you think I'm weak, I think you're wrong

“There is a greater darkness than the one we fight. It is the darkness of the soul that has lost its way. The war we fight is not against powers and principalities; it is against chaos and despair. Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope, the death of dreams. Against this peril we can never surrender. The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.”
~J. Michael Stravinski (said by Andreas Katsoulas, G'Kar's monologue from the Book of G'quan)

And, as a random aside...

[12:21] Lxxxxx Mxxxxxxx is officially going to the Special Hell.

Well, if it helps, you won't be alone.



Let's talk a little bit about F.E.A.R. That stands for Face Everything and Recover, and according to their destination blurb:

F.E.A.R stands for Face Everything and Recover. The region was created while experiencing some anxiety and used to resist that. It is a calming photogenic place with nature for relaxation, but also creative elements inside two houses for fun and aesthetics. There are several freebies in the big house for having some fun. More information about this region is at this link.

I've been to a great many 'psychological support' sims, for lack of a better word. And some of them are very calming places to wander, but almost all of them feel...somewhat sterile. Like zen gardens--pretty, but heavy on the artifice, the meditative organization aspect. This one? Doesn't have that feel, at least to me.



Some large part of this is mesh--as designers learned more about mesh, and designing/working within those restrictions and advantages, landscapers in general have been able to make much more organic forms. And texture artists have really stepped up their game. I can't ignore that I likely wouldn't have seen a sim like this back in 2009.



But stepping onto the dock past the beam-in point, and taking my first look around, it felt very much like standing in a living, thriving space. Nothing grabbed the eye as feeling strongly symmetrical, or cartoonish. It all looked, and felt...natural. That in itself can put us in a more relaxed mindset from go.



Do keep in mind that some of the furnishings have adult options, but it's a moderate sim. I'm fairly sure they don't want avatars rushing over and jumping on some of the sex sets for naked time. But I also know well that some of the sets with the best cuddles sometimes aren't PG pieces. We work with what we have.



If nothing else, this sim is a very good place to wander. There are scattered connected bridges, footpaths, piers, at least one rope swing, and a lot of places to sit and reflect, or cuddle, or simply rest. There are two homes I saw, and since freebies and toys were mentioned, I'm sure they can be found in one of those structures. But we could do far worse than taking some time, watching the rapids in the river, and engaging in some self-calming breathing exercises. If only for that, this sim is a success.

reminiscing

Searching for something else entirely brought me a note I'd sent in 2009, to a love long lost. I don't know why I'm copying it here. Nostalgia, perhaps.

He sits with me and sips tea on the couch. I've sat on this couch, curled up on it, lain full-length upon it, and never once seen it. Is it chintz? Brocade? Leather? Glossy, or has the gloss rubbed off over a thousand scuffs of virtual hands, and feet, and other parts?

I don't know. But it's in the back of my mind when I talk to him.

We've sat and eaten cookies on it. We've shared tea--I always assume mine is Earl Grey or Darjeeling, something that wreathes my head in fragrant steam, but who knows, really? We've looked out upon a distance, so I assume, in this virtual space, there's at least one window.

We have cuddled on it. He has held me down while I writhed underneath him, in the grip of sweeping ecstasy. He has held me tightly in his arms, unwilling to let me go; and these nights, I am equally unwilling to leave. He has held me, face hidden, shuddering, stroking my hair as I cry in his lap, weeping from some pain or slight.

It is a comfort to me, this place that is no place. This couch, this virtual structure of...what? Wood? Bone? Metal?

Why does what it's made of--when it's just a mental construct, a 'place' to share experience--why does it matter? But my mind worries at it.

In the end, it's just a place, familiar, known, even if I don't know the specifics. It's that place between us, what we've made, him and I, the midpoint in our walk towards each other. Important, in its own way, but--just a place.

Plaid? Vinyl? Chinois bamboo and leaves? What is it made of? Why do I care?

Maybe it's just the trivia of it all. I can worry at this, where I can't worry about anything else. Maybe that's okay, too. The small thing, the thread in the weave I can puzzle over.

Likely, he'd just hand me a cup of tea and smile. "Deal with it."

So I will. Feet tucked under me, sipping Earl Grey, looking out at lights on water. Hey, if it's partially my virtual space, then I have a say in what I see, don't I?

Save for the couch is his. So I still don't know what it's made of.

That was where it ended. I'm not going to comment much on it past that. Surprisingly, it causes very little pain, just a very distant ache. At this point, perhaps that's all that's left, and all that will be.

cracking the anatomy

Well, this is an interesting development. Pursuant to that, by the way, I had no idea Ozimals had changed hands--I thought Candy Cerveau and Malkavyn Eldritch were still sole owners and operators, but according to this document, it seems that's not the case.

Also, have an open letter to the Mayor of Austin, Texas, about Alamo Drafthouse's woman-only screening of Wonder Woman; a list of printers which may--or may not--display identifiable "tracking dots"; a mod that turns Fallout 4 into a gloomy, unnerving horror game; and enjoy some shots of the Museum of Failure.

Could you not just die over this? I swear, Build-a-Bear is killing it over their Pokémon line. (Except for Eevee. Eevee still looks odd.)

Also, your weekly reminder that we are, in fact, living in the future.

If you want more, how about a definitive list of essential cyberpunk fiction works? To that end, how about a list of free-to-download works of fundamental, early science fiction in the public domain? Awesomely tasty stuff.

Lastly, looking at getting a rice cooker? Look through this list.

"It has been said, 'Time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone."

~Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy

There's definitely truth in that.

[00:33] Miyu Goodnight: I just spawned inside someone's torso
[00:33] Miyu Goodnight: This is fine

I feel you, Miyu. (Actually, possibly literally--I might have been the torso.) More later.

a dead rushes' fleet drifting on a quiet tide

I will always love the false image I had of you, and that will not change. The person you represented yourself to be was the person I fell for, and that person I still love.

It is not you.

Arriving at this realization was difficult, in the extreme, but it is the truth of things, and I try never to run from the truth if at all possible. I am frequently anxious, I am frequently afraid, I have made bad decisions, and I will likely make more in the future. I have regrets, I am frequently impulsive, and more gullible than I wish to be. None of this is news to anyone who's followed this blog for any length of time.

What is news, if only to me, is just this: you aren't the man I grew to love. Your mask was. Which, I suppose, is fine as long as the mask comes off and there's a connection still, but...when the mask came off, I realized there was nothing there I adored.

Do I still miss you? Of course. I miss your wit, I miss your sarcasm, I miss your body. I miss cuddling in your lap and feeling safe. I miss watching Rifftrax films with you and teasing back and forth over the course of a day.

But these are things, these are individual moments that I am realizing can be replaced by other people I already love, masks on or off. The core of it, as sad as it makes me, as hard as it is for me to articulate...is that I do not love the man you are. I loved the man you pretended to be, and that man, my dear, does not exist.

Perhaps he never existed.

And I need to finally come to terms with that, and find a way to let go of the love I still have for your false face. I wish you all good things, and every happiness you can manage, but I cannot keep you as special to me, because you were not the one that was special. I believed in the man you held up before the light of your soul, and it is my own fault, as well as yours, that I only saw the shadowed reflections of that light.

when meaning's gone from every word

(( RP mode...sort of. ))



There are times in life where recovery demands change. I went to hide in the shadow spaces, to breathe in the fae lands, as diminished as they are. I needed to know the face I'd grown accustomed to seeing in the mirrors of Sakura was not the one I wore at present.



