hoardwear

 I confess, in SL I am a bit of a hoarder. I’m not as bad as I used to be but, well, I do have an inventory filled with between 35,000 and 40,000 objects. 

They are all assorted things, ranging from clothing of all types, jewelry, furniture, HUDs (even kept some from games that no longer exist or even work in SL), AOs, skins, shapes, hair (lots of hair), tools, builds and buildings of various kinds, yoga mats, ornaments, artworks, plus more fringe things such as weapons, magic spells, plushies, pets (I have a couple of horses, a ghost leopard, some fish and probably others I’ve forgotten about). I also have a folder dedicated to my business, so to speak, hobby really, ‘unVeiled’, for which I also made an SL group for which is free to join. All of my exhibition collection are there, neatly packed away until needed. I still get them out when I have a chance for an exhibition, when I’m offered space to do so.

Of the many assortment of things I have kept loads of prim-based stuff, as in loads of clothing from when all we had was made of prims. It must be the retro-girl in me, and my just in case thinking. I mean, you never know when, for whatever reason, I may need to default to primwear. It’s not likely but to be honest I can’t bring myself to get rid of them, having had them for so long. Some of these things, especially clothing, I’d worked hard at getting and some I wore a lot as they’d become at the time my favourite go-to modes of dressing. 

Occasionally, I do have blitzes, as in clear-outs. Some are more successful that others. The simplest approach would be to simply pick a folder of older stuff and just send it to trash, then delete them from the trash: a no going back policy. But even when I do find the energy to wade through these thousands of now pretty much redundant items I still find myself thinking, keep or throw, keep or throw? Basically, dithering. 

I suppose I find letting go not an easy thing to do, so does that make me a hoarder? Maybe a bit, but I’ve usually got a good reason for keeping whatever it is. At least, that’s what I tell myself. 

I should just bite the bullet and show my inventory no mercy, shouldn’t I? (I’ll just have a cup of tea first and think about it, maybe a biscuit too. I have plenty of those in my inventory).

© Anan Eebus

how long is time

 

Wow, four months into the year and I haven’t posted a thing here, I am getting lazy, or maybe priorities being what they are mean these days my RL most definitely takes precedence.

When I have been on SL, and I still manage to log in at least once a day, even if only briefly, I’ve been mostly exploring, still hungry to discover the new, the old, the unusual, the surprising. Still, the weirdest thing these days is how quiet it feels. I don’t know how many active players there are now compared to when I was way more involved here, say before 4 years ago, since when I for one have certainly scaled way back, mostly because RL is way more busy and important, and of course obviously I’m older, priorities change.

Another reason I chose to shuffle off much of my responsibilities here is because they were beginning to cause me serious anxiety, so much so the only solutions were to, in a word, downsize, or leave. Well, I wasn’t going to leave having invested so much emotionally and time-wise into me in SL so that left me with taking my foot of the SL pedal car.

Generally, it feels so much better, psychologically for certain, my mental well-being has improved a lot since I have. But then, I had reached a breaking point having taken on far more than little old me could basically cope with. I pride myself on being able to multitask and being able to deal with most situations but back then I was totally losing the plot having falling into one responsibility after another because simply I didn’t want to let anyone down.

So, before I completely lost my fragmented mind I decided enough was enough. Nevertheless, I still miss those days when there was always something happening, when there felt like there was more of a community, especially in my vampire clan. Yes, if you didn’t already know from reading my previous blogs, I am a vampire, among other things. Those were amazing times and at least I took loads of photos back then, and still do, so have lots of memories to look back on.

Gosh, all this makes me sound and feel soooooooooooo old. I’m not by the way.

But all in all my RL is pretty happy, all things considered, so I don’t feel the same need or pull to always run away into SL, which sometimes is what I used to do. I’m not sure what use sharing any of this is but maybe it helps me. I mean, I have no idea even how many read my blog or even know it’s here.

Well, apologies again to anyone who cares that it’s taken four months to get around to posting what is effectively my first writing here of 2023. Crazy, isn’t it.

