I get to play with the big kids tonight!

Breda has very, very graciously invited me onto her and Bonnie’s kickass radio show tonight.  SQUEE!!  And she invited Jay G to come play too!  SQUEE!!!

Notes to self:

• Slow down. Take a deep breath.  Not everyone talks like a female Elmo doll that just shotgunned (heh – see what I did there?) three pots of coffee and inhaled a brick of Twinkies.
• Do not — do NOT — blurt out your real name or where you live.
• Or what you ate for dinner, or what shoes you’re wearing, or any other inane factoid that leaps into your mouth.
• Don’t interrupt Jay G.  He’s bigger than you.  Also, he’s a gentleman and would totally let you, and interrupting is rude.
• Don’t bust out with “Praise the lord and pass the ammunition.”  Everyone already knows that one, either from being that old or by seeing it in American History class.
• Be yourself, and just answer whatever questions the nice hostesses and her guests throw out.
• I’ll have eaten lasagna for dinner, BTW.  And I’m wearing black stilettos.

See you then!  If you don’t tune in, The Rajah will bite you!

Final Bloggershoot post: Full Circle*

Remember this post?  And this one?

What a shocker it was the first year.  I’d shot guns three times in my whole life . . . before driving myself to a private location in New Hampshire to meet a bunch of relative-strangers who were all going to be armed . . . It does sound kind of crazy when you put it that way.  On the other hand, I’d been reading/corresponding with Jay G for months, drove myself, left a Google map of the coordinates for Mike, and had a cell phone; it wasn’t THAT bad.

No, the scary part wasn’t going to the meeting alone.  It was that people freely offered to loan me their guns and I was terrified I would break something. (This year, that was Weer’d‘s job.  *snerk*)  I confirmed this year that the loaners — TOTWTYTR, for example — didn’t know just how GREEN I was, or they would have offered more of a tutorial with each gun.  It didn’t really matter though; I only borrowed guns that came from people willing to walk me through it the first time.  I think supervision is always wise when you’re dealing with unfamiliar and dangerous tools.  (Speaking of which — thank you Mopar and Mrs. Mopar, who helped me shoot Weer’d’s shotgun this year and other stuff last year.  Y’all are so nice!)

And this year?  I drove up with my husband to meet a bunch of friends, all of whom were armed.  And we brought a crap-ton of ammo and a bunch of targets and — oh yeah — GUNS.  ACTUAL GUNS THAT BELONG TO US.  MORE THAN ONE.  WE EVEN HAD A GUN THAT WE’D MODIFIED.  OURSELVES.

I had a retention holster that I used and carried openly as I did at the Sig Academy.

I demonstrated a draw for someone who has been playing with holster ideas.

I loaned Siguette to other folks who wanted to shoot her.

Holy crap, what a difference two years make.

Thank you to my encouraging readers.  Thank you to my old friends, who haven’t written me off as COMPLETELY batsh*t insane.

Thank you Jay, who organized these fabulous shoots and relentlessly encouraged me to learn more about firearms. Thank you Doubletrouble, for hosting them and for your gentlemanly comraderie, and your lovely wife for taking me under her wing. Thank you TOTWTYTR, who breezily offered to let me carry his revolver for the entirety of the first Bloggershoot.  Thank you Borepatch, for your kind and helpful supervision whenever I needed it, and for serving as a reference for my license application. Thank you Bruce, for displaying your zany sense of humor (and vocal talents) and making me realize that I was at home among gunnies. Thank you Weer’d, for your clown-car .22 and for babysitting me while I bought my first gun.  Thank you to Breda and Tam, whose encouraging words and shining example showed me what gunchicks could and should be.  Thank you Shoothouse Barbie, who made the same transition and understands it.

And finally, thank you to my husband Mike.  Without you, sweetie, I’d still be mulling over my calendar and eyeing a mountain of license paperwork.  You’re the best 🙂

Exit quote from the bloggershoot:

ME: “Sweetie, they liked you and said I could keep you.  Which you can tell because no one tried to shoot you.”

MIKE: “Well, I would have shot back!”

*Unless I remember something else really funny, decide to post another video, or wake up seriously late and scramble to post something, anything.

