This is About Avatars

Those that knew me from my Y!360 days will recognize Charley, my first serious avatar. We changed avatars a lot in those early blogging days so I had a whole folder for avatars in My Pictures on my computer. I was reminded of this recently on Facebook as Halloween approached. On Y!360 we had a holiday appropriate avatar so I changed to my witchy photo for a couple weeks.

Boy, that was a weird experience. Remember how you felt in high school when you wore something totally out of style per your peers. Made it even worse when you happened to really love that blouse. That is how I felt with my holiday appropriate avatar on all to serious-about-avatars Facebook. Everyone uses their real face! How dumb (and oh, so boring) is that? I still have not adjusted to using my real name there. Though to be totally honest I am far from anonymous on the Internet. The first time I Googled my name I scared myself to death.

Anyway I have a Turkey all picked out for Thanksgiving, like it or not Facebook. Meanwhile, I decided maybe it was time to do something about having a decent face shot to use. One without a ski cap and a dog. Everytime I win a prize for paintings I am asked for a publicity shot. My sister takes marvelous photos but when she is up I seem to be in front of a camera standing waist deep in a mud puddle we just got the jeep out of.

So I decided today to mount the camera on its tripod and take some photos of myself. I won't be self conscious in front of me right? Anyway this requires the self timer mode on my Nikon D70. I have done it before but how seems to escape me every time I want to do it again. So I go hunting for the manual. Then I have to remember what it is called in the manual. I always think of it as shutter delay but that is a problem that needs solved not a mode you prefer to use.

So I finally got it all together and took almost 70 pictures. There might be one or two I can use after running them through Photoshop and using the artistic blur or something. So stay tuned to Facebook or any of my blogs to see the results in a day or two.

Frankly I really love Charley above or the masked lady I have on Profiles. Why do I have to get real?

Saturday Sum Up

On the old Y360 Saturday was typically my day to sum up the week. This one was particularly fun as my sister arrived on Tuesday afternoon with her Jeep Rubicon and we went were people do not often go. One of those places yesterday was a high meadow balanced on the ridge between the Moreno Valley and the Taos Volcanic plateau. As we entered the meadow we saw an elk and then two.

While patiently waiting for them to get closer for a better picture we heard the high pitched bugling of cows and calves and turning saw the ears of a huge herd going around behind us just over a low hill. Soon some appeared in a clearing in the forest on the edge of the meadow. They stopped a waited.


As their numbers increased they began to move off into the shelter of the trees twenty to fifty at a time while still calling to those behind us and out of sight.


I am told that such events in Celtic legend signal a lucky year ahead. Both my sister and I could use such a year after a not-so-great winter of our discontent behind us. And in truth there are some indications that my luck is indeed turning. The opening of the studio and the 3 T's Trail at last is only one mile post of better days ahead. As frequent readers know there was the Best of Show award at the Red River Fine Arts and Wine Festival coupled with good sales. And satisfactory sales at the Artsfest Show.

I just traded a painting for twin beds for the apartment which makes me one step closer to having that outfitted as a vacation rental. Getting really close to having that done. Still looking for a kitchen table and chairs. Won the battle with the electric utility co-op here. Seems I was right about my meter reading wrong. Not that they have gone back and readjusted any past bills, but the last one was more inline with previous years at least.

I am nearing the completion of my four years of debtor's prison - Chapter 13 - with three more payments to make. Then lo and behold they sent me a check for $87 with no explanation. Friends think that signals I am done with my obligation already and paperwork will follow.

The biggest thing of the last week as far as blogland is concerned is my reaching totally FED UP with Profiles. I am only posting links to my other blogs there in the status message. A friend tells me they are still working on improvements. If that is indeed the case I may go back but for now, friends, Blogger is where it is at for me.

Monday Morning Chat Over Coffee

Some scientist has probably already researched this but I found myself wondering this morning if flocks of birds of a certain species contain a stable membership during a season. Or when flock one meets flock two do they all become confused and fly off with the wrong flock? And do younger members of a flock lag and loose out on the direction everyone is heading? Do big storms forever break up a flock?

If the membership of Y360 was a flock then it certainly has been scattered to the four winds as it were. Some of us came at least temporarily to rest on the wires of Yahoo Profiles because our nests (blogs) were moved there. But more and more it seems we are reforming in other locations to become different flocks all be it smaller. And collecting lone birds from other flocks. Some are flying from flock to flock not knowing quite where they want to settle.

