Our intrepid heroine encounters a tornado...

My friend Lulu recently turned me on to "Rob Breszny's Free Will Astrology." There has been a common theme in my horoscopes lately: even though I am surrounded by chaos and upheaval, I must see beyond, or even through, the chaos, and find inspiration there. Now, it could be that the position of the planets is guiding me, or maybe it's the suggestion by Rob Breszney that I get off my duff and start being creative again. Either way, I have found myself in the midst of 3 or 4 projects in recent weeks. Lulu and I have been brainstorming a lot and have come up with some great ideas for projects to work on together. I've also been writing more lately, as well as thinking up stories/articles/poetry in my head. (I started a haiku about an avocado I had bought that was so beautiful, it caused me to literally gasp when I cut it open and saw its perfection.)

So here I am, back again after a few weeks of lollygagging and goldbricking, attempting to get my thoughts down. I'm fighting the chaos in my home and the upheaval at work, and hope to come through it all with a decent short story, essay, or poem to show for it.

Which Lily am I?

When I was 35, I had a crisis about crossing a demographic line, and this prompted me into finally getting a tattoo. I'd been thinking about getting one since my early 20s, but I had no idea what image I'd want on my body for the rest of my life. When I turned 35, I knew I had to do something momentous, so I scoured old books for cute 1950s/60s illustrations, and found, in a cookbook, a line drawing of a chicken. I love chickens, and I love vintage illustrations, so this drawing was perfect! My bf at the time was a graphic artist, so he copied it, added chicken tracks, and I took the drawing to a tattoo artist in San Francisco who was recommended to me. You can't tell by the photograph, but the chicken tracks go all the way around my ankle.

I'm very happy with my tattoo, and after I got it, I saw why people get more than one. I kept thinking, "What's my next tattoo going to be?!" But the idea of coming up with another image I wanted on my body forever...well, I couldn't think of anything. But now, I'm thinking how much I like playing the part of Lily in SL, and how I love the name, and how I do like the flowers quite a bit...do you see where I"m going with this?

I'd like to see some photographs of Lilies that I can use for a tattoo. Probably the best is to send me links to images online. When I pick one, I'll have an artist render it for me, and figure out where it will go. The winning entry will get...hmm I don't know--I'll have to think on that a bit. But I'll document the process for this blog.

So, hurry up and send me those links! And thanks in advance for your help!

Time for Renewal

I'm on a long weekend trip to the land of cheese, visiting a friend who is here visiting her mother. She brought her boy with her and I brought mine. And actually quite unexpectedly, I am having a more relaxing time than I've had in ages.

We got here late Thursday night, and my friend, Zru, got into town on Friday. That night we went to a local restaurant for a nice dinner--the perfect end to a nice, low-key day. Saturday, though, we picked up the pace a bit.

First stop: The Flying Pig. It's a funky little place, with metal crafty sculpture things for sale, wine by the glass, and WONDERFUL coffee. I got my usual Americano w/4 shots, and was able to officially start my day.

Next stop: Krohn's Cheese. Let me tell you something about myself: I. Love. Cheese. Without a doubt, this is one of the most wonderful things ever to happen to milk gone bad. I love smooth, mild cheeses. I am nuts over Huntsman. And I absolutely ADORE a beautiful aged cheddar. (Recently I visited a new cheese shop near home, and bought some of their 10 year old aged cheddar, @ $35.00/lb. Yes, I know: "Yikes." But it was worth every goddamn penny.) So, anyway, Krohn's has a very nice 5 year old extra sharp cheddar, for only $8.99/lb. so I bought a pound of it to take home. It's very very sharp, but smooth, without that sour aftertaste that some aged cheddars seem to have. The boy and I agreed it was a righteous cheese. Aside from that cheese, I bought another dairy's 5-y.o. cheddar, and a pound of the award winning Mozzerella. Fortunately the shop also sells ice packs and freezer bags, so we were able to keep it cold till we got back to my friend's place.

After the cheese shop, we went to The Men's Mall. That's not the real name, but what the locals call it. It's actually Mills FleetFarm. They sell everything a guy needs for his truck-driving or farming needs. It's like Walmart and Home Depot rolled into one. I found a really cute pork pie hat for my boy, but he refuses to wear a hat. I had to practically get him in a hammerlock just to have him try one on. And he looks soooooo freaking cute in a hat! The boy doesn't know what he's missing out on. I would love to have a head that fit into a hat. But between the size of my noggin, and my big mop of hair...well, I need a size 5-7/8s, which is hard to come by. (Note to self: go to the men's department of a department store and find a hat for the summer.) The most interesting items at FleetFarm were the camouflage lingerie. Camisoles, bras and panties, slips, etc., in a couple choices of color: traditional green hunter camouflage; and, BRIGHT ORANGE, so when you're lounging in the woods with your man as he tries to bag a deer, you won't be shot accidentally, since you'll be in your neon orange bikini. Mmhm...it's true.

Next stop was lunch at the Titletown Brewing Company, in Green Bay. Ok, now, folks from Wisconsin, please don't get all up in my shit about this, but I'm sorry...Titletown??? WTF? Titletown sounds stupid. Green Bay is a great name. People know that the Packers won the title. (They did, right? I honestly don't follow sports.) Yeesh. Well anyway, at least the food at the brew pub was really good. Zru and I got a beer sampler and tried a number of the varieties available. Oh, and they have a really nice root beer they make there, too.

