My cat is a Fall Out Boy fan, which makes sense because I listened to them CONSTANTLY when he was a kitten. He was walking around my bedroom being a standoffish jerk while I was listening to Muse, but as soon as I put on FOB he came and curled up against my legs. Patrick Stump's got a voice to soothe the savage beast!

:D

This is a meme! Leave a comment describing your favorite part of Thanksgiving (or an applicable winter-y holiday), and I will give you five words I associate with you. Then post about what they mean to you, along with this blurb, at your own journal. Step three: Profit!

These words come from citizenjess!

1. Butcher: The Butcher is my cat. I got him in 2007. He is all grey with a subtle stripe on his sides and tail, and he has green eyes. I believe (but have not had confirmed) that he is part Siamese, part Russian Blue. The first animal he ever caught was a mouse in my apartment on Miller Street. He has since graduated to all kinds of birds, including chickadees, blue jays, doves, sparrows, and seagulls. He also occasionally catches rabbits and squirrels. He is probably the smartest cat I have ever met, and I'm not just saying that because he's mine. He is not terribly affectionate, but he puts up with me cuddling him with enough grace. In the winter occasionally he will sleep in my room with me. I love him more than just about everything else on earth. My family all hate him except for my mother.

2. Podfics/Audiofics: This is the major way I participate in fandom now, and has been for over a year now. When I stopped writing fanfiction of my own (because I'm not smart enough to write for my current fandom), I started focusing on recording the stories I really loved reading. I had to stop doing them for a couple of months while I had a roommate, but now that I have my own room I've begun recording them again, and I'm really happy that I can do it again because it really brings me a lot of joy to put voice to stories I genuinely enjoy. My most successful podfics have been of irisbleufic's Sherlock fanfiction (almost 300 downloads! that's practically BNF status!), and the fact that people on friending memes identify me as "that podfic girl" makes me inexplicably happy. I've done a lot of podfic for charity auctions, so it's not just something I like doing, it's something I can make a difference by doing. Right now I am working on my Podbang podfics, and I am really pleased with how the first hour and a half of recording has turned out. I have just about an hour left to do, and it's a really tense, emotionally laden part that I am completely psyched to tackle at some point in the next few days. I am thrilled that so many people trust me to do a good job with their stories, and I really do my best to make every one I record something special and meaningful. The day I start to sound bored is the day I step back from the microphone.

3. Sherlock Holmes: So on Christmas 2009 my siblings and I went to see this movie because I'm a Robert Downey Jr. fangirl, and it was the most exciting thing I'd seen in ages. I'd only been aware of Sherlock Holmes peripherally before that point. I quickly acquired and read the canon, and I fell in love with Holmes and Watson, not for the actors playing them, but as fully realized characters in their own rights. I started watching the Granada series in... February, I think, and then I fell in love with Jeremy Brett, who is, in my opinion, the ultimate Holmes. Then I watched the Russian series, and I fell in love with Vasily Livanov. (is anyone seeing a pattern arising here?) Then in August Sherlock aired, and I fell in love with Martin Freeman (ha! c-c-combo breaker!). Everybody in the world knows that intelligence turns me on, and Holmes gets me right in the sapiosexuality. I adore Watson for different but no less important reasons: his compassion, his loyalty, and yes, his intelligence too. I love Lestrade (Colin Jeavons and Rupert Graves, not the Russian one) and I really love Mycroft (especially as Mark Gatiss but also as Charles Gray) and I have a soft spot for every Mrs. Hudson ever. (And I love Moriarty, but only as Andrew Scott.) I love Victorian-era Holmes and I love modern-day Holmes, because I am also a sucker for AUs and really Sherlock was just so brilliantly done. This has been my primary fandom for almost a full year now and my love is only growing, because the canon is incredible and the people in the fandom are really just so marvelously nice and it really, genuinely makes me happy.

4. Glasses: I have worn glasses since third grade. My nose has a bump on the bridge that is really just perfect for holding my glasses up, so I have to conclude that that's why it's there, because I've certainly never broken it to give it that strange shape. I came up with the screen name "speccygeekgrrl" when I was 13, so I have defined myself by my glasses on the internet for almost half of my life now. I have tried contact lenses and I can't stand them. My parents have broached the idea of laser eye surgery and I want nothing to do with it. I am bespectacled and I am proud of that fact. I have a glasses fetish, I absolutely do find myself more attracted to people who wear glasses, and an average looking person who puts on a pair automatically becomes better looking in my eyes. My first boyfriend wore them, the person with whom I had my longest relationship wore them, I'm pretty sure the person I lost my virginity to wore them (don't quote me on that one), my best friends have all worn them, out of my current social circle all my closest friends wear them. I don't consciously select people because they wear glasses, but I seem to gravitate towards them anyhow.

