So very happy

As it is after midnight, I am now free to wish my beloved figmentj the happiest of birthdays. May the coming year be the Mad Hatter tea party that the last one was, only with fewer parking tickets, more good coffee, less sorrow and so much joy that you run out of spaces to store it. *kisses you*

Processes in the rear view mirror may be closer than they appear

I'm lying on my back in figmentj's dorm bed, my back turned toward the window and propped up on an impromptu hassock of pillows and blankets unneeded in the summer time warmth, with my laptop propped on the tent frame of my knees. figmentj is away at an appointment for an hour, and there's nothing much to do at the moment but to look around, take stock, evaluate, and write.

Last night, after Doctor Who and chocolate cake and giving of birthday gifts (speaking of Doctor Who, I got her a plush adipose, which she promptly named Zaftig), I took one of my occasional forays into my old LiveJournal posts, only this time I chose to go way back, back into the wilds of 2002 when I was still married and my LJ friends' list numbered somewhere in the high teens. What startled me, if you'll forgive me slipping on my meta loafers, was how startling it all was. Partly that was due to seeing that segment of my life laid out at all—I tend to think of LiveJournal as a post-marriage influence in my life, even though I started well before Kristi and I separated. And then there's the "ach, mein Herr, how my life has changed" factor, especially in the comments sections filled with people I have no contact with any more, either by inertia or by design.

But what struck me most was the writing itself. I don't think my writing style has changed all that much, nor has my sense of humor, at least during those times when I let it mince about in my sentences more. But there was something clearly different, and that was how much I needed to write. And not just write, but write with care and focus, and about everything important, and scads of things that weren't. Things I find myself not doing any more.

And yes, this is my cue to rail on about the erosion of the LJ community and the influences of Twitter and Facebook and all that, but I don't think I agree with all that. I don't believe LJ is dying; I've never been a member of the Chicken Little sandwich board-sporting Doomsayers' Union on this one. And I barely pay any attention at all to the other social media out there; my next-to-last Twitter post was about how bored I was with Twitter. All I know is that my days of writing the post in my head while the events are happening, the days of rushing to the keyboard and the update page as soon as I cross the threshold, are somewhere behind me, and it saddens me.

Look, I've got plenty to talk about in my life: joys, fears, sorrows, the whole lot that comes with living on this planet. In the past week or two I've been to a couple of really awesome parties, had some good times with my kids and more good times with friends and even more good times with figmentj, wrestled with unemployment, got some songwriting done, borrowed a microphone so I can start recording again, started a housing search, worried about my car, pondered doing a podcast, got into some personal discussions so deep and sometimes painful that they left my ears ringing, watched my children grow up before my very eyes. A few dozen journal entries that I can think of just sitting here in a dorm room on the Mount Holyoke campus on a Wednesday morning, and I didn't write a single one of them. Some of them sank in the mire of inertia, some I lacked the time for, and some I had no wish to talk about (not counting one thing I've been forbidden to blog about because my daughter feels that her goings-on with a certain boy are her business).

So many posts I read lament the passing of the LiveJournal that Was, and regret not posting more. I'm not lamenting here, and I'm not regretting. My statement is simple: I miss you. For all the good and the bad that it entails, LiveJournal, and you, have made my life into what it is today, and I'm more grateful than you know. And I want to come home to this old drafty journal, with all the passion and focus I'd forgotten about.

So. If you would, please take a second to answer the following. It's a poll I've posted a dozen times, and have answered in others' journals at least a hundred, but it's never less than necessary: Ask me something. Tell me something. Isn't that what we do here?

[Poll #1757153]


And by the way, the icon up there? That was my first default icon ever, back in 2002. I've never changed it. For all the handwaving over the shifting landscape, some things still remain constant.