IT'S A CONSPIRACY!!!
I'm totally kidding...just wanted to make you laugh before I got to the meat of my goodbye LJ Idol post...
When I started therealljidol, I had been a member of the LiveJournal community for two weeks. I’d been urged by a coworker, shakeitoutloud, to create an account, so I signed up. I didn’t know what a flist was, or an LJ cut, wasn’t quite sure how to “link back to my post” and I sure as hell had never heard the term “Squee!” or “Grap!”
I wasn’t sure how to find people on LJ that blogged about things that interested me - and did it in an interesting manner. I was a little frustrated, and then I saw a post from mert_mt_bc saying she was giving this Idol thing a go. Although we have never met in person, Mert and I have known each other on the net for almost 3 years, since we met on the Babycenter.com August 06 mommy’s board.
I’d never heard of therealljidol, so I quickly skimmed the rules, puzzled out how to link a post back to my journal and signed up. It sounded like a perfect way to find some other cool writers and a safe place to discover if my family was just being kind when they told me I was a good writer. The day I created my Week 0 “All About Me” entry I had twelve people on my flist. I never thought I would make it to the Top 10. I never thought I’d see beyond my goal of the Top 50 for that matter!
Throughout the season many players left such an impression on me.
There were some people that struck me as fascinating from Week 0 - Rosepurr and her Velma-love and of course single-mommy, entomologist tulipinyellow who was the first stranger I ever friended.
dfff fffffffffff b b
Spydielives, well, I thought this game was hers from her first post about reading in trees and rm, my god, she came with a ready made fan club and an archly fascinating life and voice.
Other exceptional writers took longer for me to discover, like kittenboo, elva_undine, baxaphobia, roina_arwen and the immensely creative srs_bidness/soopageek.
Some people were SO unique you had to marvel at their creativity, dragonfluff and 40sw for instance. Others just wrote things that spoke to me as a mother, a wife, a woman… n_decisive, amenquohi, kathrynrose, flisleshnitz.
My heart went out to the people who are surviving intense life changes but kept writing, like XO_kizzy_XO, minikin and desert_rose71. They kept coming to the Green Room each week, kept posting fabulous entries.
There was the “younger” women’s contingent - the incomparable fidgety, unplaceable unsold_capacity, the longing of suesniffsglue and of course, mmefuriosa who broke my heart when she couldn’t get her entry in on time due to being abroad.
And of course the men, so few of them that they couldn’t help but stand out - sideshowbenny, omg!, funky lordrexfear, complex gonadsandstrife, who I once picked a fight with in Tulip’s journal when I thought he accused me of being a flighty, sunshine bubblegum something or other, noble sircaliban, Lacombe the librarian-scribe and the ever irreverent, amazingly talented superhappytime.
Porcelain72, she is in my personal top three - her writing was so rich, and her stories so true, I looked forward to reading her piece every week. Lilmissmagic was another amazing storyteller, also 1_rhiannon_1.
Some people were the Glee Club, bringing such joy - and awesome treats! - to the Green Room - ewok_626, chite, chazari…
And I have Idol to thank for introducing me to other fabulous LJ’ers that weren’t in the contest - drama free popfiend, passionate spanglo, my late night companion eqfe, wyrdwriter, bettybaker, brightflashes, norda, welfy…I am so lucky to have been discovered by these gems.
If I didn’t mention you, please don’t feel hurt. I know I always skim lists like that looking for my name, and feel disappointed if I’m not on there, but if I skipped you here, it wasn’t intentional - I just have to get this finished before the babies explode!
I have just two complaints about the realljidol. This season was too long. Even shows like Survivor and American Idol only last three months. I think a seven month commitment was a little…extended. Because of it, I think my joy for the game sort of died around six weeks ago. Maybe in the coming seasons there could be a player cap at 100 or something?
And, speaking of joy, that brings me to my other complaint. In the beginning it was such fun, writing and voting for my favorites and friends. But as our numbers dwindled and the votes became tighter, I gave up voting for everyone I loved in lieu of self preservation. I know other players have done it. One even told me “I don’t vote for anyone but myself until five minutes before the polls close.” Knowing I couldn’t be supportive of people I enjoyed took a lot of the fun out of it for me.
So now I'll have the time to read my friend’s journal posts and comment there, and read the remaining Idol entries and vote with my heart and not feel guilty that I couldn’t give a friend a hand or I’d be voted off. I am actually really happy about that.
I have logged on to LJ, dashed to the Green Room almost every day for the past 7 months. On Christmas and my birthday, workdays and weekends…unless I was out of town with no Internet access I was there. Idol gave me a chance to stretch my writing wings and pushed me to write one good thing each week, regardless of how busy my life was - and trust me, it was busy. It will be so odd to not scramble to write entries before deadline or anxiously watch the polls all weekend!
At this point, I think I will be back for Season 5 - there have been so many positive things that have come from therealljidol. This elimination comes at a good time really. My theater production opens in three weeks, our new MMO releases in two weeks, not to mention my teen vacation reading club for the summer goes into overdrive in June.
So, thank you. To everyone who voted for me, once or 26 times. To everyone who encouraged me, friended me, gave a damn about my posts and my life. And thank you Gary for coming up with such a freakin’ awesome idea in the first place!
