Five times I couldn't stop talking about myself

[phoenix64]

I realize I'm one of the last people to do this meme, but:
Comment to this post and I will give you 5 subjects/things I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given.

travels_in_time gave me: The Dresden Files (any incarnation), Alaska, Batman, Early Edition, and phoenixes.


The Dresden Files: I adore the books as frothy fun, but I'm trying to wean myself off buying the hardcovers, not so much for price but for the amount of paperbacks I could fit in the same space. I keep saying I'm going to donate the hardbacks to the library but I never get around to that either.

I like book!Harry and I adore TV!Harry fiercely and I think it is one of the great TV tragedies that the show didn't last longer. *shakes fist in Bonnie Hammer's general direction* I think Paul Blackthorne and Terrence Mann were stunningly good. I liked different!Bob, but I'm someone who is often able to just separate filmed adaptations from their source material - I guess I think of them as those characters in a parallel reality. I really should get back into the fandom more.

Alaska: There's a joke that people who live in Anchorage don't really live in Alaska, but they do live just a few miles from it. I don't think that's entirely true, but I think it's more true now than it was twenty years ago. I grew up in a much more rural area and I miss being able to go for a walk in the woods. Real woods, where nobody lives. Not driving means I don't get out of town very often, but when I do it's almost like I can feel a weight being lifted from the lack of other people around me. But I also have a stunning view of the Chugach range from my window at work, and it's never beautiful the same way twice.

This was a great place to grow up in, but it's not the same place I grew up in. I'm pretty sure I was in high school when for the first time movie theaters in Anchorage were showing films the same day they started in all the other theaters. I like bus service and large bookstores but I also think if I lived in the country again I might be able to drive and Amazon owns my soul anyway.

Batman: Bruuuuuuce! Batman was my guy from early on. I figured it was because he did all that he did without any superpowers, but in retrospect I think it was the manpain. I was lucky and managed to get in there in the seventies when they started making him serious again. I also really liked the previous incarnation of the Huntress, the one who was the daughter of Earth-2's Batman and Catwoman. As far as movies go, see above about parallel realities. I like some, I don't like others, but they're not the comics. I don't keep up too much with the current comics, mostly because as near as I can tell Grant Morrison has lost his mind completely. Which saddens me because I still think Arkham Asylum was incredible. I did just read all the Gotham Central collections and they are FANTASTIC.

Early Edition: I was inclined to blame my initial interest in this on the cat. I love orange cats though I've never owned one. But really I'd say it was ready to leap into the void that Quantum Leap had left behind. Of course Gary was too good of a guy to be true, but as long as you know that it's OK. I liked his friends and I adored his parents to bits. I even liked the voice-overs. I liked his problems with the police. I liked it when he took over the bar; I wanted to like Kristy Swanson's character (and her son) but something about it never sat right with me. It was another one of those shows that made me wonder if I ought to give Chicago a try.

Phoenixes: After having my life as I thought it was going to be blow up in my face more than a couple of times the phoenix came to be a symbol that meant a lot to me and has for several years. I associate it with recreating oneself, particularly after having passed through fire. I had a phoenix tattooed on my shoulder about sixteen years ago. The last few years it's a symbol that hasn't sat as comfortably, as the last time my life blew up I didn't come through it quite so cleanly as I have in the past; I'm still sort of sitting in the mess with ash on my face. But I'm working on that. I've thought about how magpie-like my nature is at times and how I'm learning to appreciate that part of myself instead of seeing it as a failing, but the problem is that a great many people hate magpies and I just can't deal with that.

Comments

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

First of all awesome icon!!!

Paul Blackthorne and Terrence Mann FTW! *glares at scifi channel*

I loved that orange Early Edition kitty.

[phoenix64.livejournal.com]

Aww, thanks. I should use that icon more often, because it is pretty nifty.

*glares at scifi channel with you*.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_medley_/]

Orange cats are good. *pets mine* You know, that whole separated-at-birth thing is starting to seem more likely. Because I'm very much a magpie, too. I think I've had better luck than you in having people around who can handle it, though. But LJ has LOTS of magpies, I suspect.

[phoenix64.livejournal.com]

Whenever I bring up magpies to the people in my life who are ... less into the metaphors and more into the literal, they talk about magpies as annoying birds, to the point of being like vermin. Hmph!

It's all about the shinies, yes, and LJ has a lot of people who understand that.

[rustydog.livejournal.com]

You know, the magpie is the only non-mammal to have passed the mirror test of self-awareness. ::nods::

Arkansas is nowhere near as wild as Alaska (though their postal abbreviations are constantly mixed up, do you get that too?) but I've been plotting for years now how I can get out of the city (which, yes, is not a *big* city but still) back to where it's easy to be really alone, and not constantly surrounded by people and traffic. I know what you mean about a weight being lifted.

Orange cats FTW! And Catherine Tate agrees with us. :)

[phoenix64.livejournal.com]

I remember reading that and thinking it was very cool. I actually would have guess ravens, but I'm very unsurprised that it's a corvae species either way.

Yes, I remember how much I responded to those photos you took of that one park. Wild places are Good Things. *nods*

[rustydog.livejournal.com]

I don't understand why people think magpies are bad. Is it the "one for sorrow" from the rhyme?

[phoenix64.livejournal.com]

No, there are more literal reasons, I just think they're blown out of proportion a lot of the time. Besides the fact that some people don't like their songs, the main argument is that they kill smaller birds. This is actually true, but they are doing it to protect their food supply and the numbers they kill are certainly much lower than the casualties from domestic animals (which people are a lot less likely to complain about). They can be very aggressively territorial and in some areas have been know to attack people. Part of the problem is that in some areas they are an introduced species and without predators they become much more noticeable. That's not the case around here and I like them quite a lot.

[rustydog.livejournal.com]

Oh. We don't have magpies here, so all I know about them is what I've read, and I think the human prejudices haven't come up in the descriptions I've found. I see misunderstandings of that kind a lot though, so I know what you mean. In general people don't tend to look at birds' behavior and population patterns from the birds' perspective. (I am a pigeon and crow sympathizer, so I'm up against some stiff opposition.) And introduced species are often difficult.

I was also trying to figure out which feature of magpies you were identifying with figuratively. My guess was their attraction to collecting shiny objects, but I couldn't figure out why people would have a problem with that. (I meant my comment about magpies' self-awareness in the dual-interpretation way, as well.)