Tag: Downton Abbey

introductions, introductions

The cottage from The Holiday.

Dear Internet,
Happy early Svein Forkbeard day. I’m in the wilds of Connecticut prepping for the series of holiday events that will be happening over the course of the next few days. Tonight most of the Connecticut family is heading to the midnight service and I’m thinking of joining them. There is something about theological rituals during the holidays that I still yearn for even though I do not prescribe to any particular religion.
Like previous years, I’m in the throes of making holiday cookies. This year the list is small: macaroons, white chocolate cranberry oatmeal, no bakes, sugar, and finally, gingerbread cookies. I’m shipping cookies to my brother and TSTBEH and of course, leaving some for the Connecticut family. Since the next couple of days is going to be jammed with family activities, I’m stealing time when I can – like waking up at 5:30AM to start the prep work for the cookies and the cornbread stuffing for the big meals that are happening today, tomorrow, and Boxing day.
Nick Frost plays Santa!
Nick Frost plays Santa!

It’s also time for holiday episodes of my favorite British TV and radio shows. So far Stella, the first part of the Zurich episode of Cabin Pressure, and first episodes of Good Omens have played. Then of course come the regulars and new shows that are upcoming like: Doctor Who, Downton Abbey, and Miranda. This is yet another reason why I love the British: the unabashed love for holiday episodes of their favorite shows which Americans give no fucks about.
But I have to reaffirm the bigger news than holiday cookies and TV shows; though in my world, those are very good things.
Skaldic Press Presents
Reminder about the 4x a month newsletter from Skaldic Press (my publishing arm) that includes updates from Exit, Pursued by a Bear, so glad is my heart, and other adventures in addition to Skaldic Press. Includes themed GIFs. You can check out the archives for a better taste of what to expect and then subscribe below.


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The Lisa Chronicles, Vol 1: 1998
Also another reminder that my book is now available for pre-order. Publishing date is January 31, 2015.
From the blurb:

In 1998, having an online diary was a brave new world. Mailing lists, communities, chat rooms, and more all sprung up over people’s favorite diarists. Now we would call them bloggers. But then, THEN was a whole ‘nother beast. Then writing online was intimate. Then it was more personalized and personal. Then writers had less shtick. Not much was expected of these online exhibitionist scribes other than the ability to tell a good tale and regularly update.
I miss those days.
I never expected to get rich or famous, but what I wanted was to be able to connect to others who were like me. The scared, the frightened, the brave, and the bold. (No relation to the terrible soap opera of the same name.) I wanted to eat the world and in 1998, what better way to do that was through the Internet?
What can you expect from the first volume? Love, conflict, obsessions with people, places, and things. Rotating cast of characters and adventures. Sprinkle of song lyrics here and there. Pop culture references galore. Sex. More sex. Profane words and a bipolar girl desperate to connect with a world she did not understand.
While this work has been edited for grammar, clarity, and the obvious typo, it remains largely unchanged from when it first appeared online nearly two decades ago.
And lastly, every word here is true.

So if you’re intrigued by the book description or want to help support me thanks to the saga of #teamharpy, I would be most grateful if you would pre-order the book.

[amazon template=image&asin=B00R2808QE]

<<<<>>>>

Not much else is going on in my world right this very second other than prepping for the holidays and editing my book. Typically I feel some sort of sadness and isolation since my family and I are not very close, but while I feel some semblance of that feeling this year, being around people who care kind of lessens the pain. I still feel awkward and out of place, but when do I usually not feel a disconnect to others’ lives?
The drugs may stabilize my moods, meditation may help me deal better with impulse feelings, but some things about me will just never change.
xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2013, 2011, 2002

notes for cabinet particulier, part iv: draft of first chapter completed

Dear Internet,
It’s about 8:30PM and I’m sitting on the front deck, still in my jim jams from the night before. This is the second time today I have stepped foot out of the cabin, the first being this morning when after I woke and received a phone call from the Cedar postmaster telling me the post carrier had flagged where we can put our new mailbox and I had walked out to check to verify the location. After that, my butt was parked either at the island in the kitchen or in the chaise  (so very chic) writing and researching.
My book takes place in 1907 London that revolves around an aging actress who is  not terribly good but she is what matters most and that is she’s one of the most beautiful women of her age. I’m styling her looks after the famed American silent film actress from the same era, Maude Fealy.

