I should probably start with a disclaimer. I do not consider myself much of a writer. I like rocks, crafting, and spend most of my time lost in my own head, too distracted to accomplish much of anything. In addition, I haven't been noding consistently. I was here from August 2000 to June 2002, then disappeared for two decades before returning in October 2024. So really, I'm more rust than experience at this point. But someone offered me the opportunity, so here we are.
1. What is your name?
My name is Lisa. liha started as nothing more than wordplay on my name. Li-haha. During my first stint here, vuo kindly pointed out something I did not know. In Finnish, liha means meat or flesh. So, that's how I've identified myself the past few decades: (meat/flesh)
2. Tell us something about you, your background, and what you've been up to lately?
I'm currently living about 15 miles east of Cheyenne, Wyoming, on the high plains where the wind is a constant. I'm talking 40-60 mph gusts that blow relentlessly for 8-9 months of the year which is enough to test anyone's sanity, but it does make for some spectacular hair days.
Recently, I made a major life change by leaving my career as a GIS Analyst to start my own business with my sister's support. I'm doing something completely different now, and while I earned about the same in my first year, I'm no longer bound by corporate bullshit. Sure, my boss is an asshole, and paid vacations are a thing of the past, but the freedom to work from anywhere and travel while maintaining a business has been incredibly rewarding.
One of my greatest sources of peace and torment is my beautiful steel-framed greenhouse. It's like having a second job, and as long as there are no long brutal stretches of below freezing weather combined with extended cloud cover, I am able grow throughout the year.
I also like to make music. Just with a free DAW as I have no musical abilities aside from software hacking. I mainly do it to annoy my friends. One of my latest songs had a squeaky toy sample mixed with pig noises. They secretly love it.
And fair warning, if you catch me on an off day, the pain in my head is making me a miserable and toxic jerk.
3. How did you discover Everything, and how did you become a noder?
Looking back, I cannot recall. What I do remember is I was attending graduate school and was bound by an agreement that prevented me from working outside the university. I was paid $300 a month to teach geology and geomorphology labs. I had to be on campus from dawn to dusk due to the chaotic scheduling of classes. And since graduate school was surprisingly manageable, I filled the time cycling around campus in search of burrowing owls, DJ-ing folk music and experimental noise at the university radio station, attending university events to score free food, and messing about on Everything2 in my department's computer lab.
4. What are your favorite writeups -- both your own and from other noders?
There are an infinitive amount of nodes that I have loved and forgot and will love and have not read yet.
Here are some:
Around nine pm my heart was breaking so I went to bed early to listen to it happen.
A funny story about my Egyptian Grandmother
How to steal a street sign
She doesn't know what he sees, but sometimes it makes his face beautiful
This is as real as magic gets
Embracing my ghosts
Gullet and I are standing in the kitchen because that's what we do.
Krankenversicherungsbeitragsanteilermittlungsverordnung
o ;pbr upi
the constant disappointment of eschatologists waiting eagerly for the end of the world
An 80 year-old's view on Racism
Haints that ain't
Shall I Compare Thee to a Dead Portuguese Man-of-War Lying Bloated on a Polluted Beach?
The collected letters of sundays dreaming
I am not at all discriminating. The best part about E2 is that there is buried treasure to find. This is a magical place.
5. What are your favorite and least favorite memories from E2's history?
My memory is unreliable in general, but I enjoyed meeting noders. Being naturally and excessively introverted, combined with a tendency to read people fairly well, these encounters were sometimes my favorite experiences and occasionally my least favorite, depending on the dynamics at play.
I was completely oblivious to the community purge while it was happening, which made it all the more disheartening to watch friends removing their contributions. Thanks to my geography major, I had already created a digital E2 map based on perdedor's detailed descriptions of New York City locations before those writeups vanished entirely. Also, the environment could feel rather hostile at times, particularly given that several editors seemed to take issue with my nodes, making the whole experience more contentious than I preferred.
6. What keeps you coming back (or not coming back, as the case may be)?
I left because of the above. I had a lot of hidden nodes when I came back I believe even more nuked ones. Most deserved it.
I came back because I am not sure. I heard a calling. I was in the middle of a major depressive episode and logged in for my "once in a decade" hello. There was a coffee poll that I responded too and I was encouraged to node about making cold brew coffee. I met some kind noders and decided to hang out for a bit.
7. What do you hope for E2's future?
I wish every aspiring author finds their right amount of fame. I also hope E2 will transform into a repository of historical creativity. Or perhaps when AI overlords take over, a reason not to destroy the human race.
8. What does E2 mean to you?
The mission of everything2 is to gather the sum of human knowledge…
There are stories here that are not eventful but more eventful than time. There are poems about a passing thought that might not mean much to anyone else but it means the world to the writer or some random reader. There are instructions that are so much more than a YouTube video. That's Everything2 and that's what I dig.
9. Who are your favorite noders? Which ones do you miss the most?
That is difficult for me to answer. There are noders that I miss. There are ones that I knew but barely remember.
Plus the list would be excessively long and I do not have the attention span so I'd never finish and you wouldn't be reading this.
And definitely people I'd miss in a list such as this, so why bother?
10. Who would play you in the Everything2 movie?
Carol Kane or Benny Hill. My scenes would most likely end up on the cutting room floor.
11. Please fill in the blank: "E2 is to the Internet as ___ is to the world."
the end of the rainbow
12. Any questions that I didn't ask that I should've?
What's you favorite flavor of McFlurry?
Is eating ice cream unethical, and why is the answer 'yes'?
If you could only communicate through interpretive dance, what would be the most embarrassing thing you'd have to explain to someone?
If you could only eat foods that rhyme with your E2 user name for the rest of your life, how long would you last before dying of starvation?
If you were forced to pick a new name but it could only be the sound a power tool makes, which would you choose?
If somebody wrote a book about your life, would anybody want to read it?
Thank you and I appreciate your time.
Everything2 Decaversary Interviews
If you have questions or comments, please contact liha or Jet-Poop.