Month: February 2016

Gratitudes: February 22 – 28, 2016

epbab-header-gratitude
Dear Internet,
Gratitudes and things that make me happy are a part of my carding coursework, and I track them everyday and I’ll post them here every Sunday. (And I also acknowledge this is going to take me a few weeks to go beyond “I have killer hair.”)
gratitude

  1. Learning how to properly breathe during meditation
  2. For being able to recognize the things I need to change
  3. For having known my father
  4. My car is in good shape
  5. For falling in love with books to allow me to travel all over the world
  6. My capacity to always want to fall in love with everyone and thing I meet
  7. For finding out I don’t have breast cancer
  8. The changing of the seasons to indicate that nothing remains the same
  9. For people who are kind to me even if I’m not kind to them
  10. For those who teach me about humility

happy

  1. The way my skin feels after moisturizing it
  2. Medium rare steak
  3. The magnitude of available British television
  4. Fuzzy socks
  5. That moment between getting out of the shower and grabbing a towel and the temperature is just perfect
  6. Fresh mani/pedis
  7. Movie popcorn
  8. New journals
  9. Singing
  10. Fleece tights

xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2015, 2001, 2000

Collection of Cunning Curiosities – February 27, 2016

A WEEKLY COMPENDIUM OF THINGS THAT DELIGHT MY FANCY.

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

Writing

Cunning Tales from a Systems Librarian
þ I Want To Be A XXX Librarian, Part IV – In which I discuss the hows, whats, and whens for applying for jobs.

Fanciful Delights

þ A zen approach on how to become the worlds greatest lover
þ Umberto Eco passed away this week. Here are 10 of his best quotes
þ Who marries whom – how your job impacts who you will marry. (Librarians to marry software devs to truckers?!)
þ As we know, fairytales have been around forever, but did you know science has developed a theory they date as far back as 6,000 years ago?
þ New intro and teaser for the rebooted Powerpuff Girls (yay!)
þ This is tres super cool: You can now interact with Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights and there is also an accompanying app
þ Remember the book 1000 Recordings To Hear Before You Die? Someone made a Spotify playlist of 792 of those songs
þ When I was in Amsterdam a few years back, I went to the Van Gogh Museum only to find most of it was under massive refurbishing and I missed out on a lot of Van Gogh’s works. No more! I can now peruse hundreds of Van Gogh’s work, in high resolution, online
þ If you’re interested in cryptocurrencies, Princton has released, for free, a PDF of Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies with the print version coming out this fall. The book is being used in Princeton’s Coursera class of the same name
þ Someone can now, literally, eat a bag of dicks
þ I am beginning to get the impression Cummings’ poem, [i carry your heart with me(i carry it in] is the Starry Night of love poetry, but fuck it. I love this poem and this stop motion video is gorgeous
þ FreshComfy makes gorgeous literary scarves you can wrap yourself up in
þ You can now graduate with a master’s degree in Samuel Beckett
þ A mashup of literary lovers who deserve each other
þ “Juicing is not just another fad though: it is a privileged, wasteful form of food consumption that’s worse for you than cooking and bad for the environment; juicing is the triumph of marketing over science.”
þ “...the difference between whitewashing POC characters and making previously white characters POC”
þ Iceland to build first temple to Norse gods in 1,000 years
þ Ancient genomes reveal that the English are one-third Anglo-Saxon
þ You can now download nearly 500 catalogs and art books, for free!, from the Metropolitan Museum.
þ As a Doctor Who fan, you can now have your name written in Gallifreyan

This day in Lisa-Universe in:

How To: Become a Library Future(ist) – part i

Dear Internet,
How do you become a library futurist?
Easy. You let others do the research for you.
This is, scout’s promise, not a dig at anyone.
Total pinky swear.
Let me explain.
“What is the future for libraries?” is one of the most popular question I’m asked in interviews. I have a couple of pat answers which are gleaned from the conversations I see on Twitter and mailing lists — but those are getting tired and repetitive.
My secondary answer comes in the form of, “I don’t know. Each library is different, has different needs, and plans for their future. It’s not always maker spaces and nerd nights. The future of libraries, therefore, is flexible. Libraries can be anything they want to be.”
Or something along those lines.
But that answer is also getting tired (and is also a cop out).
What really is the future of libraries?
First, it seems many ideas of what the future holds is related to technology. so let’s start with that first. TechCrunch, Wired, TheVerge, and ReadWrite are the main sites you’ll want to RSS or visit on a near daily basis. You’re going to see overlap between these four (and similiar) sites so don’t be afraid to narrow down to only one or two blogs to keep current.
Why?  I once posited reading tech sites had a better return value of keeping up with the profession over reading professional literature (and much cheaper):

