Out on a Saturday Night

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

...in Second Life

Mitali aka Pat and I went out for the evening with my childhood friend Amarynth aka Amy last night, in Second Life. Mitali was relatively new to the environment, but definitely had just the right spirit. Here she is, with horns and wings, posing by Amarynth's rooftop pool:



[19:10] Amarynth Emmons: what sort of skin would you like?
[19:10] Mitali Wycliffe: Stripes
[19:10] Amarynth Emmons: dark? light? blue? lol
[19:10] Mitali Wycliffe: Blue!
[19:10] Amarynth Emmons: let me see if i have a blue that's transferable
[19:11] Mitali Wycliffe: I should wear shorts so people can see my blue skin.
[19:11] Amarynth Emmons: hehe
[19:11] Amarynth Emmons: actually if your skin is modifiable you can make it blue
[19:11] Katzenelenbogen Koolhoven: with stripes?
[19:11] Amarynth Emmons: no
[19:12] Mitali Wycliffe: I found a hat.
[19:12] Amarynth Emmons: stripes would have to be part of the skin or done as a tattoo
[19:12] Katzenelenbogen Koolhoven: charmante
[19:12] Amarynth Emmons: lol

We also took a stroll around the Beyond Space and Time exhibit at the Forbidden City:

[19:44] Mitali Wycliffe: is this IBM?
[19:44] Katzenelenbogen Koolhoven: actually, this is not
[19:44] Katzenelenbogen Koolhoven: This is the Forbidden City
[19:44] Katzenelenbogen Koolhoven: in China
[19:44] Amarynth Emmons: neat!
[19:44] Katzenelenbogen Koolhoven: (an exhibit)
[19:44] Mitali Wycliffe: cool
[19:44] Katzenelenbogen Koolhoven: that IBM helped with
[19:44] Katzenelenbogen Koolhoven: want to walk around?
[19:44] Amarynth Emmons: sure
[19:45] Mitali Wycliffe: hey they bow when you click on them
[19:48] Virtual Forbidden City Calligraphy Kit owned by AM Radio gave you 'Virtual Forbidden City Calligraphy Kit' (http://slurl.com/secondlife/BeyondSpaceAndTime/115/84/25).

First Life Interfered

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

...with My Second Life

"Uh, I'm sorry, but I've gotta go. There's a big, menacing guy right behind me in Second Life -- a virtual world -- and I've gotta get away from him."

"Um, OK."

"Do you know what an avatar is?"

"Uh, no."

"Well, I'm supposed to meet my friend in Second Life, a virtual world, right now, but she's also got a New Jersey number and I thought it was her, calling, so I hope you'll understand...."

"Uh, sure, I can tell you're unable to talk right now, so I was just calling about [the artists' support group that meets in Montclair on Monday nights]...."

"Yes, let's talk tomorrow 'cause we might not be meeting tomorrow night due to the holiday [Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday] and I'll know by then."

"OK."

"Thanks. I know I didn't make much sense, but I appreciate your understanding. Bye."



So the picture here proves that I got away from the scary person and did find my friend at one of what she tells me are the many, relaxing, beautiful sims (places) available to visit in the Second Life virtual world. We were starting slowly to try to re-kindle a friendship that had lasted from ages eight-14, and which had ended with hurt feelings. We had found each other through Facebook, met once face-to-face, and then agreed, the next time, we'd meet in Second Life, since she was super-experienced, and I was a newish fan.

Hair Was the Chief Motivation

The mission was for us to fix my hair. Already, I had selected a style from the default female choices; it was mullet-y and wholly unattractive. In fact, a colleague had threatened earlier this year not to present with me about virtual worlds at an industry conference unless I improved my appearance. Perhaps I wrote about it here prior, as it took me aback, coming from someone who, in real-life, wears jeans to work -- she's a 3D Internet expert and they get to wear whatever they want to work, and sometimes seem to have a relatively casual aesthetic sense about how they appear in real-life.

Fortunately, she relented, as I opted, instead, to present about the IBM Metaverse, where I have a super-appealing avatar, if I do say so:


But back in Second Life with my friend, I still looked worse than I do in real-life. We were going to change all that this afternoon...until Second Life crashed.

