april trains may bring strange showers

Rezzable has developed such a solution, but it's one that is certain to cause problems if it ends up in the hands of those who aren't using it for the intended purpose of backups/exports/internal migrations.

So, is it right or wrong? Will Rezzable regret releasing such a device?

Ask Robert Oppenheimer, I suppose.
(From this entry on July 20th.)

In the end, [there] must be no sacred cows, and when confronted with knee-jerk apologists screaming RACISM! to defend the actual racists in our midst, we must have the courage to shout ALL RACISM IS RACISM! at the reactionary corruption of the system.
(From this entry on July 20th.)

Wandering through Crap Mariner's (I still twitch at the name, but maybe that's intentional) journal, because I'd heard he was running a series of informal concerts at his Clocktree. This details his latest concert, featuring a Native American flute player, unfortunately yesterday.

But I keep finding these astoundingly insightful things. I'll have to find time to read further. (And in the meantime, hopefully, show up at one of the performances...sadly, they're booked starting a half hour from the end of Terpsichore Tuesdays.)



So I've been playing with the Snowglobe viewer. It has some really good points. For one, my standard 5-7 FPS (...no, not kidding; why?) jumped, somewhat alarmingly, to 27-29 FPS. That was wild for me. That was insanely fast.

Paired with that, though, are some astounding visual errors. For example:



Ooh, creepy, right? Bizarre alien invader, hide the children!

There's only one problem. This is not an invisiprim-gone-wrong situation. If you look at that curving strip of blue? That is Miss Allen's skin.

Yes, now you're getting the problem.



This was taken after I asked her to take off the upper prims. This is all the upper attachments removed, save the left eye.



And this is her standing in all her mutated glory, both prim eyes removed.

Miss Uni says this is a glitching of the preliminary avatar-masking code the Lindens are mucking about with (must keep the corporate bottom line met, regardless of how haywire things go on the ground) at the moment; all I know is, I thought this was a one-time bug a few days back, when my face went missing.

Now here we stood in Glidden, and I realized I'd lost half a girl! There's no excuse for that.

The only fix we've found so far? And even it doesn't work all the time...is to change skins and hair, and sometimes Linden-layer clothing. Then, and only most of the time at that, your base skin will restore and you won't be Visible-Organs Avatar for the masses.

Still. Just bizarre to stand there, looking at someone hollowed out to only eyes and hair-stuffed brain.

Last little tidbit before I wind up my affairs and smooth into limbo for the next few hours: somehow, between one thing and another, my third-year rez day completely sailed by.

Bother.

So, all right, I thought, fine, we have the new store parcel, we'll fix that up and I'll make eighteen new somethings, and have a little hunt. In honor of surviving to age three.

Then the island chain what owned the sim that little parcel was in sold off to other people. Farewell new storefront.

More bother.

But I'm working on it. The only hitch so far? I have taken a vow. I can make no new products for store release until I see 50K in inventory again.

Pray for me...I have ninety ideas eating each other in my brain and pressuring me to work on them! Plus the hunt. Plus the mushrooms-in-progress.

But I will see 50K or less, sometime very soon. And then--back to creation!

Maybe I should just make three large packages, one for every year, sort of a what-I've-learned retrospective.

The only problem with that is...the first year would have to be somewhat perverse in nature. Miniskirted nun's outfit, or something. Tch.

We'll see. Watch this space, or, well, the blog at large. I'll see what I come up with.

(By the way, the little mutant snowglobe image? Comes from the Kiddley blog. Bwahahahaha...)

ten thousand around me, yet I was alone

Because, if all goes well, my children's children, too, will have their tomorrows thickly sliced and sweetly scented, studded with memory, and appled with hope.

It's a good wish.



With only a week or so left to go on the Hair Fair? I think Nushru is out of luck. "Coming Soon!" is rather optimistic at this point.

And on not infrequent occasion, the Japanese deeply, deeply confuse me. Forget the question of why would anyone want a motorcycle made out of two women; that's actually self-answering. It's the deeper question of why would you want the motorcycle made out of two women to be positioned in such a bafflingly useless fashion.

I'm with one respondent on the mention--the fan art from this is either going to be horrendous, or fantastically confusing...

In Americamura sim, Hani just opened:



Note: "eyeblow". Um, I'm fairly sure I don't want that ever to happen.



Also, if these are the "eyeblows" in question? Wau, do they make her look demonic.

