Not much time left (updated with sobriety and gratitude)

I like this picture, taken at Bryn Oh's Utopia03 art installation, because it's pretty much devoid of color except for a flash of green, which is exactly how I would portray Emerald's codeine hangover, which is exactly what I have right now.

I'm trying not to get all grumpy and emo up in here, but my back is in stitches and Fock My Life it hurts like a mo-fo, so I'd like to thank Chalice Carling for lending me her list of cool places to take pictures — it's where I discovered Utopia, where there are a lot of battered, lonely robots who can totally empathize with the way I'm feeling. Or at least sympathize.



Oops. I've been running around with an ARC of 12,360 like the world's biggest asshole.

I guess I'd like to once again devote a portion of this post to this Public Service Announcement: If you've never gone to a dermatologist for acne/wrinkles/whatever and while you were there, said, "Hey BTW Doctor, could you please take a quick gander at my moles and freckles?" I suggest you do so, because that's what I did and that's why I'm now missing a significant panel of skin from my back . . . like a mecha from the movie "A.I." except I'm not having as much sex as they were.

One of my freckles apparently looked bad. My doctor snipped it out and sent it to a lab where some Very Educated People verified that it *was* in fact bad. "Bad freckle!" So I had to go back in and get ALL THE SKIN around it and under it carved out in an attempt to prevent the spread of evil. That skin is being biopsied now. PLEASE GOD, let it be OK because I am WAY TOO MUCH of a BIG DAMN BABY to get any more stitches. It's not even the pain — it's the sensation of having part of my back sewed up that makes me want to start slam-dancing all over the place in an attempt to get out of my skin, like a freaked-out, wailing crazy person.

But that's all I'm going to say about it. Except that I'm glad I had a talented doctor who was skilled enough to look at a small, average-looking (to me) freckle and recognize it for what it was — an abnormal thing that did not belong on my body.



"Portrait of an Empty Codeine Bottle Refilled with Twitchy Pink Angst in High Heels"

I am available to name your artwork as well.

I named this post "Not much time left," not because the threat of skin cancer will get you thinking of your own mortality and all the things you have left to do on your Bucket List, like vacuum, but because today is the LAST DAY of entertainment events at SL7B. The gates officially close on July 3. The official Web site is here: CLICK.

I've been to two Second Life birthday celebrations in my avatar existence, and I've decided they make me happy. I realize there's usually some sort of drama and lack of artistic justice going on behind the scenes — and no offense to those victims — but still, I love all the different exhibits. They always teach me about groups and places I never knew existed, and they remind me why I first fell in love with Second Life in the first place: because of all the people and their different voices.

It's invigorating to walk around the exhibits. They make me want to get out and SLocialize again. They make me want to ditch a couple of my fashion-fan groups and rejoin groups like Inksters. They make me want to add my own voice to the chorus. They make me want to LIVE, I TELL YOU! LIVE!

Ugh. I can't write today. Sorry.



That's me on one of the art installations. Something to do with umbrellas (ellas, ellas), and you get one when you go there, along with a Rihanna song stuck in your head for the rest of the day. A better blogger would give you the name and the exact location of this exhibit. That's why I'm not one of the Top 25 Bloggers of Second Life. Or even one of the Top 800 for that matter. Oops.

UPDATE: OK, it's the Capricious exhibit by Windyy Lane, and it's HERE. The guilt got to me. And I'm sure Windyy would appreciate the fact that I called this remarkable kinetic wind sculpture "something to do with umbrellas (ellas, ellas)." I'm a simpleton. Here's what it looks like:



Even with my awesome camera skills, I couldn't get the whole thing in the picture. Woo!



Grab some free stilts at "that one exhibit with the giant sheep." (SL7B Stilt Beaches) Props and AO included. DON'T forget to remove your shoes' alpha layer or you'll look like a weird, footless freak.

Just go. I used Chic Aeon's blog posts as a guide, as well as this very official Second Life guide.

[insert a smooth segue here]

I usually don't do a LOTD, but I like this outfit — it looks tres-fae fashionable and it reminds me to tell you that a couple of other events are ending soon -- the Black and Blue Fair (July 4) and the Zombie Popcorn Carnival (6/30?) — two places where I got most of this stuff.

(And yeah, yesterday I had to walk around with a Big Damn Box stuck to my hand. No matter what I did, it would not detach. Instead of allowing it to win and make me look like a clueless noob, I decided to ROCK IT like the awesome fashion accessory it apparently wanted to be.)



I'm gonna bullet it (the list, not the box), like your all-time favorite resume:

SLIGHTLY RADIOACTIVE, SHATTERED FAIRY: GET THE LOOK!