While plowing through mailing list emails one day, a conversation erupted on the “value” of professional journals and magazines, meaning that what is the point of spending several hundreds of dollars for a personal subscription to LibraryJournal when a print subscription to Wired, which some consider more relevant for librarinating, is only $10?

Second, on top of tech sites and blogs, you’re going to want to look at places for special interests you have such as UX, Digital Humanities, or social media. Why? Academic articles take roughly 6 – 18 months from submission to publication. By that point, there are already several incarnations of whatever passing on by, which makes the article dated as hell. This is not to say you shouldn’t read those professional publications but you want to make sure you have complementary content in the mix.
In addition to the usual library land publications (too numerous to list and I’m sure you have your favorites), I’m fond of the list of journals found at Researching Librarian.
So you’ve got the sites / blogs / magazines, there is a lot of content — how do you determine what exactly is going to be the future for libraries?
Easy. Look for patterns of subjects across those sites and how they will work within the library ecosystem. Within a couple of weeks, I pulled enough content (which also coincided with chatter across Twitter, Facebook, and mailing lists) to come up with a solid list of nearly a dozen things we’re going to see in the coming future of libraries.

  • Security / Tor / Encryption  Who? The two people who come to mind in library land in this area is Alison Macrina (founder of The Library Freedom Project) and Ian Clark (radical librarian, politico, and curator of  surveillance.infoism.co.uk). What? TLFP’s goal is to “…make real the promise of intellectual freedom in libraries. By teaching librarians about surveillance threats, privacy rights and responsibilities, and digital tools to stop surveillance, we hope to create a privacy-centric paradigm shift in libraries and the local communities they serve.” This work is especially crucial  to keep libraries on point with ALA’s Code of Ethics, specifically article iii, “We protect each library user’s right to privacy and confidentiality with respect to information sought or received and resources consulted, borrowed, acquired or transmitted.” Clark is especially passionate about privacy (in all forms), surveillance, and inclusion in a post-Snowden world. Why does this matter? Macrina’s, and Clark’s, goals is to hold library associations accountable for their statements in regards to intellectual freedoms as well as educating libraries and patrons on those rights. As more people continue access information on public networks, the ability to protect that information is huge.
  • Library as co-working spaces Who? Me! What? If you’re unfamiliar with co-working spaces, it’s a shared space for those who may typically work from home or on the road and need a singular location to work. For a small membership fee a month, the co-working space provides food/drink, wifi, unlimited printing, boardrooms, parking, and a whole lot of other perks. (I found that using a co-working space tends to be significantly cheaper than using coffee shops or other areas for work.) Why does this matter? Co-working spaces have become de riguer for 21st century work force. If you were paying attention, many of these things are things already provided at libraries, so what’s the difference? For a nominal fee every month, users can get expanded services (unlimited printing, better wifi, locker location, snacks/drinks) with free services already available such as access to databases and the stacks. Most public libraries I’ve seen already have the infrastructure in place to handle this addition so the investment could be minimal AND it’ll (eventually) pay for itself with the nominal fees being charged AND if you get them in them in the library, you’re going to see an increase in circulation and programming PLUS it’ll be on trend with what communities will be looking for from their libraries.
  • Geospatial / Geolocation Technologies Who? Academic libraries. This seems to be either a popular requirement in positions or its own position. What is it? In the broadest sense, geospatial technology is mapping of the earth’s features using GPS and running analysis against the data. Why does this matter? In many of the positions that have the title of “geospatial librarian,” they tend to work with the earth sciences departments and analyze / provide references to maps and other components, which makes sense. But for (most) other libraries, the use of geospatial technology is to map out the library’s stacks and other accouterments to make it easier for patrons for find materials down to where on the shelf or in the physical space where the item is located. Nearly every interview I’ve had that had this “preferred” requirement, they wanted this project completed within a year. Ha. Ha. Ha. As libraries continue to grow their technology, expect them to require GIS related education (of course they will) as a way, they think, to remain relevant.

