Learning to Swim

This story has an SL picture of me visiting an underwater world, and this story is about water. My friend Leigh had a story about trust and it made me think of this story.

I had to take swimming lessons once a while ago when I was a kid because it is important to know in case you fall out of a boat or something. It was really scary to be in water over your head because you could slip under and not be able to breath. So naturally kids are not too keen on not breathing and were not so crazy about being in water without knowing how to swim.

The class was divided into 2 groups. Since I could swim a little I was put in the deep-end group. Our swim teacher was very nice. The other group had a mean teacher. He reminded me of Lurch on the Addams Family. He had a deep voice with eyes that rolled back into his head. But he believed in the "sink or swim" principle. When the kids cried that they were afraid to go into the water he would pick them up and just throw them in. They would scream and the scream would echo in the indoor tiled swimming pool room.

I am not sure the "Lurch" system is a good one, and I think it is not good to have "Lurch" swimming system memories in your mental closet. I remember one thing about swimming and that is that you just have to relax and not worry about going down. When you relax it is easy to float and then you can just swim with ease. I think it's sort of like when you trust things will be alright even though you know they may not be. I guess it is sort of like the fool in the Tarot deck.

Sofa Talking

I took this picture of Leigh and I not really doing much. I guess I like it because sometimes it is good not to try to do too much. It seems like sometimes you really can't plan what is going to happen in your life - you just do stuff, eat and breath and before you know it things happen to you.

Later we went to a sim that was based on the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I didn't know all the details of the book since I never read it so I pretended I sort of knew what it was about but well, I was faking it. Leigh would never say "Rammy you nit-wit you don't know C.S. Lewis!" or anything like that. Some people are so smart about something and think everyone should know about it or else they are just a loser. It is almost like they know something and it is power.

Then I started thinking about negative energy. There are so many people that have a sort of passive negative energy. It bubbles out in strange forms. They just throw it out but it sounds like angry kids who hate their dysfunctional parents. Some days in both RL and SL you get a storm of negative energy. But it clears up after a while. I guess I need to remember that. Well if anyone has a bunch of bad energy swishing around their world just remember that it comes and goes. Well enough of that.

None of my friends have big egos - I think it why I like them all. I started to think about why men have such egos for some reason. I guess it common with, shall we say, the more traditional macho male stereotype. Then I came up with this really great theory. The ego is just a way to get males to go out and do the crazy work of slaying wild animals and killing off other tribes. It was necessary to have these males for the good of the society and its security.

Star Trek and Taking Pictures

My friend Andrej found a Star Trek Enterprise that we could sit in and travel through space at warp speed. Leigh and Andrej's friend Quirt traveled through space as well. Quirt took the controls and I guess Leigh pushed some buttons to make the ship go as well. I sat in the captain's chair. As a good captain I decided that the best thing to do was to trust the work of the button pushers. I guess that is how you should run a successful business, just employ good button pushes and sit back and let the business run. If you try to tell the button pushers (to be referred to going forward as BPers) how and what buttons to push you are not a very good captain. The whole history of human civilization is littered with organizations where the leaders tried to be BPers rather than let a skilled BPer do his or her thing.

I tried to take a picture but all you see are little tiny heads. When I learned to take pictures the old fashion way, with film, I didn't have a lot of money and I didn't want to waste film. So I would try to get as much of a bang for my buck as I could and stepped way way way back (that's so I would get as much in as I could) and take a picture of people with little teeny tiny heads that you would have no idea who they were.

The Crazy Centaur Race

Well this is just a report on a crazy centaur race in Chiaroscuro. Delicious Demon Chemistry and I (in pink shirt) were racing on Leigh Eel and Nae - something. I was sort of dumb and forgot to write his name down so my news reporting skills are sort of bad. But he is a very nice centaur and as soon as I get his name I will put it in the comments section.

Anyway we thought it would be fun to race but it turned out to be a big mess. Leigh started "running into the ditch" as they say on the farm when you are driving the tractor. But he couldn't help it. It is easy for the ride receiver to complain since I didn't have to do any real work - just sit and ride. Ricardito came later and watched.

Well the whole thing was sort of funny and I kept laughing. Anyway - we were not racing for anything, we were just doing it to see how things would evolve. I think it is good to do things to see what will happen with out worrying about what is supposed to happen.

When I started to think about it today my head just sort of flowed into a big lake of crazy thoughts about having fun and enjoying things and all that stuff.

I think people have mind magnets that attract other people with mind magnets and these mind magnets are necessary for humans to be happy. If you spend time all day at a place where the other people's mind magnets are set to zero or are around other people whose magnets are sort of dulled out then you will never be happy.

Blogs are Diaries Turned Upside Down Again

I still have this weird theory that blogs are diaries turned upside down. In a diary you write a bunch of stuff the you lock up with a key and no one will ever read it. But blogs you write a bunch of stuff and the whole world can read it if they want.

I just read my friend Leigh's blog and it is so moving and personal that I must confess I started to get sort of emotional because it was so personal. I am so glad he wrote it. It is here. It is very long but I enjoyed reading it.

Well that's all for now.

People from Other Countries

I started thinking about people from other countries tonight. My friend Franz had a piano and I started to play Beethoven on it. I really like to play the piano. Franz sat and listened dressed in, shall we say, a slightly informal attire. Anyway as I was playing I started thinking of all the people I meet from Europe. I used to think people from Germany were very good at engineering things but never realized how complicated the German culture is and how complicated people can be. As I played I realized that people in the US are really sort of simple and easy to figure out. We elect people for office who think they are in a bad cowboy movie and don't understand why the rest of the world gets upset with us. Well maybe now we put someone in who has more sense - maybe people will start liking people in the US more, at least I hope so.

I think that is why it is good to have friends all over the world, at least that is what I have learned. Well enough of that. (This picture to the right makes me look like a crazed vampire.)

It was very nice to be in a homey place and that is what this house feels like. I am not sure "homey" is a real word but I think it must be. Homey or homie? Hommy? no. Homey must be a word. Some languages have really good words that mean "a home like comfortable atmosphere" so maybe someone has a suggestion.

Franz and I were talking about being one year old tonight. SL is so surreal in some ways. I don't like to say anything is "surreal" because it is used so often by people who don't have a clue what surrealism is all about. But I do feel that life in SL is another level of reality or something. When I first started I would have dreams that I was rezzing to a new place or something like that. That may have been because I stayed up so late inworld. Anyway that's my blog tonight.

Happy Holidays

Well this time of year everybody is busy with things. Even if you are a pagan there is a holiday soon, Yule. They sometimes say people get real depressed this time of year. I am real lucky and have nothing to feel depressed about. In fact I am rather happy, so much so that I took a picture in this Santa Hat. My friend Franz gave me the hat. He is going to take some time away from SL so I will miss him.

The other day I was at a kiss auction to auction kisses to raise money for a SIM named Chiaroscuro. I forgot to take a picture but it was decorated very nicely for the event. I must not be the kissable type, or else it was late and people were auctioned out or something because my bids were, well how shall I put it? - not so high. But fortunately my friend Leigh came to the rescue.

Well I hope everyone is happy, healthy, etc. and has a happy holiday. I will try to put more interesting things in my blog, this was sort of a dulls-ville blog. In fact as I am writing it I am amazed at how totally dull it is. I guess this will be my New Year's Resolution - to make the blog more exciting. Well bye for now.