Thoughts on being a doll

Jun3

The online Merriam-Webster Definition of DOLL is 1. “a small-scale figure of a human being used especially as a child’s plaything” or 2. “a pretty but often empty-headed young woman”

But I like the following quote from The Dolls’ House by Rumer Godden: “It is an anxious, sometimes a dangerous thing to be a doll. Dolls cannot choose; they can only be chosen; they cannot ‘do’; they can only be done by.”

I am in the process of living out my Second Life as a doll.

I am an owned doll. Owned totally and completely by my Duchess.

I am very happy being owned. Dolls want to be owned. Dolls live to be owned. Dolls have no purpose other than to be owned.

However based on what I know of the types of doll role play I have come across in Second Life I am not your typical SL doll because typically what we see as SL doll role play is the objectification of the doll. Turning the doll into a mindless drone.

While I suppose this is attractive to some because it supposedly relieves the doll of any responsibility for what is done I not interested in that and more importantly Duchess is not at all interested in that.

The Duchess wants her doll to be free thinking and alert. This is good.

Many, particularly in the BDSM communities, seem to prefer their submissive to be naked, but my Duchess wants her doll to be dressed attractively at all times. It gives my owner joy to see her doll attractively dressed. I like that!

A large part about being a doll is the power exchange whereby I as the doll accept the reality that my owner is in complete and total control. As the quote from Ms. Godden read; “Dolls cannot choose; they can only be chosen; they cannot ‘do’; they can only be done by.”

As a doll I am completely under the control of my owner in SL. My Duchess has the authority and ability to do anything she wishes with or to her doll. I LOVE that.

A lot of what goes in the world of BDSM or doll play is objectification. A doll is objectified by her nature. Objectification is often seen as a bad thing and my Duchess might take exception to this but a doll is by definition an object and therefore objectified.

I am fine with being objectified, more than fine truth be told, I am a doll, a doll is an object, therefore I should be objectified.

I am not a Barbie, I am not an American Girl Doll, I am Dolly, I am an adult doll.

Life as doll

Ok, I had been locked into my doll case for the past 5 days and it was looking like I would be there for another day, at least, when well into the night my Duchess showed up in-world. This made my heart sing.

She didn’t come to be with her doll right away, in fact it was many long and agonizing minutes before I relented and sent her a hopeful message of ‘hello’.

Actually this seems to be a pattern as of late.

Is toying with me? Testing me perhaps?

On one occasion she had other in-world commitments so the doll was forced to patiently wait in her case and hope to have her Duchess stop by for even a moment and grace the doll with her presence.

Oh such sweet torment.

So very mean of her? No because Duchess is living up to her responsibilities, as they are defined for us and accepted by me as I am trying to live the life of the doll which means that I live for her schedule and have whatever freedoms and liberties she grants me.

It was me, after all, who stipulated that she has no responsibility to be available to placate me and my needs.

To be the doll one must live like the doll and acquiesce to the wishes and desires of the owner. If I am going to play the game then I have to go all the way and live the life. To live the life and be the doll all the time, not just when it is convenient for me.

Being locked away and denied privilege has the plus side where I love that my owner is taking charge and imposing her will on her doll.

The down side being stuck in the doll case for days on end is that is stings abit because the doll cannot do what she pleases.

The upside of the down side is that the doll is being taught to serve and having a little sting go along with those lessons is never a bad thing.

No one likes to suffer, even a doll, but this doll does crave it.

It is important to note that this doll did nothing wrong to warrant being locked away in her doll case and denied privilege. This is not a punishment. It is the doll living out the wishes of her owner.

About 6 days ago I was waiting for her while she did other things in-world, she said she was pleased that she found her dolly waiting in the doll case for her. I said it was important for an owner to have her doll right where she could find her.

At the end of the night as Duchess was going to RL sleep, the doll was put back in the case and Duchess set me in place such that I cannot leave the case.

Not punishment, just an owner setting her doll where the doll can be easily found.

My Duchess seems to be growing more comfortable with the burdens of her doll ownership. No one understands or appreciates that being a dominant is work and takes effort.

It is very, very, important to me that she doesn’t feel pressured or obligated, that she have fun and be happy.

I place her happiness before my own and to a great extent there can be no happiness in SL if I am not at least adding to her happiness and contentment.

A doll’s purpose it to provide pleasure and happiness to her owner.

If I am to be a good doll then my owner’s happiness and pleasure need to become my sole purpose and in my drive to be a good doll I try my very best to do that.

I also, as a doll, feel that I am and should be subservient to all humans and try my best to act accordingly.

Often times the process of my life of doll runs counter to what I want to be doing right at a given moment and sometimes I fail at being a good doll.

But I try! I always try.

So, here I am, back in my case, living the SL life of the doll dressed and placed there by her owner, anxiously awaiting her owner’s return, excited and hopeful that soon the owner will return to play with her doll.

During my past incarceration in the doll case Duchess found an outfit that she thought would look good on me so she bought it for me. YAY, free dresses, life for a doll can be really good most of the time!

It is called Shania Blue Day and is a product from Luziefee and my Duchess loved me in it which made me very happy. The one downside was that the hat that came with didn’t work at all with any of the hairs I have so we went with a coolio 1920’s flapper hat and hair from Clawtooth I recently bought.

This doll is bored

May18

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” – Earnest Hemingway

It has been ages since I last entered a blog piece. I could say that there has been nothing blog-worthy going on that warranted an entry but that is untrue. I could say that I have been super busy but that would be a lie.

More than anything I have been so very blah and tired and brain dead that I simply couldn’t get the creative juices flowing to write anything.

As the late and great Mr. Hemingway stated writing can be work and I suppose a good writer knuckles down and crafts words to paper even when the mind and soul are uncooperative.

I am simply not a good writer that is obvious.

My Second Life existence as an owned doll has been going acceptable well as my owner and Duchess has generously given of her time to toy with her doll.

Make no mistake it is not easy to be a good dominant, speaking of work.

I often fear that it is more work for Duchess because while she is definitely a very strong and dominant person she is not really the sadistic type her doll often craves.

There seems too much love and respect for her to go too hard core on her doll and I feel that she definitely lacks some of the edge required to delve too deeply into some areas.

