It's high time I welcomed new readers: sepdet a fellow Mawrter, kent and petrukio who I know from my MUSHing days and lesliepear a friend of jpallan.

Hello! Do have a cup of tea and talk amongst yourselves.

Welcome! Way past due for some of you I know. I've been meaning to for a while. I've finally had time to sit down and do it. By necessity the intros must be short, but I hope informative. I've separated you into different groups, but of course there's overlap.

Mawrters: Except where otherwise mentioned all these folks are also on the alumni list. frumiousb and I graduated the same year. She moved to Holland. I love her graffiti pictures. marybethorama overlaps with me in Bryn Mawr years, but has a ten-year old now. Eeek owlmoose is a local friend, a librarian who graduated in 95,and is on the list, but I met her through mutual friends and her best friend luvmoose who's an expert on 80's music. tgor's main blog is elsewhere where she blogs mostly about her life as a lawyer. friede is studying for her PHD.pennifer writes about her international travel for her work. chasingtides and batshua are currently going Bryn Mawr. I met both through LJ and should be on the list when they graduate.

Moms and one dad: haddayr has a son with Tourette's Syndrome and also writes a monthly column for the Minnesota Women's Press, tritone(dad) and morrisa (mom) created mirandatime for their daughter, and choiceful has babybabble for her baby son, jpallan is going to college and raising two girls poets_hand writes gentle thoughts.
Moms who don't blog here: jennyrob sometimes blogs tales of her son Sam. charlottesmom has a daughter with a serious heart defect that she blogs about on blogspot. whymommy rides horses, but doesn't blog.

Gardeners/Nature Lovers: plantgirl who unsurprisingly writes about plants and birds, src who writes about her garden, endokam who used to work for science museums and blogged about her trip to SE Asia giandujabird doesn't blog, but is also an avid gardner and a local friend. generalist is a fellow computer geek who loves hiking among other things.

Pagan, local and poly: emberleo writes a lot about paganism. I didn't meet her through Hrafnar, but she goes. dawnd and akienm are married, but also have an extended poly family. firecat is also a fat activist. funcrunch is also vegetarian.
Not pagan, but otherwise all the above: zyxwvut and zahraa are married and interview SF folks in elevators at Baycon.

Singers: arkibet and sunyata__ have both recorded their voices for all to hear on their LJ. koshkalet sings in her church choir.

MUSHers (mostly former like me): I started MUSHing in 1992. evilhat truly is evil. She plots evil schemes online and made me her minion at Excite@Home. cubes scuba dives for shipwrecks. swami_bob photographs and even gets paid for it sometimes. He's one of the tallest people I know married to one of the shortest people I know goldenlily who belly dances. ivpiter gave me my first dragon. esmerel knits. fenodoree fences. lordjulius dances in competitions. tavella is a member of the reality based community. diony teaches self defense and is also a college student. chamois_shimi is a new mom.
MUSHers who also write: space_parasite actually blogs elsewhere. rfrancis also podcasts. inlerah is one of several weyrmates I had who were women playing men. miche_connor and gconnor are married and their cats rule their house. kynn just finished the 2nd edition of his CSS manual, but also writes a lot about politics in his journal annathepiper is busy sending off her novels to various publishers.

I met a_votre_guise through no_pity the disabled community group.
I went to Catholic junior high with jk_fabiani who writes a lot about politics.

Last, but certainly not least, I'm happily married to castorf

Hello! Have a cup of tea. Do talk amongst yourselves.

Ganked from jpallan. I guess really the purpose of this list is if you see someone on this list (or anyone else on LJ for that matter) that I actually know, or you think I should know, and you feel inclined to make introductions, here's your chance. :)
I tried out TrustFlow II for LiveJournal. The following people not on the friends list for waterowl are close by:

• danjite, beepbeep (100 - 150)
• rollotreadway (150 - 200)
• madlori, treemonster, porfinn (200 - 250)

( More results below the cut... )

Meme ganked from owlmoose. I agree with her that an LJ tag cloud would be more interesting.

