August 2022
Hello! Welcome! Whether you know me as a person IRL or as an artist on the internet, I'll bet you and I share this feeling: My relationship with the internet — and with social media in particular — has soured.
It feels both slow and sudden.
On one hand, it doesn't feel like that long ago that my family got our first computer in 2003. I was a very uncool eighth grader at a religious school in a rural town, and suddenly the internet was this new place where I felt like I could make friends and express myself easier than I could in real life. Online spaces were an escape.
My main escape was a fan site/discussion forum for The Sims, called The Sims Resource. On TSR, you could (still can) download custom objects, outfits, houses, and more for the game — all custom-made by a community of creative Sims enthusiasts who, in my experience, were also very kind people. I created some of my own objects for other fans to download, and they were objectively not good, but that didn't matter. It was fun!
My golden age as a Simfluencer (I just made that up and I'm sorry) began to fade after The Sims 2 was released. The original game was only four isometric views, so you could create custom content for the game in any 2D image editing program. It was delightfully simple and accessible. The Sims 2 was now fully 3D and thus required a 3D rendering program — something I didn't have access to and that my computer would've been too slow to run even if I did. I could no longer participate in the community in the way I enjoyed, and I started to feel like it was no longer really for me. Over time, I slowly stopped participating altogether.
Some version of this slow disappointment has happened with every online space I've enjoyed ever since.
These spaces used to feel like escapes, but all I want to do now is escape *from them*
Instagram has been my latest disappointment, made even more disappointing by the fact that it's the last remaining form of social media that I still use and haven't completely given up on. I know many others feel the same. I don't really know where to go from here as a person who still needs to be online for her career, but figured I'd try something new. Why not? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Most posts will be a similar format to this one: some longer rambling on a topic, followed by recurring mini features on some of the things that have kept me inspired and sane through this relentlessly existential dumpster fire.
I chose this platform (ghost.io) because it gives you some options for how to receive the content if you want to: you can subscribe and get it in your email inbox, you can add it to an RSS reader, you can click the little links I'll probably share on Instagram, or you can do none of those things and still read through the archive anytime. I also chose it because they're a non-profit that's transparent with their finances and motives, they have no affiliation with Daddy Zuckerberg, and most importantly: they'll never make me post a goddamn Reel.
Your friend,
Lisa
Sign of the Times: Leon's Frozen Custard
In July, I visited Milwaukee for the same reason that I presume everybody visits Milwaukee: I had free tickets to see the Backstreet Boys. Between spending time with the boys (my nephews) and the boys (Backstreet), I didn't get through most of my long list of rad old school places I wanted to check out around town. But! — I did make it to Leon's Frozen Custard, a magnificent gem that's been warming hearts and freezing brains since 1942.
Show and Tell: Dog Etiquette by Purina
Of all of my pandemic coping mechanisms, I probably leaned on my vintage collecting/thrifting hobby the most (it's basically a core personality trait now). I love this book because Checkers looks so much like my dog Percy, innocent shy demeanor and all. It was published in 1941, the same year Leon's Frozen Custard was being built!
The Kerfluffle: Happy birthday, Franko!
My first born, Franko, is a man of many adjectives. Fluffy. Vocal. Stubby. Stubborn. Sometimes he starts little bickering matches with his brother, and I call those "kerfluffles."
Anyway, he just turned 8 years old! In our nearly 7 years together, we've moved across the country, added Percy to the family, and welcomed in many foster friends — but he'll always be my anxious little floof who gave me my first sense of home and family in my 20s, when I felt so far from either. Love you buddy!!
