Profile

I've posted most of my stories at Archive of Our Own

Freak, born and raised in Maine. I believe anything can be improved with the addition of rum and pirates. :)

When I started this journal July 2nd, 2001 I was unemployed and working on fixing up a 150yo house in East Kingston, NH, with Eor, who I've been with since 1992. Since then things have changed a lot. I now train people for a specialized type of security, and we're living in Maine in a house built in the 1790s. ETA: In 2022 we sold the 1790s house and moved to an apartment 'temporarily'. We're still there, looking for land where we can have a house built to specifications, because we'd like to be warm in this lifetime.

I'm daegaer's Official First Stalker Fangirl.

Dramatis Personae:

eor - Light of my life and center of my universe, the brilliant one with the really nice butt. ;) When we got together we agreed we would look for a girlfriend for both of us, but so far the other love of both our lives has refused to show up. Still, we're very lucky to have found each other. :)

Hawk/Daddy Longshanks - My brother, four years younger, living in Seattle. He's made drums, done building and finish carpentry, taught music and taught English in Korea, played upright bass with a bluegrass band called Loose Digits (who made rather a good name for themselves in the Seattle area and can be watched on YouTube), and is currently a physician's assistant. He and his Mate (Minx) made a little girl. While she was pregnant he also was diagnosed with lung cancer. (He has never smoked.) Just after the baby was born they discovered it was already in his bones. Hawk focuses intently on his health and after nine years still looks fit as a fiddle.

Eightball - My brother, six years younger, taught English in Korea, then taught meditation and martial arts for years, ran a Dahn center, worked at an organic vegetable farm, and now is caretaker at an Air B'N'B place in Arizona.

Minx/Mommy Longshanks - Hawk's Mate, a specialist in teaching kids who need extra help for some reason.

Miss Longshanks - Daughter of Hawk and Minx, born in 2014. When 3 she was obsessed with climbing on Hawk/Daddy Longshanks and having him toss her in the air, eating paper tissues (don't let small children watch Aver The Exentric's napkin-eating routine), and Daniel Tiger. Now that she's 9 she's into soccer.

Sillama - Mom, deceased March 2014. In the 60s she lived on Swan's Island off the coast of Maine teaching kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grade. At the end she lived in Korea, teaching English to kids. Died within about a month after hearing that Hawk's mate was pregnant. (2014 was a bad year for my family, but at least she never learned that Hawk had cancer.) "trip to Corea" is the link to her old journal, and her even older journal is at Heartland Cottage.

Dad, deceased April 25, 2011. Taught 3rd, 4th and 5th grades together in the Swan's Island schoolhouse in the mid '60s. Around 1969 became part of the Maine State Child Protective Services (which referred to themselves as "The Midnight Baby-Snatchers"), then moved to adult protective (of the mentally challenged) and then to job placement.

Various Co-workers DD/DoubleD/Donatello, DS/Stovey/Style (ETA 2024 - transferred away), KD/Diz (ETA 2024 - different shift, never see her), RP/Preacher/Reverend/Rev. (ETA 2024 - deceased), TG/Mainertoo (ETA 2024 - transferred), JB(now JH)/Li'l Sis (ETA 2024 - works in a different department), PL/Malibu (ETA 2024 - retired), KT/RockCollector.

and ex-Co-workers (some I can't even remember, but if they appeared in a post they had to have some kind of reference): Ricco, Phoebe, jigsaw92301, SC/SkirtChaser, CP/Pappy/Pompous, PB/Slinky/Misstress of the Night, GT/Saxman Butch/Mr. Pink/Lance Hardbody (died the year after my Mom and we all miss him very much), DZ/Mr.Z, DK/The Big Nap (ETA 2024 - deceased), CG/CeeJay (ETA 2024 - transferred), MD/Detail/GoldyFan/GoldyBoy, FC(or possibly PC)/FIL/Efeyel, BD/Waldorf The Mole, RH/Fatima, BB/BuddyBoy, CL/Wibby, CN/Needy, JL/Staedtler, ND/Casper the Friendly Ghostman (ETA 2024 - had a psychotic break and went into psych ward), DT/T-Bird, SS/Big Mama (died about five months after my Mom), KL/Uncle K., JD/jimdes, RS/Furry Hatt Liberal (ETA 2024 - went into psych ward), MB/MarinerBrook, NV/Not Very, JA/Mr. Anderson, EG/ElvenGirl (ETA 2024 - I hang out with her more now than I did when I worked with her), DS/Mr. Knowitall, JD(W)/Duffy/Duckling (ETA 2024 - committed suicide).

