user2637

Hi, I'm Desirée, but you can call me Ray or Des if you like. I'm mostly going by Ray now around the 'net (love the androgyny / sex ambiguity of it!) but sometimes forget and sign things 'Des' since that nickname is much older. :)

Sadly, I am chronically ill with Fibromyalgia Syndrome, which includes many symptoms that vary day to day. It's awful, but I try to deal with it or ignore it (ha!). I end up being pretty anti-social when the FMS gets bad.

It's hard for me to venture out into the world sometimes due to my severe asthmatic allergies to cats, cigarette smoke, and many scented items, which includes intentionally scented things like perfume, body lotion, cologne, and fabric softener, and accidentally scented things like dry erase markers, and cleaning solutions. Luckily, I've never found a craft supply that I'm allergic to when it's dry, so don't fret over that! Please do try your best to not send me "fragranced" or "scented" things, or cats, haha. I greatly appreciate it.

If you, or someone in your household smokes and the swap has been exposed to smoke, please mark the envelope somehow. If you do, I can use science to get the smell out. Yay!

In my free time, I like watching movies, playing board games or D&D, papercrafting, reading, and learning new things. I don't knit or sew too much anymore as it's hard on my hands/arms. I would take college classes forever if I had the time, money, and spoons to do so.

I am an unrepentant feminist, atheist, humanist, scientist. I believe in equality of all humans, and hate that our laws don't reflect this. I believe gender is not binary and personally do not identify as female. I believe in evolution, and other peer-reviewed scientific facts. I believe in asking questions, lots of questions. I eschew quackery, homeopathy, pseudo-science, and illogic.

Update 15Jun2020:

....still on hiatus... keeping my account of course but I dunno if/when I’ll get back to swapping.

...depression sucks.

Profile-specific are my favorite. Regardless, I will always check my partner's profile!

I am very proactive. When I host, I check to see if everyone sent on time, and don't 'archive' the swap until I've verified everyone has sent, rec'd, and been rated. I find keeping on top of this helps avoid 'surprise' ratings.

I try to rate fairly and to use the rating system as it's meant to be used. As for mailing, I mark a swap 'sent' when I put it in my mailbox to be picked up. Sometimes this happens in the evening and the swap gets picked up the next day.

Loving Pocket Letters right now. I want a binder FULL of them! I prefer mine to be fully decorated on the front, so I can flip through my binder later and enjoy the artsy-ness of them again. Empty pockets make me sad!

Washi tape is still an obsession.

I collect Rolos. My rolodex can take cards up to 4 1/8" wide and 3" tall. I prefer the backside to have the holes at the TOP.

ATCs!!!! They are so small and easy to collect. I have a whole 4" binder full already. I have pages dedicated to science, handdrawn/handpainted, Firefly, Buffy (the show), Halloween-esque, Torchwood, and Doctor Who. Also working on a collection of seahorse ATCs.

Colors: Orange is my favorite! Right about the 620 nanometer wavelength, specifically. I like all other colors except pink, and red/white/blue together. I can do without pastels and gold as well.

Snacks: My partner and I love to try new snacks, candies, chips, etc. We prefer dark chocolate with stuff in it (but not coconut or licorice). Love hot cocoa, tea, and coffee mixes. Chocolate+peanutbutter=♥

~~Themes I like~~

Animals: Pretty much any realistic looking animals with the exception of spiders/arachnids. I'm not too fond of housecats either, but they are nice in silhouette form. Some of my favorites are: anteaters, baby mammals, bats (fruit bats!!), beavers, bees, beetles, boar, bunnies, capybaras, chickens, chinchillas, cows, crows, dinosaurs, ducks, feathered dinosaurs, foxes (especially fennec, silver, and red), goats, hedgehogs, hummingbirds, kiwi, koalas, lemurs, octopodes, owls (especially little and barn), penguins, platypuses, puppies (corgi!), otters, raccoons, red pandas, seahorses, sloths, snakes, squirrels, stingrays, sugar gliders, turtles, zonkeys.