• Hair: Carli in Snow by Truth
• Skin: Filthy Fae Believe Dream Guardian Sahani (hey, I just type it like I see it, and I left out "Cleave Shaved Tat") by Filthy Gorgeous [FG], purchased at the Black and Blue Fair
• Eyelash Tattoo for V2: Emo Eyelash Face Tattoo by Stellar (KISS MY LIGHT BLUE ASS, PRIM LASHES!)
• Jewelry: Fae set in Copper by Dark Mouse, hands down one of my favorite things in my Jewelry folder ATM, right next to Silver Debut, No Glow by Heidi Halberstadt; (Caroline's) Silver Ladybug Necklace - a gift from Chiara; and my Ode in Silver Lining set by Random Calliope, oh WHOOPS did I say "set"? I meant "I only own the bracelet." *cough*
• Outfit: Katie (130L) by *dg* (it has a pink outfit option and a beige option, and I'm wearing both colors of the top in different layers, because each one flashes a nipple, but thankfully on different sides, so if you wear both colors you can still look chaste). *dg* stands for "deviant girls." I stumbled across this outfit at the Zombie Popcorn Carnival, bought it, went over to the new-to-me-and-possibly-to-you store and proceeded to buy almost everything else there. I put it all in my "Blog This, Bitch" folder, where it will most likely live out a neglected existence until it finally perishes.
• Wings: Elda Wings by Lazy Places (300L). Steampunky and cool. I love them so much.
• Stockings: Some random ones I found in the 2008 folder in my inventory. Sorry. But SEE why I hate deleting things??
• Box: Courtesy of the KL Virtual Sculpties & Animals exhibit at SL7B :-\  (It's got a cool parrot in it though! Hit the Subscribo! But DON'T pay attention to the part of the name that say, "wear me.")

And finally, let me introduce you to some of my favorite shoes ever. You've seen them before, but they deserve a million encores, Mayne and then some:

• Shoooooz!: La Vivien shoes in PinkMix by Courtisane. Stiletto Moody used to be my go-to place for indulgent shoe therapy to battle the blues, but my feelings got sort of hurt when bloggers got invited to submit their names for review copies and mine got rejected (WHAT?? Even with all the QUALITY photography here???), but I'll get over it, it'll just take time to heal my broken heart . . . so lately I've pillaged Courtisane and Maitreya instead. I feel much better.

Um, can you tell why I rarely do a Look of the Day? It's exhausting for me because I feel the need to editorialize about every damn thing I'm wearing. *wonders if anyone is still reading*

Speaking of Courtisane, I hopped over there today and noticed that all the Prelude shoes have been marked down to 100L.



I love them because they're not just kicky little wedges; they're kicky little wedges with a message. They say, "Come here! Come to us! To a place where your toes are embraced and celebrated in all their exotic glory and we do not expect you to wear fake ones and spend hours tinting them. These shoes are so fabulous, no one will notice your stretched out, blocky tootsies anyway. Instead they will throw themselves down on the ground in front of you and beg you to let them lick your shoes. We are . . . a Prelude to a life of no toe-tinting."

. . . pixelated shoes are talking to me. I have to go lie down.

Oops, Fail

Hey, Tuli has some new Creature eyes!!

(Laugh out loud - I took that picture on accident. It amused me, mainly because I am so damn easily amused.)

I have an obsession with eyes in Second Life. I seek them out and snatch them up like a sick ocular addict. (I originally had a drug simile here, but it made me sound a little too knowledgable about drugs, so I killed it.)

This weekend I spent about 2000L on eyes. I went CRAZAYYYYY! I recently discovered Nomine's Stained Contacts. They are awesome, right up there with some of my other favorites from Beloved Custom Designs and Turquoise Unicorn. I feasted on them. It would've been nice if I would've taken a picture, huh? Oops. (I put the XStreet link at bottom though, if you want to see them.)

But anyway.

I named this post "Oops, Fail" because I didn't make it through the Big Bad Blogger Challenge this year. Hell, I barely even answered the first question. I wanted to be a Big Bad Blogger; I really did — mainly so I could triumphantly scream, "AND I'LL HUFF AND I'LL PUFF AND I'LL BLOW YOUR BLOG DOWN!"

But damn, kids, I'm tired. Bone tired. Whine whine whine about my grueling job right here and then whine whine whine about how I want to get this biopsy over with on Friday and then whine whine whine about how the rambunctious freaky little kitten climbs all over my keyboard and attacks my typing hands and makes me not want to even open up my laptop right now. Those are my weak excuses.

