gasping for steel blue air

Lately whenever my mind starts skittering around in a panic, I stop and concentrate on the image of a vast sheet of ice: cold and clear and sharp and blank. I block out any black murk with a mental blast of frosty wind and then I go back to being a corporate drone.

That's why I'm really glad my friend Aisuru made this awesome ice castle. It's where I want my brain to live right now. Get it at Beloved Custom Designs.

(I take pictures in the Funky Funky Funky Windlight setting and pretend I'm a real photographer.)

I finally got my laptop back. A few wires had simply come undone, thank God, so not only were the repairs covered under the warranty, but the Mac "Geniuses" also cleaned it out, put a new keyboard/mouse pad on it, and put it in a new fiberglass shell (!!!!). All for free! The keys are so clickety now. I feel like I have a whole new computer. How nice to have a screen that doesn't go black every five minutes!!

MY GOD, THAT PARAGRAPH WAS EXCITING!!!

A lot happened during the week I was laptop-less. For the first time in my history, Stiletto Moody gave her update group a free pair of shoes. If I were motivated, I'd show them to you. Unfortunately I'm not. I think you can join her group for free today only and get them at her store though.

And call me a sheep, but I also like the new Bella skin from Tuli:



Baaaaaaaa! (that was a sheep sound)

Yeah, I'm still wearing that sweater from A.S.S. Maybe I'll become The Avatar in That Sweater. I don't feel like changing clothes. But if I did, I would change into the new Oksana outfit by House of RFyre. It's really rare that I'll get a new release notice, yell "OOOOOOOH!!!!" and run like hell to buy something, but when I saw this dress I did just that. And then when I saw that Arabella Steadham had blogged it, I thought, "Thank God," because she takes such gorgeous pictures and you know mine would have brought the comical suck and ruined it.

Because I am the epitome of icy laziness right now, here's a SCREEN SHOT of Arabella's blog post about this stunning ensemble:



Laugh out loud and sorry. But yeah, to see the dress in all its glory, run over to Arabella's Amblings.

Out of the 932 fashion blogs in Second Life, I only deem about nine of them worthy of my time and attention. Take a bow, Arabella!

I almost named this post "Blog posts I wish I'd written" because there were a few today that made me pump my fist in the air and yell, "YEAH!"

Well, OK, a mental fist, I mean. Wearing an icy mitten.

Chalice (Cha Cha) Charling wrote one called "I Love You . . . I Love You Not (so much)" which made me smile. I know this was not her intention, but I think this post countering pictures of things she loves with pictures of things she does not love is a gracious and fun way to mock things that are stupid and, as such, I totally intend to copybot that blog idea soon and do it over here.

Here's a screen shot of Chalice's blog:



HA HA HA! I so did not know these people had me in their blog rolls!! I swear! *BLUSH!* I'm flattered! :D

So if you haven't figured it out by the slightly off-kilter and defeated tone of this blog, you are watching a mental breakdown in progress so BUCKLE UP kids and enjoy the ride! Here's a quick stream-of-RL-consciousness snapshot just to put it all in perspective:

I spent last week at a PR summit held by the company for which I am now a vice-presidential public relations representative; it was one of those totally cheesy events where a totally cheesy guy in a totally cheesy suit gets on a totally cheesy stage with totally cheesy hip-and-happening "get fired up" music blasting out of giant speakers behind him and he gets everyone cheering and bursting with company pride and then he switches gears and starts reaming everyone for not "driving home PR efforts enough to boost fourth-quarter company earnings" and I'm sitting in the audience thinking, "I direct PR efforts in a very rural part of the South with some of the biggest unemployment and poverty numbers in history and by the way it's the holidays and right now most people are more worried about putting food on their tables and buying their kids a couple of Christmas presents than buying one of your $300 smart phones so ARE YOU FRIGGIN' KIDDING ME?" and . . .

ice ice ice ice ice ice ice ice sheet of ice ice ice ice

. . . . later my new boss comes up to me and tells me they are "anxiously waiting for me to start acting like a leader" and I look at her in confusion because I have had this job for a whopping 10 days at this point and I am still anxiously waiting for some office furniture, business cards and my parking pass and I translate part of "acting like a leader" to "firing the guy who is only billing 12 hours a day instead of the typical 15" and . . .

ice ice ice ice ice ice ice ice sheet of ice ice ice ice

. . . I refuse to fire anyone until I see with my own eyes that they are slacking off and this morning I even Googled "how to act like a leader" because I am confused about what I've done -- besides not firing a guy -- in 10 days that's already not been acting like a leader and when I asked my boss to give me some examples of her perception of "acting like a leader" she said, "for example, you could eat some yeast and lighten up," which seems somewhat contradictory to me and goes on my list of "lamest attempts at constructive criticism ever" and . . .

ice ice ice ice ice ice ice ice sheet of ice ice ice ice

. . . this weekend I fell off a wagon of sorts and have been steadily feeding myself just enough sedatives to keep my mind in the land of ice ice ice ice ice ice ice ice sheet of ice ice ice ice

