My secret life ... Back in August we joked about Sims Anonymous. I was thinking about that again today when I realized that I'd spent the entire day at work with half my brain on the tedium of paper shuffling and the other half plotting sim stories. And it wasn't only today. When I typed THE END for Dear Emmy, it really and truly was my plan not to begin another Sim Story for a while...to take a break... enjoy real life. But I'm weak. I couldn't stay away from it. Had to start something new. Now I'm obsessed!! There are quite a few story tellers in the forum these days. Do you find your minds wondering back to Pleasantview, Strangetown, or some other more fantastic place? Are your minds 100% at work or school, or only 50% there? Are you finding it hard to pay attention to your teacher or your boss? I think my husband is the only person alive now who can get 100% of my attention. Is there a cure for this condition?
If there is a cure, then please, someone send me some! You mean you're 50% there? I'm not even that anymore. But, then again, my job is boring one day and super-stressful the next. It's never a happy medium. So, on stressfull days, I'm thinking, "Oh, I wish I was able to get online and talk about my Sims. Or better yet, wish I was home and playing the game!" And on the boring days, when I have nothing pressing to do, I waste the entire day online.
In between each phone call I get here at work I swear I'm on this site or brain storming where my sims will go next. I've even taken to drawing floor plans once or twice at work to build once I'm home. It was so sad...I made my own grid paper! LOL! I'd say 50-75% of time I'm thinking of my little sim families or the sims within the stories on this site.
I actually got left on the precinct because i was thinking about the sims instead of listening to my Dad. He wanted me to just run and pick up something. I wasn't listening to where he said he was going to pick me up. I waited for 15 minutes, sighing and tapping my foot and checking my phone for the time, when he rang me up. He was on the other side of the precinct waiting for me. So yeah, I guess I'm a little addicted.
It's a contagion. I suspect the only cure is complete and permanent removal of the computer. However, early in 2005 I was without my computer for a couple of weeks (it broke.) Not having it available was very unnerving. :scared: No Sims! No access to the internet in the evening! (TV is hardly a substitute entertainment.) I was extremely stressed and I dread a repeat of that experience. No doubt in my mind--I'm not a stable person anymore.
This whole week I've been reprimanded for not paying attention at least twice a day because my mind was on TS2! I keep thinking about Kina and River, and the next installment of their story (I've already played it out, but I have yet to type it up). Gosh, we really need help.
When I was a little girl, I was a Barbie Fanatic. I played with my barbie dolls all day and had to have them taken away from me sometimes so I could go to sleep at night. I had all the clothes and the accessories, and I loved decorating the houses (My father built me one out of wood and mom wallpapered it for me one year for Christmas.) I made up fantastic stories with my Barbies. There was a family of my three favorite, their husbands (different Ken Dolls and "action figure" type dolls, like the Barbie-doll style Luke Skywalker, remember him?) and their children (various little Barbie-style dolls). I finally gave them up when I was about 12 or 13. So, the family joke is that I finally found a grown-up way to play Barbies. The Sims are my Barbies. I dress them up, decorate their houses, and play out their lives. When I went home for Christmas I booted up Mom's comptuer and proudly displayed my Sims Page to show them my creations. My sisters laughed and my mother said, "Aren't you a little old to still be playing Barbies, even if they are on the computer?" She had no room to talk, IMO. She's on "Pogo" when she's not at work, and even uses her Pogo winnings to buy avatars and dress them up and buy accessories. I want to say, "Mom, what's the difference?" But I don't. LOL
I'm always thinking about my sims, these days, trying to think of what to have happen next, both in the game and the story, worrying about them ... Porter appears to be glitchy and that's not good news as he's become one of my favorites. So I'm worried about him, like he was a real person ... so sad. I have to try hard not to discuss the sims with my RL friends, though my husband's sympathetic and very nice about it. He understands: he's a professional baker and is always thinking about bread. Seriously. You can bake so many different kinds. He's truly talented. The difference is, his obsession makes us money. I have a novel I need to get back to, one that might actually earn me money, but I just got off a stressful week at work so I'm giving myself the weekend off. My house is a pit, but I don't care about that much. Every once in a while I take the weed whacker to it. I keep the kitchen nice, the laundry is always done, and the animals have clean bedding, litter and fresh food and water. Who cares if the living room is full of clutter? Every once in a while I zip through and put everything away. My dog lets me know when she needs me, ditto my kid. We've got her cousin staying for the weekend. They're like sisters that actually get along and when she's here I don't see them for hours. Nice little holiday for me. Tonight my husband and I get to go on a date. We're going out to eat and then to see King Kong, which he's seen twice already. Guess we're a family of obsessives, LOL. He works the graveyard shift so we don't see each other as often as we'd like. More time for sims, less time for RL woohoo ... I'd like to keep more of a balance, but that's life. But yes, I'm an addict. I think about sims when I don't have to think about anything else at the moment. I do need to get back to that novel, though, so I'll need to work on balancing my time. And the Barbie analogy is dead-on, Kristal. I used to daydream about having Barbies I could program to live their little Barbie lives. I think I've been waiting for the sims my whole life. So I refuse to apologize for playing it now. What good is growing up if you can't do what you want?
My Grandad made me an enormous Barbie house when I was little - it had carpet, wallpaper - even little working electric lights! No stairs, though... :( We still have it. I'm going to give it to my future daughter, if I have one. Another childhood toy was the rocking horse from DFS. Nan and Grandad left me in the kids area while they looked at sofa's, when they came off they had to wait for another half hour while I played on this bloody rocking horse. I wouldn't let anyone come near me - screamed if they did. In the end, Grandad gave the store manager 20 quid for it, and I was a little full time rocker! Anyway. Offtopic. Sorry, Lynet.
No such thing here. This is the Offtopic Coffeehouse. And to SBW, I say YES! It's no fun being all grownup if you can't play when you want to--once the stuff necessary to survival is taken care of. That's the answer to my worry about my secret life.
