pookiebear – Page 4 – A Most Unreliable Narrator

fearless

What would 24 year old Lisa think of 44 year old Lisa?

1906fish
[I’ve started posting weekly over at my newsletter with bits, bobs, and summaries and while it seems I’m neglecting this site, I don’t plan to. Think of the newsletter as Fanciful Delights on steroids. View the archives to get a feel and come join!]
What does it mean to be fearless?
This is a question I’ve been asking myself a lot lately and I frame it as, “What would 24 year old Lisa think of 44 year old Lisa?” Would she approve, shake her head, be curious or angry at some of my choices? Would she be proud of me or disappointed? With the information guiding her, would she make different choices to shape another version of me?
I suppose it’s odd to become obsessed (because that is what it is) about a conversation that could never take place. (And if I know anything about time travel, you cannot cross meet yourself in the past for the sake of disrupting that particular reality.) But here I am, feverishly thinking about it and wonder what the fuck have I done with my life, how can I fix/change it, and how can I put my past into real rest while keening for the approval of 24 year old me.
These are questions no one, despite what they tell you, has perfect answers to. To be successful, to really be close to successful, the choices have to be close to nonexistent. Small choices and decisions that will shape the world as you want it but it will be slow and not the insta-quick sold by snake charmers.
Let’s get back to 24 year old Lisa. In the year she was about to turn 25, she met a boy on on the internet and within a few months of meeting him, packed up her bags and with less than 500 dollars in her pocket, took the airplane ticket he offered her and moved to the Bay Area without knowing a soul. They lived in an illegal apartment slash walk out basement where the landlord was a dominatrix who lived with her submissive on the main floor. The illegal apartment had two rooms, a toilet, and a kitchen sink. Showers were to be taken in the main living area as well as where we kept the food.
It shant be no surprise to anyone Lisa and her fellow broke up a few months later when he told her at a conference in Las Vegas (flight and hotel paid for by his company) he had met someone else and was going to move in with her. As luck would have it, when Lisa got back to the Bay Area, the submissive moved out (or was kicked out, I could never really remember that particular detail) and Lisa moved into his bedroom in the main house. Eventually she got a job, moved on with her life, and well, we know where that path took her.
What does it mean to be fearless?
Today we would call Lisa at 24 stupid, reckless, irresponsible, and a risk taker. I would call her gutsy and fearless. She saw a chance to get out of town she was growing to hate to an area that might prove to be wonderful. She knew she would land a job somewhere, eventually, and pay her own way. She navigated Oakland, San Francisco, and Berkeley like a pro. But while these things were slowly coming together, she lived off of generosity of friends as well as by luck.
I would repeat a similiar scenario several years later when I left a relationship with a man who was to be my future husband for a possible job and another boy across the other side of the country. The relationship, and the job, didn’t last but three years. Then I moved on my own to be with myself across the country again to finish college and get a life I saw myself living and bore no resemblance to the one I just left behind.
This is a pattern driving most of my life: taking chances on the unknown in the hopes that the result would give me what I want. Necessary knowledge of possible events, of future choices, or something secure (housing, job) never came into question. I knew I would have housing, a job, and things that I needed. Not necessarily what I wanted but always what I needed.
What does it mean to be fearless?
Twenty four year old Lisa was beset with sometimes crippling anxiety but its form was different than Lisa at 44. Then it was physical and now it’s mental. I thought nothing of hopping in my car and driving miles and miles for something when now if I’m doing anything longer than 100 miles, I need to get my car looked over even though my car is in excellent shape. Then I was on the go, on the move, and now I’m a homebody who comforts in telly and knitting because I get weary of social events. While it was rare for me to ever be home any night of the week, now it’s rare for me to not be home any night of the week. I clubbed until 2AM and worked at 6. Now I’m, mostly, in bed before 10PM – 11PM and up between 7AM – 8AM. Then I made a lot of rash and what would be considered risky decisions. Now I cross-examine anything that could remotely go outside my closed life.
Lisa at 24 was an adventurer at heart and while me at 44 still has that same desires, my adventuring has taken on other forms.
The argument could be made my bipolar, life choices, and decisions is what configured who I am today and I would tend to agree with you, but there remains an element that is missing and I believe that element is fearlessness. Even with all of that being said, the move to the east coast for a job that may or may not work out (hint: it didn’t) was an inspiration (as someone said to me) because I was willing to take that chance. Those close to me, seeing the red signs I was refusing to see, saw it was irresponsible and too risky. I was fearless but with a penalty and is it any wonder being fearless in the future seems like a very bad idea. If it’s not guaranteed, then what’s the point?
I speak with 24 year old Lisa a lot these days and while she shakes her head at some of my antics, we both agree there are no regrets. Bad choices and decisions, sure, but no regrets. We discuss the good things that came into my life based on those risky decisions. Not all but definitely some. We’re pretty proud of our achievements because we’re now not two divided persons of past and future but a whole being with memories of current and past and the soon to come.
So I ask you again, what does it mean to be fearless?
And the answer is simple: Living with no regrets.

[Cross posted to Medium]

The Move

The Move: mania v depression and the miles it covers and the miles to go.

[originally posted on Medium]

It’s a sultry soup kind of Saturday and I’m in my apartment sorting and repacking boxes for a move. The central air clicks on and off as I work; my pug chewing on a toy pug in an act of pug cannibalism. I am not wearing a bra and I feel the dampness under my breasts grow as I work. My legs feel a bit grimy and my hair is pulled into a fizzed mess on top of my head. I catch a whiff of body order and ignore it. It’s mid-afternoon and I haven’t showered yet and I’m debating if I even will.

