made me learn a little bit faster, made my skin a little bit thicker

(Note from the Editrix: Because these are mounting, sadly, I'm going to start generally indicating when they were written, as opposed to published. This one is from the 23rd of July.)



broken people get recycled
and I hope that I will
sometimes we're thrown off our pathways

That's stone-the-crows-at-home truth, innit? Though in all fairness, while I frequently feel I'm broken, I never feel I'm going to be recycled, yet. Rebuilt, yes. Repainted, repatched, remarked, renewed, sure. Recycled? Doesn't that mean this me disappears entirely into someone else?

(Oh. Well. Yes. But we're not talking about those times.)

I'm still slightly tilted over how fast this all fell apart, too. I had a very good birthday, for once, which I will likely always treasure; two days later I'd hit a melancholy patch, reflecting on life decisions in general; two days past that I decided it was finally time to float the train to the surface, and try land again.

And then...everything exploded. That's kind of mentally stunning on its own.



what I thought was my way home
wasn't the place I--

no, I'm not afraid of changing
I'm certain nothing's certain
what we own becomes our prison

my possessions will be gone
back to where they came from

Or..put another way...the more concrete our sense of self becomes, the more limiting it becomes. I wrestle with this a great deal, because as much as I advocate how important change and adaptability are, I struggle against both adaptation and changing. Though I think it's one reason why I'm a shapeshifter in SL (and why I perpetually cycle through hair colors in RL). Reconfiguration is important, but only if we're free enough to consider change. (Or brave enough.)



blame
no one is to blame
as natural as the rain that falls
here comes the flood again

Loss must be mourned, yes. Mourning takes time. And there's a lot of different ways to lose, and to mourn, for that matter. But just as there is no one "right" way to experience a loss, there is also no "right" time to get better. We heal on our own terms, on our own time, in our own ways. Some things hit us harder than others, but loss is also a universal leveler. We have all felt it. We all find our own ways to cope.



see the rock that you hold onto
is it gonna save you?
when the earth begins to crumble

why do you feel you have to hold on?
imagine if you let go

This becomes its own trap, too. Forming our entire concepts of self and identity, integrity, independence around one specific thing--when that specific thing goes away, be it a person, a religion, a job, whatever--it can be extremely damaging. Long term or short term, it's a hard blow, and it staggers most of us. This is also universal.

More than that, it can be almost counterintuitive--as long as we hold tightly to what's hurting us, well, it still hurts us, but we're familiar with it, right? No one can say they're precisely comfortable, but the terrain is understood, the terrain is known. Letting go...even if it saves us pain in the long run...sends us into new experiences, new shifts of consciousness, new understandings...at the very least, it moves us to somewhere new where we don't know all the landmarks.

This can be terrifying.



wash away
the weight that pulls you down
ride the waves
that free you from your doubts

Once we let go, though...once we accept that we can't be in control of everything, and we need to accept change, relocation, differentiation, reconsideration...Once we learn to adapt, to integrate...we may well find we're in a better place. I mean, jury's still out on whether I'm moving to a better place, but right now, I'm not so much clinging to the rock of adamant resistance as tunnelling under it at speed, trying to reach a place where the fire can't reach me.

Once I stop fearing immolation, I may be ready to figure out what happens next. Maybe.



wash away
the weight that pulls you down
ride the waves
that free you from your doubts

It's all evolution, in a sense. If we can't change, we die out, and many have. We're all going to die anyway, that's the name of the game, but we don't have to cheerfully invite Death to our door. She's friendly and all, but come on, time for tea and scones later, right?

So...letting go. Which I'm past crap at, freely admitted. I have held so tightly to things I nearly have permanent half-moon cuts in my palms from clenching my fists to hold on. But this does not work, short term or long term. This is all about loss of control, more than fear of change. Which is ludicrous, when you think about it--the collared submissive is terrified of losing control.

Come on, now. That's high-grade irony, right there.



here comes the flood again
don't trust your eyes
it's easy to believe them
know with your heart
that you can leave your prison

So...that's the next step. Don't control things. Don't attempt to redirect conversations. Don't try to figure out the angle of approach, or descent, or predict the outcome. All terrifying. All necessary.

But especially here...because I'm already trapped in the monochromatic. I cannot hope for a possible if it leads to a positive--because no future is good while the present is bad. That sounds simplistic, and...it is, but the complication is, other people have things happen and shrug and say, well, maybe tomorrow will be better.

For me, tomorrow is vapor until things get better. It's a damaging mindset.

Hope. Acceptance. Allowing room for reality to shift in the direction it needs to go. This way lies personal growth, emotional development.

Me? There is no tomorrow until I get out of the fire. No hope. No acceptance. No growth, no development, only stagnation. And oh, good gods, a rabid half-ton of solid, choking fear.

So there's the issue. Let go of the need to control; let go of the need to direct; let go of the fear. Embrace the powerlessness. I am here now. Here is scary. Hear is hurting, and pain, and despair. Yes. But here is not only those things. There are bright spots. There are joys, small and large. The wandering Duke wandered by again for a while, for example. We got to spend some time face to face, talking, and I realized how much I'd missed that. In the midst of every sorrow, in the midst of all the fear, there was that bright, alive mind in blue fur.



don't trust your mind
it's not always listening
turn on the lights
and feel the ancient rhythm

So, perhaps the scariest statement of all: Everything will work out. Just give it time. Unclench my hands and breathe, sink beneath the waves if I need to. Let the waves move me where I need to be. Trust.

Gods, trust is terrifying. And again, irony, because I say that, while still trusting a great many people with a great many things.

But...let go. That's the lesson. Breathing air, breathing water, breathing fire--adapt to all of it. Trust. Trust that the right decisions will be made, that I will have the right information when asked, and be honest with myself and others. Commit to the fear of it, but acknowledge that fear. And allow people to tell me it's okay to be afraid, or the fear will pass, and believe them when they tell me this.

So simple. So scary.

So necessary.

Let go. Fall or fly, let go. Just...let it all go.

(Pictures taken at the Enchanted Isle of Mystery. Lyrics from Katie Melua's The Flood.)

and there's a lot of potential in a mighty, mighty organ

Found this profile-wandering:

1. Be patient and understanding. No Dom/Domme is perfect; subbies have bad days like anyone else. Both parties are human and deserve respect even if it is given in different ways.
2. Be there for each other. Do your utmost to stay in contact. Don't just disappear.
3. Doms, don't be collectors. How can you possibly have the time for 10, 15 or more subs? They deserve better from you.
4. Subs, give your gift of submission only after careful consideration. Meeting someone than asking them to collar you after 30 minutes is NOT enough. Build trust first.
5. Open communication is key. Subs should be allowed to talk to their Dom and raise concerns, wants, desires in a respectful manner. Dom should consider carefully what their sub has to say. Doesn't mean bend to every request, but if there are problems you will never know if your sub cannot speak frankly with you.
6. Doms, don't take a sub just because you are lonely, and subs, don't serve just anyone who will say yes.

Some very good tips, all in all.

what is joy in league with sorrow?

Doing some housekeeping, as long as I'm updating the colors and the theme. Absinthe as a post tag is now gone; it's been replaced by a general Winterfell tag if something in the entry just refers to Winterfell Absinthe, or, in the case of the one post mentioning Mere Henriot's Elixir, a new Kickstarter tag. (For it was originally a Kickstarter project when that tea debuted.)

