what's left when the locks have all been broken

Oddity--I've been mentioned again, this time in Australia. It's very odd. I don't remember giving an interview to any Australian publications...but reading through that little paragraph or so, it souonds like a reprint of the English article I did give an interview for.

Oddly? My boss at Dorian Gray's mentioned it to me. Apparently a patron wandered in off the street and told him she'd read about the club in the Australian Cosmo, and he had to send me word. He's asking her if she'll scan the pages in and send them to him. He's quite excited I actually mentioned the club.

Of course I mentioned the club. I work there, it's important. Apparently he's not used to that...

In other news, I have a month to turn the Taiyou around. If I fail, the dream is over, the Taiyou vanishes, replaced by merchants or whatever else the sim needs. Strangely, I'm less emotionally connected to this after the events of yesterday. It's not that I don't want the Taiyou to succeed; I do. I think it could be a valued part of the sim, I think it could be wonderful, I think I haven't paid enough attention to it and I should be paying more.

And I'm going to do everything I can to make it successful. I'm pinning my hopes on next Saturday, getting everything up and running, though I still need to check the Caledonian calendar, make sure there's not another event planned opposite.

But I'm not putting my heart on the line anymore. If it fails, I'll accept it, and move on. It's not as if I haven't been pulling back from Steelhead anyway, what with everything. If Taiyou leaves, it will be a loss, but it will be a loss I can bear. I'll still go to dances, I'll still help out if needed, but I won't be in town every single day, I won't have need to be. And I'm not offering to run anything else.

Maybe that will help. I don't know. All I know is...we have a month, from now. We'll see what happens. And I learn as much from failing as I do from success, so it will be a learning experience either way.

Moving on from that...I wish I'd been able to get pictures of this, but I could barely move let alone spin the cam around the dance floor. Last night the two-day anniversary celebration June Dion threw to ring in Bare Rose's second year on the grid ended with an EGL dance in Black Cat. You have never seen so much lace, black silk, and hair ribbons in one place in your life, I promise you. At the height of the dance, there were seventy-five people in the sim, and the sim did not crash. No one could move, half of everyone was grey, but gods, we had fun.

Over eighty females entered the costume contest. It would have been a five hundred Linden cash prize, plus the right to name a new dress that Miss Dion had designed specifically for the event. Five of us won. We each received a hundred Linden, and then the debate was on--who names the outfit? Now what?

We still don't know. But this is what I do know--after the event ended, friends and I ended up gathering back at the main stage at Bare Rose, idly talking, still buzzing from the event. I had changed from the full-on Hana Lolita dress, black silk and froufy crinolines and striped stockings, to a Draconic Kiss white petticoat dress, simple and unornamented. Miss Dion wandered back to the sim, and then messaged me, asking if I had time to be photographed. I said yes.

She left, and called me to White Wolf, told me to pick out one of four outfits. I was fascinated by Stheno, a sort of post-punk Victorian West outfit, complete with tattered black tartan skirts and black lace bonnet. She told me to jump on a pose stand, make sure everything looked right, asked me to wear the bonnet--and it's quite fun, it truly is--and then took me down to her studio.

I'm always fascinated by seeing where designers actually work. Miss Dion's workspace--at least, the photograph studio--is clean and uncluttered, composed of bare woods and several open-ended boxes, each painted a simple base tone. I stood in the pale grey box, she took a few images, and then told me to check back in a few hours, when she puts out the outfit for sale.

I can't wait. It's been an unconfessed dream of mine to be a Bare Rose model, and I've been tempted to ask more than once. Now, if it never happens again--at least I'm somewhere in the great complex. Whee!

I'll have to go to the store later on, and see how the box ended up looking. I'm thrilled with this. This is very nearly better than naming the outfit!

(Find an interview with Miss Dion here, the blog of another Bare Rose designer here.)