The important concept is that I have submitted completely to her desires and she seems to have accepted that she is free to do as she wishes even if she is not pushing the right buttons some of the time.

It could be said that she is not a good fit as my owner as she has little time to be in SL and what time there is must be broken up into segments to be with others. And there is also that aforementioned lack of her being a true sadist.

She has mentioned that perhaps I should find someone else to spend additional time with another dominant that would placate my darker side.

That might seem a reasonable suggestion because certainly we do have some incompatibility issues. I mean for one thing she is a female and I would, given the chance, opt for a male dominant.

An aside here, I have been playing in the world of online BDSM since the days of 1200 baud modems and IRC and have had pretty poor luck with male playmates. The issues there are too numerous to mention but let me just remind all internet players of the times when you are in mid-play and really going wild and POOF, he is gone! Doing what men do in these situations I suppose. Orgasm and fall asleep or lose interest or both.

Anyway, I just don’t see this as a good solution for me.

If I look at how things are now I honestly have to say that what she doesn’t or cannot do are trivial because what she does do for me far out-weighs any negatives. Truth be told she probably saves me from myself.

Also I would rather spend minutes with my Duchess doing what SHE wants than hours scratching my crazy itches with anyone else. If there actually were anyone else.

My in world activities have come down to power exchange and being under the control of another person. She does that well and in a caring and respectful manner so what on earth do I have to bitch about?

Lately the more I have thought about it isn’t the true exchange of power complete if I do and only do what she likes to do?

Shouldn’t that be my mission as her owned doll?

Well of course it should, so mission accomplished!

One thing my Duchess seems to like doing is placing me in my doll case and locking me there.

The case is not RLV equipt but the nice thing about having the iControl chip locked to me is that nothing has to be RLV compliant because she can lock me down anywhere.

The fact that she seems to like doing this is great for my submissive psyche not to mention that it reinforces the mandate that I am her doll and need to be safely placed and locked so her doll will be right where she can find me when she wants me.

All about the needs and wants of the Duchess, all about her control.

Yum, the doll is in submissive heaven!

Last night she put me in the doll case and just locked me in place.

No conversation about what the doll might want to do later or tomorrow, just wha-bam, lock her in the case and see you whenever.

But the doll had plans for her SL time today!

Perhaps I am, whining, a little, but for me the process of power exchange and submission to another means that I have placed myself under the control of my Duchess. And while I would rather be doing something else, I am getting what I deserve because I am getting what my owner and master has decided I should get.

The doll feels so owned right now.

Should Duchess have at least asked her doll if she had something planned for the following day before locking her away?

No, no, no, and definitely no!

But it sucks that she didn’t ask, right? Because I hate not being able to do what I wanted to do today.

But the doll gave up control so the Duchess doesn’t have to ask and to be honest it is totally hot that she didn’t and she just took control and did with HER doll what SHE wanted.

And yanno what, the added bonus is that by me losing out on doing what I wanted to do, by feeling the sting of not being free?

I get a true sense of being owned and controlled and THAT is what this power exchange deal is all about. At least for this doll.

And then later in the day!

The doll saw her Duchess enter into the SL world and eagerly said hello and waited with high anxiety for her to respond.

The doll desperately wanted to see her Duchess respond. Five long minutes passed without a response. But an owner is under no obligation to respond and jump to attend to her doll. Nor should she be.

It is the life of the doll to wait, to learn to serve, to learn patience, to be a good doll.

The doll desperately wanted to beg her Duchess for release from the cozy confinement of her doll case, but this doll has been carefully taught her place and did not.

My Duchess was erstwhile engaged with more pressing matters. The dolls frivolous need was not her priority.

The doll had been placed in her doll case to patiently await the return of her owner. There were no guarantees made or expected.

The only guarantee was that the doll would wait and gratefully accept the place she was given.

The doll has learned that the time of her owner is important and the time of the doll is her owners to use when wanted.

The doll has desires and need, but the priority to slake those needs has been given away to her owner. The doll is made happy because she knows that she serves and is made to serve.

The doll is happy because control offered has been accepted and freely used.

Being used and controlled makes a doll very happy.

The doll is safely tucked away in her doll case for who knows how long but at least is smartly attired wearing a nice mesh sweater and button down shirt from LIV Glam Boutique. The black plaid Allure mini skirt is a mesh offering from E! Eclectic Apparel. The awesome red boots are from G Field and are mesh as well.

Review of Open Collar and Plug-ins

Apr17

“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum – ” – Noam Chomsky, The Common Good

I have spent the past week converting from an Open Collar collar back to the iControl Implant. Duchess likes the Implant better than what I am able to make operational via the Open Collar suite.

It seems like neither RLV containment suite contains all of the functions we need and want.

Isn’t this always the way with most important things that we can never have all of and just the functions we need or want? We must usually decide between items by figuring out which function we can best do without.

The collar and iControl do function together which would offer us full functionality but I would be starting out with a script base of like 61 which is too much.

I started trying pair down the collar but I am not script savvy enough to get only what we need out of the collar and the iControl is proprietary and no mod, a distinct downside, so I cannot add the missing functions to the Implant.

Actually the 3.70 version of the Open Collar suite has only 20 running scripts compared to 34 for the present 3.80 release. The new release does have added function and with the add-on feature possibly the means to add the missing functions provided by the iControl but I am not talented enough to implement them.

The best aspects of the iControl are the remote control; the ability of the owner to speak for her doll; the confine commands; the follow commands; tighter ownership controls; and it is not attached to the body.

The Open Collar does couples animations like hugs; is already a collar so the leashing function doesn’t require an add-on and the pretty collar around your dolls neck is a constant reminder to the doll and anyone present that she is owned.

Forced Teleportation is a wonderful option that does not afford the doll the option to refuse a TP request from her owner. It is a default with the Open Collar Suite but with iControl you must deny that ability using the menu.

The problem here is if the Owner wants to release the doll from a restriction she cannot do a simple ‘Release All’ because that will release all denials and someone will have to go back and re-deny the doll the choice to accept or refuse teleport request from her owner. NOTE: This only applies to ones listed as owners of the doll.

