Mohammed My Friend

So Jemma is feeling a bit pressured by her friend Mo. Every time she logs on, he is there demanding her time. It's not just that. He is constantly telling her how much he loves her and thinks about her. Jemma has to be blunt. She doesn't feel the same. How could she? She barely knows the guy. After being offline for a few days this week due to my dead Time Capsule, Mo tells Jemma he was worried about her, and wants to know if she was thinking about him in RL. I have to admit I was thinking about him. I was thinking maybe I should take an even longer break from SL to let him cool off. But then I got a better idea. I created an alt. His name is Marshall, and while he is not as yet fully formed, he's going to have something to say if Mo doesn't stop putting so much pressure on Jemma. Getting Marshall and Jemma online at the same time requires two computers, and since it seems SL is always crashing at least one of my computers, that hasn't happened yet. But it will, hopefully soon.

I noticed when creating Marshall that SL has changed the way you choose user names. You don't pick a first name and then choose from a list of available last names. I guess it got too hard to keep coming up with unique surnames for the millions of residents. So Marshall's name is MarshallMiller (one word). I spent a bunch of time last night trying to dress and style him to somewhat resemble his namesake. But it was trickier than I thought. He still looks pretty generic. I think Jemma will have to buy him some clothes and maybe some different prim hair, since he's not going to have his own money.

Other than that, not much has happened in SL this week. I had to work on Friday, so we missed SciFri, and then by the time I got the new Time Capsule up and running, I was too tired to spend much time there. Jemma kept Mo at arm's length, which he wasn't happy about. And she did chat again with Madame T., her neighbor. I'm trying to see what use the Pocket Metaverse app is on my phone. So far I can log on and respond to messages, but not much else. May come in handy though when I get bored at work.

You're the One for Me, Fatty

Apparently, Jemma has a boyfriend in SL now. Which leads me to believe one thing: Egyptian guys dig fat chicks. Okay, I kid. But it's a funny story, and not really one that has to do with the picture of poor fat Miracle above. But I may get to her later. So I went roaming around last night in this place that described itself as Main Street New York, and seemed more a comglomerate of many downtowns from cities all over. I saw a few people wandering around. Then in one store (at least I think it was a store), I met this guy who said he was from Egypt, but lived in Saudi Arabia. At least this one spoke English. His name was Mohammed, but he goes by Moha. He asked to be my friend and I told him I was going to walk around some more and he could come if he wanted. He followed me for a bit, and kept asking if I wanted to go somplace called Epica. We teleported there and it appeared to be a beach area for surfing and other water sports. I spotted a canoe. I decided I'd come back to try that later. Moha did not seem to want to do any water sports. He just wanted to sit on the beach with me. There were some animation rez balls that allowed for a couple to cuddle and kiss. I guess he had come here before to do this, I don't know. The thing that cracked me up was that he kept saying that he felt really close to me, like even seconds after we met. I was like, "Yeah, you are taking this too seriously. We just met." But he was in a hurry, and soon after we arrived in Epica, he wanted me to come back to his house. I was just curious to see what someone else's house looked like, so we teleported there. Once we were there, he said something like, "Now you are the queen of this place." You can feel free to do whatever. He had a nice sofa arrangment with cushions on the floor. But before I couild sit down, he said, "You can see upstairs too." So we went upstairs and found some more scattered furniture, including a big round bed. It was one of those beds I had seen so many of when I was shopping for the bed at my place. It came with all sorts of sex animations you could do. At the time I had wondered why all the beds seemed to come with these. Doesn't anyone in SL use their bed just to sleep? Apparently, not so much. I mean, obviously, if you were just going to sleep, you would quit SL and go offline. But I always like to put Jemma to bed before I log off. Then when I come back, I find her on the bed, like she's just waking up. Anyway, Moha invited me to try it out. It was fairly amusing. But I tried the canoe today, and got such a kick out of it! It reminded me of the old days in spinchat with Skip and Jazzie. Space Canoe ride anyone? :)

Mothers Talk

With all the havoc Mother Nature has caused lately; Earthquakes in Haiti, New Zealand, Japan (plus the Tsunami), things are pretty calm in this little corner of the world. Here, winter's last gasp comes in a grey, windy weekend, just before the first day of spring. Baseball is in the air, though the boys of summer have yet to make their way north from sunny Florida. And I think it's time to remove the cover of snow from the farm.

Soon it will be dress and sandals season. And I learend this weekend that apparently I've been wearing the wrong size bra for years. I am not a 42C as I'd thought. And despite putting on quite a bit of weight lately, I don't need to move up to a 44. The lady in Nordstrom measured me and talked me down. It took a while to get my head round it, the fact that I should be wearing a 40DD! A Double D is for girls who are particularly well endowed, I always thought. I'm not that big. But apparently the discomfort of the band riding up and the sides gapeing out didn't signal the need for a bigger band, but a larger cup. A much larger cup. How could I have not known this? I'm nearly 40. My cluelessness has reached a new level.

In other news, I'm talking to Mom and Dad about it maybe being time to get grandma her own place. The stress she is causing has got to the point that I spent nearly all of my session with my therapist this week talking about it. I stopped by a nearby senior apartments complex. They are having a special on 2 bedroom apartments. She doesn't need a 2 bedroom. But they don't have any 1 bedrooms available. But $619 for a 2 bedroom, that's just a no brainer. Of course Mom is still conflicted. She kept coming up with reasons. "She can't afford it." Well, she can. All she has to do is quit gambling, and pay her rent instead, then she'll have plenty left over for food and anything else she'd need. "But wait, what about furniture?" Oh, well there's the old couch and everything I gave to George when he moved out. He's got it all in storage again, since Heather had already fully furnished their apartment. The tension in the house right now just seems enormous to me; that's my personal stake in it. But grandma will be happier too, having her autonomy back, her own place, her own kitchen again. Well, so far the jury's still out, we'll have to see what happens. All I can do is suggest.

In the meantime, my quest to crack Second Life continues. I haven't had much time to work on it. Yesterday I spent about two hours trying to get my clothes to fit. Finally I gave up and just went off to find some people. I tried the popular places list from the Dummies book. They were pretty deserted. I guess Saturday night PST is not the busy time. Or maybe it's because of daylight savings? I dunno. I'll try again at a different hour.

Oh well. Here's an extended sigh for the end of another weekend.