"You have received a virtual gift for your 18 anniversary on LiveJournal" is the subject line in today's email.

It's the first email I've received from LiveJournal in 9 years.

December 15, 2003 was when I created an account there. As I recall, that was a season where Everything2's disappearances were frequent, and via AOL Instant Messenger (or was it IRC? I never had an AOL account) I learned that many members of the E2 community were posting writing on LiveJournal to keep the juices flowing.

I haven't been active on LiveJournal since 2008 (except for a single post in 2010 as part of a marketing promotion for a show I was performing). But I peeked in today to remember the goofy freedom I felt writing there-- I always felt E2 deserved idiosyncratic nonfiction and pure creative writing, while LiveJournal was for personal updates (before we had Facebook and Twitter)