Deserving

Something has been sticking in my mind the past few days. It was a conversation I had with W not too long before we finally split up.

I said that I usually leave when I think I don't deserve the other person.

He laughed and he said he usually leaves when he thinks the other person doesn't deserve him.

Nothing surprising about that. He always admitted that he is egotistical.

I didn't say any more about the subject.

Soon after, after a long heart-wrenching decision, I left him, even though he didn't want me to.

I left him because I don't deserve him.... I left him because I deserve better.

Two drifters ... off to see the world

I don't remember exactly when I purchased my first plot in Dunbeath, but the picture below was taken on June 2009, so it was probably around that time. That pelican chasing after a (mermaid) tail has been there until today.

I cleaned the parcel today and I will abandon it back to Linden Lab before end of day tomorrow.

I had been thinking of moving a long time ago for several reasons, but none of them were compelling enough.

• Most people purchase in the Marketplace now. Unlike furniture and buildings, there's really no value in looking at another flat picture of a mermaid tail on a prim versus looking at the same flat picture on the web.
• I don't sell enough to pay for my monthly tier anymore.
• The sim just north of me turned from a beautiful Japanese landscape visited by beautiful geishas in kimonos into humongous skyboxes stacked one on top of each other. So, no matter what elevation I put a platform at, one of these ugly skyboxes is always in my view.

But what attracted me specifically to this area is the river and the neighboring parcels.

• I love the energy of a wide river running between two steep hillsides. There's something romantic about that configuration.
• My neighbor to the east (behind the trees in the picture below) is a recreation of Frank Lloyd Wright's "Fallingwater" house. The parcel was "claimed" in December 2007, but I don't know when the home was recreated. I just realized now that most of the prims show Alex Bader (Skye Studio) as the creator. Must have been one of his early projects.
• Across the water is a fishing town where I took the second photograph of my 365-project.

On a personal note, I have many sweet memories associated with this parcel.

• The first time Impy met Opal inworld was under a tree near the top of the hillside.
• My alt and Wolfgang's alt partnered here under a gazebo that I modified from the lighthouse. I wanted to replace the gazebo and the lighthouse for a while now, but Wolfgang showed some sentimentality about the gazebo at one point, and that's unusual for him, so I kept it. But that's not a strong enough reason to keep it anymore.

I'm doing a lot of things impulsively these past couple of months. It's as though my mind has finally taken command after my heart broke. "We're cutting our losses," it says. "Sentimentality be damned."

I'm keeping the good memories. But I'm cutting myself free. I'm preparing myself for the next phase in my virtual life, whatever that phase may be.

/me sings, "Two drifters... off to see the world...."



PS: I moved my store to a rented parcel in a homestead. It saves me a few dollars a month, although I have much less prim allowance. But I like the space and the flexibility.

Why you don't love me - an open letter

This is probably the first of a series of postmortem / detoxification / whatever-you-want-to-call-it entries. Or it may be the only one.


Dear W,

I know why you don't love me.

You don't love me because, since the beginning, you've tried to mold me into something I'm not.

I loved my freedom, but you tied a leash to my neck.
I brought you light, but you desired my darkness.
You wanted me to wear the accoutrements of a woman of the night.
The short skirts, the low necklines, the high heels.
The stockings that you loved.
You called me a hippie like it's an insult.
You cursed my intuition.
You mocked my imagination.
You enjoyed the pleasures that my love brought to you, but you rejected its intensity, even if the intensity itself created the pleasures.

Maybe if you opened your eyes and saw me for who I am, instead of trying to mold me, maybe you could have loved me as I love you.

Or maybe not.

Once every two years

I understand how nervous some people feel about alts. I remember a time when alts were viewed as a bad thing, because people used them for not-so-nice reasons.

So I decided to establish a personal "rule" that if someone who met me in one alt approached me in another alt, I would admit that I've met them before. But they would have to say hi (or something) to me first. I would not approach them.

The first two instances were fairly insignificant. I don't remember the first one, but the second one met one of my anonymous alts first then another anonymous alt. No damage done.

The third instance was with Impy. He met one anonymous alt, then he added Opal in a social media site (not SL). I considered that as an approach to another alt anyway. Needless to say, that was a significant coincidence.

