Narcotic puppet

(Hey, I can teleport again!)

It's about time for me to change my Big Damn Cement House to something else. As much of an eyesore as this house is, I really love it because it has all kinds of cool controls for the lights, fireplaces, blinds, a secret hideaway, etc. etc.

But I have a huge folder full of "Houses 2010" just begging to be set free. I buy houses impulsively, much like I buy eyes. (Hi, my name is Emerald and I am a Second Life eye addict -- where the hell is my support group?)

Plus, I found a new-to-me furniture store that I love. I want to write about it. But first I have to change houses. So the furniture store blog post gets added to the list of "blog posts I really want to write but probably never will because I'm such a lazy procrastinator."

The thought of changing houses makes me exhausted.

Maybe that picture should be bigger.

And that jacked-up hairline is why I usually run screaming away from updos.

I've been wanting to write a "Narcotic Puppet" post for a while, and my original intention was to dress all beat-down and gloomy for it. But I opted for colors instead. We'll get to why in a minute.

I guess I've been living in a cave or something because I didn't realize Eshi Otawara has a store at Black Liquid. I heard a rumor a while back that she had left SL. Apparently not. Yesterday I saw a gorgeous picture of one of her (new-to-me) creations on the gorgeous, gorgeous Kyrie Source blog, and I ran over there as fast as I could.

Those eyes, BTW, are from MiaSnow's Genuine line of eyes. I have mixed feelings about the "realistic" whites. If I wanted to see bloodshot eyes, I could just look in the mirror. But I love the color, and these eyes - along with examples from her other lines - are in a free sample eye pack gift in her store. Go get it!

The hair: I'm a Truth hair loyalist, first because his hair is full of win and second, because he is extraordinarily kind to me. But occasionally I want hair that screams, "I'M FRIGGIN' EXOTIC AND AS SUCH, GAWD-DAMN FASCINATING," and when that happens, I run to a few other favorites. This W&Y hair is called "W&Y Hair New 142," which in itself is awesome. ("To hell with a name; let's just give it a number!") It's scripted so you can change the size, hair color and jewel type. I think it was 200L for a pack of four shades.

And I finally broke down and bought League's newish Taylor skin. I only tried two demos before I was sprinting back to get the fatpack. I like the sultry look of it, but I'll admit that if I look at it for too long, it looks a little too photorealistic to me. It clashes with my cartoon clothes. I'll save it for my "keepin' it real" days.

This Eshi outfit is called Blossoms Green and I believe it costs 500L. It comes with a hat and a cool painted skin that I'm not wearing in these pictures.

Oh hell, wait a minute . . .



There you go. Don't ever say that I don't love you.

AnyHOO, I love the way it screams, "BAD ASS!" (I guess I'm into 'inanimate screaming things' right now) yet it's an explosion of color. Almost like it's saying, "I will fill your world with a spectrum of lovely, but if you tick me off, I will whip you with my . . . um, cords hanging off my cuffs (?) and cram these cherry blossoms down your throat until you choke."

I'm sure that's exactly what Eshi had in mind when she designed it. I should start a series: "What the designer was thinking vs. Emerald's twisted interpretation."

(I love this doll box from LuNi Designs. I always use it when I want to convey confusion or defeat. Wow, what a peppy compliment that was, LuNi!)

As for "narcotic puppet," I feel like one these days. I'm finally kicking some sweet PR tail at my job. I finally put down a deposit on a cute two-story apartment downtown. I'm finally getting out in the world and interacting with people again. But I had to travel down a winding medicated path to get here. I take pills in the morning to boost my dopamine and energy levels. I take pills in the afternoon to calm the hell down when I feel like I'm going to freak the hell out. When I have to be all vice-presidential, I take pills for presentation "stage fright." I take pills at night to fall asleep. My GOD, they control my EVERY MOVE!!!

When I look at the landscape of prescription bottles by my bed, I feel sort of sad and pathetic.

Plus, I'm always worrying about a post-apocalyptic ZOMBIE WAR!

If the world goes to hell, it's actually going to be the prescription wind-up dolls who go down first. Pharmacies will be looted. We'll run out of meds and either die from hideous withdrawal or get chomped by a zombie while we're having a cold-turkey-induced seizure. It'll be survival of the fittest . . . and we definitely won't be the fittest. We'll be curled up and trembling and begging for pills. We'll be END-OF-THE-WORLD HOOKER JUNKIES!

