My Friend

Just a brief post today. My friend, the author, Rachael de Vienne asked me to write a guest post on her blog. I had hesitated because I couldn't think of a worthy topic. Last night it struck me to write about her. I wrote about how I met her and how our friendship has grown.

Go to Who Said Pixies Are Rational Creatures and read my post.

Don't stop there. Read her blog and discover why I am so enamoured with her.

Let me give it one more whack.

A wonderful friend of mine is a writer, a published writer. Rachael de Vienne wrote Pixie Warrior and has co-authored a book of religious history. I have read just about everything of hers that I can find on the web. She suggested that I take part in Coyote Con, the online writers conference of speculative fiction and fantasy, and has been encouraging me to write my own stories.

I had the bug when I was younger. When I was a teenager I wrote and illustrated my own comics. My neighbor from across the street wrote comics too and we were characters in each others works. But when high school ended so did the comics. The writing didn't though. I kept producing short (very short) stories that always ran out of steam before I could reach a conclusion. My one attempt at a novel (insert polite giggle here) stopped after the title and a few vignettes of scenes. I knew how the story started, but I had no idea how it would end.

Anyhow that is all past. I have gotten that itch again. I have the need to put words on paper and try to tell a story. The most common piece of advice I have heard over the years is to write about something you know. The second most common one is to do your research.

I am trying to take those things to heart. There are two things I am concerned about right now. One is my own mental health and the other is my experiences in Second Life. My wife and my therapist would probably agree that they go hand in hand.

What if a person is depressed? He has been depressed for most of his life. He is withdrawn,  with a low self esteem despite the fact that he is often very good at the things he does. He is in therapy but has hit a wall of sorts. He can't get to the root of his problems and overcome them. He reads about an experimental project, where using a newly designed digital interface a person can go into a virtual world without the necessity of a computer keyboard, monitor and headset. It is too memory intensive for most computers and requires very high bandwidth. A disturbing side effect is that the players have experienced simulations and characters in the virtual world that were not generated by other players, but by their own brains.

Our man sees the possibilities of going into a virtual world to hunt and face his inner demons. With the help of the program's developer and his therapist, who act as online chaperones, he goes into a small virtual world using the digital interface. His two companions follow along using a standard browser. At first his lets them follow along, but he discovers that he must evade them to pursue his demons.

In the end he meets and learns from an alternate personality of himself what was the cause of his insecurity from childhood and begins the journey to happiness with himself.

I've started the research and I've started sketching out the characters. The virtual world will be based on my experience on 2 different grids and I may explore others before I am done.

On Being A Bastard

When I entered Second Life a little over two years ago I began exploring and discovered many things. I got into a few relationships that were unusual by most standards, and I found myself finally deciding that I wanted to find someone to have a normal simulated life with - a home and a family.

It took several tries, but I thought a found what I wanted. I partnered and married. We bought a house together. We got "pregnant", or at least she did, and we went through a 12 week pregnancy leading to a (prim) baby girl.

It should have been so good. I wish it had been. There were so many things that lead me to leave her. Yes, I was the bastard. I left her. We had gotten very close, but I was beginning to feel guilty about my real wife not knowing what I was doing. My SL wife even encouraged me to tell my real wife what I was doing. When I told my therapist* about it, she said I had to be truthful. I need to either tell my wife or end the relationship. I agonized about it. I didn't want to end the relationship. My SL wife was a sweet and loving woman. She needed me in her life and she filled a need in mine for intimacy that had faded away. The alternative of telling my real wife was risky. I might have to quit SL altogether if she demanded it. My real wife can be less than understanding at times.

"Hi Honey. Did I tell you I am having an online relationship with another woman? We are partnered and are having a simulated baby. Just thought you might want to know."

"No Dear. You didn't tell me. Here, let me give you an unsimulated head concussion."

Well I was very hesitant. It took me almost a month to get up the nerve. When I finally found a private moment, where she was in a good mood, I told her that I had an SL wife.

"I know," she replied coldly. Then she continued, "but what really bothers me is the amount of money you spend in THAT game."

With a huge sigh of relief I promised to stop spending so much money. I had not realized that over a period of three months I had spent about $120, around 48,000 L$.

