Hey, look at my bandanas

It's the last day of Hair Fair, which also means that it's Bandana Day, on which you can ditch your hair to show your support for cancer warriors. Wow, there were too many "which"-es in that sentence, so let me just say it again: which.

I have friends who are adamantly opposed to Bandana Day, and I think it's because back when I was a youngster in SL there was a lot of "OH MY GAWD, IT'S BANDANA DAY AND YOU'RE STILL WEARING HAIR! YOU'RE EVILLLLLLLLLL!" going on. Since then, the community as a whole has mellowed out a little bit, or at least I think so, but maybe that's because I just took a Xanax.

God, I feel laden with commas today. Sorry.

Anyway, if you want to wear a bandana today, good for you. If not, that's OK too. I'm OK, you're OK, we're all OK. Take my hand and let's all sing "Kumbaya." When we're done, look at my favorite bandanas:


Bandana Melanosetus by L+N Signature Design. **bows down before the Steampunk AWESOME SAUCE of this "bandana"**

It was designed as a small replica of the creators' first Steampunk ship. You can open and close that faceshield and it also shoots weapons when you touch it. Do we capitalize "Steampunk"? I have no clue. Let's capitalize it because everything Steampunk is win.


Leggy Mohawk Bandana by She's So Unusual Shoes. I'm trying so hard not to sing ZZ Top right now.

Creator Rowan Carroll also includes a notecard with a touching story about why she participates in Bandana Day. I appreciate it. I believe that sharing our personal stories is one of the greatest weapons we have against cancer. It transforms an ugly word into the faces of people we love. It helps others understand the depth and the breadth and the dimensions of this disease in a way that informational pamphlets and public service announcements just can't. So if you need to, start talking and we will listen with love. I promise.


Showgirl Bandana by Haroin. I thought about putting on a showgirl outfit with this one, but this blog is all about the bandanas. It's also why I'm not crediting anything else here. (But if you want to know what something is, just holler at me inworld.)

Look at the back:


Lovely. Making an exit is just as important as making an entrance, especially if you're storming out of a bar after throwing a beer in a guy's face oops that was my last RL date sorry got carried away for a minute there.


Garden Nymph Bandana by Haroin. I'm a sucker for any kind of flower that I can slap on my head. Give me a ton of them and I'm in heaven.

You can find these and many more fabulous bandanas at the landing points of all the Hair Fair sims. (Wow, I really held back this year, actually. I usually get caught up in a moment and carried away with Hair Fair bandanas.) Bandanas are 50L each and transferable, so you can buy a bunch and pass them around, if you feel so inclined.

I hope to get one more post in today before Hair Fair ends. I had planned on soooo many more posts, but unfortunately the recent death of my grandmother turned my life upside-down during the past couple of weeks. Apologies to the designers who sent me review packs. I feel like an arse. I'm sure your sales suffered greatly because your hair wasn't featured in this blog and I feel really bad about it. (OK, that made me laugh. Mocking this blog always makes me feel better.)

Have a beautiful Friday. ♥

Find SLURLS to all the Hair Fair sims on the Hair Fair blog: HERE.

Where the wild things are (and more hair)

Be very quiet. I'm hunting Meeroos.

I have a love/hate relationship with those little bastards. They're sucking my lindens dry, and I feel like I need to have Master's degrees in math and husbandry (yay, I used a farming word) to successfully breed any kind of impressive and/or profitable offspring. Frustrating. But the gambler in me loves the mixing and matching and the "maybe this nest will finally be a rare one!" suspense. That's all I really want to say about them.

No matter how you feel about Meeroos, you might want to swing by the Mee & Roo Festivale this weekend. I love it when SL creators share their individual interpretations of one particular theme. It's like our own little version of "Project Runway." And in this case, some very talented designers were asked to create things inspired by or specifically for Meeroos.

So let's stop blabbing and look at some of this stuff. I'll try to keep the commentary to a minimum. (Keep your fingers crossed.) And while we're at it, let's knock out some more Hair Fair 2011 styles too. You still have all day July 15 to frolic around that place. Unless noted, everything shown in this post is from one of those venues.

Up top: Vanita's Vesture's Quixotic Party Dress in Ursine is only 150L and can go from crawling through the jungle during the day to a hip, happening shindig at night in a snap. It's fierce with a capital F, kids. And speaking of fierce . . .