It can get a bit complex using the menu of the iControl to release denials one by one so depending on what privileges have been denied would depend on the simplest way to relax control. Or add to it.

I personally love the denial process and it is clear demonstration of the control an owner has over the doll. And I love the whole power exchange process so I love being denied privileges. Even though it can be a pain.

But hey, if there is no sting in being the doll there is no zing!

We both like the leashing function. I mean what doll doesn’t like being led around, not to mention that it is easy to keep track of your owner. *wink* But without a collar a leash doesn’t work too well. At least visually.

The iControl comes with compatible collar and shackles for arms, legs and torso but again it adds a lot of scripts and I am trying to be a good SL citizen by not being too script intensive.

What the iControl does have is a ‘follow’ function that is pretty much the same as being dragged around on a leash just without the visual leash which eliminates that need for a collar.

Since the follow function seemed to work well for Duchess the collar and leash function became expendable.

Right now the only big downside of not having the Open Collar on is the loss of the couple’s animations. The only ones we really used were the hug and the hug and kiss animations.

So, now that the iControl implant chip is back in use this means that I am going to becollarless and just using the implant, right?

Well no actually because during my search to either find a programmer to make a stripped down collar for the couples animations I started looking at the new plug-ins for the Open Collar Suite and stumbled into a devilishly sweet app called Cage Home.

Hey, it was free as are much of the Open Collar goodies so I thought I would give it a try. Using my only SL alt avie as a test dominant, a male bounty hunter that I was thinking of using for Sci-Fi role play but rarely if ever did because I have enough trouble keeping up with one avie, I found the Cage Home application much to my liking.

The documentation wasn’t all that great (in fairness this is offered as a beta product) but once I figured out how to set it up it worked great and the concept is fantastic.

Actually there is no cage in the Cage Home plug-in. What it does is place and hold the sub or doll in place which presumable could be inside a cage.

The concept is simple, the owner sets the Cage Home location and then activates the plug-in in the collar. The doll is free to roam around while the owner is away but if the doll is in-world and the owner logs in after 15 seconds the doll is force Teleported back to the Cage Home location and locked in place until the owner releases her.

Also, if the owner is online and the doll logs into the SL world the doll is immediately teleported to the Cage Home location and again locked in place. There is a timer option that will release the doll after a predetermined number of minutes should the owner not release her doll from captivity.

Well, since I am all about power exchange, meaning that my owner has all the power and I have none, I looooved this plug-in. I had to have this plug-in. Which meant that I wanted to migrate back to the Open Collar, collar.

That was quick huh!

So with me wanting, no needing the Cage Home plug-in hanging over my head I had to do some digging to see if we could find work-around for the missing functions of the Open Collar.

I found that the Open Collar can indeed lock down the doll and hold her to a predetermined area, it was there all the time. And the follow function was there as well. They were just located in the leashing menus.

We were down to only the loss of my owner to be able to speak for me and a good remote control.

Acting on advice from an Open Collar support person I went back to the Open Collar store and found the remote control offered there.

The remote, also a beta product, is a HUD and really pretty good. Close to being awesome, but not quite.

The great part is that the owner can activate the couple’s animations without a command in local, something that my Duchess doesn’t really care for, or clicking on the collar. A simple click on the HUD button and the couple’s animation menu comes right up!

The HUD displays 6 buttons on the owner’s screen. The afore mentioned couples animation button; a button to grab your doll on a leash; there is a button to place your doll in a cage; another button to force teleport your doll to your side; a button to activate the full Open Collar menu, and a button to close the HUD down to one button (and of course clicking the same button toggles the other buttons back to view.

The single touch teleport is great, as is the couples animations button, the caging button seems nice and the button for the Open Collar menu of your doll is great as well.

Not so sure about the leashing function because it doesn’t toggle leashing and it will try to leash any and all Open Collars within 20 meters. You might just get smacked while trying to put a leash on someone else’s doll.

Another mild irritant is that the assumption for the HUD is to look for any and all available Open Collar wearing submissives. So it takes an extra click for a one doll owner to get to the menu for her property. Personally I would rather see the multi submissive access as an option but it is not a terrible problem as it is only an extra click.

All in all I would give the Open Collar Remote a 9 and hopefully my Duchess, who has yet to try out the remote, will like it as much as I do so we can go back to a single control engine and limit my script count.

The Open Collar is a good solid product and the best part is that it is free and actually open. It is also supported by a dedicated group of people. Additionally my collar is a pearl choker I saw at Hatpins store and the maker was gracious enough to give me a mod copy so I could add the Open Collar Suite.

SWEET!

The dress for today is a cute little mesh dress from Sassy called Penny Lane. I needed to do some body modifications to get it to fit well but there was still some gapping caused by motion from my new AO stand. But it is still a killer cute dress!

The shoes are Mary Janes from HOC Industries and the hair is from my new favorite hair store Dura. Dura makes some really cute hair styles but my big complaint with them is that they don’t make a very good red or ginger hair and their selection of blondes is limited. But their selection is broad, their prices reasonable, because you buy only one color at a time, and their dark shades are really good.

The Masters and my Uncle Eugene

Apr15

“There is no shot in golf so great that you cannot screw up the next one.” – My Uncle Eugene

I was watching the Master’s golf tournament this past weekend. I don’t watch golf that much on TV and when I do it is usually a women’s tournament, but I never miss the US Opens and the Masters because the drama would seem to transcend life itself.

One thing watching golf does is bring back all manner of memories of my Uncle Eugene. Some are great, others not so much, most are good, but watching golf on TV always reminds me of U Gee, as I called him because he introduced me to a game to which I am still hopelessly in love.

Eugene had two passions in life, well three actually if you split boats and deep sea fishing, the third would be golf. He practiced all three of his passions with unbridled passion. U Gee was not a person to step lightly when it came to things he did and he always did them well and as the old golf expression goes, he never left anything in the bag in the process.

Often spoken of although rarely in complement Uncle Eugene wasn’t anyone I had met all that much but at my grandfather’s (his father) funeral, he came and sat beside me and we chatted for over an hour. Both, presumably thankful for the diversion from the solemn affair and the burden of having to deal with our family.

