under my skin

SL, Second Life, provides the perfect getaway staycation from CL, Covid Life, though some people seem to have let it seep in here too. Not me though, and anyway, vampires, which I am, don’t get Covid. Of course, I suppose some of us vamps might have rabies, so we’re not so squeaky clean, although, I am very particular about my fangs being well-brushed and razor sharp. I like a good clean puncture wound, none of your shredding and tearing by me.

I just realised I been here over 12 years. 12 years! Actually nearly 13 now. That makes me quite elderly in SL terms, here before mesh, even before sculpties, when it was just a totally prim-world and we didn’t look quite as lifelike as we can look now. I still have my original avi too secreted away in my inventory, which is basically not much different from me now, although now I hope I am much upgraded. I know it might seem really boring to some to just remain pretty much the same even though I’ve experimented too on and off, not to mention my mermaid form. I’ve messed around with being a tree and a panther, to name just two non-human shapes, but I always come back to me. What does that say about me? That I’m boring? Or perhaps I’m lucky that from early on I been comfortable in my own ‘skin’. 

 

Maybe that’s had something to do with my longevity here, why I’ve made it this far and this long and still in one piece, relatively anyway. Emotionally it’s been a roller-coaster up until recent years as if you’re not careful SL can have a habit of getting under your skin and not always being the escape from real turmoils you thought.

I’ve definitely outlasted many of my peers who’ve either left or dumped their original avi for a new one. Also those who drop in once in an SL moon, as in rarely. Sometimes I’ll log in to find a message from some long lost name on my friends list from years ago, and presumably I must still be on theirs. They are like ghost messages really, as though they’ve been left on the answerphone from another time and hadn’t been erased. They all mostly always say a similar thing, like, “are you still playing here?”, or, “just thought I’d join SL again”, and even when I reply rarely do I ever hear from them again.

You need to be a bit schizophrenic to be here, to add another you to the many you’s out in RL. Like for me, I’m a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a student, a volunteer, a model, a photographer, a waitress and probably more, so my SL avi becomes just another facet, one always with blue hair, but one totally down to me and not at the whim of others or society.

© Anan Eebus

 

more isolation tales

It’s not all fun you know, lockdown. Not that you probably think it is either, but it’s necessary, for sure, But even at times like these we still only have a habit of putting the best of ourselves online and neglecting to share the rest.

Although you most probably don’t really want to know about such things as I just washed the dishes, or vacuumed the stairs, or replaced a bulb in the bedside lamp yes I am quite handy to have around sometimes. Nor how long I been staring at trees watching leaves unfurl or the times, a lot actually, when I flop on the bed utterly fatigued at the end, or sometimes middle, of a day drinking in the lack of scenic views my ceiling offers It’s not overly interesting either knowing what comfort food I’ve just made for lunch, though I have just baked the most brilliant pudding that will last me days.

You definitely don’t want to know the times I feel utterly useless, or when I almost scream, missing the university atmosphere, even the lectures, the library, coffee shops, my life-class modelling work, which pays when I do it and not when I don’t, so a loss of income there. That kind of ‘when will it end’-feeling just sometimes overwhelms. You won’t want to know about the angst I can go through choosing which socks to wear that day nor how slowly I can eat chocolate trying, trying, trying to make it last as long as I possibly can while fighting my instinct to gobble it all down within minutes. I’m right-handed, which isn’t very interest either, see more mundane stuff, and apparently I have a pretty good left-hook, I’m told. Not an actual hook, I’m not a Peter Pan pirate.

When I get low I really get low, like lower than a worm burrowing as fast as they can to escape a hungry birds beak. Though I full-well know everyone does to different degrees for sure. Sometimes it feels like we are all being consumed by social-distancing and self-isolation, our chatter, our behaviour, the headlines, the advice, social media, all reminding us to stay away from each other. Of course, it’s all for good reasons but it doesn’t stop it feeling draining. You definitely don’t want a blow-by-blow wordy account of me crying here online just with the effort of everything.

Keeping physically busy helps, as a Covid Volunteer, for instance, and active with exercise, yoga, running, all obvious mindful stuff to do to stay sane but in the end it can’t stop the brain mulling over it all, especially when waking up in the middle of the night wondering if you spent the last few hours asleep holding your breath, all so seriously disorienting.

I always remind myself however bad a day I’m having, someone is having it worse, far worse. Sometimes that doesn’t really help to know or even tell yourself that, but it’s true for certain.

Off to make dinner now, probably a spaghetti thing, which again is probably something of totally no interest to you. Hugs, stay safe and home and keep sane, or sort of.

~x