All about YOU

[birdsofshore]

I love talking with you all here each week / day / hour / insert own level of addiction, but I often think I don't even know basic stuff about your LJ , like what your username means, what your icons are, etc etc. Come and tell me everything.

Why did you pick your username, and what does it mean? What's your default icon, and does it have any significance? If it's a famous person, please don't assume I will know who it is - I never know who anyone is unless I have the hots for them. What about those other things we can personalise on LJ - the quotes or messages at the top of your journal, and that odd little thing I've never worked out how to change, for instance who_la_hoop's says "I can see your house from here", which always makes me laugh. Do you have special art or graphics on your header? What are they all about?

I will start you off. My username is from a poster that I have in my living room, which says "Birds of shore & sea", with, er, drawings of different birds. Of shore, and, indeed, of sea. "Birdsofshoreandsea" is more characters than LJ allows, and besides, the shorebirds are the ones I like the best.

My picture is probably self-evident, but it's a curlew, which is my absolute favourite bird. I live quite near to plenty of these glorious creatures and they make me very thrilled and happy whenever I see one. They're just so ludicrous and beaky. They look like they shouldn't exist, and they seem to have really fabulous personalities. I can watch them for hours, just mooching about and digging for worms. They also have subtly beautiful plumage and the most wonderful song. I'm not actually OBSESSED with birds in real life, but I can verge on HIGHLY ENTHUSIASTIC about birds on any given occasion, so apologies if you just glazed over there.

The quotes on my journal are from one of my favourite books, The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving. "You've got to get obsessed and stay obsessed" and "Keep passing the open windows" are pieces of advice from the book on how to survive whatever life throws at you. If you haven't read it, it's a big, insane, sexy, sweet, funny, tragic romp of a book and please don't tell me if you don't like it, because I have adored it since I was about 15 and bought it to impress a boy I fancied who worked in a bookshop (my rec for Frequent Patronage will be along any day now, by the way). Fandom is definitely part of my plan to remain sane and to 'keep passing the open windows' (in other words, to avoid falling into depression and self-harm), so both quotes seemed apt when I was picking my layout.

I have only got a standard LJ header thing - it was the one that seemed least offensive when I looked through. I'd love fancy graphics or some beautiful art up there, but OMG, how hard to choose, plus, if I'm being honest, I don't have a clue how to do such things DD:

Please come and do all the sharing. I really, really want to know.

p.s. A very big thank you to whoever nominated me at HPfanficpoll thingy, if you are on my flist. I was very flattered indeed that you liked my fics, and touched that you took the time ♥

Comments

[eidheann_writes]

So. Eidheann. That was my second online handle (first being Tamlin) which was in the mid-90s on irc. I needed a secondary handle, I don't even remember why, and a super Irish-yay friend suggested it. It's gaellic for ivy, and apparently a traditional knit pattern.

I can't really pronounce it; never actually heard it said, but it became my go-to name for everything (except twitter). So if you google it, odds are it is me. And the -writes part was just to make a secondary fandom account that the personal account people still potentially hanging around my flist on the eidheann account won't be subjected to boy porn.

As for my default icon, I had several friends who called me m-bunny for quite a while. So when those little cartoony icon sites went around, I made a cartoony head that looked kinda like me & shoved some bunny ears on. It has been a default icon for... at least 5, probably closer to 10 years now.

My layout was all capitu who gave me very specific "go here click this paste that" directions. I don't (think I) have any header/titles/words of wisdom because titles are evil and we should all throw rocks at them.

[capitu]

M-bunny? OMG, how cute is that? LOL

Ohh, you're never living that down, my bunny. <3

[eidheann_writes]

I am as likely to answer to someone yelling bunny as Marianne.

[capitu]

I had no idea about this. XD You wouldn't know but I'm grinning like a loon about it! ^^

Somehow I totally missed the connection between bunny and your bunny-eared icon. XD

[eidheann_writes]

Haha.
I am all bunnies all the time. in seeecret.

[icmezzo.livejournal.com]

So can I call you M-Bunny when I see you at Thanksgiving? :)

[eidheann_writes]

If that's what you want to, I am fine with it.

[birdsofshore]

Another Tamlin! That's interesting. I can't say I actually consciously thought your name was pronounced "eyed-he-ann", but subconsciously I must have done, because when Omi and I were nattering about LJ one day, she called you "Eden" and I had to do a "Wha?" because I didn't know who she meant. It's lovely that it means ivy, I like that.

I knew about your bunny ears because I asked you once before! I am eternally nosy!

[eidheann_writes]

I shall add Eden to the list of things I answer to!

And I am used to nosey. I am nosey and am also surrounded by a toddler (just the one, but he is fully capable of surrounding all on his own for all he is tiny)

So I will simply batt big brown eyes at you and inquire with a hopeful tone: You were talking about me?

[birdsofshore]

If you want me to tell you what we were saying, I can't remember! That's the honest truth. We babble on constantly if we get a chance to meet, probably very little makes sense. But it will have been nice :D

[eva667.livejournal.com]

Hi, just thought I'd let you know how your name is sounded out in Ireland, it's pronounced A Dean . The A is a hard A like the start of the alphabet and the second part is like James DEAN, just in case you were curious :-)

[eidheann_writes]

Haha awesome! Thank you!

omi_ohmy was closer with eden than anything I would come up with on my own :D

[eva667.livejournal.com]

Your welcome, I was trying to figure out how to sound it out and kept coming up with, 'it's like hay without the H and deeeeeen' but I was even starting to confuse myself :-)
It could be worse, my name is Aoife and pronounced eee fah .....seriously, every vowel except U.....

[eidheann_writes]

I should be glad the friend who suggested it wasn't Yay Wales! I'd lose count of all the l's d's and y's. Most of which don't combine to make l d or y sounds.

[eva667.livejournal.com]

I'm convinced Welsh is a language that the lovely people from Wales made up to fuck with us and they secretly snigger behind our backs :-)

[eidheann_writes]

Based on what I extrapolated from my husband after his year there, they would probably say "it sounds pretty and fucks with the english" ;)

[eva667.livejournal.com]

AHA I knew it ! *nods head* sneaky welsh people...

[omi-ohmy.livejournal.com]

I will now mentally shift to the correct pronunciation.

Aoife though, I guessed correctly pronunciation-wise. :)

[eva667.livejournal.com]

Most people non-irish people pronounce it Ay Oh If EE, which sounds all kinds of messed up, I used to have to wear a name tag with EE FAH on it when I worked in London cos my boss thought my name was too confusing.....