I love this (red) Mint Hair No. 11 so much, I want to shellac it and hang it on my wall. If I could run around in RL with totally jacked-up hair and a bunch of feathers stuck in it, I'd be in heaven. Heaven, I tell you. And I'm holding a very rare, newly discovered traited Meeroo — the mystical No-Ear, No-Feet Meeroo. I heard that only one in 50,000 people will be lucky enough to breed one. I named mine Hulk Smash.

Makeup: Masked Makeup Set, 100L, by la petite morte — please note that the fuzzy lips are my computer's fault *kicks it*
Ears: Meeroo Ears and Tail set, 100L, by Jolly Farm.
Tattoo: Jungle Vine tattoo by Para Designs, not at festival


Meeroos sneaks by Jolly Farm, 200L. Win.

I guess I should have mentioned that I got to preview this event today while it was still a work in progress. I was so excited to see Evie's Closet there that I jumped up and down until somebody told me to quit it.


Bug-A-Boo Berry Fairy in Blue Berry, 175L, but there are four color variations of this bubbly little happy happy fun dress, so you might want to snag the fatpack for 350L. And yeah, we're kind of ghetto over here. We don't have a magical sparkly forest. My Meeroos live in a stable and sleep on hay. But so did Jesus for a while, so don't hate.

Shoes: Silk floral booties in Rose by Duh!, not at festival 

I'm a big dorky, shy fangirl of Evie, but I gathered my courage and got really brave today and asked her for a picture of her Meeroos for this post:


*dies laughing* WOW. And that, my friends, is yet another reason why she is so damn awesome. Now let's all go over to her place and play Jenga with those things.

So anyway, I broke a major fashion rule and matched my hair to my wings:


(Look at that little hat that comes with the Bug-A-Boo outfit! Awwww!)

Hair: Bumblebee in Ash Sky by LALA Moon. Each color also includes a version with black bands.
Eyes: From the Bootiful Blue set at Re.Birth, not at festival
Makeup: Vamp Rose eyeshadow, 25L, by Star Salt. Creator Anarya Elderslie has several shades available at Mee & Roo for this very awesome price. Here's another one:


Star Salt makeup in Clover, 25L. I like the way it also changes the shape of my eyes. And it matches my Clover Meeroo!

Eyes: Forest from the Sparkles in your Eyes III set by A:S:S., not at festival
Hair: Gemma in Espresso by Aoharu Hair. The headband is color-change. I like Aoharu's hair at Hair Fair this year, but their colors need a little oomph, in my humble opinion.
Top: From SySy's limited-edition (only 50 available) GypsyLady Dress, 250L, at the new B.Unique shopping event. I just checked — there are still some left.

As long as we're on the subjects of Aoharu at Hair Fair and eyes:


Eyes: Like a 'Roo Eyes in Orchid - Clear by HooT, 25L. I liked them so much I went back and bought the 200L fatpack.
Hair: Color-change hat with attached Megan hair in Maple Brown by Aoharu. Cute!
Necklace: Gift to Meeroos Beta testers who preordered family packs; unfortunately it's no longer available. I would sell it to you but it's no-trans.

You'll also find Meeroos habitats, garden items and pose props at Mee & Roo. I would show you all of them, but this post is getting tedious and I know you like a little mystery in your life. Suffice it to say I loved this Summer Pergola (Beach Blue edition, 100L, other colors available) by HooT and these mushrooms — available in the Meeroo Display Set, 65L, and Land Deco Set, 55L, both shown below — by Little Boxes. They're all copy, so you can fill your whole yard with them.


Well, that was fun.

Can we do it again next weekend, but with Dodos?



VISIT IN WORLD
Mee & Roo Festivale (runs through July 17)
(red)Mint at Hair Fair
LALA Moon at Hair Fair
Aoharu Hair at Hair Fair
Complete list of Hair Fair designers/SLURLS (runs through July 15)

I put my thing down, flip it and reverse it

(When I get all mopey with the blues and stuff, I listen to Missy Elliott. *points up at the random title*)

My inventory finally loaded! My inventory finally loaded! Let's put aside the emo and the lame attempts at humor and just talk about hair and clothes for a change. Sweet, sweet sigh of relief.

So, there's this thing called Hair Fair 2011 going on right now. I pretty much missed all but the last 20 minutes of Blogger Preview Day (was it last week? I've lost all track of time), so I'm just straggling over there now. One notable detail is that ALL hairstyles are donation styles for Wigs For Kids this year. So get over there and go wild! You have through July 15. (SLURL info is at the end of this post.)

