Going to and fro in the earth, and walking up and down in it...

I was asked today "aside from your own place, where is your favorite place in SL?" Upon my first read this was a simple enough question, but then I did that thinking thing... you know that thing. That thinking thing when your brain makes things more complex than they are...

During my junior year of high school, we all had to take the Georgia Basic Skills test. The test had two parts: a multiple choice and an essay. The essay was purportedly there to test your grammar and spelling. The essay question was "what is your favorite piece of clothing and why?" I don't have favorite clothes, and never really have. Clothes are what you wear between the gettin' nekkid. So I wrote an essay about my little brother. When I was nine, we took my cousin to live with us because his mother couldn't afford to support him and when I was eleven we adopted him and ever since he's been my little brother and not my cousin. I've been thinking a lot about him this week. This Thursday is the fifth anniversary of his death.

Back to the essay: I wrote about this set of neon green Mr. T armbands which were the very first birthday present my little brother ever bought me. I still have them, and they still carry a lot of sentimental value. I thought that I had explained this all rather well at the time, had talked about family and acceptance and whatnot. I thought I'd aced the essay. Come to find out that I actually failed. By three points. Failed the Georgia Basic Skills Test. I was mortified. They pulled me out of my gifted class and frog marched me to the guidance counselor's office whereupon the man said "I didn't realize that you were stupid. We're going to have to evaluate whether or not you should be in these advanced classes." He was dead serious. This may be the first moment in my life where I got crusty with someone. I didn't know what he was talking about, but I did tell him that he'd still be wiping teenagers noses and lusting after cheerleaders while I made my first millions. He then smugly handed me my test results. They said, and I quote, "Although you had perfect grammar and spelling, we feel that the subject of your essay was inappropriate." They failed me because they asked a stupid question. I had to take remedial classes "although [I] had perfect grammar and spelling" and retake the test with a tribe of mouthbreathers and nose-miners. My guidance counselor and I never spoke again, and when I was supposed to graduate I was called into the principal's office. The principal asked me "you haven't had your exit advisement with your guidance counselor. You know you need to do that to graduate?" Whereupon I launched into the above story, along with a few choice turns-of-phrase that I wish my Boswell had written down. The principal, knowing that I'd been nominated to the Air Force Academy and accepted to more colleges than I could shake a stick at then said "Well, I guess I can count as your advisor for this once."

I told you all of that to tell you this: I hate it when people ask me "what is your favorite x?" I tend to not keep favorites, or to have every one of a thing be my favorite, like Torley's pictures. Either way, if you ask me about my favorites, you'll rarely get the answer you're looking for.

Tonight, I replied to this person with a good-enough answer. An answer that answers their question well, but isn't my answer. That answer was:

One of my absolute favorite places in SecondLife is the Seaside Village near the Forest of Kahruvel (Cowell 152,79,26). It's peaceful and charming and convenient to the Forest which is in and of itself a fantastic place for exploring, games of hide-and-go-seek, picnics or pretty much any outdoor activity you can think of. The village, though, is my favorite because it looks and, more importantly, it feels like a real place I know and haven't been to for a very long time. It makes me nostalgic for sitting on a patio drinking wine and eating olives and cheese with friends I also haven't seen for a very long time.

That answer was true enough, in its own way, but the actual answer is, well, less concrete.


What is my favorite place in SecondLife? My favorite place is a place I have never been to. My favorite place is just beyond that far hill and there are things to do there that I've neither seen nor done before. My favorite place is a place with friends I haven't met yet. My favorite place is somewhere I've been a million times before but that I'm now seeing through someone else's eyes or with someone else's heart. I love going to and fro in the earth and walking up and down in it, and my favorite place is both where I am right now and where I am about to be.