I also discovered I had some spelling errors! So now contemplation as a tag is all spelled correctly, as well as frustration. (Apparently I had one version with two i's. Why?)

Crafts is now gone; I lumped it under crafting. Clothing and cats are now gone, too; there was only one entry each to them, anyway.

Obviously there's more work to be done, and I'll get to it when I have time, but...it's a start.

wassail, wassail all over the town

Merry Yule and merry winter!
And now to snowy silver splendour,
dark twinkling nights and pewter dawns,
and soft snows powdering the lawns.

Rejoice, and raise the golden glasses!
Dance with merry lads and lasses!
Drink the mulled wine, share the fire,
give in to willed and warm desire.
Release all anger, fear and pain,
and let the year renew again.

Let the very best of our 2015 be the worst of the year to come. Here's to the future.

we're heading for Venus and still we stand tall

Join the battle for net neutrality.

Did you know humans bioluminesce? I did not know this. But studies have shown that indeed, we do--just not brightly enough to detect with our own vision.

And what happens when you take a very high-speed camera, and a very active dancer, and tons of powder? This.

You will never be as happy as this man is with his world-record-breaking onion. Everyone needs a hobby, I guess.

By agreement, we can put things in the public domain, in perpetuity. It's the heart and core of Creative Commons licensing, after all. In actual legal practice, we can't do that. And that needs to change.

Also, the MPAA isn't about supporting privacy, it's about supporting itself. And that needs to change, too.

In fact, the RIAA is kind of in the same boat, and they also need to change.

Just what is intellectual property, anyway? How is it actually defined?

There are fish capable of living more than two thousand feet under solid ice shelves.

Finally, this is why the US needs better educational systems, and stat: over 80% of Americans (over the course of several polls) support mandatory labeling on foods containing DNA. The problem with that? MOST FOODS CONTAIN DNA. Because they're FOODS. When will the stupidity end??

it gets so hard sometimes to understand

Continuing from the first part, we're picking up with binkey's reply to Matt Sierra:

"From an evolutionary point of view, humanity has been practicing monogamy for no time at all. That and the fact that as a species we're actually not very good at it, makes me doubt that it has had much of an effect on us as a species at all.

Anyway, your arguments are all just conjecture. If you can demonstrate your position with any evidence, I'd be interested in studying it more.

There is also a big difference between arguing for same-sex marriage and arguing for polygamy. Banning same-sex marriage is fundamentally unequal. You are saying that one group of people is allowed to do something that others cannot (marry one person of their choosing). There is nothing unequal about a law against polygamy. That law is applied equally to everyone.

Fundamentally though, I'm not sure I understand I get your economic argument. If you were arguing against the state sanctioning of all marriages, I would get it. But fundamentally you are saying 'Yes, I understand that banning same-sex marriage is unfair, but allowing it would cost me financially, so I'm opposed to it.'

There was a huge financial cost involved in getting rid of slavery, but eventually people recognized that it was fundamentally wrong and stopped doing it. As a species we have a much more solid and much longer tradition of slavery than we do of restricting marriage to being between one man and one woman, but no one (at least no one reasonable) would argue that because of that, we should go back to it."

I agree. And I also love how often Matt's sneaking in that polygamy reference, as if he's thinking we're going to start equating same-sex marriage with polygamy, oh teh shock and horror.

Matt's response:

"'If you can demonstrate your position with any evidence, I'd be interested in studying it more.'
lets see what happens when traditional marriage is let go of by a culture:
http://www.ibtimes.com/japan-encourages-young-people-date-mate-reverse-birth-rate-plunge-it-may-be-too-late-1562867
if a society does not support same sex marriage i dont see anywhere near the same repercussions. im not saying that im against seeing evidence for same sex marriage to be equally beneficial to society. but at this point i have not

His argument here seems to be "See? Japan allowed gay marriage and look what happened!" Except, that's nothing close to what happened. While there are, yes, gay relationships in Japan, for the most part few talk about it. And they have nothing to do with actual marriages among the population. What that article discusses is not homosexuality, but delay--in specific, that Japanese people are choosing to defer marriage until they're more financially stable, and concentrate on their careers in the meantime. As Japan thinks in terms of what happens decades after the now, in economic and sociological terms this is kind of a big deal. But it has nothing to do with same-sex pairings at all. Invalid argument. Next.

From Ella Mongrella:

"What's the difference between paying benefits for a straight couple who can't have kids of their own and a gay couple? Lots of straight marriages are childless."

Excellent question. Matt's response:

"weather taxes increase or not wont change weather the government gets less income or insurance companies get less money from same sex couples. it wouldnt make sense for married couples to file jointly if they ended up paying more. im not saying that same sex marriage will be a detriment to society or even that it will not have a net positive effect but to say that it has an equally good effect on society as traditional marriage is at the least unproven and therefor shouldnt just be blanketed with the same benefits. tax and insurance benefits are not a 'right' they are a 'privilege' that that the government should carefully weigh who to distribute to, rather than dole out so as not to hurt peoples feelings."

What?

First off, that would be "whether", not "weather", but how exactly, does that work in Matt's head? The government and the insurance companies get less money from same-sex couples? Why? Sure, currently, without formalized gay marriage in many states, same-sex couples do not suffer the 'marriage penalty' on taxes that heterosexual couples do--but by and large, they pay more because they're having to do everything by proxy that married couples get by fiat. Tacitly, the case can be made that for certain benefits, overall taxation might go down, but with the increase in marriages overall, taxation would stabilize at a higher, more consistent rate. Also, issues of partner death or illness, joint holdings of assets, and child-rearing would gain strong protections--which in turn would likely lead to more consistent taxation payments. He's just wrong on all counts.

From Ela, again, in a Google+ response:

"'tax and insurance benefits are not a "right" they are a "privilege" that that the government should carefully weigh who to distribute to'
So you are actually saying that gay couples should be denied a 'privilege' that straight couples can have. You're not making yourself sound any better.

He's really not.

Matt's response to that:

"yes, which is to say the same tax and insurance benefits that a single person like myself would experience. traditional marriage fulfills a vital role that same sex marriage or single people like me do not or at the least have not been shown to. would you actually say that single people should be denied a privilege that same sex couples should have? why shouldnt me and some random person just be able to file jointly or why cant i be covered by some random persons insurance benefits just because im not married? (protip: because it's dumb to just give out benefits so that people dont feel excluded)"

That's...pretty dumb as an argument, actually. Moreover, nothing does stop him--beyond filing feels, court costs, and hours of booked time with an estate lawyer--from filing jointly with another random person. It is possible, legally, to gain nearly every benefit of "traditional" marriage in contract law, because--guess what--"traditional" marriage as it is currently interpreted in the United States is contract law. Moron.

There was more back and forth arguing, mostly about taxation and insurance costs, but Matt steadily lost coherency, so I'm done with him.

Peter Peterson said:

"You know Hank, the fact that you don't understand the Anti-Gay point of view is why you are unable to effectively argue against them and change their point of view. To actually change someone's point of view you have to understand why someone believes something and the context of the situation rather than just throwing your arguments at someone. People don't believe in Gay Marriage because they believe God hates it. They don't understand that attempting to ban it is the equivalent of voiding the right of freedom of religion, or if they do they likely believe that to allow Gay Marriage is not upholding God's laws/values, and they must uphold God's values regardless of what laws are put forth in our Constitution.