Still, that could have an up side--all of the wicked fun with the nineteen yards of angst on the side; no horn headaches!

The other up side? Everything's half off for the opening, so this eye set, and the "nomal" (yes, that's how she spelled it) size ones are both L$32 a set.

In other news, life continues downhill. I shouldn't be surprised at this anymore...



I rather figured this would happen, actually. The nature of things being as they are, the train wreck couldn't be peaceful forever.



On the plus side, the train's mobile, and only slightly on fire. This is actually good news.

Now I just need to find the rest of the train...

Honestly, going back to Hair Fair for a moment? It kills me that people are still screaming about ARC. It's so flawed, it's so unreliable, yet so many people have seized it as the Source of All SL Evil; even I fall into that thinking on occasion.

ARC really only lags me; I do understand that; my best option for not lagging trying to rez in someone with over 3000 ARC is just to face the other way.

In Hair Fair, this becomes problematic, though; my choices seem to be 1) face the 3000 ARC idiots with overprimmed backpacks and belts, legwarmers and fluffy neko tails (and yes, it's tragic how many avatars that describes), or 2) face the sculpted 150-prim madness that is each individual vendor booth at Hair Fair.

There's no way to win.

On the plus side, Mr. Drinkwater's rez day party was yesterday, though his actual rez day is the 24th (I think...when last checked, that's the date I remember).



So of course a party was thrown!

I'm usually the one detailing who was whom in the photo, but I have no clue. I know Duchess Gabi was the DJ in peach; I know Mr. Drinkwater was tattooed in the kilt; everyone (and it seemed like everyone I knew and then some popped in!) else sort of all blurred together. Just about everyone who could make it, did.

Pretty nice accomplishment for a fellow who walked into a grid with no libraries at all. Three years later, he's the standard everyone wants to emulate. That's just damned keen. And the best benchmark for excellence any of us could hope for.

Kudos, Mr. Drinkwater, and may you have many more rez days to come.

Lastly, before I tie this up, I've gotten into video-making...sort of. One True Media has a service whereby one loads pictures or video clips, then uploads music, and the service pairs them and presents them. You can then upload them to a blog, a web page, or my personal favorite, YouTube.

I started with one of my favorite movie soundtrack songs, paired with images of Harley Quinn and the Joker in various forms--Too Bad You're Crazy. Then I got introspective--the train wreck on the rails again does that--and turned out over the last four days Sleep and We Walk the Same Line.

I'm getting the hang of this, I think. I just need to not freak out so much on proper attribution of everything...

on the turning away

Many odd thoughts crawl through one's head when one is hanging from a noose.



Or, well, if said one is me...I would imagine the normal soul would not be thinking much of anything, but I just had a bit of difficulty getting a good amount of oxygen for a while.

It gave more than enough time for reflection, however, on home, and what home means, and how much of our lives center around the search for home, the loss of home, home's return.

Home is where the heart is.

Home, home on the range.

Home is where, when you go there, they have to take you in.



My bout of hanging over, I started wandering the empty, littered halls of the abandoned hospital. Wreckage of a downed plane burned outside; and the eternal drone of a young woman's voice reassuring the dearth of survivors to remain calm was...not exactly comforting. It brought me again to thoughts of home, to how we make homes, how we live in them.

Home. It's a good word. A comforting word. Even folks who have bad home associations still fall into the social yearning for the good home. This is why haunted houses are so disorienting...Stephen King may have put it best during a speech from Rose Red:

"Houses are alive. This is something we know. News from our nerve endings. If we're quiet...if we listen...we can hear houses breathe. Sometimes in the depth of night, we hear them groan. It's as if they're having bad dreams.

"A good house cradles and comforts. A bad one fills us with instinctive unease. Bad houses hate our warmth, our humanness. That blind hate of our humanity is what we mean by the word 'haunted'."

In this sense, houses, homes, are more than just their prims and textures, more than the labor to build them, the effort to furnish and detail. Homes are our social face, in a sense. The face we choose to show to the world, even if we, ourselves, cannot be seen.

In this sense, home, then, is the truest indication of who, and what, we are.



My footfalls sounded, hushed and wary, down the stairwell as I descended from light to dark. The lights here were dimmer, greener, and the overpowering stench hit me before the reality became clear--the basement had become an improvised morgue. Here were the survivors.