I hate going this long without a picture, so here:



"Hi! Happy Rez Day! I bought you a HOUSE! Now you have to LIVE IN IT so you won't hurt my feelings!"

I knew a guy once who would always buy people ice cream cones without asking them. He would walk out of some fast food place and hand them a Big Damn Ice Cream Cone and go, "Hey, I bought you an ice cream cone!" and then they'd be in the really awkward position of either having to eat it because it was melting right in front of them or being a completely rude asshole and saying, "I don't want this" and throwing it away. Nine out of 10 people ate it.

It was actually quite an awesome prank that only a psychology major would dream up and I'm laughing so hard I'm crying right now just thinking about it, but maybe you had to be there.

Try it on one of your friends sometime.

Let's move on.

Another reason why I'm not blogging as much is because Second Life has become A HUGE CRASHTASTIC VIRTUAL ENEMY that I simply cannot deal with right now. I crash when I walk. I crash when I cam. I crash when I edit. I crash when I rez something. I crash when I TP. I crash when I chat. I crash the minute I log on and instantly lose all messages and inventory offers.

Not only that, my shoes never rez anymore:



Those cute pants and shoes-that-you-cannot-see are by Miel.

Today I downloaded the Beta version of SL 2.1 for Mac. Get it on the Second Life Downloads page. I only crashed twice as opposed to 12 times, so that's progress! I was ecstatic to see that the annoying view tool has been fixed in the new version:



Yay. No more flipping back and forth! It's still huge and cumbersome, but it's a start.

That's me in the Vita's Boudoir tent at the Zombie Popcorn Carnival. I want those three outfits. I really, really do. But they are 550L, 400L and 400L respectively (I think) and where the hell would I wear them?

I did buy this one, though:



So if you see me wearing it, please clap and shower me with compliments.

That's not why I wanted to show you this pic though. LOOK at the new view options in the forthcoming v2.1. No longer do we have to stare at the backs of our heads all day! We can watch ourselves from the front or side if we so choose!

I tried it, and it was weeeeeeeird! But nifty!

Um, my only other news is that I finally took the eyesore of an elven treehouse down. It wasn't necessarily that the house was ugly. It's just that I'm not an elf and I'm not living in a forest and I don't have a lot of woody furniture or burlap clothes.

In its place, I put up this lovely little Blue Orchid House by Modest House. FYI: it recently has been updated with higher ceilings, in case you've checked out the model in the past and found them to be too low.



I think it costs 500L. I'm really slacking off on the whole "news you can use" aspect of this blog. Sorry.

My friend Heidi just taught me how to rez in edit mode to keep all the unlinked pieces together. You have no idea what an idiot I've been during the past two-plus years, rezzing houses and then moving all the little pieces separately. I've left a trail of ruined homes in my wake. But seriously, where the hell is the "how to rez a house in SL" manual???

I'm not in the mood to nest or play Martha Stewart these days. Basically I just need a large, comfortable dressing room.



I am available to decorate your homes for a small fee.



"It's a peacock, bitch!"

Other than that, not much is going on.



I like riot vends.

Those two AVs were staring directly at me the whole time, which was unsettling. How did they do that?? (C'mon, Little Bo Peep! You of all people should cut me some slack. And you too, Girl with One Arm.)

"What the hell is Emerald Wynn wearing now?"


VISIT INWORLD
Zombie Popcorn Carnival
Modest House
and see Nomine Stained Contacts on XStreet

Does anyone have a title I could borrow?

Welcome to another edition of "What the hell is Emerald Wynn wearing now?"

I was pretty wiped out this weekend. I had a rough week last week, mainly because I rescued The Ugliest Kitten Known to Man:



[Insert big tired sigh here.] He was in the middle of traffic.

Even my camera screamed in protest and somehow took an upside-down picture of him. I didn't flip it, I swear.

I forgot how exhausting a kitten can be, let alone a little freaky one, so I was pretty worthless today. I spent a lot of time watching serial killer documentaries on MSNBC and staring in morbid fascination at Things People Do With Dolls That Kinda Disturb Me.

Get those things away from me!

I'm still in "maybe one day I'll become a savvy doll wheeler-and-dealer" mode, so when I logged in to SL today, I set out to find a ball-jointed doll (BJD) skin. There are many fabulous stitched doll skins out there, but I rarely see a ball-jointed one.



I found this one at (Magic)(Burst)! It's called Honey Doll Skin, Pink, and I give it three out of five stars. There aren't enough joints and the lines are blurry - that's not my computer - but I appreciate the effort and the face is rather sweet.

