Which A2Kers Have Had the Most Influence on Your Life?

Yep, Noddy is the first one who comes to mind. I started with Abuzz when I was 7 months pregnant with sozlet, and in the beginning especially Noddy was a huge influence on me when it came to parenting. So much practical advice, but also a general outlook. (Mothers are important. Do your best. Don't try to control everything because you can't. Yes, it's a hard job.)

Boomerang has also been a parenting influence, sometimes in indirect ways. Also a photography influence -- I don't see her photos as much anymore but I sometimes take pictures and say "that's SUCH a boomer picture...." (This is a good thing.)

Ay-yi-yi, this is getting into list territory and I so hate lists because I always but always smack my head at the end of it at the incredibly important people I left out. So. This is not comprehensive, at all.

Nimh and Thomas both have had an influence on how I articulate my thoughts and approach things logically, I think. Robert too, definitely Robert. And FreeDuck. FreeDuck's another parenting influence too.

I remember that when I first joined Abuzz dlowan would absolutely blow me away with the sustained badinage, literary references galore and FUNNY. I'm not sure if she's an influence per se because I'm nowhere in her league, but I know that she's another one who I think of at non-A2K times... would she think it's funny? Then it is.

Patiodog is in that category too.

OK, nowhere near finished or complete but will stop there anyway...

I just thought of a way that dlowan is an influence -- I use terms like "pear-shaped" and "big girl's blouse" in everyday conversation now...

wow, hard to say

it's really the whole community here

it's kind of being able to come across somebody, and say, "oh, so you think that way too, it's not just me"

living in a somewhat rural area, i was the guy who, read books (can you imagine that), read a national newspaper, listened to music you didn't hear on the radio, watched foreign films (subtitled please, seems more natural)

i like the solitude of the country, and a2k keeps me in touch with a bigger world

OLD DOG He and I have become fast friends through the decade of our first meeting on Abuzz. I was lucky enough to read the first and most bawdy draft of his autobiography. He is now quite ill and I pray for him each day for recovery.

BSTOMBO Who contacted me by phone the very first time he and I crossed paths on Abuzz and have ever since been his friend along with his precious wife Jaybee, God rest her soul. Both of them had my tie-dyed shirts and somewhere I have a pix of them arm in arm smiling with the shirts on. Byron dropped out of sight during the summer after Jaybee passed away, his phone has been disconnected and my cards to him get returned. I wish him well wherever he is tonight.

SEYDLITZ89 Who taught me that Max Weber could actually be understood (unfortunately in its originally written German), AND the tour de force of his writing on Reaganism and Market Utponianism which he allowed me to post elsewhere.

and another, called MARK LEVIN, whose personal email to me made me cry. You see, I had quoted a poem from the Finnish composer Sebelius in a post of consulation to a member who had passed away and the next day he emailed me to ask me if he could read the poem (he did not realize it was from Sebelius) at his wife's funeral the next day in Isreal, because it had contained the verbal devotion he had for his wife. To think, me having read a poem from childhood, remembering it, posting it on the Web and having the words I remembered helping a grieving man honor his beloved wife. That is why I come back to this site.

The members that brought me out of my shell (partially), of whom there are too many to list. A few have been extremely helpful when I struggled, and they know who they are.

I'll dodge this one and say: everyone. Everyone I discussed with anyway. Before I joined Abuzz and took up the habit of defending my views against peers, in writing, it was kind of settled that I'm just no good at writing. Talking -- great! But for writing, in English or in German, I just didn't seem to have any talent. That was the view of my teachers in school, my professors in college, and myself. It was the experience of writing to people, rather than for them, that changed this. Thanks guys!

No one here has had an influence on me. I still remain as close-minded and misanthropic as always.

You're a rock, Gus, a friggin Gibraltar!

Thanks

Noddy, Phoenix, Brooke, Izzie, Foxfyre, Timber, Farmerman, and I'll be back when I think of others.

You're welcome.
Rock on.

cavfancier, and l'k (in combo with blaisedaley)

cav's far too early death changed how I look at life. He influenced me both in the way he lived and the way he died.

l'k and blaise gave me support and encouragement and spine. I adore them.

Some of these posts in this thread are some of the most menaingful I've read on A2K of recent times.

I couldn't possibly pick out who here has had the most influence. There's a piece of everyone that I've interacted with both on A2K and Abuzz, that goes with me.

When I reflect on joining Abuzz back in 2000 and compare that person to who I am today there is an oceans width of difference in how I view the world. I consider that difference to be positive. I thank everyone for their part in it.

timberlandko
The only guy I ever knew who could use "figger" and "Abrahamic Mytheopia"
in the same sentence and carry it off. Damn, I miss that guy.

Phoenix, I don't know about influence, but I do know there are many here that inspired me to write and research. I don't like to name them, because I'm afraid that I'll leave someone out.

I'd love to hear what differences you notice, if you wish to tell.

ehBeth had a lot to do with me changing my mind at the last minute and NOT moving out of NYC three+ years ago. So I'd have to give her the title of Most Influential. So what if she still owes me a drink all these years later? That girl's alright in my book.

I think for me influence may be a bit strong. However, many many people on here have been very supportive and made me feel tons better while I had been going through lots of tough stuff (and continue to). And I figure this is as a good a place as any - thanks to all those that make me feel much less miserable and much less a failure.

Actually except for Gus - he influenced me to change my perfectly landscaped backyard into a swamp and I am all the better for it.