Hey, are you someone who never sat at the cool kids' table in high school? Have you posted fewer than ten diaries? Not part of the C&J crowd? Are you a lurker, a light commenter, a newbie, or anyone else who isn't particularly well-known here - but you're going to Yearly Kos anyway? Are you a little nervous that you're going to get to Vegas and not talk to another attendee for the entire four days? Well, I am.
So I thought I'd post a diary (my third in my two-plus years here!) wherein all the Yearly Kos wallflowers can introduce themselves to each other; talk about our Daily Kos habits; begin to overcome our shyness; and maybe plan on meeting up at some point during the convention. Full disclosure: although I am far from a dKos cool kid, I am, in fact, coming with another Kossack:
gruvkitty, who happens to be my best friend from college (we're the slightly older, much quieter female versions of
AnthonySF and
anthonyLA!) and who's non-prolific enough to make me look like
georgia10.
I, for one, am jamfan. And although this is not about my dKos or blogging habits, I do have to mention prominently, given our current news cycle, that I live in the same town as Stephen Colbert! (njmom, I'm calling you out: I know you live here too! We might even know each other! Are you going to the convention?) Anyhoo, I started coming to dKos after Air America Radio launched and Markos started appearing on "The Majority Report." I lurked for several months, right up to October 2004, when I couldn't keep it in any longer. So I set up my account. And my user ID number couldn't be cooler: 35153, a palindrome, and nowadays definitely in the "dKos veteran" half of users!
I visit numerous times a day. I get my news here. I scan the front page and the recommended diaries in between work assignments (when I'm at my two-day-per-week consulting job) or household duties. I especially come here for the URGENT and ACTION diaries and to learn about races and candidates across the country who I can support. I'm not especially proactive, but I take direction well, so I like diaries by people like Elise, and will do almost anything asked in a recommended or front page diary. I read all posts by all current and former front-pagers, as well as those by some other big names, and any diary dealing with veterans' issues, reproductive rights, the Christian left (yay, Frederick Clarkson!), Bush's plummeting popularity, Republican criminality, elections and races (I can't tell you how much I'll miss AnthonySF, but thank heavens for Superribbie), and, yes, voting irregularities (I'm talkin' to you, Blue Shark!).
I do comment quite a bit, but they're usually not very long, and I have posted only two diaries in addition to this one. My part-time job is corporate communications, my hobby is creative writing (two novels and four short stories in various stages of incompleteness), and my kids are under six, so I just don't have it in me to write much. That said, I'm a regular Happy Storyteller, by invitation of Carnacki and friends, and I always read and usually add a prayer to pastordan's "Brothers and Sisters" diaries. Also, I've jumped into The Centerfielder's Tuesday Diversions on numerous occasions. And I always look out for the latest version of cookiesandmilk's revolving Steve Holt sig line - and often remark upon it.
Some of my commenting claims to fame:My highest rated comment, and also the one with the most replies, occurred in the diary"Howard Dean Flattens Wolf Blitzer on Abramoff Scandal" back in January of this year. In the diary"Maybe We're Wrong on Censure: Cokie's For It," one of my comments actually scored a"Heh" from Armando. I printed it out and framed it. /snark. And in one happy story from days back, Maryscott O'Connor called me middle-aged.
So although this rather slender dKos resume represents my presence here, I am going to Yearly Kos because: (1) I needed an excuse to get to Vegas at least once in my life. (2) I needed an excuse to have a girls' weekend with gruvkitty. (3) I need marching orders, damn it! I want to change the world, but I need you folks to tell me how! And (4) I want to bask in the glow of fired-up liberals for four straight days. And I would like to meet some of you personally.
And you?