. . . . . . . sorry. Sometimes my imagination gets a little carried away.

So anyway, I'm working with my doctor to wean myself off some of this stuff. Now that I've reached a functioning place, I'd like to take the cognitive route to healing the next time everything fades to black. If it doesn't work, I guess I'll jump on the narcotic highway again.

The whole point of all that blabber is that I can't really write anymore. The part of my brain that used to be witty and creative is completely numb, along with the part that used to be sad and wigged-out. And I dress my AV in brilliant colors because I can't really see them in RL anymore. Everything is a pleasant, non-threatening shade of beige.

Is sacrificing your core personality for drug-induced peace of mind worth it? Right now I'm thinking no. I want my voice back.

And as long as we're on this really upbeat note . . .



How fun was it to log in last week on my birthday to discover that my landlady had decked out my house in birthday fabulosity? (Really fun!)

Thank you, Ali! (And thank you for the awesome blog post.)

See — no matter what's pulling my strings, I'm grateful for the friends who stick around for the puppet show.

Laugh Out Loud and Ugh: /me hands you a Kleenex so you can wipe that cheesy sap off your monitor.

VISIT INWORLD:
Eshi Otawara's Black Liquid
MiaSnow
W&Y

Emerald Wynn still can't teleport

Honest to God, I feel like holding a funeral for my avatar at this point.

It would have to be IN MY HOUSE though, since I still can't teleport anywhere. I managed to get home. I can't get out now. Whatever.

I wonder if my 92K inventory has finally gotten so heavy that my AV can't move. I finally got the thing down to a guilt-free 78K, but I'm not joking when I say that it only took about two months to accumulate almost 20,000 new things in my inventory. Second Life hoarder. Second Life pack rat. Second Life shame.

I realize another viewer would probably fix my teleport problem. I'm just too damn lazy. Plus, I don't wanna go back to a retro viewer, and I'm ironically the only one I know who is steadfast in my resistance to the Emerald viewer.

Unlike many people, I actually like V2. I think the tattoo layer is the coolest thing since sliced bread. I love the fact that I can layer an eyeshadow I like over a nude skin that I like and THUS further customize my avatar.

Thus further. And steadfast.

I really should have named this post, "EVERYTHING IS FREAKIN' BROKEN" because my iGoogle page freezes and crashes my computer whenever I land on it, and Photobucket is down for maintenance right now.

Here are some things you can do when you can't teleport:

1. Change your clothes.
2. Change your face.
3. Change your shape.
4. Change your house.
5. Sit on your dinosaur and actually talk to people for a change instead of being a SLoner.
6. Log off and make it to work on time.

Speaking of, I have to go.

I'll come back when I have pictures and something to say. :-\

Midnight in the garden of just plain evil

I don't know where to start this post -- with this hair or my current hellish situation.

I guess we'll go with hell.

Two days ago I ventured over to Bug Tussle presented by LVS & Co. and Sher's Garden. It's a cluster of cute shops in a cute garden. They're currently celebrating the grand opening with a ladybug hunt -- today's the last day, RUN! — full of cute-sounding prizes of home and garden decor.

I say "cute-sounding" because I haven't yet examined the prizes: Two days ago I ventured over to Bug Tussle . . . and I've been TRAPPED THERE ever since.

I can't TP out. Forget teleporting; I can't even GET out. I can't even change my preferences to log in at home instead of "last location" and relog. Believe me, every day I try a few times. I'm STUCK THERE, possibly forever.

You're right, Thomas Wolfe -- you can't go home again!

Irritating. Irritating. Oh. So. Irritating.

As for this hair:



(Skin: Wichita in Violet, Pale.Casual from SINdecade. Those "stand back and watch me NEVER MOD tiny little prims AGAIN!" eyelashes are actually a TATTOO LAYER ["Everyday Eyelash Face Tattoo for 2.0"] from Stellar. I love you, Lexi Morgan!)

Last month I devoted several days to the Crazy Arse Hair Hunt and BY GOD, I'm gonna wear some of it now. I'm sick and tired of hunt prizes rotting away in my inventory, unloved and neglected.

