*cheats* this.

I made my goodbye post to lj_design, and there were a bunch of comments. It trickled down after the 9th, at the end of page 8. Then it really picks up again on the 18th, and there's still a steady stream of comments coming in now. Not as many as when the post first went up, but a lot more than between the 9th and the 18th.

Did something happen? Was there another big announcement somewhere? Was there some big holiday break where everyone had been gone from LJ? My best guess would be the feedback link on the profile page, but it has been a few weeks...

I'm really curious. Enlighten me.

Being laid off from LiveJournal really is comparable to the end of a relationship. We were friends for 5 years before dating for 3, and can still be friends. And it was harder than any breakup I've had because of the sudden and unexpected end. I didn't want to see other people, couldn't fathom the idea of being happy with anyone else. It didn't seem possible. And the stupid relationship neurosis of "but who else would want to love me?"

But I've had time away to heal, and I've been noticing others—prospectives and potentials that I'd like to get to know intimately too. Though you'll always hold a special place in my heart, I'm ready to move on and commit to someone new.

My ditl submission. Their theme for this week is "under". Undervalued, misunderstood, oh there are so many unders that could work here.

[x] 018. ditl photolog for a special day

009/101 completed

( 01/09/09 - last day at the LiveJournal office )

It was practically empty out in this normally busy neighborhood, and the sky was hazy when we walked over to Specialty's yesterday for feel better cookies. Everything looked fake, like it was part of a dream. I wish.

The last few days have been.. somewhere between a squiggly line and roller coaster of emotions. It hasn't all sunk in yet, and until it does, I can't move on and do the things I'll need to do to ensure that I'll still have a place to live and food to eat after this month. I'm mostly still feeling numb and not feeling.

I'm seriously starting to think that there's something physically wrong with me. The emotional part is there to trigger the crying, but my eyes will barely even mist up. And it's the happy kind of tears now, though I still want my big breakdown cry.

I am amazed at all the comments to my lj_design post, and I'm glad that I did end up posting it. The things complete strangers are saying, people whose usernames and userpics I don't recognize and thus don't think I've actually interacted with one-on-one are saying such nice things. Things like this and this:

I don't know what to say. I feel so sad and speechless. You don't know me, but I feel as though I somewhat know you. I always loved seeing your entries and finding out what new improvements you were up to. I even ventured to your LJ occasionally to see if you'd posted anything funny, interesting, or any new beautiful photos publicly. You seem like such a wonderful, beautiful person inside and out and I love the way just about everything you posted made me smile. Typing this now brings tears to my eyes for it really feels like goodbye. I think I speak for many people when I say that I hope you still use your LJ and post in various places despite all of this. As it is, your posts here will truly be missed. *huge gentle loving huggles* I hope they'll decide they want you back sooner than later.

And the things people who do know me have been doing... I want to cry. So much love, and still the majority of what I feel is still numb and anger and numb.

and I don't really know what else to say anymore.

I would really like to cry right now, but the tears still wont come. This was great 7 months ago, when anger was more appropriate, but I need to cry and I fucking can't. I guess something in me really did shut down.

I'm still in Denial, and flitting into Anger a bit. Can I please wake up tomorrow and find that this was all just some horrible nightmare? Because, fuck!

This is what I stayed up till 1 working on last night:


My sidebar is on the side again. Entries don't wrap around userpics now (that was starting to bother me). There's a link to my tags page(!) and I fixed a bunch of things in my theme layer that needed updating. I even customized the contextual pop-up and replaced every standard site icon. CSS is awesome. (and my stylesheet is much better organized this time)

( What does LiveJournal mean to you? Has that changed since you started your LiveJournal account? )
( Share a memorable real life moment that happened because of LiveJournal. )

We just moved back up to the third floor... to different seating arrangements. I like my new boss (and his mad rad hair) but now the engineers are far away, and I'm not close to any windows. Not that we didn't mostly just IM anyway, even when we were 5ft apart. We'll just have to have really loud conversations across the room.