We were both outcasts although for different reasons.

Me, I was the under-performing teen who had a miserable existence in Junior High, as it was called back then, and miserable times 2 in my first year and a half of High School.

All the members of my family were smart, accomplished and well recognized in the community. I was smart enough but being small and non-athletic I had no self-esteem. While I was always treated well and respectfully at home I was usually the target of bullies of all shapes and sizes at every level of school.

I hated being in school because in many ways I saw little use for it and had little motivation to do well in school as a result. This created conflict at home because education was important and there was little reason for me to struggle. Actually there were valid reasons one of which was I could barely see which only surfaced when I went for my driver’s test years later.

I was also diagnosed as a disorganized schizophrenic which for me meant that I had great difficulty dealing with people as most everyone intimidated me.

Eugene was an outcast because he was THAT uncle I suppose. He was my father’s older brother by several years and lived a very full and rich life as he seemed to spend lots or money that no one was ever really certain how he got.

He presented himself to others as abrupt, crude and uncaring but to his close circle of friends was a kind and generous man. He drank heavily, smoked fine cigars and was boisterous and loud. He was an excellent sailor, finder of fish and near scratch golfer.

One aside here, Eugene considered himself a fisherman but he never fished a lake or a stream, his passion was for deep sea fishing as his favorite haunts were the canyons off the northeastern shore. I think he loved fishing the canyons because it humbled him to be there.

“Out here,” he would say from the cockpit of his boat. “Is where you come to appreciate and learn to truly live with nature.”

Eugene cared little about automobiles, he drove around in a big old Pontiac, but in summer he lived on his Egg Harbor boat. My oh my did U Gee love that Egg.

When my mom and he had a closed door conversation after that funeral it was decided that I was to spend the summer living and working with my uncle on his boat. A sort of summer boot-camp to straighten out the wayward child I suppose.

I knew nothing of Eugene going in but I was willing to give it a try because it was better than being at home, made to feel stupid, untalented and inferior all the time.

The first week of this grand experiment didn’t go all that well because while that famous 47 foot Egg Harbor was a reasonably large craft for that day we were having problems adjusting to living together in such a confined space.

In a moment of pique I packed a few things and ran off to walk home. Why I wanted to go there eludes me but I was going crazy and wanted out.

A very angry uncle found me a few hours and 6 miles or so up the road. He took his belt to me right there and beat my back side pretty good. Until much later in life when I was getting actively involved in the BDSM scene this was the worst beating I had gotten. Even counting the almost weekly beatings I had been happily given by school mates.

At this time while clueless as to the nuances of my deep seeded masochistic need I was in the throes of honing my self-destructive tendencies to a fine art, but why is it that the pain seeking masochist in us doesn’t get off on the times when nature deals us a blow? Like stubbing your toe on the coffee table. Shouldn’t I get some sort of rush from this? Why does it just hurt like heck?

Sitting on the car seat with a very sore and multi-colored bottom I wept as Uncle Gene explained how frightened he was, not knowing what had happened to me. He had arrived only minutes after I had left but spent a couple of hours scouring the area. Even going to the extent of donning his snorkel and fins as he looked for my waterlogged body in the marina.

Things those who reside on dry land never consider I suppose as I could have slipped, struck my head and fallen unconscious into the water. Who knew.

We arrived back at the marina to find my parents there. Uh oh!

I was fresh from balling my eyes out, hurt and ashamed, my uncle was also sheepish from giving me that beating.

It was one of those moments in time when actions have long lasting and profound effects on our lives.

My father saw my condition and the guilty look on his brother’s face and assumed the worst and flew into a rage, demanding of me, “Has he hurt you? Did he molest you?”

Now, I never was a very good liar, not like my sister anyways who pretty much lied and charmed her way out of any and all problems, and at this point I was pretty much going to blurt out the truth.

But I hadn’t been asked if Uncle Gene had used a leather belt and given me the beating of my life, I was being asked if he had sexually molested me.

Another thing you need to understand is that in this era sexual molestation was something that did not get the attention it now does although I have little doubt that there is any more prevalence of this horrendous act in this century than there was in the middle of the last.

We just know more about it now.

Being the naïve kid that I was I knew nothing of such things much less that Gene had ever laid a finger on me in that way, so I of course blurted out an honest, “Huh? Oh no!”

Uncle Gene offered quickly that I had wandered off on that day and he had just come back from finding me. Nothing asked about the girl getting her bottom turned 6 shades of red and purple, nothing offered.

We had coffee and tea on board and all discussed what was best for Jamie and as the first and second cups were emptied it was determined that I would spend summers with Uncle Gene on his boat learning the ways of the sea, the world and life.

Had my father asked me, “Did he beat you?” I would of course said yes, there would have been a major blow up and I would have been brought back home where to me there is adequate question if I would have lived to see my 18^th or 19^th birthday. Because I was that messed up.

Instead I stayed with my uncle and learned discipline. Most of the times the hard way but not discipline and rules that I felt were unfair or unnecessary but I learned the reasons for rules because the sea has no mercy, because being careless and inattentive of important detail can cost you or someone else their lives when you are bounding on 6 to 8 footers some 60 miles from shore.

I learned that I could do things, important and hard things, like docking a hulking wooden hulled boat in 20 MPH winds and a strong tide. I was scared like crazy the first time I docked Uncle Gene’s pride and joy but I was confident when I took the Coast Guard test. I almost wet myself the first time I drove his car but I was confident when I took the test for my driver’s license.

Back then confidence was something other people had, not something I had.

I took at least some of this confidence back to the perilous world of High School as each summer my uncle would build my feelings of self-worth only to have them trampled back down each winter.

My uncle also taught me the very imperfect game of golf and darn it if I didn’t do pretty well at it. I worked harder at it than anything I had before because I loved everything about it, even practicing. Maybe it was because it was the only thing in my life in which I was better at than anyone else in my family, maybe it was that no one ever perfects the game so my own feelings of imperfection didn’t seem so bad.

Sure Eugene and his friends were so much better than me, and better than most, but I see now why my uncle loved both deep sea fishing and golf because in many ways they were so much alike.

