LJ Meme, via grain_damaged

THE JOURNAL:

First things first, how long have you kept a Livejournal, and why did you begin it?
Since February 23, 2002, so over six and a half years. I started it because I had been reading a few other journals and blogs and I wanted to be self-indulgent and navel-gazing myself. I used to keep a paper diary but I never remembered to keep up with it regularly, and thus I have one diary spanning from ages ten through eighteen. I had also more or less lost my online "home" and was feeling adrift. That might have had something to do with it.

Have you stuck to one journal or had many? How many journals do you currently use?
I have stuck with one journal... mostly. I did have two short-lived forays into posting to stand-alone blogs. One was bitchypookums.com, which was going to be mostly cross-posting from here, but I abandoned because it didn't feel worth the effort. It was mostly to have a non-LJ url to use in the larger blog world. Bloggers seem to look down upon LJers, sadly. The other one was kind of a secret from everyone but M, though I think I might have referenced it ever-so-slightly once or twice since. I had an infertility blog going for a while. I just didn't post much to it because damn it all, infertility is SAD, and it takes a special kind of determination to make sad funny, and that just exhausted me. There was a total of seven posts in fourteen months. ;)

The reason behind your Username(s):
The story is in this post. It's the "room" that M wrote for us on the mud we met on, DarkScapes. Muds are text-based online games, quite similar to World of Warcraft and similar, except those are for people without imaginations who need graphics. KIDDING! Well, sorta. Kidding about the imaginations part, anyway. Oh, I miss the muds. They're sort of dead these days. ANYWAY.

The black skies above you seem cold and unfriendly, offering
no light and no points of reference, until you notice a small star,
not all that high above the horizon. Slowing your pace, you think
to yourself that this star must be seen from nearly anywhere in the
world. As you start walking in the direction of the star, you feel a bit
warmer than just before. Jamming your hands down your pockets, you
start to whistle, wondering who you might meet under this star?

As to why I used it here.. I don't know, except that I couldn't use "my" online name, which was Kadi. I think it was taken, and I was sort of bored with it anyway. M suggested it. I really didn't expect this to be an account I would still be using in six years or I might have put more thought into it.

How often are you on LJ, and how long do you spend on the site when you log in?
Often. I read friends several times per day. Each visit is rather short but it adds up.

What does your activity on LJ most consist of?
I read comments by email, reply to comments/make new comments not as often as I should and post entries, again not as much as I should. I used to be more consistent. I blame E for sapping my brain from me, but I have a hard time writing when all I really want to do is tell you how amazing my kid is, or how I scrubbed the gunk off the side of the kitchen counter, or allowed my baby to play alone in the sunroom while I cooked dinner today and that was a huge step for control freak mama. You Don't Care. I know.

What are some of your favorite aspects of Livejournal?
I love the community and the people that I meet. I don't really have many real-life friends that I do things with regularly, especially now that I quit my job.

Some of your least favorite aspects?
I have some issues with the way things are set up so that it's needlessly complicated to customize. I hate how the outside blog world thinks LJ is lame. I am still not crazy about calling them "FRIENDS" lists but I guess that one is growing on me.

Have you ever had an LJ "secret"? Such as a private journal, a separate journal with a separate friends' list, etc?
I have some filters but they are mostly not secret ones. Well. Mostly. The only one i used regularly was the infertility filter, and I opened it to whoever asked.

THE FRIENDS LIST:

Have you met a fellow LJer? Who, where, and why did you meet?
I have met carrieb and big_bubba. We met up in Beckley, West Virginia two years ago, and then they came to visit us last November, and the "why" is because we like each other. *grin* Other than that, I have met totte (haha), first when he came to visit in May and October 1999, March 2000, when I visited him in the summer of 2000 and then when he moved here to live with me in wedded bliss in October 2000. Why? Because he is super hot and he laughs at my jokes. Let's see, who else? stewlis was in my wedding--we met in college. I also went to college with starrflowerr, and then we became coworkers a few years later, and that is where I met queen_b980.

Which five LJers would you most like to meet (those you have not had the pleasure of meeting)?
courtesy! blue_eyed_girl, reebert, e11en, grain_damaged, dbrus, helloheather...I can't count. There are others I'd like to meet too but this is getting ridiculous.