Old Feelings Triggered by a New Social Medium

"When is a less busy time to go in?" I picked up the phone and called my friend to ask her, "I mean, 30 minutes ago, there were somewhere around 70,000 people online, and now, 67,000."

"In the past month or so, I've seen it be pretty steady at around 70,000 people, so I don't know of a less busy time; usually, I'm in on week-nights between 9 and 11 pm and you can try me then."

I was crestfallen; aside from that time-period, typically being my Pat/TV/dinner/reading time before I pass out for the night, I was feeling anxieties like I had had toward the end of our childhood friendship -- whether irrationally or not did not matter. For example:

"Well, I don't want to interrupt you from whomever you're with at that point, so --"

"I'll let you know if I'm busy."

"OK," I tried to sound brave, and we hung up.

Ugh, this was what happened to us as kids. Ultimately, often, there was a friend even more fun than I that she opted to play with.

I did not want to re-live *that* experience.

Ninety minutes later, I tried coming in again and got lucky, until my friend's camera stopped working and so she left and was going to return, and then meantime, I vaporized my own avatar like so:


I logged out and sent a direct message via Twitter to my 3D Internet expert colleague-friend, asking her to remind me how to restore my avatar, since the same thing had happened some months back, and she had helped me then.

Meanwhile, in real-life, I'm hungry for dinner, but I have to include how I love that in minutes, I got a response: "Open Inventory (btnlower rt),at bottom of inventory list, under Library, Find an avatar outfit, and drag/drop on yourself."

Pre-dinner Reflections

A real turkey burger is waiting for me in the oven; Pat's watching football and so I'm on my own with the rest of the meal construction, and:

Just a few more thoughts -- for now -- about Second Life vs. Real-life: My avatar is me, and my friend elicited the exact same insecurities in my avatar as existed in real-life when we stopped being friends at 14...so that's the thing: Second Life is real-life. My avatar has my brain behind it, so no matter what outfit or hair-style I assign my avatar, she'll still be me.

The other thought is a prediction: Just as I spend far too much leisure-time in Facebook today, within a year or two, I'll likely switch to Second Life, and I bet many others will, too, particularly if the servers can handle mashups of Facebook capabilities within SL. So if Facebook could buy Second Life and enrich it with all of the fun things I look for in Facebook -- easy ways to connect with people around the world and to hunt for old friends, along with ample self-expression opportunities, e.g., fascinating and/or funny groups to join and create (and it already has groups), it'll be like what movies are to slideshows; both have their charms, but movies, typically, have become far more popular...and in the movie that is Second Life, we get to be among the movie stars ourselves. We *are* the stars.

Almost a year ago, I was at a conference, where a bunch of social networking execs. vomited on Virtual Worlds, saying, they were all for online gaming, but they felt that today's Virtual Worlds were like "B movies." I think their scorn will continue at their peril.

Second Life, and virtual worlds altogether, are far more intense, with my greater personal investment in the experience than any social networking site I've yet discovered...and I am adventurous with social networking exploration. Certainly, I'm not meaning to be an ingrate about all that Facebook offers -- and I might be trying to earn back fidelity points with my own blog by seeming to denigrate Facebook -- but I really do look forward to a mashed-up version of Facebook and Second Life. I'm sure I'm not the first to say it, and my 3D Internet colleague and friend would likely tell us that convergence is already happening. I can't wait till it's apparent to 3D Internet average citizens like me.

Revisiting the Artist

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

...I Was As a Kid

A few years ago, I drew a picture of an open Caran D'Ache crayon box, containing 16 crayons. Instead of color-names for labels, they included the physical, educational, spiritual and cultural experiences of my childhood that I most valued, from toddlerhood to age 13. I consider them features of myself as an artist because all of them led to self-expression without self-consciousness, to joyful freedom.

The crayons were labeled as follows:

• G'yupapah
  
• Shlof mein kind
  
• Drawing
  
• Frog's eggs
  
• The stone wall
  
• Rocks
  
• Bike riding
  
• Swimming pool games
  
• Sashi moments
  
• Singing at seders
  
• Deb's paintbrush
  
• Rollerskating
  
• Skiing
  
• Disco
  
• Nature classes
  
• Mrs. Honan.
  

