Lizard
March 22nd, 2008, 10:40 PM
I bet I lurked at D'D for two months before finally joining just a short week ago. I had read about the Felicia Mikels case over at another site, Googled and found D'D's coverage, and haven't left since. Pretty much all the stories on here are heartbreakers, but I found Felicia's story so sad on so many levels, and I'm sure part of it has to do with the fact that probably only one or two decisions or circumstances prevented me or girls I grew up with from ending up in a similar situation. If she were around today, I would drive to her house and make up her bed with clean sheets and tell her she's a pretty girl without all the lip puckering. I hope we one day hear that her daughter is in a wonderful home and won't ever wind up on the Internet in a picture showing her sticking her underwear-clad ass out while standing in a cluttered bathroom. Yeah, I'd go clean up that bathroom, too.
Uncertain over what sorts of details are best included in an introduction like this, I'll stick with the high points. After grad school, I was a juvenile detention officer for two years and then worked at a juvenile justice consulting firm for 2 1/2 years. Since then, I've been at a pretty non-sexy job at A Large Midwestern University, but there's a helluva lot less stress, I get to do some interesting things, and the benefits are pretty good (with the exception of Monday mornings, when the walk into work from my car could mean coming across evidence of the students' alcoholic excesses over the weekend). Away from work, I share an old and pretty small house with my husband, two dogs, six resident cats, and four foster cats. I've been involved in animal welfare in this area for about 10 years, starting off slow by socializing shelter cats, then moving up to providing care to sick shelter cats, then on to providing foster care for scared, sick, and/or dying foster cats and kittens. (I've also fostered a few dogs and a ferret that was determined to leave me with no fingers.) For other animal lovers out there, I think Nathan Winograd is the shit and recommend his book if you haven't read it. You can count on me jumping in to any animal-related threads that pop up.
On the relaxation and recreation side, I'm a big reader, especially of sci fi and true crime when the writing isn't so bad it drives me batshit. I also like Robert Crais (RC readers know how sweet it would be if we could sic Joe Pike on some of the slobs featured on D'D) and Andrew Vachss (still don't know why he wears that eye patch). Hubby and I don't have the Sci Fi Channel, so we're just now getting into season 3 of BSG, since the DVDs shipped this past week. I've also been making my way back through seasons 1-4 of Babylon 5 (didn't even bother buying season 5) and can't figure out why I haven't picked up Alien Nation yet.
Hubby and I are both originally from the south (me--Texas and Louisiana, him--Arkansas) but moved to the Midwest when I started grad school. We loved the weather and the personality of the town, so we just never left. He's recently returned to grad school; not sure what the future holds once he's done. Maybe we'll stay here, maybe we'll go check out another part of the country.
So far, I've had a blast at D'D and have every intention of continuing to do so!
Uncertain over what sorts of details are best included in an introduction like this, I'll stick with the high points. After grad school, I was a juvenile detention officer for two years and then worked at a juvenile justice consulting firm for 2 1/2 years. Since then, I've been at a pretty non-sexy job at A Large Midwestern University, but there's a helluva lot less stress, I get to do some interesting things, and the benefits are pretty good (with the exception of Monday mornings, when the walk into work from my car could mean coming across evidence of the students' alcoholic excesses over the weekend). Away from work, I share an old and pretty small house with my husband, two dogs, six resident cats, and four foster cats. I've been involved in animal welfare in this area for about 10 years, starting off slow by socializing shelter cats, then moving up to providing care to sick shelter cats, then on to providing foster care for scared, sick, and/or dying foster cats and kittens. (I've also fostered a few dogs and a ferret that was determined to leave me with no fingers.) For other animal lovers out there, I think Nathan Winograd is the shit and recommend his book if you haven't read it. You can count on me jumping in to any animal-related threads that pop up.
On the relaxation and recreation side, I'm a big reader, especially of sci fi and true crime when the writing isn't so bad it drives me batshit. I also like Robert Crais (RC readers know how sweet it would be if we could sic Joe Pike on some of the slobs featured on D'D) and Andrew Vachss (still don't know why he wears that eye patch). Hubby and I don't have the Sci Fi Channel, so we're just now getting into season 3 of BSG, since the DVDs shipped this past week. I've also been making my way back through seasons 1-4 of Babylon 5 (didn't even bother buying season 5) and can't figure out why I haven't picked up Alien Nation yet.
Hubby and I are both originally from the south (me--Texas and Louisiana, him--Arkansas) but moved to the Midwest when I started grad school. We loved the weather and the personality of the town, so we just never left. He's recently returned to grad school; not sure what the future holds once he's done. Maybe we'll stay here, maybe we'll go check out another part of the country.
So far, I've had a blast at D'D and have every intention of continuing to do so!