opalcat - Profile (original) (raw)
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...Who?
I'm OpalCat. Sometimes known as Katherine, occasionally as Sparrow, but usually as Opal. I was born in 1972 which makes me 38 right now. You'll have to do the math to see if that's still accurate when you read this, as I have been known to slack off on updating things like that over time. I got married in 1991 [age 19 for the math-impaired like myself] but got divorced after 15 years (we're still good friends). I have a son, Dominic, born in 1995. On May 24, 2009 I got remarried. My ex-husband literally passed the torch (a juggling torch, unlit because it was indoors) to my new husband.
I live in northern Virginia in the 'burbs of Washington, D.C. and about 10 minutes from Dulles International Airport. In case of a nuclear war, I'll probably be toast.I live in the suburbs of Atlanta, where I moved after separating from my husband.
I currently live in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio (though I've lived in a couple of other states along the way) and am about to move to Boston.
Originally from Tucson, Arizona, I now live in the suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts. I am desperately in love with my husband, 
jugglerdan, a wonderful man I met at a juggling convention, who is doing a podiatry residency near Boston. Our household consists of Dan, me, my son, and three cats. In 2009 I finally graduated with my BA in fine arts after a 13 year gap in my schooling.
According to various quizzes and online tests, I'm an idealist, a field marshall, a socialist, 36% bitch, and I'd make a good benevolent ruler. According to my mother, I'm "bizarro" and she doesn't know how she birthed me.
...Why?
I don't know. You're the one here reading it. I can't explain your motives. If you're concerned about it, I think there are professionals who can help with that sort of thing ;) One thing to keep in mind, however, is that this is a journal. A diary. A recording of my thoughts. It isn't a message board. It has the neat comment feature, but that doesn't mean that my journal entries are "forum topics"... they are just things in my head that I want to write down. Some entries in my journal are made for an audience... like posting a poll or a link... but when I write about how I'm feeling or what I'm doing... that is for me. One of the reasons I keep this journal is so that I can look back and remember what I was doing and how I was feeling over time. For this reason, I try to make sure that when something major is going on with me or when something affects me emotionally, I at least make a reference to it. I'm also fairly blunt in my writing style, and if you are easily angered by strong opinions, you probably won't enjoy reading my journal.
I do not censor my journal to make other people happy.
Note: Sometimes I post pictures from my phone when I'm at an event. It isn't because it's some great picture I need to share with the world or anything (in fact they usually suck), it's just a sort of "in the moment diary entry" for me. It's like I'm documenting that exact moment, the image of what I'm seeing, entered at the time I'm seeing it. Like an instant scrapbook. Unfortunately, I always send them with no caption and then come caption them later when I'm at a computer, which can lead to people wondering what the hell the picture is of until I get to it. The reason for that is that when I email them from my phone to LJ I have to put "--" as the text, because LJ interprets "--" on its own line as being the end of a post. This is so that you can cut off any extra junk your email may automatically attach, such as "get a Yahoo account now!" and all that stuff. Well, when I send picture email from my phone, Verizon adds a huge ton of crap about how it's email from a phone and so on. If I were to type in a caption, you'd see my caption followed by all the Verizon junk, which I'd have to come delete. I wish it were possible to type in a caption, then on a new line type the "--" but it only gives me one line to work with.
My Communities:
I've started several LJ communities. Most of them are pretty small and not that active, but mock_the_stupid and the vegetarian community are pretty big.
cafepressowners - for people who run a shop through CafePress.creativeinsults - if you just can't wait for the opportunity to call someone a walrus-raping asscheese, this is probably a good place for you.fathom - a community for the members of the boards at fathom.org. Primarily used to view the "friends" page and read all the fathomites' journals in one place.journal_meme - a repository for all those little things that go round LJ like wildfire (quizzes, etc)mock_the_stupid - when you find someone/thing that is just so stupid you have to share, bring it to us.not_tonight - a place for people who suffer from diminished libido, or their partners.sdmb - a community for members of the Straight Dope message board.ssri_users - discussions about the SSRI family of antidepressant medications.tourettes_help - support and discussion community for people with Tourette's Syndrome.vegetarian - for vegetarians or those who are interested in vegetarianism. No debates, please.vegetarian_chat - the social lounge companion community to the vegetarian community. This is where off topic conversations and polls and so on can happen.
Tags
In June 2007 I started using the tag feature (yeah, I'm slow.) I'm gradually trying to go back and tag older entries, and trying to remember to tag new ones as I make them. You can visit the tag list and view posts that way here.Random Things and Toys:
Birthdays
Let me know when your birthday is and I'll send you an e-card and stuff (ok probably not stuff, but an e-card for sure!) Be sure to include your email address or I'll have no way of sending it!
Friend/Unfriend Tracker
My contributions to LiveJournal
• Long ago, when LJ was still new, I thought that the layout of the front page was ...less than ideal. I tossed together a rearranged page and made a few graphics to make it more "journally" and showed it to Brad... and for a while, that was how LiveJournal looked. It's been redone a few times since then, but you can still see my old layout with this link: http://www.livejournal.com/?usescheme=opalcat. No big deal, just kinda nifty. The little scribble line under the "LiveJournal.com" text is actually still doing time as part of the "Notebook" theme.
• My other main 'legacy' on LiveJournal is on the Edit Friends page. In the beginning, the color selection was really inadequate--full of lame colors and missing crucial good ones. I teased Brad about it and he told me to give him some better ones. And so the current little palette was created, and all of those cheesy color names ("Green, Pine"; "Green, Dark" etc.) are my fault.
last updated December 28, 2011
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