This hair is called Seiren by BC322 Skull & Bones.

Fashion tip: If you plan on wearing hair with BIG HONKIN' WINGS coming out of it, you should probably dress appropriately. I suggest a monotone look, but with a dash of superhero. For instance, I like the barely-there top from the Bella Disastre outfit at League. It's so bad-ass, there's no room for it to be crude, in my humble opinion. Yeah, there's some nippage poking out from under one of the straps but whatever. Nipple pride is a good thing.

You know, along those lines: During the past couple of days, I've read some eye-opening blog posts about transgenders in Second Life. I appreciate the people who are brave enough to share the often painful and frustrated perspectives of being a man trapped in a woman's body, or a woman trapped in a man's body.

But no one ever talks about the dark, unfulfilled emptiness of being a big-breasted woman trapped in the body of a flat-chested chick.

That would be me.

So thank you, Second Life, for allowing me to unleash my inner boobs.

And that reminds me: Over the weekend I got really ticked off at a guy and — in the heat of an angry moment — reached in my bra, yanked out one of those huge "fooled ya!" silicone cutlets (hell yeah, I have a pair for every day of the week) and threw it at him.

I mean, we are talking harkening back to my softball days, winding up and just letting that thing fly. (What can I say? I really needed to throw something and it was the only thing within arm's reach.)

It pegged him smack-dab in the middle of his forehead and made this really satisfying thwacking sound. It probably was one of the most awesome moments ever in the history of push-up bras and fake boobs. I just wish someone would have captured it for YouTube.

Stay away from me when I'm PMSing. Naomi Campbell throws cellphones. I throw expensive illusions of cleavage. And my aim is still EXCELLENT!

My God, where was I going with this post? :(

Oh yeah — um, so if you really want to be a smart ass, pardon the pun, pair your winged hair with these classic Wild Angel Leather Pants, also from League:



It just dawned on me that my waist is freakishly small. Oops. In my defense, I think I had to shrink it down that size to fit into a sculpted skirt.

That tattoo on my neck? Believe it or not, I got that during my first week as a little noob, in one of those obnoxious "HUNDREDS OF FREE FULL-PERM TATTOOS BUSINESS IN A BOX(es)!" It actually survived all my inventory purges over the past two years.

It says, "Second Life is Currently Being A Little Bitch" in Japanese.

VISIT IN-WORLD!
Bug Tussle presented by LVS & Co. and Sher's Garden
BC322 Skull & Bones
League
SINdecade
Stellar

"Mother, make it STOP!"

OK, so I sort of never wanna hear the words "The Deck" again. Thank you.

Kidding.

In the blitz of this weekend's blog chatter about The Deck's two-day free-for-all, I haven't yet seen anyone talk about these rockin' Alice Comfort Capris, one of two styles in the gift from TuttiFrutti at The Deck (this weekend only). So there they are.

And if you're like me and you prefer to throw on a plain T-shirt with your hyperactive pants, terri.tees has a fat pack of plain shirts for 125L. It's now in my "Fashion Essentials" inventory folder.

Anyway, if you're trying to scoop up all the free anniversary celebration gifts at The Deck (THANK YOU, Designers!), be sure to don your full suit of armor because it's a MOSH PIT over there! Woooooo! The sim has been full all weekend, so you'll have to fight your way in.

You can do it! I believe in you!

And actually, skip the suit of armor. The ARC police are out in full force, and they'll bitch-slap the hell out of you if your number's in the red. I would really like it if a Linden *cough* would confirm or dispel the possible urban legend that a high ARC causes lag. I lean toward the "no it doesn't" camp.

Regardless, I'm not in the mood for stressing people out on Mother's Day (Happy Mother's Day, mothers!), so I went over there bald and . . . whoops, legless! Love that new alpha layer! I'm thinking about covering my whole body with it and running around as just a floating head. With a 'sexy walk,' though.

Um, so it took me about 50 tries to get in that sim. (Yep, I have no life.) I wanted the gorgeous and generous Lelutka gift. But you know what? We're ALL gonna be wearing that gown now, so it sort of kills the buzz a little. We'll be an army of SL Fashion Clones, parading our snatch-and-scavenge skills around for the whole grid to see.



