Nineteen!

 Yes, it seems like I'm blogging only once a year. :D

The CAR-T cell therapy was successful. The infusion happened last Oct 29, and I was at the hospital twice for severe side effects, including facial palsy (paralysis in my facial muscles).

My hospital stays were very uncomfortable. The nurses kept waking me up for tests and the bed was uncomfortable. During my second stay, I tearfully begged to be let out so I could sleep in peace in my own bed. With much reluctance, they eventually agreed with several conditions. Even then, I had to go back twice a week for a check-up and I had to slowly wean out of the steroids and other medications, which would have been too dangerous to simply stop.

Then I had to change insurance at the end of the year, and that was another big hassle because my previous doctors were not in the network of the new insurance. Plus I had to pay the large deductible and the co-pays again, but that's typical of American health insurance.

Anyway, the cancer is in remission now, but I'm still dealing with other side effects, like a very weak immune system. So I still have not traveled outside my city and its twin city over the state border.

I go in every four weeks for the lab work and I see my new oncologist every three months. I've had some (minor?) incidents that I report a little after (half because I don't want to stay in the hospital again). And I eventually recover from those incidents.

I've joined an ACS Survivor's group in Second Life and I attend once in a while. I'm learning a lot of things that they don't tell you in the medical documentation. Including the fact that cancer and its treatment changes your body, so you don't tolerate heat or cold as well as you used to, for example.

I looked for work in the early months until I realized that I can't even stay awake for 8 hours a day because I needed two 2- or 3-hour naps each day. So I gave up on it temporarily and went back to volunteering meanwhile. At least I don't have deadlines so I could take my time doing the volunteer work.

So I've returned to the ISM. I'm redoing some of the landscaping and the website, and I just completed revamping the ISM Trivia Game, as well as creating some new t-shirt prizes. I'm continuing with the landscaping and the website, and I'll be adding more prizes and redoing the ISM Dating Guide. Then I'll go back to my Bel Emoi Books flipping journals, which I started last April. I'm wondering whether I should revisit Mer Betta and create mermaid tails again. But I also have my scifi novel to work on.

Lots to do!

Meanwhile, I'm still with Wolfgang. We've created an alt that he can use to go to public events with me, but most of those events are not European-friendly time-wise, so we've used that alt only once or twice.

So that's what I've been up to the past year. It feels easier now than during my chemo period. At the same time, I feel that I've still been a bit more productive. Not my usual productivity, but I'm addicted to that feeling of achievement.

I had my 60th RL birthday last October, which I didn't celebrate because of my health issues. I'll have my 20th SL rez day a year from now. I might celebrate that. :)

 

Eighteen!

 I'm at the age of majority now. ;)  Unless it's in dog years, then I'm really 126 years old.

Not much has changed since a year ago. I'm logging into SL just to spend time with Wolfgang or to shop the weekend sales.

I'm still going through chemo irl, although I'll be going through CAR T-cell therapy; T-cell collection happens next week.

I'm still with Wolfgang. He talks about his addiction to me. :D  Of course, we're restructuring our relationship again.

I lost my RL job last December and had a hard time looking for another job. It's just as well. I get so exhausted from the chemo anyway; my 100% is a whole lot less than my usual, so I wouldn't be able to give them what they pay for.

Also, I'm starting to think of how I would want my will executor to deal with my Second Life assets and businesses.

That said, I'll be in SL for as long as I can.  :)

I am seventeen, going on ...

In the past, August would bring a significant change in my life. This year, my real life changed in January when I started chemo treatment for multiple myeloma. I'm still going through it, and I don't think I can handle any additional change in my life right now, real or virtual.

Or maybe changes are starting this month but I wouldn't realize them until later.

Because of lack of time or energy, I come into Second Life mostly for shopping the weekend sales or meeting up with Wolfgang. He remains my emotional support through this challenging time.

Besides those, nothing else is interesting enough to mention.

I expect I'd still be in SL for at least another year. :)

Exclusivity by blackmail

I didn't know we were exclusive. Seriously.

