 2012, 2012, 2008

55 Minuts Til X-Files (2015 version)

Dear Internet,
In 1997 I was living with a dominatrix in a dump of a house in El Cerrito, California; a ‘burb of San Francisco. With barely any income, I survived by the generous help of others, my wits, and eating one meal a day.
Every Sunday night my roommates and I, plus circular friends, would get together for pizza and X-Files. This was our ritual, without fail, every Sunday for nearly a year. Even when I moved out with one of my roommates to a house in Oakland, we kept the ritual going. But after awhile, as all things seem to wont to do, X-Files and I parted ways. I was still somewhat of a rabid fan but the magic, and the lure of pizza, were almost gone. Pizza was now saved for video game binges and other special occasions.
I’m excited about the upcoming reboot but also a bit sad as I remember the supposed very last X-Files movie in 2008 where they made it pretty fucking clear that they have tied up all the loose ends, thus no more X-Files. The last shot was of Mulder and Scully in a raft, waving good-bye to the camera.
I was reminded by TheExHusband recently, when the news broke the X-Files were not only coming back but most of the original case (including The Lone Gunmen) would also in attendance, about a piece I wrote one evening before that week’s episode was on.
Here is that piece I wrote 18 years ago (!) about that one particular benign Sunday night, starring a rotating cast of characters in my life, before the night’s episode appeared. I’ve cleaned up the piece for grammar and spell checking but for the most part, it’s as it was when it was published all those years ago.

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55 Minuts Til X-Files
The pizza has been ordered.
The seats have been staked out.
Simpsons are on and I am killing time.
My stomach still is grumbling from all the coffee I have had today. Maybe it is still regurgitating from the Taco Hell from last night. I have no idea why in the hell I am going to eat pizza. I should eat I suppose, but, for some reason food hasn’t seemed appealing in the last few weeks. Everyone is telling me how good I look. My mens pajama bottoms keep falling down, showing off my cute little underwear from Victoria’s Secret.
I laugh.

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Every Sunday, at my house, is brunch day. My housemates and their friends all come over and my job, being miz coffee person, is to make coffee. I can cook, but I tell them I can’t. I just make coffee and swap stories with everyone.
Today I attempted to make bacon.
I burned it to a crisp.
I resolved just setting the table and making coffee.
Rob looks over at me and says “Lisa, I didn’t know you were so domestic.”
“Rob,” I say, “Tell anyone and you will die slowly.”
He laughed.
Brunch has become a tradition here. Every Sunday my two roommates and I prepare from having anywhere from 5-10 people show up. We all crowd around our tiny kitchen table and actually eat a home cooked meal. Eggs, bacon, steak, toast, fresh brewed coffee from yours truly. It sure beats all the frozen and fast food we eat on a daily basis.
A few hours later, we all grab movies and watch the afternoon away. Sleaze tests, teasing, arguments, and scalp massages are all part of the routine. Today, due to one of the guests having their kids with them, the movie selection was trimmed down. We all wanted to see Toy Story which I had on tape. Problem was, so were two other movies. Also on one of my tapes was a video declaration from Danny. Only problem was, I couldn’t remember which tape it was on. I called Danny and left a message. He called me back and told me what tape it was on. Grateful it wasn’t on the one we were planning to watch, I told him I would talk to him later and hung up. He called a few minutes later and said “When you have a few minutes, tape after The Lion King. I don’t want you to see what I said.” Slightly amused, I said okay and hung up.
We ended up watching Trainspotting instead.

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This is what has been most amusing to me. Danny and I dated on and off for nearly year and a half. We lived together. We were together when my grandfather died and when everything else came tumbling down around me. But for some reason, I can’t conjure up anything but memories of him, and even those, are blanking out. I can’t say I even loved him. I used to think so, but, I can see I never really did. And my “coldness” for him, so apparent, when, not so long ago, when I had resolved that I would never treat him like I had, is something I can’t help.
The person Danny is, is no way related to who I am. It never was. My assertiveness, my aggressiveness, my lust for life, never matched his. He would have been happy living in Grand Rapids for the rest of his life, while I wanted to see the world. If my plans of marrying him, would have been carried out, I would have either cheated on him OR committed suicide within a year. How stifling that was. How limiting. He said, “You’re so special. You have no idea how special you are.” I laughed. I knew how special I was. I did’t need anyone to validate it. I have no remorse for being cold to him, then and now. I used to, but guilt, for being who you are, trying to fix something that isn’t really there, is not me. I no longer think about it. He asked me once, a few weeks ago, how would I feel if he moved and didn’t tell me.
I didn’t answer. I simply didn’t care.