I had gone from renting the smallest one-room beach house property for 300 L$ a week, which happily coincided with my stipend from my premium account, to paying a tier of 4400 L$ per week on an island with enough room to build and furnish a large 3 bedroom house. I downgraded to a basic account, but I still felt the need to pay my way with the house. She was paying every other week, but I was still spending more than I was comfortable with.

Then there were the children. When we decided to get "married" in Second Life, we immediately started working on a family. That was the fun part. The pregnancy was fun too. We made appointments with the birthing clinic, got sonograms of the growing "baby" and went out and bought lots of furniture. That lead to the larger house on a larger piece of land. She had to buy maternity clothes and sensible, comfortable shoes. I bought a "Dad 2B" shirt. The fun ended after the "baby" was born.

Prim babies are boring. Adopting children is no better. We tried seven times to find a son or daughter. We spent a lot of money on children's furniture and playground toys. We would adopt a child and then they weren't on when we were. We wouldn't hear or see them for days or weeks. Just like a real marriage, children will not hold it together. At first I wanted it, the idea of children. But in the end it was just a waste of time.

And then there was real life. It has a nasty habit of getting in the way with your fantasy, Walter Mitty life. I've been staying longer hours after work. We started going to the YMCA to exercise in the evenings. And I had made promise to myself, my wife, and my therapist that I would cut down on my time in Second Life.

My SL wife had problems too. I would spend night after night waiting for her. I didn't know that the guy that she said was her RL brother was really her RL boyfriend and now they were breaking up after years together. I knew she had medical problems, but she didn't talk about her constant cough or other things. She would get depressed and not talk for days. In the end she told me she had tried suicide. I knew nothing until she was out of the hospital. She complained that I abandoned her, but she had been slowly cutting me out of her life. Maybe not intentionally, but it left me lonely.

My favorite place is Morris. We have a large group of friends there, but she stopped going. She stopped wanting to see the same people that I still enjoy being with. All those nights I waited for her. I sat in Morris for the company of my friends, but I dreaded the questions about her. How is she? When are you going to see her again? Is there something wrong? How is it going? I had no real answers.

One day one of my oldest and dearest friends asked me, "Harry, what are we doing here?"

Being my normal obtuse self, I replied, "Sitting on the wall. Wanna go dancing?"

"No, philosophically. What are you and I doing here?"

SL and the ones that are now gone. We laughed about some of the crazy things our small clique had done. We wondered what happened and why it wasn't any fun anymore. We decided that when our current partnerships ended, we would never do it again.

It was that moment I realized that my SL marriage was over. So I became a bastard.

When the woman I had loved for six months came online and she said let's go look for another child avatar to adopt, I said no. When she asked what was wrong, I said it was over. All the time she was crying and asking me what we could do to fix it, I wanted to say something, anything to make it better, but I was numb. It was if I had just shot myself and was watching it all in some disembodied way as the life drained out.

When she repeated an old accusation that I had been cheating on her. I denied it. I hadn't cheated. She told me how others had reported me leaving Morris at the same time other women had to go to a rendezvous somewhere I had logged off or transported to another sim when a girl pressed too hard for my attention. Her accusations were a response to her pain, but they hurt me too. I never cheated on her.

So that's it. That's my story. I'm not writing it for anyone to read. I wrote it for myself. I need to put it down so in time I can read it again and remember that anyone can be a heartless bastard. All he has to do is be selfish.

* I have been seeing a therapist to deal with depression and some other issues for a couple of years now. She felt hiding this relationship was harmful to my real life marriage and that if it bothered me enough to tell her, then I needed to make a change.

Waiting...

In real life I am sitting in my easy chair watching Celtic Women on PBS and typing on my Laptop. In Second Life I am standing behind the bar at the Skyline Club and betting on the Sploder. But what I am really doing is waiting.

I miss my SL wife Grace. She was having electrical problems last night and was on only for a few minutes. Our SL baby is due on Sunday, March 21 and I am getting nervous.

We were together on Tuesday night for maybe an hour. I didn't see her again until Friday. I have a real life. Why am I so wrapped up in this other life?

Tomorrow if everything goes well, we will go to the clinic and Grace will deliver our prim baby, little Hannah. We bought a half sim and put our house there. That's where we plan to raise our little family. Until then I'll wait.

Playing House

I haven't talk about my relationships in awhile except to talk about friends who are gone. But my second life has been changing again.

