Breaking out of my comfort zone (in Doppelganger sweatpants)

Lately I've been trying to be more adventurous and break out of my comfort zone, primarily in RL but also in SL. For instance, I'm saying "yes" more when I'd usually say "no," particularly when it comes to social invitations. At least that's a start.

Here in SL, I was delighted to discover that Doppelganger's new vintage sweatpants put kind of an ironic twist on my quest to break out of my comfort zone . . . because they're comfortable and I've been wearing them a lot these days. But it's not just that — they also have inspirational and encouraging words on them! Create! Dance! Live! Be! Breathe! Smile! Peace! Love! Relax! Chortle! (Just kidding — they don't have "chortle" pants. I wish, though.)

I kind of agonized over these pictures. For instance, in that top one up there, my pants are telling me to "create," yet it kind of looks like I'm sulking over my miserable life. The pic needs to be more joyous. Like this:


Create!

OK, so that just looks painful. Whatever. I tried and that's what counts. I should also be smiling, but ever since that time when I used that emotion HUD and my face got frozen in that huge, Stephen Kingish-killer-clown grin for a month, I don't use those things anymore.

Let's just Be instead.


Be.

That's my meditating "Be" picture. The "Be" is kind of hard to see, so I circled it for you. I guess I also took a trip to Fail City with all the Be pictures, and this one was the only one that didn't make me laugh and cringe at the same time. What, you don't believe me?


Trying to relax in soothing water. Yes, fully clothed. Cropped out a foreign naked guy who was bothering me. Ended up looking like I was trying to Be a bloated, drowned corpse.


I have no idea. I think that's a really bad waterfall animation. Or an anguished prayer for more lindens. And I guess you also don't need feet to Be.

Let's breathe?


Breathe!

Wow — a little bit of attitude there. "I'm gonna breathe and then I'm gonna slap you upside the head." Oops. Remember, it's not about the model; it's about the clothes. Look at those pants. We love them!

This is my cheesy little 512 parcel that I always forget about. I put a big damn rainbow on it because my neighbors and I are apparently having a "who can be more obnoxious on their horrible inland parcel" contest. But I guess the rainbow humidity really jacks up my hair. Oops.

So, it's time to talk about Live. I'm kind of digging the new suggestions that SL offers on the login screen now. I realize some of them are lame, but at least they provide an alternate to spending lindens and perhaps even some blog fodder. On Sunday I dutifully trotted over to the suggested Art in the Park event, which encouraged me to "take a stroll through the Village" and check out some SL artists' work on display.

"The Village" turned out to be a small shopping square, and even though confused noobs were scattered all over the place, I still managed to discover a couple of artists I liked and buy several paintings.


Live!

These paintings — "the magic of the moment," above my head, and "the music of the wind," on the side wall — are by RL/SL artist bachi Cheng. A mere 350L each and I love them. Note that I tried to put my own interpretative spin on "the magic of the moment." I'M COOL!

I sat like that until the sun came up:


Sorry. Just thought you should see it without the brooding darkness. Just when I start mastering shadows in pics, the latest viewer update turns it all upside down. Sigh. The cat looks crusty-eyed.

Anyway, bachi's RL Website is HERE and one of her inworld galleries is HERE.

Let's take a good hard look at my face for a second and then wrap this thing up.


I'm wearing a skin I won off a Lucky Board at Mother Goose's (out of my comfort zone!) and Truth's new short, curly (out of my comfort zone!) Claudia hair, not to mention a different shape - Allie by Embody Shapes & Poses - that I found in my inventory (out of my comfort zone!). The Salvia eyes (haha I wish) and the awesome Narayan necklace (50L at My Second Wardrobe) are by A:S:S. See credits below for SLURLs.

Doppelganger didn't pay me to write this post, but in some of these pics, I'm wearing their pink Boyfriend Sweatshirt (120L), which is one of my favorite things to wear when I'm shlepping around SL, which is almost all the time. It's exactly like something I'd practically wear to death in RL. And the unisex vintage sweatpants featured in this post (150L each, 1050L for the fatpack) are available in nine colors with a different word printed on each. Each color also includes a plain version in case you don't feel like wearing vocal pants.

I'm gonna go put on some real sweatpants now and go try to create something in RL. Like a nap.

GET THEM IN WORLD
Vintage Sweats, pink Boyfriend Sweatshirt at Doppelganger, Inc.
Rad Sweatshirt in Slate (first, second and fifth pic) by Tres Blah
Shoes: EcoPois No Leather Shoes (100L) by Les Petits Details
Hair: In first two pics, Fair in brown/coffee by [kik]; pics three and four: Glowing Review in Girl Next Door by Clawtooth; and Claudia in Streaked Burgundy by Truth
Necklace: Narayan necklace (50L) at My Second Wardrobe
Skin: HENA(2), free from the Lucky Board at Mother Goose's
Eyes: Salvia eyes from the Herbalist collection (400L for fatpack) at Vision - Eyes by A:S:S
Shape: Allie (249L) by Embody Shapes & Poses

I'm a Pinky Gal

You don't usually see me running around in a kimono, but I'm all about busting out of my comfort zone these days.

I'm wearing this awesome yukata (summer kimono) for a few reasons:

1. I saw some of my friends wearing it and I wanted to be JUST LIKE THEM!

Kidding, sort of. They did look fabulous in them, though, and I wanted a slice of that fab. ("Gimme a slice of that fab on a silver platter, please!")

