Infected by ksleet's post:

1. My username is ______ because ______.
   laura_seabrook, because it's my name, duh!
   
2. My name is _____ because ______.
   Laura Anne, it seemed right for me, and my history
   
3. My journal is titled ____ because ____.
   Hypergraphia: me writing about me, because Hypergraphia was the name of my paper comic, and means "compulsive writing"
   
4. My friends page is called ____ because ____.
   Friends and Familiars, er, isn't that what they are?
   
5. My default userpic is ____ because ____.
    because I like to change it regularly.
   before that it was
   and before that, it was, um well lots of things. I always liked using
   but also, of course,  and
   
6. My LJ name (you know how you can change that sort of sub-name thing?) is:
   
   never exactly figured this one out - maybe that's what the Me writing about me is.

Hmmm - now that was short and almost painless.

The web-mail service I mostly use - via the Octapod - is down at the moment. That, and weirdness with LJ means that my comments have been a bit constipated before getting to me. In some ways that was a good thing. With the Octapod down, I didn't get any reminders about posts on the IMDB message boards. Just as well considering the volume involved!

Has anyone else noticed LJ being extremely tardy in passing on e-mails of comments?

This is the "Icon-Explaining Meme" (one of many that's been going around). Comment here and I'll pick 7 of your icons; you explain here or in your LJ what they mean to you and why you're using them.

In the meantime, here are my icons that gloriajn asked about:

1. 
   This is a statue of Cybele, the Magna Mater, or Great Goddess. I've met Her twice in dreams - once when I was about 8 years old, and again in 2000 when I had to decide between going to either Sydney or Phuket for surgery. She gave me the right answer - "trust your inner feelings" - I did and went to Phuket.
   
2. 
   This is taken from a photo during a ritual at the Maetreum of Cybele, in Palenville, last year. I was acting as a "Reed Bearer" for part of the Festival of the Tree. Those were the days. I finally encountered a community that I felt at home with. It was marvellous, but then for reasons too tedious to repeat, it all fell apart.
   
3. 
   This is Octobriana. Or is it? Years ago I came across a book by Peter Sadecky about an underground comic character by this name from the Soviet Union. The comics had been produced by something called the "Progressive Pornography Party" who seemed to specialise in doing comics and having wild parties. It was all hush hush, or the members'd end up in a gulag. I thought it was brilliant, and adopted the name as my SubGenius handle of Reverend Octobriana Oberwoman.
   
   Sometime later, I discovered that it'd all been a hoax (the character, not the Church of the SubGenius, though if you'd like to argue...)! Sadecky had apparently ripped off some artists who'd drawn a character called "Amazona " before defecting to the West. After the book was published he'd died, and the truth wasn't revealed until after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact nations.
   
   Nonetheless, the Octobriana character has been adapted by more than one writer and cartoonist, since there was no clear copyright on her. Most notable was Bryan Talbot who used her in The Adventures of Luther Arkwright (which I read in the original Near Myths magazine). I used her as one of my alter-egos, and she appears in Hypergraphia #5 as one of my my guides through theory and psyche.
   
4. 
   This is Girl, from Cat & Girl, a web comic created by Dorothy Gambrell. I love this strip - has a mixture of whimsy and cynicism with a post-modern eye that's hard to beat. Girl seems to be the eternal optimist who mostly is disappointed (not always). I also like the New Adventures of Death as well, but that's subscription only.
   
5. 
   And this of course is Daria, who appeared in her own series (itself a spin-off from the awful Beavis and Butt-head) that ran for five seasons and had two movies as well (still trying to see "Is it College Yet"). I seem to gravitate between identifying with Daria and Girl. I have brown hair and specs, so have a superficial resemblance to her, but I also have interests that are slightly odd or geeky. Also, like Daria, I could never hack high school, but I didn't have a "Jane" to help me cope.
   
   I think too, I love Daria because I can laugh with her at the "Sick Sad World".
   
6. 
   I added three icons from TV shows that I like so that I could use them when commenting on something related to the shows. The icons were: Star Trek - Deep Space Nine (Jadzia-Dax); Angel/Buffy (Illyria) and Dr Who (Romanadvoratrelundar or Romana for short). This icon is Romana, and you should note that it's the "first Romana" as played by Mary Tamm, not Lalia Ward. I like this character, because she has the background and intelligence that's equal to the Doctor.
   
   Naturally, she got written out of the show, as it was more convenient for the Doctor to travel with companions who had less technical knowledge than he did, so he could explain stuff to them.
   
7. 
   This last icon is of Polychrome, a fairy and the daughter of the Rainbow. She first appears in The Road to Oz, the fifth of the fourteen Oz books by L. Frank Baum, and again in later books.
   
   Way back in 1995 I was falling apart. I'd started my gender transition in late 1994 and it was a rough time for me. A "friend" (who later turned out not to be) who was in SF fandom in Britain visited me in Perth. I was under a lot of stress, and out of nowhere I had a the compulsion to write a one act play! I did, and later that night I had a dream in which I was called by name, and that name was "Pollychrome, daughter of two rainbows".
   
   Didn't know what to make of that until I started what I call a "vision quest". I did a "geographical" (that is, travelling off somewhere away from one's problems)  to Sydney, and that was both the worst and best time possible. At the end of it I moved from Perth to Newcastle, left the public service and started university, and went from nominal Christian to active neo-pagan. I chose my "pagan name" as - you guessed it - Pollychrome, daughter of two rainbows. I've always envisaged those rainbows as being one magical, and one queer.
   
   Now here's the funny thing - I'd never read the books that Polychrome appears in until long after that - so where did I get the name from?
   

Infected by gloriajn:

My 42 entry in this journal concerns Council Pickups. Hmmm - at a stretch it could refer to the removing and replacing of junk in my life...

If you know Dilbert, you'll appreciate...

_comic_icons_ seems an interesting place to find icons like that above. I think for now I'll stick to my Cat & Girl ones though.

I've decided to purge my friends list for this ID. This is now my main log-on, so any one who isn't a mutual friend after next Monday, I'll probably delete. Why? Because sometimes, even though one is interested in others, the time and energy to read every comment diminishes drastically.

I feel ill and confused just now, and in the past when I've felt like that, going "NO MAIL" on mailing lists I'm on has helped a lot (later when I feel up to it, I go back to getting mail). The same here, I think.