Later Hucka Doobie and Baker Bloch find the correct consignment shop with the red box dress in Annapolis MD but decide not to enter. They’ve had enough fantasy for the current photo-novel.
no thanks
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0021, 0702, Bogota, collages 2d, Google Street View, Maryland, Silverton
resonant
“This place reminds me that we need to check in on Roger Pine Ridge back in Iris, Hucka Doobie. I wonder if he still has that Indigo child’s sphere; perhaps putting it on when he wants to know about all the secrets of the world.”
“This place reminds *me* that we have our own underwater world — alongside Roger’s.” Do you see how I’m posing, she thinks, striking another one. Can you see me atall?
“I guess we better move along, Hucka Doobie. Enjoy the rest of the show.”
She stands up, tired of the talk for tonight. “You go ahead without me. I’ll catch up with you at Sunklands.” She disappears.
Baker is left alone to explore the fabulous Indigo Waters sim pointed out to him by friend Veyot. But he doesn’t mind since the dazzling sights are such a distraction.
Baker suddenly has a craving for pie.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0021, 0701, HANA LEI
groundside
“I suddenly have to go pee, Hucka Doobie. Better pull off at the next convenience store. Need gas anyway. This Post is bigger than we thought! Like traversing a whole country in a microcosm, I suppose.”
“Lots of ‘P’s’ along the way for certain,” offered Hucka Doobie, tired of driving and listening to toddler-like Baker Bloch complain. Perhaps if he drives he’ll have more to occupy his mind. But she likes the company. An excuse to spend time with him. Always nice if sometimes irritating in the same moment. She instinctively feels the top of her head with a free hand. Antennae hadn’t grown back yet. Maybe they never will. Maybe they’re gone for good. She’s human through and through now. Perhaps that means…
“There!” Baker Bloch barked in his back seat driver kind of way even though he’s in the passenger seat. But it was a consignment shop and not a convenience store. Bake’s bad.
Hucka Doobie makes a sharp turn, surprised she could drive the car all the way to the store and not have to park in the road or something.
Baker gets out, checks the sign. “Stripes,” he says, seeing red all around. “Seems familiar.” He then holds the crotch of his pants with both hands while his knees knocked.
“Better get you inside before it’s too late,” said Hucka Doobie, chuckling a bit. But she too thought there was something odd about this store. And when they went inside and found apparently blood stained designer dresses on a rack in back their suspicions were verified.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, *REALITY, 0021, 0616, Google Street View, Texas
Dreamer 02
He met her in the club beside baker b.’s Red Umbrella gallery and in front of Norm the Cashier’s flower shop. In his dream he followed her down to a beach at the enigmatically named Publius sim. She was wearing a red dress, a freebie in a box as Graham 02 or Barry 02 soon discovered at the end of the path. Later the red (box) was removed at a club in Montague owned by a big fan of Supertramp. Red strip: now he knew what that meant. He can imagine Norm shaking her head. He better get back to her. If only he could figure out a way to wake up — pinching doesn’t work here.
—–
She was shaped like the letter Q, a hole with a squiggle on the edge,” he grasps for an explanation after finally coming back. “That’s me!” Norm doesn’t approve and threatens to cut off his credit. “Do you know how much I sacrificed to get to this place?!”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0021, 0614, Black Ice, ENIGMA, Jeogeot, Nautilus, NWES Island, Wild West
Dreamer
He crosses his arms, feeling guilty again. Was this statue that had trouble rezzing in before *alive*? Was it another version of himself? Was it Graham once more? The green dot doesn’t lie but no one was around according to his scanner. He pinches himself. Is he dreaming? His hand passes through his arm on the way to its intended action. Failure, of course. He’s dreaming.
He attempts communication. “Whatup?” he decided to frame it. “How’s it hanging?” he follows up. Nothing. There *must* be something to this — anomaly.
The only avatar around — found through turning off volume and toggling on the “show skeleton” option for avatars — is this dancing gecko more in the southern part of the sim: Montague. He teleports to the edge of a sky “o” to find it. He stares over at the drink cooler after manifesting, realizing this was another hole, like in his most recent work called “Half and Hole” featured in that last post before the current one here. And the bar itself is shaped like a hole. He’s traveling a diagonal again.
“Whatup?” he tries again over to the jiggling exotic lizard. He’s sitting on a “333 — Tiki Bar Stool”; he checks while waiting. But nothing again. He wasn’t surprised.
Someone else must be coming.
It seemed like a good place to send Crappy in, the newest freebie outfit on the marketplace I added to my cart only several minutes back. Crappy hates the 1974 music of Supertramp and thinks their album “Crime of the Century” is vastly overrated. Perfect.
—–
It didn’t work! Something is wrong with Crappy. Maybe Supertramp merits deeper study after all.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0021, 0613, ENIGMA, Nautilus, Rank & File, Wild West
“Half and Hole”
“If you approach things with a sense of humor, people immediately assume you’re not to be taken seriously. But I think truths about society and human existence can be approached in different ways. You don’t always have to be deadly serious. Sarcasm and humor can help you see things in a lighter vein.”
“It’s an extension of my old work into collage. The 3d Venus turns into herself (again) only to be a hole. Kind of like Warhole over there, ha.”
“Very funny.” Warhole didn’t laugh. Warhole hardly never laughs at nothing. The a-hole.
Ant, who was closer to Barry 02 and staring at his newest work with him (Warhole was staring away or looking at his feet or the ceiling, take your pick), spoke up again. “It’s wonderful. 2 4th floor works now. We want to commission you, me and Harrison Jett. You may remember him from the art rock group Beet, like a sugar beet. In fact, that was their original names: the Sugar Beets. Came out from the praries of Idaho around Rupert and Paul. Family all worked in that kind of factory, except for Uncle Bob. He was different. He was a frog.”