Remember that Christians (Catholics & High Church Protestants in particular*) are often told stories about Martyrs sacrificing their lives to fight the government for the Glory of God, so the 'Government/Constitution says you can't ban it' argument won't be overly effective.

Similarily, Christians (Low Church Protestants and Evangelicals in Particular*) are heavily entrenched in their beliefs and the culture surrounding their beliefs, so attempting to challenge the underlying biblical beliefs are, while possible, quite difficult.

Merely deflecting their arguments in a hostile fashion will simply make them see you as a non-believer and cling to their beliefs even more. Instead you must see the world from their view, and work to change that view in the issue you want to change it in.

Unless you just want to 'win' an internet debate, which I would argue is impossible since the other side usually runs away screaming 'I CANT HEAR YOU' after hours of arguing, if that was your ultimate goal.

*For reference, the "High Church" Protestants are generally considered to be Lutherans, Anglo-Catholic Anglicans, Presbyterian, Methodists and Calvinists occasionally while "Low Church" Protestants are considered to be Baptists, Pentecostals, Evangelical Anglicans, and most of the smaller Evangelical & Liberal churches. However, the line is a bit fuzzy; there are some low-church Lutherans and high-church Evangelical churches, though the latter is much rarer than the former."

I think Hank's point was more that, however tenacious the "traditional" religious types are about this, that our government as a whole should not allow themselves to be swayed by religious interests. (Which is hard, because they are so annoyingly vocal, EVERYWHERE, right now.) That whole separation of church and state is kind of a big deal to many of us, and seeing it chipped away year by year is hurtful. We are more diverse a population than the fundamentalists care to understand--they just want things to go their way. (But the problem inherent in that is even among hardcore fundamentalists, their perceptions of 'their way'/'the RIGHT way' to do things varies WIDELY.)

From Isabel Greene in response:

"f you can find a place in the bible where it says that god doesn't like gay people. i will applaud you. :P And I agree that it's impossible to argue it w/o understanding their view point, but i also think that this country is supposed to have a separation of religion and state and that anti-gay marriage laws clearly violate that in most cases. YES there are arguments about how having two of the same sex parents can be bad for a kid, but a) not being married doesn't mean they can't have kids, so it doesn't matter, and b) there's not a lot of good evidence to support that."

There are passages that are widely interpreted--which is the key word, here--to reference homosexuality. What's problematic about all of them is that, as the NALT Christians Project clearly points out, what we understand today as homosexuality--and heterosexuality, for that matter--didn't exist in the times in which the Bible was written. It's mostly Paul in various letters in the New Testament giving specifics, anyway, about what constitutes abhorrent and un-approved behavior for other Christians, and nowhere in anything that he writes does he ever, not once, refer to a happy, committed gay relationship as sinful or against God. What he does reference, and often, is the behavior of Roman statesmen, who were the main oppressors of the emerging Christian faith at the time. And what were Roman statesmen mainly known for? Having sex with their slaves as a diversion. Anyone who is enslaved cannot give consent, even if they are not morally opposed to what's being asked of them. They are enslaved, forced to another's will, and thus lack agency in any way. Plus, many of the preferred sexual slaves of choice were young boys, which adds on a whole separate layer of non-consensuality.

The Bible, through the writings of Paul, rightly, I think, condemns these forced "relationships" as against God for various reasons. But these relationships have nothing to do with homosexuality as we understand it now. So this entire line of thinking is wholly specious and without merit.

From Andrew Whythe:

"If somebody wants to marry their brother?

spamvicious in response:

"That's illegal because it would be incest, regardless of their gender."

Andrew's reply:

"Yes it's illegal - but if they want to. You're not supportive of marriage equality?"

Here's the thing about marriage equality, Andrew, and it's the same argument that can be made for incest, bestiality, and polygamy (not that these things are related, just listing other proposed 'married states' that usually crop up in Christian arguments). If something is illegal for all citizens, then it's not something that impacts equality. Everyone's already equal in that no one is allowed to marry their siblings, marry goats, or marry groups. How'ver, the fact that a man can marry a woman, but a man cannot marry a man (or a woman a woman) in some states means that they do not have full equality. Does that make sense, Andrew, or do I need to dumb it down further?

Jocelyn Bowling

"That is illegal more for the factor of mutation that would come of the offspring over what the person 'wants.' Incest creates medical issues that are purely avoidable, which is why it is made illegal."

Absolutely. To which Andrew replied:

"And homosexuality does not? The point is, it's inconsistent to forbid (thus far) incestuous or pedophiliac, polyamorous etc. marriages and enshrine this one."

Err, no, because incestuous and pedophilic relationships are already illegal, and that's not likely to change. And while I, personally, would like polyamorous relationships to be legalized, I can cope that the majority of people do not want them to be, and since--again--polyamorous relationships are not allowed marriage rights for all citizens, there's no inequity involved.

Jocelyn in reply:

"Homosexuality cannot biologically produce offspring so thetefore no, homosexuality does not give potentially deadly preventable diseases to babies. Sorry."

And it's true. While, at some point in the far future, we may be able to genetically engineer two sperm or two eggs to create reproductive ability, in a lab, I'm fairly sure it's never going to happen "in the wild", so to speak. So she's right, there.

Andrew in response:

"The life expectancy, incidence of STDs, alcoholism and other things are way higher in the homosexual community. And who are you to tell people who want to marry their sister (and vice versa) that they can't, what sort of bigot are you."

Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you were just an idiot. Turns out you're a troll. Right. Done with you, too.

From Sara St. Clair:

"Also in a homosexual relationship both people know what they are getting into and any children adopted or surrogated will be okay. But in a brother and sister relationship the child that may be produced has no way of controlling the brain defects and other diseases you have a chance of forcing on them. This is why it's wrong because it is literally genetically wrong."

A very good point.

From Kaci Smith:

"Marriage should be between two people who love each other. A man and a woman marrying that arent in love is worse than teo people of the same sex marrying... A few decades ago marrying outside of your race was illegal. For example an African American could not marry a white person. It was also illegal for a black person to drink from the same water fountain as a white person.. To most of us these laws seem ridiculous, barbaric and unconstitutional yet not allowing same sex couples to marry is ok.. In a few decades people will look back at how same sex couples are treated and have the same thoughts that we do about how African Americans were treated in the past. They will wonder how and why so many ppl were so ignorant and full of hate... Ill never understand why ppl believe same sex couples getting married will harm them. Even if youre a Christian you should believe that God is the one and olny person who can judge them and if God believes same sex couples are a sin then he will deal with it. Just because Fred and Bob get married and have sex it doesn't mean everyone in the world is going to hell.... If anything thr bible says ur suppose to love all of Gods creatures not just the ones who have sex with the opposite sex... In my opinion religion breeds more hatred than love and acceptance... Who Bob, Fred, John, Jacob, Ashley, Amanda, Victoria, Suzie etc decide to have sex with and or marry is nobodies business except the person they decide to marry or have sex with... Sex before marriage is also a sin and yet 97% of Christians have premarital sex.... Stop judging others and pointing out their "sins" and pay attention to your own sins... Religion is one thing ive spent years studying and disliking... The more I learn, the more i dislike it..."

