There is a Last Time for Everything…

Well, those of you that know me have already heard  that my beloved Partner, Genie Sorbet died in the real world this weekend.

He had been at the end stages of what he called “The Dread Illness” and for the past month he and I both knew whenever he logged out of Second life, it might well be the last time we saw each other.  We talked about it once and got our shared tears and sorrow out of the way..then vowed to not talk about it again. Instead when he logged in, I would drop everything and go be with him to have fun. Our times were pretty rare because he was often tired, but we had a grand time whenever he could. We made love, we walked thou beautiful sims, we scuba dived, I even got my British beloved  to don a cowboy hat and go line dancing  with me.  And snuggles, there was so many times just filled with cuddles and kisses and talks.  I took photos of everything, seemed I was always snapping pictures of him, of us. . …I knew I was going to lose him someday and I so wanted to capture every memory.

Sadly, this week the dreaded someday finally came. Last Weds, Dec 9th, he came on and spent a couple good hours with me. We went out dancing and listened to a live comedic singer who made him laugh till his sides ached.  Afterwords he was tired but wanted a bit of time just to be held before he called it a night.  We found a place on the beach and he settled on my lap, head resting on my shoulder. Then we talked awhile,  just gentle peaceful talk as lovers will do. When he logged out that night, he was still curled into my arms. As always….I took a photo. This turned out to be  his last moments on Second life….and he spent them in my arms.

Somehow the romantic, sappiness of that poetic ending would have made him smile. He always did love when we were overly sappy and silly.

We exchanged an email and he left some comments on my fliker pages after that night, but we never talked in real time again. On Sunday night, Dec 13th, Andreas, the person and soul behind the Avatar called Genie went peacefully to sleep and never woke again.

Second Life may be “just a game” but what a game it is. It allowed a dieing man and a lonely man to find  each other and give to each other what they could not have in real life. I was so very lucky to have and hold Genie in this virtual world and though I will not speak to him again in this lifetime, I shall be forever changed by having known his gentle, peaceful soul. He has made me a better person.

Sweet Sleep m’love.

Ever Yours.

Lex ❤

The Redhead Evolution

Hold on to your video card…this post is going to be photo heavy. I started Second Life back in early 2006, before there was such a thing as Flexi hair. Men’s styles were nearly unheard of and if you could find something  prim that did not look to girlish, it was a blessing. I am a confirmed hair collector and nearly all of it is red, but i will be merciful and only show the collection highlights.

Like most guys back then, I started with the system hair. It was red of course and long. I have always been a long haired red head, even back then. So…this was my hair of choice back in 2-06, a LL original.

The hunt began soon after. I knew I wanted a long hair with out braids or curls or other girly sort of style flair. This was surprisingly hard to find. At last I tracked down my very first Prim hair. Created by HTC (Here Comes Trouble) back in “05” it was a style called “The Warrior”and was made for men. It didn’t work.  I got called “miss” and “she” a lot in this hair. That had me shopping again fast.

There were many trys and fails but this next  hair I stuck with awhile. It was made for women, but I liked it and some people could even guess I was a guy (Male skins were way worse back then.) It was created in late ’06” by Goldie Locks and was called the “teased hair”. It was my style until the flexhair arrived.

Hair that moves!  I went broke. Designers were not all instantly talented with flexi…but I didn’t care. Flowing hair! I bought stuff.  Like this long haired wonder by (Belive it or not) Cake.

And this nice ruffian look by Goldie Locks again.

Cake was the winner to me  tho and I spent a great deal of  money in their store and a long time in SL wearing their styles …even going fully over the top with this wonder by Cake called “Riven”. I got mistaken for a girl in this hair a lot too but it was so fun to wear and moved so grandly I did not really care.

By now  I was starting to think I had a decent and somewhat unique personal style going. It was mid to late ’07” and I thought it was time to try my hand at a SL modeling career.

Casting call after casting call i went to. Some of them I would be the only guy not picked. I had noticed I was half the size of these guys, with a realistic build instead of the refrigerator with a head build. I also noticed I was the only red head and the only long hair at these auditions but surely that would work in my favor. Right? Right??!