If you want to hear my voice it's here.

Favorite Quotes:
" - imagine that, if Buddhists are right then we get a season ticket to see the Grim Reaper in action! (I'm not too sure I'd like that: one life has been embarrassing enough, but several? Do we leave the wheel of life when we have built up enough chagrin to drag us off?)"
--Richard Weir (contributing on "Stand Still, Stay Silent" fan discussion)

"The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and riffle their pockets for new vocabulary."
--James Nicoll

"Never attibute to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity."
--(Often called "Hanlon's Razor," this quote is attributed variously to William James, Robert J. Hanlon (1980), Robert Heinlein (1941), and Goethe (1774).)

"When in doubt, always ask yourself... What Would Jeeves Do?" --(I have no idea who to attribute this to, I think it sort of developed on IndeedSir, a LiveJournal fan group. But LucyLou made a wonderful shirt of it, which I bought for my Mom.)

"Oh, you hate your job? Y'know there's a support group for people like that. It's called EVERYBODY! We meet at the bar!"
--thepoorman

Pet Peeves:

- Women who do the iron cross over the toilet seat and leave it wet. For godSAKE, if you're not going to sit on it, raise the damned seat! And you probably complain that men are rude for not putting it back down. Grr.

- Customers trying to tell us that some other place lets them do whatever they want. Where are you? You're here, not that other place. Get over it.

Of me, it has been written, by bravecows:

Derien gave me the code that allowed me to embark upon my Life as a LiveJournaler, so she should technically own my soul, except that she's too nice to make a claim on it. derien's a rock -- a lighthouse on the cruel shore of LJ; a lamp in the wintry waste of the Internet; a damned nice person among masses of human beings that, frankly, would go for discount price at a People Garage Sale. (You would maybe be allowed to bargain for derien, because you wouldn't be able to afford that kind of quality otherwise.) Anyone who's ever talked to her knows how warm and silly and clever and fun she is, but here's something you might not know: she has the mad epistolary skillz you always wished you have but could never quite manage. Her letters are pure joy -- full of human interest and quotidian detail, people she knows and conversations she's had and things that happened along the way. Doesn't sound like first-page material, you might say. Hah! That just goes to show you haven't read any of her letters. I have, nyer! *preens*


(Makes me want to ask everyone I've ever written to for copies of my letters back. Considering my memory that would be the only way I'd ever recapture much of my life.)

Other places where I have accounts I ignore:

I'm on...

...OKCupid as derien3.

...Facebook.


...Blogger, or possibly BlogSpot - I thought these were two different sites, but now both links seem to go to the same place.

...EZBoard as Derien3. (I joined that to find my cousin's fanfic.)

...MySpace as Derien3. (Truly impossible to figure out how to do anything or how to see anyone else's profile. If you happen to stumble on someone it'll be completely by accident. With the added benefit of multitudes of people you would never want to know attempting to friend you.)

...Digital Pulp as Derien Demarais. (For posting stories, not really a blogging tool. Nevertheless, not really that good for posting stories on because of their annoying format where you have to click to the next page after nearly every paragraph of the story.)

...Yahoo 360 as DerienMe or Derien, I'm not precisely sure which you should search for, there. (Lousy interface.)

...Friendster as Derien. (Friendster is not only impossible to find things on, it's ridiculously slow uploading each. and. every. page. You may die of old age before you get a chance to make any friends there.)

...Vox as Derien.

...MeetUp as Derien.

...Zorpia as Derien. So far the class of interaction there seems very shallow. It's mostly dating-for-sex, I think.

...The Onion personals as derien3.

...Derien at InsaneJournal - sad looking imitation of LJ.

...Linked In - a business networking site, expensive, I don't want to pay.

...Yuku as Derien3 (It's a migration from EZBoard).

...Gays.com - a queer networking site, in beta at present and very buggy, but I'll keep checking back on it.

...Xanga as derien3.

...Harvey Milk Forum - my name on there is Derien Nada.

Photos of me and my life can be found at flickr.



Sorry this page is such a mess, but I use it as a dumping ground for anything I want to keep track of - as such it is an accurate representation of me and my life. My quote in my high school yearbook was "Where did I put my..." and it's still applicable today. I was diagnosed as Attention Deficit a few years ago, which has been helpful.