I feel frail, fragile, weak. And it is the greatest struggle not to pull my tattered shields around me, strap on what armor I have left, and pretend I'm stronger than I am. It is so very difficult to remain open to wisdom from the universe, to the things I need to hear. The things I would not hear if I was armored, shielded, shut down.



I recognize so few of the fae now. The Unseelie Court scattered to the four winds, and to this day I do not know where. Imprisoned as I was on the forbidden isle, I think I forgot how to even ask after those I'd known when I broke free, or was released, from the Queen's punishment.



But even the edges of the fae lands are healing. And my walls are currently paper-thin, ribbons of their former sun-baked clay and solid stone. I will heal, even if I have to retreat again and again, make myself believe anew that I am more than what I pretend to be. More, greater, a deeper presence, a stronger core.



And yes, if my gates are held open, there will be weak points in my structure. If I close those off, everything off, become a smooth and perfect sphere, no doors, no windows...well, what has no way in, also has no way out. And I no longer wish to lock myself away from the whole of the world. Just those parts of it that are currently hurting me.



In the meantime, the shadows will comfort me, when I cannot stand the light. I will reinforce what I need to, recover, remold myself yet again as I move through the glowing waters that were formerly home. I will heal and find comfort again in the mask I wear, for it is teaching me what I need to know about the human world, again. And I will seal off the access points I need to, to survive. Rebuild my walls, to grow strong again. And reemerge whole enough to continue.

After all, it won't be the first time.

when the world is burning

I was fine until I returned to the carnival.



That's not true. I've been suffering since you left, I've been tying myself in knots trying to figure out why, likely nursing and magnifying my hurts until it became hard to breathe, hard to function. It's what I do.



This hit deeper, though. Because I thought--because nearly everyone thought--that you were the good thing, that you were the shining exception that proved my bad luck with men was just that--luck and chance.



But you turned out to be the same thing. And when you left, I was told by those I loved that I owed you nothing. I was told to just walk away, leave you behind as I had been left. I was told you were just like all the others, and I shouldn't spare a single thought to your passing.



But the promises I'd made I still felt bound me, and I struggled for over a year to find my way through a path suddenly overgrown with poisoned thorns.



And the worst of it, the very worst of it was not you leaving. That was hard. That was unimaginably difficult to get through. But no, the worst of it was turning away from something else potentially as good, damaging it--perhaps irreparably--for the hope I thought you represented.



You were not hope.

You were mystery and abandonment. And I am still limping through the whole of my life, trying to make sense of everything after.



I finally have an idea for NaNoWriMo. But at the end of it--whether I succeed or fail--I will have whatever word count I have, and a manuscript that is absolutely unpublishable. And worse, I will spend a solid month in self-excoriation. I will reopen old wounds, perhaps cause new ones, because it's the only way I see to move forward.



I will not type your name, I still do not know what I will do to represent you, but I will not do that. I will only use my words, not yours, in the letters I will select to evaluate. But that does mean I will likely go through your words. Is it worth it?

I don't know.



But you'll be with me through one last harvest, and maybe this time I can set fire to the chaff and preserve the good things, and move on into somnolent winter to heal.



Happy Hallowe'en.

(Shot on the Heart of Darkness sim, as well as Disturbia [Adult sim], the Freak Show Gacha Carnival, the Carnival of Chaos at the Wash, and the Carnival of Souls.)

in my head blood-colored rain falls down

(from the loss album; photographer of original image unknown but found on Lilit Ghazaryan's blog)

I've texted him twenty-one times
and still my phone don't ring
and my wild imagination, son, is
makin' up scary things...

no one shares a kiss like that
and then just doesn't call
last night he promised me the world
and now I’m gettin' nothing at all

(from the loss album; Pierre Auguste Renoir's "Woman With Green Chair")

and the Mississippi's mighty
but it starts in Minnesota
at a place that you could walk across
with five steps down
and I guess that's how you started
like a pinprick to my heart
but at this point you rush right through me
and I start to drown

(from the loss album; altered and cropped image found on Hockridge's photography blog.  Original image All Rights Reserved)

I don't understand
your love is so cold
it's always me who's reaching out,
reaching out for your hand

where is your heart?
'cos I don't really feel you
where is your heart?
what I really want is to believe you

(from the loss album; picture widely available, but most notably seen on Katie Metcalfe's poetry blog)

watching my dreams turning to ashes
and my hopes into bits of clay
once I could see, once I could feel
now I'm numb, I've become unreal
I walk the night without a goal
stripped of my heart, my soul

(from the loss album; altered image from unknown photographer)

and so it is
just like you said it should be
we'll both forget the breeze
most of the time...

and so it is
the colder water
the blower's daughter
the pupil in denial...

(from the loss album; altered image from one of Anna Plotnikova's fashion shoots. (More info on Anna here)

it seems so much is left unsaid
so much is left unsaid
but you can say anything
oh, anytime you need
baby, it's just you and me

Something interesting: as I put this together, an underlying theme became obvious: clay. Clay, water, earth, and the alchemy of change that makes them more than the sum of their parts. I've thrown clay on wheels, I've coil-built pots, I've taken various classes for various techniques when I have time. Building things has ever been an inherent hobby, if never occupation.

So maybe that's where I start. Find something to build. Walk away from the familiar, and see what else shows up. Disconnect, in a sense, to find connection elsewhere.

And this is going to be the last one, for at least a while. I lasted thirteen days, but it's enough. Enough enough enough. Declaring a moratorium on more relationship posts until at least August.

(Lyrics adapted from various sources, including "He Better Be Dead" from Stealing Angels, the Indigo Girls' song "Ghost" [this is a great cover by the Stanford Mixed Company], Shirley Bassey's "What Now, My Love?" [link goes to a performance on her 1967 television special], "The Blower's Daughter" from Damien Rice [using footage from the film "Closer"], and "Where Is Your Heart?" from Kelly Clarkson [link leads to a live performance on Music@AOL].)

it looks like some kaleidescopic breathing exercise

So...in flipping by the blog to update a link, I caught the date on the last entry.

Um...sorry?

There are two reasons: first, Miss Neome decided it was time for a subscription to City of Heroes for me, and I've somewhat fallen into that (and on the side, I've been trying to give Champions Online an honest shot, and...so far that's not going well); and second, there are some issues in the meatspace going on that stalled me (and likely for a few more days).

For those of you who might worry, don't, so much; it's not something huge like cancer, it's just larger than I'd like to deal with of an evening. So.

The train temporarily derailed, but for once, due to no relationship-based implosion. Yay for me.

I'll be back with posts soon.

whatever I've got, I've got no reason to guard

thrashing, turning in my sleep

towards a door I yearn to open

turning away because I'm yet unsure

Cohesion. It's coming, but it's coming slowly. This break was monumental, spun me from my moorings, sent me sinking to the deeps in uncharted element and space. I could have pulled a quick patch job and been back on my feet in two weeks, but I wouldn't have been stable for long.

It had to be now. Else I would have broken again, and at likely some less convenient time.

spattered ink on crumpled pages

painstakingly smoothed time and again

spattered ink like arterial spray across linen

vivid and disorganized

I could have done that, though. I could have pretended, I could have tossed it off, no worries, no observed pain. I have a phenomenal social face. It works wonders.

But these days I'm trying to play by someone else's rules, learning the reasons for them, incorporating them into my own, and--I genuinely think--becoming a better person in the process. Does that mean this work is easier?

