The Perils of Second Life

For the record, this is all Ray Vukcevich's fault: he invited the Wordos to a reading. Not just any reading, a reading in Second Life, a virtual reality "world" where people painstakingly create avatars so they can be 17 Again (so *that's* what Annie Lennox was singing about).

I've had a lot of really great help learning how not to smack my avatar into virtual walls from my high school friend, Amy Beltaine. I'm still learning how not to walk off the edge of ramps and cliffs. Probably the most (to me) amusing Second Life moment was trying to find a little Pre-Raphealite flame to wear over my head, and engulfing my avatar completely in roaring flames. Then walking around like it was completely normal to be perambulating over a cliff in the middle of a conflagration.

The reading? Oh, yes. I was there, but then family duty called me away, so I only caught a few opening remarks over one of Second Life's audio channels. By then I'd managed to have a little flame hanging over my head instead of being a walking Olympic Torch. I even managed to take a seat without walking into the Christmas tree in the reading room's corner. I'm excited by the prospect of a prose/poetry reading in Second Life because it can make an event something between a podcast and a radio show.

When I got back to Second Life, the reading was over. All that was left was someone's steam-powered duck. Amy was on, so I zoomed over to her house. I met some of her very nice friends, one of them who turned into a dragon. We chatted and they gave me lots of great advice (and objects) and we got to edit birdbath and water primitives (primitives -- or prims -- are the simple polygons the Second Life world is made up of). So I missed a reading, but I got to talk with a dragon (Debbie Mumford will be so jealous) and collaborate on (essentially) a sculpture.

More later...