Here’s the thing: one of my original pat answers in interviews, “Each library is different, has different needs, and plans for their future.“, remains true. You’re going to find all type of libraries, regardless of size, trying to cram the future to fit them, even if it has nothing to do with their community or purpose, to remain relevant.
Come back later when I have more thoughts on library futurism such as copyright, social media, digital preservation, internet of things, and a whole lot more.
 
 

Gratitudes: February 15 – 21, 2016

epbab-header-gratitude
Dear Internet,
Gratitudes and things that make me happy are a part of my carding coursework, and I track them everyday and I’ll post them here every Sunday. (And I also acknowledge this is going to take me a few weeks to go beyond “I have killer hair.”)
gratitude

  1. For the family I have chosen
  2. For previous lovers who let me view and share in their worlds
  3. For those I have met over the years who have helped shape me into the person I am today
  4. For my pets who showed me what unconditional love really is
  5. For Caravaggio for allowing me to not only fall in love with his work but to finally get what art history really means
  6. For understanding that a million decisions brought me to this point in life
  7. For crazy drugs to allow me to be healthier rather than crazy(ier)
  8. For the wind through the trees to allow me to allow the gods to talk to me
  9. For sticking to my guns for doing the right thing
  10. Believing in the goodness of others

happy

  1. An unexpected phone call from someone I love
  2. Writing letters and the joy people have when they receive them
  3. The smell of fresh cut grass
  4. The feel of clean sheets
  5. Glitter gel pens for making me smile when i write
  6. Chocolate. Because chocolate.
  7. Good burgers
  8. Making snow angles

xoxo,
Lisa<

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2015, 2004, 2002, 1999

I Want To Be A XXX Librarian, Part IV

Dear Internet,
My writing about the job finding process, the frustrations, and how to plan when you don’t get a job is not a new thing. I touched about it in library school:

I wrote extensively about the process when I graduated from library school and applied for 110 jobs before receiving an offer:

With a follow up in 2012 when a friend pointed me to a forum question on a knitting social media site (Ravelry) whether or not someone should go to library:

Over the years these posts are the top most read in regards to my professional writing. The job tracker [.xls] (2010) I created as a complementary tool has been downloaded over 100 times and it’s been reported back to me how useful the spreadsheet is.
(I use a similar version of the spreadsheet except by creating tables in Evernote to track the job application process. Eff Microsoft.)
Now that I’m back in the saddle in the job market again, I figured it was appropriate to write about the process of what’s going on six years later. But please be assured the above posts are still fairly relevant today as when I first wrote them.
(Note: The following posts are designed with the thought you know how to put together your resume/CV,  references, and writing letters of interest. If not, may the gods have mercy on your soul (and this is not the place where I’ll be teaching those skills. Go forth and google!))
The name of the new series is I Want To Be a XXX Librarian and shares the same tag as the previous SYWtbaL posts so everything is one neat place. (Lucky you!)
Here is what has happened in the series so far:

  • How I want to be a xxx librarian, part i [I discussed the ridiculousness of job titles and their description] (2016)
  • How I want to be a xxx librarian, part ii [I provide empirical proof of what job descriptions really mean, including examples and suggestions to make changes in this system] (2016)
  • How I want to be a xxx librarian, Part iii [I went full frontal on why unicorn and blended positions are stupid] (2016)

(I purposely held out on posting anything on this topic for the last few weeks because I wanted to make sure the updated #teamharpy post was seen by millions. But thanks to widgets, I have a link in the upper right hand corner of this page as a constant reminder of the status of the case. Yay technology!)
Caught up? Good.
(Before I begin, there are going to be hiring managers who are going to disagree the hell out of my suggestions. But here is a wonderful thing to remember: no one hiring manager agrees with another. I’ve polled, with similar questions to each, those who do hiring at a variety of institutions and there was never the same answer. The below is what works for me and I tend to have a higher than average interview rate, so YMMV.)
Today we’re going to discuss the hows, whats, and whens for applying for jobs.
What should be ready before you start applying for positions

