Bailey found us another fun quiz!! This time, instead of getting your Pirate name, find out why your name is sexy! What’s sexy about YOUR name? I’m not sure that I should be showing you my results 🙂 but here goes:
LOL. By the way – I tried it twice and got the same result both times. 🙂 Thanks Bailey!!!!
Behind every successful woman there stands…… a group of wonderful, supportive friends. It appears that the Great Tree Saga has drawn to a close. 🙂 The conference will have trees, flowers, bushes and fountains. How? Because I have wonderful friends who have wonderful friends. Chestnut introduced me to Honour, who came up with a plan. I arranged a meeting with Honour, J and myself. Nothing could have happened without Ches and Honour. Had Chestnut not concerned herself with my problems, I would not have met Honour. Nothing could have happened without Honour’s talent, kindness and generosity.
I want to thank Bailey as well, who was IM’ing me often, offering support, advice and encouragement. Here is where SL falls short for me. In RL I could figure out some way, albeit insufficient, to thank them all. Some favor or gift, some action I could perform in thanks. But in SL – I know of nothing that I can do. They have all been inworld far longer than I. They know much more than I. I wouldn’t even know how to begin to find gifts for them inworld (LOL – I’d have to IM them and ask for more help! 🙂 ) No way to move my pottery or food inworld. Nor flowers. So the best I can do is to thank each of them personally, here, in my favorite form of expression.
Chestnut
Warm, thoughtful Chestnut
Always a hand to help friends
Giant, noble heart.
Honour
Generous artist
Bringing beauty to the world
Sharing it with all.
Bailey
True SL mentor
Full of ideas, connections
Failure not allowed!
Last night was cat night at the benches. U was showing off her beautiful snow leopard avatar. C decided to get into the act and became a bunny. That may have been a mistake because U growled “Lunch!”. C bravely reached up and rubbed U behind the ears and the peaceable kingdom reigned. G and U wanted to compare avatars, so next thing we knew, we had G the lion! C definitely began to look like a tasty snack, sandwiched between the two, so she took refuge on a bench. G and U put their avs through their paces – sitting, reclining, roaring and scratching! We were a bit concerned about fleas at that point. 🙂 C slipped from bunny to jellicle cat, waving a fish. We all relaxed, chatting about nothing much, when U mentioned that these animal avatars can dance. G put up a photo of Lion and panther dancing quite sweetly in each others arms (???), on their hind legs. U put on a dance animation. Oh my heavens!!!!! That snow leopard shimmied and wriggled and swayed and boogied! As someone remarked, that image was sooooo wrong on so many levels that it was hilarious. 🙂 Oh for a movie camera! But even if I’d had one – I was laughing way too hard to have been able to film. Cats all over the universe were cringing last night in embarrassment! If that’s how cats dance – I’m skipping the jellicle ball!
Some nights at NCI it’s so busy, it’s BYOC – Bring Your Own Chair! I’d sat myself down on one of the benches. There was only one seat left open then, next to me. 
My bench started moving – forward, back, sideways. I didn’t have my camera at the correct angle to see who was doing the moving. Finally I said “ENOUGH with the bench, you’re making me sea-sick” and stood up just at the same time E asked me to please get up. LOL. Don’t have to ask me twice!!!! E and G had been trying to copy the bench to make more seats. I realized that I had my OWN chair sitting in inventory. A very very comfortable chair I might add. So I moved over to a corner, rezzed my relaxing chair, and stretched out. If you look in the other corner you can see that someone rezzed a wooden rocking chair as well. 🙂 One is always prepared in SL! LOL. (Hey B – you always complain that my pictures are too small – you can click on this one and see the full size. 🙂 )
Hmmm. Maybe this post should be entitled “Sitting”. This fragment is about one of my favorite places
to sit. I know I’ve mentioned my friend the cat before. Usually sitting and looking at water soothes my soul. But sometimes I like company. And sometimes when I’m trying on new clothes or putting together and outfit, I appreciate another opinion. LOL. This cat’s fashion sense is not quite as good as my dog’s (My dog is a true devotee of craft shows. 🙂 ) but he is a very comfortable companion. Always happy to cuddle, never a cross word.
Or call this “My Favorite Cats”. I was sorting inventory this morning when I got an IM from U. She had a new avatar and wanted to show me. So I hurried over and fell in love!!! What a great avatar!!! Complete with poses and growls and tail lashing! She gets TWO pics because I liked it SO much!
D complained yesterday that while he enjoys reading my blog he is “sick of those darn trees”. Well D, I am ALSO sick of the trees!! LOL . So find me some and we can be done with it!!!! You are competent, resourceful and quite the “man-about-town”. You owe me one since you refused to be my bus driver! I’m sure you can deliver. And the ante’s been upped. I heard something that made me think J is attempting to round up trees on her own. What? She doesn’t think I can do this?? LOL. WHATEVER could have made her think that? Perhaps she’s reading this blog……….. /me wrenches a leaf off my house-plant in revenge. 🙂
When we last saw our heroine, she was under the bus, contemplating trees, as the conference planning meeting drew to a close. 🙂
After the meeting I stick around. J has said that she will give me some help on how to build and she will show me what kind of trees she would like. 
