Friends and Lovers

"Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within."
- James Baldwin

This quote popped into my head just a little while ago when I received a most astonishing note from Jennifer, my friend who is getting married to my other SL friend Stuart on Saturday. That was until I got this note...

"We are going to have to postpone the wedding. You have all been wonderful through all of the wedding planning and you are all very treasured friends. We will be sending a notecard out to all of those invited to the wedding, but wanted you to know first.

"We don't know at this point when we will reschedule the wedding for. You all know how we feel about each other and how our relationship is far more than SL. At this moment we are not able to stand up and commit ourselves as husband and wife because for us it is not just an SL commitment, but a RL commitment as well.

"There have been some RL things that have taken us a little out of SL and forced us to deal in RL for a bit.

"This has been a very hard decision for us to make, but it is necessary for right now. Thanks so much for your support and your friendship. We will be in touch.

Jennifer and Stuart"

This really hit me and I'm sure others from out of left field. Just last night Jennifer and I were working with the wedding people to get things finalized for the ceremony on Saturday. Needless to say this is a serious WTF moment.

But reading the part about RL things taking them a little out of SL rings a bell with me, and makes me think about my two previous posts. The lines of SL and RL can be difficult to determine for some people. For me, because of the intense and REAL love I feel for Spanks I have found that there really is no line to cross, no mask to remove. Yes, there are those things that you don't give out about yourself to just anyone online. But when you are in such a close relationship with someone in the digital domain, those lines that normally divide RL and SL just somehow fade away. Between Spanks and I, those lines are fading faster every single day. And I couldn't be happier.

In this day and age of digital connection and technology which enables us to cross continents in milliseconds, the masks that James Baldwin spoke of decades ago are most applicable in the RL/SL division that so many still feel the need to cling to. This isn't giving out such mundane things as credit card numbers we are talking about. It is our heart. It is our soul. It is our very essence that the mask disguises. And it is that mask that has been responsible for more damage and more misunderstanding in SL relationships - in all online relationships - than anything else.

I am grateful today, somehow more grateful dispite the problems Jennifer and Stuart appear to have run into, that I have the relationship that I do with Spanks. I love you so much, baby. As midnight loves the moon.

Living and Learning in SecondLife

Yesterday was a great day in SecondLife for yours truly! About a 12 hour stretch. Not bad, really. Not the longest I've had, but not the shortest either.

But before I get into my day, and all the fun I had, I want to give a further examination to my first post on this blog.

Now I think it important for you to understand that I have always supported the blogging process, as it is a great way to capture and journalize one's experiences as they happen. But never have I believed it was the right thing to do to edit one's previous blog entries, as I feel it kills the overall "big picture" idea of blogging. Just as I would not go back years later with an eraser or correction fluid and correct the diaries that I have kept since childhood, I would never edit a blog post I had published because quite frankly that defeats the purpose in my eyes. I prefer instead to make additional entries (such as this one) to clarify, enhance, rethink, pause and reflect a previous post or posts. Life itself (First and Second) is a learning process, and I intend for this blog to be a representation of that concept.

In my first blog post I inferred something which, even as I wrote it, didn't seem quite right. Throughout the post I inferred a division, a seperation between myself in SecondLife and myself in First Life, the avatar and the creator respectively. At the time I wrote it, i was trying to resolve within my own mind what it is that differentiates the expreriences of one individual participating in both lives. Throughout the exploration of and search for words that fit, I was at quite a loss for how exactly to get my point across. As a result, I gave one individual in particular (you know who you are) a misrepresentation of where I was trying to go with my train of thought.

We talked a great deal about what I had written and through talking it occured to me where I had gotten off-track.

You see, SecondLife isn't merely another life. It is a true digital extension of my First Life. Thru SecondLife there are many things I can do that I cannot do in First Life, flying being the first to come to mind (giggles). But in SecondLife I can also create and build, as well as openly push past my generally shy nature and speak to other people. I can share with those people who I truly am, the restrictions of the physical world stripped away. I am not an alter ego created by someone who wants to play around with people, places and things online. I am a digital extension of my physical self.

