An Old Friend
January 8, 2026
I purchased the Big Red Warehouse from Danger Gum back in 2012. It was my very first workshop. As the years passed, I moved on to other buildings to serve as my workshops. But sometimes in Second Life you just need to see an old friend.
This year has not started out well for me. I had to have my vet put down one of my cats on January 3rd because she was having violent seizures. At the same time that was happening, I was ending a short but intensely romantic relationship, and Flickr’s new AI account management system permanently suspended my account, demanding that I pay them a premium subscription to get it back. I refused to pay, and so over 600 photos I posted are now gone.
I created a new photo gallery here to house my favorites.
At one point, recently, I wondered how many different ways a heart could be broken. It just feels like endings and new beginnings are being forced down my throat at this point.
Working in Second Life has always sustained me as a kind of therapy. I find solace in building, it offers me a place to bury my hurt, disappointment and sadness. I’m a ‘found objects’ builder, which means I do not create models in an external program. Everything I create comes from SL. I just log in and go to work – and soon I am so focused on whatever project I am working on, I forget what was bothering me.
My relationship to building is the oldest, most enduring relationship I’ve had in SL. I have an unspoken and unbreakable allegiance to my fellow builders, big and small, famous and infamous. It’s like being part of the largest family here. For a loner like me, that acknowledgment brings comfort.
I was first called, “The Mysterious Mechanic” by a fellow motorcycle builder in 2013, who grew frustrated with the fact that I would never show him where I worked. The nickname was meant as a slur, but I liked it and adopted it as my business name. Over the years I’ve had both public and secret locations for my workshops, and I think I prefer secret locations because they afford me the time and space to allow the act of building to heal me. To let my imagination act as a buffer between me and whatever painful reality I am grappling with.
My relationship to Second Life has always been a deeply personal one, and that’s why I decided to add this blog to the website. Because I don’t think I’m the only one who feels this way about this particular virtual world.
This piece of music resonates with me today. “Thomas Bergersen – Sparks”