Also a good point.

stfwho responded:

"the right to marriage is not the same as the right to drink water. The act of drinking water wasn't created specifically for linear reproduction and raising of offspring. Marriage was designed to be between a man and woman specifically because of the awesome power that men and women have when they combine their lives and their sex organs. One man and one woman have sex, and a life is created that they both need to stick together to nurture and raise. Two men have sex, and they walk funny the next morning. One of these could really NEED marriage, the other just needs lube. That's really the only logical reason to say marriage should be exclusive to heterosexuals... it's their ritual that works well with their superpower of creating life. Gay people should have all the same rights as regular people. It's just that marriage itself isn't so much a right as it is a ritual and practice based on a need for an answer to a sexual issue. Thank you for your time."

So, from your perspective, only those who can breed should be allowed to marry? What if the heterosexual couple can't? Or doesn't want to? Would you have the government force sexual testing on all potential marriage partners? And what happens to children who are orphaned, or abandoned? Are you saying because they weren't born into a household with a man and a woman who fathered and gave birth to them, specifically, that they don't matter?

They continue:

"Ever wondered why it's a sin to have sex before marriage? Cuz it creates chaos and disorder. If everyone waited until marriage, we would never have any bastards or abandoned single mothers or kids whom the mother doesn't know who the father was. All of that is because of sex. Why is the only legitimate reason for divorce in the bible sexual infidelity? Because if your wife sleeps with another man, your sexual exclusivity is broken. That would lead to confusion as well. Now of course all of these things are of course going to be broken by everyone, but the rules do make perfect sense from a mathematical view. That's why marriage exists; in a perfect world, we'd have perfect order, and an incredibly big part of that would be the whole practice of marriage. It's where the next generation would come from. Raised by their biological parents in a nuclear family setting. That's why marriage is so special and that's why it isn't just about love and feelings. It has a practical purpose that was designed for a reproductive couple. If you think marriage is all about love, why has arranged marriage been a normal thing in the world far longer than our modern idea of marriage?"

So, in a perfect world, they're saying, everyone would wait until they were old enough to marry (impossible), there would be no rape (ludicrous, considering the rape statistics), no incest (REALLY ludicrous considering that one in EVERY four women in the US has been sexually abused or raped), and only single, virgin men would marry single, virgin women and immediately begin to raise children for the coming generations. That's...that's baffling to me, just how wrong-headed that is.

Plus, arranged marriage everywhere had nothing to do with love or reproduction--it had to do with property rights and estate wealth. Virtually everywhere you look throughout history, it was a trading game. In India, the family of the bride traded the bride--a burden on the family economically, but a valued unpaid servant--for economic gain, thus supplanting that servant to both increase the family's coffers, and potentially buy another servant to take her place. In Western Europe, plots of land typically were retained--though not legally "owned"--by women, and by marrying them, men gained legal rights to their holdings, and thus, any economic gains received. We see this pattern over and over, and it has nothing to do with babies in the least.

From steve cannon:

"Marriage was originally about property rights. The woman became the property of her husband and all her property became his. Marriages were arranged so that property would be kept in families. Marriage assured that the children of the couple would be the "legitimate" heirs and bastards wouldn't be able to inherit. That's what marriage was about in the earliest years, not love or God, property. If procreation were the goal, people who were barren would not be allowed to get married (like older folks who can't have kids and people who marry but decide NOT to have kids), only folks of child bearing age with the ability to have kids would be allowed to get married. Before you start talking about biology and morality, get your facts straight (sic)."

Yes, exactly, thank you for echoing my points.

From Henry Wallace:

"If you're talking in a mathematical point of view, the best way to create a 'next generation' is where one man has several wives because a man can produce sperm on a daily basis but it takes 9 months for women to produce babies. This means that if one man were to have, say 5 wives, he would be able to produce 5 babies every 9 months rather than one. Maybe Islam got it all right...."

As strange as that would make America, and as much as people on all sides of the issue would carry on about it, from a purely biological point of view, he's not wrong.

From Granticus3000:

"It is against my religion to allow gay marriage. Marriage is meant for a man and a woman, that's how God made it. I don't expect everyone to believe in my religion and I know many people don't believe in my religion, but that doesn't mean I have to support gay marriage. Really that argument is being hypocritical, it's saying that not every believes in your religion so we should not base laws on it, but we should allow gay marriage because I believe in it. Not everyone believes in gay marriage so stop using that argument, it's hypocritical!

Thank you, Granticus, for completely missing the point of the entire video. Ffffft.

And while I was willing to go on into part three, I think you get the point from here. Gay marriage remains an incredibly divided issue, and the closer religion's a part of the mix, the more the other side just fails to hear anything clearly.

This country abolished slavery because we felt it to be wrong--but not just morally wrong; it was economically and sociologically wrong, as well. It took several years of struggle before full rights were granted to blacks, including both the right to marry citizens (of any skin color), the right to enter establishments owned and operated by white people, the right to serve in the military...the list goes on. And there are still hardcore, defiant racists to this day who feel this country made the wrong decision.

Now we have gay marriage, another situation where one sector of the population is being restrained from full legal rights to marry and engage with other citizens in chosen contractual obligations, and while great strides have been made, these types of attitudes are exactly why we're having the struggle in the first place: because again, it's not just a moral issue, it's an economic and a social one, as well. In the end, I think we will look back as a society and realize how pointless this all was, and how much easier it would have been if we'd just allowed it in the first place.

everybody knows what you will say

So, Hank Green of the Vlogbrothers put this video out in May of 2012. I still think the points are sound, though, and I've also decided to transcribe it, for reasons that will become obvious later.

"Morning, John! A rather...complicated morning, John, because stuff's been going down this week...As you know, the state of North Carolina, where our parents live, just decided to just outright ban gay marriage, like stick it in the Constitution--

"Opposing gay marriage is not a viewpoint that I understand, and I know that this video is going to piss people off, but I don't care anymore. This isn't a political issue, it's just deciding that we're going to treat some citizens of our country differently than other citizens. That's wrong!

"So I want to go through some of the arguments that I hear, and why they're crazy.

"ONE!" [Onscreen flashes "Why Can't Gay People Just Be Committed Without Marriage"] "'What's the big deal, why can't gay people, just, you know, have a party and say they're committed to each other? Why do they gotta come in on our thing?' IRRELEVANT! This isn't complicated! If some people can get married, and other people can't, then that's wrong.

"TWO!" 'But..God...'" [Onscreen flashes the same two words] "Marriage can be a religious thing. It can also be a secular thing. And guess what--not everyone in the world is of the same religion. Preventing gay people from getting married is not an expression of religious freedom, it's an expression of religious oppression. Because in the religion of the gay people getting married, presumably their god thinks it's okay, and you are oppressing them.

'But...the Bible...'"[Onscreen flashes the same words.] "The Bible is not a legal document. Our country was founded upon the idea of a separation between church and state. The Bible is also very explicit on the rules of farmers selling their daughters as slaves. It may be not the best document to base our laws on. 'Gay marriage would undermine the institution of marriage.'" [Onscreen flashes the same words.] "This is a thing that I've named, I've created a name for it in my head, because I see them all the time. I'm calling them 'hypothetheories'."

"So a hypothesis is a question that you ask. You say, 'I wonder if gay marriage would undermine the institution of marriage?' That's a hypothesis, that you can then go out and test, in any number of ways. And then, if you confirm that it is true, that it explains the phenomenon, then you can eventually convert that into a theory. If you skip the middle step, and just assume that you have a true-statement-of-fact 'theory', then you have created what I call a 'hypothetheory'!

"I could make the exact opposite hypothesis, and it would be just as valid, because it would have just as much testing behind it! I could say that not allowing people who love each other to get married, that is undermining the institution of marriage! That that seems like a valid thing; now let's go test it!

