-
It’s a Sign
A sign that your neighbor has gone completely ‘round the bend: You overhear him saying, “Look what I just got out of the garbage!” A sign that your government is taking itself waaaaaay too seriously: It spends taxpayer money to have National Security Agents hang out in virtual worlds like Second Life and World of…
-
Social Identity: Tribalism meets Individualism
After the most profound heartbreak of my life several years ago, I decided to go on the most bizarre rebound I could conceive in this electronic age of ours. I went into the virtual world of Second Life, found the one person who was as unlike me (and as unlike the person who had broken…
-
Mental Illness and the Internet
Sometimes I really think that cyberspace is not the healthiest place to be. Every once in a while I encounter someone who is clearly in need of help, and since I’m not a mental health professional I am definitely not the go-to girl in situations of this nature. Generally all I can do is the…
-
Location, Location, Location
The first time I fell in love I was 19 and in Europe for the first time. Everything was exotic and new and delicious and exciting. We held hands and made out and explored that world and each other, and everything was magical. So magical, in fact, that the rest of my life has paled…
-
Cosmic Pinball
I am always amazed at how the most random encounters can change the trajectory of one’s life. It’s as if we are all pinballs in a great machine, bouncing off this or that obstacle, and being propelled to greater and more dizzying heights. You never know when you wake up in the morning if your…
-
Hippie Peanut Butter Feeds My Soul
Behind every small-scale enterprise is someone who is so desperately in need of money that they’re willing to get creative. I can’t help but admire and, frankly, relate to that, so I try to support these enterprises whenever I can. If I have a coin, I won’t hesitate to drop it into the hat of…
-
My Second Life
For years now I’ve had a rich and fulfilling second life. In it I’m younger, thinner, sexier, more outgoing, and more well-known than I am in my everyday life. It’s quite intoxicating, actually. This is me, standing in front of one of my fractals with a fractal necklace around my neck: I discovered the virtual…
-
How I Found my Artistic Side
In a country that prizes consumerism über alles, and a culture that defines success strictly by the amount of money one makes, is it really such a big surprise that the first thing to go in the primary schools are the art programs? I mean, how many parents dream of their kids becoming starving artists?…