Category: Weekly Updates

This was a busy week(end) for me! I hosted a visit from my dad, made some home improvements, put on two new batches of mead, and explored a bunch of local places.

Building a bridge

My house sits above a small brook, maybe fifteen feet across; on the opposite bank is conservation land, with walking trails. When I first moved here in 2006, there was a bridge across the stream. But that bridge washed out in a storm or was dismantled. It was unclear to me if it was built by the conservation group, or by the previous owners, but for whatever reason, it was not replaced. For years now, if I wanted to go walking on those trails, I had to go the long way around, to a public access point.

So finally, with help from my dad, we rebuilt the bridge this weekend.

Well, to be fair… I didn’t help much with the bridge part. I don’t trust myself with power tools. But while my dad and Matt were sawing wood and drilling holes and chainsawing logs out of the way, I blazed a trail though a dense growth of mountain laurel with just a pair of loppers.

And now I can cross “build a bridge for the stream” off my 101 Goals in 1,000 days list!

Nashua River Brewer’s Festival

I attended this event, hosted by Beers for Good, on Saturday afternoon. After spending much of the morning working on the bridge and trail, nothing sounded as tempting as some nice cold beer.

The event, as suggested by the “Beers for Good” title, benefits a group of local charities. It’s held in Riverfront Park in Fitchburg, MA, right downtown, and on the banks of the Nashua River — again, as the name implies! Admission was $20 at door, which included a commemorative sampler glass. Each sample was $1.

There were soooo many breweries there, and I sampled soooo many amazing beers — and one kombucha! A few that stood out:

• Both candy-inspired offerings from River Styx Brewing of Fitchburg: Morpheus, a tart watermelon ale conditioned on Sour Patch Kids, and Thanatos, an Imperial stout conditioned on Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Reese’s Pieces.
• PULP DADDY from Greater Good Imperial Brewing Company of Worcester, MA. I asked them what they had that wasn’t an IPA, and they said, “Well, nothing, but try this.” It did not disappoint! It was kind of like a hoppy orange juice.
• Lawn Games, a tart wheat (we tried the blueberry lemon variety), and Unplugged, a cream ale, from As Built Brewing of Franklin, MA. Also they were giving out branded sunglasses, which was perfect schwag for a hot summer day!
• The New City Mule from New City Brewing of Easthampton, MA, a hard ginger beer with a kick of lime.
• An apricot-mango kombucha from KrafTea Kombucha of Worcester, MA. This was my first time sampling the fermented tea beverage, and I didn’t realize that it can be mildly alcoholic (about 2% ABV).

There were also food trucks at the festival, and I sampled esquites (a Mexican corn salad) from Zapata Mexican Cocina. More about that place later!

We left happy and comfortably full of alcohol! The sample glass didn’t hold all that much, but after ten or twelve of them, I was a little tipsy…

Livin’ La Vida Local

This weekend also gave me the opportunity to try out a bunch of local establishments in Lunenburg and Fitchburg, both individually and at the farmer’s market. Even though I’ve lived in this town for thirteen years (!), I just now am beginning to feel like part of the community.

Lunenburg Farmer’s Market

This was, for example, my first time visiting the Lunenburg Farmers’ Market. It was also opening weekend for the year, but it still had about twenty vendors, live music, and, most importantly, ALPACAS.

Some of the vendors I visited:

• Shagbark Farm, whose owner, Tom, was kind enough to talk with me for a while about the hickory syrup he sells. Apparently it’s a sort of sweetened “tea” made from hickory bark. Our town is rich with shagbark hickory trees, hence the product and the name of the farm. We ended up buying some Pineapple-Habanero syrup.
• Cherry Hill Farm, which has just recently gotten USDA clearance to sell their meats. We bought a few pounds of short ribs, which we’ll be enjoying tonight after marinating them in the syrup I mentioned above…
• Wild Brook Apiaries, with hives all over the area! We bought some dark honey from them (primarily goldenrod), which I plan to use for my next batch of mead.
• In the Meadow Farm, owners of the previously-mentioned alpacas. They raise alpacas primarily for their fleece, which is spun into yarn. (Adorably, each of their natural yarn colorways is named after the alpaca it came from, like “Phantom” and “Benjamin Buttons”). They’re also big into education, and host a monthly “yoga with the alpacas”, which I hope to get to one of these weekends!

While I did not take home any yarn — like any knitter, I already have too much — I did buy an “alpaca to go.” This was a tiny Chinese food box containing a tiny plush alpaca, an alpaca coloring page, an alpaca information sheet, and a little metal bucket.

Restaurants and Cafés

Since my dad was visiting, and he needs to eat, I took it as an opportunity to visit local establishments I hadn’t been to before.

We had dinner on Friday night at Bad Larry’s, a new-ish bar and grill in the center of Lunenburg. I asked what the source of the name was, and told it came from the expression “a bad larry”, which I’d never actually heard. I found the food to be decent and reasonably priced, but nothing particularly special.

Saturday night we dined at the aforementioned Zapata Mexican Cocina, on Lunenburg Street in Fitchburg. While I am still very loyal to my favorite local Mexican restaurant, Mezcal, I liked how light and fresh the dishes here were — lots more vegetables and less cheese.

While we were at the farmers’ market we stopped at the Dragonfly Garden Cafe, a cafe in the center of Lunenburg that’s only open on Saturdays and Sundays. (They do events and catering during the week). The prices are very reasonable, and it’s a nice, cozy place to hang out, so I can see replacing weekend trips to Panera with visiting this place.