Once seen, cannot be unseen

Good morning, everyone!  I hope that you had a long weekend, and I hope that it was as lovely, relaxed and enjoyable as mine was!

Thank you all so much for your comments on the last post.  It’s nice to know that my readers have tastes every bit as random and eclectic as my brain droppings.

And in true LookingForLissa form, I’m going to show my gratitude by posting . . . THIS.

Mike called my attention to this a few days ago.  I literally shrieked as I watched, alternating between genuine hysteria, hilarity and horror.  I hereby dedicate this video to TOTWTYTR, who posted the original (for women) version. (TOTWTYTR, I couldn’t find the post.  If you drop it in the comments I’ll update the link.)

Because I love you all, I’ll also provide this:

Have a great day, y’all!

Under construction!

Adding new people to the blogroll, adding people to the RSS feed, taking those same people off the RSS feed, emailing Blogger to find out why it automatically adds a link*, etc., etc.

Hope you had a good weekend!

*It’s seriously irksome.  Most folks with blogspot addresses have this problem — if they’re in my RSS feed, and I publish a new post, it adds a link from my new post to the newest post in the Blogspot blog.  I hate it; it keeps me from having Borepatch and Jay G and Breda and other folks in my RSS feed.  If you have advice on how to fix this, please share!

When blog persona meets life persona

For the most part, my LookingForLissa life and Actual Lissa Life are fairly separate.

Oh sure, when we meet up for bloggershoots or bloggerdinners, I see people in real life.  I don’t hide my ID.  A bunch of the folks on my sidebar know the true name of Lissaville.  Shoothouse Barbie‘s known me forever (or since high school, which is the same thing).  And, of course, Mike both shares my Actual Lissa Life and does occasional guest posts for me.  (He’s really looking forward to this summer’s bloggershoot, BTW.  As are we all!)  And when I occasionally meet up with someone who reads my blog and recognizes me at the range, it’s weird and flattering at the same time.

What’s weird to me is when an old acquaintance from my Actual Lissa Life stumbles on my blog.

I don’t deny that my views on politics and economics and life in general have changed a lot in the last ten years.  (Two of my most popular posts deal with this very subject.)  I try not to take things TOO seriously; after all, I was 1000% convinced back then that I Was Right.  I’m pretty sure that my current views have more grounding in reality, statistics and How Things Actually Work, Not The Way I Would Like Them To Work than they were back in college, but hell — I was wrong before when I was SURE I was right.  For all I know, I’m still wrong, and all my views are crazy as hell.

But there’s no denying that I feel a sense of . . . unease . . . almost shame . . . at the idea of someone from Ye Olde Liberal Arts College coming here and being shocked at the change.  I imagine that, to them, it would be as if they met me in the street and suddenly I had shaved my head and put some bolts in my ears and pierced my lip and perhaps gotten a really stupid facial tattoo.  (Of course, in such a situation, my real friends would love me anyway!)

Whereas in my perception, it’s more like the opposite — like realizing that my hair looks better long, that having my lip pierced makes no sense, and recognizing that a stupid facial tattoo leads people to judge me in ways I don’t like.

Part of the appeal of having a blog is the freedom of your readers to go elsewhere.  If they think you’re batsh*t-crazy and living in bizarro land, they feel free to go read something else.  I don’t know if that applies to people from Actual Lissa Life, and that makes me a little uncomfortable.

Also . . . the vast majority of my readership found me online, one way or another.  I write for them, and for me.  And I forget sometimes that there is a handful of people who know me from Actual Lissa Life.

Is that bad?  I don’t know.  Potentially, I guess. When I wrote Meditations on Self Defense, I was trying to explain in a logical manner why someone would choose to own a gun.  In certain parts of the country, folks would think you’re nuts for having to explain something everyone takes for granted.  That’s not the case where I live.  I was trying to explain in a logical manner why gun ownership makes sense to me.

But I have friends who don’t own guns.  Was this post aimed at them?  Was I trying to call them stupid for NOT owning guns?

No!!!

Do I need to add a disclaimer to all my posts — “This post is not aimed at anyone in particular that I know in real life, so please don’t take it that way”?