"So stop saying this as if it is truth! Because you just made it up and you're like, 'Oh, that makes sense to me! Why does that make so much sense to me? It does, whatever, it must be true! It makes sense!' And you know why it makes sense? Because of the biggest actual complaint that people have about gay marriage, which is 'It's unnatural'." [Onscreen flashes the same two words.]

"'It doesn't feel right to me.' And maybe to you, it doesn't seem right--because we build our worlds, we build the rules of the world that we live in; that's how we understand this place. And I think to a lot of people, it feels like this is a big, messy, grey world, and at least, there are some sharp distinctions. Like the distinctions between genders, and sexual orientation, and those are just lines that shouldn't--they should be always be hard lines. But saying that that simplicity is 'natural' is idiotic, because the most natural thing in the world is complexity, and gender, and sexual orientation, are proven over and over again to not be firm lines. The whole world is grey, and if you just appreciate that, if you understand it and appreciate it, then it's beautiful.

"But if you try and spend your whole life fighting against it, then you're going to be bitter about the world actually being more complicated than it is, and you're going to make other peoples' lives less awesome. Which is exactly what this boils down to. Because there are a hundred arguments against gay marriage; you can come up with--with all kinds of hypothetheories, and just spout them off, and people will say 'nod nod, yes yes yes'. But to me, there's only one argument that matters for gay marriage: that all people in our country should be seen as equals in the eyes of the law. So North Carolina, and all of the thirty other states that have passed laws like this, you better check yourselves. Because we can't live in a society like that, and call ourselves Americans.

"John, I will see you on Tuesday."

Now, some of the dimensions, state by state, have shifted in this debate, some states going further, some states retracting, but that's not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about the comments that Hank Green got after posting this video.

From Matt Sierra:

"so im not really against same sex marriages having the same rights i just dont want to pay more for taxes and healthcare because they are getting the same benefits as opposite sexed married couples, i haven't really seen anything that shows that same sex marriage or polygamy having the same benefits to society as one man one woman marriage. im certainly open to seeing data that shows polygamy or same sex marriage to society but at this point I'm not convinced."

I'm wondering what's wrong with supporting all marriages the same way? If two people wish to marry, raise children, share a home together, get involved in joint tax returns--who's Matt (or anyone else) to say that they can't do just that? Again, that creates a sub-class of citizens, and to date, the only real sub-class of citizens we have that's likely not to change is the criminal class. (And there are even some arguments that, after a set number of years back in society without further criminal behavior, their full citizen rights should be restored.)

How'ver, in reply to that, Nimulos Maltibos asked,

"What benefits do you mean? Children? Check the orphanages. Other than that I don't get what you could mean by benefits, care ot enlighten me?"

Matt answered:

"no, because man/woman married couples are better able to pass on favorable genes they have evolved to complement one another and society so as an example there is a domesticating effect that women have on men that lowers crime rates and increases a drive to work and produce. i dont think that most of the societal effects that opposite sex marriage have are as easy to quantify but the ability to adapt and pass down complementary traits are not something that same sex married couples have. we dont give tax and insurance benefits to married couples because they are some sort of inherent right, it's because we know from history that societies do better when there are more opposite-sex married couples."

...Right. A "domesticating effect". Tell that to the girlfriend of the Florida man who dreamed his girlfriend was cheating on him, so spent the entire day after he woke up beating her. Not kidding, this happened. "Domesticating effect", my ass.

In a Google+ comment, ShadoWolf0913 stated to Matt:

"I'm sorry, but by "favorable genes," I have to assume you mean heterosexual genes (which is not simply a genetic thing, anyway), because that is THE only difference between gay and straight people. Otherwise, people are people, regardless of whether they like men, women, both, or neither. A male/female marriage, assuming they do decide to have a child (which many do not,) certainly doesn't mean that child will have "better" genes.

A gay couple can be quite beneficial to society in terms of children by adopting orphans/unwanted kids and raising them in what can be as much a loving, dedicated family as any other. Those children, once grown, can offer every bit as much potential to society as a child raised by heterosexual parents. Should gay couples receive the same benefits as straight couples? I don't see any reason why not. Just because two men or two women cannot physically produce a child together doesn't mean they are less useful to society than a man/woman match. (There are also options like surrogacy to consider. A gay person, assuming they don't have a medical problem that would prevent it, would be in no way unable to reproduce if they chose to. Sexual orientation does not affect fertility, nor the quality of a person's genes.)

That wives somehow have an effect on men that "lowers crime rates and increases a drive to work and produce" I'm not even going to get into, except to say I think that's a pretty sexist statement that isn't backed by any statistics I have personally seen, and which implies only men commit crimes and won't/can't stop or be productive unless they are married to a woman. If nothing else, there are plenty of female and married male criminals out there."

Exactly. Witness Zach Wahls' rather passionate defense of being raised in a non-traditional family, in which he states unequivocally that being raised in a caring, loving environment by his two mothers gave him the moral compass he has today.

Matt goes on:

"I'm not talking about an opposite sexed couples ability to have kids but their ability to provide a greater chance of passing on favorable genes and reducing the chance of passing on negative genes through natural selection. because of this a man and a woman are more likely to complement one another then two men or women or one man or woman or one man and several woman etc. this is why we give tax incentives to married couples but not single couples or polygamy couples even though there is nothing to make me believe that polygamy is any less valid to a secular society than man-woman marriage or same sex marriage. im totally fine with same sex couples having the same benefits for having kids but also the same marriage benefits as polygamists."

That's actually the first thing he's said I agree with, that all marriage constructs should be equally valid, but again, that's not the point. I'm wondering where he's getting this "favorable genes" theory in the first place. In 2013, Bjorn Carey published an article on the livescience blog about the developing rules of sexual attraction, as perceived by heterosexuals. The big three? Symmetrical features (visual perception), a specific hip-to-waist ratio in women (a subconscious understanding of the potential levels of energy to care for offspring, plus her ability to easily bear children), and scent (which comes down to gut-level olfactory perception of pheromones, which we have zero conscious control over). But here's the thing--these are rules for heterosexual people. Are there rules for homosexual attraction?

Well, sort of. For gays, it mostly comes down to olfactory perception, in initial studies from 2001 and 2005. Later, in 2010, a study of Samoan homosexuals posits that "unaffiliated" (at least genetically) men involved in non-reproductive relationships with other men still substantially aided the children of heterosexual couples to whom they were related.

Which is all well and good that there may actually have been an evolutionary reason for same-sex affiliation to evolve, but again, doesn't give me any understanding of that "favorable genes" argument. Either my Google-fu is failing, or he's holding a completely irrational belief set.

In answering someone else's question, Matt replied:

"'What do you mean by "favorable genes," exactly?'- the way that men and women are different in such a way that they complement one another, though it is possible for two men or women or men and women in a polygamy relationship to exhibit slimier traits, to expect them to inherently would go against what science can observe about us. i havent seen anything to show same sex marriage to be anymore valid or useful than polygamy as such i dont want to pay more for health insurance or taxes because they pay less. what makes me less entitled to similar tax or health insurance breaks as a single man?"

