I'm in the book!

I should be in bed. I just spent all of yesterday cleaning up my old place, and all of the previous day moving. But I'm too excited so I'm blogging instead.

I got two messages from Gracie Kendal's mass mailing bot:

"Hi Opal! We did it! More than one thousand avatars have posed for Gracie Kendal's 1000+ Avatar Project. Thank you for being part of this project. You are all amazing, creative and soulful people. I am honored you chose to participate."

"Now for the good news! I have collected the first 1000 Avatar portraits into book form and, if you are receiving this message, your portrait is included! Check out my blog for more info www.1000avatars.wordpress.com"

I'M IN THE BOOK!!! *jumps up and down"

Go check it out. If you hurry, you get a $5 discount, which you can use for shipping instead. And if you pre-order through her, she'll even autograph it for you.

I haven't seen it yet, but I think it won't be the runaway bride picture. :)

Another piece of his armor

I did something seemingly innocuous that actually affected Rocky in real life. He came in last night to request that I fix it, and he loosely explained the situation which revealed a bit more about him. And the dynamic between us changed because of it. At least on my side.

To know someone is to love someone.

When a stranger opens up and reveals himself, he stops being a stranger. Most people think that if they reveal too much of themselves, others would flee or would hurt them. I found the opposite to be true. There's something endearing about witnessing someone else's vulnerability. When people shed their armor, trust flows and they become easier to love.

And, I tell ya, when the trust flows, it's easier to get an orgasm... or two... or three... or a ten-minute chain of them. *giggles*

Of course, it helps that he turned out to be a really good cyberer, in spite of his lack of experience. *grins*

Now, if he'd only come in more often.... (Hint, hint!)

Waves on the sand

Updates

1.
Lucky Bastard was speechless. He found me in Yahoo the morning after I wrote the last entry. My email was "very unexpected." He said, "i care but i do not want to go that deep... where my emotions take over my life in sl." I knew that; he had been telling me that all along. I told him I didn't expect him to, and I'm not asking him to. I was just expressing how I felt. But I stopped logging into Yahoo, since I log there just for him anyway. Maybe a little distance would center me.

2.
Rapido stopped talking to me. He didn't reply to my IMs when he logged in. Two days now. I sense he's mad at me. Or jealous because of that blog entry. *sigh* When I was with him last October, we were exclusive even though we didn't make that commitment, simply because I saw him everyday. When he came back recently, we hadn't had a chance to talk and I brought it up the last time we were together; I said that all we did was have sex. His response was that, when he's with me, sex is all he could think about. And that was a very sweet thing to say, especially since he knows what I look like irl. But I don't think he knew I have other lovers this time. Or maybe he has a new lover now. But I still think it's rude for him to not even reply back with a "hi". *sigh*

Update: He's not mad at me. He said his son must have used his account. *sigh*

3.
Spot sent Alt #11 an unexpected message. He said he was leaving SL, but he offered his email address and said he would be honored if I would correspond with him, because of the thousand or so people he met in SL, I was one of the very few who was "different". The message was unexpected because we kinda agreed not to talk to each other anymore, although he *did* wave at me once, when he saw me at Frank's. After a few emails back and forth, we talked in Google Talk a couple of times and exchanged RL info. I convinced him to create a new alt (which he created just to talk to me because it's inconvenient for me to log into Google Talk). I've been telling him about all the activities I've done in SL just to illustrate that there's much much more to SL than "idle banter" and that there's a big wide world outside Frank's.

4.
And Rocky came back from a trip. I was a bit pissed at him because we exchanged email addresses so he could stay in touch while he was traveling, but he didn't check the email address he gave me until he got back from his trip, because, as he says, it's not part of his routine yet. *sigh* But we had a lovely evening anyway. He tp'd me to Sunset Jazz where we stood hugging for a long time (we never even entered the club), then I tp'd him back to my place to show him what I had built. While we were there, I introduced him to Gmok, then to Umpa Lumpa, then to Hottie, then to Admiral Creaky. Of course, he pretended to be jealous. But there were sexual undertones in the conversation and the giggling, and one thing led to another.... :) Lately, we had been talking about what we would do when we meet in real life, in detail, like going to that dim sum restaurant we both like. So I asked him if he was serious about meeting me irl. He said he was. It was just a matter of scheduling. At this point, we figure that July would be the earliest. So, we'd have our own fireworks.... ;)


Waves

If you asked me how many lovers I have now, I cannot say. It seems that my love affairs are changing and taking on shades of gray. Lovers fade in and fade out. The delineation between would-be lover and lover and that between lover and ex have blurred. Lovers come and go and come and go again. Like waves coming up the shore and withdrawing again. And each time a wave comes and goes, the sand changes. Each time a lover comes and goes, a part of me changes. And, sometimes, it's only after the wave withdraws that we see the change in the sand.