If I were able to create a columnar table here, I would, but since I'm not, I'll do my best to add, side by side, a translation where necessary; with whom I had the experience; and why it made the list:

• G'yupapah; a ride and the name I made up for it as a toddler; my oldest sister Deb invented it and provided it; felt in-flight
  
• Shlof mein kind; a lullaby; my father sang it to me pre-sleep; cherished 1:1 attention from him and how he would tell me stories then, too, always falling asleep himself mid-plot while sitting on the perpendicular bunk-bed below, which was empty, since my older sister didn't have to go to bed as early as I
  
• Drawing; by myself; with friends, Alicia, Amy and at Art classes; enjoyed portraying what I saw, pressing hard on the white sketch-paper and using vivid colors
  
• Frog's eggs; found them in a pond at the Stamford Museum and Nature Center and a Nature teacher agreed to keep them and let them hatch in the Nature Center; felt like a discoverer and marveled that my net actually yielded something special
  
• The stone wall; on either side of our driveway were woods, which included a Colonial-times stone-wall that my sisters, friends and I used to run back and forth across the top of and use as our jumping off point for swinging when we found vines, hanging from nearby trees; felt like the wall's rocks were part of our family and welcomed our playing on them
  
• Rocks; my nana gave me my first piece, clear, though rutilated, quartz and I began collecting in earnest with my friend Amy; felt like I could search for treasure everywhere
  
• Bike riding; with my sister Kathy, neighborhood friends; friends, Adrienne, Amy; made me feel free and that I was the master of my own fate and day
  
• Swimming pool games; with my sisters, friend J.J. and her little sister Erica; more freedom, and the fun of mixing non-verbal and verbal communication just by being under-water and then above the surface
  
• Sashi moments; when my 3rd grade teacher Rabbi Kosowsky encouraged all of us to be like the Biblical commentator Rashi and offer our own interpretations of paradoxical sentences from the Bible -- since my name is Sarah, whenever I provided an original interpretation, he referred to me as Sashi; felt creative, smart, proud, engaged in the learning, a sense of magic, coming from my own brain
  
• Singing at seders; with my sisters, mother and father; enjoyed the sound of all of us together; and also was proud to know all the tunes and words for what we sang
  
• Deb's paintbrush; my oldest sister never knew I was borrowing it, as she was away at college, but I felt like it was extra-special, since it was hers
  
• Rollerskating; by myself, once with my father and once alone, without my mother knowing, in Central Park, when there was an area in the late-seventies, where people skated to disco in a big circle; she thought I was going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art -- don't know how she failed to notice the bulky knapsack I wore (with my sneaker-skates inside); felt like I was flying with musical accompaniment
  
• Skiing; with kids from the Stamford Jewish Community Center; again, felt like I was flying, and felt stylish in my ski-clothes
  
• Disco; listened by myself, but once, entered and won a middle-school, line-dance contest with my friend Amy; felt transported from wherever I was into the rhythm and cheerful beat
  
• Nature classes; by myself and whoever else took the classes; loved walking the trails and learning how to identify the local trees
  
• Mrs. Honan; Mrs. Honan was probably my first crush, but perhaps more important, she encouraged and welcomed my creativity, e.g., when my friend Adrienne and I wanted to paint the grooves of a series of worm-hole scored twigs that we had found outside our school in order to sell them for profit, and she was also the Science teacher I had when I won Honorable Mention in the Connecticut State Science Fair, for "Problem: Energy Crisis. A Solution: Wind Power."
  

Looking at this list and why the items made the list offers clues to the artist I want to be as an adult; when I cull key words from the list above, I see that for my art, I value:

• Feeling like I'm flying (without a plane)
  
• Attention
  
• Physically needing to press with my hands to produce art
  
• Vivid colors
  
• Discovery
  
• Being close with nature (e.g., "Felt like the wall's rocks were part of my family....")
  