I met Grace in November. She didn't think I liked her because I was a bit cool when she said something about another girl I know. But a mutual friend got us talking and we discovered that we really liked each other.

We dated and our avatars fell in love. We got engaged, but then decided we couldn't wait to get married and eloped on December 20. Grace bought a pregnancy HUD and within a week her avatar was pregnant. Well that's a brief summary of the past few months.

So how's my second life? Some people become builders, others artists and musicians. Some folks operate clubs or other businesses. On the other end of the scale, some folks are vampires, or animals, or aliens from outer space. What am I? I'm a father-to-be with a house and mortgage  (the tier payment). My second life is imitating real life.

We found a better place to live. We built one house and are planning to build a bigger one for our growing family. We go to the birthing clinic for regular checkups. Grace takes vitamins, and drinks her juice and eats right. All the while her belly has grown as we wait for her due date in March.

Some people are really interested in our progress. Although lots of people get married in SL and even have families by adopting child avatars, not as many go through the process and expense of an SL pregnancy. Grace and I want the full experience though. We will have a prim baby who we will raise for awhile and then adopt a child to replace the baby.

I guess we are just playing house.

Auld Lang Syne

Should old acquaintance be forgot,

and never brought to mind ?

Should old acquaintance be forgot,

and old lang syne ?

For auld lang syne, my dear,

for auld lang syne,

we'll take a cup of kindness yet,

for auld lang syne.

Friends come and go. I have a couple of friends who I have known since my high school years, so very long ago. We rarely see each other anymore, yet we are still friends. We will always be friends. If either of these men called me today asking for help, I would do whatever I could without question.

These are real life (RL) friends. How are they different from virtual friends, people I have never met face-to-face? What makes a friendship... virtual or otherwise? Friends are people who shared common interests, who have shared experiences, They have shared their hopes and dreams with each other, their fears, their laughter and their tears. I really don't know what, if any, is the difference between a friend I've made online and a friend I made in real life.

Except that virtual friends disappear so suddenly that it hurts. I've lost two friends in the past month. One I have heard rumors about why she dropped out of sight. I think I understand what happened and why. The other friend had been getting more distant from not just me, but lots of people for quite awhile. She came online more and more infrequently. Then one day she was gone. I miss spending time with both of them. Both of them are incredible sweet and caring ladies who I have shared many good times and laughs with. They both are friends who I will miss and hope I will see again one day.

So let’s go back to the question of RL versus virtual friends. Well RL friends are real. Right? I mean if you are my friend in RL I can see you, hear you, feel you, smell you. I know more about you than just what I have learned in conversations. A virtual friend is just as insubstantial as the pixel drawn world they inhabit. What's behind the avatar? What is the person really like? Are they sincere? Are they honest? Can they be trusted?

The irony of life in the virtual world is that, for some of us, it is an escape from a real world where we have few friends and real lives that we are anxious to escape for a few hours. Sadly we put more effort in creating a new persona in the virtual world rather than rebuilding our real lives. I spent way too much time doing that before I realized that I could never be the person I created and recreated myself again. The avatar may be tall and lean, two things I am not, but the personality is ME. I have spent nearly two years in Second Life now and I think I have come to terms with it and my real life.

The thing I haven't come to terms with is losing a friend. To me real or virtual, a friend is a friend, and each one is precious to me.

We two have paddled in the stream,

from morning sun till dine ;

But seas between us broad have roared

since auld lang syne.

And there’s a hand my trusty friend !

And give us a hand o’ thine !

And we’ll take a right good-will draught,

for auld lang syne.

For auld lang syne, my dear,

for auld lang syne,

we'll take a cup of kindness yet,

for auld lang syne.

Happy Thanksgiving

We Americans celebrate Thanksgiving on Thursday. I just want to say to anyone who may be reading my blog that I am thankful for my friends in Second Life. I never have played the "game" very well, but I am sincere in my desire to make others happy when I can.

So thanks to Allison, Crystal, Dana, Danger, Dany, Cliff, Xanadu, Wicked, Grace, Jadee, Jan, Kane, Cyrus, Kharma, LadyAlpha, Lili, Mudpile, Valerie, Lola101, Lonely, Paige, Pella, Monarch, Pat, Prudence, Sandie, Talatha, Warm, Fay, Crompton, Digital, Anthony, Issableau, and Suzy.