I am tired of the packing and unpacking, the culling of my things to the point I no longer know what I own anymore. The move before this one saw another culling of trash bags full of clothes and seven boxes of books and DVDs. I am desperate for a cigarette though I haven’t smoked in ages. I survey my box kingdom and note some of the boxes have been moved so many times, varying stickers from moving companies are stacked up like little hills. As I pack, I remove the hills in some sort of shameful ritual. Each box bears a broad category name like “dvds” which are Sharpied out and rewritten to “clothes.” I develop a system to mark what boxes will go into storage and what boxes will go to my partner’s condo and inventory the contents in a spreadsheet. I eye my bookcases wearily because I don’t want to storage my Austens, graphic novels, or my Pratchetts but as I don’t plan on re-reading any of them in the near future, they will be tucked into their cardboard beds.

This is my sixth move in two years.

In the early part of the ’90s I was diagnosed as being manic / depressive which is now commonly referred to as bipolar. I am bipolar 1, which tends to run mania rather than depressive. Since that diagnosis, I’ve swam in the land of drugs only to come out on the other side stable-ish, but often exhausted. My sensitivity to most meds comes at a high cost: I cannot tolerate most common drugs after a few weeks of relief and have spent my non-drug years fighting for a drug free stability.

All of my therapists have called me “lucky” since I am so high functioning. “Self-aware” is used so often I silently grate organ parts upon hearing it and I feel that I’m being treated like an AI robot and not a person. I am told, with the severity of my illness, they are fascinated with my ability to stay high functioning without the drugs. I am told I am atypical and there is great joy watching me under a hypothetical microscope.

A comment often shuttlecocked from my various psychiatric doctors is my extraordinary ability to cope and manage my illness. “You are strong” is the cousin to “self-aware.” It is repeated over and over again I’ve handled so much this far in life I can keep going and things will get better.

My mania started to cresendo in late summer of 2014. It was a terrible year: My beloved dog died, I left my toxic job to write a book, I was sued for libel in a $1.25M lawsuit which the case has now been dismissed. (But that’s a story for another time.) My husband and I’s relationship was fraught to the point, I thought, beyond repair. Around this time a love from a decade prior came back and wooed me with what I wasn’t getting at home. Infatuated with attention, and tired of my husband constantly and mentally checking out, I left him. Six weeks later, I watched a moving truck pack up my things to cart them a thousand miles to my new home with my lover. A man I’ve spent a total of two weeks with over the course of a decade.

And it wasn’t even October.

The mania began to build for about six months prior. My triggers: massive shopping sprees (who needs six of the same dress just in different colors?), sleepless nights, and constant agitation were all there but this time I choose to pin point them on other factors such as my dog dying, being sued, and leaving my job rather than on my illness. Who wouldn’t feel that kind of life strain?

Then the downward slide began.

Caught in this middle world with no ties to either side, it is here that I started to crash.

The plan was simple: Move my things into storage, live with my new lover, and take a mental break for a few months; it had been a hell of a year. In the new year I would start looking for work, move out on my own, and create a new life with my lover.

That was the plan.

Instead of relief, I spent, it seemed, every other night sobbing in my lover’s bedroom or in the shower or when I was driving. I could not be comforted or appeased. Everything around me, even the simplest thing felt huge.

That’s when the ping ponging started. I begged to come home to my ex-husband. I promised to be good and to get back into counseling. I promised to work on finding a good drug combination, I’d do anything, ANYTHING, to be with him again. My soon to be ex-husband made plans of his own: he would get into therapy or anti-depressants or both. He would work to help save our marriage.

A week later I broke my promise.

Several weeks later I was making promises again, sitting in a hotel room writing lengthy diatribes about my luck having two men love me for ever after. After the weekend hotel stay, I’m in such crisis I use ZocDoc to find a local therapist who could see me that day. I am prescribed drugs to help with the mania, a booster for the depression, and Klonopin to help with the anxiety. I am told it’s going to take a few weeks to stabilize.

And even after the promises from the good doctor, weeks after the drugs were started, I still continued to cycle almost violently.

I choose you! I’d say to each man, alternating like laundry on laundry day. I choose you to be with and you alone. My ex-husband writes me a letter where he tells me he will change, everything will get better, and I deserve everything he had withheld from me. My lover begs for me to stay.

This back and forth goes for weeks until I leave the lover and drive a thousand miles back to my ex-husband. He has left the door open, our song is playing on the stereo, and he’s left me love notes from the door to the dining room table with a key taped to one of the notes. I am not home for 15 minutes where I tell him I have chosen my lover over him but and that I was going to change and try to stand on my own two feet.

What I did not tell him was I made it 300 or so miles before I broke down sobbing in a McDonald’s parking lot, begging to be taken back. After I arrive in town and before I had to my ex-husband’s house, I am in a parking lot still begging. The lover takes me back.

I am to stay in town, get my own apartment, stay on the drugs given to me by the doctor I found on ZocDoc (which finally started to work), attempt to write my book again, and try to form a life. Despite the drugs giving some relief, my mood continue to sway like a pendulum. I spend days in utter misery, holed up in my tiny apartment curled on the couch, often sobbing hysterically, making promises still to both men. Despite the promises to stay married, I break those promises (again), and the divorce is finalized on April 1.

Most of the summer I am back and forth between the two men and I’m rarely in my own apartment. In one of the many moves, my things are sent to my ex-husband’s condo to be put in storage. I’ve racked up nearly 15,000 miles on my car over the course of the year and tens of thousands of credit card debt. I am running out of money and the crash that started in October 2014 starts to intensify.

One summery day I am with my ex-lover and the need to leave again is growing so strong, I can barely swallow. My ex-husband owns a cabin in northern Michigan and he wants me to come home. I tell my lover I need to leave, again, under the pretense I am going to go open the cabin and he tells me he is powerless to stop me. “It’s what you do,” he says. Resignation is visible on his face and I know he’s been pulling away for months. As one of the conditions of being back with my lover is therapy, I head to therapy later that day and almost gleefully mention I have broken up with him and I felt great. I do not tell the group I am never coming back again as I’m leaving the state in the next few days.

