On writing.

Words have always meant the world to me. They have been my only friend, my solace, and my weapon when I needed one. Being able to write down my thoughts and feelings, even if only for my own eyes, has always brought me peace. In recent years, that peace has been disturbed and replaced with the turmoil of the worst creative block I have ever lived with.

Growing up, I always carried pen and paper with me. If I needed to jot down an idea that came into my head, I would refer to it later. I would refine and mold those ideas into something either spectacular or awful, though I was the only judge, since most of my works didn't reach the eyes of others until many years later.

I grew comfortable writing stories about other people - their struggles, their strife, their accomplishments. Writing someone else's story makes it very easy to forget your own, and unfortunately, I fell victim to that trap. While promoting the works of others, I forgot about myself.

At twenty-five years of age, I am now five years from my last nationally published writing work. Tonight, I broke out my paper portfolio and flipped through the pages, remembering how it felt every time I ran to a bookstore in search of one of my pieces. I would look through the magazine racks in calculation, looking for that fresh, crisp cover. Once I had it in my hands, I would flip through each and every page until reading my name. I didn't care about the editing or how my words may have changed. Seeing my name in something that reached beyond either my computer screen or shelf of notebooks was, and has always been, incredibly surreal. It has given me a sense of accomplishment unmatched by anything before or since. It has been everything to me.

For years, it was my identity. I was hungry to do more and be more, though continued to write humbling album and product reviews and sidebars. I grew complacent. Once in a great while, I would receive e-mail from an editor or reader praising my work, and even asking how I got where I was. It was both refreshing and inspiring, and I have always loved to share my experience with others.

Writing has never been easy for me, especially not emotionally. In recent years, I fell victim to the trap of not feeling good enough, not wanting to put myself out there in fear of ridicule or negativity. I have struggled since my last article was published in 2008 to shut off the part of my personality that has grown to need that validation.

Apparently, that switch is irrevocably broken.

In order to regain my comfort and focus, I opted to start at the beginning of my freelance writing career once again - AMP Magazine, based out of California. I picked up an interview for their upcoming issue, and will be working on that in the week to come. The familiarity of working with someone I grew used to as an editor, and the routine of a magazine I got to know very well makes me feel safe. I know what I'm doing, as I've done the same thing many times prior.

Not long after taking on this project, I sent off an e-mail to a fellow freelancer about taking part in a tattoo-related article she is working on for another publication - an article that has become near to my heart in the past weeks, certainly. Just this evening, I was on the receiving end of interview questions. Once it was finished, we planned upcoming collaborations, as well. Keep your eye on this space, as once I have more information I will be happy to give it.

Even if you give up on your story, your story will never give up on you. Don't get bored. Keep doing what you love, no matter what anyone, and most of all, your head tells you. Life life with head held high. Get rad and stay that way, it's the only way you'll survive.

Book Club Mondays: "The Haunting of Hill House"

While a great deal of the reading I do on a regular basis is new literature by younger writers, once and awhile I get the itch to read a classic. For horror fans, The Haunting of Hill House is definitely one of those books. It spurred two films - if you've seen The Haunting, this is the book it was based on. And yes, that scene where Owen Wilson gets his head taken off by the marble lion is still one of my favorite crappy horror moments.

The story centers around Dr. John Montague inviting four individuals to stay at Hill House, which is a haunted house Dr. Montague rents for the summer, and everything that happens caused by Hugh Crain, the original owner of the house. It is still hailed as one of the best literary ghost stories of the twentieth century, and for good reason. It explores fear in many different ways, including themes of possession, which aren't usually discussed in modern horror.

If you're one of the individuals that has only seen the films the book was based on, take a few hours of your life and read. The book, though old, has many characteristics that new horror doesn't - mostly, being one of the first explorations of psychological horror. As you read, you feel Eleanor, the main character, being pulled farther and farther away from the others, and very nearly possessed by the house itself.

Hey... is this thing on?

In case you haven't noticed, I took another brief break from blogging - say that five times fast. In any case, I'll put the long and short of what I've been up to below, and then return to my regularly scheduled blogging in full force - I hope.

Throughout the past month or so, I have...

• Dyed my hair bright, candy apple red.
• Seen one of my best work friends get married.
• Brought my laptop back from the dead (again).
• Taken back my job as a part-time bar trivia host.
• Finished or worked on a lot of knitting projects.
• Drank a lot of beer.
• Had one of my favorite people visit me in Milwaukee with her husband.
• Fallen in love with music all over again.
• Had my favorite weekend of the year - the Milwaukee tattoo convention.
• Attempted crafts I never have before.
• Rented a Kindle from the Milwaukee Public Library in an attempt to thwart my hatred of e-reading.

And tons of other stuff! I'll see what I can do to cover all of it in short order, so everyone can go back to reading my blog with this look on their faces:

Get Pretty! - Version 2.0

This week, I wore makeup - eep! - TWICE. In one week! I was surprised at myself. So here's two separate looks, one with a product list and one without.

I wore this to host a trivia show last minute - for nearly a year I've been a part-time trivia host in the Milwaukee area, and I was called on Thursday evening a couple hours before the show was supposed to start (and about four beers into my drinking for the evening) and wound up having to throw something together pretty quickly. The photo sucks, I know.

This weekend - hold your breath - I was asked on a first date! And you know what? It went well, and he actually spoke to me the next day! Perhaps there's hope for me after all! So this weekend I've been taking extra care of myself and actually taking time out for me each day. This was today's look!

I opted to get white trashy with it - that, and I really wanted to rock out my Free the WM3 shirt for one of the last times - unless I craft a revision to it, which I haven't thought too far into.