I'm going to go out on this limb and assume he meant similar traits, not slimier ones, but even so, that doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

Matt again:

"'If I were making the laws, I would probably allow it because if people find happiness with that kind of relationship, that's their business and not mine' it is my business though because i am spending more on taxes and healthcare. what makes those more worth the benefits then my choice to be single? society is where it is because of the classic male female dynamics of society, i do believe that men and women are different and complement one another. men tend to be more explorative but without the feminine drive for stability social structure and justice would not develop, for example. if all were masculine society would not develop, if all were feminine the race would die in its infancy. we needed that dynamic and that is why the roles developed."

So basically, in spite of everything else he's said, his objection is that he'll take a larger hit in taxes as a single man? What? Because the same argument could be made if heterosexual society--the marriages he's claiming to defend--generates a great upswing in marriages suddenly. That same tax hit would happen. Is he against that, too? Or just the "gay ones"?

From a Google+ comment by binkey:

"You say 'there is a domesticating effect that women have on men that lowers crime rates and increases a drive to work and produce'

"This sounds like another "hypothetheory". What evidence do you have that women have that effect on that men at all? Even if you show that men who are married to women are less likely to commit crime and more driven to work, you have to remember that correlation is not causation. It could be argued that the reason for this discrepancy is that women are just more likely to marry lawful, hard working men, than they are to marry lazy criminals.

"Assuming that you prove that it is actually women having a "domesticating effect" on the men they marry, you would have to show that a man marrying another man or a woman marrying another woman would not have the same effect. To do that you need married gay people, but if gay marriage isn't allowed then how could you do that study?

"You say that heterosexuals are better able to "pass on favourable genes." But the fact is that heterosexuals are also better able to pass on unfavourable genes. Besides, reproduction is not impossible for homosexual couples. I live in Canada where same sex marriage is legal* and I know a lesbian couple who through a sperm donor were able to have children of their own. Sure the children don't share genes with both parents, but I don't see how that would interfere with their ability to raise the children. They seem to have managed to pass on their favourable (and perhaps some unfavourable) genes just fine.

"* So far I haven't noticed a big any effect on the taxes I pay. In fact the tax rate has gone down since gay marriage was made legal—not that I'm suggesting a causal link."

Which are also great points--there is nothing that stops two gay men from fathering children, or two lesbian women from giving birth to them, but actual infertility or a complete lack of desire to raise kids in the first place. It's a specious argument to insist that just because a couple cannot breed, they cannot marry. That also leaves out a great chunk of marriages among the infertile--who may or may not know that at the time of their marriages--as well as marriages occurring later in life, where childbirth may no longer be possible due to age.

Matt starts going off the rails here:

"he point was because our species has such a solid tradition of monogamy and solidarity, that i think a man and a woman will be prone complement one another in such a way that i wouldn't expect a polygamy marriage or incest or same sex marriage to. not that those forms of marriages cannot but that on average they won't be as complementary and useful to society. im not opposed to seeing evidence to the contrary but im not just going to be ok with giving people special benefits that i dont have access to because of my choice to be single on some vague principle that all marriage should be treated the same."

Wait. Okay, first, what's a "prone complement", I don't understand that term. But second, who mentioned incest?? While the rules are growing lax in some states regarding the marriages of first cousin to first cousin, which I personally find fairly creepy for genetic reasons, there is no state that allows incest to occur--let alone incestuous marriages, which is what I think he's leading up to implying.

We're moving on to part II.

is the sound of distant drumming just the fingers of your hand?

Lovecraft Festival. Still on its way.

So, in between patches of being busy, suddenly Hair Fair was upon us, and I had received no demos, and no information from the group, and I was really really upset, and then...I suddenly realized I wasn't in the Hair Fair Demo group anymore.

Distracted Em is distracted.

So expect Hair Fair coverage tomorrow! But I'm likely going to be blogging from the MOCK Cosmetics VIP lounge, because I moved from the cheap discount fleabag room I was renting, to an even cheaper discount fleabag room, which doesn't even have the ability to let me set home to the box in question...which makes me wonder why, exactly, I rented it in the first place...

(from the loss album, because it's a downgrade from fleabag poverty row to featureless generic nothingness. Hells, I could build a better skybox than this. Wait, I have built better skyboxen than this!!)

So...yeah. Definite need for a new venue. I'd just rez out a studio set to work in, like I usually do, but I have a ten-prim rezzing limit, and that's ASSUMING that everyone around me--because we're stacked in like sardines up, down and sideways on the same gorram lot--hasn't rezzed out enough to kill my prim limit.

Blah.

So expect Hair Fair coverage to start tomorrow, and I apologize for the delay! It's because I haven't been logging in to SL this week, really, combined with natural idiocy! Hair Fair 2014 entries to come!

your tears and wild constellations

songbird, take me home

So, in addition to IndieGoGo (independent/music projects), Kickstarter (music/technology/art projects), Rockethub (science and technical projects along with many international relief efforts), GoFundMe (personal donations of any kind), Razoo (nearly entirely charitable causes), and others, there's also Fundrazr, which I know scathingly little about. How'ver, a friend tipped me to this project, which is fairly simple--a family looking to save their dog.

Now, spending part of Second Life as a neko, I think it's fairly well established that I'm a cat person--sometimes literally--but I have owned dogs as pets (RL) in the past. And, beyond breed or species, I know that pets are very important to many of us, and can feel like--or simply be--part of our families, essential to our survival as living, breathing, emotional beings.

I have faced the staggering cost of medical surgery, and (in our case, because our RL finances are notably absent a large percentage of the time) had to make the excruciating decision to euthanize those animals, rather than make them struggle on in pain and illness. It has never been an easy decision. One of my family members owns ferrets, and--due to their much shorter life span--she's faced this decision nearly once every two years. It takes its toll, definitely.

But in this case, Maggie's not at the end of her life, she's at the beginning. She hasn't grown out of puppyhood yet, and if they fail to raise the funds, she won't reach adulthood at all. They have a very low target they're trying to reach, and forty-eight days remaining on the funding drive. Please help if you can.

In other news, sources are saying Picasa Web Albums are on the way out as a service, transiting soon to Google+ Photos. What does this mean to those of us who do not have, nay, cannot have a Google+ account? I don't know, but just in case, I'm keeping my eyes open for new image hosting services.

The main problem with that is it will end up breaking a TON of content, on a blog that goes back several, several years now. I'm not sure I'm up to the daunting task of recoding every image I've ever posted.

Moving to comics, over on Bleeding Cool, there's an interesting article by Natalie Reed on the (slightly) increasing presence of transsexual characters in comics. While I like her analysis of what it means to a traditionally homophobic (and transphobic) field, I do take exception to one of her examples.

(from the media album; Lord Fanny from Grant Morrison's "The Invisibles")

This is Lord Fanny, from the comic "The Invisibles". While Ms. Reed seems to think...how did she put it...that Fanny is "wildly inaccurate and generally exploitative", I strongly disagree. I've known trans women like Fanny. These are not quiet, demure, reserved, politically-active transsexual ladies of stature--women like Fanny had to fight for every step of gender correction along the way. Some I've known became prostitutes, or sold (or helped to distribute) drugs; some stole, some flung themselves into bad relationship after bad relationship, mostly for struggling issues of insecurity and self-esteem, but also, because if your only criteria is who can afford to pay for your hormones, when no insurance in town will touch you, you do what you have to.