  • You resume/CV and references in doc and PDF formats. Why? Some institutions will only take one format over the other.
  • Your reference document should have three professional references and three personal references along with their job titles, where they work, business email and phone numbers, and how they are relate to you (e.g. colleague, employer, etc). Why? Some jobs will ask you to include the document with your applications, others will require you to input the information into their software. Some will require to have three professional references where as others will want a mixture of both. Obviously make sure all of your references are aware you are applying for positions.
  • Have a document with the name of the places you’ve worked, their address, and their phone number (typically the number to HR). Make sure to go back at least 7 – 10 years. Why? Many (okay most) institutions who use HR software will request this information when you put in your employment history so they can confirm you worked there. I use HR’s phone number because I know of some supervisors who have over stepped the bounds of what they can and cannot say and you also need to account turnover in your previous department.
    • This document is for you reference only and is not going to be given out publicly so you can format it however you want.
  • Your transcripts in PDF format from every institution you graduated from. e.g. Have a bachelor’s and two master’s? You’ll need three transcripts. You can request these, sometimes for a fee, directly from the college. To verify its authenticity, the document should be directly from your college and PDF format. Why? Because HR is too lazy to fact check this themselves? I’m sure it is to prove the credentials you claim to have is true. Now here is a twist in the process: Some institutions will state they want “official transcripts not given to the student” and then provide digital only applications. Now AFAIK, those type of transcripts, digitally, can be hard to obtain, so whatever the college sends on to me is the one provide to the hiring institutions.
  • Have multiple versions of your resume. Why? Because you may be applying for more than just librarian positions and you’ll want to highlight different skills for those type of jobs. Obviously do not have multiple resumes for every job, rather if you’re applying for UX positions, have a UX centered resume.
  • Have a digital portfolio. Why? I cannot stress this enough. In 2014, I wrote about the art of keeping a digital portfolio, why it was important along with examples – that’s how passionate I am about this topic. (If you throw up your resume in pdf format (obviously), don’t forget to redact your contact information). Also keep in mind: Employers are going to be googling you thus by having a professional web presence will greatly enhance your awesomeness and higher up the rankings rather than just the tumblr you created for your favorite TV show.
  • Use URL shorteners to specific sections of your digital portfolio to illustrate examples of your work. Why? Because, more often than not, you’re going to need to illustrate your work via the HR software OR in your letter of interest OR in interviews. e.g. I use http://bit.ly/lrpresentations to go directly to my presentations page, http://bit.ly/graphicdemia points to my graphic novel project.  Be smart how you use these and don’t forget to keep a list of the ones you’ve created!

Search for jobs once a week and where to search for them Applying for jobs is a full time gig in and of itself. The other day I applied for four positions over six hours with only bathroom breaks. Calculate about 1-2 hours per submission and that time adds up quickly.
Looking for jobs is also a full time process. I have nine websites and four RSS feeds that push me jobs. By waiting once a week, I can spend a day going through all of the sites and compiling a list of positions (with their URL obviously) on what to apply for in the following days. Also keep in mind that many positions have an open call period of at least a month, so if you hit the sites once a week, you’ll still be able to catch the previous weeks postings.
Right now I’m only looking for straight library jobs that deal with digital / web / systems / online in the title. Once I gain more skills in other fields, I’ll be expanding my search.
(Also note I’m looking specifically for academic positions, though a few public positions and corporations have popped up in my search and I’ve applied to those as well.)

  • RSS Feeds
  • Websites
    • ALA JobList
    • Higher Ed Jobs (Specific for the keyword “librarian”)
    • Chronicle Vitae
    • LITA
    • Higher Education Recruitment Consortium (HERC) (Specific for the keyword “librarian”)
    • I Need A Library Job
    • LinkedIN  (Specific for the keyword “librarian”)
    • Simply Hired (Specific for the keyword “librarian”)
    • Monster (Specific for the keyword “librarian”)

Addendum: Know where you want to live and what amenities you want as you search. I’m free as a bird so right now I’m looking at positions with the following criteria:

  • Within an hour of a MINI dealership. If you didn’t know, I drive a MINI Cooper, which is now produced by BMW. The twist here is BMW dealers will not fix MINIs. I could find a speciality shop that will fix Jeeves but I have a sweet deal with my warranty so I’d rather not.
  • Trader Joe’s / Whole Foods nearby. I’m not joking. Finding Lisa-approved food (I’m allergic to dairy) is difficult if there is not one of the above available OR at there needs to be least a good hippie store will do in a pinch.
  • Preferably on the East Coast. To be closer to Europe. Again, I’m not joking.
  • Locations as follows in no particular order: East of the Mississippi, Chicago, no farther south than Nashville and/or the Carolinas, Mid-Atlantic up through New England. I would consider New Orleans for the right job. (Not Ohio, Illinois except for Chicago, Michigan, Indiana, western Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, West Virginia, any part of Kentucky other than Louisville or Lexington, west and northwest of the following: New York, Vermont, or Maine. I’m sure I’m missing a few others. Yes, I’ve found quite a few jobs (20 so far) that meet my criteria.)