• Foundation: Cover Girl Clean Oil Control/MAC Studio Fix
• Brows: Dark half of the Clinique Coffee Shop eyeshadow duo
• Eyeshadow Base: LASplash Splashproof Sealer
• Outside Corner: Kat Von D shadow in Prague
• Middle: Kat Von D shadow in Long Distance
• Inner Corner: Kat Von D shadow in Sugar Skull
• Highlight: Kat Von D shadow in Sugar Skull
• Liquid Liner: Kat Von D Autograph Liner in Turbo Lover (currently on sale for $5 at sephora.com!)
• Lashes: Prestige My Biggest Lashes in Very Black
• Loose Powder: Cover Girl Professional Loose Powder

One thing I know I forgot to mention in my last Get Pretty post was how I set my makeup - and this may be strange and do it at your own risk - but I use Aqua Net. Just close my eyes, spray my face, and go. Works as well as anything else. Chap Stick also makes a good eyeshadow base in a bind.

It was also time for new nails, and once again, because I'm addicted, I went for the Sally Hansen Salon Effects Nail Polish Strips, this time in "Wild Child". They're fun! If I felt like having a real zoo on my nails, I'd have paired them with what I have left of the leopard print, but I decided that would be too much. 

That's all I have for this one! Until next time!

Book Club Mondays: "Professional Idiot"

I have always been totally and completely enamored by the stories of others (as I've said). Though it seems like every celebrity and their mother, father, sister in law, and third cousin twice removed are putting out memoirs these days, I decided to try Steve O's Professional Idiot on for size a couple weeks back.

Unsure of what I was expecting, I was a bit surprised by the content. Not by ridiculous stories of getting drunk, high, huffing nitrous and jumping off of stuff, but finding out that the funnyman was born overseas and was a bit of a brat growing up. Brat more meaning that he moved around a lot (his father worked for Pepsi), not that he was basically ADD and got in trouble for fun (which was also true). I loved reading the story of how he found Doc McGhee's hotel room when he was 13 and got to meet Motley Crue, as well as other stories of his youth.

While I was entertained by the brunt of the book, a portion just made me sad. Addiction changes people, never for the better. It is blatantly obvious after reading Professional Idiot that Steve realizes that. I can imagine that writing the book was part of his healing process.

Though most of us know him as a real 'Jackass', the book was (in my mind) a good representation of an underestimated man. While he's made a fortune doing stunts nobody would ever dream of doing and run around like a crazy person for the past ten years, Professional Idiot shows a new side of the 'Jackass' we never knew.

Sunday, Crafty Sunday: The funniest back patch EVER.

Sunday night two for one special!

Let me just preface this post by saying that I've begun to embrace my weird quirks. There are many things that make Liz... Liz. And I decided to celebrate the most important one in the only way I know how: through crafting. I've always had a way of transcending my look, so it didn't seem too out of the ordinary. A week or so ago, I had a hilarious idea right before I went to bed. Here's what came out of it:

That, my friends, is the new back patch for my well-loved black corduroy jacket. And it is much funnier in real life than it was in my head. I wanted to make a back patch that read 'Cat Lady' that looked like it belonged on a motorcycle jacket. I think this is what #winning looks like, don't you?

But no, to get serious for a second, all I needed for this project was some letters, black fabric, cat print fabric, and iron-on adhesive. I opted for the $1.89 letter buckets at Jo-Anns, and had some black fabric laying around. Half a yard of the cat fabric wound up being just enough for two back patches, in actuality - and because I'm friends with amazing people, I've already had requests for others.

Here's some photos of the assembly - featuring a cameo by my ridiculously furry and lovey feline son, Vegas.

I haven't actually gotten around to sewing it on yet - I don't own a sewing machine and that much hand sewing would have my carpal tunnel screaming - but when I do, I'll be sure to let you know! It was actually a relatively easy project, completed entirely with an iron. I am planning to sew the black onto the patch just for security, and get the patch sewn onto the jacket sometime this week.

Embrace your weird, ladies and gentlemen. My weird happens to be in the form of being the raddest cat lady you'll ever meet. Next week - I have no idea what will be here! I'm sure I'll have something to yank out of my bag of tricks!

Finally Free.

I will be the first to tell you that I'm not the type to bitch about current events. This situation, however, is much different.

As someone who has followed the injustice served to the West Memphis Three for the past five years or so, Friday afternoon's news of their release came as a shock, though it was a good one. As soon as the news came down, I checked every link I could find, reading the same lines over and over again, not even realizing as tears streamed down my face.

I was happy. I was absolutely and completely in shock, surprise, and glorified happiness. I have spent years doing what I can to tell people about the case, reading up on it myself, and knowing just how unjust what those three men went through for nearly two decades was. When I heard there was a deal on the table on Friday morning, I had goosebumps.

The connection that I felt to the case was not purely through research and understanding of the injustices done to Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley. It was because I could see myself in their shoes. As a kid, I grew up listening to punk and metal music, wearing black, writing bad poetry, and allaround being a little bit scary. If the town I grew up in had been any smaller, and if something as horrific as those murders had taken place with the same police circumstances in West Memphis, I would have been typecast as the type of person to do something like that. If you did the same, it could have been you, too. That's why I read the news and could do nothing but cry. I was absolutely certain that these men would not have been absolved of their crimes until long after Damien was put to death. Then, it would have been treated as a "whoops!", as so many mistakes in the justice system seem to be these days.

While the plea deal was not perfect, it was what it took to get these three innocent men out of prison. And really, they will never live a 'normal' life, no matter how you look at it. They will forever be typecast as 'baby killers' to some, and their innocence will forever be questioned. They still have much work to do, both to get acclimated to life in the outside world, and to clear their names forever. At least now they are safe, and can all begin the healing process.

The story is not over now that the West Memphis Three are out of prison. www.wm3.org has all of the information on the case, the Paradise Lost documentaries, and what you can still do in order to help the men clear their names. There is still much work to be done. For more information, I would personally recommend checking out Devil's Knot by Mara Leveritt, it is one of the best books on the case I've read, and boasts much information.

While the West Memphis Three walk free, they will not be truly free until their names are cleared and the true murderer of those three boys is brought to justice.