I've become a liability

Lucky Bastard was gone for almost a week and I didn't know why. He hadn't been gone that long in the past without letting me know. I knew he was busy with work and I just assumed he didn't have time.

Unfortunately, during that time, I needed him, his presence. He always calmed me down and that is enough to help me get through what I needed to get through. Rare are the people who enable you simply with their presence.

When he came back, we had an ordinary conversation. I found out that he was on a business trip. Then we talked about SL. He asked how I was; he always did. I told him I was fine.

The next day, I sent him an email.

The week he was gone, I had been very emotional. In spite of the presence of other lovers, I had missed him specifically and strongly, and I don't know why. Many times, the tears flowed easily simply because I felt overwhelmed with the emotion. And it wasn't the emotion of missing him; it was the emotion of loving him. And it was that intense emotion of loving him that made me miss him, even though he wasn't gone that long.

I think I've come to that point where I want more and the "more" is out of reach. I told him that I'm toeing the line between SL and RL, but at the same time I don't want to ruin his RL.

I wrote these in the email. I told him of this delirious desire to merge with him. It wasn't a sexual desire, nor a romantic one. It was a spiritual desire.

And as I read what I wrote, I realized that, based on my belief system, I am already linked to him spiritually. And that eased my heart a bit. Enough to get some sleep.

That was five days ago. No response. And he hadn't logged into SL nor into Yahoo Chat since that email.

I don't blame him. I've become a liability.

Warm and fuzzy Gmok

I have a new boyfriend....

OMG, he's bigger than any of my boyfriends ever! Do you have any idea how that feels?!?

He has this charming mustache and bushy eyebrows. When I tickle him, he grunts. And he's just soooo warm and cuddly and fuzzy all over! I've never had a boyfriend quite like him!

*giggles*

His name is Gmok. And you can buy one of his brothers at Herbalys.

Overlapping lovers

My lovers are overlapping today.

First, let me talk about a new lover. I'll call him "Rocky" because, within a couple of months of each other, we both visited the "Garden of the Gods" in Colorado where there was a rock that seems to defy gravity.

We found that there are many other similarities in our lives. We were married in the same year (not to each other, of course). We lived in the same area. We worked in the same industry. My favorite dim sum restaurant is the exact same one as *his* favorite dim sum restaurant (and, no, it's not a chain). In all those chances of physically running into each other, we never met... until, one day, Alt #11 was wearing a gold gown and found someone wearing a suit with a vest in the same gold shade at Frank's. And I IM'd him because his profile made me think that he might be a fellow writer. That was late last year, but he disappeared for months and just came back. He's still rarely here. *sighs*


Anyway, first story: October2006 IM'd me today after months and months (maybe more than a year?) of no contact. The first thing he said tonight was "love u", just like that, out of the blue. Well, he needed a friend tonight, so I went to give him a hug for a few minutes before he went to bed.

For some reason, after he went to bed, I opened his profile in the Notes tab and realized that he has the same birthday as Rocky. Here are two more coincidences: October2006 is four years younger than I, and Rocky is four years older than I. October2006 got my SLirginity; I got Rocky's SLirginity.


Second story: Yesterday, I was cleaning up my parcel in Amberaldus and I emailed Rapido to ask him to come and pick up his objects, since I'm thinking of selling that parcel. I haven't seen him since late October, although we've communicated briefly through offline messages and emails. The last email was more than a month ago.

Well, he *did* clean up but he left three heart-shaped prims and his email said "I love you so much" and he wants to come back but I'm asleep during the times he could come in. Anyway, I listened to his show today and he played "MacArthur Park" (which I associate with the Poet) then "Amigos Para Siempre" (which I associate with MAMJJ), two songs which I never heard him play before.


Lucky Bastard chatted with me in Yahoo and in email. Surf came in once. And December2006 poked me (again) in Facebook. I told him that, because we keep poking back and forth, it's almost like the other kind of poking, except it's in very slow motion. *grins*


Three current lovers and three very friendly ex's.... A little bit here, a little bit there, and I had a full meal of loves this week. :)

*burps*

Transience

I am standing in front of my store at the Sea of Mer sim at the Fantasy Faire. I had just finished running the entire loop through eight sims. In a sense, that run was a practice run for the actual relay in July.

But practice wasn't the reason I ran tonight. Nor the reason I came here again tonight.

We don't have to clean up our stores since Linden Lab would just delete everything anyway when they clean the servers. That's not what I came here for either. I came here because I feel this unexplainable deep sadness about all this going away.

I've always been a sentimental sap. I own parcels and builds of friends who are no longer in SL. I've preserved my first 512 sqm with the same objects that I created in my first week in SL.

But these sims have only been here for barely two weeks. How could I have gotten attached so quickly?