. . . and lying in bed watching documentaries about people who live and work in Antarctica and trying not to think about how I will probably shake during the whole hourlong drive to work tomorrow morning and how I feel like I sold my soul for six figures and how I wanted my life to be so much more than a small piggy woman in ugly stretch pants and a cheesy dude in a shiny suit barking at me to get their company more press so they can sucker more people into buying $300 cell phones and in the process make even more money and never mind that you are already a Fortune 40 company and isn't that enough for you right now and hey doesn't this company understand that people are pretty broke and unemployed at the moment and what are your corporate social responsibility policies anyway, Big Wireless Provider? because I did not realize you were so cutthroat, I mean, your commercials are so hilarious, who woulda thunk it, are you really about communication or are you more about the giant bonus you'll get next month if my blood, sweat and tears result in high sales figures for you and . . .

ice ice ice ice ice ice ice ice sheet of ice ice ice ice

. . . my mother getting all weepy at the sight of me getting all weepy and begging me "not to do that thing where you lose it and quit your job again because your father and I really need this money" and there are so many things wrong with that request right there that my mind cannot even process it, but hey mom, I'm only thirtysomething and I'm all alone in this mess with nobody to help me but myself and I'm too young to carry the burden of saving my still-young 60-something-year-old alcoholic parents who can't seem to pull it together, especially since I myself am trying so hard to pull it together right now but I can't seem to stop feeling like a warped and battered puzzle piece that simply. doesn't. fit. into. any. picture. anymore. period.

ice ice ice ice ice ice ice ice sheet of ice ice ice ice

OK. That wasn't quick. Sorry.

Update: I heard that mean people are snipping about my emo on Plurk. Plurk is the handiwork of the Devil and nothing is truly "private" there, kiddies. SURE, I'LL ADMIT IT: All the whining aside, I'm just a child who hates working, particularly if the job holds no meaning for me.

I made a sign that says, "IT'S JUST A FRIGGIN' JOB" and slapped it on my mirror.

And I'll try to counter my hatred of Corporate America by taking my fat paycheck and using it to buy holiday gifts for struggling families this year.

Speaking of real life, I don't know this guy, but I saw his blog post on the IHeartSL feed this morning. It's "My Brand of Heroin" by Phantom Republic and he's making a run for the RL border. He's tired of Pleasantville. He misses gritty reality.

Good luck with that, man.

Meanwhile I'll hunker down in pixelated snow drifts and continue to fling shards of ice at the fire-breathing demons in my head.

the shakes

Hi from a newly launched smart phone that shares its name with Star Wars robots.

No, I'm not saying the name here because the company that introduced it is my new PR client and I try to keep my pixelated life separate from my professional one.

Anyway, cool phone that lets me blog, huh? It has a high-res screen with a little QWERTY keyboard that slides out from under it, which is cool because I hate the touch-screen one.

My MacBook is STILL in the shop and I will admit that I'm not handling not having a computer very well. I feel so disconnected. I decided to hold off on buying the new computer because my new job is intense, so much so that I sincerely think I'm in over my head. I've come home and bawled three nights out of my first week.

I'm slightly concerned that I'm either going to get canned or end up sneaking out of the building and running for my life. I wish the tempting tempting Greyhound Bus station weren't right under my office window.

All that "woe is me" aside, I miss the brief escape that slipping into a Second Life gives me. I'm in this highly stressful job where I'm getting paid mega bucks to crank out highly creative ideas and unfortunately I can't access the one place that lets the right side of my brain run wild. It's almost physically painful, but maybe if I was so dependent on this particular outlet for release, I needed to have it yanked away from me anyway.

I wish they'd make a Second Life app for smart phones though. :D

Hope everyone's fabulous. ♥

A really good reason to break a shopping boycott

But first:

In the real world today, a gunman went on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, killing 12 people and wounding 31 others. I am ashamed that it took a tragedy like that one to put some bullsh*t SL drama — as well as some frivolous real stuff — in perspective for me.

And now, back to your pixelated world of perfection:

The fact that I'm blogging today doesn't mean that I don't support content creators in The War Against Content Theft.

(At this point, I feel like we need to capitalize it.)

-- Read designers' thoughts on content theft on Achariya Rezak's rockin' blog HERE.

-- Check out a tutorial on how to verify an object's creator over on the Fab Free blog HERE.

-- Find a Step UP! (against content theft) event tonight and/or get yourself educated over on the Step UP! blog HERE.

-- Go over to Sway's Creations and grab this free Step UP! bear (also distributed in the Subscribo). Don't forget to open it and take the supportive materials inside.

Nobody does bears like Sway Dench does. That thing blinks too. It took me nine tries to get a photo with its eyes open.

OK.

I got really excited today when I got a notecard from A.S.S. (Another Stupid T-Shirt Shop).

Actually everyone in the Subscribo got it, not me personally. I'm not that special.

If you look to your right on this page (under "How I Roll"), you'll see a link to Kiva.org, an initiative I've supported for a while.

I can't explain it better than the organization's Web site:

Kiva is the world's first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend to unique entrepreneurs around the globe.

The people you see on Kiva's site are real individuals. When you browse entrepreneurs' profiles on Kiva, choose someone to lend to, and then make a loan, you are helping a real person make great strides towards economic independence and improve life for themselves, their family, and their community. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates and track repayments. Then, when you get your loan money back, you can relend to someone else.