It’s really a tempest in a teapot, no doubt . . . I plan to keep trying to write in a way that entertains me, that hopefully entertains y’all, and that helps me make sense of my own thoughts.

I just wish it didn’t spill over into my real life occasionally.  That it didn’t make folks uncomfortable, shocked, disappointed or simply weirded-out.

That’s all.

Chirp Chirp! Wait, no, Tweet Tweet!

Alrighty y’all, I’ve joined this Twitter thingy that’s supposed to be so fabulous.  You can see my brilliant, pithy wisdom — in 140 characters or less! — in the left sidebar.  I may end up doing this every day, or I may decide I’m more interested in other people’s tweets than my own; who knows?  I solemnly promise you this, though —

I will do my utter and level best to avoid EVER using such abbreviations as

gr8

u2

gtg

brb

Abbreviations such as

TANSTAAFL

IYKWIMAITYD

BOHICA

FUBAR

SNAFU

LMAO

are, however, fair game.

Twit!  Twot!  Tweet!

Dammit, dammit, dammit

The Intrawebz ate my “why socialism is bad” post.  Crap.

I’ll try and re-create it later.  In the meantime — hit up the blogroll please 🙂

Technology FAIL

So, I was all excited about my little RSS feed-things in the left sidebar.  WAS.  Past tense.  Because I’m finding that it’s randomly creating links to the new posts as they pop up, especially in blogspot.

Grrrr.  Not that I mind link-whoring, but I’d like it to be intentional!

I’ve taken down some of the links to blogspot and I’ll try to fix this issue later tonight.  If I’m randomly linking to every post you publish, please drop me a comment and let me know!

Housekeeping!

As you may have noticed, I cleaned up the ol’ blog a little bit.  A few folks got added to the “Bloggers I’ve Met (!)” category (and Breda, that category REALLY WANTS TO INCLUDE YOU), I added some reciprocal links to folks nice enough to link me first, and I redid my blogroll categories.  I’m now dividing bloggers into people I’ve met versus people I link, with an RSS feed in the left sidebar on an experimental basis.  I also took out a calendar display of posts that I don’t think anyone had clicked on, ever.  And I changed out the description of my blog at the top.  Oh, and I added a Comments page.

Besides that, everything’s the same!

Things to do over the weekend

1. Get a hair cut

2. Look up Mass. certified firearms safety courses (Mike has already made a start on that — thanks Mike!)

3. Update the blogroll — met a few new people at the bloggershoot that need recognition!  Also, I think there are a few people who have me linked on their blogs.  If you’re linking me, and I’m not linking you, drop a note in the comments so I can fix it!

4. Finish loading the bookcases.  (We purchased three new bookcases last week, which brings our total up to five large bookcases, with four smaller ones scattered throughout the apartment.  That’s barely enough to hold all our books.  When Mike and I moved into the Kitty Den we rented a two-bedroom because a one-bedroom apartment wouldn’t have had enough room for all our books.  Seriously!)

5. Re-arrange some of the bookcases in the living room.  Mike did most of the work unpacking our remaining book boxes and moving the old bookcases into the bedroom (thanks again sweetie!).  However, that means that it’s mostly his books out in the living room.  I think I need a shelf or two of my favorite books out there, so that if our guests ask which books are mine I have something besides the Wheel of Time’s and Tom Clancy’s to grab!

6. Load the pics and maybe the videos to my LookingForLissa Facebook ID.  I think maybe I’ve got a few friend requests too?  I really should update that more than once per ninety days, shouldn’t I.

7. Cut the kitty’s claws.  Also bait him into an interesting video.  (I’m heartbroken; he had his head stuck into his cardboard scratching post and I wasn’t recording when I rapped on the top, causing him to rear up, slam his head into the top and dash into the bedroom.  How did I NOT record that?)

8.  Shop for a cocktail dress.  We’re going to a wedding next month and I’m tired of wearing old prom gowns to weddings.  I haven’t bought a fancy dress since I was about nineteen.  (With one big honking exception.  Obviously.)

9.  Go grocery shopping.  Wednesday night’s dinner was a glorious success — thanks Pampered Chef! — so I’ve another quick-and-easy dinner to add to our rotation.

Anything I miss?