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35 minutes till X-Files

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Yesterday, my friend Michael took his wife Beth and I down to the Lick Observatory in San Jose and to the Rosicrucian Temple as well. For over 20 miles we traveled up Mt. Hamilton, talking about various and sundry things, while I looked out the back window and dreamed. How beautiful the area was. How so, un-plastic it seemed from everywhere else I have been in California. It looked so New Englandish, with the leaves changing colors and the air crisp and strong. I wandered around the observatory and wished it wasn’t so foggy.
But I could still see into forever.

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At the Rosicrucian Temple, I felt so at home. My love for the Templars gave me appreciation for this. Michael and I sat in a little area that had a fountain spilling water into a pool. We talked about various and sundry things. The changes in my life. My flying out to Pennsylvania to see Jeff. Michael’s marriage with Beth. My writing. Michael’s music. I opened up my backpack and took out my wallet. I dug out a penny and pitched it in, and made a wish. Not to be outdone, Michael pitched in a quarter. Not to be outdone, I dumped all my change out (about $5 dollars worth) and pitched it in with glee. I laughed out loud and spun around.
Michael and I walked around the Temple, wishing we could get into the Egyptian Museum, but sadly it was closed. As we stroked the papyrus (Direct from Egypt!) plant (“Looks phallic,” I said) we walked past the fountain again. I stopped short, and ripped off both rings given to me by two different lovers, Michael (a different Michael) and Danny. I tossed them into the water with nary a thought and kept on walking. I suddenly felt more free than ever before. I didn’t feel binded to anything. I didn’t feel as though I was making the past complete. I did not have to apologize to anyone. I didn’t have to make excuses for what I did. I could rid of it all.
I had told Jeff that, today, I was going to do the symbolic thing and burn EVERYTHING ever given to me by an ex-lover. Letters, clothing, stuffed animals, books, video tapes. Thinking of the hug bonfire this could produced, I have resolved just to do letters and stuffed animals. Now it grows late in the day.
X-files will be on in 17 minutes.
After that, I will be watching Leaving Las Vegas.
Hopefully tonight, under the moon, I will dance my ass off and burn it all baby. Just burn it all. What I wanted to do last New Year’s Eve…
Someone just knocked on the door.
Pizza Hut is here.
Time to go.
Till next time.

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xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2012, 2012, 2003, 2000

Collection of Cunning Curiosities – July 18, 2015

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

A weekly compendium of things that delight my fancy.

Dear Internet, You can follow all mentioned items here and past on the Pinterest board. x0x0, lisa

Reading

♥ I’ve been plowing through my book list these last few weeks. I finished Goddess of Buttercups & Daisies, which was a fun read and The Devil’s Detective, which posits that terrible murders are happening in hell and Satan hires a detective to find out why. Yes, murders in hell, but go with it as the horror/mystery novel is able to pull it off quite well.
This last week I started research on a sekret project that involves learning as much as humanly possible about SEO, however, the current titles that are regarded are so terrible, I’m embarrassed to list them here. You can check out the list on Pinterest.
To wash out the bad books, I picked up Jane Goes Batty which is the second in a series that presents the idea: What if Jane Austen never died, but became a vampire (turned by Lord Byron no less) and was living in contemporary America, owning a bookshop? I know, AGAIN, another book where the summary sounds implausible but the series is quite fun and a quick read.

Fanciful Delights

♥ Did you know the word “awesome” has been in use since the late 16th century? Neither did I. The word usage in the 16th century was more along the lines of, “made you shiver in terror” rather than our current usage to mean, “things that fill you with awe.” This is why English language and it’s constant growth is awesome. (See what I did there?)
♥ Digital Manuscripts Library at the British Library recently wrote an article about one of the oldest papyrus’ found, which they nicknamed “Exit, Pursued by a Bear.” Regular readers of this journal may remember this journal is named after a scene from Shakespear’s The Winter’s Tale, It seems natural enough, then, that the article on the oldest known papyrus nicknamed the same would delight my fancy.
♥ To the delight of some, and annoyance to others, I refer to American soccer as football. But I have always wondered why we call it soccer when the rest of the world calls it football. Well wonder no more my friends, dictionary.com has the answer.
♥Having been a user of the Internet for a solid 20 years (!), I’ve always wondered what it look like mapped. The Optae Project answers that very question. “Since the Internet is basically a vast constellation of networks that somehow interconnect to provide the relatively seamless communication of data, it seemed logical one could draw lines from one point to another. The visualization is a collection of programs that collectively output an image of every relationship of every network on the Internet.” (Click on the image on the right to get a large image and other images created by this project.)
♥ I did not get into Joy Division until I was in my late ’20s or early ’30s, which is surprising since I was a huge New Order fan in high school. No matter, Joy Division remain one of my top five bands for the last decade and that more than likely will not change. What’s interesting about this revelation is the band released only two full albums and the lead singer, Ian Curtis, committed suicide 35 years ago. Despite their small catalog, JoyDiv remains one of the most influential bands of the late 20th century. This even though the remaining members went on form New Order and other multi-album bands, and yet, yet, JoyDiv tops them all. Recently, The Guardian wrote up a piece on the 10 best Joy Division tracks, which prompted me to add them to to this weeks list. Below is the video for She’s Lost Control, one of my favorite Joy Division tracks, natch. Or you can open up Spotify to listen to their tracks.