Wrong. I was repeatedly told to lose the red hair, go with a short style and bulk up my avatar. I settled for one out of 3 and for awhile…*gasp*… I cut my hair. This look the “001 hair”  by B R LY1 N became my first choice for casting calls.

As well as this little Full Perm charmer, the “Rebel” by “Boo Hoo” for days when I was feeling a bit resentful about the whole having to cut my hair in order to model requirement.

Hadn’t anyone looked at the covers of any romance novels? Nearly all those guys had long hair.  Lucky for me, a little upstart Modeling agency called “Opium” agreed to hire me, long red hair, slim body and all. Feeling more validated, i started sliding back into the long styles. Short hair is just not me. It was about then I discovered Calico and spent alot more money.  The “Connor” by Calico ….

And the “Fossarius” also by Calico were my main hairstyles when I was not on the runway.

Recently however…they have all been replaced by my latest love, The “Stone Fox” by Exile. This may well be the hair I have been looking for all along. But then I have thought that before.

Well..thats the history of my glorious red hair. Now..if you all will excuse me, its time for my beauty sleep. All this writing  and hair styling has just worn me right out.

It’s Gotten Quiet, to Quiet.

Sometimes I think I am oversensitive but Second life has been depressing me just a little bit lately. Now don’t get me wrong, the times I have with my partner Genie are the best times I have ever had in SL and I almost can’t imagine the place with out him sharing it with me. He is the best and brightest part. The store is going ok. I can’t seem to catch any breaks when it comes to shows or recognition but if I keep plugging, that will come. Maybe. At least my land fees are being covered by sales every month and the store looks awesome. So no real complaints there.

What really started this discontent was the  fading of what had not even really yet become a real friendship. There was a talented woman designer who I shall not name here. She helped me greatly on my designing, giving me a few tips and tricks to vastly improve my work.  She seemed honestly happy for me and interested in what I was doing. I was in awe of her so I made a point not to bother her often but every couple days or so I would wave or have brief chat, or ask her advice or opinion. Then suddenly she started needing to log off when i said Hi…or was to busy to chat. I never minded, she was very famous after all and i am a nobody who was just pleased that she had time for me at all. Then she vanished. I had not seen her listed on my friends list as logged in at all for a good 2 weeks and I was concerned about her, normally she was there nearly every day.

Then someone on a channel mentioned that they were talking to her at the moment. On my list, she was still listed as not logged in. Just as a test, i sent her a friendly little “Hi lovely”  IM.  She sent me a “Hi” back and that was that. I won’t bother her any more. Hmmm….guess she felt she had to hide from me.

Now I really wonder what I did to offend her and bring on this change….and chances are I will never ever know. In my head I have gone over every conversation where i may have mentioned her and i can’t find where the slight or insult was. She won’t likely ever contact me too clear it up…in hind site i realize she never did greet me first, maybe I should have taken a clue from that.

It has made me wonder who else I bother. I have a long list of  names on my friend list, but I can be on SL for hours and not hear from anyone. Genie and Harper, my sister both log on and have 15- minutes of IMs to deal with…that has never happened to me. If I log on….nobody seems to notice. Would more then 3 people even take note if i vanished entirely?

Do I expect to much? Am I being paranoid in thinking that if people don’t ever greet you, they don’t really care if they ever talk to you or not?  Am I the only one that looks at my friends list now and then and is happy to see some of my favorite people there? All I know is that lately I am pulling back into my old hermit ways, waiting days to say hi to folks and not making any hard effort to engage people in chat.  I don’t want to lose anyone else.

Or worse yet…find out there was never anything to lose in the first place.

Could I Really be SL’s Next Fashion Designer?

Last Sunday was Round Two of the SL’s Next Fashion Designer. The Theme for this week’s designs was “Famous People” and we were instructed to pick any famous person, living or dead and create a new outfit for them based on their own personal style.  I pondered some silly ideas, like making something for Elton John or Liberace, either of whom would have been a delightfully camp, grin inducing choice.  In the end tho, I had to choose the Artist currently known as Prince.