Also they do tea parties, too! Next time my birthday rolls around, I think I may celebrate it with tea and alpacas…

Watching

I also had the opportunity this weekend to watch two new Amazon original series — the adaptation of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s book Good Omens, and another series called Hanna.

Good Omens was fabulous, as I expected it to be. To be fair, I read the book so long ago that most of what I remember is the jokes, like the M25 being a giant summoning circle, or the description of Aziraphale as “gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide.” Given that, I really had no remembrances of the book to judge from. But if nothing else, David Tennant is delightful to look at as Crowley, and I loved how they used the music of Queen to complement the story.

I didn’t much care for Hanna; it was kind of generic action-y with characters who I didn’t much care about. (Mostly I was watching it because my dad was interested). Plus they did that thing I hate where they made (one of the) villain(s) a baby-crazy woman, because we all know that not having children makes women coo-coo bananas, amirite.

Reading

I finished reading Walden for a second time. As I wrote on Twitter:

I’m betting that everyone out there claiming to love Walden has never read the chapter which is literally Thoreau describing sand rolling down an embankment.

— Lise (@lisefrac) June 24, 2019

So, uh, that should hold me for another fifteen years or so.

I also read Cal Newport’s book Digital Minimalism, which I liked. He expands on the theories about social media that he first noted in Deep Work, and offers some solid strategies for mediating our relationship with new technology. I think I may devote August to doing a “digital declutter”, since I’ll be traveling anyway.

I’m currently reading the second book of Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan series, Behemoth. Istanbul at the dawn of WWI is a super fascinating setting, and I’m really enjoying that aspect of it. I’m not sure I enjoy the fact that so much of Alek’s plot is driven by him making poor life choices.

(And omg, they named the loris “Bovril.” I’m glad I had the same reaction to that name as Deryn did: “isn’t that some kind of beef tea?”)

Alan Cumming is really amazing as a narrator for this, because he does every accent, and each one is unique and perfect. Like, he has to switch between Austrian, German, British, Scottish, Turkish, Armenian, and a bunch of other accents, plus he has to represent “genetically modified creatures that can imitate human voices.” Plus there’s that whole “one of the viewpoint characters is a girl pretending to be a boy, who occasionally loses control of the pitch of her voice” thing, which I imagine is an extra challenge. But he is just flawless throughout.

Mead!

As some of you know, I’ve been experimenting with making mead recently, using the recipes for quick meads from The Elder Scrolls Cookbook.

The first two batches of mead I made were Honningbrew Mead and Black-Briar Mead, and they were both successes! I liked the Honningbrew, with its notes of ginger and lavender, the best, but I left the Black-Briar with Alison after our “Skyrim dinner.” (It was good, but a little too cinnamon-y for my tastes).

Early last week I put on two new batches, from the two remaining mead recipes in the cookbook — Nord Mead, flavored with cardamom, cloves, ginger, cinnamon, and orange zest, and Juniper Berry Mead, with yarrow, hibiscus, and (of course) juniper berries.

I’m excited to see how these turn out; I’ll be decanting them for the two July 4th parties I have this weekend!

After that… who knows? I might have to go deeper down the mead rabbit hole.

Speaking of which…

Here’s a random bunny I saw this week.

Have a great 4th of July holiday, if you celebrate! I intend to eat lots of strawberries, hot dogs, and potato salad.

I’ve decided to start doing these again, if only because not writing them makes me sad 🙁

More specifically, my social media usage has crept back up in the last year since I declared myself Done with Facebook, and I’m not happy with that. Consider this is an effort to try to use it less, but still keep you informed about the oh-so-important details of my life. And I know there are some of you who use social media even less than I do, so I find this a good way to keep in touch!

(Just a reminder: you can sign up to have these posts emailed to you — see the “subscribe via email” box in the left column of my site. If you read something and enjoy it, I’d love a comment!)

Summer Solstice

In the Northern Hemisphere, we celebrated the summer solstice this past Friday. Mostly I celebrated the longest day of the year by getting up at dawn (5:07am!) and standing on my porch in my housecoat, like a weirdo.

At this halfway point of the year, I am also revisiting my yearly theme, point by point, to see how I’m doing. I’ve been journaling about each point and my progress on it as the year thus far. One thing is clear: minimalism needs more time and attention. So that’s going to be an area of focus for me in the months to come.

This holiday might as well be called the Day of White Flowers, because so many white blossoms are out! At least in central Massachusetts, where I live, this is the season for catalpa (Catalpa spp), mock orange (Philadelphus spp), partridgeberry (Mitchella repens), yarrow (Achillea millefolium) and more. Including the most important: mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia), which grows in abundance all over the woods here. The overall effect is astounding, and all really, really hard to capture in pictures. I tried — enjoy my results.

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A rant about Latin vs. common names

On a semi-related note… I was taught that the reason to learn the Latin names was for clarity, because there are about a billion things called “creeping Charlie,” or “wintergreen,” to use some common examples. Latin names were supposed to be constant across the world and across time, so that if someone in China said “Chimaphila maculata,” you knew exactly what they were talking about.

The thing I’m discovering is: this is a total lie. Latin names change all the freakin’ time, as we discover more about the species and its relatives.

For just one example: When I was growing up, I learned that the Latin name for a catalpa tree — the tree that stood outside the window of my Physics classroom in high school — was Catalpa catalpa. Heck, it was even a bonus question on a test once. (Thanks, Mr. Dilley). Turns out, Catalpa is a whole genus, and the one I was looking at was probably Catalpa speciosa. And I just learned that when Linnaeus first named the damn thing, it was Bignonia catalpa. None of this, of course, makes any sense unless you understand the phylogeny of the tree itself.

