[[It suddenly occurred to me, this was posted in a separate journal. I wanted it here for posterity. It was originally posted January 20th of this year.]]



[The vampire princeling] left.

What ravages of spirit conjured this temptuous rage?
Created you a monster; broken by the rule of love....
And fate has led you through it,
You do what you have to do.
And fate has led you through it,
You do what you had to do....
But I have the sense to recognize that I don't know how to let you go....

Every moment marked with apparitions of your soul.
I'm ever swiftly moving; trying to escape this desire...
The yearning to be near you,
I do what I have to do...
The yearning to be near you...
I do what I have to do...
And I have the sense to recognize that I don't know how to let you go...
I don't know how to let you go...

Glowing ember, burning hot....burning slow.
And deep within, I'm shaken be the violence of existing for only you...
I know I can't be with you...
I do what I have to do...
I know I can't be with you...
I do what I have to do...
And I have the sense to recognize that I don't know how to let you go...
Don't know how to let you go...

("I Don't Know How to Let You Go", Sarah McLachlan)

In other news, the Enigma closed tonight, and it was almost a physical blow picking up all the dances, all the things that belonged to me, to take them away to use elsewhere. Towards the end of the evening it felt very much like that moment at the end of Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, where all the ladies are leaving, and they're all making their goodbyes, while "Hard Candy Christmas" is playing in the background...

All the dancers were hugging each other as they left. Some kissed and just vanished from the stage. Others hugged everyone, said they loved the crowd, and ran off.

One hugged everyone within reach, and then walked out, head held high, saying she couldn't bear to look back.

I promised to stay until the end. We started a little early--around 6:30 pm PST--and everything wrapped up when it was just me and the current neko boy who's keeping me sane, at 12:38 am.

And then I flipped the OPEN sign on the door to CLOSED, took back my dances, and went home shuddering.

Overall? Though there were moments of glory, and much love seen, and much commiseration...it was not one of my best evenings ever.

And that's been my week. I've had enough. No more please.

A performance deserving of standing ovation
And who would have thought it'd be the two of us
So don't wake me if I'm dreaming
'Cause I'm in the mood, come on and give it up...




He dances with me. It's not how we met, but it's how he stayed on the radar. Three weeks of dancing, once, the same dance, over and over, lighting up every time he asked me, oh so politely, if I wished to dance with him. Three weeks of wondering where this was going to go, if it was going to go anywhere off the dance floor, and three weeks of realizing, even if it never did, I was alive in his arms and that was enough.

He dances with me. He danced the day the Enigma fell, the week my heart shattered, and spun me around in delicate circles as I took back the rest of the club dances and finally turned off the lights. That memory was all that staved off crushing grief, in the days following, that I had such joy to balance pain.

He dances with me still. I pray we never get to the point where we stop.

You've got me feeling hella good
So let's just keep on dancing
You hold me like you should
So I'm gonna keep on dancing, keep on dancing...



He dances with me. Stately, elegant, friendship's finest offer, he started dancing with me to stave off incubus advances, fearing my return to the demon if I returned to the demon's arms, even to dance. He started dancing with me as protection, and then he started taking me to other clubs, where we danced long into the night.

I remember one night in Broken Rose, he called across the miles for me to come and dance. When I arrived, it was to a room full of half-clad gentlemen--half of whom I knew--and one additional damsel, and myself. He claimed me for the first dance, and didn't let me go to dance with my favorite Victorian for several hours. We talked about...everything, that night, a meeting of the minds as we swayed in place, and it's a memory I still treasure.

He dances still, when he has the time, and though honestly, some days, I'm more enchanted watching him build, watching how he sets ideas and prims together...I still adore dancing with him. Even though I'm too short.

The waves keep on crashing on me for some reason
But your love keeps on coming like a thunderbolt
Come here a little closer
'Cause I wanna see you, baby, real close up...



He dances with me. Obscurely, it is how we met, staring across the bay, I breathing sea water through gills, he breathing it through some odd elemental magic...He showed up at one dance and I was intrigued; he showed up in town after, showing me what he'd built, and I was impressed; he showed up at Tiki Night in Kokopelli, and I was enraptured.

We danced for hours, that night, watching the night fall, the sun rise, the night fall again. We have danced for hours since, simply moving to music and talking, endlessly, on everything and nothing, from minutiae to reality, observances of lives in progress and lives led elsewhere. We have swayed in place and spun out in mad abandon and all that lies between, and I never, never tire of it.

He dances still. How could he not?

If I seem to value nothing else, let me say this: I value dancing. Moving together, you learn your partner in a way you sometimes cannot with simple words. Motion cannot displace communication; but motion ties all things together. We all dance to the music of the universe, all the way down to the smallest atomies, that dance and spin, each against each, as we do with each other. And those that touch my heart, they must value it, on some level, as well.

I am blessed by knowing these three men, who show such care to all their dancing partners, through all their days. As I've said before, it's rule number five: Dance whenever you can. Never pass up an opportunity to move.

Dance can be thrilling, exalting, humbling, dizzying, goofy, happy, giggly and festive. It can be a form of worship, it can simply be you and the one who asked you to dance, two strangers brought together by a whim. And everything conceiveable in between.

We can dance together and apart, we can dance without knowing we're dancing, we can dance privately and publically, we can make merry and play havoc, all with dance. There are those who say sex is a form of dance, and I wouldn't entirely disagree. There are others that say love itself is dancing, and in my best and brightest relationships, I think that's true.

Never pass up an opportunity to move. Dance as long as you can. Dance and the universe dances with you, your percussive beat adding to the music of galaxies and suns, spinning around and around.

Just get out on the dance floor, already. Move.

(Lyrics taken from No Doubt's "Hella Good")

...what, it's another week already? Damn, how the time gets away from me when I'm in Limbo...

Yes, sadly, I've been spending a lot of time in Limbo. It always happens when I get a new Key, and we haven't even started enchanting it yet, this was just helping in the forging.

