Happy LJiversary to me!

And the more I see, the more I know
The more I know, the less I understand
I'm the changingman
Built on shifting sands
I'm the changingman
Waiting for the bang
To light a bitter fuse

—from "The Changingman" by Paul Weller

Five years ago today, pretty much on a whim, I coughed up five bucks—this was back when you needed cash or a startup code to get in—and started my LiveJournal. I created my first icon, the medieval pig from the Tacuinum Sanitatis that I still use as my default icon today. I e-mailed everyone I was friendly with at the time to tell them about it; many of them looked at my awkward bit of blather those first few days, but few stuck with it. odhierre, and old and dear friend who had started his LJ not long before that, became the first name on my f'list. Other names came and went, here and there.

And then? Then came the avalanche.

I was going to use this space to list all of the ways my life has changed because of LJ, and of how LJ literally saved me, between carrying me through some very dark periods, to readjusting my attitudes toward sex and life, to giving me a social life that mercifully has nearly nothing in common with the one that came before, to helping me reconnect with old chums who had drifted away, to introducing me to people whom I love with all my heart and could not imagine living without, to rafaela, who merits sixteen paragraphs all her own.

But right now, on this sunny July afternoon before I leave for work, I'm more inclined to ask the questions than answer them. You all are why I'm still doing this, half a decade later. So if you're reading this, whoever you are, please respond:

How are you doing today?