After lunch we went to the Goodwill store and I got the boy a couple of pairs of pants (he's at that age where he's growing like the proverbial weed). Then we headed home, I took a nap, and relaxed, wondering what it might be like to live up here: great coffee, great cheese, Lake Michigan, and the Interwebs. What more could a girl want?

I've had a Meta Makeover!

Cue music...roll video tape...protect the children: My home in SL was chosen to be featured on the show Meta Makeover, hosted by the lovely Saffia Widdershins!

When I closed Port Novem recently, I looked around for a large parcel of land where I could move forward with my leisure-filled retirement. One day while shopping at La Belle Vie, owned by Zasa Rossini, I saw that she was offering parcels on a new Sim she was building. Aside from the pure beauty of the environs she had planned, the major selling point was that there were only 7 parcels on the entire Sim.

When the Sim was opened, I plopped down the house I had bought from Fatima Ur of Antique Artistry, and began to fill it with furnishings from La Belle Vie and Cache, both located in Zasa's other Sim, "Dans les Montagnes." I was very comfortable in my little doll house lifestyle. And then things got even better: Zasa said that Meta Makeover wanted to do an episode on my house, and did I want Fatima Ur to do a makeover for me! Yes! Yes! Yes!

Fatima contacted me and asked what rooms I wanted revamped, but I had trouble deciding: I had already pretty much furnished the house how I liked it. Then she mentioned that she could do the yard and the conservatory...to which I gave another resounding YES! Over the next couple days, Fatima uprooted the trees I had just set down willy nilly, and in what seemed like an instant, my front lawn and waterfront area was landscaped to look more like an Estate than any place I've ever lived, SL or RL (RL...hah! Yeah, I live in a castle in RL...).

This past Sunday was the Meta Makeover run-through. Saffia Widdershins, host of the show, and Editrix of The Primgraph, visited me with her staff to look over my grounds and prepare for Tuesday's taping. Then, yesterday, it all came together. I was nervous, but Saffia and her team put me at ease.

I'd like to thank all involved in this exciting opportunity, especially Zasa Rossini; Saffia Widdershins; Fatima Ur; Elrik Merlin; and Matelisse Criss.

And a great big thanks to Miss Eve Ayres, of Bord du Lac, and of Belhaven, just for being you.


ADDENDUM: I got the names of Saffia's crew, as well as the names fo the SLCN people involved, so I'd like to give everybody a big thanks!

For Meta Makeover:
Saffia Widdershins
Elrik Merlin
Matelisse Criss
Davon Westland - producer
Darleez de Cuir - studio manager - she organised Fatima setting up her lovely exhibition in the studio hall
Aisling Sinclair - Advertising and Client Relations Manager

For SLCN:
Texas Timtram
Starr Sonic
Wiz Nordberg

They used two camera people:
Mr Mims
Truman Donaldo

Poof

Celestina will be gone on Friday. Good Riddance. Next is Dinah Lytton. I'll just close her account right now, while I'm thinking about it. Maybe I'll close a few accounts. (I'm in a really shitty mood right now, so I'm going to post something terrible and gut-wrenching in another forum. You're welcome to read it, if you're brave enough...and if you can find it.)

The Results are In

A whopping 6 of you voted in my "Kill an Avatar" poll, and you all voted to get rid of Celestina Moonbeam. She was my choice too, actually, so when I leave this post, I'm deleting her account.

And btw: Dinah has not escaped the axe--she will be the next to go, whenever I get around to it.

Goodbye, Celestina. I'm not exaggerating when I say "I hardly knew ye...."

Here that silence? It's the sound of information being dissemeniated to library staff....

To the left you see a notice for an event held at the library where I work, in conjunction with National Poetry Month. Seems like a good enough idea. Except that I, as the person who buys all the literature and poetry books for the Adult collection (and also the High School books), had no idea this program was taking place.

It may sound like I'm nit picking, but this is just another in the trend of my library director, and the library board, taking responsibilities away from Librarians who do the collection development, and giving those duties to a "PR" person, who, in actuality, does very little real PR work. What she does is plan programs, without so much as a heads-up to library staff, who should know what's going on, if only too answer the patrons' questions about what programs are being held.

There was a time when the Librarians were responsible for programming at the library. They were familiar with our patron base, what community members were interested in, etc. As the librarian who buys poetry books for the collection, when I received information from The Academy of American Poets about this year's National Poetry Month, I wondered what kind of program might be well-received by the library's patrons. I thought a contest of some sort for the library's teen patrons might be fun. But upon doing a quick check of the library's website, I found the above nugget of information. I was not told about this event directly. I had to dig around till I found it. Had I been notified, I could have tried to involve the local High School students (yeah, I know, they wouldn't have shown up anyway), or somehow worked with the community to get them involved in library programming.

It's bad enough that Librarians are underpaid, but to not get professional respect from the library director herself...well, it's insult heaped on top of injury. (Perhaps part of the problem is that my particular library director has worked at this library SINCE SHE WAS 16, and SHE HAS NEVER WORKED AT ANY OTHER LIBRARY EVER IN HER LIFE. I find this extremely troublesome: I really believe that in order to be a good librarian, one needs a variety of library experience. Fuck--life experience would add a lot to a person's outlook on the Library's place in the world. But if you've lived in the same town, and worked at the same place your whole life, your world view is myopic. You don't see how other people do things, you don't gain new insights. And this is my director in a nutshell.