*sighs*...Anyway, I needed some cheering up. And little cheers me up like dressing in a sexy outfit and dead flesh...



What?

It's a zombie thing.

Oh, c'mon...




So anyway, found this new club, well, it's not new, it's the club that friends of mine hang at, and it's interesting. Sort of looks like a hotel lobby, and they have lots of rules, but they seem fun, and their DJ plays GREAT music...plus, everyone was freaked out by the giant syringe. :)



I think the main thing about days I get flung into limbo a lot is not to let it get to me. I let it get to me far too much. I've sought out some pretty unhealthy distractions to get past high-crash days. Trust me on this, anyone who knows me, knows my definition of 'unhealthy'. My brain tends to go weird places...



But I'm discovering, I can have high-crash days and not want to curl up under the nearest solid object and shudder. I can fling in and out of limbo and still smile. I can have my life, and have my loves, and not come back on the grid seeking the nearest bearer of a whip or bad relationship.

This is growing up? Maybe?

If it is, I can handle being a grown-up.



Besides, even if it's not, even if it's me, perpetually immature, going another round with the nothing...well, I'm still having fun dancing. And never pass up an opportunity to move. That's rule number five.

Some days, that's nearly better than rule number one.

Hmm, hmm hmm....la la la la...hmm hmm--oh, wait, where am I this time?!?



The Lindens in their wisdom love transporting me to strange places, apparently atop boxes. This is me in Cape Haven's bay, standing on a shipping crate.

No, I have never understood this, either.



No, I'm not planning on hiding this small and insignificant bird on the doctor's property. Truly.

Never occurred to me.

Through this world I stumble
So many times betrayed
Trying to find an honest word
to find the truth enslaved
Oh, you speak to me in riddles
and you speak to me in rhymes
My body aches to breathe your breath
Your words keep me alive...



Hmm, hmm hmm...hmm hmm hmm mm, hmm hmm mm mm, mm-mm...

Hmm? Oh, that...argument, I had earlier? Oh, we're fine.

We're very fine.

*slow smile surfaces on curving kitten-lips*

And I would be the one
To hold you down
Kiss you so hard
I'll take your breath away
And after I'd
wipe away the tears
Just close your eyes, dear...



Hmm hmm hmm....

Oh, you know, we're us, we'll argue again, I get on everyone's nerves...but for now?

Oh, yes.

Hmm, hmm hmm hmm mm...We're more than okay.

*brushes rose over her lips, eyes closing*

...yeah. We're gonna be fine...

The rope that's wrapped around me
Is cutting through my skin
And the doubts that have surrounded me
Are finding their way in
I keep it close to me
Like a holy man prays
In my desperate hour
It's better that way

Months ago, this would have been, a moonless night in a small town, and I held him for hours on the second story, murmuring against the fall of his hair. He said many things that night, but one thing he said, chief among everything else he said, has stuck with me, ringing inside, a small silver sound through all my days and nights.

I did not wish to assume he meant me, but later still, that night, he whispered in my ear that yes, he meant me. And so the journey began.

So I'll come by and see you again
I'll be such a very good friend
Have mercy on my soul
I will never let you know
Where my mind has been

Each step we've taken together since then, each moment we've spent, it's all been arrowed towards that goal, more or less. Conversations to reinforce trust; time spent together, learning what we like, what we don't; nights of kissing, nights of holding, nights of exploring. Slow step by slow step, inexorable, water flowing over glistening river rocks, aiming for the cliff's edge and the joy of falling.

Angels never came down
There's no one here they want to hang around
But if they knew
If they knew you at all
Then one by one the angels
Angels would fall...

I knew he liked me. I knew he wanted me. These were good things as I liked him, I wanted him too. And the months of slow touching, coming to understand each other, communicating on levels beyond our bodies, learning, knowing...it was all intended to get us to one particular place, and that place together.

I've crept into your temple
I have slept upon your pew
I've dreamed of the divinity
Inside and out of you
I want it more than truth
I can taste it on my breath
I would give my life just for a little death

And I have dreamed of him, I have gone to my bed, hands pressed in places that want for him, I have hummed at his touch and thrilled at his words. I have done my best not to push, not to demand, to stand and smile and let him move at his own pace. I have done my best to be patient, patient until even the concept feels meaningless, this endless waiting. But I have done this, for him. I have held back my will and my desire and all that lovely wanting, waiting for him.

So I'll come by and see you again
I'll be just a very good friend
I will not look upon your face
I will not touch upon your grace
Your ecclesiastic skin...

Tonight, he asks me for advice on picking out furniture, because he's just met this lass, and wishes to have sex with her.

....

And most of my mind is shrieking, at what feels like injurious injustice, to have this gift he offered to me torn away and presented to another, who will hold it with no understanding and less reverence, and may even forget his name a week after having this throwaway experience, and...

...I can find no way to make him understand. And find, in myself, a hard little knot that does not even wish to, if he cannot simply look at me and realize I am wroth with him for this.

I'll come by and see you again
I'll have to be a very good friend
If I whisper they will know
I'll just turn around and go
You will never know my sin



I just wish I had a way to let him know...

(Song is Melissa Etheridge's "Angels Would Fall".)

If I could escape
I would, but first of all let me say
I must apologize for acting stank and treating you this way
Cause I've been acting like sour milk fell on the floor
It's your fault you didn't shut the refrigerator
Maybe that's the reason I've been acting so cold

Girl in the aether, figuring it all out for the second time. Made life choices for another life, and remain fairly happy with them, but here...it's been all about dizzy love and desperate passions and delirious dancing. And frocks. Good gods, we cannot leave out the frocks.

If I could escape
And re-create a place in my own world
And I could be your favorite girl
Forever, perfectly together
Now tell me boy, wouldn't that be sweet?

But still...learning my way. Piecing it together. Frequently I'm slow on the uptake, so when the candleflame finally flickers into glow atop my head, I've already been doing something potentially injurious to the idea for months. It's just my way.

