Sometimes I like to ramble. Sometimes thoughts just pop into my head and beg to be put to paper or typed into a keyboard.
I am Miss Reghan Straaf, known amongst some as the Mad Milliner. I am a neko, which means I have a swishy tail and ears. Why am I a neko? It was an accident. But to answer the question once and for all:
A while ago, I used to be a tigress. I was shapely and had long, wavy black hair, and my lush body was covered in a luxurious, velvet-like fur. I tell the truth when I say that I could have anybody I wanted without trying too hard, and I proved it over and over. I also wasn't very nice and did what I could to get my own way. What can I say? I'm a cat! Anyways, I decided, for purrsonal reasons, to take an airship from my new home to another place, and we ended up in a violent storm. I understand there was some sort of rift in continuity, and here I am.
I took another name, though it is not the one I was born with, and gave myself "Bella" as my middle name. I was going to use Strawe as a surname, but somehow it came out Straaf. So Straaf it is, and it sounds like "Strahhff". I'm not fond of the surname, but it's mine, and I'm stuck with it.
I am also Victorian, and while I will sometimes wear something that doesn't scream nineteenth century, it's not common. My hair is normally worn in a proper bun, I wear a hat and gloves when I go out, and unless I've forgotten to put my boots on before I go out (it has happened twice so far), my ankles are always properly covered.
My first job in Second Life was teaching building classes to beginner and intermediate builders, and I moved into teaching advanced building classes, which I preferred. At some point, I created a simple hat with a couple of flowers and ribbons, and taught that. I'd been making similarly simple hats in my condo (my first home in Second Life) to match the single Victorian outfit I had, and I thought it'd be fun to teach one.
I didn't know it back then, but one of those hats, originally created because I couldn't find one that fit, were going to explode on me.
The "Mad Milliner" title is borrowed from the Mad Hatter, and I believe that it is completely appropriate for me anyways. That aside, madness and hatmaking go together because back in the olden days, milliners used mercury to cure felt for the hats. They couldn't help but breathe in the fumes, and the mercury poisoning caused damage to their neurological system. This poisoning made them mentally disturbed or confused, created speech problems, and did other things to them before eventually killing them.
Anyways...when I'm not poisoning myself...
I work as a purrsonal assistant to Sir JJ Drinkwater, and I hold him in high esteem. He is a brilliant, charming man, and sometimes makes my heart give a little flutter when he's formally dressed and uses big words. He runs the Caledon Libraries, and quite tirelessly.
I also give a voice to Radio Riel, a radio station that allows me to impose my favourite 80s songs on everybody once every Thursday.
It seems I am a busy lady, and I am. It keeps me out of trouble, and lets me stay in the present moment. My purrsonal life was pretty boring until lately, as I only went to an occasional dance, or went shopping, and rarely socialized.
It changed. I am delighted to have a companion and friend in Fawkes Allen, who makes me laugh and feel good, and who can wreck a song just as well as I can. He owns Autogenic Alchemy, and sells a clockwork mouse that I just HAD to have. It lives on my cupboard of webmall boxes, next to my phonograph, in my Hatbox.
The Hatbox is my workroom skybox.
I don't live in Caledon, though I have toyed with the idea of buying a parcel there. However, I like and require lots of prims, so where I live now is purrfect with about 3000 prims of my own. I do have a shop there, but that's a different blog.
Well, as I said, I rambled. But that's me. Can I keep up with posting stuff? I shall surely find out in time.
I'm finished this one, though.
- RBS.