I snapped this pic because it's a shot of me fantasizing about how sick and awesome it would be if I whipped out my 7Seas pro fishing pole and just started fishing there today. See -- I'm laughing out loud right now.

If you've heard the clamor that's been going on ALL WEEKEND in the Tuli group (she's got a free limited edition skin there, this weekend only), you understand. People wailing that the sim is full. The usual "I'm entitled to everything" folks bitching that some stores don't have gifts. Snotty girls gloating and laughing at the people who can't TP in. People who are just flat-out dense and make me feel bad for laughing at them.

Not to mention some awesome CATFIGHTS!

People are sort of touchy about that sim today, to say the least.

(Dear Tuli Group moderator, please don't ever disable group chat. Your group is a constant source of entertainment. And just to say it again: "group.")

Gah, I have a lot more I want to say but I guess I'll save it for another post. Two things though:



Um . . .



There I was, minding my own business, checking out those Alice capris, when suddenly my head started spinning around and ended up facing backwards. You know me, I totally thought about leaving it like that all day. But it was just too damn disturbing.

(Hence this post title quote from "The Exorcist," but I recommend the version in the song "Tubular Bells" by Book of Love. Play it while you drive to work. Like I do.)

Eventually I figured out that "Stop animating my avatar" will exorcise your SL demons.

Last but not least, my . . . holy cow 49 (!!) regular readers *tears up for a minute, seriously* (thank you) . . . know that I dig the blog Moonletters (although I'll always think of it as SLFix).

So I've gotta give props to Shauna Skye for today's post, "Why Most SL Fashion Blogs Suck." I don't necessarily agree with all of it -- some of my favorite fashion blogs are in the blog roll here, and I'm probably forgetting a few -- but she makes some valid points. Mainly I just want to salute her BALLS! (Yeah, I said it. I hate that word. It'll be the one and only time you see it here. Especially with the verb "salute.")

If I wrote a post like that, I'm pretty sure the haters would descend all over my ass. So, um, good luck with that, Shauna! *runs like hell*

I like her suggestion to put the SLURLS at the end. I'm doing that from now on.

Visit Inworld:

The Deck (use your ninja skills and Jedi powers to get there)
terri.tees

(Wow, I was in a really parenthetic mood today. Sorry.)

Designers who can take a punch (I left my heart in Wichita)

Try not to look at that jaggedy hairline.

Shoot, now that I've pointed it out, you're looking at it, huh?

You can get that Lila hair at 3636, and if you're not lazy like I am, you can actually mod it to make it photo-worthy.

Whatever. Check out the skin instead. It's from SINdecade's new Wichita skin line, and my mouth literally dropped open when I tried on these skins.

LITERALLY, I tell you!

In my very humble opinion, this line is creator Trin Trevellion's most beautiful work to date. Or at least it looks totally awesome on me, me, me, it's all about ME, and in the grand scheme of things, that's all that matters. (kidding)

Before I get into the skins, I'll be upfront about two things: I didn't buy these skins -- they were given to me for review consideration, and Trin is one of those friendly designers who happens to be on my friends list. HOWEVER, after I tried the review skins, I ran to spend lindens on more. And as for Trin, she actually first introduced herself to me after I laughed at some of her skins in a blog post two years ago (yes, I was lame and that was awkward) -- so she knows I don't pull any punches.

We'll get to that story later. First, let me show you some skin.



Retro in Pale.Candy, push-up version of course!

Love love love the body shading and the BOOBS! GLORIOUS BOOBS!

This is the back view and the only time I'm flashing my crack on this blog. I really love the butt.

It makes me want to go out and buy some of those my-crack-is-not-whack jeans that are all the rage right now.

(OK, not really.)

Here are just a few looks from each tone (Snow, Pale and Tan). I remain a huge fan of the way Trin plays with color in her skins, but I have to say that the casual versions in this line are some of my favorite fresh-faced looks out there.

Bite in Pale.9PM. I'm in love with myself in this skin. I can't stop looking at my face. Cant. Stop. Looking. At. My. Face!