And once I do realize what I want, and see if there's a way to achieve it, I can't just go do what I want because there are others in my life. And I've never wanted just the one thing, you see. Makes things terrifically complicated at times...

If I could be sweet
I know I've been a real bad girl
I didn't mean for you to get hurt
Forever, we can make it better
Now tell me boy, wouldn't that be sweet?
Sweet escape

(I wanna get away, to our sweet escape)

It's still three. It's still the neko, the statue and the moon in orbit. I need to spend more time away from the others, bathed in the cool moonglow, communicating deeply with silver light and dark night. But I must fit that in to existing plans with the neko, and any time I can spare for the statue, and did I mention trying to hold down one job, and potentially gaining a whole new employment venue soon, and a potential third employment opportunity...

...As usual, I'm overcommitted. And find time to build new dresses for sale, and research various requests people toss me, and maintain a social life...

::blinks::

It may not be possible.

You let me down
I'm at my lowest boiling point
Come help me out
I need to get me out of this joint
Come on, let's bounce
Counting on you to turn me around
Instead of clowning around for some common ground

But I have to make the best of it, because I'm here. And yes, I do realize, most men don't have the challenge of the girl they love loving others. But--for all it's going to sound like ego, here--most men don't love me. Frustrating as I can be at times--and believe me, I do know this--I hope I make such sacrifices at least a little worthwhile.

Because if I don't, well, my darlings, we all have bigger problems.

So baby, times getting a little crazy
I've been getting a little lazy
Waiting for you to come save me
I can see that you're angry
By the way the you treat me
Hopefully you don't leave me
Want to take you with me

I'm sure there will be more argument in future. I'm absolutely sure we aren't done yet, dealing with everything being a quartet is going to fling at us. And the neko is right--three men, one of me, how is that supposed to work out? And the darkened moon shines down his own truth--I don't know the statue that well, and I am dedicated to spending much more time, learning his ways. As much time as I spent learning the neko's, back in the beginning, or observing the darkened moon in orbit.

If I could escape
And re-create a place in my own world
And I could be your favorite girl
Forever, perfectly together
Now tell me boy, wouldn't that be sweet?

In the end...it is our actions, that speak loudest, though our words ring in memory. I'm trying to let mine prove love, as much as I can. I am graced with an understanding statue. I would like to be graced with understanding all around, and I think for the most part, it's slow, but there's surety it will arrive. I see glimpses here and there, and that makes me very happy.

If I could be sweet
I know I've been a real bad girl
I didn't mean for you to get hurt
Forever, we can make it better
Now tell me boy, wouldn't that be sweet?
Sweet escape

In the meantime, I have the time I have, and so do they. I need to be better about not trying to spend all hours of the night awake, for that has been a hazard. I think I'll put out the laundry basket in the tree, maybe even scout the grid, see if I can find a two-person basket, and put up a slideshow display of pictures, since I no longer have windows to look out.

(Before anyone potentially thinks this is me, grumping over a design flaw of the new house, I am not. I asked for no windows.)

Cause I've been acting like sour milk fell on the floor
It's your fault you didn't shut the refrigerator
Maybe that's the reason I've been acting so cold

It's hard, though, dealing with disconnection. I have so little time with the neko, and that is not his fault, and that is not something that will change. I hear his voice in distant tones, and this pleases me, and I am committed to not drift away. I admit, I was starting to, white ship leaving for the far shore, and that was my fault, and that was something within my power to change. I'm doing my best to do so.

If I could escape
And re-create a place in my own world
And I could be your favorite girl
Forever, perfectly together
Now tell me boy, wouldn't that be sweet?

It's harder than I thought, too, being open. Nearly every relationship I've had on the grid, I've flung my way into, with no thought of parachute for the fall, no thought of how hard the ground would be if I fell, not flew. And while I still do that, I try to think along the way, now: what will this heart require of me? How do I compromise my needs against theirs? How do we meet in the middle of our two souls, and make a space for us?

I never considered that before, I was just--there, flying, existing in the warm embrace of love, and when love left me, I had little defenses against the cold of the upper atmosphere. And then, of course, the sudden drop to earth never helped.

If I could be sweet
I know I've been a real bad girl
I didn't mean for you to get hurt
Forever, we can make it better
Now tell me boy, wouldn't that be sweet?

But it's good, I see all this. Because I can be terribly dense at times, about love, about compromise, about relationships, about devotion, about the give and take of all the giving and taking. I treasure my three, and don't know what else to do other than hear them, and love them, and respond how best I know to what they will of me...and carry a parachute, just in case.

Because this time? I'd rather be prepared, and never need it, than never prepare, and fall again. I don't think preparation ensures separation; I think it helps stabilize me, and all of them in turn, because I know I'm not looking for a way out.

I'm a labyrinth, I think. But at least I have comfortable seating at the heart of the maze. And there are now four chairs in place.



Also? This entry from the Winged Girl proposes some new words that we resi's of the grid should adapt.

::grins::

I already use "port" over "teleport" or "tp"; now I want "death feature", "signa-tachment" (hello, my very nearly trademark angel-wing back tattoo!), and "inventrash" to catch on. I have a lot of inventrash I need to go through...

(Song is Gwen Stefani's "The Sweet Escape".)

Pathways to relationship success. The chief lesson: do not savage your mate.

It sounds specious, but in some cases, it's quite literally true. Whether it's the confluence of changes on the grid or the fact that even the spells on my broken Key are starting to degrade...flipping into limbo is happening more and more often. While it's nowhere near my record (thirty-eight crashes in a row, over the course of a day), a dozen crashes over the course of two and a half hours is pretty daunting.

I came back trembling and shaking and wanting to hide, and were it not for wanting to spend time with the statue, later, I would have fled the grid, finding comfort even in hated limbo, rather than the tug-of-war back and forth between bright air and color, and nothingness and grey.

