Immersion = titty sprinkles

Not everyone hears MF reading the words, but I get the concept. Our brains do funny things.

You have seen variations on this fact more crudely put with the “fcuk you” poster. The new Neal Stephenson book title also illustrates this (title is at the bottom of the cover):

Thank you, Amazon! Go buy the book, I’ll wait.





Our brain acts like an interpreter and seems to have a biological imperative to make sense out of what it sees even if what it sees makes no sense. It will suggest that because we have heard Morgan Freeman’s marvelous voice and really trust what he says, we mimic it as we read. I’ll bet you even chuckled in his voice as you understood what that picture was telling you.

The immersion experience of Second Life is like this. Those of us who have been doing this for years … yes, in a way this is my fifth Rez Day celebration article … KNOW about the flexibility of our brains and how they interpret immersion in our “cartoon” world. Making the distinction between Real Life and Second Life is bullshit for us. Second Life is real; the experience changes the chemistry of my brain as fundamentally as my experience of First Life. I make the distinction as what comes first in priorities: my actual body has needs that come before my pixel body. That’s it. My pixel friends are just as important as my actual friends, and that often makes SLife hard.

But anything worth doing is worth working at. We residents of Second Life should be proud of this work even when first life friends give us owlish looks of perplexity. It’s so interesting that second life friends understand completely when first life interrupts an appointment, but first life acquaintances get tripped up when I say: I’ve got roller derby practice or I promised I would meet someone in SL.

I could reminisce yet again about all of my varied experiences over those past five years, but instead, I would like to share what went on yesterday (February 11 to be exact and considering the queue of articles I am accumulating). I will confess to hoping that buying a paint job for Lisa’s Rascal would lure her into SL and it worked! We hugged as we usually do in our living room in Writers’ Rest (see pic below), then agreed to teleport down to the backyard to spray paint the car (see the can on the hood?).

That accomplished, we drove all around the Lithe sim, where we live. Oh, yes, we saw Demonia, Lisa’s seal point kitteh and took her along for the ride.

That’s Writers’ Rest in the background, with my airship, The CyberWitch, tethered above our wonderful treehouse. Note the green paint job on Lisa’s Rascal.

Once we got tired of running around the island, I suggested we could motor about at Penny Lane, the sim owned by Shauna Vella, editor of Moonletters X. We teleport, Demonia still along for the ride and me feeling like my kitteh, Shae, is going to be very jealous. We drive around Penny Lane and what a terrific sim this is. We are chatting the whole time, a mix of what’s going on in first life as well as SL adventures. We are both writers. While she mostly writes about all this research she is doing, I write about SL, so it’s mainly MY SL adventures. This amazes my SL wife just as her writing amazes me.

We then stop and ride the merrygoround. At one point, Lisa chose the riding backwards position which cracked me up. I feel right now like I am absolutely failing to convey the most important aspect of this little narrative: the absolute delight we take of each other, of being together virtually, enjoying the fashions we wear, the look of our hair, the ability to drive around with a big beautiful cat in Lisa’s arms, jumping from one sim to another …

Well, we end up in the Killing Moon Pub. And we dance. I am sure we are doing moves that we’ve never pulled off quite so well or in defiance of gravity in first life. Every once in awhile, we click on the Fnordian Magic Mirror:

Fnordian Magic Mirror: Paypabak Writer, you have the most lovely toes in the universe, and I think I’m in love!

Fnordian Magic Mirror: Lisa Hitchcock, you have the smoothest skin in the universe, and I so want to touch it!

The atmosphere in Shauna’s club is wonderful! It holds such fine memories, including our wedding reception among our European friends. We dance and continue to delight in each others company until we both need to log off.

And that’s my story. Very simply, SL allows me a chance to reach out and touch, and to be touched, in inexplicably marvelous ways. My brain translates, my soul accepts, my heart dances.

So I have this idea that on February 24, some virtual friends may want to help me celebrate or at least mark the occasion of five years in SL, what I want to say to my first life acquaintances, who may look askance, is … titty sprinkles!