You can do what lil old untechnical me did - throw yourself on the mercy of the LJ veterans. The icon I'm using here was made for me by the wonderful and talented star_fish. After that, and after poring over the LiveJournal FAQs (and over and over and over) I got the bug to try to do one myself. Much to my surprise, the simple kind of icon is not all that hard to create or use. Trust me -- if I can do it any human on the planet can.