Thank you for talking to me, for helping to make me laugh, for tolerating my stupid remarks and my, more than occasional, depression. Thanks.

I know I am forgetting some, because you are not all in my friends list, yet you are my friends.

In real life I'll be raking leaves over the next few days, helping to prepare the feast on Thursday, and spending time with family. I hope you are taking time to spend time with your families too. -Harry

Poor Pixie

My dear pixie friend has been suffering from Computis Interuptis. Her PC died from a dead hard drive. It has been a month now since the last time she posted anything to her blog. I think I can safely speak for her friends in saying we all miss her wit and wisdom.

I know things have been rough lately. But don't despair. The Pixie Warrior will be back. I hope it is soon.

Friend, Unfriend, De-unfriend

Friends

Over the weekend I saw a girl I know sitting by herself on the wall. I said hello and sat down to keep her company (not to mention I needed company.) We both came to the sudden realization that we would like to get to be closer friends.

We went dancing and had a good time. We talked about our real lives and what we like to do. The next night we went dancing again and then to an 'almost' wedding. Almost because the groom didn't show up (More on that later.) Anyhow my new girl friend and I just like to dance and chat. No pressure, no drama. Just two people who get along nicely together and are considerate.

I saw my old girl friend, Kharma, at the 'almost' wedding. We talked a little. I would have liked to talked more, but I had a date, and there was the reason it was an 'almost' wedding.

I sent an IM to my oldest friend in SL, one of whom I haven't seen in months. We both have moved on with our lives, but I still would like to know how she is. Maybe I will send her an e-mail.

Friends in Need

The groom's avatar was there at the wedding chapel. The guests had arrived and were waiting. The appointed hour passed and nothing. Finally the best man made an announcement. The groom had gone AFK (away from the keyboard). Something must be wrong, but no one knew what. Hours passed without word. Friends consoled the bride who was upset.

The groom could not be raised on his cell phone and his avatar stood in the chapel mute. Finally early in the morning the bride got word. The groom's back went out on him in his kitchen. He was laying on the floor for quite some time before he was able to call for help and was taken to the emergency room.

Everyone was relieved as the word spread, literally around the world. Friends, even ones who had barely spoken to each other in weeks, came together to help out in this minor crisis. PS- The wedding will be re-scheduled.

Unfriend

There was a story in the news yesterday. The New Oxford Dictionary has declared the word 'unfriend' the new word of the year for 2009. Oxford defines "unfriend," a verb, thusly: "To remove someone as a 'friend' on a social networking site such as Facebook." CNN Article

Unfriending, or defriending people happens on Second Life too. Sometimes it is a matter of housekeeping. I occasionally make friends with a newbie for just a couple of days until they get their feet wet. I do it as a courtesy to them, but I removed them from my list after a week because most of the time I am really not interested in knowing them better.

De-unfriend

New Oxford, are you listening? Here's a new word for the dictionary. De-unfriend. It means to add a person that you have previously unfriended as a friend again. My ex-friend and I have been talking ever since the 'almost' wedding. She and I were very concerned about our two mutual friends and that seems to have made a difference. When we talk I feel that old warmth in her chats. She and I seem to be able to joke and laugh together again, even share an inside joke that only we know. I haven't asked her to make me a friend in the technical sense on SL, but I feel that we are friends again. In my heart she is still my friend, and I am hers, whenever she needs me to be.

Ahern

Ahern is the name of one of four regions that meet in one big welcome area in Second Life. The other three are Dore, Morris, and Bonifacio (let me check the spelling before you send a nasty comment). Each one has a large pavilion where residents like to sit and talk.

The Morris pavilion is the one in the background of the photo. To the left you see the "Pit" as we call it. It's a low square area with a wall all around where the four regions converge. Between the walls and the benches there is plenty of room to sit, but most folks stand. Usually there is lots of local chat to read and voice chat to listen to.

I've always liked this place. Most of the friends I've made, I made here. Most of the avatars you see here are human, but that doesn't mean you won't see an occasional furry, neko, robot*, mech warrior, demon, pixie, elf, or anything else. I've seen a few avatars that I'll be darned if I know what they were. It's as a diverse a place as you can imagine.

The people who inhabit those avatars are diverse too, and that's the fun of meeting people and making friends here. Over the year and a half I have been in SL I have listened to a lot of different opinions about nearly every topic from global warming, economics, government and politics, sex and religion. I don't always agree with what I hear, but it is fun to share perspectives with people from all over the earth.