I'm wearing Sn@tch's new Marie Corset dress (yet another purchase inspired by this blog), along with the matching Dauphine Socks (note that the blogger was too lazy to mod the cuffs) and Comtesse Heels. Um, and that WILD AND WACKAY HAIR is called Tokyo Doll in Wraith from Hairoin. Creepy Doll AO courtesy of Creative Insanity.

Here's what the skin looks like naked. Let's see if Photobucket will let a picture of a naked, nippleless cartoon doll slide:



And here's the doll butt:



That pose is called Pretty1 by !Bang. I'd never heard of this store before, but I really like the poses there. And I'm not in a dungeon. That's the inside of my Elven Treehouse and no, I'm not really feeling it but, yes, I'm too lazy to change it right now.

I haven't said "anyhoo" in a long time.

Anyhoo, continuing the quest for a cool BJD skin, I typed "BJD skin" in Search. It coughed up a place called The Doll Works.



Looks fun, huh? I skipped in there like a kid in Candyland . . . only to discover that it's a kinky dollie sex store. SOOOOOO wrong in so many ways.

They have a 2300L My Little Pony AV . . .



. . . which you'll totally love if your favorite Little Pony was the greasy one with giant boobs.

Let's all pause for a moment and laugh at her hoof hands.

They also have a couple of Bratz AVs:



Each one comes with a round open mouth version. Just like the cartoon!

I could get all outraged about the fact that some of our most beloved and heroic female cartoon characters, like the selfless and inspirational Bratz gals, are being disgustingly sexualized — not to mention USED ILLEGALLY — here, but I'll let someone else do that.

They'd just better be glad they didn't mess with Strawberry Shortcake.

And now a word from our sponsor:



Damn, we missed it. ("Play Room"?)

*runs away*

Um, so then I tried XStreet. Dear XStreet, I already told you what I think about the Second Life marketplace experience. "Don't Bother Me Again!" I've clicked it about 20 times. Love, Emmy

I searched for "doll skin" and BINGO!



I love you, Rotten Toe! And that cute box!



It's called May, Basic in Cream and looks RIGHTEOUSLY freaky! I messed it up a little by slapping on those huge eyelashes. Oops. And the chest really does have those hearts for nips. Because it's a DOLL! Don't be a perv. The glossing on those lips also mirrors a technique used by real BJD faceup artists. Bravo!

My AV looks weary and worried. She's probably tired of all this creative abuse and longs for the days of jeans and a Golden Girls T-shirt.

This skin also comes in May, Buried in Pus (LOL - EWWWW!) with three different versions of decay. The ball joints are still there but the skin is also cracked and, well, pretty awesome if you're into that kind of thing. I didn't buy it though. I'm watching my lindens these days. 

I can't find the store Rotten Toe inworld anymore. Is it gone? My landmarks don't work either. I'm sure it's out there somewhere, but as usual, our really efficient Search tool isn't giving it to me. Meanwhile, if you want this skin, you can get it (and the demo) on XStreet. Be sure you have "Mature Content" enabled.

OK, so here's where we get to the part where I lost all the rest of my pictures. :-\

Well, except for this one:



(oof)

[OMG, one day into it and I already screwed up and forgot about BBBC Q1: Why did you become a blogger? How has it enriched your life? I became a blogger because it's in my nature to get overly excited and run my mouth about everything I do, regardless of whether anyone gives a damn. The many people I've met through this blog have enriched my life.]

VISIT INWORLD!
Rotten Toe on XStreet
(Magic)(Burst)!
Sn@tch
Hairoin
Creative Insanity
!Bang
The Doll Works

"You haven't really lived" (updated to include the hot mess)

Today I read a blogger who seemed like she was tongue-in-cheeking (I just made up a verb) this blog's style. (Update: Or maybe not! — See comments.) And since she's actually a blogger I fangirl from afar and enjoy reading, I'm just going to allow myself five seconds for hurt feelings (1. 2. 3. 4. 5.) and then say, "Well played!" YES - you absolutely need to use a lot of ALL CAPS (don't forget to BOLD them, though) and insert the word "freakin'" in every other paragraph to capture some of the literary essence that is Emerald Wynn. And ellipses - YES! I love them so much. Just heed your grammar teacher and use three periods if it's used in the middle of the sentence, four if it's ending one. Starting sentences with conjunctions also is key, and in that case you are allowed to throw that old-school grammar rule to the wind. My only constructive feedback is that you missed the underlying sense of humor, joy and witty self-deprecation. Overall though, EXCELLENT effort! Grade: B+

I feel wretched writing a frivolous blog post about Second Life when some of my friends there have just been laid off. And to the contrary, I also feel cheesy writing some kind of attempt to be reflective and consoling right now. I'm also not in the mood to rant about how putting SL on a Web browser platform is just going to leave it wide open and more accessible to an influx of A-holes with no emotional investment in the place.