How-to Tuesday: MacBook Hard Drive Surgery

Last week, when I finally decided that blogging would be a good outlet, the unthinkable happened. Friday afternoon, I got home for lunch to do something on my computer when it was frozen. Great, I thought. Restarted it, and got what can only be described as a nightmare for any MacBook user - the flashing folder with an exclamation point. You know what they might as well flash on the screen? 'YOUR HARD DRIVE IS DEAD, YOU'RE FUCKED'.

Once I was done hyperventilating and flipping out over how "Oh god I can't afford a new computer right now, what am I going to do?" I set to Googling and figured out that I could get a new hard drive for the price of $50, versus $1000+ for a new MacBook. After I left work, I headed to Best Buy to buy one (word to the wise, you can use basically any internal laptop hard drive that's 9.5mm tall in a MacBook), after borrowing the necessary screwdrivers from one of the mechanics at work (they have to be good for something), and almost bought a 40 on my way (to calm my nerves), but opted against it.

This is a step-by-step manual on how to replace a MacBook hard drive. I'm sure if you Google it, you can definitely find one that has better pictures and more technical advice, but screw it - I did it, I know enough!

You will need:

• MacBook (dead or not, does not matter)
• Internal hard drive that will fit (mine was a Western Digital ScorpioBlue, 250 GB)
• Torx T8 screwdriver
• Philips screwdriver, size 00 (AKA f'n small)

And last but not least, a rosary and/or a stiff drink, to pray you won't fuck up, and to drink if you do. I opted against the drink, but it's still an option.

1. Use a coin to unlock the battery from the back of your machine. Pull it out. 
2. Locate the metal memory cover and its' 3 Philips screws. Pull those out, and remove the memory cover, being careful not to bend it. 
3. Using your Torx screwdriver, remove the 4 screws on the hard drive's metal casing. Remove the old hard drive. 
4. Unwrap the new hard drive and set it into the casing. Replace the 4 screws. 
5. Slide the casing back into the laptop. I learned the hard way that the print on the drive should be facing down - if it's facing up, you're putting it in upside down and will have to gut your laptop more than once. 
6. Replace the memory cover, battery, and voila! Turn on the machine and check your work. You will need to start the computer from an OS CD and run Disk Utility. You will know if you were successful if the new drive shows up in Disk Utility. 
7. Format the new drive and reinstall your operating system. 

Below, find photos of the steps - Blogger is being awful to me and not letting me post them alongside their directions.

See? Easy as pie! I didn't need that rosary OR that drink!

This was a one-off technical post - most of my 'how-to's will be craft related. It's not every day your computer basically decides to eat shit, so I decided to commemorate it forever with a blog post! Enjoy, good luck, and godspeed.

Get pretty! - Version 1.0

I can prettymuch promise that these types of posts will be few and far between. Back in May, I started a new job in what is, for all intensive purposes, an auto shop. Five days a week, I'm in work blues and change into a t-shirt and jeans for the duration of my day. Before yesterday, I hadn't worn makeup or - eep - waxed my eyebrows in I don't know how long. I'd been shaving off my overgrowth. I don't suggest going that route, seeing as I've had what I affectionately call 'goth mistakes' including shaving off giant portions of my eyebrows. Frickin' whoops! So yeah - have the patience to take care of yourselves, ladies - don't end up a half-eyebrowed freak of nature.

Sunday, I had what I called 'Get Pretty Day #2'. 'Get Pretty Day #1' included me dying my washed-out red/orange/pink/blonde/burgundy mop an auburn color I actually really love, and re-dying the undercut (shaved) side of my hair what I like to call 'mystery purple', where I mix Punky Colour in Red Wine and N'Rage in Purple Plum and see what happens. For the first time in awhile, I felt dang cute!

When I woke up on Sunday, I decided that I was actually going to take the time to look good - for me! In that, I waxed eyebrows, put on a full face of makeup, actually wore jewelry, and all to go to the craft store and on my weekly drive to nowhere. I loved every second of it!

lookin' like a new woman!

I think I did a dang good job! Now, I don't not wear makeup because I don't like it or anything of the sort. I just don't like wasting makeup I pay pretty decent money for on doing nothing more than sweating and running around a dirty auto shop with the boys. I've been told I'm pretty good with a makeup brush on several occasions - even had some friends ask me to do theirs! What a compliment. For maybe the first, and only time in history, I actually took stock of what I used as far as makeup went. Immediately after waxing my eyebrows, so blame the redness on that, not a creepy skin disease.

don't mind my junky skin! i've learned to live with it!

• Foundation: Covergirl Clean Oil Control/MAC Studio Fix
• Brows: Dark half of the Clinique Coffee Shop eyeshadow duo
• Eyeshadow Base: LASplash Splashproof Sealer (this stuff rules!)
• Outside Corner: Kat Von D shadow in Prague
• Middle Color: MAC Hepcat
• Inner Corner: Kat Von D shadow in Rehab
• Highlight: Kat Von D shadow in Sugar Skull
• Liner: MAC Penultimate in Rapidblack
• Lashes: L'Oreal Carbon Black Double Extend
• Loose Powder: Cover Girl Professional Loose Powder

And to think - all of that to make just one look happen. A lot of things in my makeup kit I've had for a long time, but I do have a few products I live and die by. I love Kat Von D's eyeshadows and lipsticks. I like the fact that I can get a bunch of colors for $36 (or $17 like the last palette I had), and the staying power is ridiculous. Her line also boasts my favorite lipstick of all time, Hellbent Red. I like to mix up drugstore and higher end makeups to complete my looks, and it's never done me wrong!

Now a look is definitely not complete without a good nail polish job. I have one better - and a new product to fall in love with - I know I did!

Sally Hansen's Salon Effects Nail Polish Strips are officially my new jam. I've used them three different times now (pictured above), and am in love. I bought my first set ("Kitty, Kitty" - leopard print) about a month ago, and was completely surprised by how well they stayed. I didn't experience any chipping with them, they just pulled up from my nailbeds as my nails grew, and didn't look as good as they once did. Second, I tried "Glitz Blitz", a crazy gold glitter. Loved that one, too. My newest nail strip endeavor has been "Laced Up", which I applied during "Get Pretty Day #2". I think out of these three, my favorite is still "Kitty, Kitty", but I haven't tried all of them yet!

