Griefing...

After logging back on I found myself safely on land, still on Help Island. I was feeling okay. I made my way, carefully, towards the plaza where all the folks had gathered. I noticed a lovely looking "person" wearing a gown covered in peacock feathers. She gestured towards a sign and made beautiful white glowing spheres shoot from her wrist. I hobbled towards her and pressed the "chat bar".

"Hi, I like your dress." She turned to look at me and flew off.
Did I look weird? I suddenly felt sort of shy. What the hell? How can I, an avatar, feel shy?? But there you have it - real life crosses into second life. I couldn't bear the thought of walking down the promenade towards the group with everyone checking me out. Everyone looked so pulled together. So I hovered above the group and watched as chat appeared on the lower left side of my screen. I was eavesdropping! I landed and sat on a bench. I had no clue what anyone was talking about. A huge guy with black wings rushed by. An avie with shining "bling" stood sentry near me, arms crossed. His handle (or name, which floats above everyone's head) read something about a car company. I sat there for a little bit when a nice person named Arri asked if I needed help. Like in real life, I was most concerned about my outfit. I asked how I might change my clothes. Arri promptly delivered a box of clothes to my inventory. I made my way back to the park and tried to edit my appearance. My avatar froze and arms and legs stuck out like a kid preparing itself to be slathered with sunscreen.

All clothing pieces are objects created by "prims", or shapes, that can be edited to create anything from clothes to stuctures which then inhabit the worlds in Second Life. I clicked a few buttons and suddenly I lost my skirt (still had pants on). I then tried to manipulate my hair-do, or "city buns". They floated next to my ears like birds nests and landed on my face. I struggled with the hairy city buns when suddenly an enormous avie who resembled the Incredible Hulk sidled up to me and shoved me. "Here's my anus!" he shouted (through my computer) and he bent over. Thankfully, I didn't see any prim-built arsehole. "Here's my anus!" He yelled again and walked through me. I stood my ground and struggled with my buns...time to log out.

Help Island

The first day went alright. I chose an avatar called "city chic". A tall chick in red tunic and capris appeared and stood around cluelessly in the middle a grassy field on "Help Island", first stop for all "newbies". I pottered around in circles and then tried flying. I wandered over to a road and building that had the atmosphere of City Hall Plaza Boston at 4 a.m. on a Sunday. I tried to drive an abandoned steam roller but it didn't run. I saw the body of another avatar slumped over in a car, otherwise, the place was abandoned. Where were all the peeps?

I lifted gently and rose above trees and structures and lo and behold...there were others. I could see them bustling in a park. I flew toward them, over a vast ocean and promptly landed in it rather than the park...I watched, horrified, as my avatar plunged into the sea. I frantically clicked my directionals as Siri struggled into a speck and then disappeared under the water. I've never felt so bleak.

Life begins...

So with all this talk about Second Life during my classes at library school, I thought why not check it out. I mean, I loved playing Adventure on my dad's IBM, where I typed directions in orange text and made my troll character fetch gold bars. I scrawled maps as I made my way through the maze and avoided the wizard. (Alas, my parents split up and my dad took the computer before I could earn my "certificate of wizardness.") After that came D&D and sci-fi conventions with my boyfriend's brother leading the way. We traveled up and down the east coast, staying in hotels and browsing the huckster's rooms. For an impressionable teen this was great stuff - watching large men in chain mail chatting up creatures dressed in fur and bunny ears sipping cherry brandy, fairies and vampires, ghouls and warriors, taking over Sheraton Plaza hotels. This was a complete antidote to my crappy suburban high school experience where the arty and punk rock kids were shunned and shat upon. I could breathe easy among these supposed freaks and geeks at the cons. I was never compelled to role play myself and, later, was turned off by those in the Excalibur Club at college who used to run through campus towards the dining hall wearing capes and drawing swords.

After college, in the early 90s, I lived next door to a guy who never came out of his apartment. He was gray-faced from indoor living, surrounded by computer monitors, and babbled endlessly about the end of the pen and pencil. He gave me an old apple mac and introduced me to Myst. He gave me copies of dreamweaver and macromedia and other top secret programs that sent sreaming skulls at me when I downloaded them to my harddrive. He spent all day long inventing a virtual museum, which I never saw...orange cubes floated about in the universe of his computer monitor, turning slowly about. I could see the potential but it was never realized during our friendship. He must have gotten somewhere because now, years later, we have Second Life.

And so, yesterday, armed with an unsteady understanding of all things virtual, and without my certificate of wizardness, I began my life as Siri Woodget.