Winter sports

Moving from the northern to the southern hemisphere, one of the biggest differences for me to have to get used to, and something I continually struggle with, is inverted seasons. This is especially the case for me when it comes to Christmas.

For me, Christmas is a winter thing. All the movies, the cards, the music, the shopping mall imagery - it's all wintery. Even here, in the height of summer, it's all wintery.

This year though, things haven't been quite so bad for me. Either I am slowly getting used to the idea, or else, more likely, my first Christmas in SL is allowing me to get a virtual winter fix. After all, I can sit here in shorts and t-shirt while having a snowball fight...


...or going ice-skating, can't I?

Reminds me of the old days

Tonight I was inworld messing with poses. I decided to unpack the one hundred and twelvety poses I had lying around from a hunt I did a few months back and try them out. But I got bored. Fairly quickly. My attention span does not extend to adjusting them to fit my av size.

As something a bit different to do, I headed over to my gallery and saw that two of my oldest friends in SL, Chry & Jewellah, were perched around the corner. It would have been rude not to wander round to say hello.


Sometimes it is just good to sit and chat and share secrets and laughs. Friends are good, y'know. Even when they take offence at your clothes and make you change your shirt.

Tongue in cheek?

I had my attention drawn to a new blog in town today after someone posted a comment here. I was unsure quite what to expect when I started reading, and to be honest, I am still not quite sure. It's kinda intriguing if nothing else, and probably worth a glance.

It seems that if you have a problem in SL you can ask Anneka for advice and she'll post you a reply online. Different, huh?

Serial offender

Sometimes I look in the mirror that is my computer monitor, see the avatar gazing back at me, and wonder quite how I got to be that person. It amazes me how traits are distilled through a digital medium; how our RL safeguards and fail safes are rerouted and overwritten.

Yup, it's another of those navel-gazing, self-analysis plurks. If you don't wanna be an emo voyeur, look away now. Don't say I didn't warn you...

It is true I wear my heart on my sleeve, I launch myself into things and it tends to be everything or nothing with me. I struggle with anything in between, it seems, for whatever reason. I also seem to be able to make a girl feel special, like she is everything in my world. This is not a good thing.

It seems like it should be. It seems like it should be brilliant. Everyone's a winner, right? But it's not. It causes pain and hurt, especially when coupled with my other characteristics I listed above.

Y'see, when a girl is everything is my world, I dive in, head first. And she feels overwhelmed, pampered and special. So very special. For a while, everything is rosy and songbirds dance around our heads singing sweet songs of spring. But then something will happen or something will change, and I might not even know what or why. The initial lustre will fade and my binary switch will flick from 1 to 0. When that happens I know there is only one outcome. So I bail. It really is for the best.

Only, the girl is still seeing those songbirds. She is left stunned and confused and hurting. I hate that I do that.

There are one or two girls scattered around the SLuniverse who are nodding right now, assuming they're reading this. They know what I am talking about. They have experienced it first hand. I have hurt them. I intensely dislike that I have. I don't mean to. But I never learn my lesson. I always plough on regardless, blind to the road signs screaming "caution", disregarding the impending road crash, thinking this time it will be different. But it never is.

And so, I plead with you, heed my warning. I don't know what the future holds, who fate will cause to cross my path. I only know that falling for me leads to pain and anguish. If I start to pay you too much attention pull up the drawbridge, man the battlements and set that boiling tar a-bubbling. I might lay siege to your castle, but do not open your gates. I'm a trojan horse.

Glum

A good friend often tells me I wear my heart on my sleeve by posting so much emotional stuff on here. She is probably right. Another friend told me that when I get an idea about something I throw everything at it, heart and soul. She is right too. The downside of both of those is that my emotions and relationships can tend to be a public roller-coaster with extreme peaks and troughs.

At the moment I am sat in a trough. I am driving. But it still hurts.

Penguin experimentation

I don't think, if you've been reading recently, that this post needs any explanation.

Did someone say "Fish supper?"

I went to a party at the weekend. It is a rare occasion that someone has a party in SL in a timezone that is useful for me. And it is even rarer that I get there and don't spend the whole of forever crashing. But it was my friend's husband's rezzday party and Tymmerie and Jerremy throw such awesome parties that I wanted to be there. And when my Saturday plans ended earlier and I arrived home with an hour of the party remaining I knew I wanted to go along and wish Jerremy a happy rezzday and boogie for a bit.

Tym and Jerremy do themed parties. And when they do a themed party they take it to the extreme. The theme of this party was a sort of underwater aquarium thing and they excelled themselves. Everyone who attends a Thorne-Darwin party tends to go along with the theme so I knew I was in for a treat, in terms of costumes.

I guess I sided towards the underwater half of the theme, rather than the aquarium side, dressing as I was, as an otter. A very cute otter, I have to say. I figured that if there were no nibbles provided at least I could munch on the fish-themed guests.


The party was held in a purpose-built aquarium, complete with stones on the floor, coral, the little castle you see above and shoals of fish.


The guests certainly did make an effort. I love the thought people put in. It must make all the work worthwhile for Tym and Jerremy as I am sure they must work hard on these parties.


I wanted to take more close-up pictures but my computer decided it had had enough and I kept crashing so I only managed a few long-range shots and a couple of close-ups. There were so many awesome costumes I wish I could have captured for you.

Here we have the DJ, Princess Alicia, along with Boss and Lolita.


I think this was Queen Kellee, although I could be wrong. As this stage I was trying to figure out if the dances in the treasure chest danceball would work with my tiny av.


And finally, on the left here, we have rezzday boy Jerremy and Tym themselves, complete as the king and queen of the sea-monkeys.


I wish my timezone allowed me to hang out with friends more often. It doesn't so I appreciate the limited time I do get with them.