I started originally on LJ years ago, because gconnor told me about it and I was active on Usenet and it seemed a pretty cool idea, a way to keep a more permanent record of my thoughts and I thought I should write more. And my friend Mary Anne kept a online diary. But I didn't actually write regularly at all. I didn't have a blog voice. I couldn't figure out what to write about. And when I did write entries, I got maybe one comment from gconnor. So I had all the fear of writing in public with none of the feedback.

Then when Special K was born, I joined an online bboard and I used that to record things about her. I became part of a great community, and met folks like whymommy but it wasn't permanent. The posts got erased after a period of time. But I found my voice then.

Then Little T was born and it was all too much and I stopped doing much of anything online. Other things like email or even newsgroups and bboards required me to respond within a certain period of time or the conversation had moved on and I have periods where all I can respond to are my family's needs. And then I came back to blogging. I needed a place to record my thoughts and what was happening with me and Little T, because it was too much to hold in my head. And frankly I was getting really tired of talking about it with my family and friends. It's all so grim and depressing and I get asked many of the same questions and the answers are never easy. Talking about it exhausts me and these are not problems that get better with talking. But I do want people in my life to know what's going on. And blogging offered an easy way for some of my friends to know. And it also helped me be a bit more vulnerable and ask for help. I have a hard time asking for help. I've gotten better in the past 18 months because I've had to.

Then I discovered that it actually helped a few other people as well on occasion. I discovered that writing about my personal truth was actually what my writing was about. I found the courage to start submitting stuff for publication. I started writing my non-fiction book. That book is still there waiting for me when I can swim. I'm not drowning now, but I'm treading water pretty fast. Yes, I write more carelessly than I do in my other writing, because I don't edit it as much. I edit once, maybe twice, and that's it.

I discovered that on LJ I can give people advice/comments/support when I have time and not respond when I don't. This works great for me. On other online forums, I feel this pressure to respond all the time. I'm not saying this pressure comes from anywhere but inside of me, but I still feel it.

I've always had online friends. I'm gregarious and I like meeting people wherever I find them. When possible, I prefer to meet people face to face. However I've entered a weird period of my life where I tend to avoid parties, or any gatherings of more than a few people, because well-meaning people ask me about Little T after months of not seeing me and I never have good news. I used to love parties. I find that talking with people who have read my LJ makes conversation far easier. I do want to talk, but about something else than Little T's medical issues. Anything else. And yet Little T's medical issues are an enormous part of my life that unfortunately intrude on many mundane aspects of my life, even why I'm there with him, so if you don't understand what's going on, you'll get lost.

So I think right now LJ fills this important need I have to keep connected, keep feeling part of a community, keep feeling I'm helping people in some small way, but keeping it within the very small amount of time and effort and energy I have to devote to anything beyond my family.

All this was in response to a post by jpallan who basically asked why do you blog? "Do you write more carelessly" Do you feel this is an appproriate way to start relationships of any kind? Implicit in these questions and in her reply was: How did you get started in the first place? Are you a social person in the real world? How is your socialising in the LJ/blogosphere different from your socialising in the real world?

At the end, she said ". . . watch this post get zero comments." That's my fear too. But here I go. Here's my answer. Please share yours with me.

If you're a "mutual friend", you can skip this public service announcement.

I've trimmed my friends list down to folks who are mutual friends, have commented in my LJ, or told me they read my LJ in person. I made exceptions for people who are currently travelling in third world countries w/o reliable Internet access, and for an agent who writes a professional blog.

If you've been trimmed, as Special K would say "Don't worry. It's okay.". -- Either comment here or add me as a friend and I'll friend you back. I still like you, or I wouldn't have friended you in the first place.

Why you ask? I now use my flist as a filter. Yes I could create a custom filter, but custom filters don't work with polls.

Also I read everyone in my friends list whenever I post here, and I do often comment. However as you can tell if you read my LJ, I have limited time. So easiest cut is to just read people who read me.