The month at the cabin is carefree. The ex-husband and I’s relationship has returned to what it was, sans sex, in the beginning of our marriage and with the exception of the daily texts from my lover asking me when I was coming back to him, life goes on as if nothing happened. I keep pushing out the date with legitimate excuses: My ex-husbands car has died and we’re miles from nowhere. I get a terrible summer cold and I am to rest.

Then one fateful day, my lover tells me over Facebook chat, that it is over. He needs to advocate for himself and since I was with my ex-husband, the man who knows me best of all and can take of me, I’m to stay with him until I finally get my life sorted out.

The crash that had started, trickle by trickle, is now full blown. I spends days in bed, unable to move and barely able to breathe. I blame it my ex-lover dumping me but in reality my reluctance to deal with day to day life, being diligent in my drugs and therapy coupled with the promises, the lies, the ping ponging, had taken its toll. I want to blame everyone for everything that has happened. “Bad luck,” I’d say. “Rotten timing.” But even though the now ex-lover is not perfect, I cannot really blame him for leaving. Being with someone who is bipolar is a job in and of itself.

I remain in bed for weeks, barely able to move or eat. I take my drugs diligently but the depression is so smothering I feel pinned down by its existence. I start seeing a new therapist, anti-depressants are added to my regime and slowly the cloud begins to lift.

I tell myself I’m lucky because my ex-husband, now my partner once again, is standing by my side as he’s always stood by my side. It took all of this, as painful it is to say it, to realise how much I really love him. I have a small, but steady, support network and I have not ended up homeless though at times it’s been very close.

My meds have been tweaked and I am feeling the most stable I have felt in years. I mediate and do yoga daily to help with the balance. I see a therapist. The lying and pogoing have slowed and I can feel myself beginning to breathe again. And yet while the crash in October 2015 brought on strength to keep on moving forward, for which I am grateful, but I am much more sensitive to the world around me. More vulnerable. More cautious. There is hope, even in small doses, as I slowly move forward.

This will be the last time I will move, hopefully, a very long time. What’s left of my things will be placed in storage once again and only the necessities will be kept out and used. I have learned over the last two years that my things while my things don’t define me, they are a part of me. Whereas before I would get anxious at not having my books and my memories, now I know they will be safe and waiting for me just as I was waiting for myself.

Issue #7 Not sure where the end point is, but is pretty sure it’s in Michigan

Dear Internet,
Here we are yet again. Can you believe it’s been over a year since I last sent out a newsletter and I’ve moved house at least twice since then? You’ll be happy to know I’ve got a full time gig and I’m living on the East Coast. It hasn’t been as hard of an adjustment as I thought it would be but hey! I’m a tax paying member of society and who could want for anything more?
(I should also add I’ve meditated consecutively for 390 days, I’ve been smoke free (honest!) since January, and I’ve been yoga-ing steadily since November 2015. Yay me!)
For those old timers who remember and for new timers an explanation, this newsletter was originally to publish things about Skaldic Press, my pop up zine “so glad is my heart,” stuff from Exit, Pursued by a Bear, and any other writing news in a single location rather than spread out across my empire. Things become unsettled and frequency dropped to — nothing. So here we are, things are settled, and I’m back to shipping this newsletter out.
So what can you expect? Much as it is in the old incarnation, stuff of the above plus updates from my writing site, stuff I published around the web, and where fanciful delights will now reside. i’ve been doing a curation of links and things since the late ’90s and started archiving them on my site since 2010 as a, “here are things i’ve read, seen, written, and liked.” It seems more appropriate to bring fanciful delights over here so that you can peruse at your leisure.

So what’s been going on in Lisa’s Empire? Well, quite a lot of projects are brimming at the moment and I need to prioritize like woah because I’m getting overwhelmed and I’m not working on any of them. Some of the projects have been temporarily shelved, the job hunt and lisa.rabey.net (my profesh librarian site) for the moment while others haven’t been kicked off the ground yet (we are stacks is a library consultancy, cherrybomb comics is my comic bookstore) are also on hold. So what am I juggling now? There’s Exit, Pursued by a Bear which has been the home for my online blog / diary / journal for years. lisarabey.com, my profesh writing site where I’ve also started blogging and also repository for my writing and pitching. Skaldic Press, my publishing arm; Freyja Thomas my nom du jour for erotica and the like, and LMR Creative for coding / website / related. I’ve got another project I’m keeping under wraps at the moment until the site and content are ready and I’ll be sure to let you all know when it’s been launched.

June and July have been dry months with the only substantial entry published on my birthday and I know the slow down has to do with my promise for every text entry there will be an audio version. The creation and editing of the audio entry took waaaaaaayyyy longer than I had planned but now that I have something of a routine down, it will go faster and easier next time

I haven’t done much pitching or for that matter non-diary writing in some time and now that thing are settled, it’s time to kick that back into gear and track progress through blogging on that site. You can read about the catch up here.

I haven’t worked on Skaldic Press projects for awhile but this is not shelved. I’ve got the second chapter in my “The Lisa Chronicles” to compile, edit, and publish. I’m also toying with the idea of taking the first chapter, fictionalize it, and shop it around to see if there is interest. While Freyja Thomas has her own site, she straddles both lisarabey.com and Skaldic Press worlds so I need to get cracking on her work.
April of this year marked the 20th anniversary of Downpour on my Soul and I want to do a chapbook of it coupled with Downpour Revisited. A few weeks before I was to publish the chapbook, I went looking for beta readers, found a couple, and never heard from them again and now the project is languishing. So if you or anyone you know is looking to beta read anything from essays to fiction to erotica, have them get in touch okay?

