Hello, my name is helen-louise, geek girl extraordinaire. I have one and a half laptops, two partners, seven video game consoles, 100s of cuddly toys and 1000s of books. This is all most people need to know to work out if they'll like me :)
I wear mostly black, blue, pink and purple. I love food, eating out, and finding ways to make tasty food that's compatible with my dietary restrictions. I'm doing a PhD in chemistry. I love technology, but also care about the planet, and want to balance getting cool new stuff against its environmental impact. I love travel, but prefer to keep air travel to a minimum, which means I do a lot of train journeys round Europe. I'm a big public transport fan, and a bigger human-powered transport fan.
This journal's existed since April 2001. I tend to post in bursts - a lot of posts close together, then nothing for a week. My livejournal friends list is my trusted people list, not my watched journals list. Many people are on one but not the other. You don't have to ask to friend me, just do it! My full friends list and linking policies are here.
All my contact details including email address are in a friends-locked post here. And my lj email address forwards to my usual account.
This is the explanation of why my lj name is baratron. No, it most definitely is not my nickname.
Here are some random words to describe me: Queer, polyamorous, bisexual. Geek. Science Genius Girl! Childfree but child-friendly. Disabled. Currently using a wheelchair - woo. Intermittently asexual. Neither butch nor femme nor androgynous. Occasionally feminine, but usually by accident. Thoughtful & interested in Stuff. Half-practical, half-dreamer. Grammar pedant, but Fond of Random Capital Letters and Brackets. More, including my personal definitions of these labels here.
Important people in my life: Richard - wuzzie - life partner. Hairy ewok boy, more feminine than me despite having a beard! We've been together since 1997 and are co-owners of a house. Now legally married (since 2012-02-01). Woo. Alexa - otterylexa - girlfriend. Tall, gorgeous ottery person into goth music and swimming. We've been together since 2002. Live apart and suffer from depression squared. Tim - meeping - best friend from college and Survivor Of The Baratron Incident. Peter - gerwinium - life partner of Tim and general fox-type person. Stel - stellarwind - fellow science geek, sufferer of Middle Eastern politics, and my best friend who I've never met in person.
Official member of the Too Many Interests To Fit in 150 Club.