But my neko lad came in, and asked for my presence, and I told him I was no fit company for him...he insisted, and irritated, I gathered myself up and climbed into a travel bubble and...halfway to the ground, I crashed again.

Came back in, crashed once I got into the new tree.

At that point I was shot. I didn't say much, I didn't react much, I know I worried him...he asked to hold me on the new bed I'd bought, and wearily, I agreed, and that's when it happened.

He said something--that in the larger sense of it, matters not a whit--and I. Went. Off.

What saved me, saved us, is I didn't go off to HIM. I went off to the statue, and told him to tell me to relax. The which he did. I called out to the darkened moon, and he turned his light my way, the cold clarity of his glow further washing me clean of killing rage.

And I relaxed. I breathed. In, out, in again, handful of repetitions, until I could speak without screaming. Then I began to talk to him about why I'd gotten upset.

Always remember: even if you're hurt, even if you're angry for good cause, the ones you love are not in your head, and what sounds righteous and pure in there, nine times out of ten, won't outside it.

Always remember, another soul stands across from you. Strip away all the fellow feeling, all the love and adoration, or even all the problems, all the approbations and regrets, and there is still another soul in that body. Try to do your best to treat it with respect.

In other news...I finally have a working AO back. Yarrr. I had to go all the way up to top of the line at Abranimations, in Devil's Moon, but I know I don't want to have the evil experience of all that work editing again, and ending up with yet another nonfunctional device!

Also, I'm starting to miss my kittens. I've been on this human jag of late, it's been oddly freeing...It's good to be able to slip behind a human skin and not want to tear it off, really. It's healing. It means I'm healing. But enough is enough...I want my whiskers back!

I am beautiful no matter what they say
Words can't bring me down
I am beautiful in every single way
Yes, words can't bring me down
So don't you bring me down today

SLNN's article covering tonight's showing of Dolltopia at The King Has Fallen gallery.

I had seen the show, I'd known what to expect, and while the images upstairs didn't shock me, I've seen a lot, frankly--and I knew there would be reaction, now and again, from some of the images the artist chose to show.

You are beautiful no matter what they say
Words won't bring you down
You are beautiful in every single way
Yes, words won't bring you down
Don't you bring me down today...

I stood on the main floor of the gallery, playing the Official Greeting Doll, the new key the technocrat made me turning gently in my back. Another Muse, he of the feather-and-spike wings, chose to leap on my head, and we battled with words and laughter for the rest of the evening.

No matter what we do
(no matter what we do)
No matter what they say
(no matter what they say)
We're the song inside the tune
Full of beautiful mistakes

In spite of the controversy, in spite of the vague rumors on the grid, in spite of the pain of possible dissolution...it was a good night. It was a good night. I was so overwhelmed by how many people showed up to show support, by how many people showed up in their doll forms, or got keys for the evening from upstairs, and wore them. Open defiance? Maybe, on the part of a few. I prefer to see it as solidarity.

We are beautiful no matter what they say
Yes, words won't bring us down
We are beautiful no matter what they say
Yes, words can't bring us down
Don't you bring me down today

I wore a French maid outfit and my pigtails, the same pigtails from the shots upstairs. I wore my new black Mary Janes that my artist had told me where to get. I wore pride and I wore openness of heart, both.

I apologized to the doctor's daughter, because I'd hurt her, earlier, and we discussed her other father, frozen in ice. He's searching for a loophole, apparently. Of course he is. Wouldn't be him if he wasn't trying to think his way out of the situation, two steps ahead of everyone, even his captors.

Before she left, she hugged me, and I realized anew what a lovely balm forgiveness is. It was...part and parcel, pixel and paint...a good night.

Now, if only the statue manages to reclaim my kidnapped head from the head-perching Muse...because if he doesn't? He's forfeit to the Muse.

Eep.

Met another train-wreck victim today, in SteamCity. Lovely chat across the divide, between where I danced and where she watched, and the conversation turned to past relationships, past loves, past losses...as conversations between those afflicted with explosive love lives will so often do.

I happened to mention that I'd had some spectacular failures in my life, but that I always managed to recover, more or less...

...and the dancing maid in the rust dress mentioned quietly, that I managed to deal with everything, save for rejection...

That quiet, small prick to the heart, for I knew of whom she spoke, and I'm still waiting for the day that mention of him does not hurt, in some fashion...but there was also a slight edge of frustration, silver foil half-turn of upset...why would she mention it? Why would she mention it to me?

Yes, I know that things went wrong. Yes, I had a hand in how badly they went. Yes, if I had told him of my rule, before he actually sent the breakup letter...perhaps we could have prevented what happened, thereafter.

But we were not a pure and shining thing at that point. In fact, I had reconfigured, that very day, into someone who could accept what happened on the edges of the relationship that was driving me slowly mad as I was...I had made the decision to detach, to treat things lightly, to not let things affect me as deeply, to be merrier of heart and much less involved.

And I believe, to the amorphous, shifting core of my being...that that very decision held harm within it, eventually, for what we were, for who we were to each other. Had he not told me to leave...I truly believe, as staggering a loss as it was...we would not have remained together. One way or another, the Fates would have snipped the cord, leaving us to drift. One way or another, as frightening, as depressing as it is to say, to realize...we could not have sustained.

In the long run, taken my way? It might have even hurt more, and that thought makes my bones ache with distant cold.

Yes, it is a truth of my universe. Hate me. Beat me. Light me on fire. Insult me. Involve me in ridiculous drama, extravagant argument, o'erflorid games within games. Suck me in and suck me dry and leave me gasping on the far shore. Make me kill you.

Just don't lie to me...and don't tell me goodbye. Say goodbye...and you might as well mean it, because I will not turn back, and I will not return. It may be a silly rule, it may be a stupid rule, it may be harmful in its own way, a savage weapon of my heart and hands...