BOOKS / MOVIES / TV

I just finished listening to Juliet by Anne Fortier. I was skeptical at first as the story was a bit predictable, the subtle romance was obvious but all of that was overshadowed by the cleverness of the premise (retelling of Romeo and Juliet), how the book was plotted, and the few twists given to satiate the reader. When the book finished, I found myself wondering what was next for the characters, though truth be told we know they got a happy ending and that’s usually where the story ends. Another big plus is Fortiner’s use of Italian and setting the story in Sienna didn’t feel like a hack job of someone using only Wikipedia for their information. I quipped on Facebook all I wanted now was hard meats, crusty bread, and red wine.
On the TV front, I’m tied to whatever channels have apps on the Roku (thanks dear Ex-Husband for having full package cable and giving me logins) and I’m not ashamed to admit I’ve gotten hooked on Below Deck: Mediterranean. You crush on some characters, you love on some characters, and you hate on some characters. It also helps the scenery is gorgeous.
This weekend I’m seeing Star Trek with the second main reason my local theatre is giving free popcorn to loyalty members. Hell fuck ass yes! But I am a tad nervous about the movie – I haven’t seen anyone really get into it on Facebook and I’m friends with a lot of nerds. (This same near silence also happened with X-Men: Apocalypse so I opted to get it on Netflix. This surprised many as I have a massive crush on James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender (McFassy).)

CURATED LOVE

Roxane Gay will be writing the companion series, World of Wakanda, to compliment Black Panther and WoW is coming out in November. [NY Times]
The author posits Jack Keruoac is the best looking male writer of all time but I have to go with Hemingway myself. [The Spectator]
I don’t think anyone saw the love for animated gifs, vinyl, and print books to either remain steady or come back with a vengeance but I’m not surprised audiobooks are on the rise. [Wall Street Journal]
Renaissance (14th – 17th century) folk were either into having a merry old time or covering up breasts and penises on art. [The Guardian]
Case in point, the growing literature of broadside sheets from that era which told of murders, harlots, and sensational news. [Atlas Obscura]
Skip to the end and the case of changing one’s personality still remains compelling. [The Atlantic]
The most metal, as in heavy metal as in music, words in the English language. [New York Magazine]
The public remains befooled by snake oil salesman. [Well + Good]
After being nearly doxed by Gamer Gate, I could never do what this brave woman did. [The Guardian]
Interesting thought: The politics of women in business fiction. [The New Yorker]
The future if Barnes & Noble were to shudder. [The New Republic]
“…the dead woman is never simply mourned and forgotten, but fully objectified and consumed.” [HazLitt]
Hey! It would have been a $1000 USD if he had gotten away with it. [The Guardian]
Henry Rollins on white privilege. [LA Weekly]
Three step process to brainstorming like a Googler [Fast Company]
“In Indonesia, non-binary gender is a centuries old idea,” [Atlas Obscura]
I got my first iPod in 2005, add in the rise of audiobooks, I can see why they still have an appeal. [The Ringer]
In light of the upcoming Olympics, compelling read about Stella Walsh who nearly lost her medals due to her autopsy. [mental_floss]
Men! [Broadly]
You know you wanna read the story of how Wannabe came to be. [The Telegraph]

hat’s it for this week!
Next time it won’t be so long! I promise. Just, you know, had some catching up to do.

xoxo,
lisa

here we are, yet again

blew the dust off of scrivener a few weeks ago to see what horrors laid within and discovered two short stories i recently allegedly written. alleged as one of them is very well by me as it is about a serial dream i had several years ago but the voice and tone is slightly different and the other? the other i’m not so sure as there are glimpses of me here and there but the story and verbiage feels like someone else. does that make me hack? i’m so poor in creating my own world i must reach out to take someone else’s voice?
who the fuck knows.

lately i’ve been contemplating on changing my writing professional name to something else. sometimes i think lisa rabey is too tinged in controversy to move forward than i think i would find redemption in my writing life by keeping my name.

a piece of advice i received seemingly a lifetime ago was thinking about writing was also work. just because i wasn’t putting pen to paper didn’t mean i wasn’t doing something and that it just happened to be in a different space. i remain skeptical.

i’ve become a huge fan of newsletters in the last few months because why browse the internet for things to read when someone else is already doing it for you? many of the newsletters are written by writers who add essayists to their slashes (fiction/memoir/essayist would be my slashes) as well but are getting publication and maybe payment for their work because THEY ARE ACTUALLY PITCHING TO THESE WEBSITES.
i know — i’m as shocked as you are.
as i read their work, i became more influenced on what i could write and the list just keeps growing.
as of this writing, i have come up with 20 different pitch ideas and essays i’d like to write. maybe it’s not too late afterall.

it is seemingly convenient to forget when i was on a pitching spree last fall those pitches were accepted and some of them were paid gigs.

longtime readers of exit, pursued by a bear know i’ve been traveling / moving around a lot these last two years and many of my belongings continue to remain in boxes. much of these boxes have been repacked and renamed so i always slit the tape, check the contents, and then tape it back up to verify its contents when i land in a new place.
a couple of boxes remain what they are marked: notebooks. as one would guess, notebooks covers diaries, journals, other writing from my catholic tinged youth until my mid-20s. much of it is fiction, more of it is diaries. i’m afraid to read any of it because what secrets they hold may be just that – secret. but these boxes are comforting, they tell a linear story i seem to casually put on the shelf and maybe i am not the hack i continually tell myself to be.

here we are, yet again.

if you’ve been paying attention you get the subtext something is up and that something is i’m going to keep trying. even if i have to recoup and beat and recoup and beat until my dying breath on this topic of woe is me and woe is my writing life,
i’m going to keep trying because that is what i do.

i expressed my fears to the ex-husband, he who is my biggest fan, and he remarked he’s played thousand of hours of basketball but he’s always suspected he wasn’t quite good enough for the nba (though at 6’7, he’s certainly tall enough) and because of that he has never tried out. so maybe, he posited, that is what it’s like for me? maybe it isn’t about the name recognition, literary fame, or writing a solid story. maybe it’s just the sheer joy of writing that should sustain me.
i’ve been thinking about his comment and i’ve come to the conclusion it is not so much as being rich and famous but that i have a voice that i want the world to hear.
maybe that is all that matters.