As a former Minx enthusiast and addict, this is basically the exact same thing, only it saves you about $20 and a trip to the salon (you can pick them up for about $8.50 at Wal-Mart or Walgreens). I notice that these stay much better, also. Even though I'm always washing my hands and handling auto parts, typing, and knitting - I haven't experienced so much as a chip at the tips of my nails, which is incredibly impressive. I keep them on for around 10-14 days before taking them off, and they come off best with an acetone polish remover. The difference between these and Minx is that these are actual nail polish (they smell like nail polish and everything), that's about 95% dry, and it finishes drying as soon as you apply them to your nails. Application takes around 5-10 minutes, and there's no dry time! Some people like to use a top coat, but I don't and have been just fine. It's a personal preference for sure.

Until next time I decide to wear makeup...

Book Club Mondays: "I Don't Care About Your Band"

Julie Klausner's "I Don't Care About Your Band"

This summer, I have been reading a whole lot thanks to an adult summer reading club at one of my local libraries that could lead to glamorous prizes like tickets and gift cards! If I'm going to read the books anyway, why not - maybe - get a return? In any case, I finally finished reading Charlaine Harris' Southern Vampire Mysteries novels (the books True Blood is based on), and picked up something an adult would read.

I Don't Care About Your Band is one of those books I happened to pick up on the new shelf of the library. I read the back, thought it would likely be funny (a glowing review from one of my favorite comedians, Patton Oswalt, definitely helped), and checked it out. It sat on my kitchen table until a few days ago, and it was such a quick read, it only took a few days to get through!

The book chronicles Klausner's funniest adventures in dating, from the total psycho who may or may not have lived in his bathrobe to the guy in a band she couldn't stand spending five minutes with. Each chapter was a story in itself, and boasted yet another story of dating hell in a cute, entertaining way. I laughed out loud several times while I read it, and I'm not typically the type to laugh at a book.

From the back jacket:

This is not a book about successful relationships. This is a book - and a very, very funny one - about the humiliations we endure to find love and the lessons that can be culled from the wreckage. 

As someone who has never been incredibly lucky in relationships, it definitely rang true for me. Now that I'm finished reading it, I'm very glad I took the time to, and hope you will as well - lucky in love or not!

Sunday, Crafty Sunday: Thrifted frame rehab!

I am typically my craftiest on Sundays. Whether that's because sometimes I'm hungover (sometimes) or because I tend to sleep in the most on Sundays, I always just want to wake up and want to knit everything in my house together, or turn on the hot glue gun and glue my cats together. That's never happened, but you know what I mean. I also enjoy eating at Cici's Pizza Buffet every Sunday for lunch. This week it didn't happen, and last week I went so late it was like a Chuck E Cheese's, but perhaps I'll keep it going next Sunday.

A couple of weeks ago, I woke up on Sunday morning and decided to go out to the thrift stores I like, since I'd taken a day off of work and gone up to my hometown of Green Bay, spending an entire day with my mother going to garage sales and church rummage sales. I had the fever! At the first shop, I found a beer glass from one of my favorite Milwaukee bars, the spy-themed Safe House. I'm sure this won't be the last time I talk about this thrift shop, but let it be known that the USA Thrift Shop on Highway 100 in Milwaukee is plastered in Barbie dolls stapled, nailed, and affixed to the wall everywhere. I know that I have a photo, just can't find it.

Anywho, I went to my second shop - a Bethesda Thrift Shop, run by a local church - and struck gold! I am always on the hunt for two things: religious iconography (usually wall hangings depicting Jesus, Mary, or anything of that sort), and ornate frames to use for my finished cross stitch projects. I even had a couple of them finished at home that were just aching for an awesome frame. Even better, the shop was running a special with everything 50% off, so what should have been a $17 total wound up being closer to $9. Struck oil! In total, I got 7 frames for cross stitch projects, and 1 Last Supper image in a cool oval frame. When I found them, I of course headed straight to the craft store for acrylic paint, and the hardware store for spray paint.

my thrift and craft store finds!

My first order of business was to remove the random photos and dried flowers from the frames, as well as clean the glass. It seemed a lot more difficult than it actually wound up being!

After this step came my combined most/least favorite part of this entire project, and that was COMPLETELY violating my lease by turning my bathroom into a spray paint booth. Don't do it. I just do it because I don't have anywhere outside to spray, and I do wear a respirator when I remember. This, of course, being so I don't wind up passed out dead with my cats eating what's left of my muscles and skin from my bones when they run out of food. So, Russian landlords, if you're reading this, please don't evict and/or chop any of my fingers off. It's all for the love of crafting!

For primer, I used a gray spray primer that's good for wood, metal, or plastic. I picked it up at Menards, but I'm sure a Home Depot, Lowes, Ace Hardware or something similar would have it as well. Once that part was done, I was finished with most of the frames, spare two of them, which I had finished pieces for. Those two, I decided to paint using acrylic craft paints from Jo Ann's. It took about a million coats, and it wasn't much fun. Once that paint dried completely, I sprayed a clear coat over them and called 'em done.

Danzig skull and PBR stitches, ready to go!

Since I was ready to frame finished stitch projects, I got out my craft iron (AKA my mom's old iron from the 70s/80s), ironed both pieces flat, and took to putting them in their new frames.

And there they are! Come back next Sunday and see what else I've got up my sleeve!

Conquering My Aversion to Blogging...

or: "Saying 'Fuck You' to Margaret White."

On a daily basis, I read the blogs and Tumblrs of people I've never met. I have always been interested in, and completely enthralled by, life stories, and reading blogs have been a great way for me to get my fix in that department. I've even gotten around to talking to a few bloggers in order to get myself some confidence, bloggers who I idolize in a way (the lovely Erin Dawn has been helpful in ways I can never put into words or thank her enough for).

