The writing is a whole other story. My friend Henry said recently “Something needs to happen SOON.” He’s right, of course. Exciting things are planned. I cut a whole page, and maybe I should have cut more. I quite enjoy painfully slow-paced plots, but I’m ready for Things to Happen.

In the beginning I created an avatar called Maginnity. Maginnity’s physical appearance was based on the “college guy” avatar but made female and given some extra weight, which seemed mostly to go to Maginnity’s behind. To start with, Maginnity stumbled around a bit and somehow ended up in “London”. It looked quite fun there but suddenly I got a warning that the region would restart soon, and if Maginnity remained there I would be logged out of Second Life. So Maginnity teleported elsewhere. I appeared to have some connection problems, and as a result Maginnity got a bit trapped flying into the upper windows of a building like a demented pigeon. After a reboot, things ran a lot better.

I couldn’t resist the urge to play dressups. Somehow through this process, Maginnity ended up with only one shoe, and seemed to be embarrassedly trying to hide the be-socked foot under the foot with the shoe on it. She also ended up having what looked like two drawer handles coming out between her boobs, thanks to some kind of cyborg costume that never fully formed but never went away, either. It was interesting to see that I couldn’t stand even a virtual tattoo for more than a few seconds. Here’s a picture I took of Maginnity standing on top of a giant burger as the sun set over the ocean:

You wouldn’t believe the trouble I had to go to in order to get her up there. Two-dimensional firefighters looked on disapprovingly as Maginnity leapt from the top of a police car to the roof of the burger joint, and a Predator-like creature lurked menacingly on the side of a nearby building. Maginnity wandered around the world, running, stumbling, and occasionally flying, while I took in whatever there was to see, wherever we ended up. We found things for sale – virtual plants, birds, and decorations – presumably for people to use to decorate their personal corners of Second Life. Do people code those objects themselves and then upload them to sell? Many were not much to look at.

There were plenty of graphical faults and jitters. Occasionally Maginnity would wander into the middle of an apparently solid object, or half walk through a wall. She would twitch and flail without my having done anything to cause it. But these idiosyncrasies only served to endear me to hapless Maginnity, whom I freely cursed for her clumsiness and stupidity. “What the heck are you doing, Maginnity?Maginnity, you’re such an idiot!” She didn’t seem bothered by any of it (except the missing shoe).

As Maginnity wandered around, the sun started setting. I liked that. It was pretty. Occasionally we would find buildings that appeared to have security fields that prevented avatars from entering. I thrust Maginnity at the fences to try to broach them, and flew her up next to them to see if she could sneak in over the top, but they appeared to be designed to prevent entry. The fenced off regions didn’t look any more interesting than any of the other structures available to explore, so I helped Maginnity to trespass where she was more welcome.

At one point Maginnity ended up in a treehouse, jumping on a bed. Next thing I knew, she was riding a giant glowing caterpillar over the hills, while a sky full of bouncing teddy bears soared overhead. In the end, when Maginnity was flying out over the starlit sea, I decide to fully embrace the experience and let go. I clicked “stop flying” and zoomed out to watch Maginnity’s flailing fall into the dark ocean rippling far below. Second Life logged out.

I’m thinking about starting a company to go with my logo. Probably not the best business approach.

There’s nothing like kicking back and reading the encyclopedia over a tall glass of pink lemonade, after a long day selling encyclopedias to housewives.

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Most people find it scary rather than funny. Whatever. Your fear only entertains us.

My latest vector illustration.