The debates are usually entertaining. Sometimes they get hot as one person tries to shout other opinions down. They often lose in the end, because unreasonable behavior will usually get them muted by the majority who become tired of their rants. I never debated in school, but it seems to me that there are rules that are common sense. Make logical arguments. Provide facts or evidence to back up your statements. Respect the other side's opinions and give them the same fair hearing that you want for your opinions.

Anyhow back to the main topic. I needed to leave Morris for awhile. Too crowded, you might say. I haven't gone far though. If I am not in Waterhead, you might see me in Dore or Bonifacio. I might even be (shutter) in the "pit". If you see me say hello.

* Robot avatars are one thing. "Bots" are another. Bots can be any kind of avatar, but they are not people. They have been programmed by their owners to walk around, speak and respond to others in very simple sentences. Sometimes they are there just to spy on the area, or sometimes send out spam to people.

Walking With A Friend

Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow.

Don't walk behind me, I may not lead.

Just walk beside me and be my friend forever.

~unknown

I was thinking of the parable of the steps in the sand of a man and God. The man looks back and sees that part of the time there was only one pair of footprints. He asks God "What happened. Why did you leave me?" And God replies "I didn't leave you then. Those are my footprints. I was carrying you."

Friends are like that too. Sometimes they are walking beside us, sharing our adventures. Sometimes they walk ahead of us to show the way. Sometimes they walk behind us, pushing us to go forward with our lives. But sometimes they are that one set of footprints, carrying us when we have fallen and can't go on.

I was pretty depressed in the past week. Things seemed pretty bleak and I felt all alone. That's when my friends stepped in. Friend, after friend sat and talked to me. Friends, who I thought were just casual acquaintances, spent time with me and tried to help me through my depression.

These people surprised me. They made me feel better. They didn't give up on me. They stood by me and kept me from falling. I had a friend once who changed drastically, pushing me away, pushing other friends away. Hurting herself more and more. It hurt me to watch and finally I walked away. I felt bad about that, but I got tired of her abuse.

Friends are good to have. I am glad for the friends I have now and I don't want to lose another.

"When you ask God for a gift,

Be thankful if he sends,

Not diamonds, pearls or riches,

but the love of real true friends."

~Helen Steiner Rice

What do you say?

I wrote about friendship once before when I had a friend who I thought I could trust, someone I cared about. I lost that friend. Big deal. They come and go, right? I wish it was that simple.

It's not that simple because I've never been a person who can trust and be comfortable with others. In other words, I don't make friends easily. I learned the hard lesson as a kid that most friends are superficial. Most just want things from you... a ride in your car, money, cigarettes, etc. As long as you provide for their needs you are a friend. It took awhile, but I learned that I had very few real friends by my late teens. Now when I do make a friend, a real friend, I do it when I feel safe with that person. I want to do anything for them and accept their faults because I want them to accept me with my faults.

I know what happened to cause my ex-friend to turn on me, to de-friend me in SL, but I don't know why what I did was so terrible. I made a mistake. I took her photo. When she started yelling I deleted the photo without anyone ever seeing it. I apologized. I begged forgiveness. It did no good.

First I was shocked. I didn't know what to say. Then I got angry. How could she end our friendship so callously? Then I got depressed. I tried again to talk to her. She finally started talking to me. She even expected me to say hello when we were in the same sim together and pretend nothing happened. Another friend told me to give it time and I have tried. I tried to show that I still liked her, that I respected her, that I still wanted her friendship. That changed last night. She went out of her way to be hurtful.

I've been trying to move on with my SL, even though I have been as much fun to be around as a cat's box that needs cleaning. I sit or stand in one place and hope I can think of something cute or witty to add to the conversation, but when you are depressed that is hard to do. So most of the time I sit there on the wall, mute and alone. But last night a newbie came up to me and said hello. Being a newbie, she had nothing in her profile, so I started talking to her. She was Brazilian and her avatar was not that good looking. Newbies rarely are until someone helps them find a skin and shape that looks more realistic and shows them where to shop for free clothes. Old hands know that and usually help a newbie unless they start talking obnoxious. My ex-friend thought to give me some advice. She suggested that Brazilians are hot, but in this case "Eeew".