So I'm not going to write any of those posts.

I'm just going to quickly point you in the direction of an SL blog post I read recently and the journey on which it took me. And wait for it, because it does loop back to something I want to say to my now-unemployed LL friends.

I read Aisuru Rieko's blog post on EGL fashions in SL and thought it was fab. She mentioned a Super Dollfie. I said, "WTF is a Super Dollfie?" So being the "researcher personality type" I am, I Googled it and read about these dolls in fascination. Then I wandered around some Flickr streams. Then I wandered around some forums. And sometimes the fascination became morbid fascination: The amount of money collectors spend on these dolls, the way some of them talk about them as if they were alive, the levels of obsession involved in this hobby, the whole ABJD community in general (that sounds sexy, huh? It stands for "Asian Ball-Jointed Doll."), the way some of the members are Doll Nazis. Discussion of Barbie, for instance, is BANNED from these forums. Good for them.

But wow. I mean, WOW. Seriously. It's a subculture I never knew was out there, and now I religiously read one prominent forum with the same sort of "look at the way they live!" sense of awe I had when I was all wrapped up in "Meerkat Manor."

And then I decided I wanted a Super Dollfie. NOT out of greed. The thing about these dolls is that you can customize the makeup (called a faceup), the clothes, the hair, the eyes -- and if you're talented enough, you can flip them in a secondhand marketplace for a nice profit. For example, see that picture up there? It's called a LUTS Delf. Um, I won it on eBay. And yes, the seller made a nice profit. :-\

So this was my stream-of-consciousness thought process: "Wow, I could buy one of these things and then buy an assembly kit and then practice and practice and practice until I become, like, this kick-ass, in-demand, famous ABJD faceup artist -- it'd be like having a 3D avatar -- and then I could quit my stressful PR gig and just sit around and make toys all day, sort of like one of Santa's elves, and I'd get interviewed by prominent doll magazines and Oprah would book me for her last show and I'd live happily ever after, although granted I'd be one of those strange women living in a house full of slightly creepy dolls but I'd be driving a Jag so whatever and maybe with some luck I could find a man who would put up with my strange hobby but probably not so at least I'd have plenty of money to invest in vibrators."

Yeah. It went like that. And oops, I just said "vibrators."

So I bought a Super Dollfie. Hell no, I don't really have a spare $800 lying around, but I do have a credit card that I really don't give a damn about because I'm going to be paying it off for the rest of my life anyway, so whatever. And then I got on another Web site and customized my own (more affordable) doll. I chose pale blue skin, violet eyes and wild vanilla (yellow) rock star hair. She arrived yesterday. I thought she would turn out to be pretty cool. But she looked like a smoking-hot mess. I hid her under my bed. She will probably try to stab me with a little tiny doll knife in the middle of the night.



That skin is light blue, I swear. And oops, later I switched one eye to blue and steampunked (hey, I just made up another verb) the other one. I have a bucket of eyes. (not really)

Oops. I guess I need more practice. And money. Those things are expensive. So maybe it's time for my brief fling with them to die. I don't tend to give up easily, but I do tend to go broke rather quickly.

Whenever I do something stupid . . . like drop about $3,000 on a bunch of slightly creepy dolls . . . I play this game called "You Haven't Really Lived."

For example, in this case it would be:

"You haven't really lived until you've embarked on a fantasy business venture, even if you failed miserably at it."

"You haven't really lived until you've dropped a ridiculous amount of money on Something You Don't Need At All."

I'm adding those items to my current and ever-growing list of Epic Fails and Stupid Decisions That Really Make Me Awesome Or At Least Allow Me to Pretend They Do. And I guess I need to clarify that this is MY list -- I don't hold the world to these expectations. And my list is 18 miles long, so I'm going to spare you most of it.

Let's play!

You haven't really lived until you've had at least one pregnancy scare. You get bonus points if it involved a panicked late-night trip to the drugstore to sheepishly buy a pregnancy test.

You haven't really lived until you've gotten your heart smashed into a billion little pieces and survived to eventually own that battle wound with pride.

You haven't really lived until you've been thrown out of a bar for dancing on a table. (Um, right?)

You haven't really lived until you've tried something that absolutely and completely terrifies you.

You haven't really lived until you've taken a risk (at least in my city) and helped a complete stranger.

