I've been really really depressed lately. Now before you go 'awww' and start posting comments to encourage me, I'm not looking for sympathy or well wishes, just documenting. These are those odd situations where SL and RL really collide. Can Mera really be depressed? I dunno. What I do know is that Mera has taken the leap further away from LL by dropping yet another volunteer group. I was told long ago by a good friend that the volunteer groups weigh you down and will only hurt, and she was right. I dropped out of Live Help. I enjoyed that group more than any other, but the self-important chatter on the channel and the grating and guilt tripping comments from the Linden staff was just too much for me. Bah, I nearly got myself on a rant, but I'll just delete the rest of what I was about to say and continue on my merry way.

I've also stopped teaching. I'm not sure if it will be permanent, but it's looking like it. I'm still assisting at NCI with scheduling and I'm happy to help with more, but again, it's the people I'm having a hard time dealing with. This could simply be the depression talking, but those that know me know that I get a vibe off of people and have been making an effort in trusting that because it's rarely wrong. I know that's an unfair judgement to someone I've not really met, and many will question if you can get a vibe off of a virtual avatar, but I still maintain that it's there. This is not to say that the people are evil and looking to do wrong, but hitting one million residents has really seemed to dilute the quality of the residents. There are some real gems out there, but they're much harder to find.

I know, I know, embrace the change. I am the *first* person to embrace change, actually. I love it. This isnt' to say all change is good. I'm not completely anti-social, but I'm not all that social either. Is there a term for it? I'll call it Mera-social. I do well, but in smaller crowds. I also do well with more intelligent crowds. This isn't to say you can't act stupid, but acting stupid requires more intelligence than being stupid.

Since my pull out of most everything, I've had a considerable bit more of free time. To the point of being lonely. I find that an oddly insane feeling to have, but it's true. Maybe I'm just not used to not being constantly busy. I did pull out of a lot in perparation for being very busy, but that's yet to be the case. I dunno. I'm just having a hard time with everything these days.

Those that had been asking, I began rebuilding my art gallery last night. I'd sketched out what I wanted to build a few weeks ago, but held off of actually doing anything. I even went so far as to place my land for sale as I'd considered moving to a different sim. Alas, that will not happen. Nobody had yet purchased any of my parcels and I yanked them from the market. The amout of adjacent land that I'd need is too great and difficult to find, so I thought it best to remain where I am. The basic build is in place, it just needs a lot of detail work. It's really shrunk down to about 50% of it's planned size. My imagination and the reality of the land area didn't jibe very well. This is making for some interesting problems to deal with, but it'll get worked out. I may need to come up with an additional floor, though. All in all, I'm pretty happy with how it's turning out, however. This planning before building thing my yet catch on.

Shelter in Exile is doing well. It's not full 24×7 as the Shelter in Isabel, but we've maxed the sim during one event so far. No, it's not the new Shelter, but it is the first Shelter satellite location. Events are much nicer there as we've yet to experience the kind of lag rampant in Isabel/Wingo. All of the events, aside from Payment Podium, are still running normally so come on out.

Is there anything else I can ramble about? Avatar shapes and skins. I *have* to talk about that. I believe it will require an additional posting, however. Stay tuned!