don’t get ahead, don’t fall behind, stay between the lines

I was beginning to think they postponed the rolling restart, but then we were hit late last night with a frantic "YOUR REGION OMG IZ RESTARTING" message. Bah. I was hoping...

Though I do find their new "transparent and open" policy humorous at times.

And I know sooo many people for whom this fits perfectly.

In addition, there's a new blog in the blogroll to the left based on this one comment: ""The 'Little Pirate Ship' is the perfect combination of tall-mast ship and say, oh a canoe."

They bear further reading.

In the meantime, I had a very unusual--if quiet--rez day. I opened it by going to one of the renamed Motorati sims, and watched a six-hundred-lap, dirt-track, sprint-car race. Amazing. I would have thought it would be impossible to do before Havok4 implementation, but no, Katier Reitveld, one of the (editors? Upper-echelon writers? Formal hires? Gad, I need to get to know the other employees...) other staffers at the Metaverse Messenger, said they used to race under Havok1 all the time.

Sounds insane.

After that, we went hunting at the new Baistice store. The amusing part: find twenty "orbs", all round, with little golden bows, scattered about the sim. The frustrating part: "Orb" nine is repeated, so there's actually twenty-one orbs to find, and some are somewhat challenging to find.

There was some controversy with my loves, but all in all, we got through it, and then traipsed off to the Museum of Robots to judge the entries (entry voting stops on the twelfth--if you haven't voted by now, you likely don't have the time). I ended up sitting next to a very well-reproduced homage to the updated version of B9 from Lost in Space, reflecting on two years on the grid.

For my first year party, I had the wall retrospective of photos, I had a cake designed, I had friends and new acquaintances alike stop by. I held a dance. I invited. I did my best to let everyone I cared about know in advance.

This year? I didn't tell anyone. And I have been getting some irked responses over that. Which I understand and grant, but over the past year--and taking the two years as a whole--there have been a staggering number of changes in my life. In all respects.

One year ago, I had a job. Granted, I had a job I wasn't particularly good at, but I had one. And it was one predominantly in the same field I was in before. And then...everything fell apart.

I lost that job, I lost that means of income, and soon to come, I lost the ability to escort entirely--and dancing and escorting, they'd been my main sources of income on the grid. I will maintain until my end days, no matter how far I move from the time spent at the Enigma, and Dorian Gray's, and everywhere else, that there is nothing inherently wrong in a woman making her living by physical means. Sometimes it's all we have; playing on the physical is not, by any means, 'easier' work.

One year ago, I had loves. Granted, I had problems with some of them, but I had them. And some of them I'd had since my days at the Enigma. And then...they fell away from me, passing beyond my reach--some my fault, some theirs, and in either sense, gone beyond reclamation.

I lost them, and for quite some time, I flailed a bit, adrift with nothing to rely upon, nothing I'd known. Job gone, means of income gone, a stuttering clothing line in the back spaces of SLX...and this blog to report all the changes.

Now, one year later. I have a job. Gad, I have several, in point of fact. I host Radio Riel events. I bartend at (though of late, I more run around, trying to find brewers for) der Hut des Jaegers in Winterfell. I write for the Metaverse Messenger. I design eyes and frocks, and occasional textures, for Kartiny, my still-rather-small business, and help in the design process for Autogenic Alchemy, the larger business below mine in Caledon Penzance.

And I have loves. I adore and am adored by three wonderful, deranged, quirky, inventive people, and I could not ask for more. I don't have hours and hours of free time anymore, to wander the world and walk its byways, to dance at any club that intrigued me, to entice the attentions of anyone who caught my eye...I no longer list on my profile that I have a rate sheet for anything.

But the trade-off has been monumental. I am part of a radio movement that is devoted to preserving sounds of an age gone by. I am a junior fashion writer with no restrictions--go forth, they tell me, find stories, turn them in. (Gosh, are you serious? NO other edicts?!?) If I manage to find a brewer willing and insane enough to brew Gauxa Imputitia, then I can start spending a set time at the bar in Winterfell.

Thursdays. I think Thursdays sound good.

And all in all, I am content. It's true, I no longer reach out as far as I did once. I've been burned, and I'm more cautious these days. But I still reach out.

And I'm me--essentially, the heart inside the shapeshifting body remains mine. I'm still growing, I'm still learning, I'm still willing to learn, willing to ask, willing to listen.

Two years on the grid. I'm still here. It's enough.

We could say a lot worse about our time in this place. I rest content with what I have. In the end, when I look back on all I've done to get here...it's enough.