Reading Thoreau’s Walden, he uses Latin names a lot. And even though Walden Pond and Concord are right around the corner from where I live, I sometimes have no damn idea what he is writing about, because almost none of the names he knew in 1864 are in use any longer. (In at least one case, the name was outdated by the time he used it!) I can generally get close — like, hey, that’s some sort of owl he’s talking about, probably a barred owl — which I guess is a benefit over common names?

Anyway, my point is, it’s not a waste of time to learn common names. It’s about as useful as the Latin name, in the long run. Especially since the vast majority of the world is gonna use the common name.

Summer roguery

The last Shadowvale event happened after a ~ year of not exercising regularly, plus a recent bout of bronchitis, so let us just say, I was awfully out of shape. I definitely felt it puffing up that hill to McKnight Hall! To say nothing of how it affects my ability to do my role as a flanker (i.e. sneaky-stab-you-in-the-back-rogue) effectively…

Thus I’ve determined that I need to get myself rogue-fit… I’d say “again,” but I was never 100% where I want to be.

I was inspired in part by this article, which suggested specific exercises for getting fitter for larps, focusing on high-intensity intervals. I’ve started doing sprints of various lengths, and — lacking a rope-climbing setup — I’ve been doing weights exercises for my hands and arms to sorta simulate that. I also spent part of my walk in the woods this past weekend jumping over things and generally parkour-ing around, although I realized after the fact that since I was by myself this was probably SUPER DANGEROUS.

(Seriously, though, parkour is very on theme for rogue training, so it’s probably something I should look into! But maybe with a partner).

Also I signed up to run the 14th Annual Benefit 5K / 10K for Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House in September. (I’m doing the 5K). You might recall I declined the opportunity to run this year’s Metrowest Corporate 5K, which I’d done previously — but that was largely because running with my coworkers made me unpleasantly competitive. I’m hoping running alone will allow that competitive side of myself to rest, while sufficiently motivating me to train.

Plus, the cause here is more interesting to me — I visited Orchard House for the first time in April and adored it, wishing I knew more about Alcott.

Links

• Converting Photoshop Letter Spacing to CSS. This article is so old the conversion tool doesn’t work any more, but it answered something I’d always wondered about! (And you can always do the math yourself).
• Smash the Wellness Industry. How this “wellness” industry cons women into spending way more time and attention on diet than anything else.
• Decluttering Burst: let go of one hundred things in less than an hour. I did this this past weekend, although I think a lot of what I got rid of was just trash. This is me starting to address the “minimalism” bullet point on my theme for the year.
• Dammerung Larp. Man, I am so intrigued by this, and yet I absolutely do not have time to PC a larp in Pennsylvania. But it sounds like they are doing some really innovative things with this game, and I think Dan Comstock (of Goat LARP fame) is right when he says there’s nothing else quite like this going on in the U.S. right now.

In Conclusion

… there’s so much more I could write. About going to New Haven with EB. About making mead. About the Skyrim dinner I prepared with Alison.

But look, I can’t fit spend my life writing this blog post, so that’s going to have to be it for the week. See you in the future!

Health stuff

… is on my mind a lot today.

First, the good. I had my six month followup with the hand surgeon who did my cubital tunnel release surgery. I was happy to report to that my left hand is mostly back to 100%. The strength in my fingers seems normal again, though I do occasionally get a bit of tingling in the fingertips. She seemed really pleased (I wonder if she was surprised it actually worked!) She’s such a lovely doctor; I’m a bit sad I likely won’t see her again! On the other hand, “no followup appointment is needed” is the nicest phrase in the English language.

I also heard that phrase from the orthopedist this week, although I am still doing PT, and slowly — ever so slowly — getting back to running.

The bad: I have been having weird, nebulous intestinal symptoms lately. Mostly a lot of bloating and fullness right below my belly button, with occasional cramps. It comes and goes in severity, which is why I’m doubting my own assessment of this discomfort. Further adding to the confusion, a friend of mine recently had symptoms like this and was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, soooo, I’m not sure if this is my usual hypochondriac shuffle.

But seriously, my diet hasn’t changed all that much; not sure what’s going on here. I should probably see a doctor. But… I already feel like my entire life is doctor’s appointments. Physical therapy appointments and therapy-therapy appointments. Until recently, hand surgeon and orthopedist appointments. Followups every three months for the statins I take. Annual physical. Eye appointment this Friday. An annual visit with a cardiologist (to manage my hereditary risk) and a pulmonologist (for my sleep apnea).

I’m so bloody sick of this, and so spending even more time and money going down an avenue that will likely lead nowhere conclusive? Is a choice I am avoiding making.

Okay, on to more fun stuff, mostly connected to…

Games and streaming

I have a webcam now! While you now can benefit from my ridiculous facial expressions, this has raised its own technical challenges. First was figuring out that I needed to turn off its mic so that you didn’t get Lise in Poor Stereo. Oops. Now I’m having issues with the FPS on the webcam; seems to be an issue somewhere between the camera and OBS, so I need to investigate that. (Thanks to Marc for troubleshooting help!)

That’s a plush netch on my head. I’ve named it Captain Netchy. It amuses me, if no one else.

I did an extra-long ESO stream on Monday/Labor Day, which was a lot of fun. I was playing Br’ihnassi, my Khajiit stamina nightblade, and doing various larcenous activities, i.e. heists and sacraments, finishing off the A Cutpurse Above achievement, etc. I do worry that some people shied away because of spoilers (I was trying to finish the Dark Brotherhood questline, among other things), but I had good chats with Marc and Beth T and Pickle nonetheless. Sometimes I get disappointed if only my IRL friends come to the stream, but I also have to remember they are precisely why I started streaming in the first place!

