Thoughts

Thoughts

My friend in SL has her SL mum dying in firstlife. This is such a harsh reality because her SL mum is more her mum then the womb from whence she came. I know this is sad but at the same time it shows the depth which we have come to share with each other. As another dear friend once said (and many of you say too) remember, behind the keyboard there is a soul.

And what is a 'soul'? The word is wonderful. To think this thought has followed man(women)kind for thousands of year in so many ways often in the form of religion but yet here in SL we have been able to get the closest to our 'soul' and others then ever before in history.

I must say, my 'soul' is not going to have hands in prayer singing Hallelujah for eternity. But then all of you know that about me already.

Soul has been used in so many ways. From song, "she sang with 'soul'. To her 'soulful' mourning. But all of these simply scratch the surface. Because those of us in SL now understand what soul is. The broadness and the depth. The limitlessness and the sublime.

We have all caught a glimpse of 'thirdlife'. And we have all found it to encompass our 'soul'.

So, my friend who must cede her mum in both first and second life to thirdlife agonizes at this moment. But her mum is there. We are limitless. We have crossed boundaries the poets thought they could describe.

"Crossing the Bar" by Alfred Lord Tennyson (Lord...hmmmm does he play Tiny Empires?)

Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
When I have crossed the bar.

Things I'd like to See

The 10 most important things I would like to see in an upgrade and hopefully they would work.

1. The perfect organizer of my inventory. Some amazing tool that would scan and let me delete which dupes I wanted to. Something that would open a different color for those things i've boxed. Slap my hand when i was about to delete something i'd need later. Put my better jewelry in pretty cases. Store my stockings without tearing them. Throw all those prim skirts that never fi me because I pigged out at some wedding.


2. A camera that wouldn't click crappy pictures (call Nikon please). Wouldn't accept terrible pictures friends send thinking they've captured a moment. The only they have done is make me question why I hang out with them.


3. A search engine that had any relative search return to what I input. I type in Lingerie and I get some reply (in ALL search) Cock boy available for parties.


4. All alt av's listed under the primary alt. I'm so tired of the same person in so many different alts still trying to get into my panties. The good thing, like that comcast phone commercial, they are still the same person.


5. The ability for members to mark ugly skyboxes for future deletions. (Perhaps after 100 the owner would get a notice of condemnation.


6. A thong that fit. Now I know I've asked for this for the past several updates but a girl must be optimistic. At least noobies should get a warning label with each pair


7. Pretty feet. Ok.....why pretty feet (and they are a bit better now then before)? Ha, if you need to know why you are not a girl.


8. A listing in EVENTS for LIVE COMEDY. Look, every time I go to list my show I see live music. What do they have that I don't deserve?


9. Happy Mentors. I must have 20 friends who are SL mentors. None of them seem very happy about this position. They can't wait to become one. Are so excited the first day they get to go to Mentor meetings and POOF....a few days later they sound like Paris Hilton on her way to jail or Brittany Spears on her way anywhere.


10. A bottle of red wine and candles at every tp landing spot. Just something to make the rezzing seem a bit more relaxed. If not wine then a bottle of Bailey's, Vodka Tonic, Chardonnay. Oh hell, a nice big doobie would be ok too. Just remember "Drugs may lead nowhere but at least it's the scenic route."

(ps edited a bit since I listen to you all

Friends

I can't seem to manage my friends list. I love my friends. Before show business I use to limit my friends to 15. Then when I started performing and decided to change my list to 10 family 15 friends 5 producers 5 production aides and 5 others.

Well, now I have nearly 100 on my friends list. Oh, I know I could simply show as 'not online' but I hate doing that. I also find it rude not to reply. And when I say I am busy to the same person for a few days they get offended.

As much as I love my friends sometimes I just want to wander alone. If I tell the truth someone is offended. If I don't tell the truth...then I'm a liar.

What to do? Sometimes I just want to wander alone through SL. Looking...not wanting to talk. How do you manage this? Do you ever say you are on the phone when you aren't? I can't do that. I have lived in SL truthfully and won't change. I don't share everything with everyone but I don't lie.

I wonder if I should just ignore IM's. Or mark busy. And busy IM's come anyhow. Like, "are you really busy."

Oh, and for those of you who perform...why do people feel when you say, "I can't talk...doing a show" they need to IM back 'k' ?