Keep track of where and how you’re applying for these jobs This is where using something like the job tracker [.xls] comes in handy. You do NOT have to use a standalone spreadsheet anymore as Google Drive keeps it in the cloud for you. I use Evernote (also a cloud software) and created a table with the following columns: Position title, location, URL of the job add, end date, date sent the app, how sent (login and passwords for HR websites), and notes. In notes I comment if I was rejected, interview dates (and rejections), and anything else I need to know about that job. You can set this up any way you like but just make sure you do one to keep track of your applications.
When putting together your letter of interest, copy the job description / qualifications into a separate document to check against. This is something I just started doing recently. I cut and paste the job description and requirements onto a blank doc page. I give it half a screen of real estate with the other half the letter of interest to the institution I am applying for. As I hit the point of addressing the description/requirements in my letter, I strikeout the item in the other document.
Addendum: When writing your letter of interest, make sure to use keywords or phrases they have used in their descriptions/requirements. Sometimes the letters go through a screen process that just picks up on those keywords. Plus it shows you have a strong sense of attention to detail.
Have multiple templates of letters of interest. This is where I’m going to get a lot of grief. You’ll here over and over and over again that each letter needs to be structured to address the requirements of the job you’re applying for. This I do not disagree with. However, you’ll be applying for so many similar jobs, there is only a few ways you can say, “In this regard I was fundamental in XXX.” So here’s what I do:

  • Find a letter of interest I have already written.
  • Click save-as and rename it for the new position I am applying for. (My example is lastnamefirstname_nameofinstitution_titleofjob.doc)
  • Update the to field, the subject line of the position I am applying for, and the date.
  • Update the greeting.
  • I have a standard intro paragraph that is the same for every letter, “I am writing with great interest for the position of XXX as advertised on the XXX.” and I update it with the new information.
  • Then I start rewording, adding paragraphs from other letters of interest and it becomes a matter of strengthening, clean up, and tweaking for the next position. Even starting with a pre-written paragraph / phrase, I am still spending upwards of two hours per letter of interest.

So that’s pretty much it. Other then one day I don’t look for positions, I knock out one to two applications a day. When I’ve made a dent into the list, I start the search all over again.
Have any more tips or tricks? Add them to the comments!

Gratitudes: February 8 – 14, 2016

epbab-header-gratitude
Dear Internet,
Gratitudes and things that make me happy are a part of my carding coursework, and I track them everyday and I’ll post them here every Sunday. (And I also acknowledge this is going to take me a few weeks to go beyond “I have killer hair.”)
gratitude

  1. I am thankful for my parents for without them there would be no me
  2. I am thankful for the life I’ve been able to experience
  3. I am grateful there are preventatives for my allergies so I won’t be dead
  4. I am thankful for Kate, the person whom if I tell her I shot a man in Reno to watch him die, she would shoot him again to make sure he’s dead and then ask me where we’re going to bury him
  5. I am thankful I can often make people laugh
  6. I am grateful my body is strong and healthy to let me move the way I need it to
  7. I thankful my car is paid off
  8. I am grateful for my champions when I went back to college, for without them I would not excelled or want to continue with my education
  9. I am grateful for Natalie who gets my Jane Austen obsession and who can really make me think
  10. I am grateful I have the capacity to share all different kinds of love with all different kinds of people

happy

  1. Long, near scalding, showers,
  2. Long soaks in a bathtub, when I can read until my skin is pickled
  3. The way my body feels after I moisturize it with coconut oil
  4. That first snowfall
  5. Gerbera daisies
  6. When I finish my todo list for the day and everything is completed
  7. The smell of just out of the oven baked goods; even more so if I have baked them myself
  8. Sleeping with my teddy bear
  9. The first kiss of a potential lover
  10. Getting cards and letters in the mail

xoxo,
Lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe in: 2015, 2010, 2010, 2001, 1999

broomball

Dear Internet,
If you missed it, the last couple of days I’ve been recording audio of various love poems. I planned on doing one a day until Happy Massacred Heart day, but I’m currently feeling a little eh right now, so WHO KNOWS if I’ll finish the series.

