Well, hello there.

I'm Lisa. Pretend we're shaking hands, eh?

Yeah, I'm new to the Gazette. I thought I might introduce myself. You know, so we can be fast friends. Because we will be, kiddo, we will. I can just feel it through the newsprint.

A few things about me, just to let you know where I'm coming from. I'm a Butler graduate, but originally hail from the Cincinnati area. I'm currently on the fifth car of my driving career, not because I suck at driving, but because other drivers have an affinity for bashing into my vehicles. I smoke cigarettes - lots of them - usually over glasses of wine/beer or cups of coffee. I've played the guitar since my mid-teens, and recently switched to the bass in a local girl band. I'm pro-Choice. I text message too much. I want a guinea pig. I waste time on MySpace. I'm a serial napper because I stay up at night reading and writing. I like to knit, and have started several scarves and a pillow, but I never finish anything. I tear through books like a fiend, collect books, love books and have even gone so far as to get a couple tattoos in tribute to my favorites.

See? You feel like you know me, right? We're well on our way to being buddies, reader. Seriously. There's a bond growing here, clear through the page. This is the start of a beautiful, beautiful reader-writer relationship.

Some more about me, hmm? I've been working at Ripple Bagel and Deli since our opening several years ago. I like to frequent the Wellington on half-priced pint nights and Retro Rewind at the Vogue. I've been showing up at the Casba on Thursdays for their hip hop night, and when all else fails, there's always the Alley Cat. I break down and buy over-priced cigarettes at Rock and a Hard Place. I even have some geraniums growing in an old sink from the Patio.

It's true. Geraniums. Living in one of the Patio's old sinks. It's out on the porch, next to the sunflowers growing in the toilet.

Right. The toilet.

My housemates and I acquired the toilet last summer at our home on a whim - we were passing by the abandoned porcelain basin at the side of the road on our way to rent a movie. After having giggled about what a rad planter a toilet would make, my housemate and I went dead pan, realizing that yes - yes! - we would pull over and put that toilet in the back of her old pick up truck. We brought the toilet home, bleached the hell out of it, stuck it in our living room and planted a fern.

The fern promptly died due to lack of sunlight. Oops. I suck at planting stuff. And hey - no jokes about fertilizer, eh?

And then the toilet started to randomly grow mushrooms. Don't ask me how, or why, or if they were psychedelic or not, but we decided it best to put the toilet outside, for fear our cat might munch on a mushroom and keel over.

Several months later, the Patio was sold and promptly gutted. The deli where I work shares a back parking area with the venue and, after several weeks, a sink, sans faucets, was left outside on the edge of the lot.

Well! Who am I to leave a bathroom fixture without a plant deeply rooted within it?

So my housemates and I ganked that too. It sits outside on our porch, a geranium with pink blooms popping out, the Patio living on in my own quirky, bizarre way. How's that for symbolism? I just hope I don't kill the geranium, too, like I killed that first fern in the toilet; the symbolism in that would be slightly disappointing.