I stepped in for a closer look and realized what I'd taken for patches of shadow were the shambling horrors the survivors had become. I was surrounded before I could think to react, sustaining three bites as I fought my way free.

It wasn't my idea of home. But maybe to a zombie...

"A house is a place of shelter. It's the body we put on over our bodies. As our bodies grow old, so do our houses. As our bodies may sicken, so do our houses sicken.

"And what of madness? If mad people live within, doesn't this creep into the rooms...and walls and corridors? The very boards? Don't we sometimes sense that madness reaching out to us? Isn't that a large part of what we mean when we say...a place is unquiet, festered up with spirits?

"We say 'haunted'...but we mean the house has gone insane.

All of this came about because I was invited to attend a combined rez day party for both the Davies sisters, Tanarian and Myfanwy, and also (one of) my erstwhile employers, and Vice-Consul to the Europan Consulate, Frau Annechen Lowey. It was held at Miss Tanarian's dance pavilion in Steelhead Harborside. And I will admit freely, I had more than a few qualms about attending.

Oh, I've been unbanned for weeks, now, if not months, there's nothing but my own ethics that keeps me from the set of sims that Steelhead is blossoming into. Even so, I felt as if I was invading, as if my very presence would be seen as intrusive. Injurious. Damaging.

At the height of the party--for which I have no pictures, alas, because I was concentrating so very hard on not being a nuisance in any way--we had several dogs underfoot, getting into everything, from Irish wolfhounds nearly larger than I was, to small little Corgis with pink collars. And it struck me that here was life, bright vibrant life, and it was a wonderful sight to behold, and be near for those few hours I spent...but that it would not be part of my life, anymore.

One would think being gone from a sim for over a year, and being banned from that sim for nearly half that time, would more than have convinced me, but...I'm a slow learner.



Tonight Brigadoon appeared again, and it just brought more contemplation on home, on what home means, on what our search for home means. Caledon Brigadoon, like any of the Caledon sims, is a mix of mostly residential with some commercial concerns, but it has one distinct difference: it has the ancient village of Brigadoon, which appears every twenty-eight days, for a rough period of three hours, and then vanishes into the mists again, to wait out its time in the between spaces.



Tonight it appeared during Brigadoon's brightly sunny day, which made the perpetual tully fog and eventual fading in sections even more odd, because they were magical feats accompanied by bright sun and blue skies. It was still, as with the first time I was there, a glorious thing to see. And the series of thatched-roofed, lath-chinked cottages contributed to that feeling of...Home, safe and sound, home, comforts of, home, where we long to be...

Heraclitus said, Nothing endures but change. I've always found that to be true. Thomas Wolfe titled a book on the subject--"You Can't Go Home Again". I believe that's true, too. You can never go home again, not to what it was, because home's changed, and you have also. That has to be accepted, and that's just part of the life lived.

But sometimes...if you're very, very lucky...you can visit on occasion. Just to reassure yourself that home is still there.

It's something.

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.

do you really wanna know how I was dancing on the floor?

There are some events one attends on the grid that end up being larger than they were planned to be. I don't mean in terms of attendance, though we had that too, but just...I don't want to get all flowery and say something like, "now I've rediscovered my faith in humanity!" because really...first, not human, hello, and second, that makes it sound a tad too grand. It was, after all, just a party.



But it was a great party. It was Miss Kacy Despres' first Rez Day party, and her husband, Mr. Mordecai Scaggs, had booked Radio Riel, her Grace Duchess Gabi, and myself, personally.

And we did our best to welcome in all comers and keep the party moving. Miss Despres was quite fond of 80's tunes, which was rather perfect, because so is our DJing Duchess (it is, after all, part of what she does at Timeless Underground every second Thursday). And, before the Rez Day girl came aboard the Rakehell, the lovely floating airship palace above Tanglewoods, such a huge number of people came aboard, I nearly couldn't rez them all. I was quite frankly astounded.



Left to right (at least in this capture) (and I apologize, these were both taken late in the day, because I was too busy hosting and having fun!): Lord Cymru, Viderian Vollmar; a sadly unrezzed (she's mostly rezzed in the picture above) Miss Samantha Glume; myself in green; Miss Kacy Despres in the dark teal dress; the thinnest of glimpses of the light-generating wonderpixie, Miss Exuberance Lafleur; her Grace Gabrielle Riel in the polka dots; the right arm of Mr. Mordecai Scaggs, who set up the entire party with his lovely lady none the wiser, apparently (which takes some doing!); Mr. Roberto Viking; and Miss Saffia Widdershins, publisher of Prim Perfect. (Alas, for I cannot remember the lady on the far right).

