Weekly Update, 3/26/2018 to April 1, 2018

Brief Update

Life in Liselandia is good. I am operating at peak efficiency. Beep-boop.

I had intakes with two therapists this week. Or rather: one and a half, because the first one literally broke her ankle walking around her office after her previous appointment. So uh, I filled out some paperwork, but then we had to reschedule so that she could go to the emergency room.

I see my bone-breaking talents have expanded to include service providers.

Speaking of service providers, I was very happy with the work done by the handyman I hired for my kitchen. This guy seriously left my kitchen cleaner than it was when he started. We’re considering him for the bathroom remodel we’re planning.

Crooked Kingdom continues to be so, so good. Heck, I broke my FB silence in the dim hope of having someone to squee at about it. Although when I post things like that I always feel like I’m the only person in the world who cares that much about books…

Links

More from the guy who almost always inspires my social media fasts, Cal Newport: Beyond #DeleteFacebook: More Thoughts on Embracing the Social Internet Over Social Media. Here he discusses “two additional approaches that individuals can put in place right now to begin their transition from social media to the social internet.”

(Might want to read his article about the social internet, too, to learn what he means by that).

I’ve been trying to cultivate approach #2 lately, right here on this blog, but I find it difficult. It’s one thing to say “build your own platform” when you’re Cal Newport, best-selling author, but when you’re Lise Fracalossi, web developer and aspiring fantasist — who just wants to discuss a durn book with someone — then it’s a lot harder. I feel like the only way I get any investment in what I write is if it’s on Facebook. That might be shallow investment, as Newport argues, but at least it’s something.

But you know, I’ve had the same problem since forever. And I think it’s just that even if people are engaged with your content, they are unlikely to comment. Not that I am insufferably boring. Right?

*crickets*

In funnier news, this piece from Nat Silverman on McSweeney’s had me chortling: Ready Player Two: Girl Stuff. It is all good, but I just about lost it at this:

Back then, she had called it the Sparkleship, but I wanted a more intellectual, literary name. So I re-named it Astolat, after my favorite fan-fiction author.

(All this makes me think I should harness my 80s and 90s geek girl nostalgia to write an answer to the rampant misogyny of Ready Player One).

Accomplishments

Writing
– Worked for 1h 30m/wrote 1053 words on new Lioness beginning
– Submitted “Mirrors” to Factor Four
– Submitted “Granny Hubbard” to Galaxy’s Edge
– Sent revision of “Pinions” to a reader
– Wrote blog post: The Poet and Her Book: On Reading the Biography of Edna St. Vincent Millay

Reading
– Re-read A Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula K. Le Guin

Other Media
– Listened to Happier with Gretchen Rubin #158-#161
– Listened to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, “Bird Intelligence” and “Life Beyond the Shield”

Health
– Had appointments with two potential new therapists
– Did Zombies Run S2E8, 2.38mi in 39:47
– Did Zombies Run S2E9, 1.76mi in 28:59
– Did 30min walk
– Took an (~)hour long slow ramble in the woods
– Did Zombies Run S2E10, 1.96mi in 32:17

Habitat
– Had a new over-the-range microwave and kitchen faucet installed
– Cleaned out and organized pantry
– Cleaned the oven (or: took off the first layer of crud, at least)
– Did two loads of laundry

Work
– Finished the JavaScript Best Practices Codeschool course

Picture of the Week

A twofer this week — my new microwave and faucet.

Author: Lise

Hi, I'm Lise Fracalossi, a web developer, writer, and time-lost noblethem. I live in Central Massachusetts with my husband, too many cats, and a collection of ridiculous hats that I rarely wear.

5 thoughts on “Weekly Update, 3/26/2018 to April 1, 2018”

  1. It’s me, hello, I am a free supply of plus-ones (or other non-Facebook “like”-equivalents) to your Internet Website! I am really a big fan of the world where more people are talking about the awfulness that is Social Media, and how to separate that from “it’s good to be able to connect to people all over the place”.

    And yeah, you are not boring at all — your blog posts are Cool and Good! Your assessment of “it’s way easier to hit Like / +1 / Heart compared to Actually Writing Words With Thoughts” is 100% correct (and since The Blog doesn’t have such a button, I suspect you just get Likes on various social-media-linked sites), though I’m not sure of a good way of getting people to get around the Easy Option now that it’s available.

    1. Hi, plus-one giver Scott! 🙂 I notice you tend to be more of a Google Plus fan in general; while I like some things about it, and there are often neat larping conversations happening there, it still doesn’t have the reach of Facebook, alas. And of course it’s just another walled garden, at the end of the day.

      Your post makes me wonder if I *should* have a sort of like/+1 button on this blog. I’m not sure what I would get from it? I mean, except that little dopamine hit. It unfortunately doesn’t mitigate the sense that if I didn’t crosspost to social media, I don’t think anyone would see these blog posts.

      I’m not sure what the answer is. But thank you for letting me know that you are reading 🙂

      1. Firstly, replying to this makes me miss Livejournal a great deal, and that (or something similar to it, like Dreamwidth) is probably the social media platform that I would actually use if that sort of thing hadn’t been abandoned in favor of Facebook and Friends. G+ isn’t a perfect solution for me, partly because it only feels good because Google failed to capitalize on it, and (as you point out) that a social media platform is only as good as the people you can connect to there.

        As to the “nobody notices you if you’re not on Facebook”, I definitely hear you there — “If you’re not on Facebook, you’re not real” is unfortunately a thing! While I’d suggest attempting to repopularize the practice of using an RSS Reader (combined with some of Cal Newport’s suggestions), it’s still limited in the end to how many people are actually willing to use the RSS reader in addition to (or instead of?) Facebook, and that’s a hard thing to convince people to do it seems.

        In the end though, I suspect that one of your goals is something like “Intelligent Discourse on your Blog (possibly accentuated with bathrobes and bubble pipes)”, and a Like Button does not help there. So instead, I figure I should try to do my part, and Actually Comment if I have something useful to say!

        1. I miss LJ all the time 🙁 Unfortunately I have objections to DW that are more personal than my objections to LJ…

          There is a link to subscribe by RSS, although it looks like it only exists on the front page, which I expect most people aren’t going to directly. And I need to assume not everyone is as comfortable with digging through the source of a page to find the RSS link as I am. I feel like RSS is also a lot less easy since Google killed Reader… (tho I use RSS, and personally I use Feedly as my client).

          I really need to add a way to subscribe by email. (Which you’ll notice Cal Newport has!) I’m not sure if that functionality literally just sends you an email whenever someone posts, or if it subscribes you to a more personally-curated newsletter. It’s something I need to look into.

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