SL Oxymorons:

Tenant's rights.

Meaningful sex.

Short dance.

Oxymoron:

Free society is an oxymoron. There is no such thing as freedom, there is only reduced oppression.

Self-Harm:

Do you believe in second life? It's my most elaborate form of self-harm. Apologies to Benedict Smith.

Really Lonely Person:

You know how Linden Labs cautions that there is a real person behind every avatar? Sometimes you see it in profiles too, "real person behind this avatar, handle with care." I think it should say really lonely person.

My Problem:

I figured out what my main problem is: reality. That's why I spend waste so much time in Second Life and reading. I'm trying to escape the deep disappointment of my actual circumstances.

What To Say:

It’s like when someone says, ‘How are you?’ Do you say, ‘Well, my head hurts and I’m lonely and depressed and I’m worried about everything and the world is collapsing and full of evil’? Or do you say, ‘I’m fine’?

   -Sara Shepard, The Visibles

I often reply to "How are you" with "I'm not bragging." That's how the sheriff responded in Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men. Sometimes I'll say "Just grand, I'm on a roller coaster that only goes up." That's what August Walters said in The Fault In Our Stars by John Green. But now I have practically a whole paragraph to reply with.

The Visibles looks like a great book, from the jacket cover:

In a novel consumed by the uncertainties of science, the flaws of our parents, and enough loss and longing to line a highway, Sara Shepard is a penetrating chronicler of the adolescence we all carry into adulthood: how what happens to you as a kid never leaves you, how the fallibility of your parents can make you stronger, and how being right isn't as important as being wise. From the backwoods of Pennsylvania to the brownstones of Brooklyn Heights, The Visibles investigates the secrets of the past, and the hidden corners of our own hearts, to find out whether real happiness is a gift or a choice.

 For me happiness is neither a gift nor a choice, it's reduced suffering.

Metaphors:

I see this line in profiles a lot, or something similar: IM me, I don't bite. That's a metaphor or a simile. They're making a comparison with a dog.

In my opinion, their profile would be much funnier if they expanded on the metaphor. For example, something like this:

IM me. I'm friendly. I will lick your face, sniff your crotch, and if I like what I smell, hump your leg. If you're lucky maybe both of them.

It's the unusual comparisons that make a piece of writing interesting.

Who I Write For:

I'm Not Lazy:

This is from a much longer post at Thought Catalog, which rings true (hat tip to a-thousand-words, where I first saw it):

It turns out procrastination is not typically a function of laziness, apathy or work ethic as it is often regarded to be. It’s a neurotic self-defense behavior that develops to protect a person’s sense of self-worth.

You see, procrastinators tend to be people who have, for whatever reason, developed to perceive an unusually strong association between their performance and their value as a person. This makes failure or criticism disproportionately painful, which leads naturally to hesitancy when it comes to the prospect of doing anything that reflects their ability — which is pretty much everything.