here we go an-answering among the leaves so green ...

[maribou]

1. Who is that eye in your usericon? Is it you? Why this choice? (And incidentally, why the other one, too?)
It is me. And the choice was mostly laziness. At one point I was posting on a forum where the user-icons were, universally, the eyes of the participants. So when corivax finally pestered talked me into using an icon here, it was near to hand. Also, I kind of like it; I think it says more about me than most full pictures do. I tend not to like more conventional pictures of myself because I am so rarely still that I almost don't recognize myself in a still photo. The story of the other one? I quote myself, from an earlier LJ entry: "whee. I can tell I'm really tired when I decide I like something I've been messing around with because it reminds me of bacterial colonies. Voila, new lj icon."

2. Where did the name Maribou come from?
When I first went online, 1995ish, I wanted a name that started Mar- , so that it would match my real name enough to resonate with me, and I just sort of commenced saying words that started correctly to myself until one stuck. I think I like it because it is the name for both a particular species of African stork (large, ungainly, huge wingspan, masculine-looking) and the name for the feather-boa-stuff that's made from that stork's feathers (fluffy, vampy, soft, over-the-top). I dig on ambiguity.

3. If you could do anything at all for a living-- have your dream job, travel, anything-- what would you do?
People keep asking me variations on this question and I keep coming up with variant answers. Today? Be a first wave colonist on an Earthlike planet where there turned out to be friendly aliens who were sufficiently philosophically advanced that I didn't worry about harming them by being there.

4. This is a stolen question, but it seems especially appropriate for you, bookmistress: what book characters have you strongly identified with? Why? And to extend that with a borrowed image from Fishy: have there been books that you loved so much that it almost hurt that they weren't real?
In reverse order, the answer to the second question is yes, almost all of the fictional ones. I sort of feel like they are real, the worlds described in the books I love, and so it doesn't particularly hurt that they aren't. Once in a while it does hurt that I can't just go to them, fully, whenever I want, and interact with the characters. I tend to transmute that feeling into wishing I could know the authors of the books I love. What I would give to be tutored by Tolkien, for example.
I guess the answer to the first question is also "most of them". I tend particularly to identify with characters whose social development lags behind, or has lagged behind, their intellectual development, and who also have a deep appreciation for beauty. A good example would be Sibilance, in Midnight Hour Encores. Incidentally, I think that book is one of the best YA books I've read. (And yes, I do wish I could take its author out for caffeinated beverages.)

5. What are you most proud of?
The accomplishments of my loved ones. As for things I've done myself? I find pride is a transitive emotion for me, like shame only backwards, and as such it doesn't stick around long enough for me to pick a most. I was very proud when I finished my college degree, I suppose, more because of what it symbolized in terms of being more capable/functional than I used to be than in terms of the piece of paper or the normal associations.

6. Where do you see yourself in ten years?
Same job, same husband, new cat (sigh, realities of lifespan), a real house, but in the same neighborhood. All of which will no doubt delight me.
Of course, my self-predictive powers are notoriously nonexistent.