Issue #12 The larceny of the black pants
(Yes, I know I'm two days late -- relaxing apparently is time consuming and it's a holiday weekend.)
My loves! Another week has gone by and what a crazy fucking week it has been! Monday the movers came and after they loaded my crap, I drove from Danbury, CT to Cedar, MI with a pit stop in Grand Rapids. (I split it up over two days since I got a super late start on Monday. Total trip time was 15.5 hours.) Here, have a map!
(Side story: I met a man named Scooter, while I was paying for gas somewhere in eastern rural Pennsylvania, who excitedly told me about his broken tooth.)
It's beautiful up here in northern Michigan after the humidity and heat of the east coast. The average temp this week is about 72F and I'm sitting with a blanket covering my legs and a grandfather sweater on while I write this. The pug, bossy as ever, has only shown her displeasure once by peeing on one of the rugs. We do think because Wednesday (RIP) made her home here with us in the past, Thursday is marking her territory to prove she's in charge. As luck would have it, I'm getting a summer cold and I've been walking around with half-used tissues in my grandfather sweater pockets. The last time I was sick was exactly a year ago this week when I drove from CT to MI to hang out with TEH at the cabin. (The driving from east coast to midwest or vice versa will no longer be a thing. Thank fuck.)
Behold! The cabin!
Life is quiet in a rural area. We're six miles from the nearest town and we're in a subdivision supporting the now defunct ski lodge. There are roughly 50 homes in the subdivision with about 30% full-time population and maybe closer to 50% during the summer. At night, the sky is so clear, you can touch the stars. (And if you're anything like me with a very vivid imagination, every slight noise means Jason is coming to murder you.)
(And one of my favorite things to do is sit on the front deck for a moment listening to the trees rustle. It's as if the gods are talking to me.)
Police blotter from the local, albeit weekly, newspaper.
I have come to accept I am a midwest girl at heart. Thankfully, while Louisville is the gateway to the south, it's midwest enough to balm my soul. I touted up the wonders of the east coast and the closeness to everything (NYC, Boston, Europe) to everyone I came across when I was preparing for the move but I never actually did any of those things the four months I lived there. A day in NYC would run me close to $100 spread over train tickets, food, and whatever else I did in the city, which was far above my budget, thusly I rarely left the apartment.
As I mentioned last week, I'll be here for a month with TEH and his mom (with a few friends of ours possibly coming up to visit from Grand Rapids) then on to Louisville where I hope to fuck I don't move for a very long time.
Sunset over Lake Michigan.
(If you're on Snapchat, add me as byshieldmaiden to see the tour of the cabin. You can also add me on IG as I document my adventures. Looks like I'm going to do a FB live video for a tour for those who don't do the snapchats and make the video public.)
A pleasing reminder: I also mentioned last week about the #100DayProject where you do a THING for a hundred days - be it knitting, writing, taking pictures, whatever and you can measure it any way you want (by time, item, whatever). I've started a FB group and nearly 20 people have joined which has impressed the hell out of me. We've got people using the time to learn new things, start or finish a project, or just getting in the groove of a habit they want to keep. If this sounds like something you're interested in, friend me and I'll add you to the group.
Quiet week over at EPbaB as to be expected with moving and such. If you haven't visited recently, I changed the landing page a bit. Instead of the latest entry, you get the about page that includes links to the last five pieces I wrote (including newsletters) across the Lisa-universe and elsewhere, social media contacts in the left-hand sidebar, and lastly a form to join this newsletter. (I just realized I do not have a contact page which i should probably get up shortly. Contact page is now up!)
Exciting news over on my publishing empire! My piece, The Move, is going to be published over at The Mighty! I don't have an exact date yet but they will let me know when it happens. They occasionally cross-post over to HuffPo, so I'm pretty excited about this happening. I've got a piece brewing in my head, based on Virginia Woolf's little-known essay, Hours in a Library, on the difference between learning and reading.
Sign at the local bookstore.
Obsessions
Hot on the heels of last week's book obsession, this week's obsession takes the form of library cards. Every single location I have ever lived, I have a library card from that city's local library. At last count, including alumnae, academic cards, and my beloved Cambridge reader card (yes, THAT Cambridge), I am teetering close to or over 20 cards. Five of them (Grand Rapids, Louisville, Danbury, Northern Michigan, and West Haven) are still very much in my circulation for their ebook collections (it's going to be ebook for awhile until we get my print book collection sorted). 99% of the books I want to read reside in one of those five libraries digital collections so it makes my reading life way easier.
Books / Movies / TV
Mini-me and I are still co-reading A Discovery of Witches and I just started Vinegar Girl, a modern pastiche of Shakespeare's Taming of The Shrew of which, when I'm done (I'm about 60% through), there will be a strongly worded review. The book is a fast read so it has that going for it.
I've updated my book list for 2016 to now include what I'm reading and what's lined up in my queue if you're interested in that sort of thing.
TV and movie viewing habits haven't changed much from last week but the fall season is starting to trickle in so expect more in this area in the upcoming weeks.
Thursday is not fond of the water or sand.
Curated Link Love
As someone who is legitimately crazy (bipolar, anxiety, mania, ADHD, borderline personality disorder), I really don't care if someone uses "crazy" in a pejorative sense ("My dog is acting crazy!") but I do take umbrage with the pejorative use of "bipolar." Arwa Mahdawi gives a solid argument why we shouldn't be using any of these terms at all outside of their original intent, and more specifically towards women. [The Guardian]
An interesting history of perfume and religion, specifically in Italy [Racked]
Why you should teach your children fucking profanity [Quartz]
"Fruitarians" are a real thing (Really.) [Broadly]
August 6, 2016: The 25th anniversary of the first public website [Telegraph]
Punk rock Gilmore Girls book club [The Awl]
Martha Stewart and Snoop Lion are hosting -- a dinner party?! [Variety]
I've always been curious: Why do I wake up with tingling limbs when I fall asleep? [The Cut]
Yeah, yeah, someone is always doing a story on the seven most beautiful bookstores in the world, but hey, who cares! [Mental Floss]
A sampling of outfits people wore to get laid [Broadly]
I am probably one of the few people who really enjoy the word "moist" [Now I Know]
The lost art of custom illustration of books [LitHub]
An explanation of why there are so many ties in competitive swimming [Deadspin]
Virginia Woolf's beautiful, and lesser known, essay Hours in a Library [Google Books]
New of my hermitage is greatly exaggerated
xoxo,
'til next week
You can find me across the internet as @byshieldmaiden or
at my facebook page, A Most Unreliable Narrator.
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