No. In many ways it's harder, simply because I'm having to check myself, time and time again, from shortchanging my own heart and mind. That would be far worse than anything else that's gone wrong.

wanting and yet wanting not

fearing change and needing it

wanting far more than I've got

turning away, turning towards, turning away

The last thing I needed was another fault line. And do not mistake me--I was given the choice, and I made it freely, as it was given to me, free and without restrictions, placed with all seriousness of mind and heart into my outstretched hands.

Fast or slow. And I did not choose to speed the process.

fingers, palm, hand curving around the knob

warm, almost alive in my hand

from how many times I've taken this step forward

curved my free hand against the broken frame

and turning away to consider again

So it's taking the time it takes, and I am relearning myself as I gather each shard of the last self close, aligning it with the previous repair work to the structure. And I am observing the changes as they come in, fresh and dripping from that moment's realization of their existence.

I'm not always liking what I see.

simple decisions should never be this hard

I turn towards and turn again

half-spinning, falling through glitter and rust

night after night and day after day

I am needier now, far more insecure. I despise it in myself. I treat it as weakness until I pull my concentration clear of such self-deprecation. Of all the ways my personality could choose to reform, this is the aspect I understand least.

I am far warier, now, as well. I mistrust friends and enemies alike, associates and loves. I weigh everything for hidden meaning, seek out the razors in the silk; I've gone so far as to log in over the past several days to the grid, only to set myself immediately Busy and never lift another finger to type out an answer to anyone. I speak only when I force myself to socialize in any social grouping, local or grid-spanning.

This one I despise as well, but of the two, this one I believe will pass, given time.

when will I reach one less decision than I need?

when will I need one more decision than I have?

It's all about time, now. How I'm spending my time. What I'm getting done. How effective I am in my own life. I've given up on the business being a successful alternate revenue stream, but in a sense, that has freed my hand to practice what I want to do, what surfaces to the top level of the dream, so that I am creating what I want to see, not what I think will sell.

Once my head is fully integrated with that idea, I can start throwing out all unsuccessful designs and further clear my inventory.

until then I'm frozen in this indecision

in this moment of turning away

and turning towards

Still. Something has to make way in me. Needing approval, and mistrusting any offered praise or understanding is just as much a recipe for future implosion as any thing else.

(But then, I reflect--perhaps it's a perfect illustration of my own understanding. Perhaps I'm clingy and needy only with one, and wary and mistrusting with the other. Then, it must needs come down to, at some point, the minds and hearts of the gentles in question.

(But oh, I am tired of anxieties in the dark. And I grow weary and wearier still of judging motives. Some nights, I just want to exist, not to second-guess, not to keep pace with the challenger of all my actions.

(Isn't that enough, after all? Isn't that what love's supposed to be? The phrase goes: Home is where, when you go there, they have to take you in...but maybe that's part of the problem. I no longer trust home...)

where are you gonna go? there's nowhere to go now

Uncomfortable news this morning:

[14:50] Aevalle Galicia: Not sure if it's made the rounds yet but it appears that LL is closing the Teen Grid and allowing 16 year olds on the Main.
[14:52] SpinWeaver Radmussen: Yes, that was announced this morning, the 16 & 17s will be accepted as adults, but Phili Linden indicated that the younger teen grid's closing will be temporary.
[14:52] Emilly Orr knew this was going to happen.
[14:52] Aevalle Galicia: The educators were all in a tizzy, though. Some had just paid on their sims on the TG.

I am so glad I'm not dating any more. The last thing I need is to wonder if I'm having even virtual relations with a sixteen-year-old. No. Just no.

[14:54] Ordinal Malaprop: Pretty much every Linden responsible for the Teen Grid stopped being so some months or years ago anyway.

See, that doesn't help matters.

[15:01] Audrey Fotherington: think about it... it is sad that we inhabit a bit of the world [where] teenagers arent welcome and the behavior cant be trusted?
[15:02] Ordinal Malaprop: There may be an issue there.

And I'm not convinced it's not largely on the part of the "adults" for not being discerning enough, or foolish enough to accept that pixel cleavage actually means RL adult.

But more than that, the Lindens, yet again, really haven't thought this through. Eighteen is a low standard, fine, but it's a legal standard. I may feel squeamish, but I can flirt, cuddle, and actually, should we both choose, have sex with an eighteen year old male or female.

Seventeen? Sixteen?!? No, thank you! I see jail down that road, virtual or not. That is a bad, bad road.

And how are we to tell the sixteen-year-old residents from the rest? They're not likely to come out and tell us, now are they? And what happens if the unfortunate does occur, and someone has a relationship, gets married, hires as an escort, whatever, one of these sixteen year old people, and their parents find out, and go ballistic? Can suit be brought? Do virtual actions count?

(Before the debate in comment starts over that one, as I'm sure it will, I'm one of those who say that yes, yes they do, emotionally, psychologically; I'm just not sure they do legally. So I want that clear from the outset.)

Essentially, this entire move scares the hell out of me. If I am in an Adult--as defined by the rules on the grid--space, I want to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that everyone I look at is also an Adult, in those defined terms. And between the utter hash Linden Labs made of age verification (Look, Mom, I'm Elvis!), and this new move, now I'm never going to be sure unless I know the other person very, very well.

I suppose it's going to speak to not blithely falling into bed with everyone one meets, though for me personally, I stopped that around the time I stopped escorting, frankly. Longer-term relationships (in any world) are more appealing, anyway. But still, it's an unnerving decision which personally makes my skin crawl, and I feel creeped out by the Lindens as a ruling body for even considering it, much less implementing it.

B'sides, I thought they were against ageplay. What changed?

As long as we're on sex, Allie Brosh takes on adding spice back to the sex life in five horrifying and mental ways. (Scroll down to the comments after reading, though; some of them are PRICELESS.)

And as long as we're on love, I don't think there's a single person, RL or SL, who can't benefit from watching through a few of the videos on the Man's Guide to Love page. Some surprising advice there, a few surprising people--but it's all honest, heartfelt, and rings true.

On happiness in general, I know he's something of a big scary talking head in this video, but at the least start it playing and go wander while he talks on love, sustaining relationships, and true happiness. You'll be glad you did, believe me.

[17:32] Sexy Larsen: I know this is really off topic and everything, but I have had the overwhelming desire lately to shout from the roof tops so I'm just gonna tell y'all since y'all are within ear shot.......But I have the most amazing Dom ever and I love him to death. Now hopefully this will satisfy my urges
[17:32] Belladonna Mureaux: O.o....
[17:32] Erinyse Planer: errrrrrr
[17:32] Fallon Gothly: grins
[17:32] Emilly Orr did notice earlier you had three tags proclaiming the same thing.

Weirdly, I had just looked her up because of the tag thing. Her actual tag related to her Master, Kain Kenny; but she had those wearable tags in teal, pink and I think bright green also saying she was owned by him.

There's such a thing as saying it too often, I'm thinking. Or maybe saying it too much all at once?

Line from her bio states "I like collars better than wedding rings.....They let me know that more than my finger is wanted!" I suppose, but isn't the wedding ring saying the same thing?

And a little farther in, there's a comment under her picks: "The true meaning of being a sub is true love meaning loving someone enough to give them the ability to destroy you and trusting them not to." That's a lot of trust for most people.

[17:32] Erinyse Planer: okay
[17:33] Emilly Orr: I suppose a full-body tattoo is next. :P
[17:33] Violet Visage: pmsl
[17:33] Sexy Larsen: lol Thank you all

You're more than welcome. This, by the way, crawled across the Thrifty Goth group, not a BDSM group or a Gorean group.