fanciful delights for July 25, 2016

dear internet: here is compendium of things that struck my fancy this week. need more to read? check out the fanciful delights archive. x0x0, lisa

things i have written

witty bitches is throwing love to a piece i wrote for them a year ago.

books / movies / tv

i just finished a modern retelling of northanger abbey and apparently i have opinions on it. i started the fourth book in the mistress of the art of death series, a murderous procession. if you’re into lady power books about a woman doctor in medieval england, check that series out.
i saw Ghostbusters over the weekend and adored it. i still need to catch up on: Independence Day, Star Trek Beyond, Legend of Tarzan, The Secret Life of Pets, Ab Fab (the movie), X-Men Apocalypse, Love & Friendship, and Genius are a few off hand I need to see. don’t judge.

fanciful delights

this is going in the tmi category, but you can now get your sperm account via your iphone. here’s why the octopus has been used a lot in cartography. you can live straddled on the border of US and Canada and there is this tiny library which is in Vermont AND Quebec, and you need a border guard to get through. allegedly. if you ignore someone, it’s called “ghosting” and yep, there is a bot to do it for you. while i’ll admit i have mixed feelings about zelda + scott (was she really crazy? did he steal her writing?), they are one of my favorite literary couples. having spent most of my adult life in long distance relationships, i thought this was pretty apt. more in the tmi realm, you can now have coloring pages of cunts. here is the long lost letter from neal cassady to jack kerouac. i don’t think i’ll make it writing about my life for six centuries but this family did. in one of the most remote inhabited areas in the world, socks are the stuff of love. i grew up with sassy. let’s pretend to not be surprised women that are bossy are treated as assholes. yeah, we should be paid for our art but some continue to think otherwise. why CAN’T condoms be cute? ayn rand was wrong — she who is most resilient is she who is most connected. if I can meditate, 383 consecutive days, then anyone can meditate. Having worked a bookstore was far more informative than getting a degree in English lit. Who knew Juggalos were so progressive? franny + zooey forever. now that i’m over 40, working long hours apparently makes me dumber.

This day in Lisa-universe: 2012, 2011, 2003, 2002, 1998

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fanciful delights for july 18, 2016

dear internet: Here are a compendium of things that struck my fancy this week. need more to read? check out the fanciful delights archive. x0x0, lisa

books / movies / tv

In my new job, I am doing a lot of data entry so it gives me time listen to a lot of audiobooks, which works in my favor for two reasons; I can catch up on my to be read piles and being read to while I work. if you’re into period mysteries, I would suggest Mr. Churchill’s Secretary and Maisie Dobbs, both beginning of respective series. In print books, I’ve been having a French moment. I always recommend Marian Keyes and Jane Austen pastiches. I also really enjoyed a novel that seemed to be parallel to my life. In need for a mindful pickup? Learn how to love or silly pug illustrations for a laugh.
There is too much going on in the TV world but currently I’m having a Scottish moment and I’m mainlining Monarch of the Glen. TheExHusband and I recently saw Swiss Army Man, a flick that filled with quirks and farts but not surprisingly is quite good.

fanciful delights

Missed or haven’t seen Game of Thrones? Samuel L. Jackson will catch you up. Did you know writing will help you get a job faster, handle hard times, and help with gratitude and allows you to understand the world? Then how you write gets boiled down to cooking terms. (See what I did there?) Now you all know why I keep an online diary. Hrm, I’v called corner stores “liquor stores,” “party stores,” and “convenience store.” What do you call your corner store? Part of mindfulness steps is to get rid of a lot of stuff. And to get cliched, do you know what your good life is? You can stop sabotaging yourself now. Haven’t we learned there is no pattern for creative people other than they have their own thing. Don’t forget Google knows all. Most people are beyond crueland are borderline sadists. Miss ’90s television? While Brexit looms, learn how Britain was unified. I’m always curious to know, scientifically, why I like the things I like.

This day in Lisa-universe: 2015, 2014, 2012, 2011, 2003, 1999, 1998

fanciful delights for june 20, 2016

Dear Internet,
Inspired by my Star Trek lovin’ pal, Carrie-Anne, I’m restructuring a bit how Fanciful Delights will be presented, thus in addition to things that have struck my fancy for that week with a bullet point list of what’s happening in my life.
Which I’ll start next week because it’s late Sunday night and I am grumpily need to get to bed.
xoxo,
lisa

things I have written

þ palindrome birthday in which I discuss turning 44 and love.

Fanciful Delights

þ The Unbelievable Tale of Jesus’s Wife An account of the potentiality of Jesus having been married. Dan Brown novel or reality? You decide.
þ How a boy from the Sri Lankan jungle formed the greatest punk band you’ve never heard You don’t have to be in punk or even post-punk to marvel at a slice of music history. If you’re discovering obscure or very little known bands, check out Death, an all Black punk band from Detroit that pre-date even The Ramones. The documentary is fabulous.
þ Dear Broke Reader: Your Sense of Entitlement is Killing Me A thoughtful argument on the nature of getting paid for creative work and those who steal from creators. You’ve seen variations of this argument with illustrators and other creative types but here the case is pushed forward because it’s not that people are asking for something for nothing but they are just taking that something without paying, e.g. illegal downloads of the work. There are numerous ways you can pay an author, and not necessarily in cash, for their work:

Buy the book outright. Even used books while the money isn’t going directly to the author, the work is being shared and loved by more people
Check out the item from the library. You are not paying directly for the authors books but the more a book / author is checked out, higher likelihood that more copies will be purchased not for just this title but for the author’s other works are well you’re also sharing in the love.
Support the author on social media. Sharing IS caring and the more people know about an author, the more people will buy from that author, and so on it goes.