On Saturday, I ran a vet dungeon with my ESO “friends-and-family guild” guildies! We dragged Scott and and Matt M through vet Wayrest Sewers II, and even got them the hard mode completion. This is no longer challenging content for me, but I love helping others through it. I still have fond memories of the UESP folks showing me the ropes on vet City of Ash II, so I like to pay it forward. If this trend keeps up, I may need to start my own dungeon help night for the Order of the Golden Path.

Speaking of which, I am healing my way through the veteran DLC dungeons of ESO, and I’ve now completed everything but the two new Wolfhunter dungeons on vet. I’ve found vet Falkreath Hold to be the hardest — I can’t even tell you how many times we died to Domihaus. The Menagerie in vet Fang Lair also gave us a run for our money, and there was a reason we did the /kissthis emote over the body of Zaan, in vet Scalecaller. Vet Mazzatun and Cradle of Shadows were mostly just long and annoying. Still no hardmodes for anything but the Imperial City dungeons.

We’ve also been experimenting with doing dungeons in first-person mode, for an extra challenge. Sometimes it leads to surprisingly good screenshots!

Heard rumors that the Grievous Twilights in White Gold Tower had crystal nipples. Accidentally took some good screenshots while testing that theory.#ESO #ElderScrollsOnline pic.twitter.com/aHWyvH5RoH

— LisePlays (@LisePlays) September 3, 2018

Oh, and hey, my Thursday night unexpectedly cleared up, so it looks like I’ll be streaming ESO tonight at 9pm Eastern — more time with the majestic wizard lizard, who is totally not Garak from DS9. (He may be a tailor, but he’s definitely lawful good).

In WoW news, I have finally admitted that yes, I am going to — attempt to — balance heroic raiding in WoW with other games.

Thus I got Silbuns, my warlock, to 120 over the long weekend. After reviewing all three specs leveling from 110 to 120, I decided to go with Destruction spec, because I really do not like what they did with Affliction — it just doesn’t feel right to me any more. (I enjoyed Demonology a lot, but it felt very underpowered compared to the other two). And while I may die of boredom casting Immolate on everything, Destro is at least an easy rotation.

Our guild went on our first trip to Uldir, the new raid, last night. It was a huuuuuuge turnout, maybe a full mythic raid size. I was irrationally annoyed that on top of the core group, there are the folks who didn’t raid for most of the last expansion. I know they have every right to be there, but I can’t help but remember who was and was not there for the 100+ wipes on heroic KJ.

Anyway, grumpiness aside, it went okay. We definitely did not have enough healers — three for a group of 20-25 — making me further feel guilty for not leveling my shaman. But nonetheless we cleared Taloc, MOTHER, and Fetid Devourer.

My dps… was shite. Considering I was still wearing some quest greens, a few heroic blues, and a Darkmoon Squalls deck, this is unsurprising. It’s hard to commit to making it better while simultaneously considering quitting the game, too.

It doesn’t help that the first round of dps numbers from heroic Uldir show that… yep, Destro is still underperforming. *sigh* Maybe I will switch back to Afflic, Shadow Bolt and all.

If I do keep playing, I need to do something to standardize my keybinds across the two games. I would like to stop mounting/dismounting when I mean to hit push-to-talk…

Oh, and I’m still working my way through Graveyard Keeper, that indie sandbox game where you not only garden, cook, build stuff, and fish, but also dissect bodies and help the Inquisitor with fliers for his witch-burning. I’ve discovered that the alchemy system is not just two dimensional, but THREE dimensional. This may be the game that gets to me learn pivot tables in Excel.

LARP

Larp season is beginning! Thankfully it’s a pretty light one for me. I have Shadowvale this upcoming weekend, and Mad3 at the end of the month. Feel some anticipatory anxiety towards SV, but hoping that works itself out.

I went on vacation the first two weeks in August, and somehow I’m just now getting back to my blog. *taptap* Is this thing still on?

I think moving forward I’m not going to do the “accomplishments” format in my weekly updates, because it’s putting too much focus on “doing shit as a measure of self-worth.” And I’m finally learning how dangerous that thinking is, and beginning to accept that I have value regardless of what I do in the world.

But I do like keeping you updated on fun stuff I’ve been up to! Without that, all the weeks sorta start to look the same.

So here is some fun stuff I’ve been doing!

Camping

I went honest-to-god camping the first few days of August, at Ausable Point Campground in Peru, NY, a.k.a. the town I grew up in. In fact, it’s the same campground where my family went camping every summer when I was between the ages of (approximately) 11-16.

Unsurprisingly, it has changed a lot in over twenty years! I’m pretty sure the campsite numbering pattern is different, they took out the annoying speed bumps, and there’s waaaaay more driftwood at the beach than I recall. But the clean, cool water of Lake Champlain and the wide, straight banks of the Ausable River are mostly unchanged.

I read, swam, took lots of walks, worked on my embroidery, went boating with my dad, and even kept up with my PT exercises.

A variety of loosestrife I saw at the campsite: probably Lysimachia ciliata, or fringed loosestrife.

Stratford Festival

The next week I spent in Stratford, Ontario at the theater festival there, helping out my mom. I saw six different amazing plays, but I think I most enjoyed their production of Eugene O’Neill’s A Long Day’s Journey Into Night, a “geopathological” family drama set in 1912, deeply biographical to O’Neill’s life.