You haven't really lived until you've had to rely on the kindness of a total stranger for help.

You haven't really lived until you've rescued an animal from almost certain death.

You haven't really lived until you've been fired from at least one job. Seriously.

You haven't really lived until you've relocated to a city where you don't know a soul and built a new life for yourself.

You haven't really lived until you've taken a swan-dive into a job that seems way the hell over your head and evolved into an Olympic-caliber swimmer there -- or at least gave it a shot.

You haven't really lived until you've heard the words, "This may be malignant." I can't tell you how much those four words will completely change your perspective on life.

You haven't really lived until you've walked away from a job with your head held high, looked fearlessly into the face of the Great Unknown and said, "Bring it on."

To my recently laid-off friends at LL -- and the ones I don't know at all -- my wish for you is that the Great Unknown has something unbelievably incredible in store for you. And honestly, when all is said and done, it usually does. That's why I'm not going to offer my condolences. I'm just gonna say, "Rock on with your bad selves."

Haters gonna hate

I logged in to some hate mail this morning.

Usually I wouldn't lower myself to publicly address a nasty notecard. A blog post about it makes it that much more fun for the person who sent it.

But something about it struck me as pretty ironic, so let's dish about it.

That photo above, BTW, was originally intended to show some of the stuff at the Black and Blue Fair. And sadly, I thought the beginnings of that post were pretty funny. However, I'd rather talk about haters now, and plus everyone's blogging about the Black and Blue Fair, so let's just forget it. It's just that I don't really have any art for this post now, so you'll have to suffer through a couple of blue pictures.

Like this one:



(That hair turned out to be no mod, with no resize script, so don't blame me for the fit.)

This Silo skin by Dilly Dolls (800L for the fatpack) is one of my favorite Black and Blue fair purchases. I'm always surprised by how awesome Dilly Dolls' skins are. No offense to Dilly Dolls, but I mean, that store isn't exactly the first one that comes to mind when someone says, "skins."

OK, so back to the hate mail.

I got a notecard from a newly made alt that basically just ranted about how annoying my blog is. Frankly, I agree. It annoys the bejeezus out of me about 75 percent of the time. But that's not the point. Here are my thoughts, in a neatly organized list (but if you happen to be a designer, you should just skip the little tantrum that is Nos. 1-3 and read No. 4):

1. Seriously? If it annoys you, why don't you try a little dance move called Stay Away from My Blog.

It's a pretty simple thing to do, actually. For example, I used to read the iHeartSL fashion feed religiously. However, during the past few months I'll admit that there are about three or four bloggers who not only dominate it now, but also BUG THE SH*T out of me. Do I send them hate mail? Do I rant about their cheesy writing and blatant designer ass-kissing? No. I've just stopped reading that feed as much. And you do wanna be just like me, right? Yes, you secretly do.

2. If you're going to insult me or bash my writing, at least grow a pair and use your real (SL) name. Otherwise, you're just a childish, pathetic, cowardly bully hiding behind an alt. And you're not that bright either, because if you really wanted to hurt me, you'd use your real name.

For example, earlier this year I IMed Cajsa Lilliehook about something and she responded by basically calling me an immature jerk and chewing me out for something completely unrelated. It shocked the hell out of me and I still wholeheartedly disagree with her (except for the immature part), but at least she didn't use an ALT to speak her mind. To make matters worse, when I was a noob, I worshipped her, her blog, Gidge and that whole MDR clan. I didn't know how to dress way back then so I just bought everything they wrote about and blah, blah, blah -- so I seriously logged off and cried when that happened. CRIED, I tell you, which was stupid. So who knows, Mystery Writer. Maybe you could have made me cry too. That's what you were trying to do anyway, right?

(And see, even though I just ran the risk of PISSING CAJSA OFF all over again, I still put my real name behind it. So maybe you need an "Emerald Wynn is my FREAKIN' ROLE MODEL" tattoo on your forehead. Backwards. So you can read it EVERY TIME you look in the mirror.)

3. Honestly, I hate to resort to childhood terms, but someone who takes the time to write a nasty letter to someone who isn't vicious (that would be me) and is pretty much just minding her own business most of the time (that would be me, too) is just . . . MEAN! 

STOP BEING MEAN!

Do you have any idea how STRESSED THE HELL OUT I am right now??? Stop BOTHERING ME about my stupid Second Life blog, I mean REALLY??? Does it hold that much significance for you, that you have to use precious minutes of your life to write a stupid notecard that has no point other than to insult? Honestly, that makes me feel pretty powerful. I CONTROL YOUR MIND!