Damn... and there it is, in one short sentence. You know, when you have the right words at your disposal, its easy to say what you want to say without having to go on and on, like stabbing at something but never quite getting it. Spanks posted something to that effect in one of his recent blog entries, and he is right. I can use paragraphs of all these not quite right words to try and describe what I'm thinking or feeling, and then someone much wiser comes along and is able to sum it up in just a few well chosen sentences. That's what I love about open and honest discussions with people you trust. You can get all this stuff out in the open with them, and they can help you sort thru it all and find just the bits that express what you truly mean.

Now, where was I. Ah yes, the events of the day!

It started it out great. I rezzed in and spent some special time with my kitten. I won't go into detail, ever as that is very special time between us. But sufficed to say it was incredible and moving, as always. Then SL decided to throw up all over itself and we got kicked out and couldn't get back in for a long time. So next best thing, we both jumped on Yahoo and continued chatting. We chatted for over an hour before SL resumed. It was time for him to get some sleeps though (sigh) and we said our goodbyes. I really miss him when we aren't together. Our times together are so... undescribable. We can just sit and talk, or just sit and not talk and be together. It doesn't matter and there's no pressure to say anything or do anything. We can just be together and that's okay. I love that so much.

Afterward I went to a make-shift party that DJ Mirah threw for everyone who managed to make it back into SL. It was okay, but I saw a few people from my time as a dancer and escort at another club which WILL NOT BE NAMED HERE. Thankfully none of the people I can't stand, but more people who used to come to the dances and stuff.

Shortly after I got there, I got IMed by my friend Jennifer about her wedding plans (she and her fiance in SL Stuart are getting married on January 3rd. I'm Stuart's best man, and also the wedding planner). I TPed over to the place the wedding is being held and rezzed this chupah I had built for the ceremony (its a tent kinda thing that the bride, groom and officiant stand under at a jewish wedding). I'm quite proud of it, even if I did steal half the things in it from other people's creations. (smiles) I just couldn't find a damn chupah anywhere in SL! So as with such things, I took a stab at building one and didn't do too bad a job!

Then Jenn got called away to deal with RL and I stayed there talking with the woman who runs the wedding place, her SL son Jared and his friend from Australia, Kingsley. We spent the next hour or so acting complete fools. Kingsley is a newbie to SL and Jared couldn't resist torturing him. All in good fun, I assure you. They are nice people and I added them to my list. Don't know if I'll ever talk to them again, though. That happens sometimes in SL. You meet and talk to people, have a really intense conversation with them, add them to your Friends list and then don't talk to them again for months, if ever. LOL Anyway, I took about as much as I could hanging with the three of them and called it a night.

I logged back in around the time Spanks usually heads off to work (we have an 8 hour time difference between us... groan and whimper) and left him an IM. Sometimes he is able to rezz in and say good morning, but not always. I still like to leave him an IM so he knows I'm thinking about him. Which I am... all the time. (/me smiles and thinks of his beloved with soppy eyes)

So that was basically my day yesterday. Today has been nice as well. Spanks and I sat in the castle on the RP sim with Larentia (his new wolf and constant companion) while I did RL work and we chatted off and on. Another one of those quiet times where we know we don't have to try and keep a conversation going. It happens when it happens. I just sat next to him and Larentia, in front of the fire, watching him sleep. I love to watch him sleep. He has this sleep animation that makes him flutter his eyelids every so often, and make all these cute facial expressions. (/me loves him kitten very much)

I will write more later tonight I'm sure, assuming I don't fall asleep at the keys again like last night (giggles). I am dying to write about how Spanks and I first met. Its my favorite of all my experiences in SL.

Until later, Dari is out. Buh Bye!

A blog is born!

Here we are... all alone. Just you and me. In this great big empty blog, begging to be filled with tons of words, stories, pictures, events and whatever the hell else SecondLife has to offer this single avatar.

So what will my first blog entry contain? News? A story perhaps? No dear friends, we'll have none of that.

This first entry will be a short introduction to yours truly. I was first rezzed into SL on June 14th, 2008 as part of an experiment by my creator, who had been encouraged to visit the grid by a friend of his. From that fateful day, I have been brought back to life via the creator's trusty SL viewer at least once a day, for hours at a time, exploring and learning about my surroundings and allowing my creator to express himself as best he can.

