Here’s a story about an alluring guy I met online.

It was the late '90s, in a chat room for fans of The Cure.

He swooped in and defended me against a troll by delivering witty, cutting comments that drove said troll out of the room. I messaged him to say thanks, and we became friends.

He lived on the other side of the country from me, with his ( Read more... )

Handy tool for writers using Microsoft Word who want to see what exactly they changed from one draft to another:

Tools -> Track Changes -> Compare Documents

Select the original document and the revised document. Et voilà! It makes a new document with your changes underlined/highlighted.

This does require that you save your drafts as separate ( Read more... )

All right, yep: come find me at Dreamwidth. I paid for a permanent LJ account years ago, but I suppose I've gotten my money's worth by now. If they shut me down for my slash content, so be it!

Just in case we all decide to abandon LJ, here are some other places you are welcome to find/follow me...

I've been backing up this LJ here at Blogspot for a few years now. Suppose that will become my main blog if I ever choose to delete this one. (I have no plans to at the moment, but there you go, just in case.)

I am on Instagram now as well, ( Read more... )

I want to pull out my mom voice on the entire internet today:
“Don’t flame people you don’t even know! You were raised better than that!”

Seriously, please, everyone on both sides - on ALL sides - remember the complex human beings at the other end. Today I talked a flame-commenter around to a “You’re right, I’m sorry for saying that” because I ( Read more... )

I'm feeling like I'm harping on the subject of cutting back on Facebook, and I apologize. BUT. I also want to elaborate on my reasons for too-casually comparing FB to a toxic friend in the last post ( Read more... )

My stress and anxiety levels in recent months have been so much lower than last year's. I could yet stand to improve my overall happiness, but "equanimity" does now describe me far more often than it used to. As a result of being calmer, I sleep better, which means I have more energy and don't get sick as often, so my physical health's much ( Read more... )

In my teens and twenties, when I woke up in the morning from disturbing dreams, I often found that a good way to dispel the lingering feeling of dread was to do something about my hair. That was something I generally had to do anyway in order to get ready for the day, but its oddly therapeutic quality struck me time after time. I'm not the sort of ( Read more... )

It's been more than a week since I quit Facebook, and I'm starting to feel that going back to it, to the old levels of interaction, would be about as appealing as re-entering a dysfunctional relationship. So yes: I recommend quitting Facebook. I'd be deeply pleased if the next mass exodus online was from Facebook. As long as we don't replace it ( Read more... )

Short version: I've broken up with Facebook.

Long version, in the form of a mental conversation held with myself many, many times over the last couple of years:

Me: I need to cut back on all the ways I waste time.

Mind: Such as Facebook?

Me: Maybe, but, you know, other stuff too. All the activities that are mostly just adding to my stress instead of ( Read more... )