Anyhow, I'm busy....................see you all later..............................and I want to see you tomorrow, Thursday....March 20th...........6pm to 7pm SLT at Playboy for my show. It's the stage to the left of the entrance to the main building. One the beach.....called Cherries. And, don't tell me you are busy. Or, Away. Hugs to all..................

Inside Out

How many of us now have so opened the door of our minds that we live comfortably with one individual and two lives. In my case, extremely separate yet completely one. Just the other day I was writing an email at the office and found at the end I signed Lauren Weyland. I was amazed that I had nearly pressed send. Instead of fear I was more shocked since seeing my SecondLife name on a FirstLife email did not seem incongruous to me. Oh yes, I am sure the receiver would probably have 'googled' me and then what most people would think of being an unraveling would simply be a curtain drawn from downstage center to upstage center to bring the entire stage front and center.

In times past we would probably been considered 'schizophrenic.' Perhaps the creators of SecondLife were in need of place where schizophrenia could flourish. And so, millions entered a world where we belonged but didn't exist before. Instead, in order to vanilla the planet, for tens of thousands of years, we either kept our thoughts private or suffered the consequences.

Let me interject something here. Although most in the group I will mention now mentally were forced to reside in a tight parameter (for convention sake), women throughout the centuries have still had to either keep their av quiet or suffer the consequences of announcing there is more to them then the parameters set by men and enforced by coerced rules that other women embraced because they needed the limitations those rules defined.

I wonder where the world would be today if the women whose av's had not been inhibited but instead opened as much as the minds of Galileo, Einstein, DaVinci, Plato, Aristotle etc? Where are their thoughts if they had had the same opportunities? I am talking about those who were not forceful enough to break a mold but still were mentally able to have increased the knowledge of the world by a factor of limitless.

So, as I look at us, I wonder what could we have provided if our thoughts had not been considered wild but instead exhalted. And then I stop, realize we are here now. Hope, the fragility of what create does not evaporate. Wonder, what will they say fifty years, five hundred years from now about us. And how will we smile when the voices that recognize us were the same as those who pitied us before.

Rearview of IN THE PINK

Letter on IN THE PINK post production:
(a SecondLife production, written, directed and performed at the Ivy Falls Theater Mar 8 and Mar 9 to support VDay.org

There are moments in your life you define as 'what is the best thing
I've ever done?' There are times in your life you call 'my most fun.'
There are spaces in time that are filled with the joy of friendship
and love. And then, very rarely there is a moment that becomes
eternal.

My moment has been the last three months culminating in our production
this weekend of IN THE PINK. I imagine one day my grandchildren will
ask me about my different moments. They will look at my old, wrinkled
face wondering what wisdom I will impart.

A smile will turn my lips and a clear, strong, sound will come from my
tired body, "I want your attention," or perhaps "One Eskimo Pie
Please." Or, "When was that moment?" Then again my voice could sing
aloud, "Should I condense, distill, reduce my dreams, hopes, wishes,
ambitions, aptitudes, attitudes, emotions and motion into a garnished
dish you can serve to your friends."

Or some other phrase or word from our Production. The only thing I'm
sure of is by then I will have memorized our entire play.

My eyes will twinkle as the names, Lailu, Rosmairta, ToryLynn, Marin,
Persephone, Calliope, Morgue, Elyse, Lore, Mickie, Candi, Ada, Rowan,
Dousa, Rekka, Dakota sliding off my tongue as they look and wonder who
you all are. Were these the names of past love," I hear them ask each
other and my mind twirls the word 'love' and 'yes'....the small
electrical charge jumps in my brain signaling...yes...yes...love as
defined by the utmost supreme feeling of life itself.

Then, Pags, Upo and Harman.....the MEN......laughing now my head
rollicking, my grandchildren look wondering if I am having a seizure.
Names of writers known, Kimmi. Jessica, Sunnie, Cooty like a billiards
game and a multi-bank shot of names carom across my mind.

So, I never was sure what my eternal happy time would be but now I
know it. That is not to say there can't be other times ahead which
may come close and surely I know the optimist in me will search for
them. But this has been my moment.

With the deepest regard and thanks to all of you and should I have
forgotten a name or two it is simply recollection and not intentional.
My great honor has been to work with all of you, laughed, made
mistakes, saw us elated and despondent but most of all to know you are
my deepest friends and artistic soul mates.

Lauren

Who Are We? How Much Do We Care?

