Victory Dance

Last night’s dance raised around 11,000L (about $43 USD), including long-distance donations from friends who couldn’t make the dance itself.

Add to that $45 donated to PayPal so far.

Add to that the 10K lindens (about $40 USD) out of my own savings I’m cashing out.

Add to that the $36 in CD sales and donations from my RL workplace.

If I’m doing my math right, that’s about $161 raised so far. That’s almost enough to get him there, based on the discount rates Lelani in her Travel Agent Powerz has been able to find. That’s pretty friggin’ good for just a couple of days.

Of course we’ll still have to work out a return flight too (I DO want him BACK!) but that’s not as pressing an issue yet. I’m just very happy and thankful for what we’ve gotten from such wonderful people (except that one who’s an evil poisoned soul and don’t you ever forget it) so far.

SL9B – Day 2

Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our Second Lives.

My Greeting shift started just after the rolling restarts so I didn’t have to listen to the same complaints as yesterday. No, gentle reader, today’s theme was romantic love in its ugly (but endlessly amusing) form… of desperation.

Started out at the Sunken stage realizing as I heard the loud music which would have been called heavy metal in my day, that I’m old. You know the old adage, “if it’s too loud”? Yeah, I’m too old. But music, I can mute. What I can’t escape are club people and club gestures.

See, I like to actually converse when I’m in groups of people, but it’s really hard to hold up the only working end of a conversation. If all people want to say is “☮❤♪☮❤♪☮❤♪☮❤♪☮❤♪☮❤♪☮❤♪☮❤♪☮❤♪☮❤♪☮
❤♪☮❤♪☮❤♪☮❤♪☮❤♪☮❤♪☮❤♪☮❤♪❤♪☮❤♪☮❤♪ ” and “I love this tune HOOOOULalalala” and have multiple HOOOgasms (srsly, people still use that one?) then after a while you just stop talking to them.

So I didn’t mind swapping with another greeter and going over to Egypt– where I’d not been previously– but soon realized it was more of the same, only with techno instead of whatever they call heavy metal these days. And, almost immediately, some guy IMs me to compliment my outfit. HERE WE GO.

Many Happy Returns, Derren and Tel

Last night I had the honor of officiating the wedding of one of my longest SL friends, Teleny Macarthur, to Derren Nexen (now Macarthur).

Happy Birthday, Professor.

There’s a lot of things I wish I could get for you, to show you how much you mean to me. But even though times are hard, I know there’s no other woman anywhere loved as much or as well as I am by you. And I seriously doubt there’s a man anywhere loved as much or as well as you are by me.

You’re my best friend, my voice of reason, my sounding board, and so much more to me that I can’t even express in words.

I love you, “Archimedes Skytower”. Here’s to another year, and to me being thankful that it’s another year that you chose to share with me.

Help Me Tread on Trafficking!

I’ve mentioned Love 146 before. They’re an organization that fights child trafficking, and provides aftercare to survivors of trafficking. They’re doing a fundraiser called Tread On Trafficking over the next few months, and if you can, I’d love some help at raising my goal of $500 for this noble and critically important cause.

This is my Team Page. As you can see, I’m still looking for 4 more volunteers to join my team and help out.

In Second Life, the avatar Love146 Serendipity was created by me to collect lindens for Love 146. She’ll take your donation any time. Also if you’d like her to put up a Love 146 poster/collection jar at your place, send her an IM letting her know, and a Landmark of the site.

Thank you for helping me stamp out slavery!

Real Avatars of Genius

Once again, Black Magic Unspillable Stout presents: Real Avatars of Genius!

((singer): REEEEEAL AVATARS OF GENIUS!)

Today, we salute you, Mr. Virtual Stalker.

(MIS-TER VIR-TU-AL A-VA-TAR STALKEEERRRR!)

In the land of pixels, breaking into someone’s house to watch them sleep just isn’t romantic enough for you.

(EDWARD YOU SPARKLY STALKER-ASS FREAK!)

Getting someone’s name tattooed all over you like this guy just doesn’t work the same.

(RUN, BRENDA, RUUNNN!)

No, you, Mr. Virtual Stalker, you are on a whole new level of batshit crazy. Your tenacity is the stuff of legend. The word “no” is simply not in your vocabulary.

(AND NEITHER ARE THE WORDS ‘MUTE’, ‘BAN’, OR ‘RESTRAINING ORDER’)

You know it’s simply a matter of time before the object of your attention comes around, and sees how perfect for them you are.

(WHAT’S A CALENDAR YEAR–OR TWO OR THREE–WHEN LOOOOOVE IS ON THE LINE?!)

You know that right now they’re just giving you secret messages, holding back the way they really feel about you.

(YOUR LIPS SAY ‘LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE’ BUT YOUR EYES SAY….)

And you’re so tenacious, in fact, that if your prey–er, true love–shuts you out, you know you’re only a few clicks away from a spy and/or sockpuppet.

(WON’T SHE BE SURPRISED…)

Never mind that your true love can see right through it.

(IT JUST PROVES SHE LOVES YOU… SOMEHOW…)

Never mind that you had to lie through your teeth just to get her to talk to you. After all her trusting nature is just one of those things you adore about her.