This day in Lisa-universe: 2014, 2013, 2002

palindrome birthday

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Dear Internet,
A couple of admin things before we get going:

Item the first: I’ve minimalize the site design after listening to a podcast on brutualist websites. Long time readers may have noticed the site design has been getting less cluttered over the years and now it’s stripped down to as basic as possible unless I dropped out of WordPress entirely rendering all entries static but with nearly 1300 entries that is not happening anytime soon. Let me know in the comments if there is anything broken or missing.
Item the second: You may have also noticed there is now an audio option in addition to the text. Starting this post going forward there will be mp3 available to download of the entry. In short, I’m turning my blog entries into a podcast and don’t be too surprised if the podcasts are a bit rough in the beginning. You (should) be able to download the mp3 here, iTunes, and ~~LibSyn~~ SoundCloud. Why now? Numerous articles and research discuss the changing ways of how people access content online. This also mirrors how I, and my peeps, access information. Newletters (you will find the subscription to mine at the bottom of this entry) and podcasts are now the new hotness. Lastly, turning my blog into a podcast has been something I’ve been wanting to do for ages.

On with the show.

Today is a palindrome birthday – I turn 44. Celebration will be chill until TheExHusband comes to visit in a few weeks for the ever continuation of Lisa-mas. However, presents and cards have been rolling in and I feel beloved by many. Thank you.¹

No one is going to be shocked (and some might argue this is a long time coming) TheExHusband and I are, again, moving towards a romantic relationship. Part of the reason why I moved back to the east coast was to deliberate on whether starting a romantic relationship with TheExHusband was because I truly loved him or he was a crutch or he was a familiar.
In the last six months as my brain became less fuzzy, I ruminated what it meant to love and be loved. Many years ago I asked Rob G. if he and his partner stopped having sex for whatever reason, would he stay with her and he answered a quick “yes.” I swore to him I could never be in a sexless relationship, or a passionless relationship, and I would find someone who could fulfill both the sexy times and my intellectual hunger. All but TheExHusband had failed to fulfill both requirements. (I can feel Rob’s virtual head pat as if he knew one day I would know the truth about love.)
As I started unpacking at my new abode, I came across diaries from years ago where I do nothing but complain about how men seemingly only want sex and nothing to do with my brain. This complaint goes on for years, regardless of my relationship status at the time of the writing. It became interesting to me how the tables have now turned: I want nothing but sex (so I think) now and fuck all the intellectual side.
I know the psychological reasons why my behaviour is this way (sex = being loved) but at the end of the day this is not what I really want. I urgently need brain stimulation which leads me to having better sex and we shant be surprised it is never the other way around.
So I’m in a pickle. Sex with TheBassist was out of this world but I felt as if I could never get him to talk about anything other than day to day events.² Sex, on the other hand, with TheExHusband had become nearly impossible and unfulfilling but he could stimulate my brain like no other. After our split in August 2014, he hied himself off to a therapist, got on Wellbutrin, admitted what he has always known – he was depressed. He has reported back to me now that Wellbutrin is coursing through his system, his sexual drive has returned 10 fold from its previous state.
I lived with TheExHusband from September 2015 until last month. During that period not a sexual event happened other than benign snuggles, forehead kisses, and the occasional hand holding. We both agreed participating in any kind of sensual romps would be detrimental to my mental health while spurring on more confusion for him which obviously neither of us wanted so we remained chaste. Pinky swear.
When I was offered my current gig, there was a lot of discussion between my brain and I on whether or not to take the position. The more I pro and conned it, talked it over with TheExHusband and friends, the more another thought took residence in my brain: I was deeply in love with TheExHusband and leaving him would tear me apart.
TheExHusband loves me. He really loves me. He has never wavered his support of me. He has taken care of me when I hit rock bottom and cheered me on as things started to progress and get better. He always has my best interests at heart; he likes making me happy. He likes making me laugh. He wants to go on adventures with me and eat the world (another criteria I have in a potential mate). His love isn’t the love of fiery suns but a slow burning ember that never seems to fade.
Most importantly, he never left me when things got really bad.
I heavily took stock in this. Isn’t this what most of us want? Someone who is our companion and mate, who understands us near completely, makes us laugh, and gives us unwavering support in our choices and our life? I know I do. I know I never stopped loving TheExHusband, never wavered for my own support of him, never not wanted to make him laugh. I could never imagine my life without him and even wrote that if you date me, he comes along as part of the package.
TheExHusband and I have our own rituals, our own language, our own sense of security in the other. Our own world where we happily accept others to visit.
TheExHusband has his faults just as I have my faults, but at the end of the day if there is anyone I want to be with, it is him.
TheBassist may have been the one, but TheExHusband is my always.³

Long time readers may be puzzled by these turn of events. For months I banged on TheBassist was the one, I would take him back in a heartbeat, and I was tragically in love with him. Those were things I believed then and those were my truths. I could forgive myself for my behaviour during the course of our relationship, I could even understand some of his behaviours such as the birthday incident⁴, but I cannot shake the pain of him dumping me onto TheExHusband’s lap because TheBassist could not take care of me when I was so very sick and then wiping his hands of me. What also breaks my heart is that after the big show of telling me he wanted to check in on me to make sure I was okay after we broke up, he never did. How do I know? I asked his best friends. I told TheBassist all that time ago, in the beginning, I was his ideal on a pedestal who he could not handle the real and everyday me. Even his mom agreed. TheBassist vehemently disagreed with my observation and yet, here we are, a fantasy who has been put to rest.