...but it's caused this much pain, I cannot abandon it. Anything that wounds me this deeply...I feel the obscure and perhaps prideful urge to cling to, because...it has hurt me, it continues to hurt me, so I can't stop now. I have to hold it up as the star to every wand'ring bark, the fix'ed point, the core ideal in a cluster of so very few I hold.

And it continues to this day. It's just...now I'm warning people, when I can, when I have the opportunity. Offer me everything, offer me nothing, offer me pain, offer me ruination...I will take it all and attempt to smile.

Just don't tell me goodbye.

Because then I go. And no matter how often I look over my shoulder...I do not return.

The night sky falls from blues to black, and only the merest sliver of the darkened moon can be seen, escaping wisp of silver as he travels across the indigo sky. I watch him go and breathe a sigh of relief, that my sky is not moonless, that he gives me what light he can, as he moves in his arc.

I was so close to losing this. I felt the breath of it pass me as I knelt, looking up. All of what might have been in one airless moment, and me in my small self, protesting in every way I could.

We are not there yet. For yet one more day. Reprieve, it feels like spring rain on my upturned face, bathing me in the absolution of the action.

I love him, that moon in my sky. I watch him endlessly circle, and I love him nonetheless. I am drawn and I am pinned and I would do nothing to change this. But it is not always easy. The most I can do is fly up and even then, sometimes, I cannot fly far enough to see him, fly high enough to touch. It is a hazard.

In my lap, head pillowed and arms curled around my hips, is my dark as night neko, sleeping. Last night was arduous for him, for he considered leaving me, as well. He did not, but I will never know how close he came, unless he chooses to tell me.

I sit, and breathe, and stroke his hair, and wonder how we got to this point. With everything around me, so very fragile, and me afraid to move in case I might injure this delicate, airy tracery of love between us. It feels too thin, it feels too...insubstantial. Insubstantial as the night breezes, insubstantial as my solidity in smoke form.

My attention draws away, as it always does, to the far horizon, where the statue waits. From this distance I cannot tell; I think he moves, I think he breathes, I know he does not do these things only for me, but I do not know enough of his life to piece together what he might be, when he is not at my side. And I cannot leave, just yet, not 'til my neko wakes and speaks, and I hear the words of his heart. For I love him, too, as much or more as any other, he has been my companion for nearly all my days on the grid.

I kneel, and feel the rays of the darkened moon run cool silver sensation over my skin. I kneel and wait for the neko to wake, and stir, and speak. I kneel and wait, and my eyes turn to the far horizon again, where the statue waits. I close my eyes and breathe.

I love a triad of souls. My neko says it is too much, I must settle. What he does not see is that I have been. The playboy, the fallen angel, the ambassador, the half-Drow, the enigmatic one steeped in fantasy...every other that has pulled and tugged at me, intrigued me, pulled me away...I do not see them any more. I have given them up, for all intents and purposes, because I am making my choices.

The neko. The darkened moon. The statue. And still it is not enough, I must settle. I must compromise.

I sit and sigh in the dark night, and I cannot think of a way to do it. I want an end to struggle and I do not know how to achieve it. I am bathed in thin silver light, caressed by moonshadow, sitting in watch over the neko I love as much as the moon, and I do not know what to do.

At some point...love must be enough. Shouldn't it? Love must be enough. That I love...that I adore...that my heart sings in their presence...

...but it may not be. I will wait, I will try and be patient, I will listen to the neko's words when he wakes and speaks. And I will know how to move from there.



Under the ruins of a walled city
Crumbling towers and beams of yellow light
No flags of truce, no cries of pity
The siege guns had been pounding all through the night
It took a day to build the city
We walked through its streets in the afternoon
As I returned across the field's I'd known
I recognized the walls that I once made
I had to stop in my tracks for fear
Of walking on the mines I'd laid

And if I built this fortress around your heart
Encircled you in trenches and barbed wire
Then let me build a bridge
For I cannot fill the chasm
And let me set the battlements on fire...

(Song snip is Sting's "Fortress Around Your Heart")

What does it mean, to be a doll? What does it mean to be human?



Is this the image of a child?



Is this a child's figure?



Is it the hair that makes the doll a child image?



If we change the hair of the doll, is it then an adult image?



Do we ignore all other signs? Is she a child because she is a doll? Are we ignoring the obvious features of the doll to suit the ideal of the representation?



Is it the outfit, then? If we take her out of Lolita dresses, and the hairbows, change the outfit, put her in high heels, not Mary Janes...does the doll become an adult image? Or is the doll still a child?



Is it the shape of the doll, then? If we make her taller, if we change the shape of her face, if we give her a definite adult woman's figure...does she become an adult? Where is the dividing line? How much do we need to change to perceive the doll as adult, not child?



Or perhaps the answer you want is...do not be the doll.

"Loli" and "Lolita" are no longer working search terms in the Second Life search engine. They will turn up no shops that make witty GothLoli gear, for all that Lolita has to do with established Japanese fashion, and less than nothing to do with the writings of Nabokov.

Additional: I have removed both "Loli" and "Lolita" from my SLB account listing, on the one outfit that's quasi-Loli, but I've added EGL (Elegant Gothic Lolita in short) and EGA (Elegant Gothic Aristocrat) instead. Also, a very helpful dolly informed me that EGL still brings up Loli shops.

This from the Queen of Air and Darkness: "The local news just had a story on SL and this: local ABC news". (You need to select "Right Now on the Net: Second Life" to get the right story.)"

This also, is worth seeing. Watch.

My artist and her pixie put together a video on censorship on the grid. It's fairly powerful. Please watch.

I learn more tomorrow about a potential attack on nekos, which I'm hoping is not led from official Linden sources.

And Zoe Llewellen of Temenos goes into why Dolltopia's never opening in her shop blog.

Sighs. Scary strange grid, y'all...keep you updated...

Sometimes, limbo doesn't lie in wait for me. Sometimes, it attacks me on the grid.