Thanks for reading.

I updated my profile. New folks may learn something about me. Old friends can hopefully be amused. You may have noticed my LJ looks a little different. I hope you like it.

Any of my flist can now add existing tags to one of my LJ entries. If you want to have the ability to create new tags or remove tags, please let me know.

I think paying was worth it for the customizations and extra pickies. I may even call in one day and do a voice post if I can think of something to say.

Poll #660845 My first poll
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Do you like polls?

Do you like checkboxes?

Is there a point to this poll?

Oh okay a real question, what type of LJ account do you have?

Someone is giving away a free permanent LJ account. You can't nominate yourself, but you nominate anyone else who posts regularly on Livejournal. Spread the love around and nominate someone. Go here for details.

I was thinking about this as I was driving to pick up Special K from preschool. How sometimes the kindness of strangers has gotten me through the hard times. The permanent account thing reminded me of this story that I wanted to tell a long time ago. But I didn't, because I was embarrassed. But it still warms my heart. It cheered me up an hour ago.

My local parents club started a hospital helping hands program shortly after Little T's second hospital stay. A baby Little T's age had leukemia. I'm glad to say she's cured now.

I didn't know any of the parents and it was very freeing. You can always tell when someone makes a meal with love and sometimes those meals literally were the best thing that happened to me that day.

One time a parent packed a little surprise for Special K in a special box with Disney Princess gold-foil chocolate coins, some stickers and a little candy watch. Special K had been acting up that day, unable to express her stress and anxiety about her brother, but she just lit up when she saw that package. "Is that for me?" she squealed. My eyes tear up when I think of it even now. Those gold coins inspired her for a couple weeks, because she got one at the end of the day if she was a good girl. It was even her idea! And by then the immediate crisis was over.

How for the past week I've just wanted to be happy, and happiness has eluded me. And the sunlight glinted off the trees and the sky was a perfect blue and suddenly I was happy. Before Little T was born, I was happy or at least cheerful most of the time. Life just seems too inherently funny not to laugh at it most of the time. Rushing to the ER and being in the hospital does have its hilarious moments, at least for someone with my sense of humor. Unfortunately several weeks of dispensing the same medicines over and over again and being sick with a lingering cold virus just isn't funny, at least not to me. The same jokes get old. Maybe a greater comedian than can find fresh ones. But at last days of sun after days of rain, and I remember that at some point I will get over this cold. And I need to stick my head over a steaming bowl of water. And I do find that funny. I find the idea that pharmeuceutical companies have spent billions in researching the best cold remedies, but this steam is the best thing for me. It makes me smile.

So how about you give me more smiles and share your stories about the kindness of strangers, or if you like what you've done for a stranger?

Does anyone know how to install a statcounter here? Do I need to pay for an account in order to customize my LJ with a counter?

I've started to use friends lock for a few things. So I trimmed my friends list down to mostly mutual/waterowl_feed friends. It also brings my friends list back down to 42 which pleases me. Of course I'm willing to add more LJ friends again. If you want to be my LJ friend, you can friend me and I'll friend you back. Or I guess you comment here about it. Of course LJ friend isn't the same as RL friend, so please don't take it personally.

There's a LJ meme going around where you answer random questions about another LJ users, so plantgirl did an entire section about me. It made me laugh out loud. I hope it at least amuses you.

Therefore I did my own one. Some of the answers had people already in another question, so I randomly picked someone else who reads my blog.

1. Go here.
2. Pass it on.
( my answers )9.~Would lordjulius and tavella make a good couple? Sure, why not?
10.~Who do you think Jed would be great with from this list? I already did that one.
11.~When was the last time you talked to freyafire? I talk to myself all the time.
12~Is plantgirl ( my answers )

I wrote previously that I was anti Blogging Marathon. I changed my mind...a little. shadesong is blogging for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society in honor of a LJ person who died from the disease. I think it's fitting to have a blogathon in that particular case. Perhaps there are others that I don't know about.