My current set-up:


Unlike the last 3 times, I didn't cut myself on the metal cord slot things this time \o/

I have a cork board and shelf again. Save for ryanestrada's frankthecomic, it's empty. Send me stuff to put up. Postcards, letters, pictures, drawings... anything you send, I'll put up. (unless it smells bad)

Stacey Leung
c/o LiveJournal, Inc.
576 Folsom St.
San Francisco, CA 94105

( Who introduced you to LiveJournal? Why did you first open an account or get involved? )
( What was your first LiveJournal usericon and why? Why did you select your current default userpic? )
( Who did you meet on LiveJournal you wouldn't have met otherwise? )
( Are you more of a comment-receiver or a comment-maker on LiveJournal? Why? )

LJ stereotypes my journals have gone through, in order: fae girl, emo kid, artist, gamer, fangirl (just barely). Now I guess it's some assorted mix of these.

My readership and reading list has changed through each of these as well. I wonder how much of it is because of people disappearing vs. just me changing over the years.

It's been done for a few weeks, just b0rked in some areas in IE (what's new?). Again, rather than going through and figuring out what needs to be fixed without easy access to IE, I'm just hiding the broken parts.

2 years today.
Think I'll make it to 3?

Pet Peeve: When LiveJournal is spelled wrong. One word, no space.
Random Trivia: My hire date and burr86's hire date are 6 days apart.

janinedog, henrylyne, and I had lunch with gameboyguy13, iseebi, allsunday, and Stephanie-whose-username-I-didn't-get. All of whom I met for the first time today (except for JD, who I met once before, very briefly).

Every 6 months or so, I'll come across a LJ Seek My Ratings badge and I'll have to check mine. Not for the rating, because I don't care, but I like seeing where I'm linked from and in what context.

So far, ( typical stuff. ) The best finds, of course, are of the unique and unexpected variety. Of which, there were 2 this time:

mothrinventor: connecting the dots... (!!!)
I don't get it. How is my improvised milkshake a danger to a person I don't know, who is on the other side of the country? What does this have to do with school shootings? And why is he linking to an entry of mine from a year and a half ago? Should I comment and ask, or would that be too stalker-y? I mean, if he found my drink scary, what will he think of me?

dima_volshebnik: Ржач перед сном
From Babelfish, I was able to deduce that this is a reposting of my entry from last summer about toilet paper, but in Russian. I can't get a good enough translation of the rest of the entry though, so I can't tell if he or she is mocking me. Can I still report it as a copyright violation even though the original text has been translated? (not going to, just curious)

We moved desks last Friday (6A re-org). Now I'm on the other side of the divider (yes, part of my moving strategy consisted of tossing things over it), where everything is reversed. It's been a week, but I still feel backwards. I'm also twice as close to janinedog and henrylyne now – haven't decided if that's a good thing or not yet O;)

Also, my amaryllis seems to be doing well. Or well, it was last week. Flowers kept opening up every time I turned around, but since I've started paying attention to it, it's not doing anything. I haven't noticed any changes this week. 2 of the 4 flowers are starting to wilt now.

When I first started using LJ, most of my friends list were my age, or a few years younger. Now it skews in the other end. I think. There are definitely a lot more entries about work and family life (as in kids, not whinging about parents) than about school, but that may also have to do with being out of school.

I pulled up an old entry I had saved the link to, because her theory of why the world spins is so beautiful. This time, I realized that I know the girl who wrote it. She lived down the hall from me freshman year, in the dorms. Looking through her more recent entries, I see she's friends with my friend from high school's current girlfriend, who so far I just know of through Facebook. And she's dating this boy who lived in the same hall as us, who I had conversations with in the shower (separately, with a wall between us).

I wonder if they'd remember me. I wonder if we would have been friends then if I knew she spent as much time on LJ as I did.

I like unlinked interests, but I don't get all kinds of upset when someone "steals" mine (mostly because I don't notice until much later). I came up with "watercolor sunsets" in an entry, though I don't think I added it as an interest until years later. I can't recall if it was unlinked at the time. Currently, 3 others have it listed.

I redid my interests over the last few days (added another 25 last night for an even 100). I'm surprised at some that remain unlinked, and others that are. I sort of want enough people to add "unlinked interests (like this!)" because it'll be funny when it's linked.

( current interests, for my future reference )