In Limbo

Over the past couple of months, I have started to feel like my blog is dying. The downside to blogging about my personal virtual experiences and applying a (super vague) performance theory framework over them is that...well...a lot of my virtual experiences are the same. And blogging about gender inequality, unfair expectations, and, I don't know, pubic hair, doesn't automatically change the entire system. The SL I was writing about two years ago is the same SL that exists now (except now we're all wearing clothes made out of chicken wire) and I have, like many of my friends who seem to own land in SL, become something of a shut-in. 

I'm afraid that this blog is dying - and I don't want it to! Writing is one of my absolute favourite things to do in life, and writing about SL has been fun and interesting, and sparked a handful of pretty intense debates with people I have met in-world who read my blog. As you may have noticed, I tend to tie SL issues in with RL ones, and these are issues I care about, or that I think are important. I don't want to stop investigating, I don't want to stop exploring, I don't want to stop writing.

But I'm not sure where I'm heading, here. And I don't really like that. This isn't a goodbye, at all. I'm dithering in limbo. For now, I'm still here. Don't let me go just yet.

Talking about things that are dithering in limbo; I have been dressing Kitti recently in increasingly more gothic-style outfits recently. There are so many Summer fairs on at the moment offering bikinis and beach clothes, but designers Glam Affair and Pixicat have brought out a range of skins and dresses (respectively) over the past couple of weeks that have fed my all-too-English desire to hide from the RL wrathful Sun who has been trying, desperately, to burn me to a crisp. Kitti, being not only English but ginger, looks all-too at ease in her paler than pale skin and decadent dresses, lurking the corners of her skybox. She's been looking increasingly less than human - beyond human, one might say. Preternatural. Maybe even supernatural. I'm working the vampire/ghoul vibe. 

But it's just a vibe, right? It's not like, heh, gingers don't have souls or anything.

...right, guys?

...right?!

[I need to get out more. Would you like to help me get out more? Click here for more info - here!]
[P.P.S.: the images from the post can be seen full size on Flickr - here!. I promise it's worth it.)

Playing Away

Wish you were here

This is just a place-holder, really, to let you know that I am going to be going away for just over two weeks to visit my family in the US and, as such, I don't expect to be around here or in-world much (if at all) until I get back. I leave bright and early Monday morning (18th), and I will land back in the UK even brighter and earlier on December 6th. If it's snowing when I get back, I swear to God I'm going to become an arsonist.

I really like the new gif function...but I need to find more exciting moments to make gifs out of...

It's not that I think I will be so missed, only that after all I have written here about people going AWOL in SL and the confused thoughts of those left behind, it seemed immoral to simply vanish. Don't get your hopes up: I'll be resuming blogging once I am home again.

I do have some exciting news for you - but I can't tell you what it is yet! Keep your eyes peeled, and if I get the chance, I'll come and break the news here just as soon as I'm allowed to. If I don't whilst I'm away, you can be sure as sure that I'll be spilling the beans once I'm home again.

Wish me luck in the land of bears and scorpions and Thanksgiving?

I'll see you soon!

Pussycat Pussycat, Where Have You Been?

Not to London to visit the Queen. Actually, I have travelled in the complete opposite direction, and am currently in a town an hour outside of Edinburgh, Scotland, UK.

What does this have to do with Second Life? Very little, actually. But I know I haven't been in-world very much over the past couple of weeks, and I'm afraid that this trend is set to continue, although I have managed to log in a couple of times.

My absence is due to the fact that my RL theatre company are performing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this month. Our show opens next Monday, and runs until the end of the festival, and there is lots of putting up posters and handing out flyers and paying of insurance to be done in the meantime. And lines to learn. Don't forget the lines I have to learn.

I'll be back soon. And I'll be back to some serious blogging. I promise. 

Where have you been?

When I logged in last night to take a picture to use for this placeholder post, I decided to stop by tram and try on a hairstyle I've been hoping will suddenly just magically fit Kitti's apparently huge head (still no luck). Standing in the hair room was an avatar dressed up as Deadpool. He proceeded to tell me that I had a beautiful mind, which he could tell because of the words I used (those words being "hi" "funny is one word" "that's very kind of you"), and ask me if I'd be his tea-crumpet. He was certainly an interesting man. A real philosopher.

In the end, I didn't get my picture, and had to log in this morning to snap this one. I'm glad, to be honest, because I teleported to the World's End Garden and found it just as the Sun was setting. It's too beautiful for words. Amongst the on-going stress of mounting a show at the Edinburgh Fringe, I needed those few moments with that light and the sea. If you haven't been to World's End, or haven't been for a while, I urge you to go. 

And if you happen to be in Edinburgh (UK) for the Festival this year, send me a message and I'll send you the details of my show. It would be great to see you there, and it's free! I made this picture here - here! - to advise my show a little while ago.

Coming Up

I wanted to have a clown-face. So I had one. Possibly influenced by Slava's Snowshow, possibly not.

 Happy New Year! 

Kitti and I would like to wish you all the best for 2013, and every year here after, and to thank you for reading If You Die in SL... A lot has changed since this blog began, and posts are perhaps not coming in as thick and fast as they once did, but we are still here, and we are still interested in what Second Life has to offer. I graduated from university, the reason I entered SL, in July (2012), and will hopefully be bringing my interest in performance in/of the digital, and digital-based performance, into my real life work in the not-so-distant future.

Clown-face and shadows. What a start to the year.

Today's screenshots were taken in Kitti's new (jointly-owned) skybox home, the frame of which was designed and built from scratch. There'll be a blog about that coming up. Also coming up: Kitti's obsession with hair, Kitti's obsession with owning virtual cats, a post for the Concerned Bloggers Association on Saving the Arts (an issue understandably close to my heart), Kitti's "fat" thighs, and, hopefully, some more comic-type-things for Kit 49.

So, here's to 2013!