Speaking of the Thrifty Goths, though...Shangreloo covers an absolutely stunning goth skin, one of the gifts on the Gother Than Thou hunt, a smallish grid-wide dedicated to purely goth items on the grid. One caveat: you must be a member of the Thrifty Goth in-world group to go on the hunt, and the group only remains open through this Sunday! If you want to hunt, go join the group NOW! It'll be closed by Monday!

Finally, in somber news...Lady Serra is having to close Winterfell Raven's Reach for financial reasons. I am saddened over the loss of Luctus Isle, but serendipity has moved me to an offshore parcel of Winterfell Laudanum, so I'll have to ponder over what to bring over.

But at some point, the isle will speak to me, trees will sprout, grass will grow, and it will be named. And I will hide there as easily as I hid in Ravens Reach. The determined hider knows no bounds.

bangin’ heads there ‘til we all went broke

The first I'd heard of anything was a couple days back, when Aura Falta, owner of Tacky Star, screamed into the Violent Seductions chat, freaking out:

[2010/07/23 0:49] Aura Falta: i am freaking out

It seems--for no apparent reason--Ikaru Aichi, owner of Violent Seductions (**see note) had been banned. No one at that point knew why. And Aura--among others--was very worried.

Then the 5th and Oxford blog tossed a mention of the ban, in with a serious allegation that the two events are tied together. This has made me ponder several things, including the nature of Linden Labs bans, themselves.

But there's still something so odd about this one: first, I don't care how much any avatar in question wants you dead and gone--unless they a) know someone at Linden Labs, and, more importantly, b) can prove their accusations--LL won't budge. In all cases I've been personally aware of, the person banned did something to deserve that ban. Whether or not we think it's right, the Labs are legally sure that, by their ToS, they can stand on their bans.

And they've rarely been wrong.

[2010/07/23 0:50] Aura Falta: The decision to terminate your Second Life access was reached after investigation of your use of the Second Life software and service
this email is notification that Linden Lab has terminated your access to the Second Life virtual world due to severe or repeated violations of the Second Life Terms of Service or Community Standards.
[2010/07/23 0:50] Aura Falta: that is what they sent her

"Repeated" violations; "severe" violations. Does that sound familiar? The previous two cases, where someone I knew, and knew well, got banned, involved:

* garnering someone's account details without permission to use to purchase Linden currency; subsequently banned (they later made an alt, after presenting proof of restitution to the Labs, and promising not to do it again).

* releasing personal account details to another person; subsequently banned (*coughs* Supposedly IP banned, so any potential alts that might or might not be roaming around are obviously not using that IP address).

So what did Aichi do? Yes, both Ikaru Aichi and Aura Falta tend towards the abrasive; yes, they've both made enemies on the grid. This doesn't surprise me; so have I. But for Aichi to be banned out of the blue for "severe" and "repeated" account violations? That one of her business partners didn't know about?

Something else is up.

Notwithstanding the fact that IP banning a single person who lives in a single dwelling is one thing, but IP banning a person who lives with other people, who in this case also play Second Life...Guys? I know you're Lindens and all, but that means they can't play either. What the hell?

And adding onto that, this is someone who owns a sim. This is not some scruffy little griefer, bored out of his mind and looking for the next thing that goes bang between getting drunk that night and finals the next day. This is a merchant in, I would assume, good standing; someone with strong community ties; and, like her or loathe her, a sim owner.

She's banned; okay, fine, that may or may not be reversed in the next few days. But what happens to everyone on that sim with her? What happens to people she may have on her business' payroll? She loses the sim, all those stores have to relocate. She loses her account, she can't pay anyone; or put out new product; or get involved with any other charity efforts...

And what if this account is part of what's paying her RL income? She loses that, maybe she loses her home. Which means her roommates--which, again, are IP banned from Second Life, despite their blamelessness in all of this--are out of a house.

There has to be a better way to do this.

But I keep coming back to--what did Aichi do? What was the offense? What was so damaging that they had to ban her without notice?

[2010/07/23 0:51] Sakura Rajal: how was she doing this supposed repeated offense? and what was she doing?
[2010/07/23 0:51] Aura Falta: nothing
[2010/07/23 0:51] Aura Falta: she was doing nothing

So Falta says, and personally, I have no reason to doubt that's what she's being told. But it just doesn't hold up. What's really going on?

(**note: If you've followed the Violent Seductions link, Aichi herself answers the accusations:

I was not banned for copybotting. I have never personally exploited any kind of hack or copybot.

However; I did participate in the creation of some of Emerald's earlier addons (Namely; the PAR plugins). Some were questionable; one in particular used by my ex boyfriend.

Basically he used the exploit inappropriately and sent me the copybotted items.

You have to take into account that I have over 30,000 items in my inventory and I have never cleaned it; so things of that sort can very easily be lost.

Unfortunately for me; my ex boyfriend decided to report me to Linden Labs; blaming me for copybotting when in reality I had only received the items from him.

All of this happened nearly 2 years ago; before the creation of Emerald.

And okay, that I can see as being both "repeated" and "severe", especially if she's one of the Emerald developers, because let's be honest, while Emerald has been a godsend for the grid, from the development of Copybot on down, Modular Systems, and all its prior incarnations, have an established history of doing things with code that can be staggeringly misused. Note: I am not saying they are bad people. I'm saying they don't always completely think things through.

(I'd also note that hello, the ex rearing the vindictive head--be careful in who you date on the grid. Don't date people crazier than you are. I like to think that I'm always the most damaged in any relationship, but I have been terrifyingly wrong, and more than once. This entire thing could have been avoided had her ex not been a complete and utter git.)

On the heels of that, I want to touch a little bit on the Summer of Love fair. Hosted by the same organizational crew as the minds behind the Black & Blue Fair, this one is so much better organized. Less lag, more space, more vendors, the notecard givers work for the most part...and from go, rezzing in, there's a dropdown on the space that says Not everything sold here is for charity. Right away, going in, we know that.

But also, the notecards are a great deal more in-depth than the few I managed to get on the last fair. All in all, this feels like a much better event.

And it's still for raising awareness of mental disorders, only this time they've tossed in gender disorders and domestic abuse, too. And there was a notecard specifically from Keira Seerose. I'm presenting it as I got it, typos and all:

My name is Keira Seerose and I own III - a clothing brand. These freebies are from that brand, but if you know me at all you are more likely to know me as the creator of the Summer of Love Fair where you got this freebie from.. and if you've been to that fair you might have been to my event before that, the Black and Blue fair.

The Black and Blue fair was my first major event. Born out of sheer bloody mindedness, ambition and persistance I tracked down designers I loved and got them involved. Half way through the planning I gained Melisande Metaluna, my personal assistant, who wrote all the mental health notecards and helped me deal with designers while they set up in the venue.

The event was an unexpectedly huge success - not just for fashion but for mental health awareness. Every day I would log in to messages from people thanking me for helping them come to terms with a situation they or a loved one was in. It was amazing to be a part of something so good.

My own mental health is under severe strain and has been for many years, sexual abuse, my sisters death, my parents divorce, emotional abuse, self harm, suicidal thoughts, a severe anxiety disorder that left me house bound, 47 suicide attempts in a year, acute depression and mood dysthymia (The medical term for permenant low mood)..... I was and still am a mess, for want of a better word. But throughout my troubles I have always tried to raise awareness of what it means to be 'mentally ill'. In my online travels I have touched thousands & thousands of peoples lives in various ways, and the best way I know how is to be brutally open about what Im going through - in the hopes that anyone going through the same will feel less alone.