My GOD, I'm still reeling from the fact that last week someone essentially BLEW UP my parcel and sent my house, my furniture, my Bunny, everything flying into outer space. I'm living in a MOTHER-EFFING TREEHOUSE right now:



A MOTHER-EFFING TREEHOUSE!

According to the Black and Blue Fair (which serves to raise awareness of Mental Illness but FYI IS NOT a fundraiser, just to clear up any misunderstandings), I may be suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome right now, so LEAVE ME ALONE!

(Wow, I feel so much better.)

4. As to your ironic content, the sentence that knocked me off my prim feet was this one:

"I am good friends with a well-known designer and she told me she cringes whenever she sees what your bad photography does to her designs."

If that's true, that's hilarious. Because here's the thing. What the well-known designer probably means is that she cringes when she sees what my bad photography DOES NOT do to her designs.

I don't have Photoshop. And if I did, honestly, I really wouldn't have the time or inclination to use it to screw around with my Second Life pictures, no offense to those who do. Instead I would use it on pictures of my real face and airbrush out my deep nostril grooves and make my nose look small and shapely and smooth out the worry lines on my forehead and plump up my lips a little and make my eyes a lighter shade of green and possibly give myself some elf ears for the hell of it since my ears are already huge and make my beauty mark a little darker unless that too is possibly cancerous in which case I guess I would smudge it out and . . . .

Sorry, I got carried away for a minute.

As for my "photography": If you call me anything, call me the Fashion Consumer Advocate Blogger because what you see on this blog is exactly what I see on my screen and, as such, pretty much what most readers will see on their screens. And I'm not even a Windlight wizard. I use Caliah Lyon's Optimal Windlight settings, snap a picture, save to my desktop, use my MacBook's Preview program to crop it to 8.8 inches (the biggest size this blog design will allow) and upload it to Photobucket. Wait - I  sometimes use the "Adjust Color" tool and tap "Auto Levels" which DRASTICALLY . . . pretty much does nothing except take away some of the muddiness.

So I guess here's the fundamental question: If you're a consumer with hard-earned lindens trying to decide whether to buy something, would you rather see it real and in the raw here on my no-frills blog before you buy it? Or would you rather see it prettied up with gorgeous lighting, flattering poses and some possible Photoshop tweaks against a striking studio or scenic setting . . . and then be bummed when you end up with a possibly duller version inworld? It's happened to me before.

Please don't get me wrong: If you look over at my Blogroll From Hell -- which I need to thin out since some of those blogs haven't been updated in months -- you'll see that I'm a fan of several of those dedicated fashion bloggers. Everything those bloggers do, from assembling the outfits to choosing the setting to selecting the poses to taking perfectly composed photos, is an expression of artistic talent, in my opinion, not to mention a keen eye for styling.

But I never promised anyone that here. So if you're a designer and you're appalled that your creation doesn't look spectacular on this blog, maybe you really need to examine just how confident you are in your work. Because no -- I'm not going to beautify a shot of your clothes for you. I'm going to show people exactly how it looks out there in the (virtual) world, doing everyday things that we all do. And before you start taking shots at my possibly lame computer, don't. Embarrassingly, I spent thousands of dollars customizing this MacBook Pro for an "optimal gaming experience."

And if you're a designer and your stuff looks great on this blog, BRAVO, because that means we can pretty much guarantee that it's awesome.

OK, that was an epic tantrum. Sorry.

I'm gonna go find chocolate now.

VISIT INWORLD:
Black and Blue Fair

The words you want to hear (take two)

(Updated to replace that really annoying picture I originally had and also to include a few obsessive edits and rewrites. I edit every post about 25 times, I'm not kidding.)

Yeah, my AV is a mess. Are you surprised? Sorry about that. I found this bloody corset when I was trying (crying) to thin down my inventory. I got it when I was a noob. The store is now gone. Or at least I can't find it. (Skin: Sofia Scars by Glam Affair at The Dressing Room, 70L; Hair: Lourdes in Chocolate [NEW] by Truth.)

And that Lucky Numbers tattoo?

"The numbers are good!"

Like many people, I'm mourning the loss of "Lost" in my life, so I was really excited to find this Lucky Numbers tattoo (100L) at LuNi Designs. It also comes in a bloody carved version.

Speaking of the "Lost" finale, I belong to the "Seriously? Are you KIDDING me?" camp.

This short, awesome clip sums up why:

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Thank you, my brothers and sisters in the land of "Dear Lost, I have been a little bit upset ever since you jacked around with poor Walt and now I am 10 times as irritated."