(from the media album; Lord Fanny from Grant Morrison's "The Invisibles"; pencil sketch drawn by Phil Jimenez)

More than that, though, Lord Fanny's a guerrilla fighter on the edges of perception, and I mean that quite literally. The universe of the Invisibles is one in which reality can change, alter, distort at a moment's notice. There is no good and bad, specifically--there's only nature and destruction. The Invisibles fight on all fronts--gender, mind, spirit, flesh--and they fight at all times, and in all realities. Because most of the time, what they fight has no gender, little mind, and is nothing our minds can comprehend without serious pharmaceutical help.

Like it or hate it--and Morrison, like his comics, is similar to Warren Ellis in this regard: there are very few people lukewarm in their feelings for him--"The Invisibles" is a comic series that was absolutely different from anything seen before its arrival, and still holds up fairly well to this day. And I'll stack Lord Fanny side by side with Neil Gaiman's Wanda and David Hine and Doug Brathwaite’s "Doll", as a powerful, empowering depiction of transgender life.

memory comes when memory's old

(Epilepsy warning?)

(from the loss album; reflections wandering the Twisted: Delirium hunt stops.)

I held onto you for as long as I could but today
you fell away
now all I hold are the memories we barely made


Is a year long enough to let go? Is a year with no questions answered something I just need to accept? I'm not good at accepting that I'll never know. I keep wanting to push.

I think the time to push is over, though.

(from the loss album; the Twisted: Delirium asylum before the end game.)

I stood on the edge of your bridge until I felt the rain
push me away
my confusion left me fast as the vertigo came

The problem is, I keep running into things--ideas, concepts, dreams, nightmares...The little gifts, the things that make my life work, old letters, old memories...Everything still hurts.

Maybe I need to accept that, too. It hurts less than it did. Give it another year, it will hurt even less.

All it's going to take is time.

(from the loss album; the Twisted: Delirium asylum before the end game.)

what I believed to be true, it was only a dream
that lived in me
I just projected it over your beautiful screen

Directions can be tricky. Especially when, at several points over the past year, I knew I was moving, but I lacked any sense of direction. Was I moving closer to the loss, walking away? Was I on the path or lost in the maze?

I still don't know.

(from the loss album; the Twisted: Delirium asylum before the end game.)

I self-medicated my way through this mess that we made
so I could stay
there was nothing, but I waited, I waited

I think it's all coming up now, hitting this hard again now, because the life is currently being pared down to what works, what doesn't, and what needs to change. That I never wanted anything to change is, again, something I'm just going to have to find a way to cope with.

There's a way to cope with it. Because otherwise, there's no point to any of it, no point to accepting what happened, no point to my attempts to understand, my failures to comprehend. I refuse to accept, absolutely refuse to accept, that there's no point to this long, strange spin into the coldness of the outer reaches.

(from the loss album; the Twisted: Delirium asylum before the end game.)

this was my mistake
broken are plans we made
so I will be traveling any place
'cos anywhere's better than here

I have to accept there's a reason why I'm here, and there's a reason why it's now. (Echo from the head, old Buffy episode quote: "Because now is the time my mom moved here." Maybe it really is that random. There's no purpose, there's just occurrence.)

(Do I really believe that?)

(from the loss album; the Twisted: Delirium asylum before the end game.)

here we rest in peace
rubble beneath the feet
I shouldn't have followed you anywhere
'cos anywhere's better than here

And looking for fixed landmarks, when my entire system is in flux, in the grip of deep change and alteration...it was never going to work. But just because something won't work doesn't stop many of us from trying to make it work this time. Because doing a thing that has failed to work in the past, ever, doesn't mean it won't work now. Right?

(Or at least, that's how we think of it. And we're always wrong.)

(from the loss album; the Twisted: Delirium asylum before the end game.)

where is the space I could move?
where could I rest my head?
there's nothing left for me here

And it's so easy, it's always been so easy, to identify the polarities and hold to them. Black, white, no shades of grey, no misinterpretions, no complications. Yes or no. Fail or win. Love or...don't.

The problem with such binary thinking is that it misses the very valid, very real states of the in-betweens. Black, white and grey after all, and most of life's decisions fall into the grey. It's never either/or, after all--it's always either/or/and.

(from the loss album, and the Twisted: Delirium hunt's end game.)

it's hard to leave behind
the one thing that made me feel alive
so I slide from paranoid to paralyzed

That's one of the real problems in all this. Over-analysis only goes so far, after all, and a one-sided debate still doesn't have all the answers. And it's so easy to pause, "just for a while", and realize only months later all we were doing was standing in place. Afraid to move forward, or back, or...at all.

(from the loss album, and the Twisted: Delirium hunt's end game.)

this was my mistake
broken are plans we made
so I will be traveling any place
'cos anywhere's better than here

Just keep moving. Just keep breathing, keep acting, don't stop, don't overthink. But I overthink; it's what I do, it's what I've always done. If there is any great truth to me, it's that I analyze everything to death, and maybe past it. I'm not good at letting things go.

Even things that hurt me.

this was my mistake
broken are plans we made

I have to stop reaching for what could be. Given time, given understanding, given answered questions...none of which I'm going to receive, save for time...maybe things might change. "Maybe", in this usage, is soul-destroying poison. It doesn't keep hope alive; it embeds me in resinous denial, waiting to ossify.

I don't want to ossify. If I'm broken, I'm broken; so be it. But I don't want to freeze in place, hurting, untrusting, unwilling, afraid.

I have things to fear. I have things to make me suffer. I don't need more.

(from the loss album, and Twisted: Delirium's final room.)

here we rest in peace
rubble beneath our feet
I shouldn't have followed you anywhere
'cos anywhere's better than here

I've rested, I've tried to heal, I've pushed it all inside to remain trapped in the glue of my doubts and my deepest regrets. I tire of the taste of them. There is no part of me that doesn't want back what I had, but ultimately, I do not have this now, and wishing will never return it to my heart and my arms.

It's been a year. I've mourned a year. It's time to stop mourning and move on.

(Song is Anywhere But Here by the Sick Puppies.)

I'm done, I'm done, I'm done, you won this time

Do you know the history of the .mp3? NPR wasn't sure we did, so went to Karlheinz Brandenberg to get the real story. It's fascinating, uneasy-making stuph.

And you will never see me on this hunt. Talk about missing the point...in all directions!

Looking for a terrifying avatar? I can help you with that.

The FTC has finally stepped in and forced Linden Lab to change their "Become your avatar!" campaign, on the charge of false advertising. You can see the revised before and after pictures on Miss Questi's blog.

(Yes, yes, it's a parody...but seriously, that would be cool if they did it that way.)

And this is one of the most impressive images I've seen from a Second Life photographer. My eyes keep telling me it's real; that the combination between the exquisitely textured sign, and the veiling of approaching night, manage to remove the computerized component entirely. Would it still feel "real", to me, at any other time of day? Likely not, but as it is, it's stunning.

Meanwhile...in a texture group far, far away...

[20:57] Bxxxxxxxx Sxxxxx: sprinkles the otter with pink glitter...
[20:58] Dxxxxx Kxxxx: dear santa thane, id like a martini the otter hasn't stirred with her paws... that is all
[20:58] Sxx Wxxxxxxxx: NO!
[20:59] Sxx Wxxxxxxxx dabbles her paws in ALL THE MARTINIS
[21:00] Bxxxxxxxx Sxxxxx: --==crate=--
[21:01] Sxx Wxxxxxxxx: AAAAGH NOT THE CRATE!!
[21:00] Dxxxxx Kxxxx: hehehehe
[21:01] Emilly Orr: So first we had an otter covered in pink glitter. Then we had otter retaliation by stirring all the martinis. Does that mean we now have martinis with pink glitter in them?
[21:01] Emilly Orr: Is it edible glitter, at least?
[21:01] Bxxxxxxxx Sxxxxx: it is! like kid proofing the house, we have otter proofed this group
[21:02] Sxx Wxxxxxxxx: havent!
[21:02] Sxx Wxxxxxxxx: well - maybe for a while - gotta go to beta grid
[21:02] Sxx Wxxxxxxxx: but Ill be back!
[21:02] Emilly Orr: You forgot the MUAHAHAHAHA.
[21:03] Sxx Wxxxxxxxx prances off giggling darkly to herself
[21:03] Emilly Orr: Close enough.