So maybe I'm wrong, it wasn't just a party. Because one's first Rez Day, it does have a special meaning. We meet our year marks and, beyond suddenly realizing we've spent a year on the grid, we get to realize we've survived a year on the grid. We now know how to play the game, and (hopefully) how not to; we've made some connections, some friends, maybe fallen in love (and, for some of us, like Miss Kacy, managed to stay in love--Mr. Scaggs, after all, she met her very first day on the grid, and they're happily married now); we've found good places, maybe founded businesses, but most importantly, more than anything--we've lasted.

That should be celebrated. That should be a festival of joy. And for Miss Kacy, it was.

It felt good to be a part of that.

In other news, the WingFling is coming:



What is it? Well, Miss Jen Shikami wants to get everyone together who makes wings, likes wings, or designs wing-related items in one place. It's also something of a fundraiser for Child's Play, which is a very worthy childrens' charity set up for the express purpose of helping out sick children in hospitals in five different countries.

It opens the 19th of Aprille and closes on the 27th; and there's an information site if you want to read more about it. Or just IM Jen Shikami in world.

feel no shame for what you are

Another one that needs your votes. This one about the new 'beacon-less' transport system. It's bad. It needs to change. Like NOW.

Fall in light, fall in light
Fall in light, fall in light

I reach out to the universe when I dance. I reach out and embrace it, draw it in, make it part of me as I'm always part of it. I reach out, dancing, and beckon those I love to follow.



(Mysterious birds outside of CreamShop in Koenji.)

Feel no shame for what you are
Feel no shame for what you are
Feel no shame for what you are--

I have lived my life in shadow, always in the hinterland between true dark and true day. I live my life half-lit by half-completed thoughts, half-glimpsed realizations, and I have never minded until now.



(Snowman terror in Rivula.)

Feel no shame for what you are
Feel no shame for what you are
As you now are in your blood
Fall in light

Now I'm thinking. Now I'm learning, again. Now I'm feeling, again. Such heights, such new depths of pain....I'll get used to it, eventually, but now, everything's new. I haven't been here for some time, you see. Almost as if I've been given new eyes to see the world...and maybe that is true, in a sense.



(Mysterious huge bunny by a random fire in Callatropia.)

Feel no shame for what you are
Feel no shame for what you are
Feel it as a waterfall
Fall in light

Struggle, always a struggle. But this one's worthwhile, at least. And it's one I may not want to win...because if I win, it will be on my terms, and my terms say--don't let anyone see you. Don't let anyone hurt you. And if they do, don't let them see they have.

Enough of that. A full life of that, and enough. There are other ways to live a life.



(People dancing at Colonel O'Toole's Rez Day Party. I'd name 'em off, but I didn't know a third of the folks in this picture!)

Fall in light, fall in light, fall in light
Fall in light, fall in light, fall in light
Grow in light

I just need to remember I have the option. Keep the doors of my heart open, and let the world in; or close them, close down, submerge below the shell of earth again, and never another thaw. I'd rather, as frightening as it is at times, as out of control as it feels...stand near my gates, and watch the world without cover.



(Hotspur draws down on the evil Friendship Bear.)

Stand absolved behind your electric chair, dancing
Stand absolved behind your electric chair, dancing
Past the sound within the sound
Past the voice within the voice

But I falter, of course, I withdraw, I pull back...I think these reactions are natural. This time out, at least, I'm remembering I have friends, who can pull me out again if I get lost. And I'm trying to remember that no one makes me feel anything--it's my choice, I'm not forced to feel, and I can choose not to. They just influence, these outer pressures, these outer pulls and pushes towards and against. Influence is external. What I choose to feel is all me.



(The Polonaise begins.)

Leave your office
Run past your funeral
Leave your home, car
Leave your pulpit

Today, I stood in Caledon Prime (hee--until it crashed beyond recovery without Linden assistance--go, Bah Humbug Bash!) and danced. I had lovely dance partners and tried to do my best not to be the typical mainland caller host in all caps (I've never been that type of hostess, anyway, so that didn't hurt), but really, by and large? I just had amazing fun with it.