You may ask why I haven't been able to do it myself. About seventy percent of me sees an ability to do the same, to share the story of my life, the things I love, and what I like to do. Ideas float through my head every day. The other thirty percent has held me back, and has been holding me back, for years. I call that thirty percent 'Margaret White'. You may know her as the mother of Sissy Spacek's "Carrie" in 1976. Hold please, an explanation is coming!

As a heavily tattooed woman, people see me and automatically think that I'm a fearless broad who'd punch you for looking at her sideways. Sometimes, I'm confident enough to feel that way, but most of the time I find myself keeping my feelings so deeply hidden that nobody gets in. Don't try it - it's a really shitty defense mechanism. I have been crippled by my own mind, my own 'what if's' for far too long. I'm ready to get back into life, get out of the dark, and lose the obnoxious fear that has been holding me back for the better part of the last four years, at least.

My fear has a name, and that name is 'Margaret White'. In the original film "Carrie", her mother was a super-Christian, abusive and atrocious woman. In one of the most memorable quotes of the film, she states - "They're all going to laugh at you." Instead of having a positive voice in my head pushing me to do things when I have an idea, or even just to get through the every day, I have had that. My own 'they're all going to laugh at you'. I have had nothing but misgivings about both people I know and strangers, thinking that if I write down what I feel, that I'll be chastised. I'll be made a fool of. That has put a stop to me writing on a more regular basis for at least the past three years.

Another part of it is that about ten years ago, a person I used to hold particularly close to me violated my trust and read very personal writings without permission. Since then, I have been crazy vigilant about being private with my feelings, especially with my writing. Nobody reads it unless I want them to, nobody knows about it unless I want them to, etc. I think it's about time to put that one to bed, too.

It's time for it all to stop. If I think about it, I have nothing to lose. I can't hold myself back or be dishonest about who I am and what I love anymore. It is no way to live, and my heart has been too heavy for too long because of it.

Breathing in, breathing out. I feel better already. Prepare for the entertainment to follow.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

The first piece of the puzzle.

the saddest little scarf i ever did see.

A starting point is just that. With knitting, that starting point is fumbling with a pair of needles for a long period of time and winding up with a misshapen, hole-ridden hunk of fabric that not even a mother could love, much less wear.

This scarf took me two years to knit. Yes, seriously. You would think that it was an intricate piece with cables and intermediate stitches, but no – just plain garter stitch on plain needles.

Every once and awhile I would pick up my set of needles and Red Heart variegated yarn and do a row or two, but get frustrated at how the finished product was working out and throw it in a drawer or closet until I re-discovered it. My knitting was a joke to my friends, seeing as most of them knew that this scarf was years in the making.

I will keep this scarf forever, as an indication of how far I’ve come. Looking at it now, it’s far too short to wear and the fringe is laughable, but I keep it at the bottom of my finished project box anyway.

Once in a great while, I’ll pull it out, run my hands over the scratchy fabric, and smile. After that, it’s folded back up and put back with the other finished pieces. There’s a history to everything.

My knit-story.

Knitting was not something I ever saw myself getting into in a million years. I remember sitting in the car on long trips with my mother, or in the living room with her while I watched television, where she was always knitting a scarf for either my sister or me. For years, I watched her work her magic with those two needles and make me colorful scarves that may have curled at the edges, but were still mine. One afternoon when I was about twelve, I went into her craft box and got out a pair of knitting needles and some yarn, casting on a bunch of stitches and desperately trying to remember how she’d made the first one into an actual stitch. Frustrated, I’d give up, and it would continue on that way until just a few years ago. She would have taught me herself, but as a mother with a full-time job and an unruly teenager, it didn’t happen.

At nineteen, I decided to pick up my own set of size ten knitting needles and set out to knit myself a scarf. At Wal-Mart, I picked out a skein of Red Heart variegated yarn in a muted rainbow tone, and at twenty-two, I finished it. It became a running joke between my friends and I every fall and winter, with them questioning if I would ever finish the scarf, and if they’d ever see it. When I finally finished the scarf it was admittedly too short, but it didn’t stop serving its’ purpose – I taught myself to edge scarves with fringe using the too-short scarf.

From scarves to blankets and most recently dishcloths, I have found something that I really love to do in knitting. After that scarf and with the power of the Internet, I have been teaching myself many new knitting projects and stitches, and am always working on something or another, or looking into my yarn stash for a new idea. I’m going to use parts of this blog to chronicle my story as a knitter - among other things!

A little random positivity.

So, I originally posted this two months ago, but it has been stuck in draft hell since. Yes, I'm working on coming back. But until then - here goes!

For a couple of weeks, I'd been having an issue with a program I use at work to do one of my weekly duties. I e-mailed my contact who had no information, e-mailed the department that should have been able to help, and finally e-mailed the IT people in my department in the hopes I could get my issue solved. It had to do with a login and pings and other random nerdy verbiage that doesn't hold much weight in the real world. But IN ANY CASE.

One member of our IT department, Jason, went above and beyond to try and get my issue taken care of. Sure, I came back from breaks a few days with my computer completely restarted (and sometimes, multiple times a day), but since my issue was taken care of, it was all I cared about. So, since it had taken about a week, I just sent him an e-mail to thank him:

Hey, Jason:

Just in case I didn't get a chance to (I was pretty frazzled most of last week), thanks for going prettymuch above and beyond to make sure my problem got solved. Even if it did mean I came back from breaks to a restarted computer, it works great and without you, it probably never would have happened!

So thank you. Happy Monday!

I wasn't expecting a response (just wanted to send a simple thank you), but he sent me a response that actually made my day last Wednesday, and a few days after that as well!

Hi Liz,

I was out of the office Monday and Tuesday. I just read your e-mail-You are very welcome! Thank you so much for your appreciation.

More people should have your type of work attitude(and positive energy). Thank you  again for your kind words.

A positive attitude can go a long way.

Self-reliance is not a dirty word.

the battleaxe, post deer.