Fine. I am a smart, competent woman who has friends who are SL builders. I can deal with this. I login to SL that night, race to the benches, break into the ongoing conversation shrieking “help help I need help!!!” LOL. Okay, that WAS an exaggeration. But it’s an accurate description of what I WANTED to do. Someone asks how I am this fine day and I explain how I have been run over by a bus. My friend S, a builder, tells me that there are lots of trees available for free. I explain that J doesn’t LIKE the free trees. SHE wants STRAYLIGHT-type trees. Everyone on the benches starts googling Straylight and saying “Oh”. They are saying “oh” in the tone of voice that indicates how big this bus is. 🙂 S tells me that she would love to help me but that it takes a lot of time to build a tree, and she really does not have the time right now. I smile bravely, say “No problem” and, like Scarlet, resolve to think about it tomorrow.
Tomorrow comes and I begin searching SLexchange for trees. I find several candidates that I think may be suitable. 
Class is okay. The BEST thing about it is that it is at the beach classroom at NCI. There is no music playing – only the sounds of the ocean waves and the wind. For an hour as I sat in class, my subconscious processed the beach sounds. All my tensions and stress began to melt away. Ah, there is NOTHING like a day at the beach. Anyway, back to class. It really didn’t teach me anything I hadn’t already picked up from watching tutorial videos online. It was extremely basic and slow. One of the fellow students was having great difficulty doing even the simplest tasks. But once class was over I went up to the teacher, S. I explained my predicament and showed her my newly-purchased tree.
S looked at my Spruce and told me 
Today was yet another planning meeting. J begins the meeting by talking to ME first – telling me that she got my emails and she will requisition $$$ for trees. Ouch. Right out there in the open, for everyone to hear. What I hear, whether or not that’s what J is saying, is that I failed. I am a little frustrated. As YOU all know – I have been trying very hard to come up with trees for this conference. I’ve not been sitting around doing nothing. A little voice in my left ear is saying “Whoopee!!!! We are saved! Give up this tree foolishness!” A little voice in my right ear is muttering “Hey. We can still do this. We have friends helping us and encouraging us. We have made great progress. Who does she think she IS taking away OUR little piece of the project???”. Okay, you already know which voice won. I open my mouth and tell J that I had friends offering to help me and to supply me with trees. That I thought I still would be able to provide trees for this conference. Oh Foolishness, Thy name is Ahuva! 🙂 So J got quite excited at that. I am still on the team. I am now running my own little nursery for the conference. I am to gather up my trees, place them in a corner of our sim, and everyone can come and take what they want and landscape their own sims. LOL. And the other people are STILL complaining about the quality of their (free) trees. Who was the genius who insisted on putting Straylight trees in our sim so that everything else will suffer by comparison????
Calling all copy/transfer trees, bushes and hedges!! Bring me a Shrubbery!!!
The hunt is ON!!!!!
Here’s the “new” mission, should you choose to accept it: I have been charged with taking all “my” trees and setting up shop in our sim, and my cohorts in conferencedom will come and take their own trees for landscaping. LOL. So I no longer have to do the entire landscaping – I merely have to provide trees. That would be Copy/Modify/Transfer. Oh forget that!!! Copy/Transfer!!! Ack!!! Ahuva Heliosense’s Garden Center!!!
Bring me a Shrubbery!!! Roflol. Please. Someone. Anyone. Duct tape my mouth shut before the next meeting!!!!!!
I think I’ve proven by now that sometimes I really don’t know when to keep my mouth shut. 
You’d think I’d have learned. You’d think that I would have some small sense of self-preservation that would say “Ahuva – don’t, just don’t”. But no. That does not seem to be the case. I committed the cardinal sin the other day. I volunteered. Yep, I threw myself under the uncoming bus,my eyes wide open, believing somehow that I would emerge unscathed. I’d LOVE to blame my co-worker. In fact I tried, but in truth, said co-worker merely encouraged me to play in traffic. I wasn’t pushed. I jumped.
I work for a company that does some business in SL. I have joined the SL interest group, I’ve attended some meetings in-world. Now there is a conference being held in-world. I met one of the conference chairs, J, at a party in SL several weeks ago. I expressed an interest in being able to help, as much as a “dumb user” can help. So J suggested that I contact her via email in RL. I did so, and repeated that I was offering my “dumb user” help. Are YOU getting the point here??? Are you understanding the skill set involved???? Gee, I hope someone is. 🙂 Next thing I know I am on the list of mandatory attendees for the set-up meetings. Gulp. Okay, be careful what you ask for (yes – I DO know that is a dangling participle -ignore it). You just may get it. So I begin to attend the weekly hour-long meetings. These meetings have been a real-eye opener, but for reasons NOT related to SL. I’ll merely say it’s fascinating to watch how different groups approach the task of holding a conference.