Somewhere in time we have all come together. There was the blog Civilization I wrote with many responses. Also one on our Society of SecondLife. Now, closer to home, is the small tribute I wrote before this to Patty1 who has been stricken on the battlefield of Iraq. Someone I only know from SL.

As much as I live in this digital world and believe myself to be only this digital person when here (oh and often in firstlife too) I have met a few Secondlifers in FirstLife. But, Patty1 has changed everything. I only know her digitally.

How do the people you know digitally effect you? Oh sure, we have all cried over digital love lost and been saddened by a digital friend leaving SecondLife. But what do you think of the fragility of their firstlife?

I have a few SL friends who suffer from cancer and I have thought about how I'll feel when they are gone. Patty1 though was a completely healthy young vibrant women nearly killed suddenly the other day. (She is recuperating. Her lung has been fixed. Her burns, on her face, may well remain. But even if she shows no signs outwardly of this injury, inside she will have changed.

She will not come home but instead she will go back to Iraq of her own volition. Which surprises me on the one hand because she didn't want to go to Iraq again and she was concerned this circumstance may happen to her. But on the other hand, Patty1 must feel those she has served with in Iraq are her family she must not leave.

All of this brought me to think of my friends. Those I talk to regularly and those I rarely talk to but love as well. Who are we? We are digital flesh and blood with the fragility of being disconnected so easily that my heart shed tears when I first heard the news of Patty1.

How much do we care? More then I could imagine. Each of you are carried with me everyday. Thought of, share the air I breathe, hear my laughter and feel my sorrow.

And so.....You.....Who are We? How much do You Care?

PATTY1

Our Hearts cry for one of our own. Patty1, our secondlife sister left for Iraq on February 18th. She was struck down in the field yesterday by an IED and has suffered burns to the face, a punctured lung and other wounds. She is a dear friend. We talked often and I am heartbroken for her. I send my love to her and hope she recovers fully. I do not remember being this sad. She came to nearly all my shows, we talked often. I remember the day she got her notice of her second tour of duty in Iraq. Do we need more deaths and injuries to feed the God of War?

Moving First/Second/Third Life

Well, where have I been you ask? Or at least I hope you are thinking about me. I do think about you.

This past week has been a move in FirstLife which got me wondering about moving in SecondLife and ThirdLife. We all know that we have to rez prims to put our crap into in first life. Apparently SecondLife isn't much different. Except the boxes (prim) are so heavy in FL and you have to tape them, number them and hope they arrive on the other side. (Which is a lot like SL inventory problems)

So, I boxed 69 prims in FL (I started laughing when I got to the last box and duly checked off 69). Then I lived in this mess for a few days before the move; eating like a rat in a cage. Any cracker, junk etc that did not need to be cooked was nutrition for three days. (Yeah, I couldn't just tp to my new land. Then again sometimes tp's don't work in SL)

I wondered at the amount of crap I had boxed that I don't need and thought about the amount of things I've boxed in SL that I no longer know if I need or not. They are boxed. I don't look at them anymore. Of if I could just do the same with so much of this. Why am I shipping lint? What possesses me to ship a nearly empty bottle of vinegar.

Finally, the morning of the move comes and the moving company, which must be run by Lindens since they arrived late, saying, "we are sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused you and we will hope to make the rest of your move a happy one." I wanted to go down to the truck and see if Torley Linden was there.

Traveling by the archaic form of transport (automobile) making sure my gasoline money would be well spent on some unknown terrorist act, I proceed to my new land and tier. Then, I waited for the Linden Moving Company to come.

Well of course they were late. Apparently lunch lasts 2 1/2 hours if I'm paying for it. Eventually all the boxes ended up in rooms. Not all the in rooms the boxes were clearly marked to go. Nevertheless they are here now and so am I. We are both wondering whether the lint should be unpacked or not (more on moving later).

I have just learned my dear friend Patty1 Rosa (who left barely two weeks ago to Iraq on another tour of duty she didn't want to go on) has been injured. I don't know how severely but i do know she must be crying inside. She was fearful this would happen to her and so she didn't want to go. We tried to laugh and have fun the day she learned of her tour and every day until she left on February 18th. I said I could do a show for the troops and give out my pin-up pix. Now, I don't know how Patty1 is. At this moment I ask you all to reach into your hearts and send your strength and energy for her recovery. She is dearly loved in SecondLife and I find myself more then saddened. I find myself distraught.