Courtesy of Crantz. But man, I went and did some revisit time on the old X-Men Slash Central Archive. I found stuff I hadn't even remembered, and it was just like - I don't know. Going back to your grade-school playground for an afternoon. The toys! The wonderful toys! And who cares if it's not quite what makes me gleeful now, IT'S A TILT'A'WHIRL!!

I did notice that, after all these years, six of my stories are still credited to someone else. I guess I should consider myself lucky she at least didn't take credit for them on the archives I knew about. *eyeroll* I noticed, too, that, miraculously, the "The premise of this story and many of the scenes were lifted in total from a story by Kael about her original characters" somehow disappeared off her epic, too. (This is not decade's later bitterness, this is more "extremely amused.")

Getting caught up in things was so stupid, but from this kind of distance I just have the remembered happy of creating and reading and worshipping at the feet of - my first two were Killashandra for Trek and Alicia McKenzie for X-Men. SO much love, still. MONKEY BARS.

I also recently wrote a 21,000 word CHAPTER and had to create a topographical map of a multi-thousand acre eco-warrior compound and am just in a heeheehee place about writing, and the inspiration of fic, and pretty much the entire ficitonal-universes universe.

I'm also supposed to be vanishing into the hospital any day now, and would appreciate any healthy vibes anyone could send my way. I'll be gone 2-3 weeks once I go, so if you can't get me and want updates, bug river.

<3 to ficcers and fantasy makers past and present. There's a whole part of my brain that might've stayed hidden without you.

Roly puppies make all things better.

Happy Birthday, acetal! I hope it was a good one.

I saw this a bunch of places with a few alterations. Sometimes it's nice to skip the loop-the-loop discussion and just lay it out.

ETA: You know, I thought most people who have ever seen one of those "How Not To Get Yourself Raped" pamphlets that put the onus entirely on the victim would understand what this was. But a couple of other places this was posted - the sheer blinding stupidity of the responses was mind-blowing. Sometimes I think I live in a very protected little world, which, considering I have friends who do RPS slash, should be frightening in itself. ;]

DON'T BE RAPIST PSA

If a woman is drunk, don’t rape her.
If a woman is walking alone at night, don’t rape her.
If a women is drugged and unconscious, don’t rape her.
If a woman is wearing a short skirt, don’t rape her.
If a woman is jogging in a park at 5 am, don’t rape her.
If a woman looks like your ex-girlfriend you’re still hung up on, don’t rape her.
If a woman is asleep in her bed, don’t rape her.
If a woman is asleep in your bed, don’t rape her.
If a woman is doing her laundry, don’t rape her.
If a woman is in a coma, don’t rape her.
If a woman changes her mind in the middle of or about a particular activity, don’t rape her.
If a woman has repeatedly refused a certain activity, don’t rape her.
If a woman is not yet a woman, but a child, don’t rape her.
If your girlfriend or wife is not in the mood, don’t rape her.
If your step-daughter is watching TV, don’t rape her.
If you break into a house and find a woman there, don’t rape her.
If your friend thinks it’s okay to rape someone, tell him it’s not, and that he’s not your friend.
If your “friend” tells you he raped someone, report him to the police.
If your frat-brother or another guy at the party tells you there’s an unconscious woman upstairs and it’s your turn, don’t rape her, call the police and tell the guy he’s a rapist.
Tell your sons, god-sons, nephews, grandsons, sons of friends it’s not okay to rape someone.
Don’t tell your women friends how to inhibit their lives to "be safe and avoid rape," or else when they get raped, be damned to them.
Don’t imply that she could have avoided it if she’d only done/not done x.
Don’t imply that it’s in any way her fault.
Don’t let silence imply agreement when someone tells you he “got some” with the drunk girl.

Note:
This goes for any-gendered rape, male on female or female on male or female on female or FTM on MTF or non-gendered to dual-gendered and so on and so forth…. Human-animal on human rape of any flavor.