A while ago, I lent money to Kwasi Agyei, and hell yeah, he runs a bar in Ghana. I've gotten about half the loan back already. When I get it all back, I'll lend it to someone else.

Anyway, today I was excited to read that several content creators have formed the We Can Do Better team to support the Kiva cause. The proceeds of specially marked items will go toward loans to Kiva-sponsored entrepreneurs. You can track the progress of the We Can Do Better team's loans on the Kiva site HERE.

This great sweater and shredded jeans outfit (150L) is A.S.S.'s contribution:



Welcome to Emerald's half-rezzed dinosaur park. (I decided not to buy my new computer until next week.)

The sweater comes with tucked and untucked options, as well as a bottom prim for a baggier look (not shown because I'm not a fan of that look). The jeans come with rolled-up cuffs. You can't see mine because I've given up trying to get my feet in photos.

I'm getting all excited for winter, so I paired it with Ryker Beck's new Sienna skin in Snow (Soleil) from Exodi. I'm not gonna get all gooey about the Sienna skin like a lot of bloggers are. I'm just gonna say that I like it. It's not my usual face and that sort of trips me out a little, but I like it. For a better look, you'll have to scroll all the way back to the top of this post. (Sorry.)

This winter in Second Life is a little bittersweet for me. To my delight, last year I discovered that Second Life really magnifies my holiday spirit times 10 (um, even though I took a break around Christmas last year), possibly because I was living in the desert in real life at the time and also because it's so damn easy to decorate my fake house and wrap fake gifts in SL.

Fake snow is fun. It's why I want it all year long.

This year, two of my favorite friends are gone. I thought for sure that my friend Opheila/Galene would cave and come back (no offense, O/G), but she totally stuck it out three months after canceling her account and now her AVs have vanished. She's designing purses in real life now. Trust me, they will get pimped out here when she's ready.

My Italian friend Holden has left too, in a manly and valiant pursuit of a better real life.

/me waves at both of them, since they sometimes still swing by here.

Ironically (yeah, that's my word this week), I exchanged e-mails with the real people behind both of those AVs today, but it's still kind of . . . lonely in Second Life.

*sniff*

On top of all that, all my chickens are dead.

<---- loner

Don't Hate! I'm just confused!

Yeehaw! It's wine-and-blog time! Tonight we're drinking Rex-Goliath California Merlot. Frankly, I'm not a fan of merlot. But it was there, so I said, "Why not?"

And yep, I'm bloggin' up a storm this week because apparently we're not supposed to tomorrow. So brace yourself.

But before I get on that topic, let's talk about this RedApple Late Summer dress by Chantkare. I mentioned it yesterday, but since then I've gotten a lot of "Hey! Where'd you get that dress?" from strangers on the streets. And I have to admit, I really love it too. I usually prefer outfits that cling to my neurotically crafted shape, but this dress proved to me that, YES, loose and flowy CAN be a win!

I paired it with Some New Hair by That Guy. I used to be slightly upset about the fact that in my popular circle of friends, I'm the unpopular one who doesn't have any hair named after her. Then I got over it. Hell, I've got a whole Second Life viewer named after me! Could I really ask for anything more?

In fact, I wanted to find that viewer and download it the other day, but when I Googled it all I found were LINKS TO THIS BLOG!! Ha HAAAAA! That's awesome.

And sad.

I don't think 800 people a day are really reading this blog after all.

Shoot where was I?

Oh the dress! I bought it at a Breast Cancer Awareness fashion event, but I wandered over to Chantkare today (because I love you) and discovered you can buy it there now for 350L. I also found it in midnight blue and brown. There may be other colors. I'm not sure because the store looked like this:



Pretty pretty colored shapes!

That was for all you people who IMed me today and said, "I can't live without your hilarious blobby pictures!"

Speaking of, I put off buying my new computer until tomorrow. I "built it" online today first, and it's going to cost close to $3K. I'm skittish about spending that much money until I'm positive I'm not going to get fired from my new job. Unfortunately, I'm gonna have to just suck it up and get it tomorrow, because this lame laptop is going in the shop. And I need a computer because I still have a few last newspaper articles to write this week. *sniff*

In fact, I was feeling so sentimental about the death of my newspaper career today that I threw on this "Black or White?" dress from Stitch By Stitch. I bought it at Modavia Fashion Week (you had no idea I've been lurking around so many fashion events, did you?), but you can get it at the store or on XStreet for 295L:



(Why use an expensive photo studio when you can just stand around in the vast empty expanse that is my yard?)

Then I realized that this dress really isn't about newspapers — it's about Michael Jackson. I figured that out from the words "Michael Jackson Collection" that I only just noticed in the name . . . not to mention all over the dress. But hey, that's cool! I like Michael Jackson. And I love Sevenstar Amat. I've never met her, but I want to find her and grab her and give her a huge hug and scream, "I LOVE YOU!"

But I won't. Because that's just creepy.

I wonder if she has more stuff in her Michael Jackson collection though?

