So, I'm not back to using this journal again. I just seem to have forgotten to tell y'all that I'm back on LJ, and have been since... I dunno. July of 2007? Whoopsie.

Hie thee hence to sparklpocalypse if you're still interested. *facepalm*

You know, the kind of tenant who leaves all her crap at her old place. I'm clean-slating it, people. You can find me at the following locations:


I'm primarily using InsaneJournal at this point; that could change. I'll, you know. Be around. ::waves vaguely::

LJ supports anorexia. There is not enough hypnosis in the world that will make me forget I read that. I am outraged, and here's why:

Most of my flist knows what happened to me when I was eleven, but for the rest of the internet, I'll clarify. I've always been chunky; it's just my natural figure. I've always been nerdy, as well, and this has often caused me to be somewhat unpopular. Because I'm a nerd, it took me awhile to take my nose out of the book and realize that all the popular girls in school were the really thin ones.

By the time I was eleven, this realization hit me like a hornet sting on the face. I experienced the onset of a really poor body image, and developed an eating disorder because of it. My idea was, well -- if I didn't eat, then I'd be pretty, and if I was pretty, then I'd be popular. I stopped eating that summer.

If it weren't for my mom finally putting her foot down and taking me to the doctor to get my head shrunk and a meal plan laid out, I'd have continued to see Chunky Magz in the mirror, and my brother's would not have been the first headstone in the family plot. I was 5'2" and somewhere between 80 and 85 pounds [the healthy weight range for 5'2" is between 118 and 132 for a medium frame] by the time my mom, basically, saved my life.

During my struggle with anorexia, which has luckily been under control for thirteen years now [thanks to therapy and a healthy sense of guilt about causing my family unneeded stress], I didn't count calories. I didn't have other girls giving me pointers on how to get thinner, faster. LJ didn't exist back then, after all. But if I look back at the summer I nearly starved myself to death and consider what might've happened if I'd had access to Pro-Ana communities, I think maybe I wouldn't be sitting here typing this open letter right now. I would've been a statistic.

1 in 5 anorexics die of starvation. It's comments like coffeechica's: "It's not illegal to aspire to be thin," that denigrate those deaths and seemingly make light of what is swiftly becoming a global epidemic of unnecessary physiological torture.

Thank you, LJ staff, for making up my mind for me. I purchased a year's paid account after The Great Strikethrough, pretty much entirely for the purpose of having extra userpic space and being able to use the s2 console during the next round at the_lj_reboot. Between the decided lack of answers that your userbase receives every time users are banned without warning, and your staff members' continued glib remarks toward concerned individuals -- especially those made regarding serious diseases, you've had your chances -- more than one.

I won't be one of those irate members of fandom who demand every cent back that they ever paid; I understand how expensive server maintenance can be. I just wanted to say that I'm moving out. [Feel free to link to this post; its security is set to public.]

As the descendant of a Maine farmer and a woman who grew up in post-War East Germany, the idea of wasting that year of paid time pains me more than any of you could ever know. However, I won't be posting on this server anymore. It'll take me awhile to set up either my InsaneJournal or my JournalFen the way I want it, but after that I'm only going to be on LJ to read the entries of those flisters who stay behind for the next wave of wankery.

dorkdance dorkdance dorkdance
So it's that time again -- time for me to make a long, blathering post about what I did in order to create a semi-fabulous layout for the_lj_reboot. This is the third Reboot I've participated in, and the first in which I was so low on time and energy that I literally whipped out my entire layout in a day's time, give or take some minor poking here and there.

( Cut for screenshot and discussion.Collapse )

Make sure to check out the other fantastic designs at the_lj_reboot.

Pleez 2 b kleeking: dorkdance!
So, the_lj_reboot had its big reveal, and here's my offering: ( cut for screenshot.Collapse )

My the_lj_reboot layout, that's what. ( Cut for screenshot.Collapse )

I've had this layout open in a tab of Firefox since early August as I worked on it nearly nonstop -- although the first two HTML mockups didn't work out so well. Which is probably the understatement of the year [although #2 looks massively better than #1, mainly because it's got some of the graphics from the final version integrated into it], but hey!

( Things to Notice...Collapse )
( The Process...Collapse )

This whole experience has been super-fun for me. I'm hoping that the other participants enjoyed it just as much.

In conclusion: please check it out in Firefox. Just once. Please.

... to protect the children, with the help of LiveJournal's Edit Privacy thinger for paid users.

Sorry for the inconvenience, all you non-children out there.

This journal is written by an adult, American woman with the intention of having it read by other adults, and has been rated NC-17 for vulgarity, allusion to sexual activities, and copious use of foul language. Please friend me first, then drop your numerical age [this can be a range, if you want to be vague] in a comment -- all of which are screened -- to this entry to be allowed access. All requests from individuals under the age of 18 will be cheerfully ignored.

[Please note: those people already on my friends list do not have anything to worry about.]

-- dorkdance
GreatestJournal: magz | JournalFen: quackaddict
Tumblr: magz | Myspace: _theothersister

PS: Once I've friended you back, feel free to fill out this survey or read how I use the LiveJournal services, here.

PPS: If you are here only for fanfiction, please visit my fic site. It should be updated by the end of the week with everything I've posted here. If you are looking for icons or graphics, please visit my graphics journal explodeycakes.

PPPS: I'm not going to friend you back just because you friend me. That commenting thing? Kinda the way it works around these parts.