my name is not lisa

Heart of Gold

lori — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 15:23:31 +0000

I have a soft spot for acoustic guitar. I started playing when I was 10 years old, and over the years I’ve picked up and set down the guitar for months and years at a time. Neil Young’s music has always been special to me – partly because it reminds me of my father, playing his own guitar and partly because I know just how much both my parents have loved the dude since his Crosby, Stills & Nash years.

I stumbled upon this performance of Neil Young’s Heart of Gold by Tavi Gevinson at a New York Fashion Week event and my heart melted:

Tavi Gevinson Performs “Heart of Gold” from CADAVER @ The Standard East Village, NYFW 2012 from JAMS on Vimeo.

Happy February?

lori — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 20:50:42 +0000

February gets a bad rep for being especially harsh from those of us who are #foreveralone. Spinsters like myself are thought to spend Valentine’s Day at home with their cats, eating a box of chocolate they bought for themselves while tearing up watching The Diary of Bridget Jones (video: All by myself). But I won’t let V-Day get the best of me. That’s cause January was painful enough.

Seriously, I’m just so glad January is over. My mother has been unable to walk more than a few steps since January 5. After many doctors appointments and many mornings of being awoken to hearing her scream, I was initially quite sad when her epidural to her spinal cord yesterday did not result in immediate relief. February, you’re off to a not-so-great start, damn it. That’s okay though, cause there are plenty of things to look forward to:

Saturday is HeartCamp

Locals, listen up. South Florida’s notorious blogging socialite Maria de los Angeles is hosting the first ever HeartCamp. She’s brought in a diverse group of speakers to discuss all matters of the heart — the physical, emotional, spiritual and creative heart. I am actually most interested to hear from many of the South Florida community members who are sharing their own stories:

Blanca Stella Mejía: Unleashing Courage From the Heart
Alex de Carvalho: System Reboot – Reconnecting with Self and Others
Denise Jacobs: Authentic Body Transformation – Changing a Life From the Inside Out

While regular price tickets have already sold out, you might still be able to get a late-bird ticket for $40. The event is being held at Hyatt Pier 66 in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. I have volunteered my services for the day to handle all the fun social coverage of the event. You’ll be able to follow along on Twitter, Facebook and Flickr.

Finishing the new piece of art on my arm

At the end of January, I had some ink added to my forearm where my New York Times Magazine “T” logo was placed. I wanted something bold, colorful and feminine. After stumbling upon the work of Steve Whittenberger at Rock-a-billy Tattoos in Lauderhill, Fla., via Instagram (no joke), I knew he’d come up with something great – that wouldn’t take away from the “T” or diminish it, but really build upon it.

The day before Valentine’s, Steve will be finishing up the shading and adding some really bold colors to this piece.

In March, I’ll be in Austin for 9 days

My now annual trip to Austin in booked – the company is paying for me to attend SXSW Interactive again (awesome), and I’ve tacked on some vacation time to the end of that so I can see all of my Austin buddies (even more awesome). I plan to spend some time doing some self-reflection and perhaps finally getting a chance to visit some of the things I never got to when I lived there. To name a few: Hamilton Pool (seen below) and the Salt Lick (yum).

Create your own stereograph GIFs

lori — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 20:47:21 +0000

Transparency and Open Government have become buzzwords over the past few years that I fully support. President Obama’s Open Government Initiative has prompted many government organizations to begin releasing once private data. Today, thousands of records are being published on Data.gov and awesome projects are being built out of it by geeks around the world.

I like to think that this movement comes on the heels of the Creative Commons movement, which began in 2001. As a former information graphics designer, it’s awesome to see just how much has been added to The Commons on Flickr.

Here’s a really cool project by the New York Public Library Labs where you can transform historical stereographs from their collections into shareable animated GIFs: Stereogranimator.

You can create your own right now. Here are some I made:

Another year later …

lori — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 14:35:34 +0000

Over a year has gone by since I last gave blogging a try. It’s not that I didn’t intend to keep up with this place. I did. Every damn month. And the site itself has gone through many designs – all of which I hoped would jump-start my enthusiasm for wanting to write again. I can’t say that I’ll be posting on a regular basis, but let’s get to it.

What you might have missed:

Got laid off from the newspaper
Had a short-lived gig at the as a community manager at an awesome journalism foundation
Landed on my feet in the corporate world doing social media.
Still living at home with my parents
Got recurring bronchitis and sinus-related health problems
Made awesome friends that I love so, so much
Put my oldest cat to sleep after his health began to dwindle
Took a$12,000 pay cut
Learned the joys of massage
Visited Colorado to see my college roomie and explored the mountains
Picked up the camera again and got semi-serious about it
Began crafting again (posts to come about this!)
Went to New York and came back starry-eyed
Continued with my on-again, off-again exercise regimen
Got lots of injections into my sinus cavities
Took a second job working on an awesome local radio program
My job took me to a few fun places: Las Vegas, Denver, New York and Austin
Became a red head again
Got more ink
Read a lot of books on my Kindle

Many ups and many downs, but c’est la vie.