As long as we were briefly on the topic of my yard, look at this picture and join me in making a big sad face:



Yep, I killed all my chickens and removed all the chicken coops. Now my yard just has a bunch of random junk in it. I'm concerned that I'm not going to have the time for the care and breeding of chickens anymore. And I'd like to have some furniture for a change. But I feel sort of sad and empty without my brood. It's gonna take awhile to get over the loss.

OK, my headline promised you the possibility of the opportunity to do some hating, and I'm not going to let you down. I have some opinions. They may make you grumpy. They may hurt someone's feelings. I hope not, but you never know in this place. People are touchy.

Here we go.

-- I've been reading the signage for tomorrow's Artist's Voice STOP! protest. You can read all about it HERE. "No uploads, no sales, no purchases, no blog posts." For 48 hours.

So . . . support content creators and protest content theft by . . . not buying anything from the hardworking content creators??

I'm so confused. A purchase inworld is the simple exchange of lindens from one AV to another. You make something I like, I buy it from you, I get what I want, you get money, we both win.

How is a 48-hour shopping boycott gonna stick it to The Man???

"We'll show you, Lindens! We'll run our friends' businesses in the ground and then we'll scream 'HA!!!!!!!' in your big Linden faces!!!"

I have some creator friends who are concerned about the impact this protest is going to have on their businesses for the next two days if people really decide not to shop. And maybe I'm just an uneducated simpleton, but I don't really get it either. Somebody educamate me. I won't argue with you.

People have asked me if I'm going to STOP! and my answer is, "I don't know." I hesitate to do anything that would halt the SL economy because it's only going to hurt the content creators, not the Lindens. Plus, I'm still trying to collect all my Linden bears! Can't we wait a month before we get all up in their faces??

Ironically, as much as I respect most of the people who organized this campaign, I doubt they themselves could even STOP! by, say, NOT LOGGING IN AT ALL . . . for TWO WHOLE DAYS! And Plurk counts too, kids! Bring on the Haterade, but I don't think they could do it. I'll admit, I tried it two weeks ago and it was HARD! I got the SHAKES!!!!! But I did it! Some turtles and chickens had to die for the cause, but I did it!

*throws down the gauntlet*

But maybe that'd be more effective -- if we all left Second Life empty, silent and motionless for two days and, hell, even got up off our arses and volunteered in our real live communities or something!!! Gasp!

-- I read a blog post the other day that attempted to give a balanced review -- as in, both negative and positive comments -- of some new skins. I had mixed opinions about it, primarily because the post was full of grammatical errors. You claim to be a writer and a fashion expert, so you write a blog with some pretty harsh comments about some skins — yet your writing would make my dearly departed eighth-grade English teacher flip over in her grade.

So is it OK if I do the same thing and say, "This post was pretty decent; HOWEVER, the subjects and verbs didn't agree in several sentences, and several words were spelled wrong. Poor grammar is BAD! It's so sloppy when people misplace their modifiers! In my opinion, this post is worth a glance, but doesn't hold up well in the long run"?

In the real world, if your designs suck and your clothes are poorly made, unfortunately you don't make the pages of Vogue or Harper's Bazaar, period. I tend to lean toward the camp that believes that good fashion deserves publicity, and flawed skins or clothes don't. But I guess I'll compromise and say that if you're going to bring down the pain on a designer, at least get your grammar right. And don't give me that "English is not my first language" excuse either.

Truth be told, I actually like that blogger. I do! I do! I just found that particular post to be slightly ironic.

GAWD DAMN, EVERYTHING'S SO IRONIC THIS WEEK!

-- The one thing I really missed this year was House of Heart's annual Halloween pack of spooky-looking hair. I know HoH has undergone changes lately, primarily the name change to Hairy Situations. I wish they would have consulted with me first because that name makes me think of hairy legs and the need for a bikini wax. I'm not hatin', I'm just sayin'.

Now that I've p*ssed off a bunch of popular avatars, I'm gonna leave you with another hand-drawn masterpiece rendition of Prad Prathivi, surrounded by a blobby gray harem:



We were all trying to get the Pink Fuel Subscribo to resend the recent free skin gift that we missed . . . and wailing because it wasn't working. Well Prad wasn't, actually. He was just there to give me that flower.

I want to end this post on a positive note:

THIS BLOG is the most beautiful "freebie blog" I've ever seen. (*stands up and applauds the photography*)

Do yourself a favor and check it out.

That was just for you, Prad. ;)

Everything's better wrapped in bacon

This post has nothing to do with bacon, actually. That title was just a ploy to attract people Googling "bacon" to this blog.

Bacon recipes

Bacon recipes

Bacon recipes

Bacon recipes

Bacon recipes

My Google analytics numbers will soar now.

(If you type "recipes" over and over, it really starts to look strange.)

Hey, wouldn't it have been HELPFUL if I would've told you about this Mad Maddy Gothic Rag Doll AV (390L) by Moxie Polano's Haute Couture BEFORE Halloween?

Oops.

Oh well. I've been running around in it since then anyway, partially out of laziness and partly because I'm one of those people who like to occasionally indulge in AVs that look nothing like Emerald. For instance, I bought a unicorn AV today. Maybe one day I'll get up the energy to blog it. As for this one, I saw it, loved it, bought it, still loving it.

