Making a Withdrawal

I cashed out all my L$s today. Even shook down my alts for spare change. We’re in the RL Deep Freeze in more ways than one and there’s no time for sentimentality.

Well maybe a little.

I can’t bring myself to delete most of my inventory from any of my avs and I think the only way I could see my avs deleted is if LL’s server crashed. And then I’m sure I would grieve.

I am, however, going to sell off some loose stuff out of inventory. Clover’s liquidation of the DFS gear has brought a return of about 550 L$ on a 6k investment (but then, we can never get the land tiers back). I’m not sure how well that will do since I guess right now a half gallon of RL milk goes for 800L and (or 200 DFS Milk Crates). Still it feels good to actively be doing something, and to know that it’s only going to be a couple pay periods in which things are this tight.

Here’s Clover’s shop, what remains of it.

And here’s Mistletoe’s. I’m still fond of that Tipping Cow!

A Phond Pharewell

The Town of Philomena in Second Life has closed after approximately 2 years inworld. Founder Thaddeus Nadeau has made the decision to retire, focusing more on RL pursuits and obligations.

Roses are Red

Roses are red,

Likewise the poppy

Here is my heart

It’s Transfer/No Copy

Inworld Depression

I logged on tonight and felt awful.

Like I’ve got no friends, no home, and a reputation that I only half earned for flaking out.

It’s all slow and sluggish to load, like my thoughts tonight.

Things don’t always happen like you planned…

But sometimes, when you’re lucky and have amazing friends, things come out even better than you hoped. Thank you, Philomena, for being those amazing friends.

Living with Type II Bipolar

A Twitter acquaintance who goes by @UnseenPerfidy shares an article on what it’s like to live with Type II Bipolar: https://medium.com/@UnseenPerfidy/dealing-with-bipolar-disorder-5ccbe6374228

Now while I don’t share his use for semantics on “being” vs. “having” Bipolar, I think it’s important to talk about. I’ve written on it here in the past, shortly after an online friend took his own life.

When you’re experiencing hypomania or depression, it’s really hard to put into words what it’s like to be feeling them at the time; and @UnseenPerfidy does, in my opinion, a pretty bang-up job describing it. In particular, I can relate to the feeling of impatience when other people can’t “keep up” with me.

I chatted a bit with him on Twitter and asked if addictive behavior is something that he’s noticed with his own Bipolar, and he says, yes. In his case, it was alcohol. In mine, I have such a fear that alcohol will become addictive that I stay away from it altogether. I was the kid who never went to a party in high school, who never got trashed in college, who never went out drinking with co-workers at the end of the day. My own addictive behavior tends to the much less self-destructive, but rather self-hindering (like the many years I spent not studying or getting decent work experience, pissing away my time on Second Life. I still piss my time away on Facebook. I gotta work on that. I’m only elven.)

Now, I’m working a full-time job and it is a decent one, but there are hours and hours I still piss away online. I’m not writing the book that I say I’m writing, for example. I’m not drawing or crafting or much of anything except drooling in front of social media.

So I need to work out a way to really make time to do something else. Replacing undesirable behavior with desirable behavior.

Anyway, check out Rob’s article, you might find it insightful.

Following up

OK, so, my post yesterday. I really wasn’t expecting anyone to, like, DO anything. I was hoping, at best, for some “aw dude that sucks” and maybe a handful of Ls if I was LUCKY.

You guys are gonna make me cry and stuff.

My intent was to illustrate having a hard time staying on the wagon, just in case other people struggle too. I guess the moral of the story is, don’t fall off the wagon, talk about the struggle instead. You never know what will happen.

I REALLY want to…

We’re struggling right now.

Lost job, waiting on payment for invoices, waiting on refunds, waiting on being put on the schedule for a new job, waiting for new health insurance, waiting, waiting, god damn waiting.

Rent’s paid for September, that’s a good thing. Got a T pass for September, that’s a good thing. Made a little cash playing music at the farmer’s market yesterday, that’s a pretty good thing. After we pay our gas bill, we got about $50 left for groceries for who knows how long, I’m running out of my meds (got enough for September), our health insurance is in flux, and the phone bill is due in 3 days. Not such good things.

I would REALLY love to be Mistletoe right now. I really want to log on and do some kind of fun thing and see Ls roll in and feel like I’m Doing Something. But I haven’t yet, I’ve stayed strong I guess. I even quietly closed Clover’s Kitchen when nobody was looking.

In case the Linden Fairy exists and is reading this, I still have my PayPal tied to Mistletoe’s account.

I’m stressed and tired and feeling like it’s my duty to save the day and be strong and I’m tired of being strong. I want to forget for a while. But I know if I log on, that while’s going to turn into 8 hours a day and the shit I have to do won’t get done. I have to see if I can get some kind of unemployment benefits, and/or food benefits, and/or prescription benefits, just to hold me over until I’m on the schedule and get the health insurance. Or until MONKEYS FLY OUT OF MY ASS Himself actually gets paid for work he did in JULY, let alone AUGUST. They keep promising him that as soon as X happens, they’ll put him on the payroll and he’ll have full time work AND benefits so amazing you’ll think a Unicorn farted them out and promises promises promises. A promise and five bucks would LITERALLY BE FIVE BUCKS MORE THAN THEY’VE GIVEN HIM. And he feels like he can’t speak up about the stick because if he does it might screw him out of the carrot they’re dangling.

So… yeah. Stressing hard, wanting to not think about it, doing my best to avoid the anesthesia.

The Legend of Zynga

So I have a Facebook (under a pseudonym). And one day to pass the time I decided to log onto one of those stupid Facebook games. I KNOW that it’s a Skinner box and little more. I KNOW that they’re designed to maximize the amount of time, money, and social sharing spent on the game by the user, and that just about the very last thing on their list of priorities is FUN. The last straw on this particular game was when they changed their rules mid-stream and suddenly decided that in addition to spending a pile of gold, and time, on a thing, I NOW have to “hire” other FB friends to “open” the thing I just wasted my time and game money on. When himself asked me, “Is it still fun?” I couldn’t give an honest answer, because it wasn’t in fact ever really fun.

It made me nostalgic for games I played when I was a kid; and in particular, my all-time favorite, the Legend of Zelda (1986, NES). I played that for countless hours. This was in the days before the Internet so I couldn’t go online for hints or walkthroughs, and I was in a small rural area besides, so my siblings and I had to puzzle it out ourselves. And we LOVED it. Each new level, each time the little “You discovered something!” tune played, we were having FUN.

So, well, I got to wondering, what if that game had been made today?

Below are some images I put together with that idea in mind. I give you: the Legend of Zynga.

Heads Up

It really annoys me when I get offline IMs from people solely for the purpose of promoting their Next Big Thing.

They can’t be bothered to read the nice big capital letters in my profile that say “RETIRED FROM SECOND LIFE”. It’s like, you want me to do this thing for you (time and time again) but you can’t even do one little thing for me: read my fucking profile!

I friended you because I wanted to talk shop with you, or else actually be friends with you. Not to be your shill.