When Wolfgang and I met, we had many other lovers at the same time. Eventually, those lovers slowly faded away for one reason or another. Then there were just two of us.

In almost eleven years since we met, we broke up twice for several months. He claims we had numerous micro-break-ups too. I disagreed. We had numerous disagreements, yes, but I didn't see them as break-ups.

This isn't the only thing that we disagree on, of course. I preferred to strengthen the one-on-one relationships of our pairs. He prefers to loosely mix them up, like a hippy commune.

He repeatedly said in the past that he is polyamorous. And I didn't mind, so I always assumed that he could have at least one other alt with another lover.

But he also repeatedly said that he doesn't come into SL often enough to feel the need "to hunt". With our multiple alt pairs, his need for polyamory is satisfied for now.

Me: so you're polyamorous but all your lovers are me? ;D
Him: it was a part of the deal
Me: we didn't make that deal.
Him: I think we had one
Me: Nope.
Him: that if I had a lover, I should have told you
Him: so you would take distance
Me: Telling me is not exclusivity.
Him: that is same as it is a sort of blackmail
Me: you saw that as blackmail?
Him: the intent can look different, but the result is same as a blackmail

I didn't ask that we be exclusive. All I asked was that he tell me if he takes on another lover again. But I warned him that if he did, I could choose to stay or go. He could do whatever he wanted to do, but I could also do whatever I wanted to do. Only fair, right?

But he saw that as blackmail. From his perspective, he heard, "Be exclusive to me or I'll leave." When I argued that it's not blackmail or a threat, that I just know what I need to do to protect my own emotions, he said that the result is still the same.

He agreed to tell me if he took on another lover, but he hasn't yet. So he has been exclusive to me for years. He said that it's because he's pragmatic. I didn't understand what pragmatism had to do with it. Then I realized that this polyamorous man chose to be exclusive with me to avoid losing me. That's the pragmatic part.

But blackmail requires an exchange of valuables. So that means I'm at least as valuable to him as his freedom is. That's the romantic part. :)

So I guess we are exclusive. By blackmail.

Sweet Sixteen

 It's my 16th rez day anniversary.

I'm still around, but I think I've matured a lot now. Sometimes, I wonder if I've gotten bored with everything Second Life. But when I stay away too long, I miss it.

Sometimes, I miss places that exist only in my head. SL places are somewhat more tangible than those imaginary places and I miss SL places too. I think it is one of the reasons why I enjoy having a private sim where I can have a bit more control over the spaces where I create memories.

Of course, I get bored with my builds so I pull them back into my inventory and create new spaces. I'm sure the constant change bugs Wolfgang, but he doesn't have much of a say now after I "kicked him out" as co-owner of the sim. I need my autonomy, especially when designing the sim. He likes my decorating style anyway, so he doesn't complain too much.

Our relationship is changing again. I get bored with what we do too. I don't know if we'll find the same old passion, so we'll see.

However, he doesn't understand that it's more difficult to disentangle now after 10.5 years together and with multiple pairs. Each pair is an emotional knot that binds us. Even if the sexual passion is gone, the love and friendship is still there.

We talked about what RL would be like without SL. It would definitely be boring. Wolfgang wondered if Meta would take the place of SL; I said I don't think it will. Meta's graphics are crappy and are devoid of any creativity. The people of SL, especially the creators, made it what it is. And Meta is going to have a hard time building a community like that. It's not just a social thing; it's also a creativity thing.

Maybe that might be something to look forward to. Where would Second Life be on my 32nd rez day anniversary?

When you get used to caviar

He took offense when I said that he's free to have sex with someone else, using one of his alts that he didn't commit to me. He insisted that he couldn't do that, and I couldn't understand why.

He tried to explain that it was with the last pair that he finally felt there was no need for another. He said that he doesn't see us creating any more alts for each other. With the last pair, he had given me the deepest aspect of his psyche. There was nothing else deeper than that.

In our ten years together, we met each other in the middle and then went beyond. In terms of our outlook about relationships, he became more like me, and I became more like him. Long-term real-life relationships change the people in them. I suppose long-term virtual-life relationships are the same.

