May Contain Nuts

… and then I found out that I can now listen to KONA Radio without being logged into SL. YAY! (yay!) I think next to the BBC, KONA is my favourite radio station. Seriously.

I was really out looking for a medieval dress. In the end, I shopped avatars - now I can be a raven, or a cute little raccoon, or a crab… There really is no limit here.

ETA: And why stick with animals? I quite like myself as a sycamore.

The second reading didn’t go as well as the first, mainly because I was distracted by a headache and stumbled over a lot of the words. But the audience was forgiving (and giving), so I seemed to have done alright. It was a first again: I read one of my own stories, “Beauty and the Truth”, and it seemed to go over well.

I think my next reading will be Science Fiction-themed, because I want to read one of my stories again, and most are SF.  Or I’ll do something supernatural and finally reveal the story behind one of the pictures hanging in the Library.

Oh, and I hope to find other authors who want to read… and I’m looking forward to reading what Eresieh will send me.

Continuing my adventures in the skin department, I had a look around various shops and free stuffs. The free skins were mostly not to my taste, except the Blade Runner make-up one and the pale Vampire one, so I kept these and removed the others from my inventory (which is getting too full anyway, I need to get rid of stuff I never wear… ). The skins I could buy, well, I didn’t see any that I would really spend Lindens on - looking at the models, I couldn’t imagine how the skin would look on my face. Also, the anatomically “correct” ones? That’s not what I’m in SL for, thank you very much.

And then, GoSpeed posted about good-looking, free skins, and I thought, what have I got to lose? Indeed, trying on these skins, I felt I found what I was looking for. Four different skin tones, with or without freckles. Also, the make-up variations are incredible - something for every occasion. And I love the way the different make-ups are called.
But wearing this skin, my face looked ummm… so I played around a bit with some sliders, and voilá! Result:

Quite different from the n00b I used to be, eh?

What I do like, however, is dressing extremely out of context occasionally. Like the other night, when I was at a dance. All the girls (women?) were wearing next-to-nothing; just enough to be decent, in fact. The dancefloor was awash with skin, thigh-high latex boots, fans, boobs… you get the picture.

I was there, dancing along with the skinniest and sexiest, in my usual small, slightly-too-much-bum shape, with Nora’s “Ice Contemporary” outfit, which said schoolmarm or old-school librarian to me when I first put it on - so, I wore a bun hairstyle, my horn-rimmed glasses, and pearl drop earrings (no bling), black stockings, and Mary Jane’s.

I definitely stood out in the crowd. And for some reason, seeing myself in that outfit, dancing, I felt as though I was the sexiest person there - because scantily-clad dancers are a dime a dozen, while a teacher doing the boogie is something you don’t see every day. In my opinion, it’s the unusual, the slightly surreal and absurd, that is interesting.

There’s a reason why I rarely wear much in the way of jewelry. Not because I can’t afford any - hey, there are always freebies and cheapies around - but because so many of the nice things have bling, and I don’t want to run around sparkling like a Christmas tree.

Other people don’t seem to have that restraint, and I’ve seen them run around with blinging earrings, armbands, watches, shoes, and whatnot. Not at parties or concerts or other events, mind you, but in usual living. Now, there’s tasteful bling, of course - slight sparkles, just a hint of thar be jewels, and they fit with the rest of the appearance. Some, however, flash in your eyes like car headlights.

Yeah, I admit, I’m a trousers-and-tshirt-gal who also likes to dress for the occasion occasionally, but I don’t want to look cheap - and I think that’s what too much, too bright bling does. Not my cup of tea.

SLvolution of an avatar.

This is me, a couple of days after I came into SL, and still proud of my looks. Then, I was told that skin, eyes and hair make me look newbie-ish (well, I was a Newbie then), and Ravishal pointed me in the direction of good-looking eyes and skins. Add some freebie hair and clothes and you get this:

Some iterations later, and last Monday, I looked like this:

I love those expressive eyes, but the face still looks flat to me, now that my eyes have become accustomed to SL and skins. Enter skin shopping - but more about that later.