As my character is an Edwardian London stage actress, I spent some time today gathering moar research on the theaters of the era and discovered a gem of a site that also had a handy Google map of theaters from the era, including play programs, photos, and loads more.
I also dipped into cosmetics and etiquette of the era, finding a boon of a book entitled Every Woman’s Encyclopedia, from 1910, which ran into a hefty 8 volumes and 6000 page. The book is intense. Here is a gem on how Edwardian lady should keep her eyes more becoming:

Yes, let us not weary our poor optic nerves, shall we ladies?
I had the idea of how I wanted the book to open and numerous first lines had already appeared, so instead of working out a vague outline of where I wanted the book to go, I just sat down and wrote instead. Several hours later, I had 2100 words in a pretty good first chapter under my belt with ideas of where I was going.
Tomorrow I was to go kayaking with Emili, but I just texted her to beg off since I’m in the zone and needed to continue plowing through with my work. Kristin is coming up tomorrow evening for the weekend and we’ll be busy and I’m heading back to Grand Rapids on Sunday (can’t miss my Sunday evening telly). Next week is going to be busy as John is coming into town on Tuesday evening to stay at Throbbing Manor and we are heading to the Code4Lib Midwest conference on Wednesday/Thursday. Since many of my favorite people are going to be at the conference as well, there will be lots of socializing. Friday I head to Mt. P to hang with Kristin for the weekend and we’re meeting up with some of our cmmrb pals and then it’s back to the grind on Monday when I head back to the cabin for MOAR writing for a week and then the cmmrb weekend will be here and then it will be August.
Jesus fucking Christ. In the four days I’ve been up here, between blog posts, writing the chapter, and research I’ve cranked out 10,000 words. I am a mutherfucking machine!
On that note, I’m getting off the laptop and calling it an early night. I’m going to brush the fuzz off my teeth, wash my filthy body, and make a bowl of popcorn. Yes, yes I did indeed bring my beloved hot air popper to the cabin with me. I’m then going to curl up around my ipad and watch Downton Abbey, for you know, research.
xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2008, 2003, 1999, 1998

notes for cabinet particulier, part iii: sorting the research

View from the back deck

Dear Internet,
As planned, I got up early and headed into Traverse City to get Jeeves’ tires attended to. I called the local BMW dealership and was told, despite confirmation from MINI Grand Rapids and the TC BMW receptionist, they do NOT service MINIs. His suggestion? Take my car to MINI Grand Rapids. When I pointed out a 160 mile trek on possibly bad tires was not a wise move, he suggested I head to Discount Tire (as I had originally was leaning towards) and also gave me the name of a local TC shop that specialized in MINIs and other foreign cars.
Once you get off of M-72 and start heading into Cedar and then further on to Throbbing Cabin is some of the best driving roads around, barring M-22 of course. I love this part of the drive when we come up here as this is the kind of roads where Jeeves thrives and begs to be driven on. There is a stretch of about five miles after you leave Cedar that is hairpin straight and goes up some minor hills; when you hit the apex of each hill, you can see Lake Michigan beckoning in the distance.
Uncertain to the status of the my tires, I drove ever so slowly down to TC and who am I kidding here? I was probably white knuckling it the entire way, waiting for the supposedly bad tire to just fall off and planning in my head how I was going to handle each and every bad scenario that landed in my brain.
Discount Tire was busy for 10AM on a Wednesday morning — me and all the OAPs hanging out getting our tires issues sorted. The tires are fine and the TPMS is all normalized (again). Rationally, I knew this was going to be true, but anxiety eats away at all rationality. I spent time on the deck last night staring at Jeeves as if he was a monster because I could not stop thinking of worse case scenarios of having massive car issue 160 miles from home. THIS! Despite having insurance, an incredible maintenance and warranty plan, tow truck numbers programmed in my phone, and local numbers (now) for car repair, I could not let it go until the nice man at Discount Tire told me everything was going to be fine.
I got back to the cabin several hours later than intended as I ran a few errands since I was out and about. After having lunch, I started getting settled into doing research for the book around 4PM and here it is four hours later and fuck man, I am overwhelmed.

On Monday night I started culling all the random tidbits I had been collecting for the last 18 months and began to import them into Scrivener. I broke each thing down to its own category for easier sorting and updated the research page for the project in the process.
Today’s work was much of the same as I found more locales where I had stored bits and bobs. I think in my head I always fancied myself to keep things neat and simple, but apparently I keep trying to find the best product for everything, test it out, and ultimately forget it and all the content I stored there. Today the culprit was Pinboard, which while it seems to prove useful for many, I need visualization to organize.
(Still sitting on Pinboard  is a good chunk of research I found for my viking and medieval lady boners which still needs to be imported over to their respective Scrivener projects. Marginalia for the win!)
Granted Scrivener has a learning curve, but once you get in the groove it starts to really make sense. Best thing I’ve ever done? Put all my notes, ideas, and everything into a single Scrivener project.

