Grace McDunnough – Ahuva’s Blog

You Can Go Home Again

Ahuva and Bamboo — Bamboo and me relaxing at home

I’ve been reading a LOT, although mostly books that do not challenge and are not edifying and ARE an attempt at escapism. I’ve watched more TV in the last 2 months than I have probably watched in the last 5 years combined – I’m NOT a big TV watcher. I haven’t been able to work in the garden and see the neighbors working in their gardens or folks taking walks. I confess – I was lonely. What do you do if you are lonely and want people and music and company but you are practicing separation and isolation? You go home to SecondLife.

I know that a lot of the folks who follow this blog started following long after my SL days. You seem to enjoy my musings on my cats, my garden, life in general, work, the weather and all those other aspects of what is also known as IRL – “in real life”. This blog started as a chronicle of my adventures in SL. It was a marvelous time. I was privileged to not only enjoy SL in my private life but could work and build and develop as part of my professional career as well. But time moves on, people take new jobs, people die, get new interests, have other obligations. *rueful smile* Gaming laptops age. All of those things happened and I stopped going into SL. It took me a few years to surrender my land. I was paying around $40 a month, I think, for something I never used. I was never able to convince myself to give up my premium status, however. I was paying $72 a year for that until this past payment when it rose to $100/yr. Even so, I could not make that break. I had a zillion rationalizations for why I should keep the account.

Mallory, Bill & Drake — Mallory, Bill and Drake (Bill is the white one)

I’d been chatting via social media with a friend from those good old SL days and we agreed to try to meet inworld. She had a new avatar, a new life, new friends, new everything there. Last night I went ‘home’. *laughing* Good grief, I’d forgotten SO MUCH. First, my pool with my ducks was making SO MUCH NOISE it was making me crazy. Why did I ever think pool sounds were a good idea? I knew I had to open the item, find the script that made the noise and stop it, but could not remember how to do it. I’ve also realized that at some point when we moved from our home on the water to our treetop home, Drake dyed his feathers yellow. He used to be white. I had 2 white ducks and one yellow and now I have 2 yellow ducks and one white one. I asked Drake why and he said he needed a new look for a new home. Bill, as usual, was totally oblivious to everything.

Sean and Ahuva — Ahuva and Sean, If I want to keep my avatar somewhat aligned with my body, I’m going to need to add a lot more width. 🙂

I did a little better at moving around and getting my panda, Bamboo, to come back and join me. Thank goodness my friend came inworld and helped me remember how to stop scripts, manage sound. Wow. Did she look different. I knew she had a new avatar, but avatar structure and movement have improved immensely since I was there last. Her fingers MOVED! My fingers are very blocky looking. We sat and talked and talked (yes, talked, we both went to voice, not just text chat). She promised to meet me again and take me shopping for a new body, new head, new hair and lots of new clothes!!!! I’m so excited! 🙂

Ahuva at Smokestack — Sitting at the bar at Smokestack, listening to Noma

While we were talking other friends logged in and saw that I was logged in. I got several IMs saying hello and *hug*. I accepted a TP from a friend to a performance going on by one of the musicians I always liked – Grace McDonnough. In this case TP means Teleport, NOT toilet paper. 🙂 I had a great time talking to my friend there, and hearing Grace’s singing. From there I headed over to Prim Economy to hear Komuso Tokugawa, who is one of my top 2 favorite performers in SL. I still listen to his music (which I had downloaded). I made a new friend there as we shared conversation about horses and shoes. The inworld versions of both have apparently improved as much as the avatars. She says that when you are riding a horse inworld you actually have the natural movement of a horse (you used to simply move forward with no rise and fall). I’m extremely excited to try riding in SL again. My good friend Calli was inworld. I managed to get over to Tribeca to catch the very last song of her set. Since it was Friday, and it was Tribeca, of course the closing song was “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen. It’s ALWAYS Hallelujah. Last night’s rendition was by Jeff Buckley.

I went back in on Saturday, too. This time I remembered how to adjust my draw rate (how far away you can see items) and quality of detail. Slowly but surely some of the tricks are coming back. I caught up with another dear friend from the “old days”. I also got to hear Noma Falta live. I swear she gets better all the time. She was rocking it out at Smokestack. That venue was new for me. I like it. Had good seating, good dancing scripts, lots of people there. I did see one or two familiar names in the audience. It was another lovely evening. I sat there sipping my wine, listening to great music, chatting with my friend, catching up on all that has been happening. I was home. 🙂

Noma rocking the crowd at Smokestack — The crowd at Smokestack, dancing to Noma

Snippets

RL has been taking up a lot of time. And when I’m inworld, I’ve been listening to a LOT of music. I LOVE dancing to music and I’ve been indulging a lot lately.

