Little Glorfie wants a pony, and sweeties...

... because she is two years old today!

Actually, since SL years (and Internet years generally) are like dog years, that would make me the equivalent of fourteen, I guess.  Ditch the sweeties, I must start listening to music my parents don't like and moaning about how the world doesn't understand me, instead.

Anyway.  Last I heard, the average "lifespan" of an SL avatar was around ten months, so I thought I was doing pretty good to make it to one year... at the time, I felt I'd - to some extent - arrived in SL; I'd done a fair number of things - built a house, become part of the Oxbridge community, had inappropriate relationships (details not forthcoming, this is still Not That Sort of Blog), was renting a spot on one of the prime sims in Caledon...

Now, it seems, my involvement has deepened further; I'm engaged in a substantial building project, I've got my own little shop, I'm blogging about SL, and I'm in what feels like a very appropriate sort of relationship, with someone I like and admire and respect enormously, who happens also to be pretty darn sexy.  At this rate, by my third SL birthday, I should be living here full-time.

Considering that I arrived on the grid pretty much on a whim, it's kind of amazing I've lasted this long.  And I have, in fact, given a fair amount of thought to why I keep coming back here... graphics glitches, crashes, griefers, and idiocies of LL notwithstanding.

And I keep coming back to two things, the creative and the social aspects of SL.  First off, the building tools enable me to make cool stuff, and to go out exploring and see cool stuff other people have made.   But I could sit at home with Bryce and Terragen and POVRay and make cool stuff; the essential second component is being able to share the experience with others.  People are social creatures, after all, and the Internet in general has enabled people to come together, across the globe, in a way unparalleled in human experience - in fact, as a society, we are still working out the implications of all this!  SL is one tiny corner of the Internet, but it's one where creativity can flower in strange and fascinating ways.  I've been a part of that for two years, now... the chances are very good I will go on with it!