-author unknown

I barely touch fandom anymore, and metafandom even less. But my brains were eaten by the sheer screaming intelligence of the first couple of women I read responding to SurveyFail. And then many, many posts later I read this, and realized, yeah. I do. Every single one of you I ever met or read or slept on or waved at, for being who you are so very hard.

http://pandarus.livejournal.com/310491.html

I know everything imaginable has been said by people much more articulate than I am, but since my entire contribution so far has been "Bwahaha" I have to just say here:

A) Oh Ogi no

B) Nothing I've ever written, fanish or otherwise, exists. Woe. (Equality in sexual relationships apparently belonging only to unicorns.)

(emphasis mine)

37. If you read slash, do you identify with the characters while you're reading?

I don't read slash.
I don't identify with either character.
I tend to identify with the dominant character.
I tend to identify with the submissive character.
I tend to identify with the character whose point-of-view the story is written in.
I tend to identify with both characters.
I don't know.
I tend to identify with a specific character I like, in any position.


O.o How did they even get started to begin with? It reminds me of a couple of redneck Cullmanites thinking they were making a polite joke in asking (talking about a child custody decision recommendation, now) "Is he the buck, at least?" "No, honey, he's the doe. You'll know when you see him."

Binary gender dominance submission assumptions FAIL LIKE WOAH.

Date:	2009-09-01 06:10
Subject:	Doggies
Security:	Public
Mood:	hopeful

Edit to explain : My area was hit very hard by major layoffs at the only local employer, and many people had to abandoned their pets in moving to find work.

Every formal and informal rescue agency in the area is completely overwhelmed, as well as anyone willing to take foster animals. I have a ton of space, but only so many hours in the day. The healthy kill rate at the local shelter is almost 75% now, though, which makes it difficult to say "just no more."

-------------

Okay, so. I have two dogs I'm really starting to worry about finding good homes for. Why is at the bottom.

One of them is a little over ten pounds, with short,slick, soft hair in big black and white patches. He's kind of bossy and takes a little while to warm up to new people. He loves getting his chest rubbed, and playing - he's a fetcher. He's pretty normal in terms of other dogs - likes some, doesn't like some, sometimes wants to be left alone, sometimes wants to play.

The other's a few pounds bigger, with long silky hair (I keep him trimmed, but someone who wanted to futz with his coat could have him being a little prince.) He's a Big Tough Dog for about a millisecond before he wants love and cuddles. He loves baby anything - I call him the babysitter dog. He's gentle and sweet and loves love, but takes poorly to being bossed around by other dogs. If they want to get along, give him five minutes to figure that out and he's happy with them and the world. If they want him to roll over and let them gnaw on him as introduction, that will be a problem.

Both these dogs had a really awful start in life, including a poisoning that killed some of their siblings. They've never known a safe home except with me. They were taken by a mother and daughter, lasted a few days, and were brought back. They were in the "I will be nice and he will realize it and magically get over his past instantaneously" class, unfortunately, despite everything I told them they said they understood.

These dogs will take extra patience to adapt to a new household - nowhere near as much as many rescues, but some. A little extra patience, a little extra time, and they will make someone wonderful pets. They're both bright and very loving once they feel safe, and happy little guys for all of it. They do not have any ongoing health problems that will require vet care (beyond the norm) and are up-to-date on shots and worming and prevention and all that. They've always lived inside, with a puppy door to a fenced yard.

Actual Problem : The first one was left with what are really petit mal siezures, but can barely be called that. He doesn't twitch or go into anything that seems like a seizure. He just shakes sometimes. He doesn't even seem to notice, and it isn't enough to cause any drama. He just - shakes, for no reason at all sometimes. It'll happen for a few days, several times a day, and then maybe go a month without happening again. It has never resulted in a real seizure, never gotten worse than that, and is not progressive - not caused by disease or bad genes. It's an afteraffect of the poison exposure when he was a baby.

