To paraphrase an old friend:

Reports of my not having a life have been greatly exaggerated.

Apologies, apologies

The more confused I am, the less I want to write. You can imagine, therefore, that my mind is typically a jumble, and that the last several weeks have been worse than usual. During most of it, I've wanted nothing more than to retreat to my cave... things have a way of resolving themselves and even when I'm present, it sometimes feels as though there's little I can do. It's not exactly wise or considerate of me to attempt to be sociable when I'm reeling from things that have nothing to do with the people or place I'm around- so I've mostly stayed off SL (and away from acquaintances in real life, though it's sort of pointless to mention them because they don't know I have an SL and won't be reading this, but whatever.)
Right, so... sorry? I forgot if I had anything worthwhile to say.

The Cape of Cod

It's come at last, the week to which I look forward all year: Cape Cod week. Writer's Conference week- although I won't be attending that this year because none of the classes appealed too hugely to me. The evening lectures are always surprisingly interesting, however. Last year they had Dennis Lehane for a talk and a reading one night, and although I actually tried to get out of going because I hadn't read or seen Mystic River or any of the rest of his stuff, it ended up being my favorite night of the week due to a rather thrilling reading of his work-in-progress, a novel (or novels, according to Wikipedia) on the Boston Police Strike of 19somethingorother. Which, normally, sounds like a subject that would've had me falling asleep on the painfully hard hardwood benches, except that the man has a gift for building suspense and tension.

It didn't hurt that he's kind of cute in person. Married, of course, but so is everyone else in the entire world.

Anyway, I'll be gone until next Sunday or thereabouts, assuming I'm unable to locate a steady internet connection. The wireless on the green is perfectly fine for posting blogs (sorry!) but I doubt it'd appreciate my attempting to fire up SL, even assuming downloading and running it didn't melt my laptop into a small puddle of plastic and metal and hate.

Therefore, instead of staring longingly at the virtual water as I'm wont to do, I'll be gazing peacefully at this:




...and being generally as happy as an unfried clam.



In Other News: Is it sad when getting hit on during a late night Slushie run at the Quick-E-Mart* makes one's day?



I'll be back in a week, .03% closer to death by skin cancer.











* All convenience stores are Quick-E-Mart to me.

Beware of Flashback

Decided to make more of an effort to post in my in-character blog in order to (as recommended by a knowledgeable soul) give me more of a basis from which to conduct myself in-game. Not that I expect to do much serious roleplaying, really; SL isn't conducive to that, yet. But it never hurts to practice writing, and I hate to waste a character, so... expect many trips to the Department of Backstory in between her reflections upon the present day.

Hopefully it will not all be OH-NOES-TEH-PAIN and have some redeeming qualities, but I won't be holding my breath and I'd recommend that you not, either. Okay? Okay.

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In light of the fact that I am utterly incapable of dressing myself...

(...as any self-respecting noblewoman really ought to be, I might add in my defense), I am hereby soliciting applications for a maidservant.

Her duties shall be confined to lacing me, ensuring that I do not leave the house a sartorial failure, bringing my morning chocolate, and removing all traces of a gentleman's presence from my bedchamber before the next gentleman arrives.

The fourth is somewhat tentative at the moment, but one should always be prepared for the possibility of a total moral collapse.

Second... Mom?

Let this be a lesson, my friends: if you have parents or family who are in any way technologically inclined, do not tell them about Second Life unless you want them to join it. Obviously, if this bit of advice was taught elsewhere before, I missed it completely. Evidently my usual common sense was not enough to prevent me from blundering headlong into folly.

Purely so I would have something to talk about with them (my first life at the moment being rather boring due to the amount of hours I work and being, unlike them, an introvert by choice,) I've taken to talking about some of my interesting explorations of Second Life to my parents. I thought it would mostly interest Dad, since he's the most tech-advanced of us all, and this seemed to be the case for some time. He happened to be engaged to give a talk recently that touched upon ideas of individuality and the soul and technology, and almost in passing happened to mention Second Life. Afterwards, a woman came up to him and my mother and gave them her card... which had a picture of her avatar on it. Apparently, she happens to run a rather active place of worship on SL. And they talked. Evidently, for a good while. It was at this point last night's retelling that I began to squirm slightly in precognition.

My mother wants to join Second Life and run spirituality and healing workshops. She does this in her first life, among many, many other things, and I have no doubt whatsoever of her capability of doing it, but... my dear God (literally, I guess). This is rather disturbing. While my mother is a perfectly competent adult (obviously), she remains, at least in terms of first-hand experience, fairly naive as to the depth and breadth of internet weirdness. She was a practicing psychologist for years and came of age in the 60s and 70s, and yet I am doubtful as to whether she could remain unshocked by certain things on SL. I don't think it would be beneficial for her in any way to ever become unshocked; I think that jadedness to such things is the curse, or occasional blessing, of newer generations such as mine which will always have been exposed to them. It's not something worth acquiring if one can avoid it. I grant that I am somewhat overprotective of my parents- I've been attempting to protect them from me ever since I first disappointed them- but this, I feel, is within reason. How can I possibly protect her from the crazy? Perhaps this person whom she met has a good idea of how to handle problems that might arise, and it's likely, if she's well established, but I will have a hard time seeing my mother go anywhere other than Info Island or Caledon (except during a rave...). I just don't trust other places.

I don't worry too much about her raising an eyebrow at my playing a character, because apparently she wants to do so herself, something I find adorable but which made me raise both brows because I'm well aware that she always used to consider my roleplaying on MUDs to be weird. Which it probably was, but I think she'll find that it can be quite fun and educational as well.Oh, and apparently my brother-in-law also considered at least logging on (he's in advertising, and is curious about all such things) but he couldn't find a last name he liked. My sister considered it, but decided she doesn't have enough time. I had no idea that I was so influential!

Okay, I think I'm going to go cry awhile over the idea of my mother tping over to hang out with me.

When's Friday again?

The purpose of this blog is not to kvetch about my first life, but allow me to say at least this in response to this week's schedule, which has me working from 7pm until 5am every day but Friday:

MEH.

But at least nobody was depending upon me to be in-game, and so I can bear the bitter, bitter agony of separation rather well. My castle-thing, however, missed me dreadfully. I can tell by its forlorn, bedraggled appearance, which has nothing at all to do with my building skills and everything to do with my neglect. Horrors, there's to be an Eyre simwarming sort of party on Friday, I think, and it's nowhere near ready to show. Can't decide whether I want to prod it into some semblance of unfurnished order, or leave the windmill standing and offer rides that day. Pride versus sanity, and in the end, neither will win, because I'll give in to the former but ultimately fail to complete anything worth showing, and then be forced to settle for the windmill after all. I could use this realization to help me alter my behavior for the better, but I'm just sleep-deprived enough that I will not.

Found the Caledon: The Motion Picture list to be too amusing, and largely accurate (I will not debate what I do not know) and so spent a half-second deciding what lucky actress would have the pleasure of playing Gloire. It would probably have to be Rose Byrne. You know, that undersized Australian girl who tends, at least in my opinion, to choose characters who are ever so slightly unhinged... no resemblence at all on the last point, but she'll do well enough. And she is appropriately not nearly as well-known as anyone on the main list. There's also Rachel Weisz (undersized, English, and unhinged) but I'm afraid that might be forgetting my place.