So far I'm loving this Cynth hair by SugarSmacK, so much so that I may go back and buy the fatpack:


Cynth in Maple-Berri Blondie from the Bombshell Blondes pack (four colors). So damn sassy I can hardly stand it! I'm wearing it a little big, to be honest, because I'm from the South and hair bugs me in both worlds if it's not huge. I'm being serious. Plus, I have baby-fine hair in RL so I like to live vicariously through the +20 button on resizer menus.

Anyway, I don't know what I love more — the hair or the name of the designer. I want to make up a new karate move now called sugarsmack. Then I want to put on some pink spandex and hit somebody in the face — but without breaking a pink fingernail — and yell "SUGARSMACK!" when I do it. But I want it to be in a spiky cartoon balloon coming out of my mouth like a comic book.

. . . totally lost my train of thought. Oh yeah. Check out the cute back:


Kicky! If I got this hairstyle in RL, I'd end up looking like a "I'm trying so hard to be hip but I'm kind of failing" soccer mom. Trust me. I've already lived it.

You like that tattoo? It's by Mees, at Twinkle Night Bazaar in celebration of Tanabata (traditional Japanese star festival), and you still have until midnight to get over there! Fabulous affordable Japanese stuff. I bought almost everything there and didn't even cry. That's how affordable it is. Look at this Eve dress, also by Mees:


It's 90L. You've got that in your back pocket in pocket change! I know you do! And what the hell— I guess I only took that one picture of myself in that dress. Oops. Dislike. I look like I'm getting ready to go off on somebody. ("Now listen, you!") But wow, I love the top of that dress. It pays homage to my awesome cleavage.

I'm posing in the TSB Sky Room, 100L, by nocc., also available at Twinkle Night Bazaar. I bought it, rezzed it and then I had no idea how to get in the damn thing:


I flew around slamming into it like a mentally challenged moth for a while and then I finally rezzed a stool in there and sat on it. I am nothing if not resourceful. It's pretty, with glowy grass and tall bamboo and beautiful animated night skies. If I had something like this in RL, I'd never leave it. I have no idea how many prims it is, but it can't be many or my parcel would have bitch-slapped me when I rezzed it. (Or sugarsmacked me.)

Next picture:


Don't look at that one boob. I just noticed it. I don't know what it's doing. Or why. It's making a statement. Or pointing at something. Whatever. But do look at that Isis 2 hair by Calico Ingmann Creations at Hair Fair. And the MilkyWay dress, 77L, by Fall Into Decay at Twinkle Night Bazaar.

The bottom of the dress is particularly striking. That sounded pretentious. "The bottom of the dress is cool." It's got luminous wisps hanging from the hem:


Those Sequin Flats are part of a 100L two-pack at A.D.D. Andel! for La Venta Eventa this weekend. You have until midnight SLT to get them at that price. There's also a green pair in that pack. Another pack has red and yellow pairs. Each pair comes in two versions: bow or no bow. I'll be honest, I felt kind of meh about them (but of course it didn't stop me from buying them) until I put them on. Then I went, "Ooooooh! Cute!"

As for the hair, I wait in eager anticipation each year to see what Calico Ingmann's going to do for Hair Fair. Her work is always so detailed and fantastical. She didn't disappoint this year, IMHO.


Isis 2, Dark Reds pack — includes a HUD with seven colors, as well as optional streak HUDS in seven palettes.

See! Look how dreamy I look. And yes, that is a tattoo on my lip, thank you for asking. I got it for 1L at Brit. Store. + Cappuccino Bar. Cute store. (Eyes: Tears in Your Eyes in Orchids by A:S:S. Skin: Kianna in Smokey by Mynerva. Necklace: Sunset necklace by Your Skin & Your Shape for The Dressing Room. No longer available, but the rest of their jewelry at the main store is just as awesome.)

Side view:


The shells and the roses are HUD-controlled texture-change with many color options. The braid is detachable. There's a mirror version of the style if you prefer the bun and braid on the other side. It also comes with a beautiful headpiece (not shown). Wow!

There's a great list of all the designers and SLURLs RIGHT HERE CLICK HERE on the Hair Fair 2011 blog if you haven't found it yet. I've read it and re-read it and I can't find Curio Obscura though. WHAT? NO! If Curio Obscura isn't releasing any wild and wacky hair this year, it's going to be the ICING on my SUMMER OF SUCK CAKE.

Sigh. Oh well. Stay tuned for more great hairstyles in the next few posts.