And I think everyone else had amazing fun, even when the sim crashed beyond recovery. (It's since come back up, and the party moved for its last hour to Carntaigh, where we had smaller, but no less amazing, fun.)



(The Polonaise continues. After it finally broke up, Mr. Hassanov kept in pattern for a good half-hour, and we got to watch him run in circles around the dance floor. Wonderful sight.)

Join us in the streets where we
Join us in the streets where we
Don't belong, don't belong
You and the stars
Throwing light

I will edge out from the gates and say this: being open? Better than being closed to all who might knock on my doors. Being open and seen? Better than being invisible. Being able to be hurt? Still better than not feeling at all.

These are not bad things.



(Near ShadoWiccan's store, in the hybrid reindeer avatar I cobbled together. I had fun with this look, I'll have to remember it for next winter.)

Ooooooh
Fall, fall
Ooooooh
Fall in light, fall in light. fall in light

And in the meantime, I dance. In the meantime, I celebrate. In the midst of privation I have joy. In the midst of loss I have redemption. My troubles are just that, and they do not have to be all-encompassing, and a burden shared is a burden lessened.

I learned this, long ago, why did I forget? Well, I'll try not to forget again.



(Taking a moment from the festivities to breathe, in the store in Penzance.)

Oooooh
Fall in light, fall in light fall in light
Grow in light...

In the meantime, I have a life to live. Train-wreck or not. And I mean to live it, because if I'm not living my life...why am I bothering? The life consciously lived...is always, always more of a hassle.

But it's so much more worthwhile.

And that's the point of the game, after all. Or at least, it should be...

(Lyrics from Jeff Buckley's "New Year's Prayer".)

gonna take your mama out all night, yeah, we'll show her what it's all about

There is a hunt ongoing, throughout the grid, celebrating the SLCC convention. There are glowing mushrooms containing work of top SL designers, squirreled away in diverse locations. They look like this:



Go find them.

*grins*

(Oh--the ladies, in the picture? Ah, well, the one on the left is me, in my rarely-seen Arctic fox form, and the one on the right with the world's known allocation of straps is Miss Neome Graves. She doesn't get badly anonymized in these pages because I'm going to be doing my best to drag her to things. She knows little about Victoriana, but is fascinated by the concept of steampunk. So I'm hoping to bring her 'round and about and introduce her to some of my favorite Caledonians. Which--to be honest--is most of them.)

In other news, today--well, yesterday, more precisely--was Lady Christine McAllister-Pearse's rez day! So her friends threw her a party.



Of course Radio Riel sponsored the event, it was held in Carntaigh.



Very nearly everyone was there--at least, that I know, or have heard of. So many people came, even if they could only come briefly, to wish Lady Christine well. Lady Amber, Duchess Gabrielle, Colonels Hotspur O'Toole and Exrex Somme, Lord Bardhaven, Miss Terry Lightfoot, Miss Hypatia Callisto. Mr. Telemachus Dean, Sir JJ Drinkwater, Mr. Nix Sands, Mr. Puck Goodliffe, Mr. TotalLunar Eclipse, Miss Tensai Hilra, Miss Addison Barrymore...Mr. Trevor Rowlands, Mr. Mavromichali Szondi...I know I'm forgetting people, hordes of people came.



Sir Edward was having great fun poring through his collection of photographs of Lady Christine, salacious and otherwise. I briefly turned on the sun, hoping no one would notice, so I could get a better photograph myself!



And then...the Daleks invaded.



Don't ask me why this sort of thing keeps happening in Caledon. All I know is, I got caught in the crossfire one too many times, and am very glad I'm a shapeshifter, all things considered!



The brave ladies of Caledon soon figured out that if they perched atop the Daleks, their voluminous skirts prevented the firing of their forward lasers, and seemed to impair their servos, besides.

Soon, it was a rout--Daleks, 0, Caledonians 1! HUZZAH!

All in all, it was a lovely party, full of high spirits and conviviality, and I do believe our one purpose--to show Lady Christine how much she is appreciated, and by how many--was well and ably served. Happy Rez Day, Christine!



Then, I went shopping with friends afterwards in Avaria Tor, and...this happened.

You know, this just isn't the sort of thing you see every day. Unless you're me.

*sighs*

drink up, sweet decadence, I can't say no to you

First off: Not yet, you fools! A very precise analysis of why voice is BAD on the grid--any grid--any virtual world.

Now, onward.



