Hair!

Hello. My name is Opal. I am a hair-aholic.

For almost two years now, I've been battling this addiction. Well, maybe "battling" is not the right word. "Indulging" is probably a better word.

There was a time when I'd buy a new hairstyle once a week. With all the colors.

And over time, it has gotten worse. Now, I buy *several* hairstyles each trip.... It's getting out of control.

And then, one of my MODA friends mentioned the Hair Fair 2008. Well, I was travelling the past week, so I didn't have a chance to go until last night.

So, after five hours of roaming four sims, I ended up with four thousand fewer Lindens and two thousand more inventory items. Oh, alright, maybe not quite *two* thousand. But my transaction history shows 117 transactions (both freebies and purchases) at the Rezzable sims last night.

When I woke up this morning and saw the big mess in my inventory, I realized that I needed help.

My name is Opal. And I'm a hair-aholic.

PS: The winners of the Hair Fair photo contest are listed here. Check out the honorable mentions.

Hunka Umpa Lumpa

I have a new beau. *giggles*

I met him last night as I was skating the Relay for Life trail. He was standing there at the edge of the bridge next to a luminary, followed by his brothers. He was leading the troop shirtless, revealing his hunky physique. His spiky hair reaching up over his head. His outtie belly button sticking out from his blue pants. His big black shoes supporting him solidly on the ground.

I fell in love at first sight. His name is Umpa Lumpa.



I stood there for a long while, mesmerized by this vision, before I pulled myself away to continue on the lap. But I couldn't stay away. During my next lap, I paid the luminary next to him -- my second luminary. (My first was near the auctions where I started my laps.) Paul was in IM with me so I tp'd him over and he paid the next luminary in line before going to bed.

After Paul left, I stood there a long while again with my new beau.

Today, I went searching for him in Madcow Cosmos's teapot shop, but he was nowhere to be found. So I pleaded Madcow to let me take Umpa home, and Madcow sent him to me without a dowry. He said that Umpa was made for the RFL, so I should just send them my Lindens instead of paying him. So, I went back to the RFL trail and paid a third luminary up the hill from my first one.

Now, Umpa and I sit by my waterfall watching the sunset. Don't we make such a cute couple?



PS: Lora, notice the big hands.
PPS: Yes, Howard, another boyfriend for my collection. I now have three in my inventory. :D

Pulling myself together

Jaime had always joked about my persona being fragmented, what with my separation of my RL and my SL, with all my different alts, and with all the different work I do. I explained that these fragments were all different aspects of me, and he accepted my explanation.

The last time we had a long conversation, he felt that, now, he too was getting fragmented. My only response was that, sometimes, we have to split off aspects of ourselves in order to pay attention to those aspects and heal them.

Well, as I've mentioned in the last blog entry, it seems that my different aspects are converging, because my alts are beginning to look alike. This past week, another convergence has happened -- I got a domain.

And you're probably going, "Huh?" ;D Well, one small step at a time. First, I have to pull Opal together, all my businesses as Opal and all my activities as Opal. So, now, they're all under one roof, so to speak. Introducing...

www.OpalLei.com

Yup. And it's anonymous, so don't go looking for my name in whois.org. But it has links to everything Opal does, including this blog.

Oh, alright, I lied. It has links to everything *PG* that Opal does. Geez.

Old clothes

The homework for the MODA runway class on Thursday is to prepare three outfits separated into folders for quick changes.

So here I am, trying to decide what outfits to use for the homework, since last night. And, of course, I get distracted and start cleaning my inventory.

I realized, I hadn't worn anything casual for a long time. I'm trying out these outfits in my "Casual" folder and, boy!, memories come flooding back.

In a sense, that's good. It brings back my old SL, a time when it was innocent and quiet and stress-free, a time when it truly was an escape from real life.

And to top it off, I just moved my home position yesterday, back to Aglia in my old skyloft.

I'm coming full circle....