This is rare, but days like this? Make me yearn to have a functional Key again, or some other form of transport stabilizer...it's SO annoying!

Finally meandered the train wreck back to something resembling a home station...desperately in need of changing some of the worst wrecked cars for new...only to find that when I docked in to unhitch, there was another train wreck in progress, one set of tracks over.

And I knew the conductor.

I'd put the fires out if I knew how, haloed heart, but I don't. But I'm here if you need me. I'm always here if you need me, you know how to reach me.

*contemplates finally learning that summoning rain spell, for just such occasions*

Raise your glass
We have incorporated
Place your bets--



We're all so sick of waiting
Queen takes Jack
You got me this time but I'll get you back--
So pick a number



To all the ones who tried the most, was I supposed to cheer your efforts?
Sorry that I chose so poorly
Golly gee, am I the poster girl?



She's the kind of girl who looks for love in all the lonely places
The kind who comes to poker pockets stuffed with Kings and Aces



She's the kind of girl who only asks you over when it's raining
Just to make you lie there catching water dripping from the ceiling



Lift your hats
Off to the checkout girls with tattooed backs
They'd make an angel's skin crawl
If you ask them for assistance
There's an even chance you'll...
You'll get a number



To all the girls at Pearl, the surly boys who get to masticate them
I've a prize for each and every one of you so just be patient
To all the ones that hated me the most, a toast
You really had me
Going for a second, I was nervous boy, am I the poster girl?



She's the kind of girl who gets her slings and arrows from the dumpster
The kind who tells you she's bipolar just to make you trust her
She's the kind of girl who leaves out condoms on the bedroom dresser
Just to make you jealous of the men she fucked before you met her



To all the ones who thought they knew me best, a test to prove your prowess--
Who was mine in '99? I want last names and current status



To all the ones who hated me the most, a toast, you really had me going for a second, I was nervous, boy am I the poster girl
for some suburban sickness? Better keep a healthy distance
Now it's up to you, know what to do, it's pretty
Dirty business...



....Ah, I'm just in a mood. Ignore me.

(The song is Dresden Doll's "Dirty Business".)

More information on the growing doll controversy.

Oh, this one's gonna suck...

"Every second you survive is another chance to write history, to show someone they are loved, or to help someone in need. Another 15 seconds just faded away. What are you going to do with the next 15?"

"It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. This is in fact true...It's called living." - Terry Pratchett

Here's to all of the dolls living through this...

[Late edit: the Bloodwing Foundation is apparently throwing their doors open as a doll sanctuary. Um. Not sure entirely how to take this, and especially since not all dolls have the same...hrm...drives?...so don't all get along. But it's out there for those who wish.]

In between the many, many trips into limbo today, much happened. And since I have little to do today but sit in limbo and contemplate, I have time to think about everything.

First, I have to mention the struggle I had getting to the Millions of Us island--so much so that I missed the eleven ayem meet entirely, and all but twenty minutes of the second meet--I just could not teleport in, no matter how close I got to the location itself. It was beyond frustating. I did add something to the latter discussion, but as usual, I feel obscurely as if I've failed at something someone paid me for.

Eh, I'll get over it.

Next up, and more serious, the Red show at the Enigmatic Gallery. Now, don't get me wrong beforehand: I have heard great things, great things about Enigmatic, and apparently, the Blue show went over quite well. In fact, at the art show, I ran into someone I hadn't seen since the Through a Scanner Darkly premiere that the PPC paid me to peruse.

But they resized all of my artist's art. Without consulting her. And, though the turnout was great, few people bought, most just looked. (Whereas with her own gallery, people come to look, come to buy, come for the experience--they don't just wander in, hum, make a few comments, look at a few paintings, and wander out again. At The King Has Fallen, we have shows and there are DJs, dancers, interaction--a definite mood of art in progress, not art now sliced into examination slides and held static for perusal.) And, while the gallery owner turned out some highly interesting pieces, and of course my artist was attention-grabbing, everything on the third wall of the space reminded me of a cheap Jackson Pollack imitator.

One who couldn't afford the full color set.

So that was annoying....on the heels of that, though, I asked to be a Muse Noire. The difference between a Muse of the artists behind Two Spirit Publishing, and a Muse Noire, is Muse Noires go extreme.

Think I'm kidding? The artist for the next upcoming shoot invited me back that evening to impale myself on a saw blade, bleed out, and lay still so she could snap photographs. And then there was the nudity.

The concept, though...I love her eye for image. I couldn't help thinking of Izima Kaoru when I was lying there dealing with the discomfort of the saw blade. I'm fascinated as to what she'll come up with next. And I am looking forward to that show. Two weeks from now. I can't wait.

And on the heels of that...the shoot featured my doll form, and the doll forms of many other dark Muses. Why? Well, this is what I'm not sure of. According to my artist, the ageplay controversy on SL has kicked up another notch, and they're talking banning the sale of doll forms. Not the glossy 'Barbie doll' skins, natch....no, we're specifically referring to 'China doll' skins, porcelain dolls, clay, not plastic...

...like mine.



I would adore knowing whether this is true or not; in the meantime, if it is, it seems I'm now at the forefront of a political/sociological debate. simply because I chose to simulate sexuality with my doll. And not only that, but...I'm staying away from the ageplay controversy, because I have friends in both camps, and the ones in the pro-ageplay camp are starting to stop talking to me when the subject comes up. But here's the thing--I have never, not once, intimated, alluded, hinted or implied that my dolly is anything other than a representation of an actual adult form (if small). She is petite, yes; but she has adult features, not childlike features, and I did not remove hips and breasts to satisfy some underage ideal. My doll is another form of ME; and I am an adult.

But put all that aside. Tonight, the statue comes to me, saying...it is not much, this thing, but he hopes I will treasure it, and he knows I get big gifts all the time, but...



But. But?!? No self confidence! What you are seeing there is a buckle cuff with a heart charm hanging off. Inside the charm are several gears and struts, turning wheels and other paraphernalia. This was one afternoon's work. He's quite the amazement to me.

