26 July, 2009

a quick fix won't ever get you well

Whats your thoughts on the blog feed? (The one on this login screen)

* I like the way it is
* Should add LLs main blog
* Kill it with fire
* Don't care
* Something else (comment plz)


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Working on adapting to the Emerald Viewer now, and after their latest rebuild, they may actually have something--I can't use most of the bells and whistles, and I can't change skins or it's an auto-stop--but it loads textures with a reasonable degree of speed and doesn't toss up the BSOD. And there's some funky little things that make it enjoyable to ride through the occasional spate of turbulence--like, being able to auto-set the texture you want to load first, on any created prim, and the ability to pick the color for your edit particles, or their token rainbow effect.

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I just can't shake the feeling, though, that I'm not sending out little particle emeralds, but little particle Superman logos. Maybe it's just me, but that still makes me giggle.

At the very least, as evidenced by the poll I snagged from their intro page? They have a sense of humor about the whole thing. So maybe that makes all of us laugh.

It took me nearly four hours to figure out what was wrong with the script, and I still can't figure out the text-across-the-front-panel nonsense, but I now have two texture vendors in Penzance. It's eclectic stuph and oddity, for the most part, collated over three years of importing things piecemeal, but they're there, and they work. Yay me.

"It's not really about the rain, is it? It's about love. Everything's about love, isn't it? Which reminds me: Psyche was a princess so beautiful that the goddess Venus became jealous. In revenge, she instructed her son Cupid to make Psyche fall in love with a gross, hideous monster. But the thing was, when he saw her, he fell in love with her himself. He took her to his palace; because he was a god, he forbade her from seeing him, and visited her only at night, as her mysterious, invisible lover.

"Now Psyche, actually, started to have a great time. The only thing is, she started to miss her family a bit. She persuaded Cupid to let her go back for a visit. She told her sisters all about it, and of course they were quite jealous; they always are in those stories. And they persuaded her that she should look at him, to find out if he was a monster.

"So that night, when he came to her, after they'd made love, he fell asleep--like blokes are wont to do. And she lit a lantern. When she saw him, and how amazingly lovely and perfect he was, she spilled some oil. It landed on his shoulder, by his wing, and burned him, and he awoke.

"Of course, he had to leave, that was it; Psyche had broken her promise.

"In the rest of that story, Psyche goes through torture, and tribulation, and humiliation, to try and find him again. She undertakes a series of cruel and difficult tasks, set by Venus, in the hopes of winning him back. In the end, she succeeds, because Cupid himself cannot bear to witness her suffering, and he pleads for her cause to the gods. Now, Psyche becomes an immortal herself, and they're married in heaven. But at the end of the story, she's not the person she was in the beginning, and neither is he.

"'But if, after her exile, and her torture...we should meet again, someday, in love's temple, there's no doubt...I will light your lantern on the altar, and that lantern will never, ever go out...'

"Lights out."


That's from Stephen Coates, aka The Real Tuesday Weld, and the Cupid and Psyche podcast, a mix of spoken-word readings and Tuesday Weld songs.

I admit, it got me thinking. Not only on the nature of love, and sacrifice, but on regret. Regret is so bitter. Regret is so heavy, and it can hold you down, stagger you, gasping with the heavy bitter weight of it, the unyielding pressure of its presence in your life. I know this, I know this all too well.

But what happens when we give up our regrets, those of us who bind them so closely? What happens when we release that ceaseless weight, that sodden agony of lost love and sharp-shattered dreams?

This is the fear, you see, that you will change, that we will change; that we will become shallow and uncaring, light able to pass through our substance because we have no substance remaining. This will not happen. The fear is that we will then lack our depth, our ideals, all that forms us, all that shadows us, draws around us like cobweb cloaking. I tell you now, you will not, for you are the one grown deep, from being held down so low, for so long. You are the one with depth, you cannot give that up, even if you release every regret, every guilt spasm, every pain you treasure so closely.

What will you gain, when you release regret? Perspective.

I will take it further, as I drag myself away from the wreckage of my past, and begin looking towards a future that may well be bright. One by one I let these cards fall from my personal Tarot. They will not be replaced or rewritten. I can only salvage so much for so long, and now, new parchment is needed. It is time, and more than time, I let these feelings go.

You never knew me. I can't believe I was shallow enough to be taken in by a pretty pale face and black leather buckles, but every time I tried to pry back that mask, and see the face you hid, there was nothing I could find. I was with you for nearly a year, mourned you for two months when you died, and was dismissed when you were brought back to life. Enough. I'm not your personal bank, and I'm not your girlfriend anymore. Move on.