Both always held the advantage because you never really beat the sea or the fish and you never beat the game of golf. For the most part you do the best you can and survive. Golf and deep sea fishing reward those who apply diligence, care and patience. If you are sloppy at either they will hurt and humiliate you badly.

As my uncle said, no matter your skill level, golf and the fish can make you look like a hero or a chump, so you learn to smile when you win and laugh at yourself when you lose because most times there ain’t a whole hell of a lot you can do about it either way.

So yes, I love watching the Masters and this year’s event did not disappoint as usual because for the most part I watch because it reminds me of Uncle Eugene and how important he was to my crazy life and how much I learned from him and probably never did say thank you as young and foolish kids never seek able to do.

At this point in my life I am confident that he knew how much he mattered to me because although he looked unpolished nothing got past my Uncle Eugene.

He lived a fast and loose life and died far too young but he lived the way he wanted. He died of cancer and during one of my visits to him he smiled at me and said what a fine looking woman I had turned out to be. A bit of an exaggeration but nice flattery all the same.

He then took me by the hand and whispered, “My one real regret is that I never got to bed down a hot little redhead like you.”

Word alone cannot express how badly I wanted to getting into that hospital bed with him although it is doubtful that it would have done him much good at that point.

Today’s dress called Harper is from Cold Logic. It is a nice fitting mesh dress. I like the way it fit at mu shoulders using the X Small size although I had to do a little breast reduction to my shape to make it fit right. I am pictured in my doll case where Duchess has locked me for the day. I so need to blog about this so maybe later today or tomorrow.

I am teh sick and have been neglecting my blog

Apr3

It has been far too long since my last blog as I have been dog sick for well over a week as I go from so much congestion my head is an achy mass of mucus to everything running so freely I am using a box of tissues a day. And I am sleepy all the time as these drugs make me tired but not tired enough to get much decent sleep.

When I get like this I find it nearly impossible to get any meaningful writing done as stringing two sentences of contiguous thought seems too much for me to accomplish.

I am trying to get this blog article done today but it is taking forever.

Type a word or two, blow my nose, type another few words, drink water and another blow, rewrite what you wrote, blow your nose, scrap the last sentence entirely and start over. Repeat ad nauseam.

Anyway, yesterday I had all sorts of plans for the day, a little hunting (and the associated shopping that goes along with hunts), some prep work for my rebuild of my plots on Ipanema and reviving the iControl to replace the Open Collar. All massive fun stuffs in my Second Life world to take my mind off of this wretched cold, with maybe some actual time spend in RL as well.

The night before my Duchess scooped me up and summoned me to her side at a place of domination. The night progressed uneventfully, at least to my eyes, but much to my shock and awe when Duchess teleported me to her side at the end of the night I found myself inside a little cage.

Yikes!

Her final instructions were that because I was both watching TV and trying to keep up with in-world chat, I was to remain caged until she decided to release me.

So inside this cage I sit which sort of sucks because instead of being free to roam around and do what I want I am stuck in this cage until my Duchess decides to let me out. I lost my freedom for a day (at least).

But wait, can I really lose something already given?

My freedoms and choices were offered to and accepted by Duchess so I shouldn’t be whining about not being able to do what I want because Duchess chose something else for me to do.

While the punishment might seem a bit unfair, it was after all my heart throb Nathan Fillion’s show I was watching and it was an amazingly good episode, but in this cage I will sit and I will accept this because it is what my Duchess wanted for me and what I wanted for me is not important.

When a person is caged and restricted like this one would think that I wouldn’t spend much if any time actually in-world, but interestingly when I am confined I tend to spend more time at the keyboard as it gives me a better feel of being actually restricted and confined.

Which is one of the aspects of power exchange I find to be quite nice as the process of being confined in SL and conveying that to RL is both gratifying and humiliating.

The humiliating part is not only that I have relinquished control of myself and my actions to another but that I am acquiescing real world freedom to a fantasy life.

The satisfying part is that I have relinquished control of myself and my actions to another and I am acquiescing real world freedom to a fantasy life.

Such is the complex life of one who seeks to be dominated and controlled.

For me at least I can feel the emotions of humiliation in the process of having freedoms and choice taken from me but I can feel pride and satisfaction in the process of giving myself to a dominants control and serving that person to the best of my ability.

I willingly opted into this lifestyle therefore I feel it important to accept the downsides and live them to the fullest. I could easily find a way around being stuck in this cage in SL and having it impact my RL as well but then I would be only cheating myself out of the experience.

But make no mistake it is boring and dull.

Fortunately Duchess didn’t bother restricting my other abilities to use chat or fiddle with my inventory because things can become dreadfully tedious if one is caged and has had all abilities revoked using the RLV.

The last time I was squirreled away in a cage was well about 15 months ago when Jubilynn started the process of my service to her with 2 or 3 days of confinement and to be perfectly candid I run very hot and cold on the process.

On one hand it is boring and dull and more than a little embarrassing, but on the other it is quite exciting to have your dominant take full control over your Second Life this way.

It stings but in all honesty I wouldn’t mind feeling that sting much more often.

What was really amazing about this was that I was taken completely off guard as there had been no buildup. The night started off slowly because Duchess asked me if I was busy. I hate it when she does that.

This is so annoying because Duchess has the right and ability to simply grab me bring me to where ever she is and my rule is that if Duchess wants me then I am not busy. I am hers for the taking whenever and where ever she is willing to see and spend time with me.

So the night went from me being dutifully at her side harmlessly chatting about this and that and then when it was time for her to go to bed she returns to her home and wha-bam, I am looking through the wire bars of the cage and being told that, ‘yeah, get comfortable my dolly because you are going to be in there for a while’.

I was like, HUH!

So well played Duchess, you really got me good. So when I think about it and put things in proper perspective being in this cage doesn’t suck, it is an honor. Because this is what my Duchess wanted for me and she decided to use what had been given.

It is so deliciously wicked to feel so completely controlled and delightfully used.

As far as the dress a day fashion project I have been woefully out of step with that one. The last documented outfits are shown below, from the 23^rd and the 25^th I think. I know, I am an awful blogger as I am using this cold as an excuse for lack of motivation. Sort of a ready-made excuse to be lazy.