He tried to explain what our relationship means to him. What *I* mean to him.

Wolfgang's alt: and by the way
My alt: oui?
Wolfgang's alt: you know what we say about caviar
My alt: How did the conversation get to caviar?!?
Wolfgang's alt: when you got used to caviar, you don't eat Lump eggs anymore ;)

So, there. I guess I'm caviar now. :)

Love, Like the Main Entree

"Hehe, I like your words about paranoia and alt"

Those were Wolfgang's first words to me on 2012 March 6 at 14:50:11 SLT.

In the early months of 2012, I was getting ready to publish my book "Love, Like Dim Sum". Then I realized that I actually didn't have enough experience with BDSM, which was and still is widespread in SL. So I joined a capture roleplaying group. With a new alt, of course.

A few days before I met Wolfgang, I met someone else in that group who wanted to meet my main alt before he would interact with me. Right off the bat. Hell, no! So I wrote about that experience in my alt's profile. And that was what Wolfgang was commented about.

In the capture roleplay, the males were the predators who were hunting the females. (Yes, sexist, I know.) The predators used a bow-and-arrow weapons system that reduced the female's "health" whenever she was hit by an arrow. When it gets down to 0% or close to it, she is considered captured. Wolfgang claimed that he wasn't really good with the weapons system that the sim was using. But he claimed he was very good with roleplaying. Okay, I said, I could do roleplay too. I already knew that roleplayers made better lovers because of their creativity and language skills. But could this non-native speaker of English be a decent roleplayer?

Surprisingly, he is.

We had to roleplay by email because my father had a health scare and I had to drive from Seattle to San Francisco. During my drive, the world seemed very different; everything felt magical. Many times, I thought that something I passed looked like a forest in our imaginary roleplay world. My imaginary world and my real world were blending into each other like they never had before.

In the capture sim, if the prey (female) is caught, she must have sex with the predator (male) who caught her. So, after a week, I decided that it was time to let him "catch" me. The moment that he tied the leash after my capture, it felt like the most sacred part of a church wedding ceremony, ironically as profane as the roleplay was. I felt a very unusual tenderness and care from him that day and the next.

After that RP, I thought we would move on to play with others. Our chase was done after all. But he proposed that we continue meeting out-of-character.

At that time, we were both polyamorous. He had five lovers, including me; I had four lovers, including him. Slowly, through the following years, his four other lovers and my three other lovers faded away.

The past ten years were not easy, especially the early years. We argued a lot. He broke my heart many times; I broke up with him twice.

Third time's a charm, they say. But I think, by the third time, you give up all your hopes and expectations and just let the relationship be what it is. That's when you realize there are diamonds in the relationship that you never expected, because you were expecting something else.

Through private roleplays with each other, we've explored many types of pairings. I get bored easily and he enjoys the variety that we come up with. Although he initially pushes back on my ideas, he eventually agrees I was right. (My response: I'm always right! ;) ) And when he expresses a wish, it becomes my command, even if he says I don't have to do it.

Once, he promised that he would never abandon me, no matter what happens between us. And he kept his word through our break-ups.

He said he cherishes me. He never said he loved me.

I know many things about him, his family, his friends, his work, his life. I still don't know his last name. I could easily find him, but I choose to respect his wish.

Two of my past SL relationships lasted almost a year. I was amazed when my relationship with Wolfgang lasted two. Then five. Then ten. There's still no guarantee that there'll be an 11th anniversary.

Last December, in real life, I met up with some cousins, one of whom stayed with me in my hotel. In the middle of the night, she woke up to a vision. She said that she saw a man at the edge of my bed and I was caring for him, wiping and caressing his face. She remembered his face from the vision vividly. She thought that I couldn't possibly have a man in the room with us, so she went back to sleep.

The next morning, she told me about her vision.

I hardly talk about my SL relationships with my family, because the concept of SL is already foreign to them. But, after she told me about her vision, I peppered her with questions about what the man looked like. Then I showed her Wolfgang's RL pic. Her reaction was priceless. She recognized him right away as the man on my bed in her vision.

There is something magical here. In more ways than one.