I have always been a fan of Prince and his sense of style is one I often seem to mimic in my own SL wardrobe. The crisp lines he wears and the androgynous sexuality he seems to manage with ease just delights me. That was something I could surely design an outfit around.

My poor male  model when thru allot this week. I made him lose a good forty pounds….get a very dark tan and dye his hair. Then as the final insult, I put the poor boy in high heeled boots. When it was done though….I think I had a fairly passable Prince.

(Peacock Prince by Brocade Tiger)

The outfit was cream/gold and burgundy and light colors seem to be less used. Imagine my surprise when the two most prim heavy designs in the contest were cream cold in color. It was like we planned it. In spite of astounding odds against it, 2 of the eight designers picked the same famous person, Marie Antoinette and the both of them made her a fantastic gold dress. When I saw all those ruffles and folds I had a sinking feeling  I was on my way out. My poor thin little Prince looked very small and simple out  there between the two Maries.

Then when he walked out on the runway and someone in the crowd yelled “It’s ELVIS….I love Elvis!”  I really could have just died. On one hand it was great my work was being loudly loved….but sweet gods….did he really look like Elvis?!

In spite of brief doubts….I made it thru to round two! In fact I was told the judges placed me in third place that night so the torture of my male model was well worth it. I had to go home and dance around the living room for 20 minutes after the show, I was that thrilled!

There are only 7 designers still in the running now and the next Challange is  right up my alley. Now we designers have to make a outfit for a fantasy creature or person. Vampire, elf, fairy, wicked witch, you know the list.  My idea came to me instantly and I am willing to bet nobody else will think of it.   This is going to be fun!

You can bet I plan to use more Prims this round too.

Wish me Luck.

The Enthralling Virtuality

You know I had to share more about my recent Hand fasting to Genie, after all it was just to big a day to only merit one post. Fair warning…if you are not a fan of things that are sappy and mushy then this is not the post for you.

(He takes my breath away)

My Genie is just beautiful,  I mean really, how could you not be completely over the moon about a face like that?  I have always thought he was a lovely thing to look at but during the wedding, he honestly took my breath away. I told him he is not allowed to take that crown off for at least two weeks.  In fact 2 weeks is how long we intend to give ourselves as a honeymoon.  We will be spending all our time on line together traveling SL…seeing sights, being sappy and doing other things that honeymooners typically do. (You guessed it..there will be more about that in a later post, but don’t  hope for juicy details)

This wedding story started way back in early May when I put out a singles ad on a whim and on a whim of his own Genie answered it. I am not sure it was love at first sight but as least on my part it was a crush at first sight. I was surely charmed by him. Early on in our first date, he mentioned how strange a person he was in SL because he believed in only having one lover at a time, in being true to that one person and building something solid. He thought that would run me off, but in fact I think I fell a little in love right then. He is British and I am a “Yank” as he calls it and our time zones are ridiculously different but in those first few weeks we managed to find time to see each other and talk. Wow…..did we talk. Conversation came instantly and easily to us and still does now, months later.

(Our third date, chatting away)

As second life couples go, we were slow movers. Both of us had people in our pasts that had done us very poorly and we wanted to be sure that this time, this person would be true and steady… sane and faithful and even log on now and then. Still within a month, I already knew I did not want to do my second life with out him. It was a bit over two months before we moved in together and the day we moved into our new home, I got down on a knee on the still empty floor and asked him to do me the honor of being my partner.

It’s pretty obvious he said yes.

The wedding itself  came months later and was quite an epic event. An event  I was not really sure I was up for. I kept trying to convince Genie to go small, save the money and just have some intimate little exchange of vows on some lovely sim somewhere with a few friends as witness. I honestly would have been happy with just he and I standing  in the room where I proposed and exchanging vows with the moon and ocean as witness. He was having none of it,  we were going to have a big old wedding and all our friends would be there and that was that. So I played the typical groom and got out of the way of the wedding whirlwind that was my mate to be.  Later though when his illness took Genie off SL for a couple week, I took over. He wanted a big fancy wedding and he was going to have it…even if I had to help.