Directly below is a delicious mesh dress from G Field in mint green and white called Taylor. I really liked this dress as it fit and moved quite well. It was an exclusive offering from G Field for the Fashion for Life Fair to support Relay for Life.

At the bottom I put on this little dress to do some setup work to build a platform structure to display the Steam 8 Hunt skyboxes given as gifts. (More on this in my next blog). This one, called Polka Dotty from LeBloom Fashion, is one of those simple but cute SL outfits that we all have squirreled away in our inventories but never seem to wear. I did get a few positive comments on this one though.

I am quite certain I have nothing important to say today

Mar21

“Ask yourself this question: ‘Will this matter a year from now?'” – Richard Carlson

I have been terribly lax with this blog as of late but I am in one of those stretches where everything seems to pile up and even the simplest little ant hill task becomes an Everest.

I go out to the hour of happy with friends to celebrate the first day of spring and the ground is covered with snows and it is like 39 degrees.

Yuck!

Three of my closest friends just got back from Florida and were like, WTF? Why are aren’t we still there?

I might have felt slighted, yanno, because the glowing warmth of my company didn’t transcend the crappy sno-cone weather, but to be candid I was sort of wondering the same myself. Were I given the chance I wouldn’t have come back.

Yes I am in a sort of brain traffic jam as my thoughts are stacked up in bumper to bumper grid lock and to be honest I wouldn’t have tried to do anything tonight but I wanted to catch up on my dress a day fashion project at the very least.

I would like to offer some excuse for my bloglessness (my new word of the day) but when I think back I can hardly remember what I did yesterday let alone on Monday and Tuesday. Meh, I am quite sure it was crucially important world saving stuff.

On Monday I ungreened myself after a full weekend of St. Patrick’s Day type of Irish fun with a little fun dress from my fave store A La Folie. It is a cute little prim and wearable creation that I got as a group giftie named Café Vanille. I think vanilla might be French for vanilla but don’t quote me on that gross miss use of my High School French training.

At any rate the rose addition adds a nice splash of color and fun to the dress as the Doll is seen losing her balance as she walks the gang plank of her home ship, The Dangerous Dolly.

Below right is a cute little dolls dress from Feather. All I had to do was join their free group to get the dress so it is/was essentially a freebie. It is a wearable and prim based outfit and fit nicely although I could never get the lower arm attachments for the blouse to look like anything other than blocks of something attached to your forearms. So I did without them.

My Duchess liked the dress very much though as she has a definite soft spot for seeing her dolly in doll dresses. Click on either picture below to see the full sized version. The Bows Bows Distressed Red flats from In Her Shoes matched the skirt perfectly I think.

On Wednesday the 20^th I did a little photo shoot in an attempt to get a more recent head shot for the blog header and you can see three examples below.

On the left is a close up of the dress for the day, a mesh tube dress in turquoise from BoHo HoBo. I paired it up with a nice cropped jean jacket also from BoHo HoBo. Loved the color and the trim around the hem but I had to diddle with my shape a bit to get a decent fit on top which was why I tried it with the jacket.

The photo on the right shows the dress without the jacket and a beautiful SL sunset. Click these to see them full sized.

The capture on the bottom is a head shot taken using sunrise settings with my ship in the background. The earrings and necklace were part of a set I found during the Fashion for Life Fair from Stars! called the Surf Set.

St Patrick’s Day Celebration at Mieville

Mar18

Excuse me is that a leprechaun in your pocket or are you importing illegal immigrants?

“When anyone asks me about the Irish character, I say look at the trees. Maimed, stark and misshapen, but ferociously tenacious.” – Edna O’Brien

With the Steam 8 Hunt and the Fashion for Life Fair smiling in my rear-view mirror I decided to honor Perryn Peterson’s invitation to check out the St. Patrick’s Day celebrations on a special platform high above the Mieville 12-pack of SIMs.

Prior to going however I felt somewhat obligated to find something worthy of the occasion, herself being at least partially stemming from the clan McConville doncha know. I scoured for something green in my somewhat crowded and more than somewhat disheveled inventory.

I saw a folder speaking of things metallisk and emerald so I slipped into a nicely green albeit a bit too short, mesh dress from Ingenue. I didn’t remember buying it but liked it on.

I fiddled around and tried to concoct a St. Paddy’s outfit by adding some long green gloves, a green feathered hat and some long green and white stockings which I would later replace with some long leggings of some reputed Irish descent.

I dunno, looking back the pieces were nice but I had sort of put a lame effort into dressing for this special occasion. See Saturday’s outfit below on the left. I also included a snap of me in the Metallisk Emerald dress from Ingenue in its native form to do it proper justice because all things told I really liked the dress, so that is pictured to the right. As always click on the pictures to see them full sized.

I shopped around the Mieville St. Patrick’s Day area and chased down some of the elusive shamrocks that were worth $2 L each when found. I claimed about 6 of them and found a few more but I left a few for others.

This skybox had the most amazing countryside texture as a backdrop which can be seen by enlarging the picture above left. Over all the skybox was very nice and a pleasure to wander aound in.

Perryn told me last night that there are still shamrocks on the platform awaiting someone clever enough to spot them. He indicated that the fair would remain open until Wednesday I think.

During the dance hosted and nicely music’ed up by DJ Rab I got to dance with Duchess for the night which is always one of the most fun things in SL for me to do.

Sunday I cooked dinner for the kids, no corned beef and cabbage as the kids wanted “real food” and I had grown up in a household that felt that boiled dinners of that ilk smelled of “poor Irish” and were just not done at my mom’s house.

For some reason I was under the misconception that Mieville was hosting another St. Paddy’s dance on Sunday night so I put on a more formal emerald gown (see below) and stopped into the pub.

There were peeps there but just sitting around and chatting. An activity that I was happily invited to join. I TP’ed the Duchess in and we chatted about this and that until folks began filtering out to go Feeshing.

Well I had of course heard of Feeshing and seen the stands for it but had never actually participated.

It seems that the Mieville folk have Feeshing contests two times a week consisting of two 30 minute runs to see who can land the best fish, or whatever.