The second one - same deal. Not an ongoing problem, not anything that's going to get worse. Just a consequence of the poison. He is kind of stiff, almost like an older dog, and he gets out of breath easily. He doesn't even seem to notice, either. He moves a little like he's got arthritis, but he isn't in any pain, and it doesn't hurt him to have his joints rubbed - he actually likes that, just like he likes being rubbed, period. He's active and curious, but just kind of at his own pace. Not going to run after a ball very far (well, maybe once) but has no trouble playing in the yard, tussling with the other pups. When he gets breathless he gets out of the way and chills, and then goes back to it.

These dogs are between a year and a year and a half old, and I'm really afraid if I don't find homes for them soon they're going to be so attached to me and mine - well, it just gets harder all the time. Not to mention, I'm kind of over-dogged at the moment, and when that happens, none of them get the individual attention they need. Puppies can come and go - everyone wants puppies, but even young dogs can be harder to place (I have some six months' old pups, too, needing homes, and they're easier than these guys because they're healthy, but they're already out of the "But I want a BABY puppy" zone.

Anyone think they could give good homes to one or both of these guys? They get along fine, but are not particularly attached to one another. Anyone even think maybe, and have questions? I'll screen the responses if you want to leave contact info, or feel free to email me. I have pictures and more info than you'd ever need on these guys. :]

Also, if you want to commiserate with me on how scum suckers who poison dogs should all be shot, as well as people who abandon them, I will gratefully take that, too.

Overheard on the radio when I went to the store last night, in deep and unwaveringly weighted, solemn tones:

"Dick Cheney criticized President Obama, saying the current re-evalution of the operations at Guantanemo Bay sent a clear message the United States was no longer fighting a strong war on terror."

"He then confessed to being Obama's father, and cut off his hand with a lightsaber."

Date:	2009-08-24 01:24
Subject:	Star Trek Did What Now?
Security:	Public
Mood:	exanimate

I... I...

I bought a new DVD release of the Star Trek Animated Series a few months ago, out of nostalgia for the wonderful bad.

I just thought about it now and popped it in for the first time.

I...

Guys, I'm not kidding here. The Menu theme song is The Love Boat.

I - am either on much better drugs than I ever imagined or -

Dude. It's THE LOVE BOAT.

(And one of the hero shots has McCoy between Spock's legs, but mostly they're Kirk and Spock making eyes at each other. And one of Kirk and McCoy making eyes.)

The meta, it broke me.

Date:	2009-08-14 15:29
Subject:
Security:	Public
Mood:	quixotic

Adorapi. THEY EAT YOUR BRAINS. And leave smushy smarmflakes with a hankering for glitter and fame behind in their place.

No, I don't care that only one six-billionth of the world has the faintest idea what i'm on about. Some things are so spontaneously perfect they must be immortalized on every canvas available.

That whole "falling for the twenty-one year old" thing? (Who will henceforce be known as <3, because I'm crazy anyway, and why the hell not?)

*headdesk*

Yeah. I'm doomed. I'm still at lalalala friends, but what I'm getting back is "I'm smitten, too, and by the way, I'm not buying that you aren't, but there are so many better things to talk about, let's do that, because this is inevitable."

Doomed.

I'm sticking with lalala as far as it'll take me, and reminding myself that when I broke my first horse, <3 was in fact still pre-verbal, but dear sweet everything, I am so much toast.

I could make myself not start anything. Make myself not respond?

Toast. adjkfdsl. Mostly that.

O.O Help me! Quick! Someone say something impossibly cynical and even insulting! Please?

Date:	2009-07-05 22:54
Subject:	Murrr?
Security:	Public
Mood:	indescribable

I am terrified I am falling helplessly, hopelessly in love with a twenty-one year old. O.O

I didn't like tweny-one year olds when I was one. I've never dated anyone less than five years older than me, even when I was a teenager. Twelve years younger than me? Am I INSANE?

A baby. Baby, baby twenty-one year old. Right? Right. Sweet everything, but - everything in the world I value, the innocence of intention and the active, curious intelligence and the forge-hot belief that decency and devotion and knowing are the most meltingly hot things imaginable, that life is there to be lived and embraced and that love carries a high price utterly worth paying and if you take the world as you find it you're a waste of space. And not rah-rah cheap college fire, but sweet, deep, carried-for-a-lifetime fire. But the lifetime has three years as an adult. INSANE. I am INSANE.