• Treasure-hunting, with treasure being relative
  
• Freedom
  
• Control over my days
  
• Verbal and non-verbal communication opportunities
  
• Magic
  
• Originality
  
• Learning engagement
  
• Musical transportation, i.e., feeling transported by the beat
  
• Liturgy
  
• Singing in community
  
• Symbols of artfulness (e.g., my oldest sister's paintbrush, which had various colors caked onto the wooden part)
  
• Feeling stylish
  
• Being encouraged in my creativity.
  

Snow Reminds Me...

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

...of Being a Kid

When I was a little kid, we'd bundle up and then spend all day outside, crunching the white parts of the ice in puddles on my gravel driveway; feeling the wind burn our cheeks; breaking off icicles and eating them plain....

About 10 years ago, through switchboard.com, I found the next-door neighbor with whom I used to play most often, and with whom I always had reliable fun; I called her Manhattan number. She agreed to meet me for lunch in my employer's cafeteria, in the IBM building on 57th and Madison at the time.

She arrived, looking like a gorgeous, grown-up, big-city version of the beautiful little, suburban girl I played with nearly every day when we were very young. She was practically breathtaking and I was not prepared to face an adult woman. I don't know why I was expecting someone more the size she was before she moved away at seven. I was thinking of both of us as kids, even as I myself had tried to look extra-successful when I got dressed for work that morning.

She had a Burberry bag and was also wearing work-clothing, and looked prosperous, if not super-happy. It was anti-climactic.

For some moments, we returned to that time more than 25 years prior by talking about her little sister, who was a couple of years younger than us, and how she always hung out with us, but then my friend broke the spell, telling me how her sister had grown up.

I reminded her how she taught me that women had babies by going to the bathroom and producing them that way, which she didn't recall; and how I relished eating my mother's salami and scrambled eggs with her and her sister in our sukkah; and how I loved coming over on Christmas mornings, since I didn't need to be with my family then, as we didn't celebrate the holiday; and of the 1972 Olympics poster of Mark Spitz that she had on her bedroom wall; and how her mother, who was British, had introduced me to the concept of tea with milk, whereas I had only known of it as being served with lemon prior.

My childhood friend told me that her father was still alive, though her mother had died. My heart sank; her mom reminded me of Agent 99 in "Get Smart" looks-wise, and was always warm to me. We also talked about their white sheep-dog, Fluffy, who comforted any of us whenever we cried.

After all, we did not have as much to say to each other as I had hoped, nor did we feel connected by what mattered to us as adults, and I could feel her disappointment at having decided to see me again.

On a day like today, I'm reminded of how I wish that she and I could still just bundle up and go play in the snow, without trying to dress to impress, without having to talk almost at all.

Let's Go Crazy

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Always Something There to Remind Me

On the way to the restaurant to see a high school friend I hadn't seen in nearly three decades, Prince's "Let's Go Crazy" burst from my car-radio; it came out less than a year after my high school graduation. On the way home from our dinner, Naked Eyes' "Always Something There to Remind Me" came on; it first aired during my senior year, around the time my dad (z"l) died.

If only I had had the comfort of a cat back then. One sits on my lap now, kneading a thigh with her pin-prick claws and drooling a little on my keyboard. Maybe I'd have felt less alone back then if I had had such a friend.

"I'm sorry you struggled on your own," my friend said with tears, pooling in her darker-than-I-remembered eyes; she wore big, rounded-square '80s glasses back then.

Her tears made my eyes well.

My friend said this after telling me that she had wondered how she would have reacted had I told her of my lesbianism when we were in high school. "I'm glad you didn't. It would have been more complicated. It might have seemed too intimate for me to know then. I'm not sure I'd have known what to say or do."

Earlier in the day, my oldest friend, who I've known since I was three, and I took a walk. "[My son's] drama teacher is gay....You know how we know? This is such a great story about how far we've come. There was a parent-teacher conference, where the teacher was talking about going to church and about having two kids. I figured he was trying to make people feel comfortable."

"Maybe," I nodded.

"Well, I came home and asked [my son], 'Is Mr. Xxxxx gay?"

"Yes," he said.

"How do you know?"

"Because before their most recent play, he mentioned that his husband would be coming to the show."

My friend turned to me and said enthusiastically, "Isn't that great, how he was normalizing it?"