Even mo' bettah

I realized that one of my alts hasn't been upgraded for a year and a half either, so I went looking for a new skin for *her* and found other skins I hadn't looked at.

So, I reconsidered skins for Opal. Well, I ended up with the same skin as my RP alt, who looks the best of all my alts anyway. But, as usual, I had to tweak the face to keep the same feel. I've also changed her body so it's shaped more like my RP alt's.

Makeda Cole of MODA had suggested that I consider going with an ethnic look. I initially said I'd leave the ethnic look with my RP alt, because my friends don't like it when I change Opal's looks. But, as I was tweaking my shape to try to get the old look with the new skin, I ended up with this ethnic look anyway:



It seems my alts are converging. Just as my SL and my RL are.

Mo' bettah me

It took me four hours in Orientation Island to create my face shape on my first day in SL. It looks nothing like the RL me, but it is the face that I had been drawing since I learned to draw. It was my ideal face. Although I've changed the body shape a few times, I didn't touch the face for more than a year and a half.

It took me six months to find a skin that would preserve that look and feel. I found it in X2:Exotica with their Soft Fusion line. At that time, it was among the best available skins in SL. And among the most expensive at 4,000L per set of five makeups. Although I bought a total of three different skin tones (tan, deep, and dark), I've stayed with the same manufacturer. In fact, I've stayed with the same makeup set in the same line.

Anyway, I've changed. Here's why.

The story starts in February when Shanna Sungsoo asked if I would be interested in doing a mermaid fashion show, which would feature several mer tail designers. I said, sure, but I only had one tail to show and I wanted to model it myself. At that time, I was already planning the bridal mer tail but hadn't started work on it yet. I wanted to unveil it (pun intended) at the fashion show.

Well, I watched a few SL fashion shows on YouTube and realized there were things I didn't know about modelling at a fashion show, so I started looking at training and found the MODA Modeling School. I filled out an application and didn't hear from them for a long time.

Meanwhile, the mermaid fashion show kept getting postponed, until I couldn't wait that I went ahead and released my bridal mer tail. When the fashion show got scheduled, I couldn't model the tail anyway. At around the same time, I got word from MODA, but the classes started after the rescheduled fashion show.

The MODA classes started last week, continue through this week, and will end after next week. It was the Photography class last week that made me realize it was time for a new skin. I was about ready to get new skin anyway because I'm seeing more realistic skins available now. And, as the Photography class illustrated, the skin makes a big difference in the headshots.

Well, I tried a gazillion demos. But they all changed the look and feel of my face and no tweaking could bring back that "flavor". So I finally went back to X2 and noticed their Hyper Fusion line. It photographed better. I got the deep tone but there was a blue tint to the highlights that kinda made me look like a zombie. So I got the tan tone and it works much better. However, I had to tweak my face shape, particularly the mouth, to preserve the feel.



Then I had to buy natural-looking eyes because the eyes I had in inventory had very white whites. I found the perfect eyes at Wild Lilies. I bought several pairs.



So, I have two headshots for the Photography homework. Same pose, same lighting, same composition. But one is everyday sweet and the other is evening elegant. The everyday sweet one is now my profile pic. (How'd you like that transparent background?)

It's still me, only better. Mo' bettah.

"Kiss the Rain"

I popped into SL briefly today to attend an ISM meeting. SL says that my laptop's graphics card and my CPU do not meet the minimum requirements, but I got in anyway.

During the meeting, Sir Robert (well, that's what I call him because he's the first person to ever call me "milady") sent me a link to YouTube. But I couldn't listen to it until now, because, well, I couldn't risk crashing.

And, oh, what a beautiful song! It's called "Kiss the Rain" by Yiruma.


Here's the full version showing the musician playing it himself.


Merci beaucoup, Monsieur Robert! You made my day. And I have a new favorite piece of music and a new favorite composer. :)

/me loves this music as much as she loves the rain.