Fanastacia Weddings helped plan things out for us and they did a wonderful job.  The Setting was amazing, the ceremony breathtaking and more than one person told me that it was one of the most beautiful, heartfelt weddings they had been to. We did a gypsy theme and nearly everyone dressed to suit it, it made stunning visuals.

(The wedding under way)

Even the party afterward was really fun, not dull as so many virtual receptions can be. The male wedding planner who had been helping us did a good job in spite of being clearly  unsettled by having  to deal with a couple of men.  The DJ who sat thru and watched the entire wedding ceremony and _STILL_ called us Mr and Mrs Vargas….and the one guest of a guest that had to start making jokes about me being the bride both managed to piss me off briefly but there were so many wonderful people there that two clueless ones hardly mattered. We danced with anyone that wanted a chance to dance with one of the newlyweds and got to have many intimate chats with the people who came to wish us well. When it was all over…and the last guest went  home, I was reluctant to leave, it had been that magical. I am completely glad Genie had nudged my hermit-like self into it.

More so, I am completely glad I can call him my “Husband”. I am still getting used to that….but I am liking it.

In case you wonder where I got the beautiful title for this post, it comes from the vows Genie spoke to me…a bit of which I will share with you.

“Lex, I promise to meet you in this our enthralling virtuality, take your hand in mine and walk with you.
I’ll be the subtle fragrance in your creativity, the cream that melts slowly into your coffee and the enchantment of desire in your bed.
May my words caress and comfort you always.
So Mote It Be”

Am I SL’s Next Fashion Designer?

I have started something that I am terribly excited about!  Well..two somethings really but I am not talking about my hand fasting to Genie at the moment.

What I am talking about is the SL’s Next Fashion Designer Contest.

SL’s  Next Fashion Designer is a Second Life’s adaptation of Project Runway. This  fun event aims to find “the next big Second life’s fashion designer,” and is organized by the Models with Curves Fashion District. The show is hosted by Miss International “09” Glitter Bollissima and has weekly judges that compose of  well known fashion designers, top models, and some major names in the fashion industry serving as their mentor. Jennifer Warden, the CEO of Model with Curves will serve as the resident judge.  The winner will receive 35,000L in cash, 1st runner up – 10,000L and 3rd Runner Up gets 5,000L. The winner also gets one month free rental in one of the pretty little shops at the MWC Fashion District.

When this contest came into my in box, I could not say No.  I was not going to pass this up. Even though it was due to start right when I was 2 weeks away from getting married  I HAD to see if I could get chosen as one of the ten designers that would compete. I sent in my entry, took photos of my latest outfit on the boring white background as requested and waited with my fingers crossed.

(Pheasant  Brocade by Brocade Tiger)

I GOT IN!!!

Right away, along with  my note of acceptance into the competition came the first challenge.

STYLE:

The task would be to design a Vaudeville style or 1930s Burlesque outfit to be worn by Jenn & Christina  of the Sugar Babes Musical group and also a suit design for the male band member. For the girls they wanted a black /red tight fitting corset hopefully with feathers & fine detail to the corset paired with a flowing skirt of  calf or knee length. Black was the main color to use.   For the men, an old fashion mobster style suit.

I had to make 2 outfits??!  Holy Crud. I have never made two outfits in one week before in my life and to make it even more insane I had to make a hunt gift I been procrastinating over. Plus I had already been laying out pirms for the outfits for Genie and my wedding.  Even with all that I was so excited about the contest  I dove right in and started creating. Here is what I came up with.

For the girls….

(Sugar Babe Dress, by Brocade Tiger)

And for the guys.. (Sugar Dude Suit, by (you guessed it) Brocade Tiger.)