A baby. Twenty-one. I swear, I haven't flirted a word, but I'm - good grief. Smitten. I understand the word "smitten." Simple words in text the most achingly affecting things I've ever seen, articulate and brilliant and tough-minded and a believer that the best is possible.

I'm terrified. I am helplessly falling in love with a baby, I take it all back, river, the finding out the age only killed it for a little while, and now it's all back and jeeeeeeez.

I never ever do this ever at all. I've been in love for the space of a traffic light and vaguely love-ish when I was crazy anyway for a few months - in my LIFE. I cannot be falling in love with a twenty-one year old English major from Kansas. Not Possible.

I have had a very emotional night that had nothing to do with this, and I solemnly hope it just blindsided me and I'll be sane again tomorrow. Sane. Friendly, yes? Yes. Just friendly. Friends.

I'm falling in love with a twenty-one year old. Shouldn't the world be EXPLODING OR SOMETHING?

*whimper*

O.o

Date:	2009-06-08 08:37
Subject:	Random of Random
Security:	Public
Mood:	blah
Music:	yipYIPyipyipyip

a. Name your 15 absolutely favourite fandom ships (try to pick different fandoms)
b. Ask people to see what trends and similarities they notice about your ships.

I saw this in ten different places with different headers, but this day SUCKS and the sun's barely up, so I am going to entertain myself and not worry about it.

(In random order.)

1. Watson/Holmes (Sherlock Holmes)
2. Kirk/Spock (old school TOS, I haven't even seen the new movie.)
3. Xena/Gabrielle (Xena Warrior Princess)
4. Hercules/Iolaus (Hercules, and Young Hercules, and actually some weird amalgam of them that bred in fandom.)
5. Jack/Daniel (SG-1) (When they're not written as daddy/son creepiness)
6. John/Rodney (SGA)
7. Garth/Dick Grayson (DC)
8. Sirius/Remus (Harry Potter) (Only in AUs where they don't die as throwaways)
9. Draco/Neville (Harry Potter)
10. Ziva/Jenny (NCIS) (This one should really be first.)
11. Tim/Abby (NCIS) (They're just so cute!)
12. Faith/Robin (BTVS)
13. Sam Vimes/Sybil Ramkin (Discworld)
14. Fraser/Ray K (Due South) (All fandom - I've never even seen the show.)
15. Crowley/Aziraphale (Good Omens)
16. Ronon/me (What? It's a fandom.) (Of one.)
17. Faith/me (Ditto)

Now if the question was BFFs...

1. Batman/Commisioner Gordan (DC)
2. Batman/Martian Manhunter (DC)
3. Sam Carter/Teal'c (SG-1)
4. John/Ronon (SGA)
5. Spock/Uhura (Old school TOS)(The playing, the singing, the keeping Kirk off-balance, <3)
6. Gibbs/Ducky (NCIS)
7. Wooster/Jeeves
8. Abby/Kate (NCIS)
9. Xander/Willow/Buffy (BTVS)
10. Charles/Wesley (Angel)
The problem now is that most of my OTP I also love as BFF. Hmph.
11. Tim/Abby (NCIS)
12. Xena/Gabrielle (XWP)
13. Kirk/Spock (TOS)
14. Jack/Daniel (SG-1)
15. Watson/Holmes

today that had "And people are crazy!" at the end of the chorus, and I laughed so hard I completely lost track of anything else in the rest of the song.

Life right now is not at all bad, compared to how it's been since, ohh, all those crazy Murphy's Law things I've survived. Health is better, crushed leg is mostly functional most of the time, I got mostly-unlaid-off after a fairly brief time, which puts me in better shape than most people where I live. I have an owl and a hawk living in monster hickory trees behind my house who get into bitch fights at dawn every morning from either side of the corner of the house where my bedroom lives. There are cuddly doggies, and acres of woods and a creek. I know wonderful people, and have one Thousandth Friend. And, at the moment, spinach-mushroom sauteed in honey-sesame-teriyaki sauce folded into mozzerella-melted-on-panini.