It’s now going on two months since I planted myself in Connecticut and while I’m an hour away from TheBassist’s home, nothing has propelled me to attempt a visit. There has been a single time I have driven past his exit, on my way to IKEA, and I flipped it off in true Lisa fashion. Childish? Sure. But boy did it feel good.
Another indicator my attitude has changed is the slight PTSD I have of olive green Subaru Outbacks. They seem to be car d’jour around these parts and I am forever checking to see if one’s back window is covered in stickers. So far, the coast has been clear.
I am human above all things and I cannot tell a lie that I do want to see him if only to tell him off. Lisa Rabey Is Always Right™ and my ego must never be bruised. TheExHusband predicted ages ago TheBassist dumping me had less to do with me being in love and more to do with a dent in my believed perfect ego. I am begrudgingly hold this may be slightly true.
I still maintain TheBassist breaking up with me was one of the smartest moves he has ever made and without that breakup, the crash would have been much worse.

I often need to experience things to get the things to stick no matter how many times someone tells me it is so. e.g. I need to touch the hot stove to believe it is a hot stove.
Most of the human population, upon reading my exercise in love on TheExHusband may be thinking to themselves: This is what is known to be love. We know that it ebbs and flows. This is a universal truth. It is not always just the hot burning passion but it is also vomit and money woes. If you want the treasure you have to fight the orcs.
I hurt a lot of people getting here and there is rarely a time I haven’t cried when thinking about everything I put TheExHusband through but he will tell you two things: The first being I was mentally sick for a long time and much of my actions were based upon the disease and not the real me and his depression caused a lot of rift he refused to believe was there also for a very long time.
TheExHusband and I discuss this on occasion and we’re brutally honest with the other. I am not afraid to admit that in some warped way going through all of this is what smacked me in the head about love, I am every so glad it happened.
xoxo,
Lisa
P.S. The track isn’t bad but it’s still little rough. I’ve been editing for about six to seven hours today so next time it will be better.

1. Last year’s birthday was interesting. TheBassist took me the mall, bought his children presents, and couldn’t even be arsed to make or get me a card. He had a snit when I rescued a rather dismal day by helping his family sell strawberries and shortcakes at a church fete. When I told him how I felt, and that I wanted a birthday do-over, he promised with a “sure, sure” and yet, nothing happened.
2. Let’s call this a truce on the he said/she said. This is and was my truth.
3. When I first mentioned to TheExHusband he was my always, he thought it was terribly sweet yet he could not get the image of the Always maxi pad brand out of his head. One day whilst shopping I came across the lady parts aisle, took a picture of the brand and sent him said image. He giggled.
4. What was the point of doing anything special for me if I was only going to leave and break TheBassist’s heart over and over again. Thin, sure, but I understand this may have been his reasoning.

This day in Lisa-Universe: 2014, 2014, 2012, 2002, 1999

welcome home

The weekly silly pics are less silly and more watching my hair grow.

Dear Internet,
I’ve stayed consistent with the silly pictures goal and just posted week 13. So too with the gratitude and happy lists, though I will admit the last few weeks I’ve been posting one massive gratitude and a few happy things as nothing at this time in my life can compare my gratefulness of getting a job and finally starting a life of my own.

The fates have finally bestowed their approval of my life and allowed me to get a job.
I am going to be straight up honest here: I had my doubts. I cried for a few days about this new adventure. I have not lived alone since 2005. I am going to an area where I will know people but we’re not intimate friends. Yet.
Lots of questions and anxieties abound.

What if my new gig fired me?
What if my contract doesn’t get picked up?
What if I hate my job?

The “what ifs” kept stacking up and everything was almost to overwhelming to bear.
I can’t do this, I thought. I’m too scared, too old, too something.
But then I reminded myself of all the big jumps I’ve taken like moving to San Francisco alone when I was 25. Moving back to Grand Rapids more than once without knowing a single soul. Solo cross country trips without nary a thought.
The list of what I could, can, and have done began to overtake the “what if” stack. There were a lot of things I’ve jumped to that turned out to be good, I could do this.
Once I told my fucking anxieties to take a hike, I knew I had this.

The job is located in New York, in Westchester county, which is near the New York / Connecticut state lines. After laughing manicaly at the $3K price tag for one bedroom apartments in the area, I started looking at close-ish Connecticut towns / villages / cities to call home.
Connecticut, like most states along on the eastern seaboard, have their larger cities along the coast. 95, which runs from Florida to the Canadian province of New Brunswick, follows along the coast making the hop from Boston, New York City, and so on pretty easy. This makes sense as many of these towns were originally ports for trading and shit during the early days of the formation of the US.
There are a few cities inland but I wanted to be near the action on the coast. I decided to concentrate on areas around Norwalk and a few towns north. My qualifiers were fairly simple: Within an hour commute to work; Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, and Stew Leonard’s near by; close to a MINI dealership; easy access to Metro North, and an apartment community¹.
Norwalk fit the bill perfectly.
I massaged the numbers, I cut out things that were possibly not needed. I looked for cheaper apartments but in the end I just couldn’t make it work. Even after cutting things to the bone, I would end up – $47 a month. Yes, I would be in the red with no savings, no emergency funds, nothing to help me out if the world fell apart. There would also be no going out to eat, no entertainment, no fun.
It was that bad².
It seemed holy unfair I received a job offer, with decent pay, and I couldn’t afford to live in the area I desired.
For a brief moment I thought about rejecting the offer and staying put in L-ville. I would throw myself at recruiters and start the process of slowly integrating myself into the workforce before venturing out in the big, wide, scary world.
We all know I do nothing by halves. It’s either both feet or nothing at all.
After pulling myself together and looking at my options, I started researching apartments in Danbury.
Danbury is in south-western Connecticut. Not quite on the gold coast but close enough. Instead of the 50-70 minute commute I would have from Norwalk, the commute from Danbury is 30-45. Community apartment rents were significantly cheaper. I was close to 84, an interstate that connected me to work fairly quickly (the drive from Norwalk would have been mostly back roads) and I could get to a Metro North station tout suite. There was a Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, and a Stew Leonard’s nearby and I was equidistant between two MINI dealerships.
I heard from various people Danbury was a borderline shit hole. There was huge crime problems³. When I was there in December for my job interview at a local university, it was rainy, miserable, and what I saw looked sketch. My Google Earth stalking of the downtown area made me side-eye. How in the fuck was I going to ever live here (if I got that job) if the area seemed below my standards⁴?
Here I was five months later and I needed to live somewhere that was relatively cheaper than what I was seeing in Norwalk, Westchester County (and New York as a whole) was out, and I wanted to be in a fairly decent sized city.
Much to my chagrin⁵, Danbury it is.
I started the search for Danbury apartments. The community I looked at in Norwalk has a sister community in Danbury so I made an appointment to tour the facility the Saturday after I arrived. A few other communities popped up on my radar which I put in way down on the reserve list as the Google and Yelp reviews were terrible. I started to fret I wasn’t going to find a place a live until I stumbled across the City Center of Danbury site and I felt like I had come home.
The first thing I noticed was the images of downtown places and markers were markedly different than what was on Google Earth. There also seemed to be a fairly decent list of things to shop, eat, and live.
I went back and talked to a few friends again about the area. The downtown core was booming and people seemed to love it. There were loads of amenities downtown like parks were also enticing. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad after all.
I had forgotten this site existed even though I scoped it out in December. I found I was intrigued with a few of the apartment places, particularly with 1 Kennedy Flats.
This complex caught my eye for a couple of reasons. First, the rent was within my budget even with the amenities and pet fees added on and it was cheaper by $350 than the places in Norwalk, which meant I could eek out some kind of life outside of work AND pay my bills. Second, it was located in what seemed to be a thriving downtown and I really wanted to make sure the walk score of where ever I lived was above 75. The complex was across from the downtown park (Connecticuters seem big on these main square parks which is fine by me!), it has reserved parking, an on community storage area, a gym for me to work out in, a pool (time to get out that fat girl bikini!), gas appliances, fake wood floors, and walking distance to everything.
Sold.
It wasn’t just the apartments accoutrements and location of the community that sold me on living in Danbury, but also everything else going on the city.