As a nice touch, the models of the MWC agency put on a fashion show for we designers so we could pick the male and female models who would work with us thru the whole contest.  When you are presented with 30 or more beautiful people and only get to pick two…thats tough. I ended up with the sweet and charming Miss Precious Mannonen and the patient and handsome Andreas Barrowstone. They have both been wonderfully tolerant of my eccentric self so far and they did a stunning  job when it came time to show my work on the runway. It was the first time any  of my designs had been walked on a runway and it was SO COOL! It really did feel strange to be the one sitting on the sidelines watching others walk the catwalk tho.

(My wonderful models on the runway during the  first show.)

If you want to see the rest of the outfits from round one...CLICK THIS!)

The good news is I made it thru to round two!! I was not the designer of the first place outfit of the night but I was not the one who was eliminated either. On to next week and the theme is Design a Outfit for someone Famous and use thir own style. Maybe I will do Elton John…just to be silly.

Wish me Luck!

Time Flys When You Overbook, or… Its Your Wedding, Try to Focus.

Whew. I have been so busy this month I have not even had more then a passing moment to even think about this poor abandoned blog.  For the first week of September I was away. I was off on vacation, hiking in the woods and sitting about on Mother Earth, recharging the body and the soul.  Good thing I did too because I would be needing the energy for what all that was about to happen in my virtual life.

(Jacket- Crossbones by Bare Rose.   Jeans. Punk ass jeans by Snatch)

Over the last two weeks  I …..

1) Did a photo shoot as a peacock for a art showing by Figbash.  (I will tell you about that in a later post. He is amazing.)

2) Did two runway shows as a model. One was for BlakOpal and another for SF Designs. I love the clothing these designers make and just could not say no to several free outfits and a walk on the runway.

3) Got accepted into a Clothing designers contest. It has fantastic prizes and is great exposure for a basically unknown designer like me. Once again I could not resist. (More about this in a later post too…  I promise.)

4) I made 7 outfits. 3 of them for the design contest. 2 for hunt gifts that were DUE NOW.  Best of all I made the Outfits Genie and I would wear to our hand fasting. I honestly spent so much time drawing/sewing in paint shop that my shoulder was sore.

There was also allot of betrothal details…like invitations,  wedding photos, rehearsals, clothing viewings, personal notes, date reminders and such tossed in there. Not to mention I still had vows to write. Genie had been doing the lion’s share of the planning but he had taken sick and just could not get out and about to do these little details. So I took over for him.

As if all that was not enough, I kept seeing invites for  photo contests, getting mild job offers to model this, write about that or design some other thing.  I wanted to take them all  on…they looked so fun. My normally quiet IM box just kept chiming all of a sudden. Temptation to stray from my path of designing the outfits for the contest and wedding came at me from all sides.  It was hard to keep on track but deadlines were coming. It seemed as if this month had only been one week long and nothing was as done as I wanted it to be. It had to be perfect!  I was getting married…..

Time was running out.

Then almost like a miracle  it was all done.

I finished outfits in the morning of our hand fasting and finished the last lines of my personal vows to Genie as the guests were seating themselves for the service. There was nothing left to do but this.

It was perfect.

The deadlines vanished. The worry was gone. There was just Genie and I looking into each others eyes (with 30+ friends watching) vowing to take the next part of this journey together.  It was the single best day I have ever had on SL.

I could go on about how amazing everyone looked, how romantic it all was..but I won’t. Not in this post anyway. (Dare I promise another post later?)

What I  will  say is this. When Genie was there with me the frantic pace was gone. Peace settled  into my heart and a smile settled onto my face. Perfect was not  found in what I was trying to do for the wedding…perfection was found in the man I was being bound to.

I made a wish to have someone to share my Second life with and a Genie came and granted me that wish.

Thank you my Love.

Falln Fashion or Short People Ain’t Got no Reason to Model.

Lexie Jansma shouts: Today we present the wonderful collection of Azriel Demain of FallnAngel Creations! A prolific designer….when I first walked into his store I was blown away and KNEW I had to have him be a part of my Latex Fetishwear Fashion Week! At first….He was reluctant to do it. He did NOT do fashion shows. However I said I would do the work! However he has done his share of it as well. I wont say much more then this…everything you see on the stage today may not be latex…but it is all amazing!”

