Moments in Time

It’s been rainy today. It seems fitting, because it’s been a melancholy day so far. Ten years ago on this day I was on my first date with my late husband. We’d talked online for a couple of weeks, but it was the first time we’d met in person, at a bookstore coffee shop. Every year we marked that day, either by going back to the bookstore, or stopping off for burritos at the site of our first dinner.

I’ve been going in world quite often in the past few weeks, I’m not sure why but I’ve felt a need to rejoin Second Life after keeping it at arms length for so long. For much of that time when I did log in I did so as an alt, wanting to distance myself a bit. Ravensong was tied so closely to NaturesZen, my husband’s av, that seeing her in world without him around was actually depressing and stressful. It was like going to our favorite places in real life alone. It just wasn’t the same, I missed having him with me.

Lately I’ve been logging in with Raven again and rediscovering my bond with her. I’m trying to be more social. I’ve been feeling driven to start taking pics again and remembering how much fun it is. I’ve also been logging in one of my hub’s alts simultaneously, I’m not sure why but just having his alt online is comforting. Maybe it makes me feel that my husband is still with me, even though his alt looks nothing like either my hub or his main. Maybe it’s just that with that other avatar there I can enjoy the illusion that I’m a little less alone in virtual space.

I was laughing with one of my friends the other day that I feel like I’m up to something because I’ve stolen my alt’s partner so I can enjoy cute cuddle poses. I have no idea if this is just a random distraction as I move through the second year of grieving, or if it’s helping in some way. I know there must be many, many people who’ve gone through similar things as me… other SLers who lost a partner who they shared both their real and virtual lives with. I often wonder what their journey is like, how they view the world now, how they move forward.

For now I think I’ll just go out for my first date anniversary burrito.

 

Contemplating this whilst visiting Leka.

 

I found my muse, she was in the gazebo the whole time…

Night writer…

Where did the time go? It seems like I rezzed my little studio at Medici University only a few days ago, and now it’s near the end of the MU year. I wish I’d attended more events and made an attempt to interact so I could have met my talented classmates and perhaps made some new friends, but I was just a little too distracted by RL to visit SL very much. It’s still all good, and I’m glad I’ve tried to take part.

Even though I wasn’t in world very often, I did my best to log in now and then to visit the campus to see what others were creating. When everything was quiet I’d wander around and look for interactive things, as one does. 😀

Taking a break from writing to be fashionable on Paypaback Writer’s pose stand 😀

Most of the time I parked my avvie at my desk, and while SLme typed away on a virtual laptop, RLme  thought I’d work on my creative writing. I didn’t manage to take part in any of the programs on campus, yet just sitting in the little gazebo I found myself rediscovering my muse. I pulled out old stories, I rewrote, I explored new ideas, I lost track of time as I recaptured the joy I used to feel in creating something.

My little corner of the world

Even if it’s currently for my eyes only it has reminded me just how much I love making my own worlds and filling them with people.  As a source of creative inspiration I’d say MU has been a resounding success for me!

Thank you Izzy and Vanessa and all the amazing and talented folks who built such a wonderful place!

Yay, MU!

Painted Skies

Some days you just wake up with an image in your head and then, of course, you must do some serious shopping to find just the right things, and then you have to look around for just the right location and try out a thousand different atmosphere settings and then you wonder how six hours passed in the span of two or three minutes. It’s just the darndest thing.

In my first couple of years in SL I spent much of my time running around in attire that would have been well suited for a Renaissance faire, but with the rise of mesh I abandoned my fantasy wear for the contemporary casual look. I’d forgot how much fun it is to dress up.

I am now very happy. ^_^

And I am in love with my dress. <3

 

*

Politely crediting:

Her dress: Senzafine  “Caterina”
Her necklace: Maxi Gossamer – Alexa Black choker pearls
Her eyes: Ikon Horizon
Her skin: League Isla medium
Her hair: Truth Courtney (pre-mesh, but I see it’s still available in their discount room for 50L a pack)

His coat: The Muses “Dragon
His ears: Sinful Needs Fae Elf Ears 4
His eyes: FATEeyes v3.0
His skin: Nivaro Cunov springtone
His hair: Truth Elysium (heavily modded) I think this is long since discontinued.

Both:
Hands: Slink

Backdrop: Skye Neist Point

7 Random Thoughts, in No Particular Order


1. I miss SL Go. I wish I’d used it more often. But Bright Canopy sounds promising, especially when my insistence on cranking my graphics settings up as high as I can has been making my laptop cry.

2. Should I have really ordered that pizza tonight? I mean, really?

3. I really like the way mesh bodies look, but I still laugh every time I tp somewhere and find a whole bunch of mesh-bod wearing avatars who look like disembodied heads with a collection of nude body parts and stiff articles of clothing floating around them until everything finishes rezzing.

4. I need to make a list of sims I want to visit and start taking pics more often. WindWept was a good start! It’s a lovely, watery sim with lots of good places for photos, lots of places to sit and chat or cuddle with someone special, and a few fun hidden places to discover.

