The Life and Times of Liza Olmsted
Welcome to my blog*. I am Liza Olmsted, unpublished writer, breaker of software, and renaissance lizard**.
I mostly write about writing and reading, and occasionally about the other things that strike my fancy. And I post haiku, which mostly only show up in the Haiku Corner to your right —>.
—-
* With footnotes.
** er … human.
{ 0 comments }
Well, it’s my third day of post-employment vacation. Yesterday I stayed in bed reading until after 10am, which I haven’t done in a few years*. Then I got up and instead of making breakfast, I made kasha (slow, so it was for lunch or a later meal), ravioli in the last of the sun-dried tomato pesto (store-bought), and banana oat muffins with the two very brown bananas I discovered at the bottom of the fridge. (The third incredibly brown banana was wrinkled and sad… it became an offering to the compost.) I also offered a bunch of sad old vegetables that were beyond saving, and squeezed all the citrus in the fridge into juice, except for one lemon (which Ben used today for our cucumber and arugula salad). Then of course I had to wash dishes… and then I sat on the couch for the next several** hours watching various TV shows. 
Including Ally McBeal, which I never watched more than a scene or two of when it was originally on air. I watched the season finale of Gray’s Anatomy, and decided I needed another show that’s overly melodramatic and unrealistic yet funny and requiring little brain power. Ally McBeal seems to suit the purpose just fine; I watched the first four episodes. 
So far it really is all about sex, but I like how Ally is generally honest about the fact that she still loves her many-years-ex-boyfriend Billy, who is now married. Yeah, there are plenty of moments of self-deception and other-people-decption, but that one is generally right out in the open. I’m having a little trouble with how awkward and stammery she gets. It’s a cute character flaw, but occasionally over-done. And I adore her best friend Renée, who gets to be honest and fabulous. Of course, they have relatively few scenes with Renée (compared to any of Ally’s coworkers), probably because she’d take over the show. So, good choice. And I love Vonda Rhimes. Was she anybody before she played the music on the show? I know her music well, but I don’t remember if she was famous before Ally McBeal.
Today we got up and went to the farmer’s market and grocery store, and now we’ve made cucumber salad (see above), prepped a summer squash, broccolini floret, and onion stir-fry for later, and prepped a lentil soup with barely, summer squash, broccolini stem, onion, celery (which I despise, incidentally, but usually put into soups because it makes soup taste better), and mushroom (which I hate the texture of, so we’re going to cook the celery and mushroom in broth and then puree it, then add that to the soup).
This week, my world is centering around food, books, and TV. That seems just right. Next week, I’m going sewing machine shopping***.
———
† That phrase got stuck in my head and I can’t think of a better title. So, there it is. Speaking of the other side, my dad sent me the best email this morning, telling me that he’s proud of me for following my heart. It made me really happy.
* So bizarre. I used to read until 11 or noon easily on weekends. (And occasionally on weekdays…) Ben tends to want to get up and, you know, eat breakfast. And then there were 7 or 8am meetings some mornings. So I got in the habit of getting up early. Even if I stayed in bed reading, 10 has been the latest unless I’m sick. And, actually, I’d rather get up much earlier than 10 most days, to have plenty of time to enjoy the sunlight. In the summer it’s not such a big deal, but come winter it’ll be important. Another thing I’ve noticed is that I have this belief that evenings are for vegging out… even if I spent all day vegging and probably could muster the energy to be productive. I’m not worried about it during my vacation, but once the Experiment starts, I’ll have to pay attention to that and make sure it doesn’t get out of hand.
** “Several” may actually be an understatement…. We also watched the fifth episode of Doctor Who Season 7 Part 2^, whose name I forget^^. (Yeah, I’m a few episodes behind. I’ve been busy and savoring. ) It was a fun episode with some entertaining bits, but it also strained credulity in a bunch of places. This season isn’t as well written as the past couple of seasons have been. The story-lines just aren’t as tight. Even “Hide” (episode 4) was fun, but when I watched it a second time (so Ben could see it), it had lost all of the scariness and it seemed like some bits were just there for effect and didn’t have any bearing on the plot. Again, weaker writing. Sad.
^ What’s wrong with just continuing Season 7? Why did it have to become part 2?