The other evening I logged in around 3pm SLT and tp’d from one music event to another for 5 or 6 hours.

snippet 1:
I’m fairly content with who and what I am. But if I were GOING to want to be someone else, it might be Calli. *grin* She is so talented, has great taste in music (usually LOL. and she ALWAYS plays some Janis- YAY) and has THE BEST wardrobe. Here she is DJ’ing Spanish/Calypso music, and there I am, envying her wonderful Calli-ness.

snippet 2:
I STILL love the horsies, even if I’ve not been by Carriage Trade lately. I always keep an eye on the group chat, and Shenlei and the horses cracked me up completely the other night:
Shenlei Flasheart: /me rattles grain bucket…ahem…
ghostly pricks her ears up and looks
Shenlei Flasheart: I’d like to welcome a new mare, Dreamer, to the herd…she will be in the Pony Club, so please trot by and meet her and give her a big CT welcome!
Hey, it worked! rattling that grain bucket started getting lots of ears perking and tails swishing. *grin* I love it.

snippet 3:
Honour McMillan has been thinking about an extremely interesting and, I think, important project for many months now. She’s finally unveiled a glimpse of it on her blog today, An Initial Plea for Help. Honour has asked us all to think about our lives in SL: If you could take one photograph that would show people why you come inworld what would it be? Just as Gracie Kendal photographed our avatars, Honour is asking US to photograph our LIVES. I love this concept and hope Honour continues with it into the full form I know she has contemplated. (Aside to Honour: maybe now with Rodvik at the helm, it IS do-able.) Gracie captured us as we see ourselves. Honour is asking us to capture our beloved SL as we see it. All of us have SOME picture we can take that sums up, if not our ENTIRE SL life, some important part of our SecondLives. Yes, as usual for Honour, she is being annoying (*grin* couldn’t resist, Honour) by asking that we use Koinup to participate so yes, it DOES mean yet ANOTHER login for some of us. Do it. Or Honour’s friends will find you….. *grin* Oh? You mean *I* have to do it too?????? sigh…..

There you go folks. If you want to find me, I’m probably dancing. Where? Oh, TriBeCa, Prim Economy, Houses, Fogbound, JJ’s Joint. Who’s playing/DJing? Komuso Tokugawa, Callipygian Christensen, Bear Rasmuson, Ziffy Zarf,, Noma Falta , Euterpe Queller (PLEASE come back SOON, EQ), Grace McDonnough, and many many more!!

Grace O’Clock

I used to post about Grace McDunnough regularly. I made a point of making it to her regular gigs. I love to sit and listen to her melodious voice, her excellent song selection and to listen to my friends chatting. Then life got more complicated and it got harder to get to the regular weekend shows. So I’m always thrilled when I get to hear Grace during the week. This past week offered up another such treat. The word went out that Grace was performing and I could make it!!! I find her voice so pleasant. I like to get lost in the sound. (Yes, it’s true, I’m very partial to female vocalists I’ve noticed. Check out my iPod: Judy Collins, Joan Baez, Laura Nyro, Maria Muldaur, Jennifer Warnes, Pink, Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood and more. But you know I like to rock it on out too. I’ll spare you THAT list.)

I had an additional pleasure this Grace O’Clock. Oh – for those of you who might not know, the Grace regulars refer to Grace’s performances as Grace O’Clock. *smile* I think that has a warm sound to it. Anyway, this time besides the usual pleasure of Grace and friends, I made a NEW friend. Another Grace “regular” was there – a blogger whose blog I enjoy tremendously. I IM’d a hello. Of course, being somewhat spacey, sigh, I confused THIS blogger with another. *grin* How humiliating. But I DID manage to redeem myself and get my people straight. We had a lovely chat about virtual worlds and real life and building and even cats (another favorite topic of mine). I was pleased and flattered to be friended.

For me, it’s often these little moments that are the times that make SL so precious to me. Music, friends, conversation. These are the experiences that tie us together and forge community.

Female Artists

Most of this may be old news for all you “oldbies” out there. But who knows, SL is such a big place, maybe this will be new to you, too.