Today, someone saw one of my anonymous alts and complimented me. I said thank you, of course. But, as I was reading his profile, I realized that I had met him in real life at SLCC 2011! And I even took his picture! Anyway, I had to tell him. My rule. :)  But he first promised to keep my secrets. :)

Exporting people and places into RL

I went to Spain for two weeks and met two lovers, a Flickr friend, and an MBA classmate and his wife. I wouldn't go into detail about the trip itself, because I have a separate travel blog for that. But I will talk about the trip's relevance to SL.

First, the two lovers. They were my lovers in SL years ago. Then they became busy. One explicitly set boundaries that we are only friends in RL, but the evening I spent with him in real life was absolutely magical and he treated me like a close friend. The other had claimed me in both SL and RL, but we spent maybe only a couple of hours together; he was busy with work and family and I was busy with sightseeing. But those two hours are memorable even.

Maybe I've been lucky. That trip brings the number of SL lovers that I met in RL up to 4. Each of those lovers are just as I imagined them. Their personalities were the same in RL as in SL, although two of them held back romantic gestures because of their marital circumstances.

Or maybe it's because these lovers are among the most important to me throughout my life in SL; therefore, meeting them in real life only deepened the connection we have.

After saying goodbye to each of them after meeting them, I cried. Because these are men I love and I may never see them again.

Second, the Flickr friend. She was really more like an acquaintance. In fact, I had originally avoided her, because I had felt a jealousy for her because of another lover. But she started following me in Flickr and commenting on my images there. Then she found me in another social media and connected with me, revealing her RL identity.

When we met up in Barcelona, we spent the afternoon at a children's park, going on the rides and shooting photos and talking and talking and talking until it was very late. It was amazingly easy to talk to her. In the end, I admitted my old jealousy and the reason for it. It was something I would not wish to hide when building a friendship. But I regretted it a little when she started feeling sad and nostalgic as our conversation flowed into past loves and betrayals.

Third, the sights. Not all the sights but specifically La Rambla, the Columbus monument, and the Plaza Reial, which were replicated in the Barcelona del Oeste sim before it was renovated. And also the Mezquita mosque in the Al Andalus Generalife sim before it disappeared.

I knew that the plaza in the old Barcelona del Oeste was based on a real-life plaza. It was a special place for me because of all the memories I have in that plaza -- conversations and dances with lovers and friends. I wanted to find it in the RL Barcelona, but I didn't realize that there were a gazillion plazas all over Barcelona. And then, when the Captain led me to an alley to head back to my hotel, we passed through the Plaza Reial, and I realized that it was THE plaza. I was amazed and awed.

I walked the La Rambla a few times since my first day in Barcelona and I even took pictures of the Columbus monument, but it was a few days later when I realized that it was also part of the Barcelona del Oeste sim.

When I found out that the Mezquita is in Cordoba, which is near Seville, I made sure to go and visit it as well. When I first saw the replica in SL, it already made my heart beat faster. It was that awe-inspiring. When I first saw the real thing, my jaw literally dropped.

Of course, I learned that the replicas were not accurate. They were simplified versions of the real thing. Probably because of the prim allowances. The SL version of La Rambla was shorter, the monument was not exact, the plaza is a lot smaller, and the Mezquita replica was probably based on the way the real Mezquita was before the expansions and before the cathedral was built inside it.

So there. I've "exported" people and places from SL to my RL, and it was a wonderful experience. I've met SL people in RL before, but this is the first time I've encountered SL places in RL. The people and the places now have a deeper meaning to me and I have a stronger connection with them.

I'll not look at SL the same way again.

Standing infinity

I celebrated my 8th rez day anniversary by dancing naked. :D

And did you realize that the number 8 is like the infinity symbol standing on one end?

Maybe there's something of infinity in this rez day anniversary. I'm past the 7-year itch, if there's such a thing about being a virtual world resident.

I spend less time as Opal now, and less time inworld in general. But my heart is still in there. My loves are still there. It's still the place I yearn for when I get homesick. Sure, most of the places are different now, but there's still a certain ambience about virtual reality.