We also took a day trip out to the Blyth Festival — a smaller theater festival, around an hour away — and saw Judith: Memories of a Lady Pig Farmer and ate at the epicly huge Cowbell Brewing Co. which is apparently the only closed-loop, carbon neutral brewery in North America.

Games and Streaming

The new WoW expansion, Battle for Azeroth, came out two weeks ago, and I am attempting to level a character to the new cap of 120. (One bubble away from 119, as of last night). There have been some good additions to the game (for one thing, I’m glad to never play the “hunt through your bags for AP tokens” ever again), but on the whole I’m really not feeling the new content. It feels especially juvenile compared to the nuanced ESO Summerset quests I’ve just played through. Also not thrilled that they took Drain Soul away from Affliction warlocks, even if we did get Shadow Bolt in return.

On the same day as BfA came out, the newest ESO DLC, Wolfhunter, also launched. I’ve played through the two new dungeons on normal, and they’re difficult, but a lot of fun. March of Sacrifices is probably my favorite; I really feel for Hanu and her father, even if they’re heretic Ashlanders 😉 Also the use of sneak mechanics in the indrik fights is pretty neat, too.

I didn't take too many pictures when I went to March of Sacrifices this week, but there was this lovely one!#ElderScrollsOnline #WolfhunterDLC pic.twitter.com/zDAuQTn1Zr

— LisePlays (@LisePlays) August 19, 2018

Before I left on vacation I was playing some No Man’s Sky. I helped a guy, was given command of a freighter, and then promptly stopped playing. Beautiful game, though, and for the most part pretty chill.

I also recently got interested in an indie game, Graveyard Keeper, after my college friend Marc started streaming it. If you ever thought Stardew Valley didn’t have enough autopsies in it, this may be the game for you!

#ESO is still my first love, but lately I've been playing #GraveyardKeeper. Because in what other game do you die and find an afterlife where you're the graveyard keeper of ye olde medieval church, ably assisted by a drunken amnesiac talking skull and a communist donkey? pic.twitter.com/i7erwvosxl

— LisePlays (@LisePlays) August 26, 2018

I continue to stream and have a ton of fun doing it. I’m learning a lot about branding, communication, and relating to people, too, in a way that feels relatively low-stakes for an introvert like me. I finally ordered a webcam, too, so I hope that will allow me to better connect with folks. Fundamentally I just really love educating and entertaining people about the Elder Scrolls series!

The big dilemma I’m having is that I want to put more time into streaming — longer streams, different types of content — but that has to come from somewhere else in my life. And I’m eyeing that six hours a week that I am scheduled to be raiding in WoW, and feeling like maybe that’s where I want to cut.

But there’s an opportunity cost there. If I decide not to raid, it means spending less time with the cool people in my WoW guild (my RL friends as well as the rest of the raid team), as well as my own damn husband. So that’s a tough row to hoe.

Anyway, if you do see me go live, and you want to support this new hobby of mine, there’s one very helpful thing you can do: open up the link. Even if you can’t watch at that time; even if you have no interest in the content; even if you mute your browser tab. Just having more people there provides social proof to others, which is helpful to me in terms of growth.

Writing

Isn’t so much happening right now. I will probably get back to it at some point, but right now it brings up lot of negative feelings. Also when I am deep in my writing, I tend to start feeling like my life has no value if I don’t write, which is not a helpful place for me to be mentally, either.

I finally got a rejection from Galaxy’s Edge for Granny Hubbard — after 120+ days and being lost in two separate limbos, I got a form R. Wheee.

Lioness is still in pieces on the shop floor, so to speak. I wish I could finish this draft, but every time I sit down to work on edits, I’m filled with anxiety and guilt. And this isn’t my job, so fuck those gross feelings.

Books

I’m currently reading the first book in Katherine Kerr’s Deverry series, Daggerspell, and I gotta say… a) it’s very 1980s, b) it’s a slog. It just isn’t compelling to me. Having to continually remember who each character is the reincarnation of is more of a mental load than I really want, as is the unnecessary use of fantasy words for perfectly normal concepts like “hill” and “castle”. I have the next few novels, so I’ll probably read those, but god, I hope this improves. I know some of my friends love them, so I’m willing to be a bit more patient.

On vacation I also finished reading an older self help book, Self-Esteem, which is where a lot of my newfound ideas about self-worth are coming from.

Social

I went to the wedding of Holly and Tom this past weekend! It was of the sweetest, most nerdy weddings I’ve been to — their ceremony made me cry!

I went to see the RiffTrax Live of the classic 1980s movie Krull this past week. I had never seen it before, but, uh, wow, that sure was something. I felt like I can’t even really call it a “a bad cookie cutter fantasy of the 1980s,” because while it’s clearly trying to ride the cash train of Willow, The Princess Bride, etc, it’s still innovative in some interesting ways.

Ways that mostly don’t work, alas.

THIS IS NOT ACTUALLY A GLAIVE.

Health

Physical therapy for my right foot continues. My dorsiflexion is still not-so-great, but today my PT told me I could try running again at a low intensity. She seems to think some of the problem is in my stride, and I put more weight on outer edge of my foot than on the big toe. Those of you who are familiar with the RiffTrax of Birdemic, I am in fact getting walking lessons 😉 Hopefully I’ll be better at it than Rod by the time I’m done…

“Where’s that shop that sells instructions on how to walk like a human?”

I do not like this meat car and would like to upgrade to the newer model, but it’s still not out yet…

Habitat

In the MASSIVE AMOUNT OF RAIN we’ve had lately, we discovered that our skylights are leaking more than ever, and that it was time to get them replaced.