When I started therealljidol, I had been a member of the LiveJournal community for two weeks. I’d been urged by a coworker, shakeitoutloud, to create an account, so I signed up. I didn’t know what a flist was, or an LJ cut, wasn’t quite sure how to “link back to my post” and I sure as hell had never heard the term “Squee!” or “Grap!”
I wasn’t sure how to find people on LJ that blogged about things that interested me - and did it in an interesting manner. I was a little frustrated, and then I saw a post from mert_mt_bc saying she was giving this Idol thing a go. Although we have never met in person, Mert and I have known each other on the net for almost 3 years, since we met on the Babycenter.com August 06 mommy’s board.
I’d never heard of therealljidol, so I quickly skimmed the rules, puzzled out how to link a post back to my journal and signed up. It sounded like a perfect way to find some other cool writers and a safe place to discover if my family was just being kind when they told me I was a good writer. The day I created my Week 0 “All About Me” entry I had twelve people on my flist. I never thought I would make it to the Top 10. I never thought I’d see beyond my goal of the Top 50 for that matter!
Throughout the season many players left such an impression on me.
There were some people that struck me as fascinating from Week 0 - Rosepurr and her Velma-love and of course single-mommy, entomologist tulipinyellow who was the first stranger I ever friended.
dfff fffffffffff b b
Spydielives, well, I thought this game was hers from her first post about reading in trees and rm, my god, she came with a ready made fan club and an archly fascinating life and voice.
Other exceptional writers took longer for me to discover, like kittenboo, elva_undine, baxaphobia, roina_arwen and the immensely creative srs_bidness/soopageek.
Some people were SO unique you had to marvel at their creativity, dragonfluff and 40sw for instance. Others just wrote things that spoke to me as a mother, a wife, a woman… n_decisive, amenquohi, kathrynrose, flisleshnitz.
My heart went out to the people who are surviving intense life changes but kept writing, like XO_kizzy_XO, minikin and desert_rose71. They kept coming to the Green Room each week, kept posting fabulous entries.
There was the “younger” women’s contingent - the incomparable fidgety, unplaceable unsold_capacity, the longing of suesniffsglue and of course, mmefuriosa who broke my heart when she couldn’t get her entry in on time due to being abroad.
And of course the men, so few of them that they couldn’t help but stand out - sideshowbenny, omg!, funky lordrexfear, complex gonadsandstrife, who I once picked a fight with in Tulip’s journal when I thought he accused me of being a flighty, sunshine bubblegum something or other, noble sircaliban, Lacombe the librarian-scribe and the ever irreverent, amazingly talented superhappytime.
Porcelain72, she is in my personal top three - her writing was so rich, and her stories so true, I looked forward to reading her piece every week. Lilmissmagic was another amazing storyteller, also 1_rhiannon_1.
Some people were the Glee Club, bringing such joy - and awesome treats! - to the Green Room - ewok_626, chite, chazari…
And I have Idol to thank for introducing me to other fabulous LJ’ers that weren’t in the contest - drama free popfiend, passionate spanglo, my late night companion eqfe, wyrdwriter, bettybaker, brightflashes, norda, welfy…I am so lucky to have been discovered by these gems.
If I didn’t mention you, please don’t feel hurt. I know I always skim lists like that looking for my name, and feel disappointed if I’m not on there, but if I skipped you here, it wasn’t intentional - I just have to get this finished before the babies explode!
I have just two complaints about the realljidol. This season was too long. Even shows like Survivor and American Idol only last three months. I think a seven month commitment was a little…extended. Because of it, I think my joy for the game sort of died around six weeks ago. Maybe in the coming seasons there could be a player cap at 100 or something?
And, speaking of joy, that brings me to my other complaint. In the beginning it was such fun, writing and voting for my favorites and friends. But as our numbers dwindled and the votes became tighter, I gave up voting for everyone I loved in lieu of self preservation. I know other players have done it. One even told me “I don’t vote for anyone but myself until five minutes before the polls close.” Knowing I couldn’t be supportive of people I enjoyed took a lot of the fun out of it for me.
So now I'll have the time to read my friend’s journal posts and comment there, and read the remaining Idol entries and vote with my heart and not feel guilty that I couldn’t give a friend a hand or I’d be voted off. I am actually really happy about that.
I have logged on to LJ, dashed to the Green Room almost every day for the past 7 months. On Christmas and my birthday, workdays and weekends…unless I was out of town with no Internet access I was there. Idol gave me a chance to stretch my writing wings and pushed me to write one good thing each week, regardless of how busy my life was - and trust me, it was busy. It will be so odd to not scramble to write entries before deadline or anxiously watch the polls all weekend!
At this point, I think I will be back for Season 5 - there have been so many positive things that have come from therealljidol. This elimination comes at a good time really. My theater production opens in three weeks, our new MMO releases in two weeks, not to mention my teen vacation reading club for the summer goes into overdrive in June.
So, thank you. To everyone who voted for me, once or 26 times. To everyone who encouraged me, friended me, gave a damn about my posts and my life. And thank you Gary for coming up with such a freakin’ awesome idea in the first place!