What's your passion? You know, that thing that you love soooo much that other people sort of raise their eyebrow at you when they find out how crazy you are about that thing? That thing that brings a smile to your face, even though you know other people maybe don't appreciate it like you do?
Mine? Christmas decorations. But, if you've been here before, you already knew that. I get positively giddy over tacky lighted outdoor decorations, ladders that enable me to reach high peaks for icicle lights, and beefed up fuse boxes. I do it for me, because it makes *ME* happy, but I most certainly do enjoy the fact that sometimes it makes other people smile.
Some people hate my lights. Some people think the lights are a waste of electricity, money, and a neighborhood menace. But for every person who passes judgement and makes a snide remark, there's a little boy who stalks me while I'm setting up the lights and eagerly asks when they will be turned on. When they are turned on, his smiling face glows just as brightly as the thousands of little twinkly lights.
The furries turn me into that little boy. I mean, how can you NOT smile when you see this walking down the street?
SO. MUCH. AWESOME.
Every year I look forward to Anthrocon weekend in Pittsburgh. Usually I'm all about the chance run-in with someone in a fursuit, but this year, I took it to another level.
Oh, yes, I did.
Friday nights I play softball with an amazing group of twitter/blog/IRL friends. This week, some of us shifted plans a little bit and made our way downtown to go hunt some furries. We camped out in the Westin lobby and just flat-out had a blast. We asked questions. We learned more about the conference. We smiled. We laughed. And HOOBOY! did I ever take a lot of pictures.
First, my absolute favorite furry that I saw:
LOOK AT HIS/HER TOES! (Sorry, I learned a lot on Friday, but I didn't learn how to sex a furry.) You know that if I could figure out a way to make my toes light up for Christmas, I would so totally do it.
More favorites:
The tall thing in the middle? Not a furry. The other two? GLOWY EYES! Have I mentioned that I like things that light up? Because I do.
I'm also a fan of pandas. With mohawks.
And blue things.
And things that shove humans out of the way so they can have the photo all to themselves.
And things that I can't even begin to classify.
I just plain love the furries. I don't "get" the whole thing, but they'd probably say the same about my love of all things tacky and Christmasy.
So, what's your passion?