I’ve also been reading contemporary stories while I’m up here based in the Edwardian era – of which there is surprisingly not many.  I suspected with the rise of Downton Abbey that there would have been a huge influx of lit based in the Edwardian era, but no, there really isn’t. I know of less than half a dozen mystery series based in that era and handful of fiction books written in the last five years but that’s shockingly about it. Since I’m having a hard time finding contemporary books of that era, I’m going to create a bibliography over on my author site for read alikes. Because librarian, yolo.
I’m also collecting titles of works written in the era to read to get a better sense of the period. so watch it Lawrence, Forster, Galsworthy, and the whole lot of you. I am on to you. And lucky me, most of their work is available in the open domain.
(I finally finished Maugham’s Cakes & Ale, though written in 1930 much of the book takes place in the Edwardian era. Holy fuck, do I hate this book. It was just so awful for a large list of reasons I will be discussing later.)
Additionally, there is only a handful of sites dedicated to the Edwardian era and some of them are dubious in nature while others tuck that period in as very-late Victorian without giving the period its proper due. I was distressed to find that one of the sites that I had considered, due to the breadth of research and writing, to be a fabulous resource was passing on debunked knowledge as fact.
Case in point: I am supremely disappointed to discover Edwardian women did NOT pierce their nipples to make them more pert. This is repeated over and over again in many legitimate sites but apparently there is no reference other than to a correspondence page in the back of a publication from 1899 that was more of fetishism than actual fact.
I have a draft started for a blog post quaintly entitled, Who the fuck are the Edwardians and why should we care?, which I hope to write tomorrow. Because we should care, dammit.
Legit writer tools.

The mosquitos are eating me alive out here and it grows late. My treat for getting work done will be a vegan white russian, dinner, and a not so terrible book.
xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2013, 2012, 2010, 1998

Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes: December 28, 2013

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

During the Renaissance, cabinet of curiosities came into fashion as a collection of objects that would often defy classification. As a precursor to the modern museum, the cabinet referred to room(s), not actual furniture, of things that piqued the owners interest and would be collected and displayed in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes is my 21st century interpretation of that idea.
Dear Internet,

Writing

F.U.C.K.

Watching

  • Blandings
    Based on the stories by P.G. Wodehouse, a frothy watch that is coming back for a second season in 2014.
  • Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.  and Sleepy Hollow
    I watched the first few episodes of both and let the rest pile up on the DVR. I found, as time went on, I had no fucks for either show. I was bored, found Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. neither clever or intriguing and Sleepy Hollow was just plain boring.
  • Boardwalk Empire
    Another show, like Homeland, that I stopped watching at some point in mid-season only to have TheHusband keep me up to date on the goings on. Now that one of my favorite characters is dead, the plot is overly messy, another character has been tossed to the side, I am glad this is now over. If this gets picked up for another season, we’ll more than likely not watch this hot mess.
  • Downton Abbey Christmas Special
    This was, it has to be, a parody of the entire show. Two major events were pushed easily to the side and summarily forgotten, no real movement in the plot, and speculation about some of the characters was heightened all dressed under snark about the English upper classes by the characters playing the upper classes. Just meh.
  • Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries Christmas Special
    Yay Phryne. Now what am I going to do until season three comes to fruition??
  • Death Comes to Pemberley
    Based on the novel by P.D. James, this three part series is currently being shown in the UK. I have yet to read the book, but, the series is interesting. It has loads of good actors, Matthew Rhys, Matthew Goode, Anna Maxwell Martin, and others. But the movement is slow, the dialogue is a bit thin, and frankly, I am not caring enough about the characters but I will continue.
  • Raised by Wolves
    Written by Caitlin Moran and her sister Caroline, it is an emphasis of their ramshackle homeschooled life from the ’80s, except placed in the current climes. I have a love/hate relationship with Caitlin, and the first episode got a slow start, but I found myself warming up to the show pretty quick.

Weekly watching: BBC Tudor Monastery Farm, Reign, Dracula, Project Runway All-Stars, Breathless, Atlantis,  Elementary, Doc Martin, QI, Peaky Blinders,  Sons of Anarchy,  The Vampire Diaries
What have you read/watched/listened to this week?
x0x0,
lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe in: 2011

Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes for November 23, 2013

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

During the Renaissance, cabinet of curiosities came into fashion as a collection of objects that would often defy classification. As a precursor to the modern museum, the cabinet referred to room(s), not actual furniture, of things that piqued the owners interest and would be collected and displayed in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes is my 21st century interpretation of that idea.
 