And the inscription...I'm swooning...he loves me. How could I not love the gifts of his heart?

Though it suddenly occurs to me...I am again thirded and in balance. Shelter with the darkened moon; token from the neko; reminder from the statue. Reinforcement, though it's little enough necessary--I am reminded with each breath, these days.

I will spend the day in limbo, thinking more, deciding more, waiting to return. I think when I get back I will hash out the nonworking vendor issue, and then take some few hours to retexture the outfits I have that will be easiest to retexture, and list a TON on Kartiny for potential sale. (I say potential because, amusingly enough, I've sold more in-world than off SLB.) And then...once and for all, pop out the garden pod, see how many prims it is, and leave it (or not) on top of the tree.

No one ever said polyamory was easy. In fact, there are some very common poly mistakes that everyone falls victim to, even me. This is always, always complicated by the fact that in my love life, the train wreck is composed of poly and monogamous people, and it's always been a balancing act between soaring above the tracks, and falling into rust on fire.

Especially now that there's conflict, when I'm still figuring out what I, as lover and loved, wish to accomplish with my relationships, and still try to keep my mind open to what my other loves are feeling, thinking, reacting to in my life.

I'm also currently considering a change in my structure, the mentioning of which may well have started to destabilize the relationship I have with my neko lad. I was never advocating abandoning his position as my primary, or as one very close to my heart; it was always more, trying to decide if primary/secondary structuring is the best for me, and for those with which I involve myself.

I'm beginning to wonder if I don't simply have a triad of primaries at this point: the neko, the statue and the darkened moon. Though my heart is called to others--sometimes strongly, sometimes (at this point, simply through lack of time to see them or for them to see me) significantly less strongly--there are those three in my life my heart orbits, and I would be lost without them.

There are other changes on the horizon, and, at some point, those will have to be discussed, which may cause more of the train wreck to slag into glow and cinder--but as of now, we're not there, and as of now, I'm simply trying to stabilize what I have, make sure it's what I want, make sure that I am caring and nurturing those whom I care for as much as I can...Balancing act. Fire and molten metal. It's difficult, it seems to be designed to be so.

To that end...this is the end of the tree saga.



Sometimes my friends are staggering, they astound me with the gifts of their spirits, the care in their souls. This entire structure was a gift from TotalLunar Eclipse and Tensai Hilra (she did the doors, Lunar built everything else), because they saw me unhappy. I am humbled, grateful, and completely blown away that they would do this for me.



The inside of the main unit--a two-room structure with ornate shoji screening and a moon door. I am so very tempted to build a low table, scatter cushions around it, and buy a futon low to the floor with cuddle poses. Maybe get a wind chime. It's a lovely, lovely space.



The back room, with closer view of the detail on the screening struts. Plus yours truly, shifter version fox. This is little known outside of Rivula, but when I am feeling tremendously insecure and anxious, I crawl into the fox fur and generally, stay close to home--which was before Lumindor, and remains now, Rivula.



Adding a quick burst of foliage to the blunt top of the tree. Or I may pop out my garden pod, see if that's something I want at the top of the tree. What I really want is a spreading arch of branches and foliage, but I don't have the texture Lunar used. It's not overly important, anyway. The mere fact that the tree exists, is the important point.



Side view of the structure with the added foliage. All of this, Lunar built in one afternoon. It staggers me--both that he took the time and built something this graceful, this elegant, in a scant few hours, and also, that he took the time to build this for me, because I was upset. I am not used to--okay, this is going to sound specious as hell, but first, I'm not used to people noticing when I'm upset, and more than that, I'm not used to people doing things to this extent to try to make it better.

I couldn't ask for better friends. The metamorph, the technical angel, the ambassador, the Victorian, the Irish spitfire, the warrior goddess, the harried sim manager, the geisha, the playboy, the vampiric tiger, the Queen of Air and Darkness, the deep blue night, the God of Fun Anger, the neurotic fur, the cheetah, the clockwork orphan, the boy from Eire, the Sidhe Companion...everyone I've mentioned and everyone I haven't...I'm deeply grateful, amazed, astounded constantly, by these bright alive lights in my existence.



It's a hard thing to do, for me, apologize--it is, ever and always, easier to shade the conversation so that things I've done wrong are things others end up apologizing to me for doing. What is it Tolkien said? Do not go to the elves for counsel, for they will tell you both no and yes...that's part of it. That, and I'm an extremely manipulative wench when I want to be.

I'm trying, very hard, not to want to be. So it was important that I send the note of apology to the neko lad. It was more important that, when we met yesterday evening, I be able to accept his understandable upset with me, his harsh words, his feelings of hurt and anger--and that was harder, so hard, for me not to turn that into an attack, because in addition to being extremely manipulative? I'm also very passively aggressive and a past master at unrighteous indignation.

The patterns of a life are hard to break. I am trying. And we did reach a point of accord, and we did reach the conclusion that we are not broken, we are still together, and we will continue. This...I am again humbled, by his love, his willingness to endure, his strong heart.

So now, the replacement tree is up. It is not mine, it is not the work of my hands, but in more ways than one, it is better--where I wanted proof of something that I could create, so that I felt less useless, now I have something that will say with every step within the structure, every sight of it, every casual thought of it--that I have friends who find me valuable enough to do things like this for me. I am valued. I have value. I have friends who care enough about me to show me how much they value me.

Maybe I need to redevelop some small sense of ego. Not overweening and bloated, but just...a bit more integrity and sense of accomplishment than I have now. Because this was a necessary thing, which may make the previous pain of destruction and complication worth it, start to finish. Destruction precedes great change. Sometimes it's the only thing that can force that change.

I love my neko lad. I love the statue come to life. I love the darkened moon, orbiting in shadow. I love my friends.

I will try to be better to all of them.