(Necklace: From the Arizona set by GaNKed; Hair: Joanna in Chestnut by Truth; Beauty mark on cheek: from the tattoo-layer makeup collection for V2 viewers at MiaMai.)

Natural in Snow.Casual. (I LOVE THIS ONE!!!)

Rosebay in Snow.Candy. (I should've chosen different eyes for this one. Sorry.)

Smokey in Snow.Casual

Cherry-N8 in Pale.9PM

Natural in Snow.Freckles, non-push-up version. (AWWWW! SO CUTE!)

Violet in Tan.Casual. (This makeup is so pretty, I bought this version in my preferred shade, Pale.Casual)

Natural in Tan.Freckles. (It makes me want to run off to the beach.)

Spring in Tan.Freckles. (I want to go demo this one in Pale.Freckles.)

and

Ink in Tan.9PM. As much as I love the striking eye/nude lip look, this is the only one I'm not really feeling, only because I wish the top lip were a little more defined. I also need to tweak the shape of my mouth a little. The shading is gorgeous though.

Every skin comes with regular and push-up versions, a plethora of eyes, an optimized shape, tintable eyebrows, a set of Dessous Sexy Dragon lingerie in Noir, and (for V2 users) tattoo layer sets of hairlines, cleavage and hair-down-there styles. Also included are underwear layers of cleavage and hair down there.

One skin is 800L, a row of four skins is 2200L and the fatpack is 3800L. (Get the fatpack!)

On a related note, I named this post "Designers who can take a punch" because I'm a little astounded ("astounded"!) by the fallout that sometimes occurs if a blogger criticizes a creator's work. And if "punch" seems like a strong word, I used it because judging by some reactions you'd think fists were actually flying.

Not cool! In contrast, take for example one of my favorite recreational RL blogs, Tom and Lorenzo: Fabulous & Opinionated. They criticize designers' creations all the time, and occasionally they get catttt-tayyyy! (On the flip side, if they see something fabulous from that same designer, they squeal like excited little kids on Christmas.) Yet despite any negative opinions they express, they don't get BANNED from stores or dogpiled by a mob squad. People may disagree with them, even passionately, but at the end of the day, they're still valued by their audience as entertaining bloggers and, better yet, human beings with opinions.

I climbed on that soapbox for a minute because when I was a new SL blogger, I attempted to write a post about skins. I showed a bunch of them. One of them was one of SINdecade's (now-old-school) Harajuku Paint Box skins:

HA HA! Alien shape.

In that post, I made an attempt at a witty remark about this skin. It wasn't exactly mean, but it also wasn't that flattering. I think I said that these skins made me look mad as hell, like I was looking for a paintball war. (Back then, I didn't know that you could demo skins before you bought them. Poor, poor little noob!!)

Later, I got an IM from Trin (which in itself shocked the hell out of me) saying something like (paraphrasing here), "Hey, thanks for mentioning my skins in your blog. I see now that they can look a little angry. I appreciate the feedback."

She didn't call me names. She didn't ban me from her store. She didn't accuse me of being an amateur who had no idea what I was talking about. She didn't get her friends to slam my blog with nasty comments. She didn't go all hogwild on Plurk. She was extremely cool about it. She simply treated me like what I was: a customer with an opinion about her work.

And even though my noobish blog ROYALLY SUCKED (worse than now) back then -- OMG, I didn't even own an AO, so all my pictures were in that dorky "where the hell am I?" stand -- she sent me updates on her new releases after that, like I mattered.

That's called CLASSY, folks!

I really don't know Trin very well, but when I saw these skins I got kind of teary. They are absolutely gorgeous, and watching her evolution as a creator over the years has been awesome.

And now I'm stuck on that really obscure Shawn Colvin song: "Wichita Skyline." Nice.

You're not gonna like this post

. . . because it's just a bunch of bad pictures of my AV dancing.

As you may know, I've been feeling a little vanilla lately so I switched to this look. I wish I could tell you who makes that fab skin, but I got BOOTED out of SL a while ago and I still can't get back in. (UPDATE: The skin is by Skinthesis, called Hob gray in Unseelie from the Sidhe Collection.]

(Hello, Thursday Morning -- I still can't get in. Irritating, yet refreshingly healthy-feeling. I guess I'll resort to the shocking behavior of reading the newspaper and breathing fresh air instead.)