And because August always seems to start a new life for me, maybe the coming year would be something different. After my experience in Utherverse, I've had a paradigm shift, similar to the paradigm shift about the global community that I've had when I first joined SL. This time, the shift I experienced is about the universality of virtual worlds.

During my conversation with Knightman in Utherverse, I was surprised at how strongly he was attached to UV, just as I am very attached to Second Life. UV is home to him, just as SL is to me. I realized that, in the end, the place we call our virtual "home" has nothing to do with the technology or the avatar or what the place looks like. It has to do with the relationships that bind us to it.

In the end, these different virtual world grids are just villages, colonies, and tribes of humans, separated by differences in technology, just as villages, colonies, and tribes are separated in the real world by distances.

In the end, we are all humans behind the avatars -- a soul touching another soul.

The Utherverse

Two months ago, I received an email notice that someone had filled out the contact form in my company website. Colin (RL name) said:

Have you ever spent time in Utherverse/RLC? We're looking for Speakers for VirtualCon and it seems you would be a good fit.

I must have heard/read about Utherverse in passing because the name was familiar. Maybe I had seen their ads. But I didn't pay much attention to it, because they seemed focused on sex. For the same reason, I wondered how I could be a good fit. My book is about deeper and more intimate relationships (even though they may be short), not impersonal one-night stands.

Long story short, Colin gave me a short tour of Utherverse. In exchange, I gave him a short tour of SL. Actually, I just showed him one of the events going on at the time and gave him a gazillion links to learn more. Then we just coordinated via email as the plans for the convention firmed up.

A few days ago, I went in again to get a bit more familiar with the application (it's a proprietary platform, not at all like SL or OpenSim), to get acquainted with the venue, and to customize my avatar (well, as best as I could anyway). As I sat on the stage of the lecture hall, looking for the "Stand up" button, a couple of people came in separately and started chatting with me. Knightman (partial virtual name) told me that the W key would let me stand up and we started chatting about Utherverse and SL. Meanwhile, Rainbow (partial virtual name) was crashing every few minutes. In the end, Knightman invited us to see his "zaby", which is a living structure, in this case, a house.

I gave the talk today at 1pm Pacific. I went in a little early to look around some more. I checked out the booth that the Utherverse staff created for me. Then I attended the session by Veronica Franco about etiquette and learned that, in Utherverse, it is better to talk to someone in public chat before IM'ing them in private. That's the tip that I remember the most because it's so different in SL. Or, at least, so different from my experience in SL.



Afterwards, I walked to the lecture hall where my talk would be and we got set up. Colin informed me that Anna Lee, the president of Utherverse, was going to be moderator for my talk. (I must be special! :D )

Initially, Skype kept dropping out, so Anna decided we'd try my cellphone. But the sound was bad, so we went back to Skype, which held up, thankfully.

Earlier, I asked Colin if I would be able to see what people wrote on the public chat. I wanted to know how I could structure some audience participation into the talk. I had started doing slides but I found out later that they had trouble with slides, but I went with the outline I had in it anyway. Besides that, not much preparation. I was just going to primarily present what was in the last chapter of my book anyway.

So, the talk started out a bit shaky. But I asked the audience some questions to get to know who's listening to me and the ball went rolling from there.

The audience was wonderful.

They were responding to questions. They were sharing opinions. They were commenting on each other's comments. ... I could have been in any virtual world. ... I realized then that it wasn't a world that was focused on just sex. They had the same soulful longer-term relationships as we do in SL.

And the people are very warm and very welcoming. After the talk, so many people sent me private IMs asking questions, thanking me, giving me compliments about the talk, asking for advice. And they gathered around me with all these large question marks around them, which turned out to be requests for hugs! I had never been hugged by so many people in any single event! And they waited patiently for a hug! I was floored!

Knightman had already invited me to build a home in UV when he showed me his zaby. Today, I got more invitations to come back and check it out more. Anna invited me to talk again next year.

Well, one thing is for sure.... Next year, I won't look like a newbie anymore. :D


UPDATE: Here's a recording of the talk. (Thank you very much, JokerEmpire!) View it full screen so you can read the public chat at the same time.
UPDATE2: And the official recording!