I had to buy a rod and reel but I got settled in just in time to compete in the un-baited round in which I did on. Beginners luck I suspect.

The second round was for baited hooks. I sucked at this one.

Actually I didn’t have enough bait for one thing but it didn’t seem to matter because I did better at catching things without bait than with!

Oh well, live and learn.

Now please understand that I have done real fishing. Real hard core out in my uncles Bertram on the sound or the ocean type of deep sea fishing. But as frustrating as it was in the baited part feeshing was fun and I had a good time as the host running the event, Wyvvy, helped this novice a lot.

And no I have no great expectations to do better but I suspect I will do it again because Duchess has fun with it and anything that involves her is all good with me.

Sunday’s dress is a vintage doll gown from BlakOpal Designs called Emerald Garden. I have owned this dress for a few years and have worn it several times and have used the green gloves and black lace undershirt countless times to compliment other garments and shall continue to do so.

It is always great fun to find little gems that you can continue to use with other dresses or outfits to better work the look.

Just Meshing Around – Part 2

Mar16

“As long as your feet reach the floor you aren’t too short.” – My Dad

Of all of the self-deprecating thoughts that have rattled around in my head throughout my life for some reason body image isn’t one of them. I am hardly implying that I ever considered myself beautiful or pretty but I am actually ok with my RL body shape. OK a bit rounder and saggier than I would care to be in an ideal world but I am fine with being short and short waisted and a bit round at the bottom. I have gotten plenty of compliments on my legs and bottom over the years.

Truth be told I like being short so when I ventured into SL I went with a short avie but RL height and SL height do not correlate directly as in SL being 6 5 in SL is considered short.

I have had to go with a height between 6 foot and 6-5 with heels as the best I can do because if I go with the 5-6 or 8 height that would represent my 5-2 RL frame I get bounced out of clubs because the 8 foot tall hostesses see me as a child avie.

My body shape is small framed at the top and nicely rounded at the bottom and this is the avie shape I opted for but this has created issues fitting in mesh dresses.

The problem I am seeing is that the mesh dresses, particularly dresses with tank tops or bare shoulders, don’t fit all that well at the top. A small is too gappy on top and if the X-small or even XX-small fits the top my bottom is trimmed down to nothing as the dress falls straight from my waist to the mid-thigh. I did cheat on and slimmed down my waist.

Also to get the right fit in one part of the body I see skin peeking through the dress at others. I have tried shape manipulation but nothing ever works perfectly.

Ideally we could shape our bodies to fit the dress without using the alpha layers but in most all cases it never works out that way so I usually surrender and use an alpha layer.

But the alpha layers are not perfect either.

One of the demos I tried messed up my eyes and with some dresses gaps appear between the dress and where the skin reappears leaving a see through portion of your body. Not all that attractive.

This is the case with the dress for Thursday as there was a definite gap between the top of the visible thighs to the hem line. See picture below.

Gaposis turning a beautiful dress into something a bit less.

I could eliminate the gap at the hem by wearing the medium sized dress but then I had major gaps at the top. The gaps at the top remained even using the X-small size. Only the XXS size fit my top but then I got the hem gap.

In this case none of the shape changes I tried eliminated the gap at the hemline and I had no greater success shaping my top to fit the larger sizes.

Interestingly since all alpha layers do is turn your body and your skin invisible alpha layers can be portable. All you need to do is play around and see what alpha works best for a given dress.

So my advice to those interested in mesh attire is this: first of course try the demo and look closely at the fit. Second, keep the alpha layers from the demos you try.

I have just started a folder of alpha layers in my inventory from demos and even dresses in inventory so I can experiment around and see which alphas work best with a given dress. And remember you can add more than one alpha layer.

The Homer Simpson DOH moment here was that I decided to do this after deleting like 40 or 50 demo outfits from my trash bin. Timing is everything!

Again quality can and does vary and taking a close look at yourself in the demo dress can let you see where there might be issues with fit. You will be far better off if the alpha and dress align well for you without modification.

Some merchants provide different alpha layers for their products to address some of these issues but proper fit in a mesh dress, as beautifully textured as they are, remains a problem with many mesh offerings at this point and time.

Playing with the alpha layers is a long and time consuming process and the ideal is to be able to make your own alpha layers or modify the ones provided with the dresses you have. But I haven’t even attempted that as yet so please stay tuned to see how I do with that project.

Below you see me fitting into this lovely dress much better, with no hemline alpha layer gap, with the use of different alphas and some addition to my upper body muscles.

Is it worth the effort?

Really only you can be the judge of how you like to spend your time. For me the process of getting this wonderfully textured Fashion for Life Romantic dress from Kaithleen’s to fit nicely was both labor but fun with a bit of learning process tossed in for good measure. So for me it was all good fun.

Just Meshing Around – Part 1

Mar16

“We all have weaknesses, the trick is to identify them in yourself and learn to work with them, because you will never eliminate them.” – My dear old dad

Way back when my dad knew he had a fragile and slightly messed up teenager on his hands. He and mom tried but I was a real piece of work, but to their credit they never gave up on me or did anything but be as supportive as humanly possible.

In a true case of better late than never it wouldn’t be until years later that I would understand and heed my dad’s very sage advice. Eventually by truly understanding and accepting both his advice and myself did I gain the needed tolerance to at the very least live with and tolerate myself.

What does any of this have to do with fashion in general and Second Life in particular? Nothing much except that I do have a fondness for fashion to the point of weakness and I go weak for the new mesh based clothing. But I choose to give into these weaknesses because, MEH, what does it hurt.

Texture in Second Life is what turns a good build or object into a great object or building and texture is what mesh does best and is why I just fall in love with so many mesh clothing creations.

The fabrics and designs in mesh clothing is on average superior to even the best wearable layers and far superior to wearable’s augmented by prims. It takes a lot of effort to match the prim textures to the wearable under layer in a skirt or a dress. A mesh dress falls and looks far more realistic that do their wearable/prim based counterparts.

Mesh dresses just look soooo cute and adorable I have a massive weakness for them.

Needless to say I have a lot of mesh dresses and outfits. Far too many even given my excuse of doing a daily fashion statement on this blog.