::Creator goes to get more coffee::

Right... enough of that crap.

I'm a pretty crazy guy, or so I've been told. I'm fun, have a great sense of humor, am not a bad builder and really enjoy exploring new things and meeting new people. I don't have a great number of people in SL that I would really and truly call friends, for that is a word that means a great deal to me. Those that I chose to call friends can be counted on less than two hands, and they are a very special group indeed. There is one among them who I consider my best friend, closest confidant who I am proud to say on December 14th, 2008 at 2:48PM SLT became my husband and longtime companion.




His name is Spanki Moulliez (he's the cutie on the right in the above picture), Spanks for short (more on the name later... (::grins::) and his blog can be found here. How to describe my beloved? No words are adequate, but I will try:

• Beautiful
• Intelligent
• Adorable
• Neko-Vamp
• Creative
• Wise
• Spiritual

I could go on, but there aren't enough blogs in the world to cover all he is to me. And he becomes more attached to my soul each and every day. If you are reading this baby, I love you more than you could ever possibly know. Now go feed the swans, love! I'll go feed the ducks in a minute.

My next post will be soppy, sugary, and very, very lethal to those among us who are diabetic. Yes, I will be telling the whole world the story of "The Day We Met". And why you ask? Because its my freakin' blog, damnit!

SecondLife thus far has been a great learning experience for me. I have found that when you strip away the physical, and are forced to deal with only the intellectual and verbal aspects of a person, those among us without the power of self expression do not survive very long within The Grid. you truly have to have what it takes to make it long-term in a digital world and truly build a second life. I will say this here, and many more times to come... SecondLife is not a game. It is truly another life that we who choose to lead as realistically and fulfillingly as our First Life. We learn, we love, we laugh and we cry. We create, we destroy, we live and we die. If you cannot cope with that, or as someone recently said in Local Chat you "cannot wrap your head around" this most basic of concepts, you have no place on The Grid. Go back to World of Warcraft or The Sims and leave the rest of us in peace.

Every day I am rezzed I learn something new. I find out how to line up prim panels to make pretty streets that are fixed and even. I learn to import textures and download snapshots. I figure out what the hell half the people in Local Chat are saying (i.e. smexi, avi, SLX, TP just to name a few) and add these new words and references to my personal lexicon, and that of my creator.

But most importantly, I learn about myself (as does my creator learn about himself), and I learn about the nature of human existance on this world. Within this digital world we can no better hide from each other as we can from ourselves for very long. Sooner or later, the truth of it all emerges. I think personally many rezz in-world believing that they can simply hide from who their creators truly are; that they can simply and completely wipe away all that they are in their First Life and live a completely different life. The number of avatars that have fallen to this false hope would fill a database the size of Mount Everest. We are simply conduits of our First Life creators in the simplest and purest form possible, with the digital edge of technology backing us up. Sooner or later, our personalities and characteristics, our habits and our weaknesses, our strengths and our abilities all come to the surface. Those that are truly good people but are blocked by the applied paradigms of the physical world really do shine as bright as the sun on The Grid. And those among us who are truly not-so good people really do eventually fall to their own hubris, as their tendencies toward deceit, blackmail, disinformation, untruth, power envy, jealousy and pride follow them in thru the SL viewer, and spill forth across the lands and oceans, consuming those that trusted them to be as we all who want to strive to be: genuine, open and honest with ourselves, and with each other.

I do go on a bit when I get a tailwind and start to write. I also have a tendency, as a Protector personality (for all you psychology majors out there) to get on a soap box every now and again when I come across something I truly feel strongly about (as evidenced above). You as the reader will learn this soon enough. If you haven't stopped reading by this point, congratulations to you and please feel free to become a follower of this blog. I promise to keep you regularly informed of what unfolds as I continue my experiences as a resident of Secondlife©. But it is getting quite late now and my creator must sleep for a bit before taking care of First Life mundane tasks. Until tomorrow, dear reader: Be at peace, and find love in everything you do.

- Dari