5. POT!: Ah, marijuana. Out of all the drugs I've ever tried, including alcohol and tobacco, marijuana is my favorite. I love the smell of it, I love the taste of it, I love the effects of it. I first smoked weed when I was 17, in a minivan outside of the bowling alley, with a few boys from my high school who were all wildly amused at the thought of getting the school geek stoned, and I bowled the second-best game of my life that night. I have smoked weed with members of my family, including my brother, my favorite sister, and my favorite aunts. I have gotten a cat, a rat, and a dog stoned, and I maintain that that fish was baked, even if the people I was with didn't think so. I have owned several glass pieces, a small bong, a stone pipe, and a corncob pipe. I have smoked joints, blunts, bongs, pipes, hookahs, vaporizers, I smoked out of an apple once, and I have made pot butter and cooked baked goods with it. For the year I lived on Miller Street and the months I lived on Military Turnpike, I was getting high at least every other day, if not every day. When I smoke weed, I don't need to take sleeping pills, I sleep better and deeper, and it absolutely has a lifting and stabilizing effect on my bipolar disorder. I fucking love weed. My favorite way to smoke is in a blunt, because a blunt automatically assumes company, and I really hate smoking alone. It's a social thing for me. I don't do stupid things when I get high, I don't take stupid risks, I don't get belligerent or upset. I relax. I enjoy things more. I spend time with people I like, when I'm lucky, I do fun things or creative things. Being stoned doesn't hinder my creative process. I don't get high before class, I don't get high when I have things I need to do, I don't get high unless I legitimately don't have anything important to do. I honestly believe that marijuana should be legalized, because it is so much less bad for you than alcohol and tobacco are, and those things are legitimized by society when they're both so clearly destructive. Weed isn't really destructive. It has medical uses, and I know I shouldn't self-medicate, but when you consider the counseling I was getting in 2007, self-medicating was my best option and it honestly kept me from killing myself on more than one occasion. Now I get high maybe a couple of times a month. It's not something I indulge in all the time, but I like being able to get stoned with a good friend and just talk about random shit for a couple of hours.

TL;DR: Dani + marijuana = ♥

My mother just came in my room to inform me that, instead of being covered with snow, our front lawn is covered in feathers.

Looks like my little hunter is doing well for himself today.


...oh, and I might as well do a meme, stolen from karaokegal:


SIX NAMES YOU GO BY:
1. Danielle
2. Dani
3. speccygeekgrrl
4. Speccy
5. Tits
6. The Mystery

THREE THINGS YOU ARE WEARING RIGHT NOW:
1. Glasses
2. Grey lace-edged tank top
3. Blue and white sleep pants

THREE THINGS YOU WANT VERY BADLY AT THE MOMENT
1. A cinnamon dolce frappucino
2. 70 degree weather
3. Inspiration

THREE PEOPLE WHOM YOU HOPE WILL DO THE MEME
1. Anyone who feels like it.
2. Everyone who habitually steals memes from me.
3. Your mom.

THREE THINGS YOU DID LAST NIGHT
1. Watched Chuck
2. Watched the Sherlock Holmes episode "The Musgrave Ritual"
3. Berated myself for lack of writing

THREE PEOPLE YOU LAST TALKED TO ON THE PHONE:
1. Alice Jordan
2. My mother
3. That little girl who called me on a wrong number

THREE THINGS YOU ARE GOING TO DO TOMORROW:
1. Try to write
2. Have a cup of tea
3. Watch more Sherlock Holmes (I am determined to finish the entire series by mid-May)

FOUR OF YOUR FAVORITE DRINKS:
1. Cinnamon dolce frappucino
2. Cranberry juice
3. Chai
4. Cherry Coke

THREE THINGS THAT MADE YOU SMILE TODAY:
1. The ending of "The Second Stain" (Sherlock Holmes skipping = lols)
2. A semi-poetic, capslocked comment on my Facebook status from my old drug dealer (seriously, he is the one person who I will let get away with the constant capslock because it makes him so much funnier)
3. gyzym's White Collar fanmix

Butcher just discovered a very efficient way to get me to stop pestering him for kisses.

I was all up in his face, then he pushed me away with one paw and started licking his balls.

...welp, that's one cat who'll be free of my overbearing influence for the rest of the day.

First, I could only type with one hand because Butcher was laying on my arm.

Now, I feel oddly rejected because now he's curled up on the floor. What, my lap is suddenly not good enough? Hmph!

Yay, my remixee liked the remix fic! \o/ Success.

My remix was definitely not anything I could have anticipated. The remixer took one tiny part of Five Things Leonard McCoy Is Not, And One He Is and turned it from a sort of funny moment into a serious, action-filled away mission gone wrong fic from Chekov's point of view. Field Lines (The Russian Invention Remix). Go check it out.

When I woke up there was a bag on my chair... full of Skittles and Sulu and Scotty. :D Now I have the whole bridge crew as action figures! Woo!

My cat smells awful. At first we thought he was rolling in dead things, but then Mom noticed how much he was twitching his head and pawing at one ear and the source of the stink is definitely in there. So tomorrow he goes to the vet, and probably I will have to trick him into taking pills, but I am good at tricking him with food. xD My poor kitten.

The inside of my head is doing that unpleasant "hey, you suck" thing again. Tomorrow I have an appointment with Lisa and I can exorcise whatever demons these are gnawing on my brain. I didn't think it would be tasty for them right now, but I guess I was wrong.