~Anan Eebus ©2023

 

to sit or not to sit

 

Oh my word! I haven’t posted anything for ages, I just noticed. Much apologies to the very few readers I actually have, I’ve been busy, and with heatwaves on top of work, studies, health, other stuff I just completely didn’t realise what time had gone by. So, here is one about sitting. I do like sitting.

I spend a lot of time sitting inworld. In fact, I have loads of sitting selfies here, there and everywhere I go in SL, as some of my postings here already show. One could say I might be preoccupied, or obsessed, with sitting, but I’m not, honestly. It’s an occupation in itself though in SL, or a hobby, or an addiction; oh look, a seat, sit!

I’ve noticed it’s a habit of mine to try out as many different choices of sitting as possible. As someone’s gone to the trouble of providing sitting opportunities it would be churlish not to at least try them out. Even though it takes no effort at all to stand in SL, it always makes sense to me to sit, as I would likely do in RL, especially if I’m going to be somewhere any length of time. It’s kind of rude not to, I am a guest in these places/sims after all. It would be like going to someone’s house and not taking off your coat.

So many people log in and just stand around, often pointlessly, often never even moving, just standing letting the AO, animation overrider, do the work, even when there are maybe dozens of perching places.

I also do meditation inworld, usually sitting on mats or cushions, and sometimes I’ll do some yoga with my specially-designed yoga mat or on one provided where I happen to be. Despite it being virtual yoga, it can also be surprisingly relaxing; weird, I know.

SL is a funny old world, not just because of the weird and wonderful things you come across in it, but also how people behave. It can be fascinating for people-watching, or avi-watching, even watching those standing around doing nothing, sometimes.

One of the weirdest funny old world things I come across inworld is toilets. Despite being seats, I’m never tempted to sit on them and do wonder why anyone even bothers including them in their builds or designs. If anything is redundant in SL, it’s a toilet, it’s got to be pretty much the most redundant thing in SL compared to how much it’s needed in RL.

Well, that’s a strange place to end a blog on, toilets. Perhaps I’ll have something more interesting to write about next time, but I can’t promise anything being that I’m not massively active there at the moment, RL being what it is. Chat again soon and hope you enjoyed this little read, despite the toilet-talk.  

© Anan Eebus ~x

‘broken songs’ art exhibition

{This exhibition is now over, thanks for taking an interest}

 
Good news!
I have a new collection of artwork on show at Yr Helyg gallery in Second Life (SL).

I’ve always drawn and sketched and doodled, and a few years ago I took up being a life model for local art classes and recently with lockdown and all I decided to brush up on my own canvas skills, so, with the help of an online art course as the pandemic restrictions at the time made it impossible for face-to-face classes to even run it became one of my personal lockdown challenges, to get some formal training in it.

I’ve been doing more abstract art for years and photography, for which I’ve also had some SL exhibitions, and some design work inside and outside of SL but now I thought there was time to get some more proper training in actual painting and this collections is some of the results. They are watercolour on canvas and I’ve entitled the collection “broken songs”, a theme loosely-influenced by how music evokes memories and transports us back to important or special places and times in your lives.

I hope you might find time to visit the gallery and enjoy your time there. You can visit them at the slurl, http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Vinefields%20Paradise/92/96/22
where you’ll also find artwork from other artists in this brand new creatives gallery.

Anan~x

pixel pixies

 

Yet another of my favourite shops in SL has closed, land abandoned, sims dissolved. It follows the fate of so many I’ve been fond of over the way too many years I’ve been here, all consigned to the primyards to be disassembled, composted, and one hopes at least eventually to be repurposed as something else and not just rotting away in some sl’andfill.

Then there’s my friends list, my avatar’s and my Bloodlines online profile. All those I’d bitten and all those who’d bitten me, all those still in my clan’s bloodline, of a sorts, where are they now?