5. It was probably not the best of ideas to try to start a blog challenge when I’m stressed about job hunting and am having a hard time focusing on that.

6. I also need to make a list of real world places to go and start taking pics again. I really miss going out and snapping photos, and I know the primary reason that I stopped was because I miss my husband, he was my exploring partner and could always find cool things.

7. Who cares if the pizza was a bad diet choice! It was tasty. 😀

~

Visit WindWept!

Or find more from my trip at my Flickr 🙂

Distractions and Double Threat Memes

I haven’t been keeping up with the blog lately, again. Things were going along swimmingly, then RL decided to poop on my head right around mid March and I haven’t quite recovered. I didn’t really want to blog about how irritating it is to be laid off just when you were really starting to enjoy your job, or how even more irritating it is when after this happens you start having things around your property fall apart and the repair estimates make you want to hide under the bed. I tried log into SL a few times and at least attend meditation sits, which do sort of help with my focus and stress, but for the most part I just couldn’t get into going in world. Second Life, I love you to bits, but you don’t really lend yourself to allowing me to vent about my RL woes, or to escape from them by immersing myself in sharing new concert clips and flailing about with fellow fans over phenomenal set lists and awesome new pics and generally being a giddy fangirl.

It’s times like this you realize how fortunate you are to have good friends to lean on. None of them read this blog but I still want to just take a moment to be so exceptionally thankful for my little groups of friends in various corners of the internet, I can’t imagine where I’d be without them. All  have helped me survive the past year and a half (and the stinky past couple of weeks), they’ve listened to me ramble in dms and forum posts and on Skype, they’ve been there when I needed them. And so, thank you, thank you, thank you. I love all of you more than you can ever imagine. 🙂

Lately I may be back to myself. Or sort of myself. Or at least I thought I’d blog something because I really, really, really need to write. And so here I am. Yay!  I thought I’d catch up this week by grabbing the recent Berry memes that I’d skipped over. First I’ll try the The Double Threat Meme.

Two online screen names you’ve had: For the most part every username I had prior to about ten years ago was a total throwaway, I saw no reason to build a uniform online presence so I just made something up if I wanted to join a service, and forgot about it later. As a result I don’t even remember what most of my AOL usernames were (and I had a bunch because I kept making new ones and deleting old ones. But in general everything either of these two:  1) Some weird spelling variation of Rhiannon, I was determined to use that name in my early internet days, and so was everybody else it seemed, so unless I wanted to resort to adding numbers to my username, which I hate hate hate, I had to get creative 2) Some spelling variation of “fairy” coupled with a season.

Two video games you’ve played: 1) Various versions of the Sims. 2) Tetris. I loved Tetris.

Two things you love about Second Life:  1) My inventory! ♥  2) Seeing the cool things other people make.

Two things you’ve done in Second Life: 1) I built a replica of the air studio from my college radio station, I was always really proud of that.  2) I got to be a shopkeeper for a while

Two things you still want to do in Second Life: 1) Own an island! 2) Maybe learn to do mesh

Two things you like about your Second Life avatar: 1) They all have great clothes! 2) They’re so pretty. 🙂

Two of your Second Life Pet Peeves:  1) Random friend requests are weird when they appear out of the blue from someone you’ve never seen or spoken to. 2) The idea that I can’t transfer inventory between my own accounts has always been a pet peeve.

Two things you did as a newb that you’re embarrassed of: I didn’t really do much as a newb, I mostly just wandered around by myself and looked at stuff, and if I saw anybody on my radar who looked like they were coming towards me I’d tp out immediately.

Two of your closest friends in Second Life:  I have friends in SL who I enjoy saying hello to and chatting with, but still there’s not really anyone that I hang out or share things with in the way that I do with my closest friends (who are all also people I only get to interact with online, I do wish I could get them into SL but alas…) I often see bloggers talk about their amazing friendships in world and I wish I’d found that, but I guess I’ve just never met really like minded folks in SL. That’s entirely my fault, I let anxiety get the better of me and don’t really try, or even know how to find people who share my interests. In some ways the people in SL put me in mind of the cool kids in school who I just automatically guess will think I’m boring. SL people always seem much more grown up and interesting – they’re chatty, they’re sociable, they’re exciting, and I’m a total dork who never knows what to say, so I just stay in the background.
Okay, That was a bit of a whine. Whaaa.

Two of the most beloved things in your inventory: 1) The wedding ring set that I made for my avatar because I felt like she needed to be wearing a ring. 2) The aforementioned radio station is a grouped item in my inventory that I’m always afraid I’ll mess up.

So! My next goal is to get myself logged in and try to participate in something at Medici University before it goes away. My intentions when I joined were good, but all the offline stress just torpedoed my desire to do much of anything beyond consuming passive entertainment and pestering people to talk to me. Can’t do that forever though, it’s time to do something new and fun and different (I tell myself). Positive thinking ftw right? \o/

Now I’ll see how far I can get before I’m distracted by something again.