The people who are most mysterious, aloof, or unknown to you on your friends' list:
balison, bmannfann, mriika (none of which really post anymore so that explains it) nana_boo (who is a new friend). There are a few others I could list but if I know where they're from or used to know them well, I didn't bother listing them.

Describe your favorite type of posts to read:
I like posts where people talk about things that they did and things that matter to them. I like pictures in moderation, stories about your kids, and happy posts. That doesn't mean I don't want people to write unhappy things, but it just makes me happy when joy radiates from the computer screen. Good news posts and funny posts and conversational posts/comments about things I'm interested in.

The posts that you generally skip or skim:
Sometimes politics, and almost all video. I just don't personally enjoy watching videos.. though I do make exceptions upon occasion, especially for your kids. I also usually have the volume turned off because I'm trying to put a baby to sleep and it riles her up when the computer makes noise. Posts with pictures of nasty spiders or bugs, and I can't believe I have to put this one on here. Posts with too many pictures. Quiz results, usually. M--I have a joke for you but I can't write it here. You know what I'm thinking about though!

Which 5 journals do you enjoy reading most? It's not a popularity contest, rather the posts that most capture your attention.
carrieb, courtesy, totte, helloheather. Still, I can't count. There are others that should be here but M has been waiting on me for an hour now to go spend a little quality time together.

This is the part of the survey where we get to be HONEST.

Are there certain friends that you never or very rarely read?
Yes.

Anyone on your friends' list whose posts annoy you, or you otherwise just don't gel with?
Yes.

Anyone who is so fabulous you worship them from afar?
Erm.. no.

Is your very best friend on LJ?
Yes!

Have you ever kept a real-life secret from your LJ friends (such as a relationship, a child, a job, etc)?
I actually have a ten-year-old kid named Manuel. Oops, secret is out! No, I'm kidding again. I kept my pregnancy a secret from my non-infertility-filter friends until I was about thirteen weeks along. That's about as secretive as it gets around here.

THE COMMENTING:

How important is it to you to receive comments on your posts? How important do you think it should be for yourself and others?
It's important because it makes me feel loved. But at the end of the day, I know that a) I don't comment as much as I should so I can't expect it of others b) I write very kid-focused posts right now, which some people just don't identify with and most of all c) my journal is largely for me so I can look back at any given time and see what I was thinking about and doing. I LOVE that about my journal.

What is your personal guideline for removing people who never (or rarely) comment on your journal? How much time should pass with one-sided or non-existent interaction?
I don't really remove people unless they remove me.. usually. It messes up the mutual friend ratio. I figure that they're just not reading, but I don't think it hurts anything to leave them on the list. You never know. I do have some friends who disappear now and then before popping up again.

THE END:
In general, what is the impression you hope others receive of yourself through your journal?
I am a fairly nice person living an extremely blessed, happy life with my husband, baby, family and friends. Also, I worry. I don't really HOPE people get that impression of me because I enjoy that about myself but if they don't pick that up from my journal then there is somethng wrong with their reading skills and that would make me sad for them. ;)

What is your overall attitude toward your own journal?
Uh. Positive? I think that I've pretty much answered this in other questions.

In a nutshell, why do you keep an LJ? How has it enriched your life?
Well, here's a little story to close this extra-long post. Once upon a time, I went to college with a girl named G (starrflowerr). G and I were a little more acquaintances than friends, but a couple of years or so after graduation, she found my journal and she emailed me to say hello and make sure it was okay that she was reading. (Is that not lovely? Don't you wish all real-life people would do that?) Time went by and one day, she emailed again to tell me about a job opening where she worked. Eight months later, I was hired. (Seriously. Eight months. Can you tell I worked for the state?) So I moved to a new town and worked for three years as a programmer. During that time, we had enough money to buy a house, and then decide to have a baby, and then pay for infertility treatments. Then the stars aligned just so, and thank God for those two miserable years of infertility because Miss Evelyn Linnea was born and I cannot express in words anything that has ever enriched my life more than she has.

And if not for this journal, I am guessing that I wouldn't have heard anything from G since college.