VISIT INWORLD
Hair Fair 2011 SLURLS (on four sims, runs through July 15)
SugarSmacK at Hair Fair
Calico Ingmann Creations at Hair Fair
Hair Fair 2011 Blog
Twinkle Night Bazaar (until 12 a.m. SLT July 11)
A.D.D. Andel!
Brit. Store + Cappuccino Bar
A:S:S Deluxe (new eye store by A:S:S!)
Mynerva
Your Skin & Your Shape

Your house is stressing me the hell out

I'm underwater at Cyclops right now, trying to get my inventory to load. If that sentence was Greek to you, Cyclops is a water sim with not a hell of a lot going on. So if you have a massive inventory like I do, it'll load faster here. The only thing I don't understand about the place: There are AVs who have been underwater here for months. I know because every time I have to come down here, they're always here. How is this possible?

There are real things I need to blog, like Hair Fair and shtuff, but I can't take decent pics until I have an inventory. Until then, you're going to have to deal with the scraps of patheticness that are on my desktop. And unfortunately most of them are really bad pics I took in utter fascination of my neighbors' houses.

There was a time when I would NEVER cam into a neighbor's house. Ever. But I've been in SL for more than three years now and sometimes it gets boring here. My virtual scruples are fading fast, and they fade even faster if you have a fugly house that's just begging for my attention. And lately I've found a lot of them.

In fact, I wish I could partner with a home decor designer and start a cool blog series called "Your House is Stressing Me the Hell Out" and play this little game where if I find your eyesore of a house and showcase it in this blog, you win a home makeover from that designer. I'd also need a decent photog to help me pull it off. That's just a little blog fantasy of mine. The only awkward part would be notifying the unsuspecting winners. ("Hi! You don't know us, but your house is sooooo bad that we're invading it and redecorating it for you!") But maybe friends could nominate their friends or people could nominate their neighbors or whatever, and then it wouldn't be all on me to break the news. Kind of like that show "What Not to Wear," where I'm sure the people at first want to kill their families, spouses and best friends for nominating them for their horrible wardrobes, but then decide life is truly awesome when they realize they get a multi-thousand dollar shopping spree in NYC because of it. I've been running around in ugly clothes on purpose in RL ever since that show started.

WOW. I'M BABBLING. SORRY.

Anyway, let's do it! Unfortunately I don't have a home makeover for these people. They just get gently mocked this time. But with love, I swear. I say something nice about them at the end of this post, too. And I mean it sincerely.

                                        Your House is Stressing Me the Hell Out

OK, so as some of you know, I rent a few farm parcels for my many breedable animals that eat up all my lindens and hardly ever produce offspring worth selling. It's like an extreme nicotine habit I can't shake. ("I'm chain-smokin' Red Tabbies!") Because of them, however, I've learned a new way to describe SL to the uneducated masses. During the two weeks I spent in hospice with my late grandmother, many many many many nurses would look over my shoulder at SL on my laptop (annoying) and ask, "What IS that?" I'd answer, "It's kind of like another version of FarmVille" and they'd say, "Oh!" with a tone of wisdom and acceptance and walk away and leave me the hell alone. Beautiful.

Anyway, this land where my farm parcels are located is zoned for FARMING. The land agreement even asks tenants to stick to a farm theme, but the landlady is a sweetheart and she obviously doesn't crack down too hard. But see, check it out . . . it's FARMLAND:


Horses. Barns. Sunflowers. Breedable glowy dragons in the background. Yes — in SL, dragons sometimes are considered livestock. That's why we are awesome here.

And then THIS GUY rolls in (literally, in two cars):


W T holy F? You can't see it, but those lights on the right side of the house flash. Obnoxiously.


Keep out. (OK.)


Pretty.

Look, I got news for you, man: Your gangsta sh*t is NOT THAT GANGSTA when it's surrounded by barns and horses. I'm just sayin'.

Let's ignore the "Keep Out" sign and look inside. Don't tell anyone.


OH MY GAWD, IT'S A THRONE!! With . . . boxes of ammo and a classy-looking plant to add some thoughtful decorative touches! And a little chair next to it. For . . . the queen of Gangstaland. Or something.


Ohhhhh. OK. I Googled "Saints Row" because I'm not hip to all the gang-war video games out there. Now I feel bad for making fun of the throne. I don't want the 3rd Street Saints after me. I would, however, just like to offer one small piece of decorating advice: Watch where you place that neon pink stripper pole in the middle. That looks painful for that poor guy. (Is that a neon dildo on the bar?)