I just ran over to Moxie's and checked — these AVs are still out. She has one for the guys named Terrible Timmy:



That's my head down in the corner.

Look at the cute detailing in the stitches on the girl:



Hello Kitty!

(That smiley face is on the butt by the way. You know you've always wanted one there!)

Skin, shape, outfit, hair and even eyelashes -- EYELASHES! Made to PERFECTLY FIT THE AV! JOY! -- are included. (The eyes in the photo at top are from Hoot's Eclipse collection.)

So if you too like to run around in character at times, go get you one of those things! Halloween is not necessary to slip out of your skin once in a while.

The hair is so cute that when I finally decided to wash off the Halloween makeup and put on this Red Apple Late Summer dress by Chantkare, I left it on.



(Yeah, my shoes aren't rezzing today, it's not late summer, and that dress really calls for some strappy sandals, but I'm done with the exhaustion that is prim feet for at least a year.)

That dress is part of a great fundraising event -- ending today at midnight -- to raise money for breast cancer research. Go over to EGO and check out the many many outfits by talented designers who have graciously donated their time and many limited-edition works for a cause.

I came back here to edit out a couple of those "many"s up there . . . but I think I'm just gonna say it again.

MANY

Um, that's about it. Oh, except hey, did you know that Maitreya has new hair?

That was a joke.

When I don't feel like dealing with real life, which is often, I start my day in a slow and leisurely manner: with coffee, a couple of Xanax and some quality time with the I Heart SL feed.

HOWEVER, reading that feed the other day was like getting hit by a Maitreya hair bomb and then kicked in the face with a Maitreya SoHo boot.

Hey, Maitreya has new hair and free boots!
Hey, Maitreya has new hair and free boots!
Hey, Maitreya has new hair and free boots!
Hey, Maitreya has new hair and free boots!
Hey, Maitreya has new hair and free boots!
(Bacon recipes)

So speaking of real life, I start a new job on Monday. I feel queasy because it was kind of a fluke accident.

Two weeks ago, I stumbled across a job board posting by an acclaimed PR/advertising agency in my city that was looking for a vice president. This particular agency is a big deal. A popular business magazine named them one of the 25 best small companies in America to work for. (Bring your pets to work! An in-office massage therapist!) They have some very prestigious clients. I actually HAVE always wanted to work there and sent them my resume a year ago.

When I saw that they were hiring a vice president, as in, of the whole FRIGGIN' company, I sort of halfheartedly sent them my resume again, BUT I TOTALLY WASN'T EXPECTING TO GET CALLED FOR AN INTERVIEW, LET ALONE GET THAT JOB OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!

Yeah, that's kind of what it sounds like inside my head right now. The sound of a stunned panic wheel spinning.

So, um, I'm trying to psyche myself up to be all vice-presidential now. They're already sending me on a business trip to Atlanta in a week. They're pretty fast-paced there. It'll probably be a complete shock to my system. I'll be like, "Where's the TV? I need my morning 'Golden Girls' reruns fix!!!! I am the vice president! Where's my tiara?? Somebody get me a television NOW NOW NOW! And a bed! And some plaid flannel pajama bottoms! HELP ME! Where's my assistant? Get me a Snuggie, STAT! Where are my minions? DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I AM?"

Like that.

I negotiated a salary and a signing bonus that made my parents scream with joy and demand that I give them backpay in rent dating all the way back to age 5. They took me out for a huge celebration dinner and then handed me the tab. Everyone is already lining up for "loans."

:\

Let's focus on the yays:

YAY, I'm looking at condos and moving FAR AWAY from this house in a few months!
YAY, I'm buying a MacBook Pro tomorrow! I will be able to SEE THINGS!
YAY, I'm paying off my Visa card on Monday!
YAY, I get blonde hair and fingernails again!

At least if I fall on my face, I'll have a new computer and significantly less credit card debt before they boot me out the door. I'm also splurging and buying one of these Tiffany keys to always remind myself that YES, I can unlock the door and step out of my inner dungeons whenever I damn well please.

I just have to get out of bed.

And get dressed.

And brush my hair.

Um, so that's all my news. There's a part of me that's excited and a part of me that's relieved and a part of me that's terrified and a part of me that's sad. I am 800 emotions packed in one body at the moment.

I'm guess I'm gonna become one of those "after work and sometimes on the weekends" SL residents.

But hey, in the grand scheme of things, that's a very good thing in my case, Martha Stewart. I have put my life on hold for way too long.

Miracles shall follow miracles and wonders shall never cease.

And the sad dusty rag doll finally gets to become a Real Girl.

BOO! (Updated to include intelligence and caffeine)

My graphics card is shot or something. My monitor only stays up for a few minutes before it goes completely black. The computer keeps running though. For instance, I just typed this sentence BLINDLY! If I close the laptop and quickly open it, the screen comes back up for a few minutes. Then it'll go black again. Eventually, after I open and close the laptop about 95 times, it'll stay up for a few hours.

So if you're trying to talk to me and it seems like I'm ignoring you, I'm probably just frantically opening and closing my laptop.

MY GOD, IT'S A FRUSTRATING WAY TO LIVE! I feel like putting on a Battle Royale skin and beating the CRAP out of somebody right now!