I figured that after all the fun involved with the latex fashion show on Monday this one would be with out a quirk worthy of writing about. What ever was I thinking?

There in the middle of all the models lining up to walk was Petite Pixie and she was well named. She did not even come up to chest height on the other models and was so short that her skirts were vanishing into the runway floor. Poor Ms. Lexie the stage director asked her kindly to grow taller and this set off little Miss Petite in a Big way.

Petite Pixie: According to the Linden Scale I am 5’8 and that should be perfect. Nobody is 7 foot tall.

Me: The Linden’s tend to make a mess of everything else, why would you believe them when it comes to figuring your height? I have you seen the size of the average SL sofa lately?

Petite Pixie: Everyone keeps getting bigger and bigger in SL, I’m not going to stretch out my pixels and polygons and look lumpy.

Random Helpful Male Model: The lumps these girls have look real good to me!

Petite Pixie: You all don’t look good in clothes, it’s awful. But no one knows because they think it’s how it is.

She continued to go on like that for some time…..alternating between how great she looked, how awful tall people look and mixed those two repeating themes in with “You can’t make me change!” for a bit of added variety.

Then “little pissed pixie” did the worst of all modeling No Nos. She IMed the designer himself and complained to him that we were wanting her to be tall and ugly. Needless to say Azriel Demain had no idea who she even was and had even less interest in her height issues.  After she found no sympathy there she shushed and went off to, most likely to complain to other short people that cared.

Eventually poor Miss Lexie the stage manager managed to get her to give up her outfit so one of the tall “Ugly” models could wear it and off we went to pratice, shaking our virtual heads. Once more we fearless models battled epic lag to put on one heck of a show.  As a historic side note, this was the first time I got to do a fashion show in high heels.

“Next up is Lexi Vargas wearing the “Fortuna Suit White”.  This beautifully detailed outfit has heavy laces running down the back of the coat and top of the jacket.  Included are flexi coat tails, flexi jabot and cuffs in black and white, and prim sunglasses.”

There had been rumors that some of the male models in this show were less then happy with the outfits, saying they looked to girlish but my first outfit was this wonderful white creation and I don’t know if it looks girlish or not, but i like the way it made me look.  It moved wonderfully. I had a grand time finding poses that would swirl the long  jacket artfully.

But I liked the next outfit even better.

“Lexi Vargas is wearing the “Magic Dance Outfit Purple”.  This outfit is based on a costume worn by “Jareth” the Goblin King, played by David Bowie in the 1986 cult-classic film Labyrinth, directed by Jim Henson of ‘Muppets’ fame. This outfit comes with three different colored pants, three different colored shirts with matching flexi ruffles, a necklace, riding crop and sculpted prim boots.  To complete the look, Lexi has also worn the  “FallnJarethHair” and  “Falln Jareth Skin” as well as the “Falln Flexi Elf Ears”.

Those of you who know me know I am a David Bowie fan and that I like to think I resemble him slightly here in SL. So getting to be the Jareth of the Falln show was a thrill. It was also quite fun to hear the audience hooting and cheering the outfit as I went by.

On all of our walks in this show we had the same partner and mine was  bespectacled gentleman called  Lonnie.  He was such a little chatterbox during the show. He IMed me continuously with advice. He told me where to stand. He told me how to walk. He kept reassuring me that all was going to be fine, that I would do just great. He was so helpful as to almost be  TO helpful.  At last I asked him how many runway shows he had done, surely I was in the presence of a very seasoned model here.

“None. This is my first” came the merry reply.

Gods…I really love modeling.  You can’t buy this  kind of humor.

And last but not least,  Genie always tells me to get out more and to try and be social. That designers are just people and liked to be talked to.. so I tied. I fanboi’ed Azriel Demain since he really is the one who’s work inspired me to start making clothing.  I told him it was a thrill to model for him and that I loved his work. He sent me a kitty smile and  “Thanks” in reply. You know what…that was plenty for me.  I got to meet and model for someone I long admired.