Food: Pretty much all fruits and vegetables, pineapples, citrus fruits, blood oranges. Also coffee, tea, cupcakes, cakes, mushrooms, pumpkins. Foods with faces are adorable.

Games: Scrabble & word games, craps, poker, roulette, Clue, Monopoly. Most board games. Dice. Decks of cards.

I've finally given in and started collecting Aces of Diamonds, my 'lucky' card since grade school. Not lucky exactly, but it seems to pop up everywhere. Would love some from weird decks of cards (I have a lot of Bicycle cards and normal red/blue backed cards already).

Science: Planets, stars, space, spaceships, atoms, chemical symbols, anatomy, robots, androids, floorplans, technical plans or diagrams, maps, roadmaps, gears, clocks, hardware like screws & nails, tools, crime scene investigation, fingerprints.

Dark: Skulls, gore, blood spatter, fire, serial killers (real and fictitious), Halloween, horror, macabre, graveyards, gothic, bones, steampunk, vampires (True Blood, Dracula, Elizabeth Bathory but not so much Twilight), zombies.

Misc: Artistamps, postoids, or other fake stamp-like-things. Stamped images. Embossed images (with a machine or with powder). Handdrawn. Handpainted. Russian, German, Latin, Esperanto. Paisley, plaid, stripes, chevrons, solids, swirly patterns. Cityscapes. Leaves, trees, vines. Super heroes and comic characters. Robots. Motorcycles. Book pages with words, numbers, diagrams. Ephemera. Punctuation, especially asterisks and ampersands. Knitting, sewing, cross-stitch. LGBTQIA support. Atheism. Anything from the TV shows, Movies, Music, and Books I've listed below.

Fragrances: Please do not send me anything fragranced. They can make me ill, thanks.

Colors: Red, white, and blue together. Gold. Pastels. PINK. To be clear, I HATE pink. When I get pink things, they make me sad, and just go right into the "give away" pile. It's a huge pile and all pink. Please don't send pink, even as an extra! I do occasionally join sender's choice swaps, so I know that I will invariably receive pink in those and that's my fault for joining sender's choice.

Themes: Anything religious. Americana. FLOWERS, as most flowers I see are pink or pinkish-red, or it looks like a flower shop exploded onto the paper or whatever, I'm not a fan. I don't hate-hate them, but I don't typically keep or use things with flowers on them. Astrology. Cutesy/girly (if a stereotypical girl or young woman would like it, I probably wouldn't. Think of me as male, if that helps). I don't like hearts like this ♥ (but I love anatomical hearts). French. Holidays items, except Halloween which I love, and non-religious Xmas stuff is growing on me--but V-Day, Easter, 4th of July, etc. aren't my style. Realistic spiders (SO arachnophobic!). Zentangles.

Loose glitter -- it gets everywhere! Glitter that is secured down to items is okay.

Things I don't need: Unless the swap specifically calls for it, or it's related to one of my "likes" and you think I'll love it!: Magnets. Bookmarks (unless Book Darts). Keychains. Jewelry. Makeup. Body products. Hair accessories. Clothing. Plain-colored envelopes.

Movies: Amelie. Lilo and Stitch. The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The Boondock Saints. Donnie Darko. Shock Treatment. Rushmore. Office Space. The Princess Bride. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. SuperTroopers. Repo! The Genetic Opera. Serenity. Big Hero Six. Wreck-It Ralph. Wes Anderson flicks. Musicals! Star Trek (the reboot is GREAT). Super hero films; Guardians of the Galaxy was so good!

T.V.: Firefly (I like in order: Simon, Mal, River, Wash, Kaylee). Doctor Who (the 11th Doctor is my fav). Torchwood (swoon Captain Jack swoon Ianto Jones). Buffy (Spike is my favorite!). The Big Bang Theory. Dexter. True Blood (Eric Northman!). Primeval. The Walking Dead. Arrow. Archer (horrible people but I LOL every episode). Castle. Bones. House. The 4400. Psych. ReGenesis. Eureka. Warehouse 13. Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Battlestar Galactica. Fringe. Star Trek. Gotham. The Librarians. Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Marvel's Agent Carter. Girls. Hannibal. Helix. Rick and Morty! And so, so many more shows that have ended or were canceled well before their time.