For example, during those past three paragraphs, I opened and shut my laptop 14 times, not kidding. According to the computer techie on the phone, I need to take this Mac to the local Mac Genius Bar (eye roll), but I can't figure out how one goes about getting a computer fixed when one has to use said computer all day every day for work on deadline.

Anyway . . .

Last week I didn't log on for about three days. When I finally did, my turtles were all dead. So were a few chickens. I caved and revived the chickens. I'm gonna have to give one of my friends edit rights and ask someone to kill the chickens for me when I'm not in world because I . . . just . . . can't . . . do it.

Speaking of my friends, I was a little stunned because some people apparently left and other changes happened and I've sort of decided that one day in real life equals one month in Second Life. It's amazing how much can go down in three days. :(

open/close/open/close/open/close/open

Let's talk about Halloween.

I rode the Greatest Halloween Ride Ever. I think it lasted close to 20 minutes and about 65 openings and closings of the laptop. And it looked like this:



HELP! FLYING GEOMETRY!!!



SAVE ME FROM THAT BLOB OF SPIKES AND THAT THING THAT KIND OF LOOKS LIKE A BIRD!



. . . and water?



MY GOD, I DO BELIEVE THAT'S A SWINGING KNIFE!

Yeah, it was like that.

Sigh.

Go check it out though!

open/close/open/close/open/close/open

Let's blatantly call this part "Look at this cool thing my designer friend made!" before anyone can get bitchy about it. :D

LOOK AT THIS COOL THING

MY DESIGNER FRIEND MADE! :D

My friend Nimil dropped a review folder from LuNi Designs on me the other day. The artistic combination of Lucas Gerard and Nimil Blackflag is a most awesome one, and I feel pretty honored to (sort of, but mostly in a fangirl way) know Nimil. She found this blog worthy of one of her review folders and I am now the hottest witch I've ever been.

HOWEVER, I don't think the hat is supposed to look like this. When I went over to the store to check out the price, this outfit had a normal witch hat with it. I like the mushroom head better though. It's got kind of a cool Village People vibe:



Rock.

It's called Wicked, and yep, it's a tribute to Elphaba from Gregory Maguire's best-selling book and the musical on which it was based. You'll probably need a skirt shape for it, and my photo really doesn't do it justice: There are cool little buckles all over it. The complete set, with skin, is 700L. The beautiful green skin alone is 500L. The outfit alone is 350L. And that Windlight setting is Ghost and whoops, it made all the blacks look a little green.

But you don't come here for the award-winning fashion photography, right?

This set — both the skin and the outfit will be removed after Halloween, so get 'em now or get 'em never!

If being wicked isn't your thing, they've also got these kickin' limited-edition Muerta and Muerto (for guys) skins:



They're 500L a pop or 1500L for a fatpack of four and inspired by the works of artist Sylvia Ji. Very cool. That one's called Sugar Skull. My favorite is this one:



It's called Party's Over, and it looks like my face usually does after a long Halloween party. It's a bitch trying to scrub off Halloween makeup at 4 a.m. when you're still slightly trashed.

Hey Linden Lab, I did not just say that!

You can also try your luck and buy a groovy bag of treats for 50L outside LuNi Designs. One in 12 has this Ancestor skin in it:

That dress is called La Ultima Fiesta (350L) and also comes in white. And, um, I just realized there's grass all over the island where I live now, along with . . . a huge stone head over there. Right on.

Note that I have completely given up on trying to get my feet in the frame of my photos.

The skins will be removed after Halloween. The dress will not. I'm psyched that LuNi Designs is branching out into clothing now. (Does anyone even still say "psyched"? I do I do!)

This new skin's called Blight (500L). That's nasty, Nimil. I like it. Unlike the others, it's in the store to stay for a while.

I'll end this post with a new section of my blog that I like to call "Bravo, Bish!" (Yet another "new" section that probably will never ever pop up again.)

BRAVO, BISH!

I saw this chick while I was store-hopping on 50L Friday. From the grey shapes of her, it looked like she put a lot of effort into every detail of her outfit, from the Chanel bag to the, um, eyelashes to whatever the hell was going on with her mouth.

Shoot, I bet ALL of you probably look absolutely fabulous. At least you know I'm not hanging out with you for your looks though.

**gropes around blindly in a blobby grey world**

A (long-winded, rambling) love letter to a friend

I'm working on a blog post called "The Five Things You Need in Your Inventory," but it has absolutely nothing to do with SL fashion or living essentials or anything like that.

My inventory is now at 97K, and no matter how much time I devote to paring it down, it takes a mere week or so for the number to rocket back up a couple of thousand items.

I did the math and the math hurt.

If I want to get my inventory down to, say, a manageable 30K, I'd have to delete about 1,000 items a day for the next 70 days.

Oof.

So I considered closing my eyes and deleting almost everything in one fell swoop. My inventory is categorized by years and then subcategorized by ridiculously named folders: "Unicorns," "Cupcakes," "The Virgin Mary," "Bad-Ass Outfits," "Clothes I Like," "Hair I Probably Will Never Wear," and my favorite early-2008 folder: "Punk/Goth/Neko/Japanese Street." What the hell? Apparently as a noob I decided that ALL those styles fell in one category. ("Japanese Street"????)