The black and blue fair opened on June 4th 2010. I had worked hard to make everything perfect, with the help of Melisande and a small team of people who contributed their own skills. When I was online my driving force was relentless, pushing the venue, the designers and the whole event forward...

On the 20th of May 2010, a week and a half before opening night, my grandmother, Rosaleen, was taken very ill. I am very close to my grandmother... her and my grandfather (on my mums side) were like another set of parents to me. They helped me through all of lifes trials - including my sisters death and the sexual abuse, but more recently in life they had been my reason to leave the house.

It is near impossible for me, on a normal day - for example - to go to the shop for a pint of milk. But if my grandmother fell over I would go over to help lift her without a thought. I took them to hospital appointments, doctors appointments, x rays when they broke bones, lifted them when they fell.. the stuff you do for the people you love...

On the 20th of May we were told we would lose her. Her kidneys had failed and she was on morphine for her pain and because it couldnt leave her system it had put her into a deep sleep. We sat by her bedside all night, and at 6.45am the next morning, same as any other day, she woke up.

I stayed in the hospital for a week, with various family members coming and going my mother and I stayed there all the time, struggling to keep our eyes open at 4am to make sure if the worst happened it wouldnt be alone. When she was awake she was mostly incoherant, but spoke of her sisters - and mine - long gone, as if she were talking to them.

I helped the nurses wash her and change her bed, when she asked for water I gave it to her on a sponge on a stick - an odd contraption but it stopped her from choking on a drink. When she asked for a cup of tea (gotta love the british) I gave it to her through a straw. Brushed her hair, wrapped her rosary around her hand, sung to her in the night when my uncle fell asleep in the visitors chair.

Why am I telling you this? Because its important to know how much I loved my grandmother. It is important for me to tell people how much I Loved my grandmother. On the 27th of May 2010, around 4am - she passed away. With her husband, daughter, son, and two grandchildren (Me and my sister) at her side.

Throughout that week Melisande held the black and blue fair together, and the fair would not have been possible without her help. The day after my grandmother passed I came back to SL and back to work - luckily I was still in shock which lasted until after the fair opened.

This fair, the Summer of Love Fair, is in her memory. Because she was always proud of the little things I did to try and help other people. She supported me in all that I Did, and loved me despite my flaws. There were many days and nights when I felt like I had no one in the world... a feeling I Know that a lot of people have. I know now how wrong that was.

It feels like the world should have stopped. It feels like I shouldnt have to tell strangers reading a notecard about my grandmother, that the whole world should have known and loved her as I did. Loss is an illogical and cruel beast.

The other notecard in this folder will tell you all about what bereavement is and its signs and symptoms, but if you've felt it you know. Bereavement is a broken heart without hope. It is utter darkness and shock - because it cannot be undone no matter how hard you wish. It steals the light from your life and shows no remorse.

Bereavement can last days, weeks or years. I am still affected, weekly, by the death of my sister when I was 7... and I am not sad about that. The pain is the only reminder to the world that she mattered. Does that sound familiar? Don't be ashamed to value the pain and not want to let it go. Although life must move on, its alright to feel like it shouldnt. Its part of grieving... and while I will tell anyone whos having those feelings to talk to someone about them - I would like to end this notecard by saying thank you to all those who enjoyed this fair or the Black and Blue fair. Anyone who learnt anything from it. Anyone who took more than fashion away from this place... because the love and compassion and desire to help people that made me create these events came from my grandmother. So this ones you for Granny.

You can reach the Summer of Love fair here.

everything passing by is not coming back

are you sure what side of the glass you are on?

So much thinking, these past few days. It's starting to show--one love's walking on eggshells around me, another's just shaking her head. I have the answer I expected to take this next week. It's not precisely the answer I wanted.

see the safety of the life you have built
everything where it belongs

But I did place my fortunes, in a sense, directly in the hands of another. And the decision was made. It's up to both of us, now, to adapt to that decision.

feel the hollowness inside of your heart
and it's all...
right where it belongs

When home's stopped being home, though, what other options are there? Even though it's not the place, it's the person. Or perhaps not the person, per se, but the space between, the space between that person and so many other things.

what if everything around you
isn't quite as it seems?

And all my efforts at transparency occlude in the end. I am not transparent. I am not easily translated. I am not, it seems, truthful, reliable, or steadfast, three things I would have sworn, a few weeks back, that I was.

What's left? I don't know that yet.

what if all the world you think you know
is an elaborate dream?

Striving to find hope in the bleak landscape. There are no trains, now; they've all burnt to dust. In places the ground's starting to sprout again: mostly grasses, yet tender under trampling feet, but the occasional fruiting body, the rare delicate flower trembling open in dawn's weak light. I suppose it's something.

and if you look at your reflection
is it all you want it to be?

It hasn't been for some time now. But then, that's my burden to bear, I'm thinking. The inner world doesn't match the outer one, but the inner world no longer matches the inner one, either. Things have changed, and radically, and I'm still not sure how far the change is going.

what if you could look right through the cracks?
would you find yourself...
find yourself afraid to see?

I do find hope in that, given the opportunity to build anything, I grew poppies and dark grasses, mushrooms and catwillows. Given the chance to summon anything, I grew trees. I made a gathering place, with a fire for the chill of evening, a fur-draped stone with a book to read. I made a home, not a war zone.

That's something, isn't it?

what if all the world's inside of your head
just creations of your own?

And in all this time, all my multifaceted chosen faces, out of everything I've ever done and ever been...for most of this week I've been wandering around with a set of antlers, draped in purple iris blooms. No jagged patchwork seams, no decaying skin, no blood-spattered hair, no torn and ragged clothes. Just flowers, and long skirts, no elaborate pretenses.

I think that says something, too.

your devils and your gods
all the living and the dead
and you're really all alone?

But even my ability to read my subconscious messages is going awry. I don't tell the truth even to myself, the soul best equipped to understand. And every time I nod, and accept that I've made the next decision, I back away and rethink it.

I am tired of second-guessing myself.

you can live in this illusion
you can choose to believe
keep on looking but you can't find the woods
while you're hiding in the trees

I'm also tiring of trying to parse out others' signals. I am fighting, I am fighting very hard, to remember what I was told: when I hear the words spoken, they mean what the words say. No more. No less. And there it ends.

It is extremely difficult for me not to examine all sides of each letter, before stringing them together again and looking behind the words for deeper meanings. It is hard to simply accept what's said at face value.

what if you could look right through the cracks
would you find yourself...afraid to see?

So. Step one. We have the decision. Step two: I start to accept the things I don't want to, and I stop protesting against them. If I can't be trusted, so be it. There is not a single impulse resembling fickle in my nature, and I don't intend to start: but I can't keep staring at the truth that others hold about me and not start to integrate it.

I'll work out the whys later, and likely, the ponderings on further changes after. Right now, that's my next goal: acceptance.

I am flawed. Accept that.

I am not always truthful, even when I truly think I'm telling the truth. Accept that.

I can't be trusted. Accept that.

I want to set myself another week to work through this. But I don't know if I can work that fast.

(Lyrics adapted from Right Where It Belongs, from Nine Inch Nails.)

for where I trusted I am begeld, and all for love of one

but still, I've got to get out of this place
'cause I don't think I can face another night
where I'm half sick of shadows
and I can't see the sky--
everyone else can watch as the tide comes in
so why can't I?

It's been a bumpy morning so far, and it started last night.

[02:23] Second Life: Your object 'Object' has been returned to your inventory lost and found folder by you from parcel 'PRIM BONUS LAND - NO MORE OBJECTS' at Good Day Sunshine 133, 239.