This day in Lisa-Universe in: 2014, 2012, 2011, 2003, 1999, 1998

coloring for adults

Dear Internet,
Recently I’ve taken up the hobby of coloring. TEH teases me if I would like apple sauce and juice for a snack. Hah. (I should also mention I’ve taken to sleeping with my teddy bear every night; apparently I’m regressing into childhood.) No matter! I’m finding coloring not only relaxing but also cheap. By printing off a few sheets from the Internet and using my already existing pencils, I can spend hours in front of the TV coloring. And! iIt’s also fun and has a low barrier for entry.
Here are some tips:
♥Finding and printing from the Internet is easy. (I’ve started a board on Pinterest to keep track of the ones I like. I can add people if they are interested in contributing.)
♥Make sure when printing you do not print them as a PDF but as an image (easier to control how it is printed). Also, make you have selected “fit one page” (or variant) so there is no cut off in the design. To showcase my work, I print at 600dpi and save as a PNG to prevent compression. I resize in Photoshop and adjust the color since some brightness is lost.
♥I use Derwent Watercolor Pencils, which I had laying around. As I only have a 12 pack and some random pencils from another set which duplicate some of my Derwents, my palate is quite small. I recently obtained the Ohuhu® 48-color set but you are not obligated to use water color pencils or even pencils. You can use paints, markers, crayons, whatever. What makes this hobby so great is that you have most of the tools already at home.
♥I found I really like coloring in manadals and any design that is balanced. So I got a coloring book, Balance (Angie’s Extreme Stress Menders Volume 1), which will give me sharp and crisp outlines.
Crowd sourced tips:
♥Get an electrical sharpener.
♥Get a clipboard.
Below are three of my pièce de résistances:

xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2014, 2002, 2002

montage part ii (2013)

Dear Internet,
Below is bits and pieces of entries I wrote and never posted for some reason. They are posted out of context because in some cases, up to years later, I don’t recall my train of thought that started or was to end them. Enjoy them, fragmented thoughts and all.

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localized resource files for this application could not be loaded
Our hot plans this weekend were to separate the whole house cleaning over the course of the weekend as well as do some other much needed errands that cannot get done for whatever reason during the week.
Instead of even loosely following that intention, we spent most of the afternoon doing tech support on my various equipment. To wit, my primary device, my Macbook Air, is seemingly falling apart after less than two years of life. What makes this sting harder is earlier this year, a month after my warranty had expired, my logic board died. Two choices: Pay $300 to ship it to the Apple Depot where they fix all the broken things for one price or buy a new Mac. We went with the Depot option since that was the obviously the cheaper route.
My secondary device has been TheHusband’s old Macbook Pro, which I’ve turned into a desktop ages ago. While it is going on six years it, it’s still functioning like a champ except for two things: It’s slow and the battery doesn’t work so I have to always keep it plugged in (hence why it’s been the desktop). Despite the improvements TheHusband has made to our wireless network since we’ve lived here, my office remains a strange black hole zone of creativity for all of my devices (including phone and iPad). Since the Macbook Pro was going to give up the ghost at one point, I decided that I would prep it to sell to Gazelle or Amazon Trade-In…

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The minging of the red leather jacket
The feeling of almost overwhelming confidence. Bad ass and dangerous to know.
Association with the past and the properties associated with it (smell, feel, visual, and other associations).

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invoking the 17 names of kale
On our way home from the cabin this weekend, we stopped to grab a few groceries before finally settling in for the weekend. I ran into a girlfriend I had once ran into before at another grocery store over a year ago and whose name I could never remember.