“We’ve been through that,” replied Barry 02, thinking back to the figure and symbol filled chalkboard of his most recently remembered dream. “But his name was Bullfrog.”
“That’s just what he *was*.”
Andy Warhole finally turns toward the work from his more distant, angly position. “I’ll give you 50,000 lindens for it, final offer. I’ll give it to Yoko Ona as a wedding present for her most recent marriage to John. I’ll let Marilyn kiss it for good luck before the ceremony with her permamark lips. I’ll let [delete name] [delete] all over it with his [delete]. Then it will be ready, then it will be good.” Andy Warhole pulls an attache case out from under the couch next to him. He always has it ready for an art purchase. Always 50,000 lindens for the nobodys, not less but certainly no more. Always over 50,000 for the somebodys.
Barry 02 pondered the deal. This means he could make art for a 1/2 year without any hassles of an outside job. He could paint canvases without painting walls or ceilings. He could sculpt with garbage instead of throwing it away with a group of similarly grody smelling men into bins. Binmen I think they call them across the pond, the ocean. “Okay.” Andy slides the attache case from the couch over to Barry 02. He’s almost sold his soul. One touch of the money and he’s done.
lighten up
She kept scribbling with the chalk while talking, producing figure after figure, like an adding machine but beyond: all the numbers and more. “So you see it’s very easy.” She caps off her last equation with a triumphant swirl of the arm. She faces the classroom. “Bullfrog was Dr. Rabbid Baumbeer all along, so when Sue Ellen Hutchinson or Hutchison killed the *lat-ter*… she also killed the *for-mer*. It’s all indicated way back at the beginning with this modifier here.” But before she could circle the appropriate symbol with her yellow chalk — I believe it was a “q” — Barry spoke up. He couldn’t wait any longer; had his arm in the air for a while now, which the young(-ish) teacher was use to. She didn’t want to be interrupted until this decisive declaration.
“Miss Graham, Miss Graham,” he interjected. She twirled, as if surprised by his voice. She wasn’t. “Oh… yes Barry.” She points to him with her chalk instead of the “q”.
So (his name) wasn’t Graham — the *teacher* was Graham. Wheeler had her wish.
“I’m wondering, uh, if all this means red caps are bad. *I* have on a red cap.” He takes off his cap and quickly puts it back on to emphasize. “*And* a red tie.” He flips his tie at the teacher, who jumps back a bit as if it were a snake. It made a peculiar, cartoon(-ish) snapping noise she wasn’t expecting. What was *that*, she thought internally. She’d have to add it in somewhere on the board to figure out later. Better not erase this juggernaut just yet.
—–
Barry woke up still holding his tie. “Q, heh?” he said aloud to no one. “I’m Q(!)”
(to be continued?)
tiger
He was sitting in a far away city, staring at a wall and thinking of nothing. Not: how did I get here? Not: wtf?? Just a blank slate. We better write upon it. Where’s that chalk?
*Flower Shop*, that was it. Turn around, DeBoy, and come face to face with your new home!
—–
“I often dream I’m a little boy with this tie on. I didn’t know much but I was gifted in other ways. Something about this tie…”
“Are you going to crash here again tonight? asked Norma the cashier. But most people just called her Norm. Normal Norm, who always handles the Cash. And she has a secret pipeline to the Amazon — that’s why her flowers seem so fragranty and exotic. They are! Didn’t cost her an arm and a leg but instead something else. “Are you going to answer me, Graham?”
Graham, he thinks, still hazy from a dream. That was my name in another far off place. Something about a mountain without green, something about a big picture with blocks of color. Something about… an Ant.”
(to be continued?)
Oh, I forgot. “Yes,” he answered to Norm’s question. She rings up 10.75 in credit to his response. But he’ll probably just pay again with that other thing he’s good at besides lounging around all day.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0021, 0610, Black Ice, Jeogeot, NWES Island
Barry 02 Graham 02
Wheeler was called in to move some 88’s and decided to have a chat with Barry while she was at his studio. “How’d the meeting go with Warhole?” she asked to begin. “I heard Ant and Harrison Jett were also there. Something about murder?”
“No,” defended Barry, not worried about his blood stained hands in the moment, although he reflexively crossed his arms to hide them.
“No, everything was lovely,” he continued. “Warhole and I were bickering a bit when Ant and Harry showed up.”
“Harry?”
“Yeah, that’s what Ant called him all the time. Anyway, *they* started bickering with each other and then we started looking around, all four of us, and begin laughing. First a ha, then a ho ho, then a hu hu hu, then a full out he he he he for all. Graham then served some kind of regional soup for us and then everyone said ‘hi’ to end, kind of like aloha.”
“Graham? Who’s that?” continued Wheeler with the questions. She didn’t plan on delivering so many but here we are. She looks over at the slanted picture of the Eiffel Tower and thinks we need to get back over to Marwood and the bots for more storytelling on the Jeogeot continent. Speaking of which…
“Graham owns the cafe. Rothko fan through and through, along with collecting covid ravens and practicing anti-fascist remote viewing.”
“She?” Barry didn’t say ‘she’ — didn’t identify a sex for Graham, which is more a boy’s name I’m assuming. Where did Wheeler get…? Oh, maybe *she’s* indicating I should go in that direction. *She* wants to be Graham. So I decided to ask her. Wait, I’m not in this shot.
Barry didn’t pick up on the anomaly and simply replied, “*she*, yeah.” Wheeler was already checking her outfits.
(to be continued?)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0021, 0609, Corsica, Northwest
Sunklands 