It was my first Rez Day party yesterday. I decided I'd make something a little less than standard on the invitation--I mocked up the image you see, painted it onto a whitewashed board, nailed two support boards top and bottom to the main signboard post with three copper square nails, and stuck the entire thing into a moss-overgrown round of cemented river rocks. Fun.



But before the party, I still had set-up to do. Over the past two days, I have:

* bought three more slow dances from Bits and Bobs, for the dance alcove at Taiyou
* bought three 'cuddle' sets from Bits and Bobs, to set out in various places (two are in place on the upper balcony, one has yet to be placed, I ran out of time)
* bought two hot tubs (one a la Nipponaise, pale wood slats, I still have to work on tweaking the position of it, and one Egyptianesque, quite ornate, with its own fireplace and flowing orange silks around the pillars)
* built the above-mentioned invitation, tossed a give script into it, along with the notecard of impromptu party notice
* commissioned a cake, had it made, had it scripted (fell in love all over again, hee--it's a LOVELY, lovely cake)
* hired two DJs (Hunter lost his connection last night, but we survived, and he says he owes me a night now)
* bought a dress for the party (sachi's lovely handkerchief-dagged gown, in dark purple)
* set out a bed, an intimate rug, a hot tub, a hummingbird lantern, and a set of shelves for the lantern to sit upon in the Asian skybox
* set out a bed, an intimate rug, a large stone bath, and two hanging lanterns in the Arabian skybox
* realized I'd given the wrong landmark for the party, so went to Kokopelli (where everyone was beaming in, who didn't come in on their own landmarks for Steelhead), made up a second signboard apologizing and telling people to follow the arrows, then dropped several gleaming, bright red arrows hovering in midair at set positions, guiding folks from the dance square to Taiyou

The decoration of the two skyboxen was most difficult in all of it. Why? Well, due to family obligations, Lunar--who'd built Taiyou, who'd built the skyboxen--couldn't quite script up the teleport system before he had to go. So I had to fly up--this is me hovering next to the Asian skybox, you see, with scripter and anime chibi Winter Ventura (and drat, wish I had better pictures of her, she was CUTE) hovering behind me--and sneak in to decorate both skyboxen.



Here's a shot of me hovering over the Arabian skybox, Winter behind me. Hee.

But finally, finally, everything was done. And I started setting out tables, and nibbles, and the cake, and goblets of blood for any vampires, and chocolate for everyone else--realized just as things started happening that I really wanted something of a 'visual progression' on the walls. So I dragged a quick frame out, set about eight of them along the back of the tea area, and started with a pic that very very few people have seen--the first day I was in world, little cyberbot me, pale skin, dead black confused eyes, close-cropped red-tipped black hair. The next shot is of cyberfae me--cyberbot skin, purple corset, purple-tipped black hair caught up in two huge ponytails, and glimmering blue wings.

And on we went--one shot of me in the original dance skin, at the original Club Enigma, with tousled blonde hair; one shot of me in the then-new X2 skin, with platinum hair; the shot taken the first day I ever wore my Arctic fox, in the little goth Lolita minidress I'd found for her, which is still predominantly what my fox wears, when my fox doesn't wear native buckskins; a shot of the pale kitten, in black, with the mourning band, sitting in the crypt of the vampire princeling; the first modeling shot with new Kin hair (Sora, in vibrant gleaming red) and black leather head to foot; and finally, a shot of me in the Boneflower skin I received (along with net-sleeved Asian silk top and Asian silk skirt, and retro cat-eye glasses, all compensation for modeling for a series of promotional ads for Boneflower), all arch look, pleased expression, in sachi's Emilly hair (in volcano, how apropos, being as how it's black-tipped red).



I didn't get many shots of the actual party, or much leading up to and leading from. I was very much too busy. But this is a fun shot, so from left to right, the usual suspects (click for larger image):

Fawkes Allen, designer of the cake; Hank Rucker, haloed land baron and friend; his lady wife Alexandra Rucker; DJ Sir Edward Pearse, in gleaming uniform (which he made, by the way, available for sale at any branch of Pearse'd & Cut near you); Lumina Elvejhem in lovely salmon-gold sari silks; Lady Christine McAllister-Pearse, in her glorious green silk wedding gown; a very saucily dressed Duchess Gabrielle Riel; the tall Lauren, girlfriend and possession of Miss Roku; Winter Ventura, the small chibi wonder in purple hair; Miss Roku2 Hallard, new Taiyou Companion; Mr. americanpsyco98 Book, spinning next to Lady Amber Palowakski (sadly out of frame); and Miss Qlippothic Projects, spinning in monochrome kimono.