("What is the deal with Kate and that horse?!")

Anyway, moving on . . .

Someone crashed my parcel while I was offline, helped themselves to the "Edit Terrain" button and turned it into a 9,000-foot high "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"-looking thing.

(Hey everybody, if you rent or own land, be sure to unclick the little box that allows visitors to edit your terrain.)

The thing that sucks the most is that I was so freaked and confused when I logged into that mess, I didn't take a picture. So here's a picture I drew:



Yeah, mainly I was screaming for help and "Where the hell is my house??" AND THE BUNNY! The Bunny was, of course, gone.

My landlady came to the rescue and helped bring my land down from outer space . . . but my furniture and stuff, sigh. A lot of it had gone off-world and ended up back in my lost-and-found folder. I found The Bunny there too. Thank God.

Whatever. I was planning on packing it all up anyway.

I found everything else floating around in weird places on the island. It was fun.

To be honest, once I got over the shock I couldn't stop laughing. Well played, Griefer . . . or Friend with Sick Sense of Humor.

Let's switch topics. It's been a while since I've said:

"HEY, COOL AV, MAN!" (GIRL!)

I saw this chick floating around at Botanical and snapped her picture. She's gorgeous.

If anyone knows her, please let her know that I'm running a Big Damn Picture of her on my blog. If it upsets her, I'll remove it. (It would have been nice if I would have paid attention to her NAME.)

Hey, that hair looks familiar!

(I like to blatantly break up big blocks of text with pictures that have nothing at all to do with the blog post.)

So yeah, along with logging in to find my land in outer space, I had a Weird Wednesday.

A couple of weeks ago -- in the cold, real world -- I went to the dermatologist to beg for Retin-A. While I was there, she noticed a freckle on my back that "concerned" her. Before I could yell, "But wait! I'm just here to talk about the global elimination of crows' feet!" she was jabbing a needle in my back and slicing off the freckle with a scalpel.

Whatever. I finally left armed with wrinkle cream. Mission accomplished.

I forgot about the freckle until I got An Ominous Phone Call about it Wednesday. I guess it's more than just a freckle. I guess it's a dysplastic nevus. That means that ONCE A-FRIGGIN'-GAIN some cells in my body have decided to go a little renegade. Sometimes I wonder if maybe I got so sad in 2008 that when the grief finally departed, it left a trail of anguished, twisted cells in its wake. I'm tired of doctors talking about my cells like they're hostile aliens. It gets old after about ONE time.

I guess I have to go in for a minor outpatient procedure, during which they'll take tissue samples from all around and under the spot where the Not-Really-A-Freckle lived. They want to map out my abnormal cell invasion, find all the places that don't measure up to the standards of happy, functioning cells and cut them all out before they morph into something more monstrous. (I'm not adding a sentence about also checking to make sure some of them haven't already morphed into something more monstrous because we're SO NOT GOING THERE, right? RIGHT.)

Afterward, my back is going to be a scarred, cut-up mess. Or at least that's how my way-too-vivid imagination sees it. There will be stitches. There will be painkillers. Can I please just have them now?



(This corset lacing is really part of . . . a corset! What a surprise! It's not a piercing — it was part of a hunt prize.)

When I got this news, I got all freaked and emotional and scared and angry and started wondering just HOW MUCH MORE of my body is going to get carved up in the Relentless Pursuit of Cancer. Our AVs get to have flawless skin in SL if we want them to. But in real life . . . damn, go get your freckles checked. What the hell -- I was just minding my own business, bitching about wrinkles and pushing 40, and now this? I feel like I just got Punked.

I posted something on Facebook, but sometimes the people on Facebook irritate me. If I'm upset about something, I really don't want 200 people popping up and offering solutions to my problems or fluffy words of comfort and prayer. I don't want to hear, "This is no big deal" or "This happened to my dad and it was nothing" or "Don't overreact" or my all-time favorite, "God knows what He's doing."

If I say "FML, that frakkin' freckle turned out to be Bad News," the only words I really want to hear are: "Damn, That Sucks."

Either join me in righteous anger or go away.

Then I thought, getting emo and wigged-out over a wonky freckle really doesn't honor all the people out there who are fighting huge, painful, sometimes seemingly hopeless battles with Bonafide In-Your-Face, No-Doubt-About-It Cancer.

Frankly my freckle is just that: a tiny speck in a vast battlefield in a Big Damn War Against Cancer. And to those brave people on the front lines, I just want to offer my big, loud angry

"HELL YEAH, THAT SUCKS."


VISIT INWORLD:
LuNi Designs
The Dressing Room
Truth