^^ I imagine I could look it up.%
% Ok, ok, I’ll look it up. Oh right, Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS, which was actually a fabulous title. And it really did live up to the title, and seeing the inside of the TARDIS was great fun (I loved the swimming pool), but it could’ve been more awesome. Like why were the <REDACTED> trying to kill them? And after the buildup in the last half season I expected to adore Clara… and while I do like her, she’s not nearly as spunky and funny as she was built up to be. :-/
*** And maybe get a haircut, new glasses, and give my car an oil change and a car wash. And also go shopping for a cabinet to store my routers and electronics in. But since my biggest goal is vacating, I’m trying to keep it all low pressure.
{ 0 comments }
I’m starting an experiment§. It’s a life-sized experiment to discover how Liza* lives best, instead of how a “normal person” lives best. It’s an experiment, so I’m going to be tracking metrics and adjusting variables. Since there’s only one of me, the comparison will be between weeks. Also, it’s entirely subjective, being about me, and I reserve the right to change my metrics at any time.
My starting assumption is that I work best when I don’t constrain myself with restrictions and rules. E.g. “I will exercise every day” or “I will write 500 words every day” or “I will be at work by 10am and work for 8+ hours” are all restrictions that I resent, and then I do the exact opposite (or sit in front of feeling miserable… see “eating my vegetables”, below). I rebel against perfectly reasonable self-assigned rules, even just “I will go out for a walk today”. :-/ In order to stop these constraints, I’ve decided to quit my day job**.
Most writing exercises are really just a set of constraints. The constraints suggest ideas I wouldn’t have thought of if I were just facing a blank page with no constraints. On weekends when I don’t have any goals and I can do absolutely anything, I often dive into the first interesting thing that presents itself and don’t come out for hours… regardless of whether it was an activity that was actually worth those hours. NOT the most productive thing. Putting those two experiences together, my theory is that I’ll give myself constraints within which to structure my life. Not rules for me to rebel against, but constraints that expand my options in the direction I want to focus my energy.
Examples of constraints I would like to try out:
This is really the crux of my plan for myself. The least valuable thing I do to myself is make myself feel guilty. When I feel guilty, like I OUGHT to be eating those peas, then I can’t make myself do anything else that would be more fun or more useful. All I can do is mind-numbing things that help me avoid the guilt, like watching TV or reading a fun book or playing a video game. Creativity goes right out the window. So, I’m not going to allow myself to feel guilty about deciding not to do the things I don’t want to do. I’m going to trust that it’s a short term not-want-to, and that wanting-to will come back eventually. And if I never do want to do that thing, then why on earth should I have it on my list††? If it’s so important, can I hire someone else to do it for me?
The foundation of the crux of the plan††† is trust in myself. Trust myself to know what I need to do now, and trust myself to do everything in the right time. Trust myself to have the creativity I need when I need it. And trust, always, that “This Too Shall Pass”.
I have a lot more thoughts about trust, productivity, creativity, and how Self works. I’m sure I’ll share them as I go along.
——
§ …in about a month. I’ve just given my two week notice, and then I’m taking two weeks off. So Experiment: Life will start on April 29!
* Yes, this experiment relies on me referring to myself in the third person. … Why are you looking at me like that?
** This means I will have no income. Eeek! This is a whole nother subject, but suffice it to say that I have enough savings to live on for a while, and I have faith that through my experimentation I’m going to find ways to earn money doing things I want to do. And if I don’t… I will go straight back to having a day job. This is an experiment, and I am aware that it could fail entirely. I’m trying not to run on self-delusion.
*** FYI, I’m going to use this as a metaphor a lot for things I don’t want to do. Short-handed to “eating my peas”, even though I like peas a lot. The context is that when I was little, I could sit for hours (it felt like hours, though I imagine it wasn’t more than 30 minutes) in front of my vegetables at dinner time, refusing to eat them (because I didn’t like them as much when I was little) and being told I had to, and eating just one slow bite at a time. I’m not even sure how often this happened… it could’ve been once, for all I know. My memory is pretty spotty. But I do have a memory of this happening, and it perfectly resonates with how I feel when I’m sitting in front of some task I absolutely do NOT want to do, but have to because it’s expected. At work, usually.
† I don’t think anyone in my family ever said that or called me “young lady”, but it sounds right for the story. 