I will give him 10 points for the animated aquarium and the fact that he matched his purple couches to it. And three points for his apparent love of classical music. In fact, I'll add on a couple more points, because, although I do see an old-school pose ball at the piano bench, I do not see sex pose balls ON the piano, which frankly surprises me a little. (No offense, Gangsta Farmer.)

I'm going to stop now before he finds me and shoots all my horses with a machine gun.

**leaves for a second to put ban lines around my parcels**

. . . Let's move on to the chick next to him. OH YES! If you build it, they will come. All it took was one deviation from the farm thing and then EVERYBODY started gettin' ALL CRAZAY up in the happy farming sim. Before we start perving, I should mention that I *have* exchanged a few words with this lady and she's nice enough. Sometimes I log on and find her on my parcels poking my animals though. Payback time: I poke her house.


Well. It's big. It doesn't have a neon stripper sign on it, so thank you for that. In fact, her home's exterior has a decidedly feminine touch:


Fairies! I like fairies. I like them better in person though. But hey, these aren't flashing, so there's that. (The jaggedy lines of the house are my fault. Or my graphics card's fault. Bad Mac!)

Let's check out one of the bedrooms!


Chanel.

Oh, honey. Coco says no. But look carefully: At least there's a view of HORSES from the bedroom window. And . . . spotlights shining down on the satin sheets. Hey, good sex deserves good lighting. Especially if you're filming it.


The red velvet living room. Hey, I like your boyfriend! (Before you start thinking that guy is a total douche, I'm the one who added those smooth shades to protect his identity. It makes me feel slightly less like a complete asshole right now. Not by much though.)

Since I've started perving strangers' houses, I've learned that the secret to a successful SL relationship apparently is to hang up a BIG DAMN PICTURE of your partner or both of you somewhere on your property. Some people prefer to put it outside, billboard-style. Others prefer to fill up one whole wall of a room with it and frame it with red velvet curtains. I don't think the location matters. What does matter is that the skin and hair MUST be from the year 2008. Otherwise, the public declaration of your love will be total fail.

I'm a really nice person, I swear, so I'm going to end this post with pictures of my own house (on Bluebonnet, not the farm sim — SEE, I do it right) so you can mock me too if you want. Well, the house itself actually is a point of pride. A couple of days ago, I tried to delete some Fourth of July decorations and accidentally deleted my whole house instead (hate it when that happens), which turned out to be a good thing. Accidentally deleting my house usually is the only thing that will force me to get up off my arse and change houses. So this time I chose the "damn I wish I had this house in real life" beach house called Ariel by Funky*Junk:


If you want to make me scream with delight, put a house on stilts. Then I don't have to terraform. If I have to terraform, chances are good that I'm going to just give up and say, "Screw this," and leave a big lump of land sticking up out of my living room floor.

Here it is in the raw, without my attempts at mood lighting. I'll probably never get the hang of artfully using SL shadows in pictures, but at least I occasionally give it a shot.


(Can you find The Bunny?) That bad-ass Amaretto Charmed Nightmare Clydesdale is not included with the house, BTW. Two boring horses bumped uglies and popped that thing out the other day, which sent me into throes of orgasmic ecstasy. The cute beachy decorations on the house, however, ARE included.

Ariel is 499L and available in Mist (shown) and Kelp, which is a beachy green. It's 161 prims with all the exterior beach decor and 145 prims without it. It includes lockable doors, and the windows are tintable for privacy. Wow, that's kind of ironic, considering the subject matter of this post. I guess if you live near me, you'll need those.

OK. I'm almost done. This is the longest post I've ever written. Here's a pic of the interior of my lovely home.


Awwwww yeeeahhhhhh! Nothing but cats, baby!

The moral to this post? Props to the people — including those mentioned here —who at least put love, time and effort into decorating their houses. Some of us just throw down a bunch of cats and a pose stand in a room and call it a day.

VISIT IN WORLD:
Funky*Junk
Cyclops
Paradise World Estates leasing office — I pay $1530/week for a 988-prim Farming-zoned parcel. Smaller parcels also are available, as well as Residential- and Commercial-zoned parcels in Moderate or Adult categories.

A day in the life of my OH SO STELLAR graphics card

Occasionally I like to treat everyone to glimpses of Second Life through the eyes of Emerald. Like my yard, for instance:


Hey, look at my dodos and my Amaretto unicorns!