Things could be so much worse. Things have actually been so much worse. I am a fortunate soul.

People are crazy, though.

Delicious exciting fascinating intriguing creative insane.

Batshit lunatic manipulative delusional-memory corrosive insane.

I got all that second kind out of my life, though, a lot of years ago, and never looked back.

Even without the rest of it, that alone makes life good.

This has been a Life Update brought to you by an NCIS marathon and the hysterical hyper happiness that comes from getting that one piece of feedback that Just Gets It about something you were way too invested in. :p

Peace, love, and blessed distance where necessary.

Your Animal is the Stag

You are a proud, independent person. You take care of yourself and are very attractive. You keep a bit of a distance from the world, but you still understand it well. You are both spiritual and intuitive. You are sensitive to all of the creatures around you. You enjoy travel, especially when it involves a long journey. You especially love traveling outdoors.

So I got into this long, ridiculous, impossible conversation with someone (no one within a million miles of lj or fanfic) recently about "being open-minded and non-judgmental and loving" versus "having convictions and speaking and acting for them."

Huh, right? Setting that up as a "versus" kind of dooms the conversation from the start.

I had said something about how much I value fidelity, and that while I believe only the people in a relationship have any right to define what that means to them (from completely open to outside partners, to don't you even LOOK) I reserved the right not to get into a relationship or stay in a relationship with someone who had different ideas about what fidelity meant. That I completely respected the other's ability to have their own opinions, but that they could have them down the road with someone else if they were too different from mine.

I also said that people who *didn't* have a mutual standard and understanding with their partners sneaking around and serving their lower standards behind their partners' backs made me ill. Betrayal is my big sin. (I didn't say that there.) Gaining someone's trust and then indulging yourself in a way that breaks that trust or harms them is just - no. And I can't respect anyone who does that. (And I made it clear that I was very aware that life was complicated, and that I wasn't in any way talking about any situation of abuse, etc.)

She gave me her life story in three acts in excrutiating detail, apparently all in defense of the fact that while she was nobly martyring herself in an unsatisfying marriage for the sake of her children, she had every right to the profound emotional affair she was having and how dare I say she didn't.

And the thing is? I don't know anything about her life. I don't know how true or not true her statements or her conclusions were. Maybe she really is a heroic martyr clinging to the only shred of happiness available to her. (although she spends ten hours a day screwing around on the internet and doesn't work, so she's got a lot more ease than most people.)

But it doesn't matter. She's made a choice. She doesn't want to change it. She's doing something I find repugnant. She doesn't need my help. There are billions of people in the world. The ones among them who make the compromises she does are not ones I want anything to do with. I'm not hurting her by saying that (not that I said that to her either.) But I do not suddenly become the Evil Judginator because I honestly feel that certain people's moral choices are beyond my comprehension. I'm not stomping around saying that on flagpoles, or putting my opinions out there like that either. It was a discussion about "what do you believe counts as cheating." I didn't single her out. But seriously - pages and pages of this weird, edged, "Well, but PEOPLE who suggest that they are BETTER THAN my POSITION are just JUDGING and I have NO RESPECT for them *flounceflounceflounce*"

And I finally got to whatever about it, but it just reminded me how crazy-making the "if you refuse to validate me, or even obscurely say something I can interpret not to validate me, I will attack you" people are. Everyone needs a certain amount of that from their friends or whatever, but going out looking for a fight with the whole world? This is not a fragile snowflake woman, she's one of those domineering creeps who, if you persist in not bowing before her, will suddenly wilt and cry "bully" - because not letting her command you breaks her fragile soul, dontcha know.

Well, sure. Whatever. I'm 33 years-old and it took me a long time to get to where I could tell even the people closest to me that I thought they were not being fair, to be able to have a reasonable conversation about mutual expectation and consideration. It took me a long time to feel I had the right. I do believe in self-determination, personal responsibility, sexual responsibility, and the sanctity of marriage. I do believe in taking the hard, sharp paths, not the long, corrosive ones. I believe it for ME, and for the people I choose to care about. I have reasons for all of that with no self-righteousness behind them. I refuse to feel guilty for that.