You never knew me. All you heard, whenever I said I liked both genders, was that I'd give up the opposite gender to be yours. You never considered that for all the flirtation, your partner field was never empty. And you coordinated so very completely keeping the two of us separate. It also did not aid your cause that when you introduced me to the next man in my life, I would take insane jealousy from you as a caution to move farther away.

You, I thought I missed until the last time we spoke. Then I realized I was just something to do. You never wanted to talk to me, you just wanted the physical diversion. I thought I was your friend. I was wrong. I am sorry you lost a close friend because she couldn't understand why I would pick you when everything she did when we were together was scream at you and hurl invective at me. But it's over.

You were the only man on the grid that could make me smile, once. And I had an absolute blast flirting with you. I still think you're an amazing DJ, and I wish you all good things in your life. Lose my calling card.

You infuriate me. You lied to me from the beginning. And every opportunity I've given you since we parted, every single one, you've managed to work sex in there somehow. Enough. I'm not for rent anymore. And insulting me by calling me something I wasn't ashamed to be in the first place won't get me back. Grow up.

You really should have known better, dating a polyamorous woman. I told you when we met I didn't do monogamous; you waited eight months to tell me you were crazy jealous over everyone else I was with. In all truth, our relationship died that night; but I was the idiot who kept it limping along for another eight months. It's over now. I'll be your friend if you don't push it, but never anything more. I mean that; you keep pushing, I'm losing your calling card and unfriending you.

You, I never understood, but then, you never really got me either. I wanted someone strong enough to pull me out of the dominant headspace managing a busy club and a side business gave me. You wanted someone else to leash and beg. It wouldn't have worked out; trust me, you're better off on your own.

You...To this day I don't know why I started caring for you. You thought clawing to the bone was foreplay. I must have been out of my mind.

You just confuse the hell out of me. First you're straight, then you're curious, then you're gay, then you're gone. What the hell? I truly broke up with you when you abandoned me after asking to marry me. I've had enough nostalgic goodbyes. Good luck with the career; don't call me.

You may know me best of all. You may know me better than almost anyone else, know just what to say and when, but you threw me away over an outfit. You won't get me back for that, and following the path I leave will only ensure I'll walk faster to move away. The darkest of your shadows I found brighter than the face you turned to the sun. You should consider why.

You I still miss, but what we had, we can't have back. All the offers to marry me in the world won't change things. I'll keep in touch, because I worry, but loving you on the grid--that's over.

You...I still care for you, but it will never be what it was, and it shouldn't. How could it? Even so, I like to think we're friends. It works better for both of us, in the long run.

You were my one pure rebound affair. It did what it was supposed to, snapped my head back in place, and then you disappeared before I could figure out where we were going. Obscurely, I feel like I should thank you for that.

You utter rat bastard. I'm still trying to figure out what was the point of everything we shared...That I went even one week, even one day, let alone nearly a full year thinking I was completely at fault for everything that went wrong on both sides...You're manipulative, you're abusive, and no one will trust you again.

You were a mistake from the beginning. I'm sorry. I don't know what I was thinking, I don't know what you were thinking, and the entire thing start to finish was too Oedipal for words. Let's not do that ever again.

Gone. Card by card, word by word, emotion by emotion...gone. I do not need this, I do not need to remain in these spaces.

Gone. Every one of you, gone as a claimant on my affections. Regret? No. I'm done with regret. At least over the double handful of heartbreaks, I'm done with guilt.

Enough. Time for new things. Time for new lessons. Time and more than time to move on.

"Lights out."

2 comments:

Sphynx Soleil said...

*grins* In a way, this seems an oddly appropriate post. :)

This is the fear, you see, that you will change, that we will change; that we will become shallow and uncaring, light able to pass through our substance because we have no substance remaining.

Change is inevitable. It's actually how you react to change, and how your loves react to change, that makes the difference. Anyone who can't keep up....

Emilly Orr said...

...gets left behind, yeah.

You've been around long enough to know all, or at least most, of the principals involved. I left out the roleplay relationships--they're weird enough on their own.

Still. Kind of scary I can number the in-world relationships that have worked for me on...yeah, just three fingers. Hard not to think I'm getting it wrong, but on the other hand, I didn't make all the mistakes. And I know that now.

hide away, they say, 'cos we don't want your broken parts

Yeah, so...remember that thing I was recovering from? You know, last year ? Yeah. I did it again. So this is Em Faw Down Go Boom part ...