As with these, alongside my list of friends, so few are even here anymore, more gone than not, less are active than not, some most likely not logged on for years even if they could remember their passwords, or their names. Their avatars exist now only as ghosts: there and not there, so transparent they can’t be seen at all and yet there they are still lounging in my lists.

That’s life, even Second Life, time and people move on, change, die, my friends list reading more like a memorial to lives past than present, rows upon rows of gravestones overgrown with lichen and ivy, missing presumed. Occasionally one will suddenly appear after years, an IM (instant message), usually sent when I’m offline to be found like a message in a bottle washed up on my shore to be uncorked and read, quite often beginning, “I don’t know if you remember me, but,….”, or a more succinct “I’m back!”, sometimes leaving me scraping my brain as to who they are. I usually remember though, weirdly I’ve always remembered more detail than I would’ve thought, on how we first met, or something particularly notable we did, even if it was only the once. So strange how all we pixel pixies leave an echo however brief the acquaintance may have been, a different kind of byte caught in these memory banks.

I sometimes look through my list and think, I should purge this a bit, tidy up, as I do every now and then with my bulging inventory, which by the way keeps bulging no matter how often I sieve it. It’s actually a shame more of this stuff we accumulate isn’t set as ‘trans’, as in with transfer permissions, because it would be brilliant to be able to do the preloved thing and instead of throwing things away, pass them on. As for my friends list, I’m reluctant delete those names long gone or forgotten or those I haven’t heard from in years, they are people after all. At the end of the day they aren’t just pixel pixies but real people beyond their screens even if they aren’t inworld, so to speak, anymore. 

In a way I’m a carrier of part of their story, even if it’s a part they’ve long left behind.

© Anan Eebus

 

be fangful

 

Seems it’s been a while since my last confession, but, in my defence I am a vampire and not known for contrition nor actually confessing. Well, not in the sense where it’s supposed to come with some remorse. I mean, why would I, a vampire, feel remorseful after half-draining someone of their blood? I always leave them alive, if not a teeny bit disorientated for a while.

That’s the nature of vampires, after all we aren’t supposed to have souls, which is why they say we have no reflection, suggesting that our reflection is like a manifestation of our souls and without a soul you can’t have a reflection in mirrors, or widows, or water or highly-polished brass or silver or whatever. Basically, it would make it a nightmare putting on one’s own makeup or doing one’s own hair. The way around it of course is to get someone else to do it, not always easy when you all live in shadows and so many are too busy biting people and enjoying afterlife to the full. Yes, there is such a thing as an afterlife, see, I’m living, sort of breathing and albeit undead, proof. The breathing we do is mostly for show, we don’t actually need to breathe, being vampires and all, which is really useful for swimming.

Oh, and by the way, all that nonsense about reflections, it’s just that, nonsense. We have one that’s just as visible as yours, but we do have a trick up our sleeve. We can make it vanish when we need too. It’s a party-trick really and all the better for sneaking up on people. The soul isn’t in our reflections anyway, nor is the reflection our soul. It’s in our shadow. That’s one of the reasons why daylight is anathema to many vampires. I say many meaning not all, because some of us are elders and have worked out how to be daywalkers. Sneaky, huh! No, of course I’m not going to tell you how we do it, what do you take me for? If you knew you’d only do something silly like try and come up with a plan to prevent it. Where’s the fun in that for me?

I can do all the things, pretty much, that you can do, and more. More, because becoming a vampire opens you up and taps into parts of you that may be dormant or lain hidden for centuries, abilities and such. It does also heighten everything for us, like strength, speed and such things, but also emotions and temperament, all of which become more deeply felt and as such we spend years learning to control and live with it. Like the obvious, our hunger. It’s crazy and never-sated completely but we teach ourselves not to get too greedy and accidentally kill off our food supply, i.e. you.

There’s more to us than meets the fang, and don’t believe all the stories which are exactly what they are stories, myths, fairy tales. But, remember, some of them are true so beware, beware, there’s bound to be a vampire out there somewhere and you are likely to pass them on the street or sit at the next table in a café and never ever know. We are cunning you see.

© Anan Eebus