Most of the people I know, whose RL photos I've seen, are your average middle-aged people. Most of us, but not all, are a bit overweight and past our prime. I make no bones about the fact I am overweight, out of shape, have a heart condition, and take way too many prescription drugs because I am overweight, etc.

I have a good looking avatar (my opinion and others), but I know that is not the true me, nor is it the true anyone else. We chose to look one way in SL, that represents our ideal self, or our fantasy self, but rarely our real self.

The very same ex-friend, who has the nerve to criticize the looks of a newbie, picking on her solely because the girl was talking to me, this ex-friend used to talk about how it's more important who you are inside and not your appearance. I can only assume she did it because she didn't care whether she hurt my feelings or that of the newbie.

I guess we are 'even' now. I did something she won't forgive. She did something that I shouldn't forgive.

Ideally you make a friend forever. You might not see them for months or even years, but when you do, you pick up where you left off. Friends stick with you when times are hard. You might not have the right words to say, but you try to say something.

What do you say to someone who just told you they had been molested as a child, or facing an ugly divorce and an uncertain future, or that they are critically ill with a debilitating disease that will only get worse and more crippling? What do you say when a young girl in her early 20s, who claims to be 105, tells you the headaches won't go away. What do you say to the lovely English lady who hopes her cancer stays in remission. DAMMIT! WHAT DO YOU SAY? TELL ME!

Tell me, because that is just a few of the things my 'friends' in SL have told me. I've tried to be loving and supportive and I KEEP FAILING to be the best friend I can be. I keep losing friends. Three so far are no longer in SL. Two were incurable and I hope they past gently into the next world. I am hoping the third is still alive although she is not online anymore. She said she would have to give up SL one day.

I've run out of words to say. I'm exhausted. I have tried hard, maybe too hard, to be something that maybe I wasn't meant to be. Maybe I wasn't meant to be anyone's friend. I need to stay away from SL for awhile and let things quiet down. Maybe with time I can gain some perspective. Despite all my pain and despair, I am closing with another poem about friends that I found on the Internet.

You My Friend

You my friend
You don't always show it,
but I know that you care.

You My friend
If I'd ever need you,
I know you'd be there.

You I'm glad you're my friend.
Your smile makes me smile.
Your pain makes me hurt.

You My friend
I want you to know:
If you need me--I'm there.
make you happy, make you laugh.

You My friend
Sometimes you make me mad,
but I can't stay mad.

You My friend
Sometimes I want to get away from you.
And sometimes there's nothing I want more than:
to talk to you, to tell you about my day,
to hear about yours, to laugh with you,
to tease you, to share an inside joke,
that no one else would get,
to argue with you,
but know we're just kidding..

You My friend
Do you remember the time when...?
There are so many times.

You My friend
Don't ever lose the wonderful person you are.
Stay happy. Stay healthy. Stay you.

You My friend
I'll never stop being your friend.
Don't ever stop being mine.

You My friend
Just wanted to tell you:
I care.

~Author Unknown

Duct Tape... Yeah I can fix that!

Man's way of solving almost any problem...

except women.

A great Quote

"There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are." - William Somerset Maugham

I started my 'great American novel' over forty years ago and I wrote less than one chapter. It was called A Man With Clumsy Hands and although it was not autobiographical, the main character was me. At 19 I was a kid in his first year of college who desperately wanted friends, particularly a girlfriend, and wanted to fit in with everyone else.

For reasons that I have never understood, I was sort of popular in an awkward way. I had casual friends, and I got along with my roommate. (We hitchhiked to Newport News together to join the Air Force in December 1968.) Plenty of girls talked to me and bummed cigarettes off me. I finally got it through my head that most of my 'popularity' came from the fact that I always had cigarettes and money in my pockets.

In the year and a half before I dropped out to join the service, I never had a girlfriend. I didn't leave one waiting for me at home either. My unfinished novel was about a sad character who didn't know how to relate to girls, one who had been hurt so often that he would rather be lonely than risk having his heart broken one more time. The conflict involves a girl who, in my imagination, is very interested in him, but she can't get past his defenses. He keeps pushing her away. At the same he is attracted to her, but is afraid that he will ultimately be rejected once again.

Forty years ago, a young inexperienced writer was stuck because he could not imagine a suitable ending to his story. He wanted a happy ending (don't we all), but could not find a way to weave the tale to a conclusion.