I thought about deleting all of 2008, but then I'd be deleting some real classics, like vintage Eshi gowns and pretty much everything Tres Jolie sold that year.

So now I'm back to the game plan of separating my vintage quality items and THEN deleting all of 2008.

(This post is thrilling you, huh?)

Add to that the fact that I haven't been in world much lately. So, um, I'm not really making much progress anyway. But at least I'm not buying and shoving more things in my inventory at the moment!

In my real world, have an editor who's running me ragged -- which is a GOOD THING, Martha Stewart -- and I joined a local group of paranormal investigators, which sounds totally geek squad, but we answer calls from families (and businesses) with supposedly haunted houses and we take road trips to historic haunted hotels and it's totally, totally my thing. We use a lot of equipment like infrared cameras and electromagnetic field detectors and electronic voice phenomena recorders, so it's totally scientific, y'all!!! (Laugh -- no, I don't take it too seriously.)

Plus, one of the "ghost busters" is kind of special to me. ;)

Hey, I also have a job interview with Linden Lab tomorrow! *waves to the people at Linden Lab in case they're checking out this blog.* (God help them -- and me -- if they are.)

It's not really an interview yet; more like an "introductory conversation," and it's been rescheduled a couple of times, so I'm pretty sure they're not screaming my name the minute they leap out of their beds in the mornings, but I'm still excited about it, purely for the fact that it will be the MOST FUN conversation about a job that I'll probably ever have.

And no, I'm not moving back to Arizona for the Big Fancy Job Opportunity I recently mentioned. Thank you to those of you who've been asking, though. It just "wasn't a good fit," as they like to say in the job search realm.

Um, so back to my inventory. I got a wild idea to only keep five things and delete everything else, so then I started trying to figure out what those five things would be.

Once I do, that'll be a really cool post, huh?

HA HA HA! I'm such a dreamer.

If I actually had the cojones to do that, the first item I'd keep without a doubt would be The Bunny. The Bunny is particularly meaningful to me because I bought Bunny after reading about him in the first SL blog I ever discovered, SLFix (oh gosh, I guess that blog is called Moonletters now). Welcome to the world of blogs and letting them seduce you into buying things, little noob! :D

The Bunny actually was one of my first SL purchases. Since then, through all my changes, friends who have come and gone, broken hearts, moments of joy, weird body shapes, funky-looking skins, interesting *cough* home decor and bad hair days, The Bunny has been the one thing that's remained consistent in my SL life. I could get into a big story about how The Bunny reminds me of a giant stuffed rabbit I had as a child, but I won't.

At the moment, The Bunny is patiently putting up with my "Cute Emerald Is Gone and Who the Hell Is This Rock Star-Wannabe Chick with Way Too Much Makeup?" phase. I got sad when I looked through my SL photo album last night. I started out looking so cute and joyful. Now I'm looking rather generic and . . . well, old. A change is gonna have to come.

Anyway, last night I pulled out all my photos of The Bunny and compiled them in a separate album. So without further ado — and wow, sorry, that was A LOT of 'ado' up there — please join me in my photojournalistic walk through time with The Bunny. The pic way up top is the most recent: glammin' it up in Nicky Ree's new fur coat and leather pants.

My very first rental, a skybox after the (first) breakup with Jon. Unfortunately it used to be a skybox associated with an escort service, and way too many men (and women) had landmarked it and were scaring the hell out of me by manifesting in my living room several times a day. Thus the "Do Not Enter" sign, which didn't really help.

Sometimes The Bunny and I would sit and watch strangers TP in . . . and then quickly get ejected.

Feeling melancholy (in my favorite Amanda Bolero dress)

Surveying some Vain Ghostbuster Hunt gifts in my simple little beach house, back during the good old days when gridwide hunts only occurred about three times a year and, as such, were exciting. I kind of miss the innocence and simplicity of my life back then.

That day when half the stuff in my house disappeared, but thankfully not The Bunny! ("Less is more!")

I'll say it for you, Meara and the WTFug gals: "Oh. Honey. No."

Jon and I get back together for a short-lived . . . well, whatever it was, and The Bunny tries to adjust to sharing the spotlight with Jon's damn duck.

Emerald attempts to go Neko for her birthday . . .

. . . and then changes to the FIRST TULI SKIN (weird line on my face courtesy of my stupid computer) that ever looked decent on me, complemented by Zaara fashions.

Sorry, but it's the ugliest dress I've ever bought — and it was 800L to boot. I bought it because a fleeting friend of mine asked me to help out her struggling designer friend. Don't get me wrong, I'm a nice person, but I'm not doing things like that anymore.

Acting the fool and kind of loving it.

Celebrating a shoe . . . and my double-jointed ankle.

Um, the sexy SySy's dress is Win. The attempt to pose is total Fail.

If I were to narrow my "Five Things" challenge to just clothes, that skirt made by my friend Aisuru would be a close contender.

The Bunny gives Emerald a pep talk before the Steam hunt.