And maybe this should seem like it should go without saying, but it doesn't. The label of "judgmental" has become the ultimate insult to throw. But I do believe the saw about "don't be so open minded your brain falls out or so open-hearted you bleed to death." There are people in this world I want to understand, because understanding other minds is an occupation I value, but who I don't want to associate with. And I sometimes need to say that really plainly, because god, I've spent so much of my life being so easily drawn in, I get very blind in affection.

So here endeth the blahblah with something by someone much smarter and with conviction strong enough to turn the world over. At the end of the day, all takes aren't equally valid.

Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
-Rev. MLKJ

I think the world is full of frogs.

No, really! Bear with me here.

I had something get carried off by a dog to the other side of a shallow-water-but-deep-ditch creek. My clumsy limpy butt did a skip-clomp thing to get to the other side. It is, in fact, February. A frog THE SIZE OF A TRUCK HUBCAP sounded off like a bull gator and leapt just as my foot passed him and was able to throw water in a big splash AS TALL AS MY HEAD.

That was a few days ago. Now? It's still February, for those playing the home game. It has been really cold here. Nevertheless about an hour ago I was awakened from my happy slumber by a sound like ARUOMMMM, ARUOMMMM, ARUOMMMMMM. It was almost a fan whumwhum, but - not. I thought something was wrong with the heating unit, maybe a branch had fallen just amazingly wrong to be poking through the mesh or something, so out I stagger with a flashlight to a chorus of exited doglets, and around back.

Nada. Nothing to see. Can't even hear the noise. Back inside with me, hopping and saying dire things about cold damp grass and house sandals and how it is a star-crossed love affair betwixt them.

ARUOMMMMM ARUOMMMMMM ARUOMMMMMM

I try to peek through the office blinds, wondering if there's some mutated cow sneaking up through the pasture to the back of the house when I'm not looking. I lose my balance leaning around the chair and PULL THE BLINDS DOWN, fortunately not on my head. Naked windows! No noise.

I slot the blinds back up, and sit in my office chair, feeling very, very, deeply offended by all things in the universe EVER, including poor little mes who are never allowed enough sleep EVER and who feel very sorry for ourselves about it.

ARUOMMMARUOMMMARUOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

I hit the window, pointlessly.

Silence.

Ding!

I go back outside with the flashlight and point it at the window ABOVE the heating unit (with now-crooked blinds.)

It was the size of my thumb. If my thumb was on a diet. It didn't like the light, but apparently knew it was busted, because it just got LOUDER.

So hey, nature girl, I'll just catch the frog and set him off in the bushes and all will be happy with the world. So I step out of my sandals and up on the heating unit, which is SUCH a good idea for me to be doing for, oh, half a dozen reasons.

And I step on a frog.

A DIFFERENT frog.

And not step-on-frog-go-squoosh-I-need-to-wash-my-foot. Step-on, feel squishiness, yank foot off, manage not to kill frog, turn ankle, loose balance, try to twist and jump, realize wrong leg, kind of roll but mostly go THWUMP full length in the grass.

WHERE THERE IS ANOTHER FROG.

I don't know if it was frog number two or frog number three or a brand new frog number four, but at this point? Oh, yeah, how little is it even POSSIBLE to care?

I got the waterhose.

They are now a number of very clean frogs who are not attempting to rocket-pee at me (yeah, I spared you that part,) or get under my feet, or go ARRUOOMMMM in my window like a deranged Buddhist, because they have played slip'n'slide across my yard into the ditch with Bull Gator Voice, where hopefully they are being instructed in the errors of their ways by their wise elder, and not made into snacks.

There is quiet in the land. I am thumped, soaked, pee'd at and WAY hyper.

Yeah, I'm getting back to sleep now. PSHHHH.


In should-be-more-serious-but-I'm-too-cracked, but I do mean this -

I hope everyone is all right. There's a lot of scary shit going on right now, and a lot of less-dramatic but equally bad things happening, and I don't keep anything close to in touch even with people I like very well, because I firmly believe you are all out to eat me, and this makes me tired.