So I bide my time quietly at these meetings. My biggest contribution up to last week was testing someone else’s script. LOL. A woman approached me and asked me to click on her name tag. I was supposed to receive her business card. Didn’t work. 🙂 Can I put “script debugging” on my resume now? 🙂 Then sometime last week J decided that we needed trees to make the conference location look more attractive. Fine, trees are nice, no big deal. Do you see the bus coming over the hill? 
Despite puppets telling us that the internet is for porn and despite my recent blogs, I can state with utter conviction that there IS more to do in SL than sex.
The other day a friend and I went to see Glyph Graves’ exhibit at the Crossworlds Gallery. (Thanks Chestnut for your writeup on this in your blog!) Z and I had a great time. Not only did we spend time viewing Graves’ work, but we went to other floors in the multi-level gallery and viewed work by other artists. I had to run off to another engagement but left Z repeating “I have to have that, Oh – I really like THAT”. LOL. So, tah, dearies! A bit of culture! So SL is for ART!
Later that day I logged in to say hi and A was just about to head off sky-diving. 
So when A said “Ahuva, come sky-diving with me!” I immediately said “No!” 
I’ve been blogging on the serious topics. Time for a light interlude. I want to share pictures of my friends with you. I may not be furry or tiny, but I love when my friends are. They have such fun avatars! Not only do THEY look good, they have fun toys too! And this is also a big “thank you” to my SL friends, with whom I chat and dance and float and party and shop and view art and listen to music!
Sex. Love. Add fantasies.
My blog on sex and love (Difficult Subjects) has generated fascinating conversations in FL and SL. People really want to talk about these topics. No one wants to go on record and post to my blog (okay – there are two brave souls out there willing to talk about sex publicly) but everyone talks to me “off the record”. 🙂 This is not actually surprising to me. Look around you. What are the number one and two topics in books, magazines, music, visual art, performing art, commercials and news? Exactly. We need air, food, water and love.
We do without air, food and water in SL. (Correction. Without drinking water. I crave water and sand and waves as much in SL as in RL). But we need love. I’m using “love” in a very broad sense here. I mean that we all need a connection. We need to be validated by an other. When people talk to me about love and sex in SL, it often leads to fantasies. SL allows us to explore our fantasies. Things that maybe we never say or do in RL. We shelter behind the pseudo-anonymity of SL (see Botgirl’s blog if you want to understand why I say “pseudo-anonymity”). And as I listen and think and read, it seems to me that there are 2 categories of fantasies.
There is the very obvious category of physical action fantasy. Doing things that you can’t do in RL, or wish you could do in RL. That ranges from sex to surfboarding to horseback riding to shopping to walking and talking. But there is another kind of fantasy – emotional. Many people are yearning for a connection that doesn’t exist for them in RL. Again, this runs the gamut. So I think I’m beginning to get a partial answer to my question “Why cyber?” (LOL please note I have ‘corrected’ my terminology.) It isn’t the cyber per se. It’s the emotional content associated with the act. I suppose one could say – Big Duh, Ahuva. *I* knew that. But obviously it wasn’t clear to me. What I started to hear as people talked to me was that the cyber allowed them to switch their internal emotional paradigm. (Again – not for everyone, and not all the time.) I’m also sure that this has been researched and reported and written up in psychological abstracts. 🙂 This is my blog, however, and I’m allowed to post my discoveries, even if I am coming extremely late to the party! 🙂
There was a newbie last night at the NCI benches 
(okay – there is ALWAYS a newbie at the NCI benches!! that’s why the benches exist, after all!). He started out by asking what everyone did in RL. Sigh. I listened as everyone answered and told “the truth”. So I said “This IS my RL.” Most ‘oldies’ enjoyed that response. Obnoxious, I know. But for Ahuva – SL IS RL. Then he asked our ages. Again, most people played along, even if being a bit vague. I was still feeling rude so I asked “How old do I look?” (As a good friend pointed out to me – I am only as old as my avatar!) LOL. Of course D, who is always very quick with a funny or sarcastic remark, replied “10”. Hmmm. As I type that, maybe he didn’t mean my age. LOL. I’ll have to ask him if that was a reference to the old Bo Derek movie….. Anyway. Back to my point. If I have one. He also called SL a game. I said that SL is NOT a game. He asked “It’s not?” C jumped in at this pointed and explained that SL is a virtual world, not a game. I had been despairing of this newbie but then he redeemed himself. He at least dropped the word game from that point and accepted the correction. But we shall see.
We are all in SL for reasons. Simple reasons, complicated reasons. Whatever. I am developing another theory. I think that the people who come into SL and immediately start trying to define everyone by their RL aspect are probably people who aren’t going to stay in SL very long. They aren’t going to “get it”. People who come into SL and meet people as they are, and ask about their SL aspect, are going to stay. I have no issue with people who know each other in SL having conversations about RL. That’s not what I mean. (I’m not touching the whole immersion theory stuff. Go read Botgirl and Soph yourself.) I mean that people who come inworld and try to force SL into RL terms may not be best suited for a virtual world. Whereas those people who come in and accept what they see may flourish. And those people may find that their fantasies come true.
Ahuva's Blog 