Author: pookiebear

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


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
https://exitpursuedbyabear.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/recitations-v3.mp3?_=1
 
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
https://exitpursuedbyabear.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/icarryyourheart.mp3?_=2
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

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond

Dear Internet,
As I’m hot on the heels of the posts about lack of self-confidence and being mindful, it’s time for me to dissect another struggle of mine: self-esteem.

I tend to re-read previous days worth of entries in my paper journals to see where my train of thought has been and if I have missed any of the minutiae of my day to day life. (Remember I want to be the Samuel Pepys of my generation.) I typically don’t read my back entries on the blog too much with the exception when I link to them inside a new post and I scan the content to verify it matches my point.
I tend to forget what I’ve written on the blog (and sometimes in my paper journals) more often than not thus rereading the content always gives me a bit of a surprise. (I also sometimes forget my back is tattooed and it’s always a delightful revelation when I see the black work.)
The almost relentlessly ongoing theme with my paper journal these last few weeks is the story of moving forward, my sense of accomplishments, and letting myself heal. Because I am me, I wonder if these are actual steps to to convince myself that this is actually happening or if I am only fooling myself.

It is harder still when you believe you are stupid and those (it seems many) think you’re awfully, terribly smart and you honestly believe they are being duped. The irony of the believing you are stupid as historically there is no trauma or pattern of being called or treated as if you were / are stupid. You were in fact told about your amazing abilities of reading (age 3) and writing (same), you were singled out with a few others to participate in gifted children classes. They wanted you to skip a grade, send you to a gifted high school, and you refused both.
Finally the belief you’ve held on for so long is cemented when all the tests you were given as a child, and aced, did not lend themselves to various tests when you were older. You “flunk” your SATs. You “flunk” your GREs. You pick colleges and universities who don’t require those tests. You push to excel then because it was either get a degree or pack sausages for the rest of your life. It is not about testing your brain, rather, it’s about survival.
(You did not know then was the insistence of instructors to teach the same widely used learning style which does not fit you and you were untreated as someone with ADHD far into your 30s. (Typical symptoms of ADHD such as poor word retrieval (cannot remember a word when speaking or writing), difficulty in pronunciation and spelling of words, dropping words in verbal and written communication also firmly take hold in your belief of your stupidity.))
How much would have changed if you had believed in yourself, got medicated, and worked with a tutor to help you.)
If you believe in such things, your IQ is in the 130s.
The reason you hide for so very many years of why you want to be stupid is because being smart alienates you. You’re already a taller than average, bespeckled nerd with very few friends. Those who are beautiful and popular have everything. Those who are smart and nerdy do not.
Denying your gifts at least puts you somewhat with the people you perceive to be normal.
No one wants to be special because it does nothing.

Oh! Lack of self-esteem, how you torture me so.
xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2004, 2001

you are beautiful because you are here

Silly week 2 – February 9, 2016

Dear Internet,
Tuesday is post a silly picture day!  You can keep track on the page or over at my instagram.

When I published everything you f*cking need to know to be happy (but were afraid to ask) yesterday, I thought it would be a good idea to start breaking down some of the things I struggle with.
Today, it’s compliments.
The battle that rages inside is when someone compliments me on anything – appearance, work, or whatever, I think they want something. Because when someone tells you something nice, there is a condition attached to that compliment.
Always.
Today is a good example. I take the silly picture and post it on my FB and instagram pages. People compliment how pretty I am.
What do they want?
I struggle to find a way to answer. I used to be self-deprecating about those compliments but then I started thinking people would take the self-deprecation for shilling. So I stopped the self-deprecation and started thanking them instead and by changing my verbal response, I am begin the long road of accepting myself.

The gratitude of thanking people started when TheBassist and I were dating. I would tell him how much I liked/loved/adored X,Y,Z. How very handsome he is (because he is). What a great body / body part / thing he did because I saw it to be true. I know others think/thought the same way about him. So what was the problem? (It’s inconceivable to me others might have self-hatred issues. Everyone else is awesome!)
He always said something along the lines of the years of self-hatred, it’s hard for him to accept the things that people see about him. He doesn’t see them in himself so why would others see them in him?
Thus, whenever you tell him something kind about himself (he’s handsome, wonderful bass player, fabulous intellect, etc) he says, “Thank you.” No qualifiers, no explanation, just two words. He’s learning to start loving himself.
Thank. You.

My self-loathing runs deep and as far as my view of my attractiveness or brilliance1, I don’t see it. That’s not entirely true — I know there are attractive features about myself physically (I have great breasts, my eyes are fabulous, my hair is pretty killer) and mentally (I enjoy and have conversational skills on many things, I can often make people laugh), but as an overall package? No. I don’t see it.