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Eat, Pray, and Pomme Frites
In the last year or so, in conversations with friends who seemingly are also going through a crisis of identity, the one constant that seems to be threaded through all of these conversations is spirituality. Not necessarily a lack of, but that somehow spirituality plays a role, no matter how minute, in what they are currently feeling.
There are those that identify with a particular faith and use that faith as guiding post to get them out of their funk or there are those who have a facade of faith because they feel that outing out their true feelings would be disastrous to their community (family, friends) and there are those who are wandering around from faith to faith looking for one to fit their spiritual needs. There are those who just don’t know what the bloody hell they are looking for. I’m in the last category.
What is remarkable about these conversations is that what is revealed is revealed one on one. There is no publicity or declaration of faith (or lack of faith for the faithless). Some who follow what is considered to be alternative religions have said they stopped talking about their faith systems publicly because they were tired of being insulted and ridiculed, others don’t want their families or friends to know and yet others feel that their private life is just indeed that: private.\n\nI was raised Catholic, went to Catholic school and even graduated from a Catholic college for my undergrad. But I have not prescribed to the faith since I was an early teenager and I’ve rejected most of Judeo-Christianity faith systems since I was a teen. I would not go so far as to call myself an atheist, for I do believe that there is “something” bigger than us for it seems absurd to accept we are all there is in the universe. While I don’t go chasing UFOs, it doesn’t seem that ridiculous to believe that there are other worlds out there that exist.

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Of Courtly Love and Bawdiness

King Arthur In Combat, By Robert De Barron (14th Century)

Faithful defender as you are of those dependent on you, accept under your patronage this book which is published for your pleasure. Accept me, too, as your writer, so that, reclining in the shade of a tree which spreads so wide, and sheltered from envious and malicious enemies, I may be able in peaceful harmony to make music on the reed-pipe of a muse who really belongs to you.
– Geoffrey of Monmouth, The History of the Kings of Britain (1136 CE).

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Heritage under a Tartan
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/may/20/the-return-of-scots

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In which we buy a cabin and the renovations begin
The plan for the summer was pretty easy: First, get TheHusband his summer beater so that he would have transportation while living in the cabin all summer during the renovation. Once we were up at the cabin, then we’d start on the work.

Rip up and replace the flooring on the main level and the loft
Replace the blinds
Replace the deck screen door
Replace the front and back doors and screens
Retile the foyer
Gut and redo the kitchen
Replace the appliances from 1972
Furnish the place
Gut and re-do the loft bathroom

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That ye mow taken heede, And ben expert of this..This dicipline, and this crafty science
When you find out you have a THING, suddenly you become an expert. Item, topic, diagnosis, interest, hobby, whatever. Doesn’t matter. Take up skeet shooting?¹ You’ve now also the gun club’s in trap shooting and sporting clays. Find out you have a malady of some sort? Doesn’t matter WHAT the malady IS, you’re the now the foremost expert even if you’ve never heard of the condition until 5 seconds ago and the doctor giving you the diagnosis has written books on the topic.
The THING is happening to you…

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For the wont of great lips

Chantecaille Luminous Gloss in Lychee
- Part of a BirchBox shipment, I was intrigued with the color but found against my skin the sample didn’t work with me. The gloss isn’t sticky, but the single time it was worn it did not last up to six hours as claimed. With a $34.00 price tag, I expect gloss to be a lot more than what this promises. The sample certainly wasn’t special enough for me to consider looking into this product some more.
Maybelline SuperStay14 in Ravishing Rouge (065)
- Great color, but does not last 14 hours. Does not last 1/2 a hour. After conditioning my lips (sloughing off dead skin), I used a lip brush to line with the color and then filled in using the tube. Color looked great but was not moisturizing as claimed, so I added a layer of clear, light gloss to go over. My coffee cup looks like it was part of a blood bath and within 1/2 a hour, the color was almost completely gone.
Revlon ColorStay Ultimate Suede in Trendsetter (085)
- A brilliant idea similar to the Sephora Ultra Vinyl Lip Pencil, the product is sold as food proof, will last all day, while it is moisturizing with matte color. The application I found to be a bit imprecise and the color, Trendsetter, which starts out as a great red ends up as hot pink after I was finished with my coffee. This definitely did not last all day, it barely lasted a cup of coffee. Because of the formula, after the initial color had worn off, I was stuck with nearly hot pink lips all day until I could use oil based makeup to take the remaining stain off.
Sephora Glossy Gloss Galore in Femme Fatal Red (7) and Glossy Gloss in Night Out (19)
- I really, really wanted to like these since I tend to like Sephora’s eponymous products, but I could not get over the stickiness of the gloss and how thick it felt against my lips. Even with a thin application, I ofen found I was having to rub off a lot more than I was putting on. Even doing normal activities, like talking, rubbed the glosses off fairly quickly. They are fine if you just want to sit there, with your mouth closed, and maybe even some slight breathing.
Sephora Ultra Vinyl Lip Pencil in Fancy Red (2)
- Another product by Sephora I really wanted to like, and now discontinued, the idea behind these pencils was to give you the control and matte of a lip pencil, the moisturizing of a lipstick, with a titch of shine like a gloss. Except that didn’t quite happen. If you’re lips were not ultra conditioned before you applied this product, your lips started chafing dried bits of pencil color off during the course of the day. And course, even with the promise of gloss built in, I had to apply gloss after immediate application to get the gloss shine and keep reapplying through the day. The pencil was also prone to feathering, which drove me insane.