Dear Bunny,

Thank you for being a friend. If I didn't sing so off-key, I would totally bust out "The Golden Girls" theme song right now. I never thought I could get so fond of a pixelated rabbit. Cheers to many more years, many more bad skins, many more horrible hairstyles, many more wince-inducing fashions, and many more trippy little houses together — even if my time in SL eventually diminishes to a one-year reunion type thing.

In love and gratitude,

Em

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Hey beautiful readers, if you've made it to the end of this post, thank you for reading. Watch for my Five Things post coming in a few days. I may try to turn it into a meme then, although I'm not sure if enough people read this blog anymore to spark meme success.

And now I have to go write something brilliant about a media buyer. WOOO HOOO!

Bunny aside, I really love you guys too — each and every one of you — and no, I haven't been drinking Budweiser.

XXOO
Em

Three days of SLobriety!

. . . well now that I calculate, I guess it's only two days. Shoot.

Yep, I haven't logged on for two whole days. That's kind of a big deal for me because I'm what you'd call a Second Life Escapist, which means I use Second Life as a tool to ignore and avoid my real-life problems, issues and responsibilities.

And if you're a cynic or an outsider, please don't read that sentence as yet another person saying, "Look at this evil thing that Second Life does to people!" Trust me, if it weren't Second Life, I'd be doing the same thing with television, books, The Sims, and so on and so on and scooby dooby dooby.

The other day I took a long hard look at my life and once again vowed to try to get some balance in it . . . and not just ANY balance, but HABITUAL balance. During the past two days I've been forcing myself — and yes, sadly it has taken real effort — to incorporate exercise, face-to-face socializing, spirituality and productivity into my daily routine. On top of all that, add "cleaning" to the list because my room, office, closets and bathroom look like a tornado ripped through them.

As soon as these very necessary elements to my healthy existence become effortless and frequent, only then will the luxury of logging in and goofing around in Second Life feel like hard-earned recreation and not dysfunctional procrastination.

I REALLY need to accomplish this goal, which is why I keep aiming for it, because if it were up to me I'd stay cozied up on the couch all day in perpetual playtime mode. In fact, I pretty much have been doing just that for the past year-and-a-half.

But NO MORE! I'm tired of looking in the dictionary and seeing a picture of my face next to the word "sloth."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . However, I might need to break my abstinence streak tomorrow because I need to send all my chickens to that beautiful chicken coop in the sky. I may keep Buck Rogers and El Sopho, only because they're the only survivors of my first-generation brood. And shoot, if I'm gonna keep two roosters, I should also pick one hen.

Sigh.

Anyway, I don't want to log on in a couple of weeks to a bunch of dead chickens. So I'm probably going to do the deed tomorrow morning. Consider this post my written notice, Sion.

The turtles are going too.

And GAH, I also have a modeling job at SySy's that I'm proud to have. I love SySy Chapman's work and it's an honor to showcase her gorgeous creations. And please don't get me wrong — I didn't get that job because I'm an extraordinary AV beauty. I got that job because someone in one of my group chats said, "Would anyone like to be a SySy's model?" and I shoved and trampled about 12 other gals out of the way screaming, "ME!!!!"

So I'll be logging in occasionally to fulfill that obligation as well.

And of course there are my friends. I need to know how they're doing!

Ha HAAAAAA! My God, it's so hard to cut or even loosen the mental and emotional ties to this place, huh?

All that aside, two events today almost made me cop out of this whole plan anyway.

1. I looked at the fashion feeds, saw something enticing, squealed, "I WANT THAT!" and almost logged in to get it. It leads me back to some advice I tried to give many posts back when I was once again trying to wean myself off my SL vice: Don't read SL blogs or feeds if you're trying to be SLelibate!

As an antidote, I grabbed an Elle magazine, quickly spotted something enticing, squealed, "I WANT THAT!" and sent out a few more resumes in the hopes that maybe someday I could afford to buy it.

2. I got a dirty look from my three-year-old niece today. (Face-to-face socializing! Check!) She came over to my house with a Barbie who looked like she'd been around the block a few times. Her hair was all jacked up. Her makeup looked smeared. And she was wearing strappy do-me stilettos that complemented a gold sequined dress with a slit up the front that came dangerously close to flashing her hooha to Ken and anyone else who might be checking her out. (I'm talking about Barbie, not my niece.)

I said, "Wow, it looks like your Barbie had a rough night out on the town last night!"

That comment didn't go over very well with my niece, who hopefully didn't understand what it meant anyway. She definitely didn't like the word "rough" as it pertained to Barbie though, so she proceeded to grab the doll from me and scream at the top of her lungs.

Sheesh.

But anyway, after that episode, I TOTALLY wanted to log on and recreate Barbie's walk-of-shame look with my AV.

I resisted. But when I finally earn a guilt-free SL existence, that's totally going to be my next inworld mission.

Speaking of slut struts, DAMN, what are they trying to do to little girls with these trashy, trashy Barbies these days? In my day (rocks in rocking chair thoughtfully), you got instant popularity status if you had the Yellow Rose of Texas Barbie. She wore a yellow polyester pantsuit, had huge curly hair and a yellow rose tied around her neck with a sheer yellow scarf.

I actually got caught up in a wave of nostalgia tonight and tried to find her on eBay or anywhere else online.

I failed miserably.

[Insert snappy blog post ending here.]