The Thing about Lisa Is...

The usual:

I was born in 1968; grew up in Old Lyme, Connecticut; earned a dual bachelor's degree from the University of Connecticut; and now live in Denver, Colorado, with my husband RDC and son Blake (a cockatiel).

The trivial:

After breaking my arm and having pins drilled through thumb and elbow to prevent the broken edges wandering away from each other and to facilitate knitting, I am unable to straighten my right thumb. That is, it cannot straighten on its own, but I can manipulate it with my left hand. I don't remember if I broke the radius or ulna, but it was the bone on the thumb side--I think the ulna. I used to have two hitchhiker's thumbs but now, palms together and digits outstretched, my thumbs lie parallel one another instead of pointing in separate directions. This impairment doesn't affect my handshake, which is all I ask.

Living in Old Lyme, Connecticut, I fiercely resisted the idea of Lyme Disease. I dismissed it as a hoax for hypochondriacs. In August 1992 that myth stained a large rash on my tuckus. The supreme irony of my contracting Lyme Disease is that I acquired my tick while camping in upstate New York. In June 2002 I got it again, this time probably in Mansfield or Putnam, Connecticut.

I have a slight birthmark on my left calf; my sister has one of identical shape and size but darker and on her hip, where it is much sexier. I have my grandmother's hazel eyes, which I like; my sister has eyes a greener hazel than mine and her left has a red streak running from the pupil to about seven o'clock. She is much cooler than I.

I prefer bacon and french fries burned but cookies and brownies raw(er).

My ears are double-pierced but I almost never use the second holes. That was true until May 2000, when RDC gave me a pair of small amethyst studs for my birthday. Now I either wear them alone or in the second holes, but I am seldom without them.

I wear low-waisted dresses with long full skirts and short straight sheaths. And shorts overalls, which are about the most wonderful garment yet devised.

I have longish brown hair with a lot of copper and red highlights, hazel eyes, and fair Irish skin, but my face doesn't break out in freckles the first of spring anymore. This is unfortunate. I have decided again to grow my hair to my waist. When I first wrote this page in January 1999 it was to my shoulderblades. The longest yet was the small of my back. In December 2001 the end of my braid reached past my bra strap and I think loose it's to the small of my back again. In January 2003, after befriending a woman who within months would die of brain cancer, I decided to cut my hair. The day of my appointment, my grandmother died. I marked the day.

My favorite color is blue sunny sky through deciduous leaves. Also my blue sunny lake reflecting a blue sunny sky. However, I wear cool, subdued, weird shades of lavender, periwinkle, and grey.

I can stop sucking hits off the bottle of Hershey's Chocolate Syrup any time I want to.

When the Cowboy Junkies had six studio albums, I was in a quandary: we have a five-disk cd carousel. Now that they have eight, the carousel isn't an impediment.

I think of Mr. Nilsson, Pippi Longstocking's monkey, when I hold a cup with both hands. To do so feels comforting because of both my actual childhood practice and Mr. Nilsson, who always held his cup so.

I sign my name with a lowercase because of Laverne's big cursive L on all her clothes.

The lisa:

I would tell every remote detail of my surroundings before I could show you what anything looks like.

If I were religious, I'd subscribe to an earth-worshiping faith.

I judge books by their covers. I have been known to run with scissors too.

I used to have a gnarly callous to the lower left of the nail of my right middle finger. I've been typing more than writing for long enough that it is now merely a scarry bump. This bothers me.

I have known myself to be a feminist since seventh grade, when I learned that in French, "she" is "elle" and "he" is "il" and "they" is either "elles" or "ils" but it's "ils" even if there are scores of females and only one male. Patently unfair.

I eschew grocery stores whose express lanes state "X items or less." I patronize "X items or fewer" stores. In the same vein, I am going to host my millennium party a year after everyone else. I also name years CE or BCE, Common Era or Before Common Era, because those are non-Christian terms and recognize that Christ likely was not born in AD 1.

I have a pair of earrings of stick figures and I always wear the male in the left and the female in the right ear. My other favorite pair is a Venus of Willendorf-type goddess holding a sphere of amethyst.

I have a bear and a moose but their names are not Morris and Boris Maybe I'll rename them if the book comes back in print.

I like my laugh in all its variations: the snort of surprise (with nuance for disgust or admiration); the sustained pitch of high delight (usually at myself); the uncontrollable, unrepeatable laughter that depends as much on context as on content. I like when people respond to it, whether by smiling at its raucousness or laughing with or at it.

I notice everyone's gait and handshake. I make snap judgments about whole people based on these traits.

I am not going to reproduce. I know myself to be an excellent aunt but I doubt my ability to prolong auntism into motherhood and I would never inflict such an experiment on an innocent child.

Whenever I count to three, I do so like the Owl in the old Tootsie-Pop commercial. When I have occasion to count by threes or fives, I do so like Schoolhouse Rock.

Exercise is not inherently pleasurable but something to endure so for good health, like broccoli.

Swimming is not exercise. Swimming is swimming. That it whittles my waistline is secondary.

I was the one who misfiled in the first place:

I like chasing fireflies, snorting lilacs in full bloom, eating berries off the cane, rolling down hills, raking and then leaping into piles of fallen leaves, climbing trees, slurping mocha milkshakes, napping, rummaging in used bookstores, and exploring libraries.

My favorite birds are cockatiels (Blake made me say that), magpies, penguins (except Rock-Hoppers--that yellow fringe is freakish), and blue-footed boobies. The plumage of a sun conure is one of the loveliest things I know, and the dusty down of my cockatiel one of the best scents. Although I do prefer lilac.

But even though I added that bird paragraph because Blake wanted me to, I would rather have a dog, a big black Labrador of a long line of birding stock for that soft mouth and gentle disposition. However, that would be blood gone to waste since I don't hunt. Ethically, I would prefer a mutt, except that I want to raise a dog from a pup and you never know what temperament or build a mutt will be develop, especially one from the pound.

Swimming in my lake, then lying on the bank gazing up through green leaves at blue sky, with icy cold water in a sippy bottle and a book, is the most perfect bliss. Swimming in the Sound in late September is pretty good too. Nudey-dipping in the Pacific or freezing my tail in the surf off Race Point in June also makes the cut.

I begin altogether too many paragraphs (and sentences) with "I."

I do not put the tagline "Knowledge is Wealth/ Share it" on all my pages because I think I'm a font of all possible wisdom. It's there because I believe it. It is omnipresent throughout my site because I believe in teaching and education and in voluntary socialism.

Overall:

I would rather swim.

Unless I would rather read.