My parents raised an independent woman. I have never needed another person to feel complete. I don't need a guy to lift heavy things for me, don't need a guy to carry groceries up ten flights of stairs.. you know what I'm saying. I can go into an auto parts store and buy an oil filter and know what I'm doing and what I'm talking about. It still astounds me that the few times I've brought my car to a dealership or garage for an oil change that they STILL try to tell me "Well, while we were inspecting we found something wrong with your car that's gonna make it blow up if you don't give us an additional.... $700 to the $25 you were going to pay for your oil change." And you know what? Eighty percent of the time, IT'S BULLSHIT. Part of the reason I hate going to garages or auto parts stores is just because I have a vagina, everyone in those places seems to think that I'm an idiot and I'll listen to anything they say.

"Oh, oh really? What part is that exactly?"
"Well, it's the filter that's attached to somepartthathasnothingtodowithexplosionsatall..."
"I'm good. Thanks. If my car explodes on my way home, I'll know you were right."

And you know what? IT NEVER HAS. And that conversation has actually happened.

That rant was nice, but was not my point. Here's where I'm about to blow your mind: two weekends ago, I learned how to change the oil in my car. And the turn signal in my tail light.

Now, to most it may not be a big deal. Climb under, pop the plug, dump some oil, dump more in, right? For me, the girl who has had to change headlight bulbs in my BOYFRIENDS' car (in high school), not knowing how to change my oil kinda bugged me. Seemed easy enough. I was forced into doing it myself because a couple of weeks ago, my dad (who usually does it) had surgery to repair a bulging disc between his fourth and fifth vertebrae and has been in a neck collar for the past two weeks not able to do much. I asked him if he could verbally tell me what to do, and he was like "Well, yeah..." Why not.

Saturday morning, still in a bit of a haze from Friday night, I got up, popped a couple of aspirin, and we were off to dump off the waste oil we already had at the house. Getting the bottles of oil, we headed to the waste oil recycling station, which was basically a huge tank with a lidded box attached to it that you get to by climbing a little flight of stairs and standing on this platform. The first issue that I had with it was getting the lid of the box open. Now, I'm not tall. I'm about 5'5", and was wearing boots with about a one-inch heel on them. What I couldn't figure out about this lid was whether I was just supposed to throw it open, or if it would stop at some point. There I am on this platform, standing on the tray under the lidded box (that's full of oil dry), opening the lid to this thing. Well, it stopped, so that was settled. I dumped off the oil, closed the lid and we were on our way.

Got home and was tasked with putting on my dad's really classy cover-alls. Hey, it's Wisconsin, and we were outside, so of course I'd need something like that. We put the car (the battleaxe, as I call it) up on ramps, put out the cardboard, got to work. My dad stands and tells me what to do while I crawl under the car, trying to figure out what I'm looking for and then working to get the plug out with the 15 millimeter wrench. This is about the only point where I got girly. I'm under the car, spinning the plug, making the stupidest, screamiest noises you will probably ever hear.

"You're gonna get some oil on you!" I heard from in front of the car, which just made me laugh and scream more.
"AAAAHHH! OH JESUS!" I was nervous after seeing so many movies with people winding up with mouthfuls of oil in half-cocked oil change schemes.
"You better not be getting oil all over the goddamned driveway!"
"Hey old man, it's all good. I was just being a drama queen."

Once I got the plug out and got the oil pan positioned to catch efficiently, it didn't take long. Filled the pan, put the plug back in, picked up the cardboard, dumped the oil, put new oil in, NO BIG DEAL. I felt good about it! I had learned how to do something new, hung out with my dad, and it was just a good experience.

Now, having to rip basically the rear quarter panel apart on my car to pull out the taillight to change a couple of lightbulbs was just a pain in the ass, but that doesn't need a drawn out story. After this weekend, all I can say is this: girls everywhere, learn how to change your own oil. You'll be glad you did - and glad you were self-reliant enough to do so.

Last week's music roundup.

All day every day, music is with me. Whether it's playing from my iPhone, Pandora, or various radio shows on the IHeartRadio app. I don't exactly know what to call this (I'm sure I'll get a genius idea sometime), but I feel like sharing what I'm listening to - maybe I'll do it weekly, maybe not.

Radio:
I don't listen to conventional radio that often. Once in a blue moon when I'm in my car and bored with my iPhone music, maybe. A few of my diehard listening habits are as follows:

IHeartRadio: Nothing but Sixx Sense. If you don't know what Sixx Sense is, it is a radio show hosted by Motley Crue's Nikki Sixx and Kerri Kasem. Amidst the music, they are always going back and forth and being snarky with one another, and they have fun little ditties like 'Rock Facts' for every day, things like that. Also banter about everything from current events to making fun of Nikki's new workout regime as he gets ready for tour. Available on the IHeartRadio app, or on various radio stations from about 7 PM on five days a week. Sometimes the music he plays makes me WTF a bit, but everyone's entitled to their opinions!

Pandora: I've created a variety of different Pandora stations, all dependent on my mood. Sometimes I like listening to electronic music, sometimes pop-punk, sometimes 80's metal, sometimes poppy stuff. As of right now, my radio stations are as follows: Combichrist radio, Born This Way radio (Lady Gaga song), New Found Glory radio, Powerman 5000 radio, Motley Crue radio, Alkaline Trio radio, Hawthorne Heights radio, City and Colour radio, and finally Pink radio. I don't lie when I say I have a myriad of different musical tastes to go with whatever day of the week it just so happens to be. Mostly, I'm playing three stations: Combichrist radio, New Found Glory radio, and Motley Crue radio. I get a good mix of many different sounds that way. The ads still piss me off, though.

On iPhone:
About 80 percent of the time my music shuffles, unless I'm really into a certain artist. This week was a bit of a half shuffle-half listen to albums kind of week. It helps get me through the day when I can air-drum behind my desk or laugh to myself about a funny lyric.