What the hell, Lindens??? I only have a couple of days left for zombie popcorn!!!!!

But anyway, I've still got the SL fever, so I'm just gonna blog a bunch of these photos that are scattered all over my desktop. (And a day later, I'm laughing at all the blogs that say, "Sorry about these random photos . . . I can't get inworld." I thought I was the only one who sought inspiration in my pile of "bad bad pictures" [as opposed to the usual "bad pictures"].)



(Yeah, that A&M MOCAP sign really ruins the artistic and inspirational mood of this award-winning photo. But I had to choose between leaving it in there or, GASP, cropping out a boob along with it. Unfortunately, I will not sacrifice cleavage for art.)

Um, so the Fantasy Faire was the coolest thing that's happened in my non-eventful SLife for a while. I'm sorry if this opinion ticks anyone off, but I thought it was so much better than last year's Fantasy Faire. In fact, I was actually pretty reluctant to go because I have still have a bajillion neglected folders full of stuff from Fantasy Faire 2009.



I ran into my talented and adorable friend Aisuru Rieko there! Awwwwww, she's so CUTE!!! I wanted to pick her up and swing her around. (Hey, how did you get such CUTE FEET, Aisuru???)

Anyway, what usually happens is, I go to Fantasy Faire, get FANTASY FEVER, decide I'm going to be an elf or a mermaid or a dragon or something for the rest of my SLife, spend a boatload of lindens on . . . well, frankly a bunch of elven crap (ducks and runs from a gang of angry elves now - KIDDING), and then the phase passes and I take my attention deficit disorder elsewhere.

Kind of like when I decided to be a pirate after last year's RFL Clothing Fair.

I swore it wasn't going to happen this year. But it did. And now I own a 999L Elven House, this trippy skin, these ears, a bunch of . . . giant sparkly plants (??), a REALLY EXPENSIVE ROBOT SUIT, a . . . monster in a box . . . or something, and GOD ONLY KNOWS what else.

I'm blaming Ambien and a slight urge to hoard things.

And you know, to be honest, I have totally lost track of where I was going with this post.

Um . . . I went to Fantasy Faire, I liked it, The End.

I still haven't changed out of my Fantasy Faire-wear.



On a totally unrelated note . . .

Whenever I want to laugh my ass off, I go to A&M MOCAP or some other dance store and make fun of my avatar dancing. I've been working on my chim lately and in the process I've learned that, despite my best efforts, there is absolutely NO DANCE in existence that doesn't make my AV look like a damn fool.

HA HA HA! See, I'm totally laughing right now. You probably have to be there though.

Um, I guess that's it. Oh, speaking of dancing, I could not love THIS DANCE QUEEN BLOG more. Scroll past the event listings (even though those are interesting too) and watch some of the dance sequence videos. Very cool, especially because they share the choreography formula with clueless readers like me.

(I think I just made up the term "choreography formula"? It means "what dances they used, where they got them, and the order in which they used them.")

On a more serious note, several people have asked me if I'm going to post some drama-llama e-mails on a separate Web page. I'm only posting them HERE to help out a good friend. I don't want to talk about them in world, please.

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(laugh out loud)
(You just got Rick rolled.)

I meant for it to look like that

Shoot. My AV is seriously starting to look like someone I'd want to bitch-slap in real life.

Must fix later.

[How to Crop a Photo, by Emerald Wynn: "Always make sure there are some random-ass TREETOPS in your photo. Then repeat after me: 'It's not all about ME, it's also about NATURE. I looked long and hard for this perfect setting to convey my deep emotions about this gown.'"]

I'm in the Fashion Bloggers group and I like it there. It makes me feel special. So occasionally I must enrich the lives of my 44 followers (wow, thank you, Followers!) with some pictures of stylish clothes. And thank you too, Blogger, for encouraging the formation of cults.



(Pose by Get Bent.) (I think.)

Yesterday I saw this new Nerinda gown (600L) at Baiastice and screamed, "GIMME!" The weather is getting really beautiful outside -- as evident by the fact that I'm hunched over a laptop inside -- and this dress feels perfect to me: an arresting floral explosion against layers of voluminous, biting red.