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xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2014, 2002, 2002

Collection of Cunning Curiosities – July 11, 2015

A weekly compendium of things that delight my fancy.

Dear Internet, You can follow this collection on Pinterest. x0x0, lisa

Fanciful Delights

♥I stalk Benedict Cumberbatch, not because he’s good looking (he is) or tall (also true), as his range as an actor is as wide as his name. I recently found that he did a short back in 2010, Vincent Van Gogh: Painted With Words, where he plays the titular character in this docu-drama. As Van Gogh is one of my favorite painters, crazies do have to stick together, along with Cumberbatch, this film is brilliant juxtaposition of several of my favorite things. (P.S. During undergrad my French class did a sojourn to Spain/France for a few weeks and we stopped in Arles. I’ve hung out in the courtyard shown in the beginning of the film.)
https://vimeo.com/109538758
♥Michael Fassbender as Macbeth? SOLD.

♥I love the social history of medieval period, especially when things pop up that seem to be counterintuitive to what we think that period was like. Example? Drinking songs.

In the boozer
you’re a loser
if the dice you’re shaking.
You’ll get hurt
and lose your shirt,
sit there cold and quaking.
Lady Luck, your gifts are bad,
you trick us, then you make us mad,
make us gamble, make us fight,
and sit out in the cold all night.

This day in Lisa-Universe in: 2014, 2011, 2003

Top 5 of Everything

Dear Internet,
As I formulate my perseverance, I’m opting to take some online classes to keep my skills flush in a variety of fields. As I have an interest in SEO (search engine optimization) from my days in library school when we were mapping data sets and taxonomies, this seems like a good place as any to start. If you’re interested, Udemy offers a couple of free courses (Moz.com’s SEO Training Course and Advance SEO: Tactics and Strategy) that I found useful and I’m going to apply some of the strategies here on EPbaB to see how they work.
I’ve been curious as to how people find me other than direct links from across social media. Now that Google (at least) shields keywords if you’re logged in, the data I have is actually very little. I use three different analytics software on the site (Google Analytics, WordPress JetPack Stats, and StatCounter), while there is some variation of what is coming up, it’s been pretty agreeable across the board.
And oh! A couple of things about searching: If you’re logged into Google (which, it seems, 90% of us are), your searches are influenced by what you searched with before. If you search for “lisa rabey” (quotes or othewise), Google’s results will change depending how you searched for that thing (or related thing) in the past. Additionally, if you’re logged into Google when you search, and land on my page by using keywords, I won’t see those keywords in my stats. Those will be shielded. Also! If you use a URL blocker, like donotlink.com, I also won’t see that reference.
Hence why what I’m getting back in data is tiny. So there.
Lastly, if you want untainted results, use any browsers incognito mode an search, not logged in, for that item. In incognito mode, your history is not tracked or kept thus it sill be a fresh search each time. I would teach this trick to my info lit students by having them log into Google, pop open an incognito window, then search for the same thing in both windows. Sometimes the results will only vary a bit and others, a lot.
As a mini-project, I’m going to put together top five keywords and top five pages and see how they stack against the other.
Top 5 Keywords

Exit Pursued By A Bear (no comma)
Lisa Rabey
live sexual harassment
queen pussy
Saint Lisa

Top 5 Pages

Home page
Apology for team harpy (now pulled)
ALA code of conduct
Live action Sexual Harassment
Hello