And then we learned the roof also needs replacing.

Sooo… that’s a big chunk of change. Not as big as I was fearing, but still something like $12k for a roof and four new skylights.

We can pay this out of savings, but it will wipe us out in terms of doing bathroom renos this year, so what we are doing instead is refinancing our house. As we apparently both have — no lie — perfect credit, we were able to get a very nice 15-year fixed mortgage, with $12k cash back to cover the roof/window repairs.

Also at some point I need to finish painting the guest bedroom. There’s just so much taping and cutting in to do in that tiny room with a slanted ceiling.

Brief Update

Mental health update: feeling pretty good lately. It turns out a good therapist is a literal lifesaver. Much love to mine!

I got out to the lake this weekend in this scorching heat, which was sooooo welcome. We also finally dug the remains of the old garden gate out of the front yard. (We left the cement bases in the ground, because there was no way we were getting those out without heavy equipment).

I’m still having a blast streaming ESO, bringing my passion for the Elder Scrolls games to a wider audience. I wish I could do this full-time! But I adore my guildies, the community, and the lore of these games, and I’ll likely continue to do this as a hobby for the foreseeable future. Need to see about making some tech enhancements to my stream in the near future, though…

(P.S. If you want to keep up with my ES and general video game shenanigans, you can find me at LisePlays on Twitch, or on Twitter).

Did a little writing-related stuff this week, finally getting back to submitting short stories and editing Lioness. It feels like ripping off a bandaid, that first time sitting down in front of Scrivener after a while, but I’m making slow progress. Once I accepted that this MS wasn’t going to be ready for Pitch Wars (and that that’s okay, I don’t really need it, etc), I felt a lot better about the whole project.

Finished reading The Ocean at the End of the Lane, which was a quiet but intense book. Definitely Peak Gaiman!

Accomplishments

Writing
– Submitted a story to Diabolical Plots (can’t say which due to anonymity)
– Sent “Pinions” to a beta reader
– Did ~1h of editing on Lioness

Reading
– Finished The Ocean at the End of the Lane, by Neil Gaiman

Other Media
– Listened to Twitch Talks #10
– Listened to Stream Coach, “Top 3 Consistency Tips” and “Consistency on Twitch with Cahlaflour”
– Listened to Sword & Scale #117

Health
– Had therapy appointment
– Did PT exercises x 6
– Went swimming at the lake

Games
– Had a session of my D&D game
– Streamed two hours of ESO questing on Scars-like-Lightning
– Streamed 1.5h of Fishing Lore
– Finally bought a proper house in ESO (Amaya Lake Lodge) and started decorating it
– Did bunches of normal dungeons with Anyael in ESO
– Did vet Ruins of Mazzatun, Crypt of Hearts I, and Imperial City Prison with Falanu
– Did normal Hel Ra Citadel and 2 x Cloudrest with Falanu and Anyael

Habitat
– Helped Matt remove old garden gate from the yard
– Met with landscaper/lawn guy
– Did two loads of laundry
– Tested out tent for camping trip

Picture of the Week

For some reason I don’t entirely understand, I still have this lovingly-copied copyright protection device from Monkey Island 2 hanging around my house. It’s not exactly necessary these days, since I can simply play the iOS port of it. Still haven’t ever figured out the spitting contest…

Brief Update

I went to Readercon this week, convinced that writing was too hard and I didn’t want to do it any more. I’m happy to report that my mind has been changed.

For my friends, who allowed me to talk about my difficulties, saw me as I was, and accepted that, thank you. Special thanks to:

• Melissa Caruso, who painted me as someone who is determined enough to make a story work, no matter how hard it may be. Her description made me want to live up to that standard!
• Victoria Sandbrook, who was so enthusiastic about my work, asking me to send her anything that might need beta reading.
• My Readercon roomie Beth T, who said, “I will be very disappointed if you stop writing, you silly goose.”

For Rose Fox’s talk on “A Compassionate Approach to Writer’s Block,” which explored new ways of looking at writing — also, thank you. Some of these ideas had been percolating in the back of my head, but their talk gave me the permission I wanted to step through that door. They reminded me that writing should be fun, and if it isn’t fun, I don’t have to do it.

Other people helped, too! I spent a large portion of this con having great conversations at the bar with people who cared deeply about stuff, and I feel like that made me feel more like a part of the world than a machine for producing stuff.

• Talking to Steen about his passion for Global Frequency made me remember my own passion for meta-narratives.
• The (Hugo nominated!) Suzanne Palmer remains the kindest person ever, who gave up a book she had found on the free table because I expressed interest in it. I am in awe of her positive attitude about the shit she’s gone through to get to where she is now.
• It was great to see VP17er Paul S. again and talk to him about his newfound interest in reading long-form political commentary, and what he gets out of that.
• I also really enjoyed getting to meet his girlfriend Molly, who can talk about Edith Wharton, Twin Peaks, and her awesome Diablo tattoo with equal aplomb.
• I feel like I barely saw Kevin R/Kellan S at all, but I enjoyed talking to him about the housing situation in San Francisco and how it compares to Boston.
• Arkady Martine helped me learn slightly more than the zero I already knew about city planning.

Of course I saw many people who I’m not mentioning here, but let me just say: you are all awesome, and I see you, in your joys and your frustrations. You are all part of me.