I don't know what's going on with my graphics card. When I ordered this MacBook Pro, I customized it to be optimized for gaming. It was awesome for a while and then I must have broken it. Now I see that the newer versions have even better graphics cards. Damn you, Apple.

Unfortunately it's even worse at my grandmother's house. She has no Internet because she "never got the hang of it," despite our best efforts to teach her. So for the past two weeks, I've been tethering my iPhone to my computer and using it as a personal Hotspot. ("OOOOH BABY, LET ME SHOW YOU MY HOTSPOT!") I exceeded my data allowance a few days ago. Can't wait to get that bill.

It sucks though. It gets me online, but forget about high speeds or decent graphics or anything that lets me have a normal Second Life. And oh how I've needed a normal Second Life this month. Any normalcy anywhere would be nice. Instead I kind of just grope around at shapes and put blobs down on the ground and hope that it's the right food for the right blobby animals and wander around and attempt to check things out and fail.


This newish Truth hair is called Fiona. See why he begs me to blog his hair every week?


HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SECOND LIFE! The installations this year are truly awesome!

Speaking of awesome SLB8 installations, if you've never owned breedable KittyCatS and want to try one out, you can click the hat and get a free limited edition kitty, complete with food and accessories, at the SLB8 KittyCatS exhibit:


HELP WHAT IS THAT THING?!


GET IT AWAY FROM ME!

Yeah, so SLB8 isn't working out so well for me right now. Hopefully I'll get out of Iowa someday soon and will still have time to check it out when I get home. In the meantime, you can see what the free cat really looks like HERE on the KittyCatS Website. The festivities run through July 2. For a list of other great SLB8 freebies, check out the Lucky Kitty Crew blog HERE and HERE.

Let's stop looking at pathetic pictures. I did manage to take one that almost looks decent:


Ooooooh! I was shocked when two rather ordinary cats gave birth to this snowshoe lilac with rainbow prism eyes. So shocked, in fact, that I immediately put it up for sale in Emerald's Magical Cat Shack.

Yeah, sadly I'm about to slaughter, sell or box up all my animals. I would like to try to wean myself off SL a little, and I can't do that when I'm constantly worrying about feeding fake animals. The KittyCatS in particular will be painful, but DAMN, I can't afford the Perma-Pet vitamins to turn my favorite ones into low-maintenance pets. As much as I love these cats and their creators, I'm unhappy about the insane amount of lindens (1500L - 1800L) it costs to turn these cats into non-breedables. With the horses, the dodos and the Wildwoods, I simply have to click a button on the menus and my lindens get to breathe a sigh of relief. The fact that I have nurtured and loved some of these damn KittyCatS for more than 120 days — when their breeding cycles have officially ended — and STILL have to pay 1500L to turn each one of them into "pets" makes me want to THROW A BIG DAMN TANTRUM JUST LIKE THIS ONE RIGHT HERE. /END RANT.

Sorry. I'm grumpy. My Aunt Who is Apparently Always on Speed or at Least Adderall has decided that "all the girls in the family" need to go get pedicures together today to take our minds off the death of my grandmother yesterday. This sounds like agony to me. I would rather get a root canal with no novocaine right now. At least then I'd have a legitimate reason to scream. It's almost like everyone in this family is afraid to be alone and quiet for five minutes. Me, I need time to myself to finally let go and breathe. But it's not going to happen. We don't "mope around" in this family. I told my mom I was boycotting the pedicure thing and she started bawling and slinging guilt trips at me and telling me that I'm selfish. I feel like I'm going insane. I'm tired of not being selfish. If I didn't want to make a bad situation worse, I'd put on a huge tiara, proudly proclaim myself Queen of All the Selfish Assholes in the World and go back to bed for the day.

I guess I'm off to soak my feet in a big bath of denial and get my toes painted something cheery. :(

Get your free SLB8 limited-edition KittyCat here: SLB8 KITTYCATS EXHIBIT . . . or buy a sparkly one at EMERALD'S MAGICAL CAT SHACK

And then there was silence

I want to thank everyone who has been so kind and supportive during these Most Dismal and Wretched Two Weeks of My Entire Life. After 14 days in a coma, my grandmother finally passed away at 3:36 a.m. today. (I know the exact time because apparently I've been watching way too much TV and I thought a medical examiner was going to ask me or something.)