A couple of years ago before TheBassist came back, the implosion of my marriage to TheExHusband is simmering below the surface. One discussion was already under our belts about how unhappy I was in our marriage and the reasons why. He didn’t want to see a couples counselor. I felt stuck. It wasn’t as if I didn’t love him, but the pain of being married to him was getting to be unbearable and I could not conjure up a reasonable explanation to leave him.2
TheExHusband and I’s love life had already begun the decimation. He said some pretty awful things. I took those awful things to heart. I would silently cry when watching any kind of romantic shenanigans on TV or in movies. I wouldn’t leave my husband, I was relatively young, but then I saw the rest of my life being in a near sex-less marriage. Having passion? Hah. Hah. Hah.
Not long after that discussion, I flew out to California for a job interview. It was a last ditch effort on my part to see if I could get a job before I left my old place of employment (and before getting serious about the writing). An old friend, whom I’ve known since my days with ExFiance #2, lives about an hour away from my hotel. Old friend and I recently got in touch after not speaking for years. We agree to hang out when I’m in California to catch up, have dinner, the usual.
Now I haven’t seen old friend in over a decade at this point. I’ve aged, I’ve gained weight, and I’m nervous about seeing him because I’m already assuming he’s going to find me an ignorant, fat slob which only adds to my loaded self-esteem issues. I need everyone to like me even if I perceive myself to be an ignorant, fat slob.
We make plans for dinner, he gets in touch when he’s in the lobby, and here we go. I swallow the bile of my thoughts and proceed down stairs. As I turn the corner, he’s leaning up against one of the pillars.
He’s grown insanely hot. He’s tall. His intellect is amazing. He plays hockey and his body just simply rocks. The rush of lust confirms I was not dead in the desire department, but logically and reasonably, I knew I couldn’t act on those feelings. I made a commitment to TheExHusband. I gave him my word. Somehow I had to fix my marriage but now?
Now here was lust. Desire. I bathed in it.
So there is old friend and I’m tongue tied. I am lusting after him and yet the bile of hatred is now brimming because there is no fucking way he’s going to want to have dinner, let alone desire me.
What the fuck am I going to do?
We scamper across the Bay Area, I get slightly drunk, and we end the night on hugs. I knew if I didn’t not get the fuck out of there, I was going to make a move and not only was in that moment would I be fucking up my marriage (I gave my word) but I was also ruining the beginning of a close friendship, with the bonus of adding more to the hating of one’s self for being an ass. Besides. He probably didn’t see me with the same lust, so hey, this is all working out. Off to prep for the interview I go.
Cut ahead a few months when old friend and I are chatting online and the only thing I remember about that trip was, other than the fact I didn’t get the job, I had empirical proof I was not dried up. So I tell old friend, with much bravado, if I had stayed later that night or called him after my interview the following night for dinner, I would have made a massive pass towards him – hah hah hah. I am hilarious.
Except he tells me if I had, it wouldn’t have been turned down.
Shut the front door.
Turns out old friend has had a massive crush on me since the days when ExFiance #2 and I were together. ExFiance #2 knew about it, old friend’s wife knew about it, and they would tease him.
Me? No. Fucking. Idea.
(I always act surprised when I find out someone has even thinks I’m remotely attractive. As if I’m not worthy for that persons lust/desire/admiration or they are fulfilling some kind of fetish. When they tell me years later, I’m even more flabbergasted.)

Compliments and admiration are multiple edged sword: They give you the admiration you desire from people, they reaffirm the good work you’ve done on X, they make you feel good, but they can be intimidating as hell. These feelings negate the the admiration someone has just given you, whether you’re looking particularly nice that day, wrote a brilliant piece, or you did something kind for them.
We all want to feel good about ourself but it’s hard to accept this kindness especially for those of us who have years, nay decades, of self-hatred to chip through.

There are a couple of things we need to remember:

  • When we feel like shit about ourselves, remember these are just thoughts. They cannot hurt or harm you.
  • Having thoughts about X is a shared human emotion. When you’re not feeling particularly kind about yourself, someone else is having a similiar or exact thought about themselves that very moment. This is not to say you two should have a pity party but that
  • You’re not alone
  • You can be kind to yourself by being thankful for what you have. Once you can accept on being kind to yourself, you will be more receptive to people being kind to you

It will take a long time, no arbitrary date can be set, but anyone can forgive and love themselves. I know you can.

Today I am grateful for my readers, far and wide, who share with me their own struggles and dreams. Who feel my word resonate with them. Who find me funny, brilliant, or just a bit goofy. Who think I have much to give to this world and yes, who think I’m attractive.
Thank. You.
xoxo,
Lisa
P.S. As I was writing this, and the second I hit publish, the very first thought in my mind was those reading were going to think I was shilling for compliments. This is why it’s important to ditch the self-hatred because it gets you no where.