Dear Internet,

Reading

Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed
(Amazon | WorldCat | GoodReads | LibraryThing)
Status: Finished
At first glance, it’s easy to dismiss THRONE OF THE CRESCENT MOON as a typical sword and sorcery novel with not one, but many reluctant heroes in the guise of being presented by multiple points of view. But from the very first chapter, you realise you’re in the presence of something much larger, grander, and more indepth than previous versions of this motif. You could read the story for what it is, a tale of an old man and his young charges righting the wrongs of the world, but you’d be missing out on much of what Saladin has to say.
And boy does he have a lot say – THRONE OF THE CRESCENT MOON is an allegorical tale using Saladin’s world as the mirror to our own and through his work, he is critiquing the problems that exist in our world. He underscores some of the larger and complex concepts with a very subtle humour that at first read through you miss until you realise what he’s getting at — very Dickensian. His voice is very passionate, very authentic, and very real.
And there was something else in this tale that I couldn’t put my finger on until I read it on another review: Saladin’s work has soul and a heart. A lot of fantasy I’ve read, and in the larger scope of my canon is actually much less than most, tends to have a hollowness to the world and characters – they seem to be missing their “humanness” about them we often need to make that connection within ourselves. There is certainly nothing wrong with that, not every novel needs to be a treatise on the human condition. But you don’t realise how much you miss having a full bodied story until you get your hands on one again.

Watching

  • Downton Abbey
    The fourth season, which is set to air on PBS in January 2014, has just finished in the UK and my overall response is – meh. There is your usual backstabbing, mischief has been managed, and illicit love affairs but the overall intensity of the show that I once loved has seemingly lost its oomph. It has been renewed for a fifth season and while I’m sure I’ll still be watching it, probably not with the zest I once did. The show has jumped the shark and while formulas can be good, Julian Fellowes just needs to let this one go.
  • Reign
    I was introduced to this show by several friends who thought it would be a good fit for my interests, but what they failed to tell me (or better yet, what I should have known) that as a show on The CW, it would be less than historically accurate. The best summary I can give for this show is that it’s The Tudors in clothing from Forever 21. But you don’t watch CW shows for their historical accuracy and commentary on historical figures. There is definitely some eye rolling going on, lots of gratuitous sex, more anachronistic details you can shake a stick at but you know what? Who cares! It’s a train wreck of a show with a very pretty cast and even prettier set dressing.

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

Links

What have you read/watched/listened to this week?
x0x0,
lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe in:

Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes: September 28, 2013

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

During the Renaissance, cabinet of curiosities came into fashion as a collection of objects that would often defy classification. As a precursor to the modern museum, the cabinet referred to room(s), not actual furniture, of things that piqued the owners interest and would be collected and displayed in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Collectioun of Cunnynge Curioustes is my 21st century interpretation of that idea.
 
Dear Internet,

Writing

The Lisa Chronicles

Watching

  • Hit & Miss
    Hit & Miss showed up randomly on Netflix and we decided to give it a whirl. Chloë Sevigny plays Mia, a pre-op transsexual contract killer who finds out she has a son when the mother dies from cancer, naming Mia guardian. The setup is that Mia, yearning for a better life than the one she grew up with, decides to take on the role of caring not only for her son, but also the rest of her ex-girlfriends’ kids while juggling her day job and romantic interests, as well as all the complications of being true to herself.While the set-up sounds schlocky and alarm bells in terms of handling should be going off, Sevingy surprisingly pulls this off with grace and dignity. The character development was deft and felt honest, and I felt like I could care about these characters, deeply.The show was shot in/around Manchester, UK and theoretically takes place in Manchester and also possibly Leeds, but it could be anywhere UK. Mia’s accent has been likend to that of someone who comes from Irish traveller background (which she hints at as she grew up on the fairgrounds), but her accent keeps dropping in/out; it’s never consistent.The last episode is left wide open for a second season to begin, but SKY tv, one of Britain’s main networks, have announced there will be no second season of Hit & Miss. This is upsetting because there is no closure from the end of season one, which left the viewers with a Mexican standoff between Mia, her son Ryan, and Mia’s boss Eddie. And what happens to Liam?
  • Downton Abbey
    Fall means the return of pumpkin spiced ALL THE THINGS, changing of leaves, and of course the return of my beloved Downton Abbey.For American viewers, Downton Abbey season starts in January on PBS, but I am me and there are reasons why the Internet was invented. This is one of them. I promised ages ago that I would not reveal spoilers anywhere publicly for those without access until January, but I will say season four is shaping up to be as drama filled and nail biting as the previous three.
  • Survivor
    There are only two reality shows I watch, this one and Project Runway. Survivor is more of the influence by TheHusband who loves the strategy and unexpectedness of the show rather character development, so by osmosis, I watch this show too.
  • Sleepy Hollow
    New offering this fall, based on the idea that Ichabod Crane (played by a dreamy Brit, Tom Mison) is not left alone to sleep under a tree for 250 years, but rather he is called awake to help save the world from evil in 2013. The reason? Horsemen from the apocalypse are back, looking to finalize the beginning of the end, witches are also involved, and lawd knows who else.Two episodes in, while not brilliant material, it’s not bad. It doesn’t cater to the obvious and there is some surprisingly good dialogue written. This is definitely on the rotation for weekly viewing.