Music: The Dresden Dolls. Amanda Palmer. Vermillion Lies. Nine Inch Nails. Rammstein. Fiona Apple. Hamell On Trial. Jonathan Coulton. Rent Soundtrack. Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog soundtrack. Repo! The Genetic Opera soundtrack. Kirby Krackle (geektastic!).

Reading: Sci-fi with actual science, like Red Mars, The Martian, and Rendevous with Rama. Mysteries. Humorous. Serial killer books like the Silence of the Lamb series and Dexter. Books made into movies (of genres I like). Books that continue/expand movies/tv shows that I like. Non-fiction books about science. Books by Tim Powers, Miranda July, Joey Comeau, Robert Heinlein, Christopher Moore, David Sedaris, Tom Robbins, Mary Roach, Isaac Asimov. Cookbooks. I guess I'm starting to like fantasy, but only the kind where I can pronounce everything and don't have to learn a new language. ;) I'm pretty much over YA dystopian trilogies -- too many, too similar.

I can dream, right? ;)

• I'm in love with all the new postage stamps. Would LOVE to get used stamps (on envies sent to me or previously used) of all the planets + Pluto & New Horizons (I have rec'd Neptune, Uranus, & Jupiter!), the pets (chinchillia and hermit crab are top of the list, cats are at the bottom haha). (I rec'd all the Star Trek stamps, yaaaaay!)
• Aces of Diamonds from weird decks of cards.
• Flat, paper paraphernalia from any of my fandoms: Doctor Who, The Big Bang Theory, Walking Dead, Buffy, Firefly(!!!), Torchwood, etc. (list of tv shows and movies above).
• Profile-based Rolos, ATCs, Flipper-books, or Pocket Letters.
• Medium/largish paper punches / punchies
• Solid colored embossed papers (with a machine, not powder)
• Stencils (any size) -- Thanks to @ArtyBeth3 for sending me a handful of stencils. They are awesome!
• Rec'd Doctor Who UK stamps!! Hooray! Huge thanks to @sassafrass for sending me a beautiful entire set of these. Just framed them!

This section is a work in progress....

I'm open to private swaps with swappers in good standing, though probably only within the USA due to postage costs. Here are some things I can send:

• handmade envies -- I have one of those envie boards and have figured out measurements for PL-pocket-sized envies, as well as large envies to fit fairly well-stuffed PLs themselves.
• scrabble tiles -- I have a lot of the basic tiles, and also black plastic "L33t" tiles with neon green letters on them.
• postcards -- to be used by you. I have a pile of them but almost never use them.
• used stamps -- tons of old Russian / USSR stamps, nicely off paper and in great condition. Also I save all the stamps from the envies I receive, basically just to send off to SB'ers.
• stamped images -- the stamps tend toward my 'likes' above, so keep that in mind. I also have a Inkadinkado Stamping Gear kit, which makes for interesting stamping.
• Santa Cruz, California swag -- I live here so if there are things you desire from here, maybe we can set something up!

...more to come!

Tag/Angel/RAK/Rockstar/Flaker notes (just for me to keep track):

Rockstars! @oblivionspin . @stephiedee . @kiddomerriweather . @sassafrass . @libertylithium . @FiWebster . @VivaLaDiane . @Snuggles555 . @Hell0Z0mbie . @smadronia . @stlouisphile . @jannieb . @biasbabe . @starrycat . @Snoskimouse . @Saristotle . @TC . @ImzadiRose . @CalyD

Swappers who flaked on me or my swaps (all angeled already): @rockyhorrorgerri . @APlusAmigurumi . @doulton . @evillinna . @Anne510 . @Yelrebmik . @feliciaclark7 . @MrsDoubleA . @InSkyDiamonds . @Krystalk . @fineapple