Also on Friday morning I woke up to an email with the ominous subject line “GRANNY.” I had a moment of fear that it was about my surviving grandmother, but then I realized that it was from the slush reader at Galaxy’s Edge, and that she was sending my story, “Granny Hubbard vs. the Giant Slime,” up to Mike Resnick. So, that was a great thing to start the weekend with. Nothing may come of it, of course, but it helped to cement the “yes, you are a writer” feeling.

Accomplishments

Other Media
– Listened to Loreseekers #18
– Listened to The Art of Charm #711
– Listened to Stream Coach, “Your Chat is Boring”, “Dominate Your Day”, “The Best Green Screen”, “How to Promote Your Stream”
– Listened to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, “Black Holes, Part 1: Phantom”

Games
– Did normal Hel Ra Citadel, Halls of Fabrication, and Asylum Sanctorium on Falanu with the UESP guild
– Did normal Volenfell and White Gold Tower with Anyael
– Streamed ~30m of questing on Scars-like-Lightning

Social
– Attended Readercon
– Met Jess M. for dessert/drinks/Thurs of Readercon

Health
– Had my first PT appointment
– Had a hair appointment
– Did my PT exercises x 6
– Scheduled annual eye appointment

Brief Update

Not much to report this week. The July 4th holiday falling right in the middle of the week was weird. I attempted to do a new feature on my ESO stream, “Fishing Lore”, where I read lore books while I fish. But it got very little attention, and was hard on my voice, so I had to quit after an hour. I have even greater respect for audiobook narrators now!

Over the weekend I played in Thicker than Water, a new(ish) larp by Alison and Kristen P. I played Irene Curie, who was way more interested in snogging boys than she was in winning the Nobel Prize for her synthetic blood substitute, but I managed to acquit myself rather well while looking like Clara Bow, so that was pretty neat.

I am struggling with having a lot of guilt about not writing lately, while also trying to live the conviction that I should not have to be productive to have value as a human being. I’m still working on how to reconcile those things. The best solution I’ve come up with is to allow the soft animal of my body to love what it loves, while also gently remind myself that sticking with routines and habits will make me happier in the long run. Very good advice, if I can follow it.

Accomplishments

Other Media
– Listened to Classic Elder Scrolls #78
– Listened to Twitch Talks episodes #1-2
– Listened to The Art of Charm, episodes 709-710
– Listened to By the Book, “Presence”

Games
– Had one session of my D&D 5E game
– Did an hour of Fishing Lore, my fishing plus Elder Scrolls lore stream
– Did normal Cloudrest (twice) and normal Cloudrest +1 with the UESP guild
– Streamed UESP dungeon help night (random normal dungeon finder dungeons, which gave us Fungal Grotto II, Crypt of Hearts I, and Blessed Crucible)
– Streamed ~1h of Clockwork City gameplay with Falanu
– Did the AD-side Imperial City sewers run hosted by UESP

LARP
– Played in Thicker than Water at Summer Larpin’

Health
– Had a therapy appointment
– Had an endocrinologist appointment
– Brought my lunch to work x 1

Habitat
– Washed the bed sheets

Brief Update

I have few new and exciting things to report!

I recently gave into my desire to opine on everything Elder Scrolls, and started streaming my ESO gameplay on Twitch! (I also have an accompanying Twitter account, @liseplays, where you can stay up to date on all my Tamrielic wanderings).

Streaming was a totally new experience for me, and I was a little trepidatious, but all in all it’s been technically easy and tremendously rewarding. I’m already pulling in viewers who aren’t just my friends, and quite frankly it scratches an itch that my fiction writing hasn’t been fulfilling lately: to educate, to entertain, and to be heard. Look for a more detailed post on that in the near future…

I also hied myself off to Cape Ann/the Massachusetts North Shore this past weekend, with my pals EB and Alison. I saw Atlas Obscura sites, haunted restaurants, trashy wax museums, and real historical museums; I got a tour of the House of the Seven Gables given almost entirely in an Elmo voice, and discovered that the mental institution that inspired Arkham Asylum is now luxury condos. This has been on my to-do list for a while, so I’m glad I finally made it up there!

Accomplishments

Writing
– Queried Galaxy’s Edge about my submission of “Granny Hubbard” going missing

Other Media
– Listened to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, “The Substance of Silence”
– Listened to By the Book, “You Are a Badass” and “Zero Waste Home”
– Listened to Elder Scrolls Off the Record #211
– Listened to Loreseekers #1, #17

Games
– Had one session of my D&D 5E game
– Set up @liseplays Twitter and Twitch account
– Streamed ~4h of ESO gameplay on Falanu
– Streamed UESP dungeon help night (doing vet HM Crypt of Hearts I – Darkshade I – White Gold Tower)
– Did normal Cloudrest and Hel Ra Citadel trials with UESP
– Did normal Bloodroot Forge with UESP guildies
– Streamed Falanu questing in Morrowind for ~1h30m
– Streamed UESP dungeon help night (doing normal Ruins of Mazzatun and vet HM Darkshade Caverns II)

Health
– Had a therapy appointment
– Saw an orthopedist for my ankle
– Had my annual pulmonologist appointment
– Brought my lunch x 3
– Cooked zucchini fritters

Habitat
– Did full cleanup/refill of one litterbox

Social
– Traveled to Cape Ann/North Shore area with EB and Alison, and visited the following places:

• USS Maine Ventilation Cowl (Woburn, MA)
• Danvers State Hospital (the model for Arkham Asylum, in Danvers, MA)
• Endicott Pear Tree (oldest fruit tree in North America, in Danvers, MA)
• Ruins of Dogtown/Babson Boulder Trail (Rockport, MA)
• Paper House (Rockport, MA)
• Hammond Castle (Gloucester, MA)
• Salem Village Witchcraft Victims Memorial (Danvers, MA)
• Metal Sculpture Yard (Salem, MA)
• Statue of Elizabeth Montgomery (Salem, MA)
• Where the witches were tried (Salem, MA)
• Wicked Good Books (supposedly haunted bookstore, Salem, MA)
• Witch Dungeon Museum (Salem, MA)
• New England Pirate Museum (Salem, MA)
• Witch History Museum (Salem, MA)
• House of the Seven Gables (Salem, MA)
• The Witch House of Salem (Salem, MA)
• Turner’s Seafood (supposedly haunted restaurant; Salem, MA)

Brief Update

(Two weeks here, I can totally math).