I'm going to use the word "peacefully" because the nurses told us to expect all kinds of possibly horrific things at the end, and none of that stuff happened. There were a few scary things that will probably haunt me for the rest of my life, but all in all, I'm glad I was there. My mother and I were sitting on each side of her, holding her hands. She looked really peaceful once it was all over, although I'll admit that I didn't look at her much afterward. It was the middle of the night and I was sort of freaked out and I half expected her to open her eyes and sit up and yell, "BOO!"

The inner child does not like dead people, no matter who they are.

The funeral is this weekend. I don't know how I'm going to make it until then. I just want to GET THE HELL OUT OF IOWA. I've had enough. I wrote her obituary today. Then I cried for about an hour. Then I slept for a couple of hours. Then I cried for another hour. Then I stood in the shower and cried some more. Just call me officially traumatized at this point. And wiped out. I miss her. I don't even think the word "miss" is adequate, actually. Somebody needs to invent a new word.

My grandmother was a beautiful woman with a caring spirit. She taught me everything I know about grace and generosity and what it means to be a genuinely lovely person. She had an amazing sense of humor, and when she talked to people, she made them smile — but more importantly, she made each person feel like he or she was the most important person in the world. She was my biggest cheerleader, and even in my lowest moments, she always acted like I was nothing short of amazing. She was a strong woman who taught me how to get back on my feet when life knocked me down, and she never let me forget what a gift every second of this life is, even when it sucks. As heartbreaking as this time has been, I feel honored that I got to share her last moments with her.

I hope she knew somehow that she was not alone at the end. I hope I get to see her again someday.

June 28, 2011

girl power

This blog has been dead for a while. I'm in a hospice home with my grandmother, who suffered a brain aneurysm last week. She's in a coma now. She's not coming out of it. We have unplugged all the machines, but her body is still plugging away on autopilot. There is no brain activity. And I guess I can only write in these stilted sentences.

My mother and I have been sitting with my grandmother day and night here. None of my other relatives can do it. They come in, stay for a while, say "I can't do this" and leave soon after. I don't hold it against them at all. But my mother just can't leave my grandmother lying alone in this room in this house full of dying people. And I can't bear to think of my mother sitting here alone all night, every night, so I'm here too. Grandmother, mother, daughter together at the end of this journey — it's kind of poetic. It's almost like we have transformed this depressing disinfected room into a sacred space. So there's that. Girl power. yay.

I never thought I'd pray for someone to die before, but I just want my grandmother to be at peace. We were so close. This depleted shell of a person lying here is not my grandmother. I'd like to think my grandmother's spirit is already somewhere nice. I hope her spirit is not tied to her body right now, waiting with the rest of us for this hell to come to an end. She was a beautiful, shining, caring person. She deserves a limo ride to that great white light or wherever the hell we go when we die. The hospice chaplain comes to talk to me and I just stare at him blankly. I'm not in the mood for happy stories about heaven at the moment. If there is a God, I'd like to punch him in the face right now.

I'm amused by the men in this family who "just can't do this." My brother admitted that he comes in this room and feels starkly terrified. My grandmother has had several strokes since she's been unconscious, so her face is completely slack and unrecognizable. Her mouth is open. She doesn't breathe — she gurgles. And hell yeah, it's scary as sh*t. Her eyes opened by reflex yesterday and I screamed like someone in a horror movie. And when the lights are off, forget about it. But we are women and we are caretakers and we are strong and blah blah blah. We bring life into this world and maybe that amazing gift also gives us the fortitude to hold a hand as a life fades away. I feel blessed and slightly cursed at the same time.

In SL, all my animals are dying. I get emails from my cats, wailing that they're 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 percent hungry and it suddenly seems ridiculous to me. There's free wireless Internet here in the hospice home, but most of the time I don't feel like staring at a computer screen for very long.

So that's my story. Oh and I got laid off last week. So there's that too.

I'm having one hell of a month. It's kicking my ass all over the place. I hope yours is better. If you are the praying type, my grandmother's name is Gretchen. Please ask God to come take her home.

Love and hugs,
Em

Bottle full of bub

Any time Keira Seerose plans something, I get kind of giddy because it usually means there's going to be a room full of shopping nirvana.

This time it's Ch1c Management's first birthday, and that means three things: a) I'm really damn proud of myself for remembering to put that '1' there instead of the 'i' in "Chic," b) it's time for another room full of shopping nirvana, and 3) you may or may not be stuck on 50 Cent's "In Da Club" for the rest of the day now.

Go shawty, it's your birthday!