Analysis
Exit Pursued by a Bear (no comma) matches with the top page. This is blatantly obvious as keyword will drop you my landing page. Tada! The name refers to a stage direction from Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, which came out of nowhere in the play. It’s also the name of an acting group, a band, a TV trop, and a play in addition to my website. Other variations of the keyword popping up includes the same phrase with the comma, “exit pursued bear,” “pursued by a bear,” and “exitpursuedbyabear.” (Quotes not withstanding.)
Lisa Rabey searches are ubiquitous to me though I have it on good authority there are two more of us (possibly three) in the world. Quotes or no quotes, you will find at least one of my three sites (this one, lisa.rabey.net (librarian professional) and lisarabey.com (writing professional)) will come up in the top five results. This accounts for traffic being driven to my landing page AND to my about page.
Live sexual harassment search is interesting to me because, who the hell is searching for those keywords? Actually, it could be from any numerous contributors such as people looking for data stats. This search links to Live action Sexual Harassment, which is a write up I did right after I was sexually harassed at a conference where I was on a panel talking about it, you guessed it, sexual harassment in the workplace. Oh, the irony.
Queen pussy is also interesting one to me as it is in the top 5 keyword search and I’m wondering what people are searching for exactly. Like Pussy, Queen of the Pirates maybe? I am not sure but what it does is bring the entry, Queen of the Pussy Posse. QofPP is an entry I wrote after I published widely a piece on ALA’s Code of Conduct. Someone thought the name thrown at me would be derogatory. The answer is — nope. So while this is a top five keyword, the page does not show up as a top five page, which is intriguing.
Saint Lisa makes me giggle because there is no saint lisa, st. or otherwise. All the variations land you to an old entry from 12 years ago, St. Lisa: Patron saint of tattoos, piercings, fags and married men, in which I discourse on my friends from theology class, Matt and AQPaul. What becomes amusing about these keywords is that the page is number 25 on the list of top pages for my site and is the only set of keywords that do not align to the corresponding top 5 pages.
Other things that I know are: Pages with lists or how-tos do really well on my site. The more I write, regardless of content, generates more page views than when I take breaks (this one is seemingly pretty obvious). I get a lot of private comments on the personal stuff and public comments on the how-tos and lists.
There is a lot more to SEO than what I’ve laid out here and will discourse more at another time.
xoxo,
Lisa
P.S. Don’t want near daily emails or can’t make it here everyday but want to keep up with what’s going in my world? Subscribe to A Most Unreliable Narrator, a monthly-ish newsletter roundup of what’s happening. Bonus! Comes with GIFs!

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2009, 2000, 1999

montage part i (2014)

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Goodbye Grand Rapids (Again)
Grand Rapids, had, in many ways been good to me. It is here I had my first kiss (Nick Hill). It is here that I learned how to drive; how to roll a joint; and went about discovering myself. It is here that I owned my first home, lived with a husband, and received my first degree.
TheBassist has been in town for the last week to help me prep for Natalie’s wedding and help me pack up my little apartment to move to parts south. The week has been insanely busy, with most days us out and about for 10-12 hours at a stretch. It was nice having a look through this city through his eyes as with them, I developed a crush on Grand Rapids that had long been missing.
There is a lot to be said for this city and its’ stories, but I am not one of the narrators.
I always felt this city was no place for me. I still feel that way. I will always be a wanderer of the parts unknown. Not as glamorous as Karen, who knocks off continents when most people count counties, but wandering all the same. I thought for sure ThePlan would for sure guide me in the right direction

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When Things Fall Apart
As I sat on my nominally comfortable couch this morning at my shrink’s, telling him of the last events in my life up until that moment, he kept commenting on my apparent calmness. Here I was, sitting there drinking my mint mocha latte with soy and feeling, well, pretty calm. Caffeine was not jacking me up and while I was looking a bit disheveled (I woke up late and didn’t have time for a shower), all in all, I felt fairly at peace with the world.
If you look over the events of my life in the past year, this seemed very odd indeed. I was embroiled in a lawsuit, divorced my husband, and crisscrossed the US too many times to count. I am living in a small apartment, my savings dwindling faster than a dog’s winter coat, wondering what the next step is.
Irons are in the fire, as they are wont to be, but…

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that which I fear

I’ve been thinking about fears and my peccadilloes…

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Top 5 Breakups

Justin (TheExHusband), part i and ii
Thom (TheBassist) part i, part ii
Miguel
Jon (TheEx)
Chuck