2. It's really pretty and kind of glowy and just a tad bit funky with that big glorious bow in the front.

and

3. It's FREE, if you have the patience. Pinky*Gals has three styles of this yukata with matching hair accessories in its lucky boards. HURRY if you want to try to snag one, because I think they're only out for a limited time. And get your friends together because the boards flip every 30 minutes. Yes, I said 30 agonizing minutes. That's why when I close my eyes these days, I see this:


Yeah, see that Q and that Z? Nice. (I couldn't get the third board in this pic - sorry.)

WOO! After a day-and-a-half of off-and-on board stalking, I won the yellow one and the pinkish one I'm wearing. Then I finally caved and bought the dark one. My patience only runs so deep. The best news is that these kimonos only cost 125L right now, so it won't be too painful if you just decide to buy one.

So go go go! You know you want to unleash your inner funky, glowy geisha! Give me a shout inworld if you need someone to flip an E. Those 30 minutes can feel like an eternity.

Here's your private jet: PINKY*GALS LUCKY BOARDS
NOTE: You'll need to join the Pinky*Gals group to slap them.

Much thanks to my friends over at the Lucky Kitty Crew blog for the initial heads-up on these things. They always know where the cool boards are. ♥

(Hair: Bumblebee in Ash Sky by LALA Moon)

Happy

I'll sheepishly admit that I had never read Harlow Heslop's blog until blogger Khloe Nitely told me about Harlow's recent Inspire Challenge for bloggers. (Damn, that's a lot of blog in that sentence. Sorry.)

Khloe wrote about my blog for that challenge and it made me get all teary and warm and fuzzy-feeing. (Thank you, Khloe! ♥ I'm not worthy. Seriously.)

I thought that idea was so nice that I've been keeping an eye on Harlow's blog ever since. I'm not big on bloggers' challenges, mainly because when I try to write on demand it turns out to be total fail. The Inspire Challenge tripped me up because there are too many bloggers who inspire me. I didn't want to leave anyone out. But now Harlow has posted a new challenge called Real Life Love Challenge, in which she encourages bloggers to post a real pic that illustrates something we love about ourselves. That one doesn't seem so daunting.

So OK!


I love this photo for a few reasons:

1. One day a couple of months ago, I calculated the amount of time I was spending in front of a computer screen and it literally made me cry. LITERALLY! So I took out my Bucket List, picked out "Swim with dolphins" and yelled, "I'M DOIN' IT!" I signed up for a private dolphin-training course at Half Moon Resort in Jamaica in May. (They're very intense there about keeping the dolphins in a stress-free environment. They don't allow masses of people to interact with the dolphins. In fact, they only allow one person per course, per day with only three courses a week. I need to clarify these restrictions because of some animal-activist backlash I've gotten. This isn't one of those touristy dolphin-circus type places. It costs a fortune, specifically to deter the "I wanna touch a dolphin!"-type crowd.)

The course wasn't all fun and games. They very much wanted it to be a day in the life of a professional dolphin trainer — parts of it, like preparing dolphin food and cleaning and keeping medical records, were kind of grueling. I had to pretty much wipe out my savings account to pay for it. And none of my friends could get away from their jobs and families, so I had to suck it up and go alone. It was kind of a brave thing for me to do. In fact, forget "kind of." It was a REALLY brave thing for me to do.

2. I love the ocean passionately. I love animals passionately. But the real me is pretty conservative and socially awkward and generally anxious. This picture combines two of the things I love the most with a victory over two of the things I fear the most — doing something completely out of my comfort zone and, even worse, doing it all by myself.

3. I didn't realize one of the trainers was taking this picture. It is a raw, unstaged, unposed moment.

Before I saw this photo, I didn't know I could look so happy. :)

Sooooooo . . . breedable tigers

Welcome to the jungle. It gets worse here every day.


I don't even . . . I can't . . . you know what . . . NO. Just no. That's all I got.

(I like your teeth.)

CHECK THEM OUT YOURSELF
WTF Tigers @ Claws N Paws

insomnia is a bitch

I can't sleep, so I'm going to play a game called "Get that picture out of your life." I'm going to look away from the computer screen, blindly click one of the many random pics scattered around my desktop and write about it. Ready? Go!


I don't know what's coolest in this picture: the Bukka Western Boots (bury me in them please), the Acid & Mala's I ♥ My Jeans jeans (which have now earned my Favorite Jeans ranking) or . . . [long dramatic pause] . . . the SHRUNKEN HEAD my Coco Spark was rocking after the latest KittyCats update.

I'm voting for Door No. 3. I kind of hoped he would stay that way but eventually he worked it out.

(Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!)

My fingers are crossed that KittyCatS will release some limited-edition ZOMBIE KITTYCATS for Halloween this year. None of that cutesy black-and-orange stuff. I want hardcore zombie cats that will chase you around screaming, "BRAINS!" I'm just gonna throw that out there now so they can start working on it.

(It's 3 a.m. I am kicking myself for not picking up my Ambien prescription today.)

Hey, when I bought the fatpack of these Bukka boots (480L for eight colors) I was delighted to discover it included an extra gift fatpack for me to give to a friend. A fatpack within a fatpack! DAMN that is generous. I went back (just for you) to see if Bukka does this with all its fatpacks and sadly the answer is no. Just some of them. Look for the little "Plus Gift" graphic in the bottom left corner of the vendor pic.

I'm going to try very hard to go to sleep now. If that doesn't work, I'm going to make a sandwich. Goodnight!

VISIT INWORLD
Bukka
A&M Creations
KittyCatS Main Store

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