I just discovered La Reve because of a new post. Indagatricis is a relatively new blog. It is fiction inspired by SL places and things. I was reading it the other day and saw this post inspired by art in La Reve. I enjoyed the story and I found the art intriguing. I suggest you add Inagatricis to your blog list. I plan to visit La Reve as soon as time permits. In the meantime you can do as I did: google it. 🙂

I found a new vocalist that I REALLY enjoy. You know how much I like Grace McDunnough. I try to catch her whenever I can and belong to her group. I was listening to her sing a few nights ago at the Trax Live Music Resource Center (See Chestnut’s blog for more information about this wonderful new place.) Grace finished her set but I was sitting about chatting with friends so we stayed put, instead of tp’ing out.

Noma Falta came on. Oh WOW! Another great voice, this time doing the Blues and Jazz and rocking too! Signed up for her group right away!

I’ve been a member of Phoebe Ann Theas’ group for several weeks as well. Another warm, rich voice that can really put over a song. For my RL friends – if you join a group, you receive group messages about events of interest to that particular group. So I receive messages telling me when and where the artists I follow will be performing. There are also “generic” music groups. I belong to one of those as well – it sends me messages about live performances by a variety of artists.

My post wouldn’t be complete without mentioning Callipygian Christensen. Calli is a phenomenal photographer and artist. I had the great pleasure of spending some time with her in one of her galleries as she explained to me how she does what she does to SL photos. She showed me the pictures in the various stages of moving from great photos to great art. She has 4 galleries in SL as well as posting her work to Flickr. Calli has galleries at Antiquity Harbor (
Antiquity Harbor (73, 169, 23), Rasczak (Manzanillo Artist Enclave, Rasczak (239, 10, 21)), Caledon Cay (Caledon Cay (110, 76, 23) ) and what may be my favorite, at Shengri La (Shengri La (240, 167, 25)) where the gallery has four floors of portraits, landscapes, and erotica.

There are a lot of very positive, healthy things to do in SL.

Concerts and Dancing

What a fantastic weekend! So many good things have happened that I can’t even include all of them. I’m not sure I even REMEMBER all of them. From which you can infer that I spent a lot of time inworld. LOL.

Thursday night I again had the pleasure of hearing Grace McDunnough sing live. I’d been on the road most of the day, got home, took care of FL chores and logged it to see who was around. I got tp’d to the park where Grace was singing. I stretched out in a chair and relaxed, listening to her beautiful voice and chatted with friends. LOL. That’s yet another good thing about SL. We can chat, but since it’s text, we don’t interrupt the concert and we can hear too! After the concert I logged off and crashed. Isn’t that a wonderful change? I now crash AFTER I logout, not while I’m still inworld. 🙂

Friday I was able to login during the day. Hung out for awhile on the boardwalk, chatting with friends. Got some instruction on AOs, got a new sitting pose, indulged in “girl talk”. Logged back in late Friday, after RL dinner. Friday night is party night on the NCI Boardwalk. I was sitting in my favorite beach chair, waiting for party-time, IM’ing with friends. I received an IM invitation to a live concert in progress. It sounded very interesting so I accepted. I’m still very slow about remembering to take landmarks, to get information about where I am and what I’m doing. And I’m very sorry, because yet again I was listening to a singer with a lovely voice. Not only did I like her voice, I really liked her selections as well. Anyway, I had another “first” at this concert: my first dance in SL. Oh yes, I’ve danced before at the boardwalk and at the clubs. But this was REAL dancing – with a partner ! We waltzed to the music and it was wonderful. I love to dance in FL and I especially love to waltz. Once M explained to me how to get started (do you think I will ever understand how to use the various pose balls????) it was simply heavenly. I’m sorry I didn’t think to take a picture. But M got a picture of us relaxing afterward. Be sure to look at the other picks from the concert. You can see Tamra singing. And don’t miss the dancing zebra . She was extremely graceful! 🙂 It was a wonderful time and I was sorry when it ended. Thank you M!!

I wasn’t sure if the NCI party was over yet or not, so I tp’d there. It was going full blast. I’d missed the toob race (rats!) but there was a large crowd still dancing and the Lucky Chairs were still calling out letters. I touched the (correct) dance ball and joined in the fun. The Lucky Chair called an “A” and I won an adorable outfit. I’d show you all but it’s mostly lingerie and this site is rated GP. 🙂 There were a pair of jeans as well, but I don’t think they do much for me. LOL. I also won wind chimes. So now of course I need a house.

The party lasted until quite late. A friend had tp’d in to join me. We ended up talking into the wee hours of the night, discussing the kind of weighty matters that seem made for such times. Post-party seriousness. 🙂 Anyway, it was a blast. Two people that I like and respect added me as their friend. That also made me very happy. And that only gets me through Saturday morning. Saturday afternoon is a whole adventure in and of itself!!!