I hope you're all well, and happy. And if you're not, I hope you're at least safe and fed and warm. And if you're not, drop me a line.

I have lots of spare bedrooms in this house, and frequent flyer miles I'll NEVER use. ;]

Take care of yourselves. Be well.

Mostly? I'm just wondering how on earth I've managed to miss this all this time.

How Not To Write a Hercules Slash Story by Helena Handbasket

Not that Hercules, himself, was a homosexual. He was not typically attracted to men and besides some experimenting with Iphicles as a child and a few dismissable instances with Jason, Theseus, Salmoneus, Derek, Autolycus, Iloran, Hades, Ares, Hephaestus, Strife, Cupid, and Apollo at various desperate moments in his life, he didn't have a lot of experience. Oh, and then there was that time with Charon, but he did his very best to forget about that one. Such was the passionate nature of his eternal love for Iolaus that it transcended gender and focused on the pure and naked beauty of the soul; and then, of course, there was the pure and naked beauty of the body which, in Iolaus' case, was not to be underestimated.


No, I have no idea how I got here. Yes, it had something to do with Yuletide links. No, I have no clue how I got here from there. Yes, as always, it is River's fault. Yes, whether it actually is or not.

Two smartest things said to me today :

Some people need WAY more trouble in their lives, if they're so bored they can get up to this shit.

On the art of sophisticatedly wanking people across fandoms, continents, and years, to blame them for what an asshole you were at 21.

And

Friendship is about give and take; I give you unwanted affection, you give me your ass. In response to http://i37.tinypic.com/30igi1e.jpg Crantz is made of awesome. This always bears repeating.

I have come through the holiday angst! Yay! And so there are silly thing.

<td> <table border="0" width="450" bgcolor="#000000">

You will take over Comoros using only some kickboxing moves you picked up on the street

Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com

</td>
</table>

'What will your obituary say?' at QuizGalaxy.com

And they return.

Stupid woman wasn't actually very sucky. She obviously cared about the pups, and they were well taken care of, and seemed quite fond of her.

Just, please, entire world? Puppies are *work.* Even grown dogs are work when they come to a new environment, but puppies, even older puppies, are lots and lots of work. They chew and dig and romp and pee, until you teach them better, and are firm about it. Even if they've been taught not to in another place. Because they are PUPPIES, and they will get away with what they can. And that's just normal puppies. Survived-poisoning-by-crazy-evil-man(mom almost died and sister and brother died) puppies, almost eight months old who've only known one home where they were spoiled to make up for nastiness? Take lots and lots of work. Vague good intentions just don't cut it.

I'm still grumpily bitter I had to drive that far, but I'll get over it. They really are terribly sweet little puppies, and they remembered me, and there was much tiny cuddling.

So, internet world - Anyone out there who wants a (see above) puppy who might be a little high maintenance at first? Neither of them is aggressive, just shy, and they are house trained, and good about it when they aren't frightened (in which case it's the remotest corner they can find.) Both are boys, both had a really tough start in life. I also have their sister, who is smaller with honey-colored shorter hair, but she would need someone with experience - she's not only shy, she does still have an aggression-when-frightened thing going I haven't managed to break her of yet, although she's the cuddliest and loviest of the bunch with me, and craves tummy strokes.

One brother and one sister have gone to homes that took the time and effort, and they've had zero problems, and both were well-adjusted within a few weeks, although still not quite ready to welcome strangers with enthusiasm.

These dogs are registerable and run between $400 and $600, but I'm asking for good, decent, PREPARED homes, and a reasonable tax-deductible donation (You'll get a slip.) Pass the word, they'd make awesome Christmas gifts to the right person, and I don't mind driving to meet people (can I again stress the WHO ARE PREPARED.)

Stupid woman takes puppies, stupid woman decides puppies are too much work, now I have to go across a state to get puppies back. Hatred for people who think none of it's work. (Even if that isn't fair, venting, so nyah.)