Weekly watching: Boardwalk Empire, Doc Martin, QI, Peaky Blinders, The Bridge (US), Project Runway, The Newsroom, Sons of Anarchy, DaVinci’s Demons,  The Vampire Diaries

Links

x0x0,
lisa

This day in Lisa-Universe in: 2010, 2003, 1998

Chef's Special

Dear Internet,
It’s early Sunday evening and Downton Abbey is starting soon here on the eastcoast.  I’m still debating on whether or not I’m going to watch it live since I’ve already seen this season that is about to be shown in the US. I also know what happens at the Christmas episode too, and really, if you watch DA long enough, you begin to realise Julian Fellowes has a pattern and that pattern must be kept to. The English must keep to their schedules after all.
On Friday I called Dr. H to discuss the status of my drugs. We have phone appointments set for every Friday from now until my next appointment with him at the end of the month. Presumably the idea is I see him once a month, but phone every week, and see my therapist Dr. P every week. Dr. H. has decided to up my lithium to 900mg (300mg in the morning, 600mg at night). Apparently the average therapeutic dose is 1800mg. I’m to stay on Concerta at the current dose. I’m to continue to keep track of my feelings and moods and report back to him next week during our next phone appointment.
Except.
After we hung up, I proceeded to have a minor panic attack because I’m having an atypical side effect, extreme feeling of cold, and I don’t know what to do. As I had forgotten to mention this during our initial phone call, I opted to read Doctor Google about the side effects of Lithium which sent me into a tail spin of AMG I AM DYING.
Obviously, I’m not dead.
Or having cardiovascular collapse, which happens in very rare cases due to lithium toxicity. But the side effets listed on the page don’t mention it’s not a singular side effect but it’s a combination of all of those things that will put you into physical distress. I called Dr. H. back; he explained; I felt better. Problem solved.
But fuck Doctor Google.
I was overly productive in the last couple of days in writing, getting up a few short stories up to my Beta Readers and working on a few more. I plowed through my files looking for more snippets or starts I could expand on, so I could start working on those pieces. Instead, I ended up reading a lot of things I wrote a decade or two ago, and instead of finding myself depressed or lost for time gone, it ended up energizing me.
I was hesitant about visiting those pieces, sure that seeing that much raw power would depress me because the output of the years hasn’t been the same since that period. But I knew then, what I know now: That a few particular pieces were glorious and while some may come close to that power, and maybe one or two would surpass it, its rhythm and depth could never be exactly matched. It takes youth to have that kind of raw vitality, and while I’m still youthful (and vain enough to think I can produce more like that), there is something gorgeous about the pure consciousness of your early 20s.
Twenty three year old Lisa was wondrous in all of her faults, desperation, and earnestness. She was never afraid to rip back all the layers of pretention and love fiercely, love wholly, and live completely. The pureness of her energy, and of her innocence, is almost breathtaking to witness, even in written form.
I love her, and it really doesn’t get any more real than that.
x0x0,
Lisa

The Sign of the Four

A Wordle I recently made of the entirety of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. Posted to Tumblr AND Pinterest, natch.

The last couple of weeks have been particularly vivid and that may have to do with the following in no particular order:
Battlestar Galactica
TheHusband and I began watching Battle Star Galactica several weeks ago and we’re almost finished with S3. He has remarked BSG is “…like Downton Abbey, except in space,” which I can totally get behind. When I almost accused a student recently of treason when they asked for books on Cicero AND I had been mildly hallucinating the parking lot elevators are Cyclons, I told TheHusband we needed to take a break from the action, though for the last few BSG-free nights he’s been a titch antsy in not getting his fix.
Continue reading “The Sign of the Four”

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