I went to the beautiful The Trace Too to shoot some pictures. I love this sim so much. I wandered into the water even though I was wearing a long skirt, because I can. These colors don’t run.
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Because I Can
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Tag Archives: Aphotic Gloom
The Sea of Love
Mami Jewell of AZUL probably designs more gowns than anyone for the Miss SL competitions. The Linette gown was designed for Miss Indonesia Mio Linette and it comes in twelve standard colors and two limited edition colors. When I walked in the gown the ebb and flow of the feathers at the bottom made me think of the gracefully flowing fins of a beta fish, so for fun I headed to Borinquin Zyn’s underwater tableau where there are underwater animations. Below the cut, you can see a video I made and see what I mean about this lovely gown.
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Hold Fast to Dreams
Langston Hughes, one of America’s greatest poets, wrote that we must “hold fast to dreams” for if they die, life is like a bird who has broken wings and cannot fly. When dreams go, he wrote, “Life is a barren field frozen with snow.” I think this is an important truth that we must all hold onto. Dreams animate us. They keep us from drifting into a stagnant contentment. Chuck Palahniuk wrote “Let me never be content.”
Sometimes people stop seeking happiness, settling for contentment. I think contentment is a trap. It is a yield sign on life’s highway. That’s where dreams come in. Unlike goals, they need not be realistic, they can be far-fetched, but they can set a framework for realistic goals that guide us toward self-fulfillment and happiness.
It is more important to have dreams than to achieve them. Hope is more powerful than success and hope is what dreams are made of.
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That shirt
That shirt! You know the one I mean. We all have one. The shirt we have owned since forever, that repeated washings and years of wear have softened the fabric to a perfect level of comfort. It is the adult equivalent of a blankie. A shirt that ends up in every load of laundry because after a hard day, we put it on the minute we get home, as though putting on a hug. We have forgotten to turn it inside out a few hundred times and the fabric is pilling and snags are visible here and there, but we don’t care. It is our favorite shirt and we will keep it until it falls apart on our body.
Whatever sizing and substance the fabric once held is gone. It conforms to our body like a second skin, a cozy, comfy, second skin that says “You’re good enough. You’re smart enough. And doggone it, people like you.” We have that shirt in our first lives, but now we can have it in our second as well, thanks to Vinyl’s Little Toast (sukoshitosuto) and any doubts whether this distress and well-worn look was not deliberate can be dispelled with a look at some of the other options on the texture hud.
Yup, that’s deliberate.
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Daydream Believer
There is a lot of speculation about what separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. They used to say it was our ability to use tools, but I had a dog who used a stick as a lever to snap the boards in the fence. There’s a marvelous video of a crow using tools to get food. Some used to say it was language, but the more we learn of animals, the more we learn about their languages and realize that we made assumptions because we did not speak their language. There are those who say it is our consciousness that we will die that makes us human, but can someone see animals mourning and presume they have no sense of their own mortality? Others say it is how well we cooperate, but will we ever cooperate as well as bees and ants? Anyone who thinks about the size of an elephant or whale brain knows it cannot be brain size. Scientists spend a lot of time on this question and are coming to the conclusion it’s not just one thing that makes us human, but it is all about how we think. One of the key differences is our ability to imagine multiple scenarios, to build complex imagined constructions. Daydreams are part of this – not dreams – but the conscious self-aware wonder of daydreams.
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Modern Romance
The Fernando gown from Dead Dollz is romance personified. I love the beautiful embroidered tracery of flowers and vines in that soft peach, blue and mint. I love the fitted bodice with the bouffant exuberant squirt and the sheer overblouse. the definition of the belted waistline. It takes so many elements of historical and folk costume and the result is completely modern. It borrows from the baroque to make something minimalist and resolutely of the the now. It’s just great design on every level.
Same Damn Dress
Gidge and I popped over to Nº21 because she had seen a dress in the EloquenceSL Shopping Guide she had to have. When I saw it, I had to have it too, so we decided to do a “Same Damn Thing” challenge, or in this case, Same Damn Dress. I love the same damn challenges because it gets at the heart of what makes fashion exciting and creative. We are all individuals who make decisions about styling so that even when we wear the same damn dress, we look different. So, if any of you want to style this same damn dress, post your links below for the giggles.
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hallucinatory heat
So it is hot again. One of the joys of living in the Pacific Northwest is avoiding blistering heat, but thanks to global climate change, I am afraid that may become a thing of the past. However, I suppose I should keep it in perspective. It is far hotter elsewhere.
Most of the time, when you read about someplace deathly hot with temperatures in excess of 120° Fahrenheit, you can also add “but at least it is dry heat” which might be small comfort at that temperature, but it still makes a difference.
This was made very clear when I read a news article that left me reeling and think I should be grateful. There is a city in Iran, on the Persian Gulf, that reached a Heat Index of 165° degrees – that is heat of 115° and a dew point of 90. Heat and humidity, that is just not fair. Now my response to heat is to dress lightly, so imagine that heat in a burqa. It makes me very grateful for my much lower intensity heat discomfort. Continue reading
Read Any Good Books Lately?
Foxes has released this beautifully fitted and textured dress in a mind-numbing 24 different versions from sparked to ombres to solids with standard sizing and sizing for specific mesh bodies. Obviously, the Foxes creator has given up on sleep.
The long list for the Man Booker prize was announced yesterday and I have only read one of them. That is one reason it is my favorite book list. It goes beyond bestseller lists and borders, elevating excellent fiction from all over the world. Usually by the time the next list is out, I have read my way through the list. It is changing, though, until 2013, the authors had to come from the Commonwealth and now it is open to authors from any country so long as they write in English and their books are published in the UK. For the first time there are five American writers on the list. Will this change the complexion of the list? I don’t know. I hope not.
I have been on a lucky streak lately, reading several good books in a row. Right now I am reading The Sellout by Paul Beatty, an hilarious satire of post-racial America. The protagonist’s father is killed by the police in what is supposed to be a ridiculously senseless and satirical example of police violence. Unfortunately, reality has surpassed satire on that score.
Well, that was easy!
Damselfly Marnie hair and Azuchi Suma dress
If you have been following this blog lately, you know that Hair Fair happened and while it was happening, I have been publishing interviews with Hair Fair designers. I got a notecard back from one on Sunday. It was from Shyla Honey of Damselfly and began with an apology because she had been out of town for two weeks and wanted me to know she had not been ignoring my notecard queries. I didn’t read the rest because I was in a bit of hurry.
I popped over to Hair Fair to buy the two of her Hair Fair releases I had not already purchased and pick up the gifts and shot my pictures of all her hairs. Then I opened the notecard back up and realized that the note was all she sent, reasonably assuming since Hair Fair was ending, I would not continue the interviews. Oh well, at least I have all the pictures.
I decided to wear this dress from Azuchi because it has that huge ruffle across the bodice that normally conflicts with hair and Damselfly hair is often long and curly and exactly the sort of hair likely to cause problems with a bodice ruffle. Not that I was looking for trouble, but I chose it because a few design decisions were made that address that problem well. You will note that you get the full ruffle, it has gathers in it and makes the bold design statement, but it is crafted to lay close to the bodice, avoiding conflicts. It’s a bit of trompe l’oeil and it works well.
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