)
†† Note that I’m not talking about things like doing my taxes. I’m aware that I do have to do them eventually, regardless of how I feel. But I also know that I don’t really mind doing my taxes, or paying bills, or any of that. Sometimes I have the right headspace to think about money, and sometimes I don’t. When I don’t, I shouldn’t be doing my taxes. When I do, I don’t mind doing my taxes. So do understand, I’m not talking about never doing the required things ever. I’m talking about doing them when I have the mental capacity for it, and not when I don’t.
††† Am I taking this metaphor too far?
{ 0 comments }
I’m in love with the word housecarl. It’s a very old word, and I stole it from Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel books. I’ve been looking for a word to refer to men in a medieval noble household who aren’t in the family and aren’t knighted, but also aren’t necessarily servants. Lois McMaster Bujold uses “armsman”. Carey uses housecarl in her Viking-ish culture. The other word I’ve come across is armiger, which applies to a military guy who works for a knight and is entitled to his own coat of arms, but isn’t knighted himself. I have no idea why you would have a coat of arms without being a knight, so I was thinking of using it to mean anyone who carries weapons and isn’t knighted.
To me housecarl seems like the male version of “house maid”, except not implying “servile”. I’m not sure I understand the nuances of relationships in a medieval household would be. Does servile mean a slave, or also someone who works for money? Or who works for room and board? Would I be using it wrong to refer to male servants in the King’s Castle? (Can I use it that way anyway, under the assumption that most people reading the book will either not already know the word, or will understand that this is my own world and I’m stealing words and repurposing* them?)
This came up because I’m looking for Germanic & Old English terms to use in LFG, as opposed to French, Latin, or Celtic. Does it matter much, since I’m still writing the first draft? Nope. But looking for the right words to use helps me get into the feeling of the world.
——
* Firefox doesn’t think “repurposing” is a word. Wikipedia doesn’t either, but several articles use it as a word.
{ 0 comments }
I figure I read about a book a week, so I keep setting my Goodreads “reading challenges” to 50. I’m not using it as a challenge, because I already steal too much time from other things for reading. But I like watching the pretty graph go up and up and up… especially when I binge and read 3 books in a weekend.
Last year’s reading challenge won:
(And yeah, it’s really cheating because I count short stories… but I’m just going with *its* rules.)
The full list below the cut… including excerpts of the reviews for the few I bothered to comment on. I *would* like to comment about more of them, but … well, other things were more important last year.
{ 0 comments }
I’ve noticed that I like my writing voice better when I’m talking to myself, pondering to myself, stream of consciousness (though it usually is in complete sentences… cuz I’m funny like that). Why is that? I’m more authentic with myself. I also don’t have to fill in as much back-story, cuz I already know the background, so it’s a faster, more immediate train of thought. (“Wait for me!” she shouted, running after the train.) Also, I have more random asides and quips, because I’m amusing myself. Sometimes they’re inside jokes, where you really had to be there on that one day in the 10th grade when…
And then, do I edit my train-of-thought stream-of-consciousness blurbs after I’ve reached the end? If I edit inline, then I’m clearly too self-conscious and not really talking to myself (cuz duh, I don’t need to censor when *I’m* the audience, cuz I’ll be hearing all the extra crap whether I edit or not). But what about afterwards? When I realize that I looped around back to repeat something I’ve already said, and why on earth would you care about all the meanderings and thoughts I’ve been having?
Also, that means that once the moment has passed, once I don’t feel the need to tell myself the story, then I won’t be able to recapture it for you, either. But then, if I don’t feel the need to tell myself the story, maybe that means I don’t need to tell you, either. (And who is “you” in this sentence? Is it me, because I’m writing to myself? Or is it the imaginary audience out there who probably isn’t reading this post anyway? Woah, my head is spinning.)
I want to post more. (I hate reading blog posts from inconsistent bloggers [like myself] who post saying “I want to blog more! But here’s my excuse why I haven’t… or here’s my plan for doing better!”, when really you could just SKIP the post saying “I’m gonna blog more” and instead just start blogging more. Duh.) But anyway, I do want to post more. I also know that this is pretty low on my list of priorities. (Given my previous parenthetical, where is this paragraph going? I think I had a point when I started it, but I got distracted by my own aside, and now I don’t remember what the next sentence should be. Oh right…) It’s an effort to write up a blog post, and disappointing to reread it and realize I sound lame, or I’m not telling an interesting story after all, and so I should just scrap it as not worth* the ones and zeroes it’s printed on. (And I’m still doing that lame thing I hate from others: sharing my lack of self-confidence. Sigh.) But the point is that when I’m writing to myself in my notebook, or on paper, then I like my voice just fine. Maybe I read it differently when it’s only to myself? Maybe I write it differently? Nah, I’ve lost the voice, now I’m telling YOU instead of telling myself. My self has already moved on to another subject, which is the point of my footnote… so I’ll just leave you with the footnote:
——
* I mistyped “worth” as another word that’s like “wrote“: wroth. It’s the verb of “wrath”, I think. “She was wroth with him.” Could just say “angry at”, but “wroth” sounds cool. And it’s just one letter off from “wrote”… which is the only thing they have in common.