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heinrich maneuver

It’s December 1. How is the year almost over?
In November, Grand Rapids received 31″ of snow which is half the amount the city I’m currently in received all of last year. I laugh because TheBassist offered to shovel my car out when the snow hits and I thumped my chest declaring where I was from. Puny humans and their weak snow showers are no match for me!
It’s been a solid week since I’ve been on the drugs and so far I’m starting to see some relief insofar my moods are stabilizing and I’m not yo-yoing everywhere. However, mania has ramped up a titch but I’ve been trying to channel it into good (like sorting out holiday shopping and cards) and getting some writing work done. I will have to ditch caffeine again because of the drug changes, which is fine. I happen to like decaf coffee just fine, though the sweet, sweet nectar that is Coke will be hardest to kick.
The combo of Abilify/Lamictal I’m currently on could take 5-8 weeks to stabilize, though some friends have said they felt pangs of relief in the first week or two. Since my drug metabolism tends to be faster, which is part of my fucking problem mediating the bipolar, I could see results much sooner. The household I’m in is well versed in variety of mental disorders, including bipolar, so I am at least safe hands while I go through this drug regime again.
We, TheSoonToBeExHusband and I, will have some relief of stressors soon as the house closes in the next few weeks and the divorce finalizes in the next few months. I’m still in a holding pattern for…

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Love Actually Is All Around

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAD2_MVMUlE
That’s it. Nothing else matters.
But when you’ve been looking your entire life for this thing and when you’ve been running your entire life from the things that hurt you, you get bogged down on the tangibles rather than the intangible. You put a price on love because western society dictates that love is not the sum of the human heart or what the body can give, but what can be provided as proof of love.

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Enter Title Here

In the fall of 2013, N3wsbank emailed the public services librarian at MPOW with a complaint about me. It seems I had said something disparaging about N3wsbank on Twitter and what was MPOW going to do about it? The public services librarian, who was contacted because she was listed as the contact for N3wsbank, immediately fired an email of apology for my behavior and then notified my director of the supposed transgression.

Several days after that occurred, I received a cryptic email from my director about my participation on social media and would I like to meet with her? Via email, I asked her to clarify what she meant so I could prepare for the meeting. She refused. She implored to meet with her immediately in her office.
During the meeting, I was told of the above scenario. I asked for a copy of N3wsbank’s email (which six months later I never received) and a copy of the offending tweet. N3wsbank apparently never followed up with the offending tweet nor was there any, to my knowledge, return phone calls from N3wsbank’s VP of Sales (who apparently also called my director as well as emailed the public services librarian) about my alleged digression.

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Welcome to Pontyberry, Boyle, and/or Portwenn

Port Isaac, Cornwall, the setting for Portwenn. Via Wikipedia Commons

Population 1.
I watch a fair amount of television, which is a nice way of saying I watch an absolute disgusting amount of it.

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Le mie passioni, parte 4: BBC History
(Le Mie passioni, Italian translation of “my passions,” is a an occasional series of things I really, really love.)

Hist_171_Cover_web Dear Internet,

A couple of years ago, I started a project, entitled Le Mie Passioni, occasionally documenting all of the things that I really and truly love. Italian for “my passions,” it was to kind of give insight of things I’m digging on a grand scale instead of flavor of the week.

While I was still working at $corporate_bookstore a couple of years ago, one of my coworkers, Mr. Troy, made the recommendation to me of his favorite magazines and books right before I left the employ of the store to finish my

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xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 1999

woo

Dear Internet,
One of the things I’ve been thinking about for the last few years is the probability of woo – that is, magic and the divine. This is not a topic I speak openly on because, like politics, it comes with its own set of derision and trolling. There is also the idea, to me, woo is a very private thing. Part of my world holds many secrets, not all of which are shared. (Yes, I do understand apparent conflict of interest here.)
So what, exactly, is woo? The best definition I can give is the search for the divine or spirituality, in that it enhances your everyday life rather than constrict it. So whether you worship a deity, plants, or yourself, it’s all woo. But what really makes woo “woo” is all of these incarnations contain, at their core, magic. Whether it is rituals, prayers, practice, or straight up spell making, it’s all about the magic.
Some example of woo-ers are friends who are Druids who believe in faerie folk but not ghosts; die hard atheists who are ghost hunters; honest to goodness God believers who love their church; witches of all varieties; purveyors of reiki and yoga, and everything in between.
The big reason I started researching what makes me “woo” is how we tend to live our lives on a daily basis. Below is a quote cobbled together from various sources by Allie over at Wardrobe Oxygen and is attributed to Brené Brown that encapsulates my thoughts perfectly.