As I have stated previously one of the distinct down sides of mesh is the fit and as with any SL product quality or fit varies greatly. But in most cases mesh clothing tends to mold you to the dress designer’s images of what is ideal in the female form.

On the plus side my SL figure is not so extreme, although it is shorter than average, so on many occasions I don’t fret all that much as the mesh dress changes my figure to match the dress. And given this a lot of mesh product tends to fit me adequately.

But, to my chagrin one thing I noticed while trying on like a hundred demos during the Fashion for Life Fair was that to many clothing makers the ideal woman’s shape falls somewhere between a 98 pound super model and Ru Paul. Meaning a body with big shoulders, big chest and the hips of a 14 year old.

Back to my dear old dad again his favorite back in the day was Kim Novak and because of that I always thought of her figure and in many cases her movie presence to be somewhat of the ideal.

Having just watched the Avengers movie last night, again, I am reminded of this as I see Scarlett Johansson as having the ideal feminine shape. Meaning actual shape. Meaning a shape to which most of us can relate, even the most fit and trim of us because only wafer thin freaks of nature have no hips after reaching the age of 18.

Now I am looking at my mesh inventory with a more of a jaundiced eye because the SL shape I made and really like is being slimmed down to the point where some of these dresses and outfits are making me look more like a transvestite, albeit a very attractive one, than the Jamiee Daines avatar I built let alone Ms. Johansson.

Hopefully as mesh progresses the SL fashion community will start making dresses that better fit the female body rather than all of us fitting our bodies to meet the ideal of a few designers who make mesh templates.

Take this really nice empire waisted crochet dresses I got. They look great except for one thing, which I totally missed when trying on the demo. The waist is far too long and the hips a fair bit too narrow to make the dress look like a true empire dress. It looks like someone force fitted this style on a fashion model.

The empire waist dress was designed for the rest of us. They tuck nicely below your bust and fall gracefully down your body and over your hips, so nicely camouflaging any and all imperfections in between.

They look good on a real woman but fall like lifeless draperies on a hipless and skinny model.

A mesh empire dress should reflect this in my opinion.

But the mesh resellers do say that you might need to work on your avie shape to make the dress look and fit better and after cranking the torso length slider down to zero the dress below started to look much better.

Friday’s dress pictured below (click for full image) is that cute crochet dress with an empire waist called Kathyrn from Ava Girl. After zeroing out the torso length slider I like the aspect of the dress a lot better but it still falls a bit too straight over the hips, or lack there of, for my taste.

I would still definitely buy the dress though.

Fashion for Life – Revisited

Mar14

Leave it to me not to understand the process!

“Think before you speak. Read before you think.” – Fran Lebowitz

It seems that I needed to be paying more attention to the Relay for Life single item boards because those are the ones I should be looking at first. Since all of the monies spent for items on these boards go to the Relay for Life fund.

Which is up to over 3.2 million Lindens right now or about $12,910 US dollars. Pretty nice so congratulations organizers, shop owners and shoppers of SL.

There is still plenty of time for you to get on over and check out the wonderful builds and all of the great shops and the best part is that it is getting easier to find open periods of time where traffic is down so lag is not as much of an issue.

OK, the Gardens of Babylon is simply an amazing build and the castle or palace on the Zeus at Olympia SIM, I suppose this is Olympia, was also very impressive indeed. Walking around in a place like this is a bit awe inspiring as to not only the talent some people have to make these things, but the vision to see them in their heads or be able to architecturally lay them out.

Things that was well beyond my capabilities.

I followed that up with the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus I was privileged to wander through three mighty impressive SIMs.

Let me state for the record here I have no idea if these builds do or do not represent any sort of factual representation of something from the past lives of the human race. Also let me admit that I was not compelled to do any sort of research to determine this because as I have stated, I am here for the fashion and to look and shop.

I suppose going into this I misunderstood the Fair’s conceptual plan, but when they said “Fashion for Life” I naturally assumed it was going to be all about fashion. So not the case it would seem because there are some great builds here and in many cases the builds themselves seem to be the focal point of the Fashion for Life Fair.

The downside of seeing these great builds is that they are a distraction from the pleasure of shopping for fashions. But, I have already expressed my thoughts on this so there is little reason to put a stick heavily to hide of the already diseased equine.

Also I just found out, like halfway through my tour of Fashion for Life, that for the most part only the monies spent on the Relay For Life boards go to the RFL fund. This significantly changed how I viewed each store on the FFL SIMs.

As with everything store owners are more involved with the charity than others, which is fine, and how willing a given shop was to offer their best product up as charity differed from store to store.

It was a bit distressing because many merchants seemingly put their marginal stuff in the boards for RFL or in the cases where they had new great looking stuffs, you were limited as to the color of the dress. While some stores had nice things for the RFL others looked to be clearing out old stock. At least to me.

I finished up the remaining SIMs and revisited a few on a new mission to pay more attention to what was offered on the Relay for Life boards and to be honest tended to give the shops that seemed to short change the RFL effort the bums rush and didn’t spend much time looking there.

Now I might also state that I tried to apply this approach to shops that carried styles and fashion to which I do not normally follow.

Then there seemed to be the issue of pricing as some of the places, whew, a $900 or $1000 offering? Seriously?

I feel that some of the RFL items were priced too high and while I realize that it takes a lot of work and skill to make nice things If you sell few if any of an item what good did it do anybody?

I think in a lot of cases more monies would have been made if some of the RFL items were more reasonably priced thus enticing people to buy more often.

I know, so many negatives.

But honestly the Fashion For Life Fair is/was fantastic fun for me and I loved it. I couldn’t encourage everyone to spend some time looking around and to do some shopping to support a very worthy cause.

Today’s dress called Soleil comes from Betty Barracuda’s Totally Betty store and was a Fashion For Life Fair board. Actually she offers this same awesomely cute little mesh dress for the beach or just casual fun in four attractive color combinations. Sadly it seems that only 3 of them have been sold to date.

Seriously? You shoppers cannot scale the leg of Colossus for the fun of it and to pick up this great little mesh dress for $150 L all to support a worthy cause? Tsk, tsk!

dollysdiary

Dolly's SL journey into self discovery

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