This is what happens when we build while tired. Oops.

Though I admit, there's heavy irony in building something--by sanction of the sim owner--on something explicitly labeled "NO MORE OBJECTS".

and you were there when I
built my tower like pebbles in the rain
trying to balance all that I had left
with what I didn't have anymore

Most of it, I honestly feel, comes down to interrupted sleep, and almost nil social interaction. I'm working on both, but I admit, I'm pouring heart and soul into the sidewalk project currently, so even if I got offers to socialize, I'd likely turn them down.

If I'm in world--and I'm not at the sales office--I'm generally building. I may take brief small breaks, just to breathe a bit, but then it's back to working or sales.

and would you tear my castle down
stone by stone
and let the wind run through my windows
'til there was nothing left but a battered rose

On the other hand, this is also what I do when I'm wounded. I withdraw. I push people away. I make excuses, I turn aside, I make jokes, I fall apart only when alone and unobserved.

I'm not saying these are good ways to interact, either with myself or with the world. It's just how I am.

we need a helping hand
we have lost our touch
if his shadow appears
we're going to fall apart
I mean we got addicted long time ago
but that spooky, old giant won't withdraw

In the meantime, still dealing with tower metaphors, because I'm still rebuilding. I may be for some time.


(Tower card from the Legacy of the Divine Tarot deck.)

"In a moment, it is over. The Tower is rubble, only rocks remaining. Stunned and shaken to the core, the Fool experiences grief, profound fear and disbelief. But also, a strange clarity of vision, as if his inner eye has finally opened. He tore down his resistance to change and sacrifice (Hanged man), then broke free of his fear and preconceptions of death (Death); he dissolved his belief that opposites cannot be merged (Temperance) and shattered the chains of ambition and desire (The Devil). But here and now, he has done what was hardest: destroyed the lies he held about himself. What's left is the bare, absolute truth. On this he can rebuild his soul." (from the http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/">Aeclectic Tarot site)

It's not just that the tower has fallen. All the hopes and dreams, all the lies and self-aggrandizing claims, all of it rubble--that's not the important thing. I have fallen before, I have rebuilt before, I will do it again, I am doing it now.

That's not the point.

The point is that this is the first time I'm trying not to rush through things. I am very much past good at spackle and picture-hanging, obscuring damage with a fresh coat of paint and a trailing hand gesturing towards the view. "Look, it's so much better now, you can see the ocean from the clerestory window." Ignore that the structure is sinking beneath the sands and the foundation is broken...

I will swallow
if it will help my sea level go down
I'll take a deep deep breath
but I'll come back to haunt you if I drown

And this is both a new and fresh boon, and the thing that's driving those around me mental--because progress in slow steps looks exactly like stagnation and lack of any forward momentum, at times, from the outside. And I can't seem to find the words that I need to tell them I'm still working on things, save...to say I'm still working on things.

I want to apologize to everyone, but at the same time, I have to move slowly. Carefully. There's a lot of damage, and I'm dealing with it on my own. Those who love me can support me--and are--but at the end of the day, it's just me inside the same head. I've said this before, but it doesn't stop being true.

I need to know that this isn't going to be another wrapping of broken limbs while I push myself to get back to life at large. I have to take the time it's going to take. I have to heal. And I heal slowly, I always have.

etiolation emphasized by merry thoughts
once broken by
moonlight
oh, brighter to have never loved
than gather ghosts of the blinding
relentless sun idealized in you--

And it may go without need of speaking it, that I am not used to this. It sends me spinning on occasion, off-balance, but--even that, I have to accept, and take in stride. I will have bad days and good days; I am healing. I will have stable days and unstable days; I am healing. It's just that there's nothing I can point to, no outward sign, and even I do not know if I'm getting better, or getting worse, and I won't until I'm on the other side of it.

I'm moving yet, but am I moving down or up? I don't know. This is such a precarious position to be in.

so you've returned to lengthen my shadow
to once again shatter my windows...

And yes, it is like this. Yes, I wonder if I've made mistakes, am continuing to make mistakes. Yes, I wonder on the what ifs. Yes, I worry that whatever I'm evolving into will be something harder and harsher and stranger, and maybe someone less able to love, and be loved.

I can't help that. I am trying to talk, and stay open, and still heal, and still move, and...it's so tiring, it's exhausting, and it's never over, and won't be for some time to come.

you were my everything
my apparitional faith
where are you when I am screaming to my God
what am I coming to

But there's nothing else I can do. I have to do what I feel I can, I have to heal as best I can, and tell myself that, while "normal" people may not see things at night, it's not as if this is new territory for me, and if it is a sign of some deeper trauma, then we'll deal with that when we get there. No one's dog is telling me to kill people. Angels inside my head aren't telling me to hurt my family. In that, at least, my hallucinations are harmless and (mostly) non-traumatic.

(I could do with less bugs on the walls.

(But we move on.)

out of bed I creep
to climb this tower of shame
but the hour's still the same
only madness knows my name

Because that is the current rock I'm clinging to, these days, the aphorism that states, If you think you're going mad...you aren't. Because mad people don't know they're mad.

And I am rather desperately hoping that's true, as I watch leaves flicker into characters on trees, and read words that aren't there on the metal railing above my bed. I am really, really hoping this is just a phase, and when I'm more stable, when I'm better, all this will stop.

if I had another place to go
would you break me? is it that you know
I have no choice but to rebuild again
I'm tied so hard I can't remember when
I last walked free upon these feet of mine

And do I have a choice? I've made the choices I've can, and I may yet move to make more, but--right now, this is what I've got. Even if it's a small circle of earth between my feet, this much is clear. And I will widen my territory as I can, and allow in those I can trust, and it will feel less like standing still and more like recovery.

Day by day. Hour by hour. Moment by moment, if I have to. I am not dead yet. So I'm not down.

(Lyrics taken from Emilie Autumn's Shalott; Emilie Autumn's Castle Down [first & second selection]; Bel Canto's Shimmering, Warm & Bright; Emilie Autumn's Swallow; Faith & the Muse's Sparks; Faith & the Muse's Patience Worth; Emilie Autumn's Castle Down again; Emilie Autumn's 4 O'Clock; and one last time, Emilie Autumn's Castle Down.

mugwumps, high jumps, low slumps, big bumps---don't you work as hard as you play?

One thing, before we get going, and it's kind of important. I owe Miss Anna Darwinian a huge apology.

Seriously--she's part of the Steamed and Builders' Blocks hunts, and for her gift for the Builders' Blocks hunt, all I saw at first was SALT, and I took it for the standard SALT HUD available, as noted, elsewhere as a free offering. And I was extremely disheartened, the more because I know her, and I know her passion for steampunkery, as well as her quirky sense of humor.

[16:48] Anna Darwinian: I am not one of SL's great builders, for sure, but I like to make objects I think will be fun, like the breaking heart that goes crash and teh giant book that has a sekrit bed inside it

She's not wrong. She has a great sense of whimsy. (And trust me, these days, whimsy is needed.) But she didn't repackage the SALT HUD as a giveaway for her store.



What she did is actually cooler: it's a giant saltshaker, with screw-on metal lid and all, very retro--and the simple script inside takes you to the SALT website itself (which, from a design perspective, is simple, clean, and gorgeous). The script logs your avatar account in (no reference to your SL password, no need to have it), you plug in height, width and depth, it searches, and if they have it, you get it.

Amusing as all get-out, and a great tool for builders. I'm surprised and impressed, now I've played with the thing.