"Wonderful," I answered and heard her exclaim a couple more times about how the drama teacher was "normalizing" being gay.

It's normal, just not the norm, I want to correct her now...and then I say to myself, Why do you have to have such a big chip on your shoulder? Your friend is trying, and she does not live in your world. To her, "normalize" doesn't seem like a word that would sting. I wonder how often I've said something inadvertantly racist to her; her kids are biracial.

Still earlier in the day, I stopped by a another childhood friend's family's retail store, but my friend was not there, but her mother, and her older sister, who I had not seen in 33 years, and who looked just the same, but adult, both were there and caught up with me.

"I see your mom all the time, at the JCC, swimming," my friend's older sister said. "How was India?"

"It was great, and challenging, since my partner's female and homosexual activity is jailable --"

"Yeah, but probably not enforced," she said smoothly.

"True, they haven't enforced it in some years, we were told, but still, it made for some tension. Have you been to India?"

"No," but it turned out that she had been to Indonesia on vacation and I wondered how we had gotten from what seemed to be -- more often than not -- our God-forsaken, Modern Orthodox Jewish elementary school classrooms to these comparatively exotic locales.

The "God-forsaken" reference related to how I felt at the cruelty of some of my classmates.

"Well, you look the same," I said as I was leaving.

"Little Sarah Siegel!" she responded.

"I was never little, remember?"

"How tall are you?"

"Five foot nine and a half," I said.

"The perfect height for a gown," she said looking around the store and smiling.

"I had to wear one once," I said.

She laughed.

"Hopefully, you understand that I love how women look in gowns, but they're not for me."

Recalling My Mother's Former Vigor

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

...and My Youth

"Mom, you looked frail today when I first saw you," I said without meaning to, and then, "I mean, not weak, but rather, too thin." (Unfortunately, she looked both, but I did not want to encourage the power of suggestion.)

"I know. I looked at myself in the mirror and saw it," she agreed. My mother appeared more physically vulnerable than I've ever seen her, other than the morning after her major car accident, which was three months ago today.

After we said goodbye, I felt suddenly desperate to see a childhood friend, who would remember my mom and me when we were much more vigorous. This friend and I were best friends from age two and a half to age nine or 10.

One of my friend's daughters was wearing an adorable sun-dress that my friend used to wear, which her mother had made for her when she was a kid. Sitting with the child while my friend attended to another one in the other room, I felt like I was sitting with my friend again, at her early-childhood size.

"Your mother used to like to play School and she was always the teacher," I told the five-year-old, who was looking up at me through her little glasses -- a brunette version of her mom at that age -- "She tried to teach me Math....It didn't work -- not because your mom was not a good teacher; I was not a good student."

My friend's daughter kept looking at me and I felt like a giant, and was compared to her. "Your mom also taught me to play jacks and Backgammon. Do you know what Backgammon is?"

My friend's daughter showed me a fantastic piece of mica that she had found and I praised it sincerely. My friend and I agreed that both of us enjoyed collecting rocks when we were growing up.

We acknowledged how natural it felt for us to sit with each other and talk; we had seen each other in person maybe twice in our lives, since age 10. I brought up her dad, may his memory be blessed, and a bit about my mom, but not a lot, since we didn't want to upset her daughters by talking about the accident.

My friend's essential face in all its expressiveness was the same, and the easy laughter between us delighted me. My awkwardness at our not having seen each other much as teens or adults caught up with me at the end; as fun an exchange as we had had, where she said she remembered my favorite color and more, I still tripped over imagining how we could sustain the friendship beyond e-mail exchanges after this spontaneous visit. It was so much more fun than e-mail, speaking with her in person.

Maybe I didn't need to worry about how I'd entertain her husband and kids if they came over to our house, and maybe I could let myself be continually natural with her, or maybe the practicalities of our lives would make in-person visits challenging if they were too planned. Simply, I needed to be grateful that she was home earlier today when I called, and welcomed my visit.

Before I was leaving, she said, "One year, for my birthday, you gave me a purple, pink and maroon scarf and I always took it with me wherever I moved. Once, when my father-in-law was visiting us, he was cold, and I let him have the scarf. And he still wears it. And I think of you whenever I see it on him."