We had grand fun.



Another shot of the dancing crowd. You can clearly see the end picture of the 'how far I've come' wall, just above the cake. Hee.

Finally, this is something I've meant to post for a bit--how the Bumblebee avatar, puir wee creature of cogs and design--can be somewhat perverted by someone with wicked intent.

I present to you--Bumblebee, poledancing.

::giggles insanely and scampers off::

sometimes it's hard to recognize, love comes as a surprise

Happy Rez Day to me!

More later, but I had to sneak on and sneak in pics of my Rez Day cake:



Full frontal screaming cake. Comprised of layers of ground bone, graveyard dust and dark chocolate ganache, surmounted with a slice of sod, into which were pressed eight hollow chocolate caskets covered in highly ornate, airbrushed fondant. In the center, a full human half-arm, tibia and fibula, plus the full hand, carefully wired in place, holding a plate. The plate bore a shockingly realistic eye, and the plate dripped with spun sugar blood.

To the right of the cake, a tray of simple chocolate bars, dark and milk; to the left, a tray of blood goblets.



The cake from the side, showing the delicate little details. Above it--since the cake will remain up until I return from traveling, on Friday--can be seen (at Taiyou) part of a little picture show I put up--me, from first rez to now. It still amuses.

The cake was made by Fawkes Allen, by the way. Start to finish, building, baking and scripting. Yes, he does custom work. Call on him.

gimme gimme fuel for my fire just a little spark of desire

A week of preparation, a little more. Women telling their friends, announcing to Caledon at large, word spread through the aether from woman to woman. Long talks into the night, deciding whom would be wearing what, what would go best with whom, hair and eyes and skins and shoes and lovely, lovely gowns with ornate details.

Wednesday, some panic. Thursday, rapid-fire shuttling of folders and information back and forth. Friday, last-minute notecards, confirming with all and sundry, setting up the scene of the thing. Saturday, my first time to try on every outfit, from the skin out, and see how things went together.

Sunday. An hour before the Rose Corridor tea. The three of us chosen to model walk the path. Me being me, I fall into the bay. Of course--it wouldn't be a public Em appearance without some form of personal humiliation or quirky disaster. Just wouldn't do.

But we get everything done, we're in our first outfits, we're preparing to walk out to meet the gathered crowd, do our turns on the improvised runway....and suddenly, my heart is in my throat.

Honestly, if Miss Darkling and Lady Kira hadn't been just as nervous as I was? If Lord Zealot hadn't been the calming ironic presence he was? I doubt I would have survived. Honestly, I never thought I'd rely on a man in the changing room before...

And, oh, I wish I had pictures, but I did hear busy clicking of cameras going off, so it's to be hoped pictures were recorded. I'll look for them.

In the meantime...different hobbies of an evening.



All this week as well, I've been going in now and again for photoshoots with my artist. Normally, it's some incredibly lethal bit of fetishware, a drained-of-all-life appearance, the kinky little retro touches I'm growing to love. This time was just a tad different--oh, the beginning of the week, don't mistake me, we had leather and retro nylon in spades. But Saturday...

Well, Saturday was a different story.



After all, it's not every day you walk in on your artist and she tells you to streak yourself with slowly cooling blood and think sexy thoughts. Muahah.

This was part of her "Sin" show, which opened today, and will run for at least one week, if not two. And yes, there's a preponderance of leather and latex, pleasure droids and buckled straps, insanely high shoes and gleaming PVC...and in the midst of it, my chosen sin, blood-daubed as I was.

Today, I found a pose entitled "Back Shank". I may have to go get it and have my landlord finally build that knife for me...just so I can have the blood-daubed outfit snapped for posterity while I have a knife in my hand. MUAHAHAhahaha...



In the meantime, someone living in a bomb shelter contacted my statue and said, please, can you build me furniture that goes with the destruction of civilization? And he did. Had a grand time doing so, for all that I can evaluate such things.

My only problem? Was when he removed the plutonium cores to retrofit the nuclear bomb for lamp light. We were sitting on his friend's beach, bathed in gloriously green radiation, for rather an unnervingly long time.