So kudos to Miss Darwinian for the SALTshaker! (And again, I'm sorry. Hunt frustration or no, I shouldn't have said anything about it unless I was sure. And now I am. You don't repackage things for hunts, and I should have remembered that too.)

[16:53] Anna Darwinian: OK, well, my store is called Anna Darwinian's Steampunk Adventures Store ...

Yep. Which you can find here. Go pick up the builder's hammer--or the Steamed hunt gear, which I am told has a steampunk espresso machine, ooh!--if you want one of these for yourself.

For anyone who looked at the large pic, as long as we're here--yeah, I'm in a creepy-girl phase again. I wanted to have spine staples for the day:



but damn, they are not easy to lay out to work with an AO. I finally separated them out into three sections--one attached at the spine, one on the chest, and one on the left pec point:



to get them to line up mostly right, most of the time. And it works, more or less, but there's no way I can sell these. Way too much fiddly adjustment, and sucking away three attachment points for one adornment, no one needs.

Trinty Dechou gives her interpretation of the 'we' vs. 'they' company debate. She thinks Linden Labs is still a 'we' company. I desperately hope she's right.

Miss Dechou had another post on her blog, about personal blogging, if you will--keeping a diary. This is another good tip for getting things out of your head, pursuant to yesterday's post seen here.

Friend of mine goes one farther: She sits down and writes letters. (I know, she thinks email is a waste of time; she sits down and hand-writes these things.) Some to herself, some to people who've slighted her, some to people to whom she needs to apologize. At the end of a week, she gets out her cauldron and her address book. She pours kosher salt into the cauldron (about a cup) and half a bottle of rubbing alcohol. She then sorts through the letters, and keeps only the ones, after a week of reflection, that would help if the person on the other end got it in the mail.

Those letters, she puts in envelopes, stamps them, seals them, and sets them aside to mail. (And she mails them, which is the other astounding part.) For the rest?

She lights the alcohol-soaked salt in the cauldron, and one by one, feeds the pages in--in sections, in folds, adding more alcohol if she needs to. Watches all of her worries and grudges and pokes at herself go up in blue flame. She says her soul feels lighter, at the end of it, and in a sense, she's right--she's expressed herself, hurt and anger and worry, kicking at herself and kicking at the world and genuine apologies for her own actions all combined--and the stuff which won't do anyone good, and the self-doubt and self-recrimination letters--poof, ashes in the sacred space.

This is not to say anger is a bad thing. Fear is a healthy response at times; worry and anxiety can point to problems we aren't letting ourselves see; depression is anger swallowed for long enough it's turned into bitter dregs of resignation. And, as a dear friend of mine points out, though it's still antithetical to my experience, an old-fashioned chair-tossing contest with raised voices can be very therapeutic.

Well, maybe not for the chairs.

I've blogged about them before, but while we're back on the topic, the Survivors of Suicide build is getting more media attention. It's still worth a trip, even if some of the content is disturbing. (Hells. So's suicide.)

And Lalo Telling, few days before I posted my things, posted his own reaction to the news.

For those of you who read yesterday's columnnist speaking on the main points a Warhammer 40K MMO needs, here's William Murphy's take on what a "zombie apocalypse" (zombpocalypse?) MMO will need. (Though I'm less sanguine about the Battlestar Galactica MMO that was announced.)

Wonderful article discovered on derivative work that was mentioned this morning in the Twisted Thorn textures group. I thought it was worth sharing, and for once, it goes into US and Canadian copyright law.

And there is now a giant cowfish in Morgaine bay.

No, I don't have to explain these things.

I thought I had it in me, I used to be so sure

"When you go through a huge change in life, there's always a transition period, there's always a period of shock." ~Amy, marine biologist, The Colony: Arrival and Survival

I thought the problem would be with those I love, those I live with. I was capable, I knew the reality of things (and the unreality); I was prepared. I understood.

I was wrong.

I have spent the whole of today wandering around, staring vaguely at the structures of the grid, having no idea what to do in any given moment. A hunt was announced at Twisted Thorn Textures, earlier, and I had to force myself to think through what I formerly considered the basics: getting dressed; changing tags; teleporting. It's not that I'd forgotten, it was more that my thinking process seems slowed.

It's as if breathing takes up the whole of my available resources, and it is the greatest struggle to do anything else.

I know I pushed, I know I pushed myself, harder than I've ever had to before, to get the packing done, to keep going, to keep everyone organized and moving. I know I pushed to my limits and past them. I know after a while I was stuck off in the sidelines, watching everyone move and lift and pack and carry, concentrating on breathing. Exhausted to the very core of my being.

But I was fine after the move, I was okay. We were leaving; everything else would resolve on its own. I was moving through it...

Nobody ever said you couldn't lie to yourself.

So it's back to recovering. I haven't looked through the calendar yet; I hope to do that at some point tomorrow, see what bids I can, in all honesty, take. This is going to be a slow, gradual recovery, I fear, of body, mind and spirit, and it is going to take time I can ill spare to get where I need to be, again.

I'll get there. Sadly, I have survived worse. So I know I'll get there, in time. It's just that it's going to take that time. Time I did not, in all honestly, want to take to recover.

I'm really, really not good at being gentle with myself. I'm better at gauging my limits, and pulling back just before I collapse, before muscle shreds from bone. This move took everything I had, and then kept taking.

So it's going to take a while.

If I'm grumpier than usual with anyone, that'll be why. Impatient with myself; impatience with the process. But all things in time.

Next up: why do cats levitate in Second Life? No answers, but a lot of questions.

and I need your love the most when I least deserve it

So many in my life promise impossibility. They know it, I know it, but I accept it every time. And it slices deeper every time it happens--"I hope I never let you down" from one; "I will always love you" from another; "I will never leave you" from a third. On and on it goes, ringing through changes and variations, where the core of the offering is always We cannot be parted.

And it's not just rejection and revolution, anger and deceit, regrets and lost causes; sometimes, the shock is in the severance. One day there, in my heart or in my arms; the next day gone by flood or lost to ammunition, keen and cutting, or overwhelmed by their own personal losses as they watch their life spiral crimson over bone.

And I admit, I have been waiting, breath perhaps only in secret held, for the words to be said: "You are my only love" or "I will always be there" or any similar variation.

Tonight, the analyzing machine that comprises part of me turned in the initial report of many months of observation: that none of my current loves have ever said this. That most of them, when asked, admit the possibility of leavetaking. That there is acknowledgment that things happen, in a life, that circumstances change, that we could drift in differing directions...in short, that life may happen in our lives, and even parting must be provided for in its own time.

The closest any have ever come to ringing through those particular changes? "I don't intend ever to give you up, if I can help it." Which admits to strong intention, but also subtly acknowledges (at least, to my thinking) that intention may not match action.

There is a curious purity, a moment of crystalline comprehension, when the wall of the glass heart is tapped just enough to shimmer the air with that piercing, ringing tone of understanding. I can accept this, I think to myself, deep in the shrouded shadowed places where I think. I can believe this. This much is true.

There may well be partings to come, of one or two or all, but that will be dealt with in time. The small somber sliver of spirit, soberly standing guard (hah) can relax, at last, and accept this with such grace as we know how to express. This, also is new ground; new and uneasy territory for me, for I am profoundly unused to standing and unsuspecting in any way.

But I will learn. This, also, I will learn: how to simply love, and know that love returned, and not fear dissolution.