I en’t dead. But I have been playing a lot of ESO, which means I’m kind of dead to anyone who doesn’t play 😉

(That’s not the whole truth, though — as you can see, I’ve done some social stuff as well. But I have been laser-focused on ESO the past two weeks).

I went up to ye olde hometown this weekend to visit my mom, and on the way I finished listening to The Cruel Prince, a YA fantasy which I highly recommend! The basic premise is of a human girl who is raised in Faerie and has to learn her way around fae politics. The title is kind of an interesting conundrum; at the beginning and the end it’s pretty clear to whom it refers, but the middle it seems like there are several princes it could be. There’s a cool twist at the end, but I think what I most loved about it was watching the protagonist become powerful and terrible as she is surrounded by literal monsters. I wasn’t entirely sure she wasn’t trying to turn into her own cruel prince, by the end. And yet, it’s still hopeful, somehow!

If you wanted something novel-length that encapsulates the feeling behind “A Guide for Young Ladies Entering the Service of the Fairies,” this is pretty close!

If I have any complaints, it’s that the middle felt a little slow and directionless. But that could also just be that my mind was in Tamriel for so much of the past two weeks…

Also relevant: I haven’t been running lately, because in my training for the 5k in May, I seem to have fucked up my right ankle. A preliminary investigation shows that it has some arthritis in it (thanks to a bad injury when I was younger); there also seems to be something going on in the soft tissue that my GP was unsure about. I’m seeing an orthopedist next week. Really hoping I can get back to it soon!

Accomplishments

Writing
– Wrote blog post, “Seventeen days in Tamriel”

Reading
– Read The Cruel Prince, by Holly Black

Other Media
– Listened to Sword and Scale, episodes 114-116
– Listened to The Art of Charm 706-707
– Listened to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, “Sleep and Creativity”
– Listened to Elder Scrolls Off the Record 209-210

Social
– Did a tasting at Revival Brewing Company/dinner at Brutopia in Cranston, RI with EB
– Saw the RiffTrax Live of Space Mutiny with Adina and Brian
– Visited my mom in Plattsburgh, NY

Health
– Had a therapy appointment x 2
– Had a massage
– Did a short 30-min walk

Picture of the Week

Enjoying the fruits of my trip to Revival Brewing — their delightful Berliner Weisse, Pinky Swear.

Brief Update

Two weeks here. I have gotten sucked back into playing ESO and, gotta admit, that has taken up a lot of my time. I have also been hashing out some really intense stuff in therapy, which has made me feel emotionally raw, so I think it’s been a bit of the old escapism, eh? At the moment, I am okay with this. I ended up skipping Madrigal this weekend to deal with some of those uncomfortable feelings, and I think it helped — I definitely feel more human this week.

Re: ESO. I quit about two years ago, but I am so thrilled to be back. I feel like I picked up with the UESP guild where I left off. But game-wise, I’m already kicking myself for everything I’ve missed while I’ve been gone. The Summerset quests are brilliant, the Morrowind quests are amazing, and I’m just sad I missed getting my vvardvark loyalty pet by, like, a day. I may post more of what I’m up to later…

If anyone feels inclined to join me, now is a great time to start; I found it super easy to jump in and just start playing through Summerset with a new character. The game is buy-to-play, and right now you can get the base game + Morrowind + Summerset for like $80, or just the base game for even cheaper. There is an optional monthly membership, ESO Plus, which I think is worth it just for the limitless craft bags.

I have a tiny guild which right now is just a few of my larp friends; I’m also involved with the UESP guild — founded by the builders of uesp.net, the best and most famous wiki for the Elder Scrolls — which is an amazing group of lore-loving nerds, and to which I can also get you an invite, if you are so inclined.

Still not sure what I am going to do when WoW’s next expansion rolls out, in August. I’m feeling very uninvested in the faction conflict aspect of that, although the raids will be sound. And I suspect that while I love almost everything about ESO, the trials (12-man raid-like content) are probably going to be disappointing to me. So, who knows…

Accomplishments

Writing
– Did an hour of brainstorming/free-writing on Built Up Fairyland
– Did ~15m of revision on Lioness

LARP
– PCed Shadowvale event 4

Other Media
– Watched episodes 1-2 of Explained (a Netflix documentary series)
– Listened to The Art of Charm, #702 and #704
– Listened to Larpcast #109
– Listened to Writing Excuses 13.12
– Started up my ESO account again and did a bunch of stuff

Health
– Did 2 x 1.4mi walk
– Did a Zombies Run supply run (2.38mi in 38:28)
– Ran the Metrowest Corporate 5K! (42:22)
– Had 2 x therapy appointments

Habitat
– Cleaned both upstairs and downstairs toilets
– Patched and put a second coat of paint on one wall in the guest room
– Cleaned up the folding tables post-SV

Rejection Log

– 17 day form R from Strange Horizons for “Mirrors”

Picture of the Week