If I pop up with any new mutations...that'll be why.



But overall...barring the known issues...it was a good week. I am pleased. Relatively content, even, and how often does that happen? My once (and perhaps future, who knows?) employer paid me, not the full amount but enough to get on with designing what I need to have done to open Taiyou and have my rez day party, I do believe. Now I just need to get on the ground and tell people.

Oh, and one RP note...

A certain bearer of a certain demon has approached me, wanting to know if I'll blood-bond to him. Considering the last love of my life in Lumindor, the half-Drow Captain, hasn't seen fit to talk to me of late...I'm considering--strongly considering--saying yes.

Addiction to his blood and all.

Oh, but my half-Drow? Will desire his head on a platter, and may just have the strength enough to get it. And then it will be yet another addiction to cold-rip out of my system.

Still. Strongly tempted. Yes, it's partially because I'm irked at the ex-Raven, for making me beg to see him, and still hearing him say no. I am Unseelie, I am shifter true, I do not beg. And he of all, with his fierce pride, should remember that.

But also...there's something very soothing in an equal playing field. I would have to work hard indeed to drain him, succubus to incubus, and so would he, because our ability sets do seem to reinforce, each to each. The more power drained, the more power expended, the more power raised...it's lovely when it works that way.

Plus, he...or the outer shell of the demon within, at least...is very sweet, in his own way.

And one thing I would never call the Captain of the Unseelie Court...is sweet.

So let him make peace with his choices, and his stray neko harem. I've been long and long away, perhaps he's forgotten certain of my traits...

but the road is long, and the song is gone

Kelly Mountain Road
saw a heavy load
with a sagging heart
and a break apart...

I spoke to him words of reassurance and comfort, and not a little enticement, and sent him on his way to sleep. My sweet neko, moving farther away from me, and I don't want it to be over. It's far too easy for me to be melancholy on nights like these, it's a constant struggle not to fall.

voices in me
stood as thick as thieves
with no sympathy
for the beggars art

And the lone wanderer wanders away as well, to wander back when he will. It's ever been our way, to come close through distance. Oddity, but it seems to work, as well as anything does.

But another notch on the belt, and on I go.

but the road is long
and the song is gone
I blow empty
in my cicada shell

And he says, family comes, and he may not appear, and I smile, life's irony galling at times, heavy on the tongue. But of course--I make my choices, I make them plain, I make sure the universe hears them--and the universe ups the ante, subtracting them from me. Now what will you do? my universe asks me.

if I saw my choice
I might find my voice
but I don't know when
and I just can't tell

Wait, I think. It's the only answer I have. Learn patience anew. Perhaps put off the harlequin outfit that's so frustrating me, and work on another outfit entirely, something I can wear to the Dark Victorian ball later this evening...

Perhaps.

you tell me it's temporary
it's a matter of time
by God
don't you think I know it's in my mind?

I don't do alone well, but really, who does? And I'm better at it now than I used to be. I'm better at many things than I used to be, and isn't that an improvement? Reward comes after long trial...maybe my trial isn't over.

It's a thought.

deep behind my face
is a safer place
but old gears are hitched tight
to the gate

But change, oh, I change so slowly. And yes, another irony-rich slice...I can be practically anything--cold or hot, alive or not, furred or feathered or finned, I can sprout leaves or drift as smoke through trees or be the bustle in the hedgerow...but I'm the student in the Life Lessons class who has to have the assignment explained to her again, and who doesn't always turn in her homework when it's due.

it's a daily grind
waiting to unwind
till I hear that click
that unlocks my fate

So I'll see a change is necessary, and two months later, I'll begin to act on it, and two months past that may see the merest ripple on the surface of the tidal pulls happening underneath...I change slowly. I change glacially.

Yet another thing I must find time to work on...

it's right over left
and healing the then
I'll soon be to nothing
but I don't know when

And my rez day is coming up in three days, I have no invites to send out, no idea when or even if I'll be able to celebrate with friends, and I am very, very upset with the man who owes me, because he said the first of this month, I would be paid, and I was counting on those funds to have certain things built...like the cake that screams...and mayhap said invitations.

I have told him this--if he makes me miss my rez day party--and Taiyou's opening--on the tenth? I will be quite wroth with him. It may not, it likely won't, kill the friendship, but it may quite effectively hobble it...

(Song is most of "Soon Be to Nothing", from the Indigo Girls)