A toast, then, to personal growth. And perhaps, just perhaps, a wee dram of the good stuph kept reserved for growing up. It has taken me far beyond far too long for this.

sleep, sugar, let your dreams flood in

Hear your heartbeat
Beat a frantic pace
And it's not even seven AM

You're feeling the rush
of anguish settling
You cannot help showing them in

She walks again, moves through the world, the lady that was lost in kitten dreams. I see, I notice, I think it's a precursor of good things, but I admit I watch the world warily, these days, when I watch at all.



(December 2008, the signs to sell Rivula go up. Home and more than home, for my staggered starting footsteps on the grid. It was one of many signs of change to come.)

So hurry up then
Or you'll fall behind and
They will take control of you

And you need to heal
The hurt behind your eyes
Fickle words crowding your mind

I am back to feeling spiderlike, the dreamer in the web, tugging on strings tied to secrets. I never sell, I never barter, everyone's entitled to things they don't want the world to see. But all information is valid. And more information helps me fit the pieces together.



(Part of an initial photo session featuring an outfit I still haven't released yet, due to difficulties with the flexi skirt--but mostly I thought afterwards that 'sad mime' really wasn't the best way to present the combo...)

So
Sleep, sugar, let your dreams flood in,
Like waves of sweet fire
You're safe within
Sleep, sweetie, let your floods come rushing in,
And carry you over to a new morning

The puzzle of any community is in its people. Caledon no less than any other, real or imagined. The trick of Caledon is that it's so interwoven, such a complex weave--truly closer to a tartan than a web. Tug on one strand it might weave tighter, or it might slip free of the weave entirely, making the structure in that place more fragile than it was.

Best not to tug at all, but...knowing. Discovering. Sometimes, just a little pull, just a bit, thin thread of possibility between thumb and forefinger...Sometimes, it's difficult to know when to stop.



(Sometimes the poetry slams get out of hand. This one, held in the satellite consulate in Kittiwickshire, featured poems honoring Caledon and growth. When word went around that Miss Qlippothic Project's poem on Caledon had not been heard, I tracked down my copy and read it aloud. I was then covered head to toe in pies and Bibles. They liked it a great deal.)

Try as you might
You try to give it up
Seems to be holding on fast

Its hand in your hand
A shadow over you
A beggar for soul in your face

Every step is a new discovery, every pause is a moment to breathe, to walk away from nearly-forgotten wreckage. Old lovers who last year were bitter and acrimonious this year call me dear. New lovers...well, there's been a paucity of those, at late, because I rest content with what I have. Contentment is new for me, still inspiring some slight unease of mind--but slowly I begin to relax, readjust, reclaim those parts of me that never saw the dawn before now.



(Clockwerk contemplating height requirements for world takeover.)

Still it don't matter
If you won't listen
If you won't let it follow you

Sometimes I forget I'm not the only one healing. It's easy to be selfish and view my pain as the only pain; but others around me, near and far, grieve too. Every heart breaks at some point; not every heart heals correctly. So it has to be broken again; maybe the second time it will heal properly.

I watch the signs of heartbreak, feeling spider in the web, and sometimes I can help. Sometimes I can't. Not everything's about me.



(Fawkes Allen's dreaming sun, thirty-eight prims of he-was-bored-one-night. I get bored and I find new forms to change into. He gets bored and he creates universes.)

You just need to heal
Make good all your lies
Move on and don't look behind

We walk, and our steps drag. We walk, curled in on ourselves from old and new pain. We walk until we're used to hunching, afraid of the next blow to come.

It's harder still to stand up, clean-limbed and exposed, and not flinch from the next imagined blow. Reclaiming is also about strengthening, remembering who we were before the shatter, and reshaping who we are now. We don't have to live in pain, in fear, if we don't want to. We don't have to hold the hurts of all our bitter yesterdays closer than children.

Let them go. Let them all go. Walk away; we don't need them. We can't use them. We are walking forward, to new love and new pain, new understanding, and the end of the time of trial...or at least, this time of trial. There will always be others.



(Another image from the poetry slam, this one from Winterfell Absinthe and der Hut des Jaegers, the usual home of the Thursday event. The tangle of Bibles and woodgrain is an avatar entirely comprised of guns. Only man I'd ever met who could cover an entire crowd, no matter which way he was facing.)

So
Sleep, sugar, let your dreams flood in,
Like waves of sweet fire
You're safe within
Sleep, sweetie, let your floods come rushing in,
And carry you over to a new morning



(I don't even remember where this is now, but this was taken on one of the odd Yule hunts...the green poseball is a sit pose, in one of the loops, but inside was a cuddle bed.

(...At least, I hope it was a cuddle bed.)

Day after day
Fickle visions
Messing with your head
Fickle, vicious

Fretting over the past does one thing, very well: it traps us there, held more fast by the chains we create than any shackles ever made in the world. We are our pasts, just as we are our futures, that never changes; but we can choose which past we reflect to the world. And we must never forget, any of us, all of us--it's never too late to change our pasts. The mirror looks both ways.



(Part of the floor of Miss Allegory Malaprop's store, Schadenfreude, in Starlust--aka the veves marking of Erzulie, voudon goddess of love, pain, beauty and beauty's loss, and the battlefield of the heart.)

Sleeping in your bed
Messing with your head
Fickle visions
Fickle, vicious

And the one thing we cannot do, must not do, must never do--is stop listening to our own heart, wounded, battered, bleeding, hurting. Caution, it counsels us, caution, wariness, it teaches us to pull back from passion's burning: all this we must listen to, embrace, understand, before we can leave our pain behind. We understand, we listen, we begin to believe there are better ways of relating than hiding behind our wounded hearts--or even worse, hiding our hearts behind armor.

The fist shelters us from harm, we think at first. But the open hand held out is the greater risk, always.

Take the risk.



(Captured during the candy-cane hunt in Malkavyn Eldritch and Candy Cerveau's marvelous Magic of Oz sim--in the light side of Oz, even--these two idiots gesturespamming with large, oddly-colored, misshapen--well, you get the idea, from the "censored" bars.)

Sleep, sugar, let your dreams flood in,
Like waves of sweet fire
You're safe within
Sleep, sweetie, let your floods come rushing in,
And carry you over to a new morning...

Take the risk. Whether the world feeds us glass shards or gold dust, take the risk. If you hear nothing else, hear this: take the risk. Because the longer we hide, the deeper we go inside. When we can no longer see ourselves, just the shadow of all our armored protections, from shoulder crenellations to the barbs between our lips...we've lost more than the chance at future love.

We've lost ourselves.

Don't lose. Take the risk. Take the step. And walk. Friends, enemies, and everyone in between, walk.



(Found yet again during some winter hunt, this one between several Japanese sims: a moon, pure and perfect, hanging in midair; with a port post sticking out of it next to a tree and a flower. Very Little Prince. We took the port and found ourselves inexplicably in the moon, on a small platform with chrome rails. And with no other way out seen, we began to explore, where, at the very bottom, we found this lone visitor counter.

(Let's hope they've had more visitors since.)

Lastly, things I never wanted to know were on the grid, part 72: "Low-rise" jeans take on a new meaning:



Um. Just a thought, but really...once they're this low? They're really tall legwarmers. Or footless tights that have fallen down.

I mean, not to be crude, but if the model wasn't completely bare of all nether fur? This would really be eye-catching. And not in a good way.

Still, if you want a pair of your own, I feel obligated to tell you to repair off for Sassy Kitty Designs. They run currently between sixty and one hundred and twenty Lindens. By all means, have fun.

(Lyrics taken from Poets of the Fall, their song "Sleep".)