Looking at my play history this week, there are some definite winners for most played:

GWAR: Scumdogs of the Universe - One of my favorite albums of all time, and the second Gwar album. Sometimes, when life gets weird, you want to shut your brain off and listen to nothing but songs about murder, fucking, and outer space. Gwar is the band for you in that respect. First track "The Salaminizer" is one of my favorites... forever. It also makes me chuckle when it's what I'm into at the office, since I get the absolute best looks, especially during "Slaughterama" as they explain how to hide money from a hippie... in a way only Gwar can.

Turbonegro: Scandinavian Leather - Yesterday, I just needed to listen to a party band. Turbonegro are that band. And after you spend six hours spinning Scandinavian Leather over and over... shit just gets fun!

Every Time I Die: The Big Dirty - Another fun 'party' record, if I do say so. My favorite track is 'We'rewolf' for nothing more than the lyric, 'But I didn't put my hair in a ponytail for nothin', so if I'm going home alone I'm not going at all'. Live they're a great band, and The Big Dirty is one of my favorite releases of the past few years.

Pink: Greatest Hits... So Far! - Doesn't seem it, but Pink is one of my favorite 'pop' artists. She's uncompromising, does what she wants, throws the middle finger to anyone who doesn't like it. May not seem it, but she's an amazing role model for strong women everywhere. "Heartbreak Down", an unreleased track, is one of my absolute favorites.

That's it for last week!

Don't crap on my head and tell me it's raining.

In which a bird craps on my head and I don't realize it...until I sit down on my bus ride home.

Last Thursday was any other day at work - sit at the desk, look busy for a few hours, go home. While I was walking to the stop (which is about a block from the building where I work), I felt something hit the front of my hair. Because the guys I work with can be jerks and are always throwing something at me, I looked over to the walkway where they typically walk. Nobody there. So, like a crazy person, I spin around and look around - nothing. A girl definitely saw me doing this and I just uttered, "That was awkward." and went and stood at my bus stop.

Fast forward about five minutes or so, and I get on the bus and sit down.

Now, one thing to know is that I have a penchant for both over-the-top accessories (rhinestones, etc) and obnoxious outerwear. Since it hasn't been too cold, I've been opting to wear my purple leopard print (faux) fur coat. This coat is amazing. I've had it since high school, and it truly feels like it was made for me (if that doesn't make me sound like a crazy person). I can pull off prettymuch anything. Anyway.

I get on the bus, grab poles for dear life on my walk back to the furthest left seat in the back corner of the bus, put my feet up, and get out my book (currently Henry Rollins' 'A Preferred Blur') to read on the way home. I look down, over to the right a little bit, and what do I see? Oh yeah. Bird shit all over the lapel of my jacket. And it wasn't just a little bit. Let me spare you the details, but I did take a photo of myself to survey the damage to my hair.

What can you possibly do when a bird craps on you from above? NOTHING. There is NO reason to get all bent out of shape about it, because you have no control (unlike that whole Dave Matthews Band bus incident a few years back...) So what did I do? I laughed. I giggled about it and probably looked like a crazy person doing it.

Imagine it: black-haired girl with bird crap down both the front of her jacket and in her hair laughing about something that's obviously ridiculous behind sunglasses.

However, I learned that a bird taking a dump on you may or may not be bad luck. Seriously, Google it! Well... at least there's that.

A parking ramp run-in.

For once, I wish they would stop replacing real people with fucking robots.

It was Monday, it was colder than it should be at this point, woke up late (a weekend of sleeping on couches did me in when I finally got to sleep in my bed - fuck the alarm)... wound up screeching into the $7/day parking ramp seven minutes after I had to be at work and getting upstairs where I made no eye contact and just got down to work without making fucking excuses. I haven't used "my alarm didn't go off" yet this year, and I didn't want to waste it on a day when I was just too comfortable to get the hell up.

The day ran slow - painfully so. Coming off of a three-day weekend, I think that getting up late was just the icing on the cake and was the precursor for a day of disaster. I even went so far as to realize that I had left the last $5 I had in paper at home and only had $2 in quarters. Great. Had to hit up a coworker for a five-spot, and all but ran like hell out to my car.

Perfect, great, wonderful. Get to my car, the jackass that parked next to me that morning had left so I could actually get in, I opened the windows and cranked some music (Gwar, as it happens to be lately), and headed out. All I wanted was home. Get downstairs, feed my $5 bill and the change I have into the meter machine that replaced a real person a few months ago.... when the last quarter I put in just. won't. go. It keeps coming back. I had no other change but that quarter, a nickel, and a couple of pennies. Fuck. I pull it out of the coin return and the fucking thing is so mangled that it's no surprise the machine wouldn't take it.

So I dig. And I dig around in my purse for a lone quarter that I know HAS to be floating around the bottom of my bag from a few too many nights drinking and needing jukebox money. No dice. What did I find, though? A business card case, a utility knife, an eyebrow filler pencil I have NEVER used, a giant binder clip, about three pens I'd stolen from the office... and not a fucking quarter. Nothing equating to a quarter.

Because there was nobody at the window (that's now blacked in for maximum nap comfort), I did what I thought I had to. Backed up and prayed for a goddamn good samaritan to be behind me in the rapidly expanding line.

I ran up to this woman's window and obviously scared the shit out of her (I guess seeing a black-haired girl in a black corduroy jacket with a Pabst button and another reading "I'm a crafty motherfucker" makes people uncomfortable - who knew?) so I begged. I told her that all I had was that quarter and it was mangled and all I NEEDED to get out of that fucking ramp. She didn't have a quarter, but handed me a dollar. I thanked her - man, I don't even know if I would give someone looking like me money sometimes - and ran up to the machine, put the dollar in, grabbed the change, ran it back to her (along with my maimed quarter), ran back to my car, got in, and pulled out before the arm went down. That really just happened.

Whoever you are, nice minivan lady, thank you for not being too scared of me to help me out in my time of ridiculous need. Last time I ever pay for that shit in quarters, I'll tell you that.

Work and writing.