("Did she just call that dress biting?!")

I'm sure that's exactly what Sissy Pessoa was thinking when she designed it: "And this one's for all those angsty bitches with spring fever!"

[How to Style a Dress, by Emerald Wynn: "Repeat this phrase after me: 'This gown is so lovely and complex that adding a necklace would just create a distracting fashion mess.' Look confident when you say it. Pretend you weren't too lazy to dig through your 90K inventory to find suitable jewelry. Nod wisely. Act like you totally planned to have green fingernails too . . . to symbolize more nature."]

So I snatched it up, took it home, put it on, went immediately up to my roof, dorked around with the dinosaur for a while, then took it off and put it in the "Dresses I Really Like" folder in my inventory. (And it was never seen again.)

Check out the back:



Help, it's a shark.

I also bought this flirty little dress called Sweet Disposition. I believe it's somewhere in the realm of 300-and-something lindens.

[How to Disguise the Fact that You're a Somewhat Lazy Blogger, by Emerald Wynn: "Shrug and repeat after me: 'If you have to ask, you can't afford it' and bang your Sheila E. drum set. Don't forget to kick the cymbal with a paisley covered boot. Google 'cymbal' to make sure you spelled it right. Proper spelling for the win."]



Love!

("Is that a tree coming out of your butt, or are you just happy to see me?")

Hair: Mena in Almond by Truth. Necklace: Lotus Flower by Mandala. Skin: Alyson, 9, sun-kissed, cleavage option, by Belleza. And another comma for the hell of it: ,

All excerpts are from my forthcoming book: "There's No Such Thing as a Mistake When You're a Confident Liar."

Speaking of, I've seen the feeds today. I know you can find way better photos of this FREE spiral staircase with 24 poses in it from Behavior Body (at Baiastice):



But mine's the only one with a dinosaur and completely jacked-up stairs. (Um, be careful when you move it -- the parts aren't linked.)

"I wanted them to look like that. I'm an artist. I'm making a statement: Sometimes life just doesn't line up right."

Join me now as I try to get "Stairway to Heaven" out of my head for the rest of the day.

[A witty ending goes here.]

Spitting your anger into an imaginary ocean

(Hi from my lunch break at work.)

This picture has no purpose, actually, except for the fact that I like taking big damn pictures of my face while I'm hanging upside down. (I think I'm hanging off an elephant's trunk. Getcho minds out of the gutter.)

I'm not going to talk about that Belleza Elle skin because by now you've probably read about it on a much better blog. Yeah, I like it. Not as much as Alyson, but it's a'ight. (I have no clue how to spell that word.)

So I've been gone for a while.

It started with getting rushed to the hospital -- OK wait, that sounds melodramatic, try "swiftly driven to the hospital" instead -- a few weeks ago because I thought I was having a heart attack. And what's funny is, all I was really thinking during that rush was, "Oh my God, I'm gonna end up being one of those 30-something-year-old chicks who have a heart attack and, as such, become part of a little-known statistic in an American Heart Association pamphlet." (Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women.)

Seriously.

Not "Oh shoot, my heart is about to explode" or "These could be my last moments on Earth," but "Damn, my legacy will be part of some doctor's office pamphlet that no one is really going to read."

Nice.

Oh the things we think about when our lives are in potential danger

But it wasn't a heart attack. It was a panic attack -- a bad one. Gee, that's not embarrassing or anything.

The whole experience made me worry about what would happen if we really did have a zombie war.

Like, I always thought I'd be one of the "kick ass until I get chomped" zombie fighters, but now I'm worried that I might be one of those chicks that, you know, scream, cry, fall down a lot, freak out, hyperventilate and basically annoy the hell out of everyone until somebody says, "Just throw her to the zombies as a distraction and then let's all haul ass."

Um . . . I'd better follow the rules for being a good blogger and break up this text with a picture:



Neigh. (Try a high-res pic next time, Emerald.)

This is what my viewer looks like these days: distorted and stretched. I look like a forlorn horse.

The only things that save this pic are the hair (Giada in Almond by Truth, with texture-change script for the headband) and yet another one of terri.tees' ROCKIN' T-shirts. This one's called Hooked and it's a free gift in Terri Wardell's store right now, along with two other hilarious tees in separate boxes.