{ 0 comments }
Have you noticed what a weird word “wrote” is? Write becomes written pretty obviously. And lots of words in English transform the vowel to indicate past tense instead of changing the ending. Sing Sang Sung*.
I must use the word “wrote” pretty often… “I wrote a lot at my last writing group,” or “I wrote 5 pages last week”, or whatever. And in that sentence it sounds fine, but … Have you looked at the word? Wrote. It’s sorta like rote, sorta like wrought. But of course, it doesn’t mean either of those things, so it’s not like them at all.
And if you repeat it enough times, you’ll become convinced it’s not really a word and need to look it up to make sure you’re not crazy. Ask me how I know.
——
* Though apparently English does this to a larger degree, and with less regularity, than most other European languages. Which *could* (maybe, or at least according to John McWhorter) be explained by a group of people with a native language that changes grammatical meanings of words by replacing vowels (e.g. the Semitic languages, including Arabic and Hebrew) having come to Northern Europe and learned Proto-German imperfectly, bringing their own grammatical structures into the language. Which is an *awesome* theory, and even if it’s not true, I like it a lot. Um… there’s a better summary of this theory in this review of one of McWhorter’s books: http://heliologue.com/2011/04/30/our-magnificent-bastard-tongue/.
{ 0 comments }
It’s a new year, and I’m at the end of a four day weekend, back to work on the morrow. I have a brand new shiny iPhone5, which I’m also using to write this post.
I don’t believe in new year’s resolutions so much, though I like the idea if them. I have too much experience with them lasting exactly one day and then vanishing back into the cloud from which they came.
I try to live my life like a series of experiments, not always planned out scientifically, but at least always paying attention and observing what works and what doesn’t.
Yesterday I microwaved some soup, and didn’t put a lid on, and it splattered all over (after less than 30 seconds, so this wasn’t merely that I’m an idiot), so today I had to clean the microwave. Here’s the thing. The Pyrex bowls we store food in come with plastic lids. I don’t like microwaving my food with plastic, it seems like begging for trouble. Most of my dishes are made by a good friend, so microwaving might not be great for them either. And our plates are all too big (the small ones are almost 8″). We have one 6″ dish that we use as a lid, but it’s holding butter now. So, we don’t have anything that will function as a lid in the microwave. Arglglglgh.
I found duralex glass plates on the Internet. They only come in sets of 6, and we don’t NEED 12 glass dish/lids (I bought two sizes, obviously), but I bought them anyway. I will store half in a closet somewhere. Therefore this problem will be solved, once and for all, very soon*.
All of which is meant to be an example of trying to improve the problems in my life, often by trial and error. I hate cleaning the microwave? Buy anti-splatter plates!
On the positive side, here’s a cat:
——
* One of the sizes of plate is out of stock, no ETA. I ordered it anyway. The problem will be half-solved until then, which is vastly better than splatter all over the microwave~.
~ Cleaning the microwave turned into cleaning the counters, the frelling toaster oven, and even the wall behind the stove. Among other things. I hate cleaning in general, I get too fussy about it.
