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?

Word Thursday - Private

The old Y!360 used to have a Word Thursday. I even hosted that weekly event for some months. I found it quite informative as it always sent me searching for a new word or seeking the exact definition for a word I thought I knew and certainly used enough.

Today on Facebook I was suddenly overcome with an intense need for privacy. Yes, I know that Facebook privacy is an oxymoron (I will let you go look that one up). But despite the fact that I post four blogs, have a website for my business, a studio open to the public, and have an active Facebook account I am really a very private person. I don't attend high school reunions or trod the old college campas or go tripping through the Internet looking for old friends. This is now and that was then.

Nor am I on all these social networks for the sake of finding new friends especially. I have met some great new people admittedly but I trust slowly. And I find that my friends are almost as private as I am. Today I made a comment on comment on the FB page of a more public friend of mine and was ambushed by one of her friends. I immediately deleted my comment (not because I am wrong but because I was afraid of catching something - cooties maybe) and dashed back to my settings and cranked everything down to friends only so the friend of a friend could not follow me back to my lair.

So my word today is private.

pri⋅vate 

–adjective

1.	belonging to some particular person: private property.

2.	pertaining to or affecting a particular person or a small group of persons; individual; personal: for your private satisfaction.

3.	confined to or intended only for the persons immediately concerned; confidential: a private meeting.

4.	personal and not publicly expressed: one's private feelings.

5.	not holding public office or employment: private citizens.

6.	not of an official or public character: private life.

7.	removed from or out of public view or knowledge; secret: private papers.

8.	not open or accessible to the general public: a private beach.

9.	undertaken individually or personally: private research.

10.	without the presence of others; alone.

11.	solitary; secluded.

12.	preferring privacy; retiring: a very private person.

13.	intimate; most personal: private behavior.

14.	of, having, or receiving special hospital facilities, privileges, and services, esp. a room of one's own and liberal visiting hours: a private room; a private patient.

15.	of lowest military rank.

16.	of, pertaining to, or coming from nongovernmental sources: private funding.

–noun

17.	a soldier of one of the three lowest enlisted ranks.

18.	privates. private parts.

—Idiom

19.	in private, not publicly; secretly: The hearing will be conducted in private.

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Origin:
1350–1400; ME < class="ital-inline">prīvātus private, lit., taken away (from public affairs), special use of ptp. of prīvāre to rob. See deprive, -ate ¹

Related forms:

pri⋅vate⋅ly, adverb

pri⋅vate⋅ness, noun

Synonyms:
2. singular, particular, peculiar. 10. sequestered, retired.

Antonyms:
2. general, public.

All I have to add to this is Yes. That's me really.

Because I am an artist I have a public personna but I am inside an intensely private person.