"I'm hooked on sex!"
"And drugs!!!"

Chortle. I love that store, seriously. I've never met Terri -- she's like this T-shirt fairy who occasionally drops awesomeness in my inventory for possible review -- but if I ever do meet her, she will get glomped.

So yes, these days my face looks all horsey on my viewer and The Bunny isn't doing so well either:



Uh. Yep. I sleep with the lights on now.

OK so back to panic, because I'm really low on SL material at the moment, but OH SO RICH in RL adventures. I'll try to blend them though. *gets out the mixer*

That case of the Mean Reds eventually landed me in the office of an Executive Development Counselor. I'm pretty sure that title is a euphemism for "a shrink who deals with corporate working stiffs who are loony but not loony enough to get out of working altogether."

Apparently my company has a running ACCOUNT with the guy. Hey, presidents of companies across America, if your work environment is so damn stressful that you need to retain the ongoing services of a local shrink, maybe there's something wrong with your company. I mean, it's not like we're first responders or police officers or firefighters or heart surgeons. We're just PR flacks.

So, um, yeah, I got hooked up with a package deal of six sessions with Dr. Tell Me About Your Childhood. I've made it through two of them and I'm already having a really hard time keeping a straight face. He's pretty woo-woo, and not in a "Can you woo woo woooooooooo?" Jeffrey Osborne-kind of way. For instance, in just two appointments:

-- I've pretended to be hypnotized while I pretended to travel back in time and give my eight-year-old self a big hug. (She told me to screw off.)

-- I've tapped vigorously on my chest for what seemed like an hour to open up my heart chakra. (Ask me to show you my bruise.)

-- And, my all time favorite, I've collected ALL MY ANGER in my MOUTH and SPIT IT far out into the ocean.

Never mind that there's no ocean in Tennessee. We created an imaginary one.

"Do you have a problem imagining a place that only exists in your head, a place where you can always go to heal?" he asked.

(Dude, I'm currently paying RENT for some imaginary LAND so I can live in an imaginary HOUSE that only exists on my COMPUTER SCREEN, so I really don't think we're gonna have a problem with that one.)

I'm done spitting though. For all I know, he's filming me and that sh*t is gonna show up on YouTube any day now. Plus, I'm worried that he's gonna ask me to POOP out my anger next time. And possibly throw it at someone. Like a monkey. You think I'm joking, but I'm being dead serious.

There will be no more anger excretion. I'm putting my foot down.

In fact, I want a new shrink. Surely there must be some other "Corporate Development Counselor" out there. I want a kindly Jamaican grandmother-type instead, with reggae playing in the background instead of dolphins wailing in disgust because someone stuck them on a New Age CD.

Or a wise old karate master.

"Wax on, wax off. Mind clean, car clean, The End. You're fixed. Now get out there and bust some bricks with your bare hands."

STOP! Bad picture time!



That hair is the new Emme (in Almond) from Truth and I'm partial to it because that's a happy name. My SL friends call me Em or Emmy and it always makes me smile — in my case it makes my life seem not so, well, green. And NO, that's not why he gave it that name, but YES I'm totally diggin' it. I'm all about the sloppy sexy look.

You can change the ribbon color. And the only reason it's slicing through my shoulder is because I'm magic. (And too lazy to mod it.)

The Froggie shirt is another terri.tees creation (25L) and proves that Terri can do simple and charming just as well as she can do hilarious. The jeans are League's Garage Jeans in Turquoise. The skin is Alyson 7 by Belleza, cleavage option of course.

There's been a lot of talk about crediting the pose creators in blog posts lately, and I totally agree that we should do that. I'm not posing (no, reallly????), but that "hold on a sec while I brush my hair away from my face" move is courtesy of Trin Trevellion's Play AO at SINDecade. I love it so much, I will never ever ever give it up. Strangers always ask me where I got it. That's where, kiddies!

That sausage arm hanging down like a butcher-shop bargain is courtesy of Emerald Being an Idiot.

(LOOK! The bunny got camera-ready all of a sudden! So nice to see your furry face, Bunny!)

Finally, I feel like I need to address some recent and somewhat disturbing . . . SHOOT HERE COMES MY BOSS!!!