I’m coming up on nearly a month of being smoke free! With what money I have left in my checking, I’m transferring $12 a week (what I paid for two packs of cigarettes) to my savings to get an idea of how much I’ve saved since I quit smoking.
I expect millions.

I start rugby practice Monday.
I know. Rugby. WHO KNEW.
Level of entry is pretty cheap. I stole clothes from TEH (from his skinnier days which equal my fat days) and the only big purchase was my cleats (I wear a size 11 womens or an 8.5 mens. I had to buy a size 9.5 mens for my cleats because the fuckers run small. But hey! Cleats!) and the small purchase of my mouthguard. I’ll also have to get game day socks and shorts1 down the road.
I’ve either played or tried other sports before this; tennis, softball, and basketball to name a few. I either didn’t like them or couldn’t play for shit. Rugby seems to take advantage of my size and aggression and it’s a well known fact I have tree trunks for legs (I’m nice and sturdy) plus I love finding new ways to get my aggression out. If I ever move to a place where I can hang a punching bag, boxing is so going to happen.
Wanting to play rugby has been a long time coming. When I was still married, I tried to get a rugby team started in Grand Rapids, but it fell apart as there were only three of us gung ho about the idea and you need 15 people on the field. I don’t know what sparked me to start looking in L-Ville, but boom! Two seconds searching and I found an active team. Practice starts on Monday!
I have games all over the Ohio Valley region through March and April, so if you’re in Louisville, Nashville, Youngstown, Lexington, Cincinnati, or Dayton, let me know and I’ll give you info about those games for you to come cheer me on! (I’ll post the fall schedule, the second season, if I’m still in L-Ville at that time. Yay tree trunk legs!)

How do we get over heartbreak? No one really knows2 yet everyone seems to think they have the answer.
After reading Girl on the Net’s piece, I started thinking about my recent heartbreak and the process to heal.
Based upon friend’s reactions these last few months, it’s expected I should be discoing my way to someone else. As time marches on, this round of break up many feel I have already said all there is to say about him, the relationship, and the ending. What more could there possibly be? (A lot apparently.)
I spend most days without TheBassist’s presence hovering on the peripheral and then something benign reminds me he hasn’t been thought of and fuck, there he is!
God dammit.
Every couple of therapy sessions there is at least a brief mention of this occurring, how it pisses me off, and how my heart has ghosts of the devastation, which pisses me off even more.
There is no exorcism to dispatch a broken heart.

There is, however, only one thing of his that has remained in my life and that is the hair wraps I made out of one of his workout shirts3. The hair wrap thoughts are along the lines of when I’m getting out of the shower with and “Oh. A t-shirt hair wrap.” rather than some deep rooted creepiness on my part. I will admit, however, during the throes of the early stages of the break-up, I swore to never wash the shirt again as it still smelled of him (I sniffed it a lot. Don’t judge.), to never pack it away so I have a constant reminder of him, and all of this has led to letting those feelings go except with, “I need t-shirt hair wrap. Here is one handy. Cool.” (And yes, they do get washed on a weekly basis.)

I don’t have an exact time frame of when my heart began to heal when he broke it off with me in 2005. I know I dated a rebound guy a few months later, which was good times as rebound guy cried on my shoulder about his ex-fiance and I cried on his shoulder about TheBassist. I can safely guess I was open to the idea of seriously dating someone around the time I started dating TheEx in the fall of 2006. Heart beginning to heal sometime before then? Most likely. I was writing mainly on LiveJournal in those days, I didn’t divulge my soul, and I was not paper journaling so the timing is not terribly clear.

Then we had a few months of long conversations and one weekend together. Now we had a year of conversations and many months of living together. Both crammed with so much stuff in those too short times.