(WRITING A BOOK MY PALE ELFY ASS!)

While a normal person would consider spending months or years buzzing around someone wasted time, you know that a moment spent aggravating someone in the name of love is never wasted.

(SERIOUSLY GET AT LEAST ONE LIFE ALREADY)

So here’s to you, Mr. Virtual Stalker. YOU are a Real Avatar of Genius.

(REEEEAL AVATAR OF GENIUS!)

Love is a Verb

Or, an Elegy for a Sunken Island

It was the place I called home for over a year. It was a responsibility I took, with all my heart, for no reason other than love alone. But it was never mine. One could call that symbolic, perhaps, or a parallel. Call it what you will; I loved that fucking sim. Through drama, through loss, through tournaments and festivals and quiet times and embarrassing moments and goofy grief-fights, there was no single place on the entire grid I wanted to be more.

I get a sinking feeling every every time I see “Message from Second Life” as a subject in my inbox, because it inevitably means that more pieces of me have been sent back, and that a little bit more of the product of my love is gone.

When the day came that I broke the news that I was leaving, I was told that I was the one holding it together all along. But that’s part of the reason that I had to leave: it was never mine to hold together. Whether intentionally or not, so much of the me that went into that sim was taken for granted. I don’t mean by the populace at large. I mean by the person whose sim it is to hold together. It was a burden I could bear no longer. Some might say I was a quitter to turn my back on it. Others, that I was a fool for putting so much into it for so little in return.

But you see, I’m of the belief that love is a verb. When you love someone, or something, or someplace, you actively invest in it. You support with your whole being, expecting nothing in return except maybe a little love in return someday. You say, “I am on your side,” partly in the hope that one day it will be on your side. You make foolish decisions. You rise and fall and rise again. You bleed and you heal.

When you love someplace, you don’t just ignore it and expect it to take care of itself. You don’t sit silently and hope that someone else will come along and bring the “good old days” back again. Just like you don’t sit silently and hope that someone dear to you already knows how you feel, day after day after long day. Blame whatever you wish for the decline of the town; the true reason is that you who have it stopped actively loving it a long, long time ago. Somewhere along the line it changed from your home to that place down underneath your new home, and it was obvious to every resident or merchant that came and didn’t stay. Maybe you do still love it, in some way. But nobody would know that, to set foot on its grounds. No one. Just like I never knew you cared until the day I said I was leaving.

Love is a verb. Love the sim, actively, love the people who come to it, love the scenery and the buildings and whatever little else remains, and maybe it can be said that there is a future for it.

But deep down I think those days are gone.

Tell me

I don’t know when it happened
Can’t put my finger at the start
But by and by it got to where
I’d let you in my heart
Maybe that first and only time
your lips had met with mine
And now today I burn inside
Every time we part

It seemed so very simple
I was always in control
Lonely nights and secrets
Began to take their toll
And fear and fantasy
Got their hooks in me
This love’s become a cancer
And it eats into my soul

(Refrain: )
Just tell me
Tell me you don’t love me
Tell me you don’t want me
It’s all you have to say
Then I can break free from this chain
Begin to heal from all this pain
And if it isn’t true, just say it anyway
Tell me that you just don’t feel that way

Some day I hope you’ll understand
Just why I had to leave
I never meant to hurt you
Never wanted you to grieve
It’s more than just a game
This poison love became
I won’t let it destroy us both
And it would, I believe

So (refrain)

(c)2009 Laura Foster

The Human Side of the Elf

For as long as I’ve been in SL, I’ve been an elf. I couldn’t just spell out why I made that decision, just that it’s what I’ve always been and what I’ve always felt like being.

This evening, I let a couple people see a more human side. I’ve said before, the hardest thing for me to let people see is Someone Who’s Hurting. I’m much more willing to show a pixellated nude body (after all, it’s not my own) than anything resembling coming apart emotionally.

Tonight a friend asked me in IM how I’m doing in RL, and I just started crying instantly. She didn’t see or hear it at the time of course, but there was something powerful and liberating about it. Like I was given an invitation to be me, myself, not my character. It’s still terrifying, however, to bring RL me into SL. I do SL to make the time when I’m hurting (physical or emotional) go by faster; a kind of anesthesia for when RL gets, well, like mine has lately.

Behind the keys is a real person, always

OK, first thing, read this article: A Virtual Life. An Actual Death. It opens in another window; I’ll wait here.

Now before you mistakenly think that I’m posting this link as a way of saying “See? Gor is bad!”, I want to say that–much as I personally dislike the setting–I believe that Gor had little to do with the story of Carmen. It could just as easily have been any other RP setting, be it Steampunk or Harry Potter or Vampires or Star Trek. The setting really is but an incidental player in this drama.

What matters is how deeply someone with such a rational mind and a clear eye let herself get drawn in, emotionally. And I’ve seen so many people in SL do this (myself no exception), get sucked in to an emotional investment which in the end is so much fantasy. Building closeness and friendships and genuine trusts is a good thing; letting those feelings take over your life (first, Second, or otherwise) is dangerous.