Seen at Patron, spinny people:

(from the random album)

Sculpted by Miss Eliza Wierwight (she also owns the Patron sim), the entire installation slowly rotates under a giant red balloon, and it's far more impressive in person. Do go look.

And there's a certifiably angry bird at La Boucherie:

(from the random album)

See? Angry. Really angry.

Seen at The Cube, the sculpture "Womanflower":

(from the random album)

This one was worth going back through to check again, because I wanted to name the artist. (She's Yaiza Galicia, by the way. She's also got a Marketplace store where you can purchase her sculptures at insanely reasonable prices.) The Cube gallery is a linked set of installation spaces, with artists that rotate in and out taking each of the cubes, or only some. If you go, they're happy to send you an invite to their group to keep up to date on the artists in residence.

If you're wondering how J.J. Abrams will do directing the Star Wars reboot, other fans are wondering the same thing. Ross Thompson did a trailer mash-up of both films, just to find out what it might be like.

Do you like zombies? Do you like teddy bears? Ever wonder what you'd get if you mixed the two? I can now answer that, also.

And there's a lot of Kickstarter project videos that start with the fairly artificial "surprise" angle--"Oh hey, I didn't see you there!" Kickstarter's finally made a video montage of projects that have used this angle.

Finally, there's a movement afoot against lives of indulgence and overspending. People are finding smaller spaces, and learning how to live in them; sometimes by building them, sometimes by buying or renting them. Felice Cohen is one of these people, who started out living in a tiny, tiny space, but--due to publicity and sub-leasing restrictions--now lives in a much larger one.

The bit about that which I think is important: she misses her old space. She misses feeling like everything she loved was nearby. I think making the sacrifice to live in smaller spaces means we find out what's truly important to us, and we work on making that feel like home (or reflect the home we have). Instead of what we think we 'should' have, or 'should' be working towards, we work on what we need.

More of us need less than we think we do, to be happy.

my god, look at what we are now

One step.

"Acceptance of one's life has nothing to do with resignation; it does not mean running away from the struggle. On the contrary, it means accepting it as it comes, with all the handicaps of heredity, of suffering, of psychological complexes and injustices."
--Paul Tournier

One step.

"It hurts to let go. Sometimes it seems the harder you try to hold on to something or someone the more it wants to get away. You feel like some kind of criminal for having felt, for having wanted. For having wanted to be wanted. It confuses you, because you think that your feelings were wrong and it makes you feel so small because it's so hard to keep it inside when you let it out and it doesn't come back. You're left so alone that you can't explain. Damn, there's nothing like that, is there? I've been there and you have too. You're nodding your head."
--Henry Rollins

One step.

"Leaving is not enough. You must stay gone. Train your heart like a dog. Change the locks even on the house he's never visited. You lucky, lucky girl. You have an apartment just your size. A bathtub full of tea. A heart the size of Arizona, but not nearly so arid. Don't wish away your cracked past, your crooked toes, your problems are papier mache puppets you made or bought because the vendor at the market was so compelling you just had to have them. You had to have him. And you did. And now you pull down the bridge between your houses, you make him call before he visits, you take a lover for granted, you take a lover who looks at you like maybe you are magic. Make the first bottle you consume in this place a relic. Place it on whatever altar you fashion with a knife and five cranberries. Don't lose too much weight. Stupid girls are always trying to disappear as revenge. And you are not stupid. You loved a man with more hands than a parade of beggars, and here you stand. Heart like a four-poster bed. Heart like a canvas. Heart leaking something so strong they can smell it in the street."
--Frida Kahlo

And another.

"We've all had that fear, that despair of losing someone, or this fierce desire because it's not reciprocated. The less reciprocation there is, the more desire we have."
--Emmanuelle Beart

One step.

"To be fully seen by somebody, then, and be loved anyhow - this is a human offering that can border on miraculous."
--Elizabeth Gilbert

And another.

"Without pain, there would be no suffering; without suffering we would never learn from our mistakes. To make it right, pain and suffering is the key to all windows. Without it, there is no way of life."
--Angelina Jolie

One step.

"And ever has it been known that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation."
--Khalil Gibran

And another.

"We're all seeking that special person who is right for us. But if you've been through enough relationships, you begin to suspect there’s no right person, just different flavors of wrong. Why is this? Because you yourself are wrong in some way, and you seek out partners who are wrong in some complementary way. But it takes a lot of living to grow fully into your own wrongness. And it isn't until you finally run up against your deepest demons, your unsolvable problems--the ones that make you truly who you are--that we're ready to find a lifelong mate. Only then do you finally know what you're looking for. You're looking for the wrong person. But not just any wrong person: the right wrong person--someone you lovingly gaze upon and think, 'This is the problem I want to have.'

"I will find that special person who is wrong for me in just the right way.

"Let our scars fall in love."
--Galway Kinnell

And always.

I can't love you this much, baby, and love you from afar

(from the loss album, adapted from An Echo of the Divine; a better view of the statue, which is outside the Art Institute in Chicago, was taken by James Birbeck and can be bought as a print.)

when will I see you again?
you left with no goodbye
not a single word was said
no final kiss to seal anything
I had no idea of the state we were in

(from the loss album, and both adapted and reduced in size from a shot taken by Brechtbug of a statue in Woodlawn Cemetary.)

I know I have a fickle heart
and a bitterness, and a wandering eye
and a heaviness in my head

(from the loss album; adapted from image found in the Alchemy of Grief entry on the Raven Essences blog)

but don't you remember?
don't you remember
the reason you loved me before?
baby, please remember me, once more

(from the loss album; adapted from an illustration on the Health News blog)

when was the last time
you thought of me?
oh, have you completely erased me from your memory?
'cos I often think about where I went wrong
and the more I do, the less I know

(from the loss album; original by Callee MacAulay from Toronto, Canada, and seen here)

but I know I have a fickle heart
and a bitterness, and a wandering eye
and a heaviness in my head

(from the loss album; adapted from the Waclaw Wantuch original, seen in the book Akt. All Rights Reserved.)

but don't you remember?
don't you remember
the reason you loved me before?
baby, please remember me, once more

(from the loss album; adapted from unknown original, but seen on the Loving Awareness blog)

I gave you the space so you could breathe
and I kept my distance so you would be free
and hope that you find the missing piece
to bring you back to me

(from the loss album; adapted from unknown original, but seen on the Test-Mistake blog)

why don't you remember?
don't you remember
the reason you loved me before?
baby, please remember me once more

(from the loss album; adapted from original photograph found here about Laura Ford's "Weeping Girls" series in Edinburgh, Scotland. More information can be found here)

when will I see you again?

(from the loss album; photographer and model unknown, but adapted from image seen on the Najafi blog)

(Song is Adele's Don't You Remember.)