It is the greatest tragedy to be hurt by one you love. For me, it is no less a significant tragedy to hurt one I love.

The darkened moon speaks to me in the cold of night, as I seclude myself away from all human contact, preferring mental communication only, and staying far away from the lands where life is lived and breathed and understood. He tells me, after my attempt at talking to the lad, my neko and I are now even. He tells me, all the hurt done to me, all the pain unleashed, all those simple unthinking words did when I heard them, and interpreted them in my own way...I have dealt back, by virtue of having him read the last post.

This was never, never my intention, and now I must pick up the scattered pieces, and move forward from here, and I'm not entirely sure how.

I've sent an apologetic missive from limbo; I hope it will be received with tolerance, if not understanding. Yes, he hurt me, this is undeniable. But no, it was not fair in return to expose him to all the raw pain in me. This...the darkened moon was right, this was an unconscionable act, and a great harm.

I only hope we can get through this...words unthinking do more harm than do the fiercest sharp edges on the precisely planned ones.

Would your love in all its finery
tear at the darkness all around me
until I can feel again
until I can breathe again

I kneel in Desolation, more desolate than before, now that the club known by that name has been pulled back into the shadows that spawned its brief, tormented life...I watch the tree I didn't want to put up being adjusted by hands not mine, so there may be a way it can be placed on my patch of Rivulan home, now the only home I have left...I kneel, and my soul is in flames.



(The first of the tree.)



(The main trunk.)


(Initial platform layout for the interior.)

'Cause I'm a train wreck waiting to happen
waiting for someone to come pick me up off the tracks
a wild fire born of frustration
born of the one love that gets me so high
I've no fear at all

The beginning of the tree that is gone now, mayhap never to return. Later today Alazarin Mondrian's single-room Tree-F-O returns, larger than the Maneater, but still not what I wanted...I wanted, bad or good, surreal or natural, to make something that was mine, to have a home in which I could touch any surface and know I'd created it by my hands, my mind, my vision.

The vision is shattered now. The beloved looked at my art and found it tragic and unappealing. Asked me to build a pine tree instead. Told me to move it from his view.

I kneel in Desolation and the name is hauntingly appropriate. There is nothing to do but take it down.

Would your eyes like midnight fireflies
light up the trenches where my heart lies
until I can see again
to find my way back again



(The initial four-chamber construction.)


(Interior, once some separation had occurred.)


(The copper-clad roof.)

To fall so deep into you
lose myself completely
in your sweet embrace
all my pains erased

It took me not a few days, and hundreds of Lindens, to track down the textures I wanted, ensure they were free for all uses, and upload them. It took longer to decide which direction I wanted this to go. While the design may have been haphazard, because I was building it as I went, without real plan....the coloration was not, the style was not, it was what I wished to do.

I lined the ceiling in raw copper, gleaming against the copperwood tones, and spent six hours all told finishing all end surfaces, even those that would not be seen, so nothing would be exposed bare wood. When I got around to needing hanging moss, I fairly flew to Malkavyn Eldritch's shop, because I remembered he had a texture, and used my newly learned technique of applying a completely transparent texture to top and bottom so there wouldn't be bleed-through.

As much as I was learning as I went, and discovering new techniques--as with all building--this was going--at least generally--in the direction I wanted it to go.

From your mouth it's all that I wish
the mercy of your lips, just one kiss
until I can breathe again
so that I can sing again



(Tree with moss, and ferns around the base.)


(Close-up on ferns.)

To fall so deep into you
lose myself completely
in your sweet embrace
all my pains erased

It was coming together. It had taken three days of my life, at high cost to personal interaction and personal finances, a level of focus which distracted me from virtually everything else in the world, but it was coming together. It was a replacement for my lost home in Lumindor, for my lost half-Drow who left me, for all the loves I never see anymore, for the clients I don't have, for not giving in to Cattyshack and their terrifying pink evil, for not suborning my ethics and crawling back to another BDSM club to play sub for profit, for not being able to open Taiyou on time because I cannot GODDAMN afford to refurnish two GODDAMN skyboxen...

...It was a reaction against the way Lumindor has been so tackily redecorated since the forced departure of their last architect, as every single unusual tree, shrub, bush and mushroom that made it lovely was removed and replaced by weeping willows, cedar trees, and PONDEROSA PINES...

...it was a reaction against entering a date auction in which I drew slightly less than two thousand Linden--which, don't get me wrong, helped me pay rent and immediate back debt--while others drew nine thousand, eleven thousand, twenty thousand...and this was literally a "date auction", not "anything goes"...

...it...was...ME, it was the work of my hands, it was the standing embodiment that I can still make things in this world, that I am not a throwaway commodity, that I have value and substance and dare I say it, some modicum of personal style...and it was my chosen expression, and what is it my friend Neurosis says? Never apologize for your art. And I'm not apologizing now.

But I'll be damned into a colder hell than the demon's in now if I'm going to build something my acknowledged primary loathes and have him move in with less than love in his heart.

IT WILL NOT SERVE. AND I WILL NOT LET IT STAND.

[0:50] Emilly Orr: Most women at this point would be throwing furniture and shredding your clothes. I am BEING understanding.
[0:51] Emilly Orr: But it hurts nonetheless, and it's all tied up in why I had to leave Lumindor, and people leaving me, and that hurting more than I expected, and the satisfaction of building things, but the reason of building things being that I'm having to borrow from people to pay rent, so I'm HAVING to work harder than I had to before, just dancing and being pretty, and shall we also mention I'm the escort with zero clients at this point?
[0:51] Emilly Orr: And ALL of that is tied up in the tree, which you called FUGLY



So I kneel in Desolation, and feel the tears hit the barren soul, and know the taste of ashes in my mouth. The tree is gone. Long live yet another replacement I'll tire of in six months.

(The song is Sarah McLachlan's "Train Wreck". And, so there's absolutely zero confusion on this point, no, it DOES NOT refer to the goddamn neko who hated my tree.)