(OK, I'm sooooo white, that was kind of awkward. Sorry.)

It also means that you may or may not be sick of seeing blog posts about this glee-inducing event and if so, I'M SORRY!

You have to understand that all I've been talking about in SL for the past week is how many times I pet my Meeroos a day and how many regard points I have and whether or not I have a Red one (no) or an Autumn one (yes) or a Sienna one (want) and if I'm being a good fellowship member and why oh why didn't I click that stupid broken pipe before that bastard vanished and why the hell is there so much stale shortbread and other random shite buried in my yard anyway and maybe if I buy just one more family pack there'll be a Koi in it and hey where do you sell your Meeroos because I sell mine here and here and here and who do I have to sleep with to get a stall at Red Barn Meeroos because that seems to be the most happening place these days and how much do you think I can get for this Lazy Ursine and why couldn't they have spiced things up a little and named the personality "Lazy-ASS" Ursine and hey isn't that little sound they make kind of annoying after you listen to it for a few hours yes it is you know it is admit it . . . . WHOOOOOOOOOOOO!

So it feels good to talk about clothes for a change. Or anything else, for that matter. Because in real life . . . well, wait, let's get back on point for a minute:


Me and my shaaaaaadows! (Sorry. I'm just excited that I finally got shadows to work on my Mac. Now you're going to have to deal with a bunch of bad shadow pictures for a while.)

This Ballina Beach Set is W. Winx's contribution to the Ch1c Birthday event. The total setup — and you can pick and choose what you want on that deck and where you want it — is 75 prims and has plenty of texture change options everywhere, including on the privacy wall in the back. I love that everything is Copy and that the folder includes a pre-assembled version as well as all the separate pieces. Nice!

Anyway, in real life I got a little cosmetic tune-up last week. I have this kind of bony face that made me look like a starved bird, so I got a few vials of fat ("dermal fillers") injected into it. I also bought some lips. And for the first time, Botox. Wow, Botox at age *cough* 39! (Yes, I'm 39 again this year. You got that? Good.) I'm not sure if I'll do the Botox thing again - creepy - but I'm totally loving my "hell no, I'm not 40!" face now. My forehead looks worry-free, the dark exhausted-looking grooves under my eyes are gone, my cheeks are filled out and my formerly thin lips look lipgloss worthy now. And it doesn't look drastic. It looks like I've been on vacation for two weeks and maybe kissing people a little too much. Next up: Boobs. Oh yeah, baby! The RL Emerald is bringing sexy back this year . . . or at least my credit card is.

So, speaking of a beautiful face (see, there was a point to that paragraph!):


Mynerva's new Bianca in Latte, with Clarus eyes in Daisy from Aphotic Gloom. Hair: Jaqueline 2 in Burgundy by Truth.

I started to write a poetic paragraph about how much I love this skin, particularly in the darker tones, but I think I'll just let the picture speak for itself.

OK — I want to talk about this flirty fun Animal Print Jumpsuit by Indie Rose for a minute and then I have to go check my effing Meeroos. I didn't even want to get into the whole Meeroos thing, but my competitive spirit wants to assemble a Meeroos gene-machine dream team that'll produce exciting offspring. And everyone will go, "OOOOOH! AHHHHH! OHHHHH!" and then I'll feel fulfilled.

Anyway, I don't know what I love more, this kicky little jumpsuit (shown with lassitude & ennui's Skully pumps in purple; the top pic features the black ones) or the HUD that comes with Indie Rose's fatpacks:


(Sorry I'm underwater here. I'm trying to get my inventory to load.)

I've never seen this type of HUD before, but maybe it's because I'm usually too broke to buy fatpacks. But HOW COOL — you just click the dress on the HUD that you want to wear and it drops that folder in your inventory. You can delete the dress when you're done wearing it because you can always get a new one from the HUD. Now can someone please make one for my 160K inventory?

Let's go sip Bacardi like it's your birthday.

CHECK IT OUT
CH1C Birthday Event — features more than 90 awesome designers and runs until 4 p.m. SLT June 19. (And BLESS THEM for specifying the hour when it ends. It eliminates confusion.) You can get everything in this post except the hair there.

Poses in this blog are from Exposeur and Still Life.

I pride myself on listing prices of almost everything I feature in this blog, but in this case these items were all blogger review copies so I have no clue. (But if you want to know a price, I will personally go find out for you.) The fact that someone deemed me worthy of covering this event made me get kind of teary, actually.