The public library is a 7 minute walk from my apartment
There is a hackerspace and it to is located downtown
The mall looks pretty decent and it has the ever necessary Apple store
There is a local minor league hockey team and the arena is within walking distance
A sports arena that does soccer and lacrosse (only local leagued)
And a mutherfuckin’ rugby leagued team that also has a leagued woman’s team (Fuck. Yes.)
I could get to NYC in about an hour (hello museums!)

I am relieved.
Of course moving in is not going to be exactly smooth. I’ve reserved the apartment and paid for the first month without stepping a foot onto the property so there is a chance of me not liking the place or location. My stuff isn’t scheduled to arrive until a week or two after I arrive. I will be without home internet for a week, which means I had to up my data plan⁶ to survive. The only furniture I will have is my bed and that’s it for at least a week. (An IKEA trip is already in the works.) Daily household items I have are boxed up and won’t arrive until the move AND there is a longer than my arm list of daily household items I know I don’t have and will need, primarily while my stuff is in transit, which means I’m spending more cash.
I should say it’s not “had doubts” but “have doubts.” Moving is stressful. Borrowing and spending more cash on the move is stressful. Starting a new job is stressful⁷. The dog’s anxiety on a new place and a 1000 mile road trip is stressful.
My medicating and talking therapists are convinced I can handle this. I’m tough. I’ve been mentally healthy for quite awhile now so I’m less likely to breakdown if shit happens. Even my close friends feel I can do this. And if I do cry, or get upset, or feel anxiety about everything happening, that is totally normal — remember it’s how I handle it determines whether or not I’m mentally healthy.
I’ve fucking got this.
xoxo,
Lisa

1. I wanted a community over living in a private home apartment / owing a home as I wanted all the trappings of what a community offered such as 24 hour maintenance, on site gym, guaranteed parking, and washer/dryer in unit. I wanted to be catered to and not have to worry about a fucking thing.
2. It was around this time I was crying a lot and my anxiety, understandably, was through the roof.
3. When I think of Connecticut, I don’t think of “crime” or “gangs” or anything nefarious — after living in Detroit and Oakland the rest of the country seems like small potatoes.
4. I readily admit I am a privledge asshole. Living with TheExHusband at his condo for the last eight months has raised my bar on what I want / don’t want in my life style and Danbury seemed fairly far from that making that reach. Turns out I was wrong.
5. I associate things with things. Memories with music, people with smells, and so on. Pre-me 2005, TheBassist dated a woman who lived in Danbury and she went batshit crazy when the relationship ended (She stalked me for awhile.). Even without direct association, Danbury has always equaled batshit crazy to me. Yes, this is silly.
6. I have a 2gig a month plan which is normally more than enough for my phone data needs. I am paying an extra $40 or $60 (I forget which) to bump that up to 18gigs month. If I don’t, the overage, per gig, on my original plan is $15. So I’ll be able to hotspot my laptop, conservatively, but not kill myself with the overage charges.
7. Everyone is apparently really excited I’m coming and there is plans for everyone to meet me on my first day. No pressure, none at all.

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2015, 2014, 2012

Gratitudes: April 25 – May 1, 2016

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.”) You can also find the a list of all my gratitudes here.
Another short week because the world seems overwhelming good right now with a job in hand. I count the small pleasures in life as things start to shift into focus. I am truly happy in this space.
gratitude

I may have said this before but I am beyond grateful for TheExHusband. He has been there and taken care of me when I was at my worst and has cheered me when I am at my best. I am extremely lucky to have him in my life. There are a lot of things in my world that would not have happened without his love and support. He is probably, if not literally, the best human on the planet
The internet for allowing me to connect to zillions of people across the world
For not having to look for another mother fucking job

happy

Cold pressed coffee
Adventures
Hockey
EPL football (Go WestHam!)
Paper planners and journals
Stew Leonard’s

xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2015, 2014, 2012