We all get so many emails in our inbox on ‘how to…’ However ‘how to’ does not work – if it did, none of us would be struggling, we would not be the most obese, in debt, addicted society in human history. We frequently look for ‘quick fixes,’ ‘instant solutions,’ and helpful tips in the areas we struggle most in our attempt to ‘fix’ the areas that cause us pain. If ‘how to’ worked, none of us would struggle with feelings we’re ‘enough.’ We live in a culture where if we are not doing huge, extraordinary things, we are ‘not enough.’ All of the social media are based on the shame-based fear of being ordinary. We are hyper-aware of lack. The first thing we do in the morning is to say to ourselves, ‘I didn’t sleep enough’ and the last thing before bed is, ‘I didn’t get enough done.’Brené Brown

The other big thing I’ve learned in the last year is I don’t need much to make me happy. I’ve culled down my physical goods to at least a third of what I left with back in the late fall; getting rid of everything I not only didn’t want but also didn’t miss. Living out of suitcases will force some perspective on you, especially when you have no idea where you’re going to be next (and yeah, it sounds way sexier than it actually is).
The last year also taught me about personal growth. Even at my most manic, I wanted to strip myself down to the rawest person I could be and build myself up again. That, I reasoned (and still believe) was the best way to begin anew. We change with time, but change is often gradual and here I have brute force change happening from all directions. I have to roll with it NOW or deal with the fall out later. The former seemed like a much better idea than the later.
Angry Lisa has got to go, petty Lisa has got to move on, and any other toxic versions of me also needs to move the fuck away.
I’ve been taking small steps for months on making these changes, such as extending an olive branch to those in need, removing toxic people from my life, not allowing myself to get in situations that could be mainly mentally or emotionally damaging. And attempting, really hard, to create some kind of practice of everyday woo that would include meditation, yoga, and long walks everywhere to start. Woo, and magic, is about the practice, the ritual, the particular prayer or worship which allows me to center myself, self-care myself, be a better person.
I’m still trying, I will forever always be trying, and it will forever always be hard work. Life is complicated and it’s messy, but that is what makes us human. We try, we fail spectacularly, we try again. This journal is anything, it’s an attempt to record my efforts and my failures, even if it means it is over and over again.
Thus, I’ll be writing more about woo, which I’ve started a bit ages ago, what works and doesn’t work for me. If you have some suggestions on woo-ing (books, sites, etc), let me know via social media *points to the upper right hand corner of the website*.
Lastly, be kind, be good, and love you.
xoxo,
Lisa
P.S. A few weeks back I got my usual manicure, with gel polish, and instead of my usual blacks/greys/darks, I went with hot pink. Hot, gorgeous, neon, brilliant pink. This small shake up in one of my rituals, and one that I ended up adoring, I knew then that miracles and change are possible in every way.

This week in Lisa-Universe: 2014, 2003, 2000

Read. Write. Everyday.

Dear Internet,
Rules on how to be a successful writer are as fluid as how to be a successful librarian. Everyone and their sixteen cousins has an opinion on what the “right” or “correct” way to get ahead in this tough industry. I’ve been reading blogs, books, magazines on/about writing for years and the only consistent everyone agrees upon is:

Read. Write. Everyday.

That’s the easy part. Now that’s done, you start asking harder questions such as: Where to submit? How to submit? Should I go indie or should I go traditional? How do I invoice for work? How do I do X,Y,Z? What kind of coffee should I be drinking? Should I brush my teeth today? I mean, there are a fuck ton of questions and ten times the answers.
It’s overwhelming. Confusing. Often contradictory. No wonder people give up.
I’m friends with a lot of writers: some who are traditionally published, others who are indie, and others yet who a hybrid of the two. Most write fiction, some also write in other areas such as articles for news sites, non-fiction, graphic novels, and everything in between. Some dabble in other arts or may have a job or a career in a field not related to their work. But the common thread between all of them is that like librarianship, calling yourself a “writer” really on scratches the surface. It can mean anything and everything in one go.
You write? You’re a writer. Simple. It’s great if you have a tight story and your prose is perfect, but unless you’re content to write for yourself and not have the world see your work, this is the hard shit. The difficult shit. Writing is actually the easy part, it’s the admin work that kills you.
Since I have the opportunity to quit my full time job and write fiction for a year, one thing that is important to me was transparency. Here is what I did, this is what worked and what didn’t. This is what I’ll do again, and this is where else I’ll go. All the gory, juicy, and miserable stuff that no one wants to talk about. And to make sure it is without bullshit. Because I swear to all the gods in the sky, if I stumble across one more author’s site hawking their classes and wares with borderline exploitative pricing, I am going to scream.

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It’s been nearly a year, to the day, that I wrote this and in light of what I wrote yesterday, it seemed apropos to post. And it’s a swift kick in the pants to keep my word on the transparency of the projects.
xoxo,
Lisa

This week in Lisa-Universe: 2014, 2003, 2000