widdershawns

1. Comment to this entry saying 'ICONS!'


2. I will pick 6 of your icons.


3. Make an entry in your own journal and talk about the icons I chose.

kyuuketsukirui asked about:

leopardsex

This icon was a result of winchestercon 2007 in LA. It came up in a panel on crackfic (I think? or maybe it was badfic?) and it was in reference to a particular fic that, IIRC, involved one of the Winchesters turning into a leopard and having sex with the other one. Hilarity ensues. According to my records it was made by clexmonkie89, but I just checked and that username isn't active, so either I spelled it wrong or the journal's gone. Anyone know? I do try to credit appropriately. I took the icon because it was an awesomely fun panel and because sometimes, I like to be reminded of the ridiculousness of fandom. I've hardly ever actually used it.

key:heaven&hell

This is a picture of the back of my neck, showing my first tattoo. It was inspired by a quote that Richard Feynman claimed in one of his memoirs was said to him by a Buddhist monk in Brazil: To every man is given a key that opens the gates of heaven. The same key opens the gates of hell. That quote really stuck with me, as it represents one of my core beliefs that we humans have the potential for both truly wonderful and truly awful things, and it is the choices we make that determine the results. The image was designed by my bff Rob, and takes elements of the Key to Hell from Neil Gaiman's Sandman and traditional representations of the Keys of Heaven given to Saint Peter. I love my tattoo. I'm now thinking I should make a new icon of it that shows off my T-altered upper body a little, because I feel I don't quite look like that anymore.

spn-morgue_time_scooby_gang

This is an image from the beginning of Supernatural 2.03 Bloodlust. When I first watched that episode I think I'd recently watched the Buffy episode where Xander explains (to... is it Tara? Some new member of the gang...) "We do morgue time in the Scooby gang. But the icon amuses me because it conflates two of my favorite fandoms with a shoutout to a third, so it says "jam-packed full of meta and fanservice" to me. Shout-out to the geekery of fans kind of fanservice, that is, not gratuitous female flesh display kind of fanservice.

spn-shattered

Oh, Winchesters. I made this right after Supernatural 2.01 In My Time Of Dying aired, probably as I was still puffy-eyed and heart-wrenched after watching it. I loved the slow-motion coffee-splash imagery as Sam rushes over to his fallen father, and to me it's both a story and visual representation of Everything Horrible Happening And The World Shattering To Pieces. I've used it both for related fannish posts and for angsty My Life Is So Hard posts.

heroes_necklace

Sort of another tattoo-related icon. It's a closeup of Amnesia!Peter with the Haitian's necklace in Heroes 2.01 Four Months Later..., and I made it just after the episode aired. It was my default for several months, because I had recently gotten really into Heroes and had really latched onto the symbolism of, er, The Symbol. Shortly after I made this, I got my second tattoo, which includes the Symbol -- like the key, it reminds me of the greatness of human potential and the choices we must make to implement that potential well. Also I have a thing for Shirtless!Peter. And collarbones.

buffy boobsofangst

I made this icon a few years ago. Ancient history: Faith was my ultimate favorite character for some early portion of my fannish life (the part when I was an angsty college girl named Faith with repressed anger issues, I suppose) and I was feeling all nostalgic about that period and noticing that I didn't have any Faith icons. Also I wanted a Boobs icon, because sometimes you need one, so the image of Faith's Boobs Of Angst popped into my head. I've also found it appropriate to use when discussing feminism, misogyny, objectification of women, etc.

Figured I'd put a bit of something up about my L.A. move so here we go in a sort of "things I like about L.A. sort of way".

1: Winter is a choice
   It is never really cold here. Even in the part of L.A. where I live where the temperature fluctuates quite a bit, it's not ever what I would call cold. I THINK we had a tiny bit of frost 2 days last year in the mountains where I work, but that was very early in the morning and it was like 65 by noon in JANUARY. I do not think I've ever turned my heat on in my apartment.
I can fly to Baltimore, get 2 weeks of it and be done. Or I can go to Big Bear for 3 days and that's all she wrote. You actually kind of like winter when you choose it. Bryan says this makes me an asshole now because I come back to town and am like "Ohh look at this [breathes out cloud of fog]"


2: It also really never rains
   It has rained once since Valentines day. Once. It didn't rain at all for 8 months. Ever. Every day was sunny and nice. Everything is dewy in the mornings about 1/3 of the time from the air, but it never rains. Bill Maher even mentioned driving in the rain on his show the week it rained in L.A. for one day because that's how much of a novelty it is. Max was telling me about his "holy shit I think it's going to rain" moment.
This also means that there are zero, and I mean NONE AT ALL, of the annoying insects that live where it's wet. Like biting flies and mosquitoes. I have yet to see a single one let alone get bitten and I almost teach outdoors.

3: There are a LOT of non-meat eaters.
   This can sometimes be annoying, like when you enter a chili in a cook-off and like 1/2 of the judges won't eat it because it has animals in it thus putting me out of the contest by default. Or when you have some fine hoochie momma and you can't really cook for her properly because she just eats leaves and grass and pasta. And since I can cook, and well, this is bothersome.
However, Californians HAVE a lot of meat, they just choose not to eat it, so stores pretty much give it away. I bought a large filet mignon the other week and it was 3 dollars and I hardly needed a knife. Also, the Californians have never heard of an aged steak. Silly Californians, that's when it's good and tender.

4: There is pretty much always something going on.
   Between my theme park hopping, film location viewing and Dr. Drew related book appearances, there isn't a shortage of stuff to do here. Hell, often stuff is just happening and you blunder into it. This week True Blood was filming another graveyard scene right next to my school. And the Biggest Loser has been shooting about 50 yards down the street from the school in the other direction.






The True Blood graves.


5: The Californians have no will power
   It's like having the Jedi mind trick. You tell people this is how it's going to be, lean on them a little (or not at all as Travis will tell you) and they fold. This has saved me money and been so handy in countless situations. And I don't even try, THEY fold before I even know what's going on half the time.

So yeah, come out to California. I mean aside from the fires, potential earthquakes and avacado being everywhere, it's really quite nice.

In other news, I tried playing a Vampire LARP tonight. I don't know if I'm just not cut out for LARPing or if it was just a bad headspace, but I couldn't get into it and left early; according to the group gabbing about it outside my apartment, it was AWESOME. It ended with most of the characters getting stabbed in the eye with thighbones. To check for possession, or something. Whee! I'm feeling morose about my lack of involvement.

*sigh*

Happy birhtday to me!

Well, the past month has been pretty stressful. The schools books hadn't exactly been accounted for properly and now that we have a new accountant, we learned we were like 600,000 bucks short of being able to function as a school. But we raised that and more in what had to have been the bat shit craziest capitol campaign ever. We did 668,000 in six days.

I handled the potential closing of the school in a much better way. Man if Norbel and years of working with shitty incompetent film and TV producers has taught me anything it's how to handle this thing. I didn't get bent out of shape, I hit the pavement. I had and got hired at two other places, one being the exec administrative assistant at some porno company, the other teaching Algebra at a school for children with learning disabilities.

Ha, should have taken that last one if only for the stories.

But all in all the school is safe (we had a crippling interest payment) and I'm still teaching history. The She-nanigans were put on hold a bit with all that, but that way I can tell who sort of is into me by them asking where I've been. All in all, I'm breathing easy.

I'll be home in Baltimore over winter break from the 20th to the 3rd of January for my now yearly dose of winter. I mean, hell my AC is on right now. So with my in-town-ment, anyone wanting to hang, do let me know.

You know.