When I get off work, I want to run like hell some days. I feel like I spend eight hours a day like a square peg being shoved into a round hole. Most days, I have absolutely dick to do in the time between 8 AM and 4:45 PM - and it's not that there isn't work coming in, but when you type a hundred words a minute there probably isn't an office that can keep you elbow deep in work. At least I know mine can't. My fallback is data entry, and the one day I tried spending the entire eight hours doing it I found myself nearly passing out at my desk all afternoon. Real classy. "Hey, Liz, you got some drool on your chin, there.."

Not that I'm getting all 'Office Space' on the whole thing, but it's getting hard to take anything about this job seriously anymore. I don't make enough money to keep myself afloat, I don't have a real reason to care... I've been told from day one that I'm essentially disposable, so why work my ass off? Some days I just wake up with the best intentions, look over at a drawer of nice dress clothes versus a pair of jeans with studded belt and a sweater, say "fuck it", and wear jeans and tennis shoes on days that aren't Friday. We don't really have a dress code that anybody sticks to - this means you, 55 year old man who wears jeans and various Star Wars, Pink Floyd and Devo t-shirts all the time... hell, he came in in a Sulu yellow Star Trek uniform shirt once. Not even kidding. So the fact that the department's office assistant is a heavily tattooed bitch on wheels isn't a huge problem. Which, in a world where some heavily tattooed individuals take the 'high road' of filing for federal disability so they don't have to work... should feel like an accomplishment, right? Meh.

Definitely did not see myself rotting away in offices as I was growing up. I had fleeting thoughts of how awesome it would be to be a writer, a librarian, or, for chrissakes, a professional wrestler (we aren't all smart in third grade).... and you know what? I sat down at a computer in about fourth grade, got good at it, and now look at me. One of the faceless yes-men trudging into an office every day. Fuck. How did it happen? I did attempt college a few years back - for an Associate's degree in Funeral Service (I figured hell, I like animals more than I like people and I've helped put animals down so hanging with dead people can't be too bad...) until I couldn't pass the simplest damn biology class the school offered. That was the world telling me "Liz! Go back to being a writer, you idiot!" So I attempted 19 credits per semester while working 40 hour work weeks in order to obtain my Associate of Arts. Guess what happened with that? Yep. Burned out. Quit. And not just a little bit - in the 'oh my god, if I go to one more class, get sexually harassed by one more fucking biology teacher, if my boss won't get off my ass about my hours, when's the last time I slept?' gonna-blow-your-brains-out kind of quit. Total shutdown.

After that, I decided work was going to be it, for 'awhile'. I always told myself at about 19 that I would be self-reliant on writing by time I hit 25. Didn't seem too tall an order, things were looking up... yeah, until that whole burnout thing happened, leading to me moving back into my parents' basement and still clawing myself up five years later. No, I've never had a clear-cut idea of what I want. I've never been able to look at my life and say that, definitively, I needed to do anything but write. It's been the only constant. And guess what? I've been ignoring the itch for about two years or so as it stands right now.

Right now, the damn itch has turned into the plague, the 'Pox, whatever you want to call it, and instead of ignoring all the goofy ideas that float into my head every day, I'm opting to put them down, put them on a blog, and make a total jackass of myself for the world to see! Hey, at least it won't just be me feeling like a jackass in my head anymore... right? And maybe, just maybe, it'll get me one step closer to not rotting away in an office for the best years of my life. Summer's coming, after all.

What do you hate about what you do for money?

Introductions suck.

nerdy nerdy with one of the cat kids!

As a precursor to all that is Liz, I just want to say that my give-a-shit busted a month ago, or so, and life has been not only a little dangerous and full of some days wanting to firebomb the office where I spend 40 hours a week... but also a little fun. I've been exploring parts of myself I haven't seen (or haven't wanted to see) in awhile, if at all. It's been ridiculous and has led to a little bit of drinking on the weekdays, but more than anything, fuck, I feel inspired.

In the past, I have been a horrible blogger. Even as I type this, I have two blogs that essentially sit ignored about 95% of the time, waiting for a day when my brain will be overflowing with content and people will pine for my next words... yeeeah, that's not going to happen if I don't put some work into it. Though my blogging track record has been horrible, I've realized over the past couple days that 'wow, sometimes I say some really funny shit', and because Livejournal is sooooooooooo 2005, I haven't really had much of a place to vent... anything. Unless you count the journal I bought about ten years ago that I finally decided to use (once every week or two, honestly) out of frustration and there being just... too much goddamn paper in my house that's unused. That was a former obsession.

I would go to Barnes and Noble and pine over the journals. Ones with cartoons on the front, embossed leather, fat, skinny... you get it. And most of the time, I would buy, buy, buy! Until about six months ago, I didn't really understand what 'budgeting' was, until my dad opted to take the reins of all things financial on my behalf and whip my ass into shape - figuratively, of course - what kind of lady do you think I am? If there was anything involving a whip, me, and my father, that would just be creepy. Now, I'm basically flat broke about eighty percent of the time, and find myself near hyperventilation at spending more than ten dollars on ANYTHING. Thanks, Dad. No, really. I may want to go on a strangling spree sometimes, or hell, just buy a pair of jeans or shoes once and awhile and can't.. but you're helping me and that's what matters - fuck if I've wanted to help myself sometimes.

Now that that's out of the way... for the moment, I live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I work a soul-sucking public sector office job five days a week which involves me sitting at a desk doing data entry most of the time and making about five dollars less than I should be. When I'm not doing that, I host bar trivia and make money running my mouth on a microphone and playing pretty awful music. And when I'm not doing either of those two things, I am doing or in love with a wide range of the following: drinking (whiskey, PBR), hanging out with my cats (cat lady, holla!), knitting, going on buttered cinnamon raisin toast binges, driving to Green Bay once a week, going to tattoo conventions, being loud, smelling bread before I eat it and paper before I read a book, cross stitching, reading, listening to spoken word of all varieties, driving to nowhere in particular late at night, swearing way too much, singing along to bad pop songs in my car, baseball, getting tattooed, being obsessed with random 80's hair metal... you know where this is going. I'm ridiculous. I drink too much sometimes. I'm rad. I'm Liz.

Who are you, and what do you love?