I am here. I love here. More and more I love here. And just yesterday I began to settle into Facebook beyond my previous five second rule. I've let the Twitter flock sail off into the horizon. Given the hacking going on there not sure I even want to return to close the account.

Beyond blogland I have been working on buffing and fluffing the studio and had three women stop in yesterday to see if I was open. Wasn't but did. I have my first student today. Bit nervous about that. I have my expectations and she has hers I am sure. Learned that when I was teaching skiing and dance and various self-actualization workshops.

My sister is coming up tomorrow so as soon as student is out the door time to buff and fluff other areas of the neglected residence. I am anxiously awaiting a delivery of art supplies ordered on line recently. I am going to begin stretching my own canvases again. I say again because I did that while getting my fine arts degree in college. Lately have celebrated that you can buy them pre-stretched these days. But the economy and that I am making my own frames is changing my perspective.

I am beginning to feel comfortable in my new flock here in Blogger. And the 360 strays I joined in Facebook are a happy bunch with a few new birds in that group too. So if I had to answer my opening question I would say flocks are always in a state of flux. What do you think?

Sunday Sum Up for July 19,2009

I am not going totally away from Profiles. My Y360 archived blogs are there. But from now on (unless significant improvements are made and quickly) I will be posting most of my blogs on Blogger. And using the status message on Profiles for links to my new posts here for my Profile friends

I have been one of the longest supporters of Yahoo but I just cannot keep faith any more. I am tired of my modules having to be constantly re-arranged and not having any control over my site. Sick to death of Ice Blue. You can decorate IM and Twitter. Why not Profiles. But the most irritating thing is, since I was staying there to stay in contact with friends, is that I am not always getting the alerts that messages have been left. And lots of friends are moving.

Against all desires I have wound up more and more on Facebook to stay in touch with friends I had originally made on 360. And quite a few of us are here on Blogger. Google has added some very nice new friendship features like following. Dashboard is now like the old 360 home page.

Don't look for me on Multiply. I do not trust that site and will not even visit you there. Sorry, but they done me wrong.

Hey, it has been a fun journey. And I will check Profiles for messages and post links in status message but it is no longer the first blog platform I tune into every morning. I generally log on to Blogger and catch up with updates on Dashboard.

So Sad! Look for me on Chats with Charley II for the old 360 type blogs.

Monday Morning Chat Over Coffee - Mourning

Yesterday evening I was ready to shut it all down and walk away. By everything I mean 360, Profiles, Twitter, Blogger and Facebook. Like my friend Sails I had reached sensory overload but not for the technical glitches and learning of new things and trying to keep up temporarily with one blog too many. I was just totally sated with the seemingly random rapid firing of diverse emotions I was getting in comments and status messages. Fortunately the cactus bud began to open and I was diverted with recording the process with my camera.

This morning as I encountered an even more open blossom to photograph I was also confronted with more emotions dripping off the blog pages. And it hit me suddenly. We are all in mourning. Our beloved Y!360 is dying and we really do not know how to cope.

We are going through the five stages of mourning and varying rates and without benefit of support group because here we are talking about technical processes and not Denial and Isolation, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. I think a lot of us, including me, are pretending acceptance. Judith Viorst in Necessary Losses writes about how we go through mourning even when the loss is something we wanted as in a divorce or graduation from college. To move on and up and out we must release: We must say goodbye to something.

I am bombarded at the moment not only with my own rapid changing of emotions about 360 and the loss of friends, but with the emotions of all my friends. And then there is my ex-husband who is in mourning for his whole body as he goes back and forth between bargaining and anger about the future amputation of his foot and/or lower leg. And I am still going through my stages of grief over the loss of my dear friend, Kathi.

I think it is key to the whole "recovery period" to know that the five stages of mourning are not linear necessarily. It should rather be seen as a giant emotional pinball machine. And we don't always reach acceptance. Sometimes there is a huge TILT and we get stuck somewhere in the process. And we can pick a seemingly superficial issue like the closing of a blog platform to hide from ourselves and the world all the other more serious issues we are dealing with.

For many of us 360 has been our port in a storm. Our life raft during trying times in the "real world" and now we are asked to joyfully swim to an uncertain shore. Please be kind to each other as we go through this. And be kind to yourself.