There have been twinges of him, sure, throughout the years. I checked TheBassist’s LiveJournal on occasion in the beginning, my heart hurting when he talked about his beautiful wife and wonderful family. Eventually I stopped torturing myself and let that piece of my heart be put to rest. This time after the great FB unfriending5, within a few weeks I stopped looking at his profile or any other social media we shared. Currently I’ve been navigating around any type of interaction of him within our mutual friends updates. I am the queen of curating Facebook news feeds.

We once agreed it was all or nothing. It is now nothing.

On some days when I’m alone and feeling particularly sad, there tends to be benign event that gets me thinking, and thinking leads to yearning, and yearning leads to heartache.
Those days are few and far between.

What I think about the most is not what has transpired from our time together, but a fear that at some point I will mark him as a memory of when I was high manic and crashed or I did not love him after all. I was delusional then and now about our relationship; fantasies were never meant to be real. I feel despondent when others tell me he was just the rebound guy from the dissolution of my marriage and all the trappings rebounds entail. That I am more upset my ego was bruised rather than the loss of him. That the words whispered in my ear about his predilections and indiscretions before me or hints of all the promises of forever was not for me alone but also repeated to all of his previous loves.
I was not as special as he said I was.

What I also often fear is one day he’ll put all the pieces together and believe he held out for an ideology rather than for reality so he never loved me at all. That everything he said and promised was nothing more than a huge mistake and he rued the day he found me again.

That is the borderline speaking.
I doubt my feelings, my emotions so I can be easily swayed by others opinions of what I should be feeling. I doubt his feelings, his emotions and I believe he too can be easily swayed by opinions, though history dictates this is not true. But the voice inside my head insists that is true and I get out of control.
It is far easier for me to create a world where it was all a huge mistake, and thus less responsibility for our actions, our selves. Nothing was real, whatever that means.
If I want to heal and move forward, it’s not about reconciling the logic and the emotion the relationships is over because that is already being dealt with but it’s about believing in myself and my feelings. Believing in him and his feelings. Stop second guessing every intent and act. A million decisions lead up to then and now. This is what is true.
Something I am having a hard time in believing as I think I can change the past as easy was with a snap of my fingers and the outcome would be much different.

Knowing I did and do love him. From the way he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose with a knuckle on his right hand to his rapid fire response when he was passionate about a topic to the way his feet felt when I rubbed them after a long gig.
Knowing he did and does love me. From the way I looked at him with my amazing (his words) eyes to my happiness being dependent on coffee and rides around cloverleafs to how I felt in his arms.
This is not about wish fulfillment of futures yet to be revealed; it’s about taking what I experienced and using it to learn to heal. To move forward. To not make the same mistakes again.

The few times I tried to reach out, in the beginning of the breakup in regards to things that needed to be settled, I was ceremoniously rebuffed. I may write here the longing for him, but I do not go begging back to those who act as if they do not want me. This could be the bipolar megalomania speaking but no matter of how low I am, this is a consistent self-respect I have for myself .
I never have gone begging for someone and I never will.
Remember: He left.

At some point I will date again. I am not going to stop living my life because he is gone. And I will need to place faith and trust in someone without reservation. I need to not assume after fights they are going to leave me and I need not question why they like me.
I have no intention of clinging to our life together as the end all be all to the point I am paralyzed by being alone or with someone else – I am not that unrealistic or truth be told, not shying away from taking a future lover. A girl has needs.
I need to put faith in myself to set boundaries, healthy boundaries, and learn how to negotiate a relationship without expecting the world on a string.
I am, however, pretty damned sure while others may come close (and go), there will never be anyone like him.
And I don’t want there to be.
(You could be an asshole and argue how no one is the same; no one is like another. I know that. He hit all the major points, something only one other person has come close to doing, and that will be what my soul will ache but continue to look for and the likelihood of finding someone like that will near impossible. So I’ll take the lovers and the suitors but it will be a goddamned miracle before I get heavily involved again.)
I need to have faith and trust in myself in all relationships, platonic and romantic.
To be happy.