This right here is the most awesome TOS music video ever. Because Spock lives and oh, it made me tear up, and it's awesome.




...you know, I'm not even sure if my parents got me a cake. This macro might be a lie.

So my ingenious "Jesus Christ it's a lion! Get in the tub!" scheme did not work on Butcher as well as I thought it would. However, we both made it through unscathed: he did not claw me, and I did not wring his scrawny little neck. xD He's still wet, but surprisingly not that mad at me. He only calmed down for the last 15 seconds or so of being rinsed off.

He got a bath, I got a shower and a headache, and soon we're both going to bed. I'm working hard toward getting my links post done, but it may end up waiting until tomorrow afternoon for maximum linkage.

I am very, very happy tonight. ^_^ I also sort of wish I knew how to make vids, because I have two ideas that I think are pretty awesome... and they're both het, what is this season doing to me? *ahem.* It's kind of nice because I can finally squee with my mom over something, though. She's totally taken by how cute and oblivious Matt is for Daphne.

Two more episodes tomorrow, and then she can actually watch the new one with me on Monday! \o/

Wooo boy. Tomorrow I am going to try to remember the shopping list for necessary items, and then make veggie curry for dinner. I found a few really, really interesting pie recipes, so I want to go all Ned, too... but I'm waffling between cranberry cheesecake pie and cream-cheese swirled pumpkin pie. Om nom fuckin' a nom!

Okay. Last thing before bed, I guess. beachkid linked me to this amazing video about a pet lion who remembered his parents after he went into the wilds of Africa. SO. CUTE. I got tears in my eyes, seriously.

Making a Twitter for Butcher: great idea, or GREATEST idea?

And my lesson this morning is, lock Butcher out at night if I don't want to wake up to him ripping up my door'o'hotness. I know it's not his fault if he's bored, but I am so unimpressed by his behavior... look, kitty, if it was nice out I'd put a leash on you and talk you for a walk, but it ain't happening until the weather gets better because I know you won't walk through snow, so... just stop being a dick please.

Siiiigh.

I have an appointment at 11. I know that she's going to tell me to go down to oneworksource, but... I really don't want to D: I need a job, though. And a bike, which is what my first paycheck will probably go to, so I can get to work without paying for it every day.

It's a bad thing that I don't want to go out. That I really. don't. want. to be. around. people.

Apparently, Nathan Stark was based on Tony Stark (aka Iron Man), and this amuses me greatly.


Politics Pokemon! It's an image, not a flash... just let it play through, it gave me lols.

The science of sex: why we fantasize. It's true, nobody talks about their fantasies without a lot of embarrassment accompanying the discussion... but man, I would way rather talk about my imaginary sex life than my real one. It's far more positive.

(Possibly more than) tangentially related, why is prostitution illegal? Pretty much any way you look at it, it's not the women who are benefiting from the trade being against the law: exposure to disease, violence, pimps, the threat of arrest... You can yell at me about omg the denigration of America if you want, but there isn't a good reason to keep prostitution (or marijuana!) illegal, and plenty of reasons to make them into lawful and regulated things.

15 year old boy in California killed for asking another boy to be his valentine. Has anyone else heard about this at all? I get all my news from the internet, but I can't believe there hasn't been anything at all about this... D:

Britain willing to deport gay and lesbian Iranians to their pretty much certain deaths. What. Just, what the fuck. No matter what the (prohibitive, barbaric) laws are in their home country, these people are not criminals, and they shouldn't be extradited-- because when they get back, now that it's been in the news, they're going to be targeted right off.

...I can't come up with a segue here that isn't completely tasteless. Madonna gave Justin Timberlake a shot in the ass, and he says it was "one of the greatest days of my life."

Now, you should all know that despite my dreams of friendly dinosaur bands, there is a very real threat of attack by these gigantic freaking lizards. Please, for your safety, look at the American Society for Velociraptor Attack Prevention site.

Portal cosplayer! Hot.

I have time for breakfast and a shower and maybe finishing this story I'm working on before I have to go. I just need to give myself a kick in the ass... man, I should invent something that will make my chair dump me out of it after a certain amount of time. that'll teach me.

I hate so much about what my cat chooses to do. At least Minerva just lies around and meows, Butcher has to rip up the couch and knock all my stuff off my shelves. I get my revenge, though, I just clipped the little bastard's nails. If he doesn't quit it, I will start throwing small stuffed animals at him.

It seems like nobody slept well last night, if my flist posts are anything to go by. Is there a disturbance in the Force?

I'm going to attack the dishes now. So you should all hit this meme like the fist of an angry god, and then I will have something to do when I run out of hot water.

Everyone has things they write about. Everyone has things they don't write about. Challenge me out of my comfort zone by asking me something I don't blog about, but you'd like to hear about, and I'll answer it in a comment or write a post about it. Ask for anything: latest movie watched, last book read, political leanings, thoughts on yaoi, favorite type of underwear, graphic techniques, etc. Repost in your own journal so that we can all learn more about each other.