{ 0 comments }
Funny thing. It all started because the toilet was leaking water from the tank into the bowl. So my boyfriend replaced the flapper*. That didn’t fix it, and it turned out the thing that puts the water into the tank was having issues, that sometimes it leaked out the top (“Is water supposed to be coming out from there?” “No, I don’t think so…”), and that no matter how we adjusted the floater, it would always fill with water too high, and then leak over into the tube thingy that keeps the tank from overflowing by sending the water into the bowl. Since the water-dispenser thing was broken, he needed to be able to turn off the water to the toilet. But of course the valve was stuck, because we have tons of calcium in our water, so he had to replace THAT. And you know that in order to replace the shut-off valve, first you have to turn off the water to the house. But at our house, you also have to turn off the pump, because apparently “off” doesn’t really mean “off” on our water main, it just means “yeah, I’m pretty close to off…” And to remove the old valve, you have to saw through it, because they’re compression thingies that are designed to be used once. Because obviously no one EVER makes a mistake with plumbing. (Seriously?) But of course, when you’re sawing through the old compression thingy, you’re sawing very close to the pipe coming out of the wall that is only so long and isn’t at all easy to replace, so you’d better not saw into the pipe. Guess what happened. So we very nearly had a problem with a leaky pipe right next to the wall**, and while he was at it shouldn’t he just replace the valves on both toilets?***
——
* No, not a woman from the twenties.
** Also, teflon tape was forgotten. And, as mentioned before, compression thingies aren’t meant to be taken off and replaced so you can add in some teflon tape. I’m not going to describe the solution, it’s too painful and I’m still worried it’ll end with leaking.
** Cooler heads prevailed. The second valve will be replaced some other day, preferably once we’ve forgotten what a pain this was. Speaking of which, how did people repair plumbing before they had cell phones? Ben was up at the toilet, and I was down at the valve for the water main^ turning it on and off so he could try things. And, as I mentioned, whenever I turned the water off, I would also turn off the pump. And sometimes when I turned the water back on, I would turn on the pump, too. And whenever we turned off the water and the pump, I would then go water some plants to decrease the water pressure, so that the water that wasn’t supposed to be making it into the house wouldn’t have enough pressure to make it into the house. Yeah, I was confused, too. Anyway, so we’re on our cell phones talking to each other, so that if something suddenly started spraying water all over everywhere, I would be able to quickly shut off the water again and not ruin the floor or walls or my nice heels on the floor of the closet right next to the toilet. I’m not very fashion conscious, but I like my pretty shoes to stay pretty^^. It would’ve been so much more trouble before cell phones.
^ Is it a water main when it comes from a well, or only when it comes from city water?
^^ Speaking of which, though this is a whole other story entirely… we went to see Seal last night at the Mountain Winery in Saratoga. Fabulous show. (Bummer that the sound only sounds good in the center section… and bummer that my boyfriend the audio guy has turned me into an audio snob.) Seal has an amazing voice, and an obvious sense of how to use his seven (SEVEN!) musicians to get the sound he wants, all of whom played at least two instruments (if you count singing), including the one chick who sang, played the trombone, and played piano. Not at the same time, but sometimes in the same song. I never did notice how she got from one side of the stage to the other side to stand at the keyboard. And both keyboardists also played some sort of guitar and sang, and at one point I think there were four different people playing guitar-like instruments at once. Anyway, beautifully put together. I thought of this, though, because on the wait out of the concert, going up the brick steps, I scraped the toe of my pretty brown shoe on the step, and now it has a big obvious owee. They’re not expensive shoes, they were fairly cheap on modcloth, but I’ve only worn them a few times. And leather shoes don’t heal the way my skin heals! Now I have to figure out how to make them look like new again. 
At least the show was excellent.
{ 0 comments }
Gaaaaaaaaah!
I’m not reading. Starting about an hour ago, I’m NOT READING. Anything. Especially not books or the internet (goodbye facebook ), but also not email (as much as I can avoid it) or user manuals or anything. (Not blogs! Goodbye Robin McKinley, until next week! Not the awesome book by Tanya Huff that I just started. How will I survive?)
So far this means that I’ve started writing a presentation I’m giving in a week and a half, which I otherwise might have procrastinated for far longer. It also means that I found myself scrolling through the MS Word options, just because I wanted to disable spell check!, and technically was reading ALL of the options, looking for ones I might want to change. Because that was an important use of my time. *facepalm*
I’m not counting IMing or texting with friends in this “not reading” category, because that’s communicating with real live people who happen to be on the internet instead of a phone or in person. Also, writing is not reading. Duh.
In case you’re wondering, I’ve started doing The Artists Way, by Julia Cameron, and I’m up to Week Four, which mandates Reading Deprivation. Since I haven’t been blogging much, this seems like a good time to resume. I’m not allowed to read the internet, but I can still talk to it, right?
Fortunately, this only lasts a week. I can make it.
{ 0 comments }
Unpublished Writer
Breaker of Software
Renaissance Lizard