There is no arbitrary time when one person heals from emotional pain. There is no one fits all recipe. We’re assholes when we try to force the thought of, “Well. It’s been x months. Let them go and move the fuck on.” No one can really explain what “moving the fuck on” really entails or means no matter how much they want to. This is my interpretation of healing. This is how I work. This is what I do.
I’ve said it a million times before: If it takes me writing about it, talking with my shrink about it, or just plain thinking about to get to the point I can be freely undistracted (or triggered) by what happened, at my own pace, then that is totally okay. Fuck the haters.
(We are all changed, even a tiny bit, by the people important in our lives. To attempt to eradicate them emotionally and mentally is fucking impossible, unless you are a psychopath but that is not here nor there.)
These are some of the things I need to remember when the time comes to meet and accept someone or I will not have learned a fucking thing.
xoxo,
Lisa

1. No matter what sport I try to play, finding Lisa-sized clothes is always a fucking pain in the ass. The people complain about fat people being lazy assholes but the people won’t provide clothes for the fat people to work out in. I suppose it’s one of life’s mysteries .
2. They also know if you’re in emotional pain, taking acetaminophen can help. No joke.
3. Krazy Kate, whose hair is similiar to mine, convinced me to wash and style my hair with products free of parabens, *cones, and SLS.4 T-shirts are more absorbent for hair than towels, which is why I’m being I’ve kept said t-shirt. If you must know, my hair looks fabulous.
4. Too long of list of products I use but for shampoo / conditioner, I’m totally digging Burt’s Bees.
5. Let us not forget after all he dumped me via Facebook, something I quite right have to bristle about.

This Day in Lisa-Universe:

Collection of Cunning Curiosities – February 13, 2016

A WEEKLY COMPENDIUM OF THINGS THAT DELIGHT MY FANCY.

(I’ve been passing loads of stuff around the interwebs (not contagious) and decided it was time to quasi get this feature back up and running.)

Fanciful Delights

♥There are seven different kinds of love.
♥ I am really, really, digging Girl on the Net. Think of it as if Dan Savage lost his transphobia, was a woman, and wrote straight up honest content and advice for for women and everyone else in getting a healthy dose of sex information, how tos, and more. Love. Her.
♥ In the reimagined world of Riverdale, it is revealed that Jughead is asexual.
♥ Started February 17, there is a free MOOC on Comics: Art in Relationships
♥ I saw Pride and Prejudice and Zombies last week and Loved. It. (Think of it as campy, parody fun filled zombie film.) To back up my critique of this awesome sauce, Wired wrote, “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” Is More Than the Sum of Its Undead Parts.
♥ Need relaxation? There is a seven hour video of a train trip on YouTube
♥ Peter Coddle’s Trip to New York is the 1880s version of Cards Against Humanity
♥ The near complete list of all set lists from 120 Minutes

This day in Lisa-Universe in: 2012, 2000

recitations

Dear Internet,
Today’s Lisa-reads-a-love poem is Recitations by Leonard Cohen. I can’t get the sexy swagger Cohen has unless I drink a few bottles of bourbon and smoke another 100 packs of cigarettes, but hopefully you won’t hold that against me.
Recitations by Leonard Cohen

 
P.S. There is several versions of Cohen reading this poem, this one is my current favorite.
xoxo,
Lisa
 

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2015, 2003, 2002, 2002

[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]

Dear Internet,
Yesterday, I was tipped off, by @twobossydames, Richard Armitage1 does the narration for David Copperfield. After much poking around, I discovered Mr. Armintage also narrated a book of classic love poems2, one of which is [i carry your heart with me(i carry it in] by e.e. cummings.
I love cummings’ work but this particular poem has special meaning, which I discussed a couple of months ago:

I cannot write this without thinking of e.e. cummings’ [i carry your heart with me(i carry it in], because that poem sings of my feelings for TheBassist. I have reconciled we may never see each other again, let alone get back together. I do know if/when I see him again, I will cry. Tears of relief, happiness, and everything in-between. Even if that is the only time I ever see him, I will cry. I better remember to not wear make-up.
Together we were not toxic, but I was toxic and in that toxicity I changed the pattern of the relationship. Love, faith, and want, at times, are simply not enough no matter how badly we want them to be.

Which sounds a bit depressing but really is one part hope and another part realistic.
Since it’s coming up on Valentine’s Day, and if you can’t be honest on the 14th of February, when can you?, I thought I would read a few loves poems, one a day, just for fun.
Here is the first poem, which should be obvious:
[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in] by e.e. cummings

xoxo,
Lisa

1. He’s a future husband, natch. But you may know him as Thorin Oakenshield from LoTR.
2. Audible, an Amazon company, has the book for $7 while Amazon itself is selling it for $4.

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2004, 2001