1. I have a post on this very topic hanging out in the wings. I need to summon up the courage to post it.
2. He has seen a therapist, he is now on anti-depressants, and we’ve had long conversations about this period in our life and he’s very contrite. He’s not a bad guy – he was just in a terrible place.

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2015,  2013

everything you f*cking need to know to be happy (but were afraid to ask)

Dear Internet,
If you are into self-help, woo-woo, DBT, or are a curious individual, you’ll notice the core of all of these practices contain two main components to help you along the way to being happier and thus having a more fulfilling life.
I’m going to give them to you for free. No more self-help books, sketchy websites, or paying for gurus1.
Ready?
Mindfulness and gratitude.
That’s it.
Every website and self-help book will bury these ledes in the opening pages of their annals and yet build their entire systems around these two concepts. Yet once you get into the meat of their woo-wooease, you’ll find them all tucked in and ready to work.
How does mindfulness and gratitude work?
To achieve mindfulness, you meditate and if you meditate, you’ll be more in the present. If you’re more in the present, you’ll begin to feel less anxiety and stress, more compassion for yourself and others and a fuck ton of other awesome benefits. Being mindful helps with the awareness of what’s happening in and around you — a thought is just a thought, a feeling is just a feeling; you do not have to react to either one. Being aware of those things helps you make better, and more informed, decisions about what is happening around you. You don’t act on impulses or steer from difficult decisions. You accept that a zillion decisions brought you to this point, you can accept that you can make choices on going forward. It is not “things happen for a reason.” That’s bullshit. You know it and I know it. Stop believing in it.
Gratitude is the complement to mindfulness. Gratitude allows you to be thankful for what you have rather than what you want. It concentrates on the being rather than the material. You are thankful for your parents (yes, even if you are divorced from them) because without them, you wouldn’t be here. You are thankful for your killer hair. You are thankful for the experiences you’ve had to help shape you. You’re grateful for the friends who believe and support in you.
(A good one, for me, is to be grateful for TheBassist breaking up with me (shut it). If he had not broken it off and put clear boundaries on his needs, the cycle would have continued. I would have gotten worse. Crashing that fateful October day is probably the best thing that’s happened to me in years. The cyclical of my relationships wasn’t just with TheBassist but with other aspects of my life. I’ve accepted, and said a zillion times, I may never hear from him again but if there is one thing I want him to know is this.)
You can make it as large (I am grateful for my family for loving me) to small (I am grateful for my friend who rubbed my feet after a long day). The idea is to find one thing to be grateful for, every day, which will keep you anchored in the present and then follow the mindfulness train of thought above to continue on with your enlightenment.
(I know it’s going to take me awhile to get beyond “I have killer hair” and I’m okay with that knowledge.)
At this point you are asking yourself (more than likely) the following question(s),”Lisa, why should we believe you? Sometimes when you write, things sound cray. Seriously. Cray.” or something along those lines. Hey, I get it. I’d have a hard time listening to me too.
I’ve been meditating for 211 days in a row and in the beginning, I thought it was a crock of shit. But allowing myself to be open to the idea, and practicing the tenants, has really helped in the long game. There are a lot of potentially stupid actions I mulled over, thanks to meditation, before realizing they were not in my best interest, so I didn’t act on them. I am less likely to be impulsive then I was six months ago. This is important to note.2
(There is one decision I mulled over for months before finally acting on it. I know others would see it as detrimental to my well being but in the end, making that decision made me feel better and knowing its consequences may not ever be realized also help.3)
I asked my therapist what makes someone who has a mental illness different than someone who has healthy4 reactions to stressful things such as having low self-esteem or social anxiety. She said that’s a good question and after thinking about it for a few moments, her response was along the lines of someone who has a healthy relationship with stress is more prepared and better able to handle that stress where as someone who is mentally ill, the stress is heightened and we’re less likely to handle it in a healthy way.
The goal is not to get stable (because no one is really stable) or normal (no one is really normal) but to handle and prepare healthy responses to stressful things.
Which is where the meditation and gratitude come in. It’s all full circle.
xoxo,
Lisa
P.S. I highly recommend reading Zen Habits to get you started. You can also mediate using my favorite (and often my pushy instance of) app, Headspace.

1. I am not a doctor. I am not trained to dispense advice or consultation. If you’re mentally ill, think you’re mentally ill, or have additional questions about your mental health, please seek professional help.
2. TheExHusband often comments how I relate and respond to things is much better in the last 6 -9 months and a lot of that has to do with meditation.
3. Yes, I am being completely vague. No, I’m not going to tell you. No, it’s probably not what you think it is.
4. We kept saying “normal” instead of healthy and we air quoted “normal” every time we did so we decided that “healthy” (sans air quotes) was a better description.

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

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