Forty years later I am in the same fix. I still don't know how to find that happy ending. I still don't know how to make and keep friends. The friends I have... well I always feel deep down that I still don't fit in, that if I disappear overnight I would not be missed.

Like the character in the book I never wrote, I sit and stare at my clumsy hands. Hands that never made anything worthwhile, never could hold on to anything good. Clumsy, useless hands.

Long Time... No See

I haven't written in quite awhile. Part of the time I was busy and happy and there was no need to write about what was happening. Then a lot of things went downhill fast.

• SL girlfriend and I had a misunderstanding, me jumping to conclusions because a friend said something about her.
• SL girlfriend got sick again.
• SL girlfriend had computer/internet service problems.
• SL friend (the one I thought I was very close to, like BFF) turned against me.

All of a sudden my SL world was crashing all around me. I couldn't be with the girl I wanted to be with. I couldn't turn to the person I trusted the most. Everything I was working towards in my relationships was gone or falling apart.

My SL gf and I are doing ok now. We cleared up our misunderstanding and have created alternative ways of communicating without Second Life. We are friends in real life and I want to keep her as a friend no matter what. She feels the same way. I am still worried about her health and she is fighting to recover.

My former friend... I don't know. I won't go into details. She would not like that. She has a right to her privacy. All I know is that I did something that by all appearances was harmless. I immediately apologized and tried to correct my mistake. I was screamed at and immediately de-friended. My action did not deserve the response I got. I think it was the trigger that set off something else that had been festering inside her for a long while. This former friend now hates me and I can only imagine why.

I still have some friends. One is an author who used to be friends with the same person that de-friended me. At the time I tried real hard to reconcile them. They both are strong, opinionated women and I tried to get them back together. I pushed both of them and they both told me to back off or lose their friendship. I had to admit defeat.

It's awkward in Morris now. The rest of my friends are friends of my ex-friend. Being around them means coming in contact, or at least close proximity, with her. At first I tried going to other sims, but there were few people I know outside of Morris and I wasn't upbeat enough to start conversations and make a new batch of friends.

So I went back to Morris and tried to stay a proper distance away from her while being close enough to my other friends to talk. Then I said "to Hell with this" and got closer to talk to my other friends, the whole time wanting to shout "please be my friend again!" to her.

I know that she feels like I have grieved her badly in some way. She doesn't do things without a reason. I know I have made mistakes in the past. That's why I apologize so often. I make mistakes! I am sorry!

Maybe she never was a friend. A real friend would have understood that.

Game Over Man!

If you spend time in Second Life, like I have, you get to the point where you think that it is all real. You think that the people are real. You think the relationships are real. You think that feelings are real.

Friend, let me tell you here and now that it ain't so. It's all in your head. You are imagining it. If you forget that it is going to punch you in the face. You'll find yourself dazed and bleeding. You'll be wondering WTF happened. What happened is that SL is a game, and Dude, you just lost.

Mea Culpa

Having been married 35 years I realize that men are generally stupid when it comes to women. I was stupid recently in Second Life. Not for the first time either. I made an offhand remark months ago that was taken in a way I did not expect. I was told that I was wrong and I apologized for my insensitivity. The really stupid thing I did the other day was to make another offhand and totally unnecessary remark that was not as witty and I thought it was. I won't go any further in the details, but I was lucky to be forgiven by someone I feel really close to and cherish her friendship.

The remainder of this post comes from a e-mail that someone sent my wife and she in turn passed on to me. Why would a man post jokes about men? mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

Why's of Men

1. WHY DO MEN BECOME SMARTER DURING SEX?

(because they are plugged into a genius)

2. WHY DON'T WOMEN BLINK DURING SEX?

(they don't have enough time)

3. WHY DOES IT TAKE 1 MILLION SPERM TO FERTILIZE ONE EGG?

(they don't stop to ask directions)

4. WHY DO MEN SNORE WHEN THEY LIE ON THEIR BACKS?

(because their balls fall over their butt-hole and they vapor lock)

(You're laughing, aren't you?!?!)

5. WHY WERE MEN GIVEN LARGER BRAINS THAN DOGS?

(so they won't hump women's legs at cocktails parties)

6. WHY DID GOD MAKE MEN BEFORE WOMEN?

(you need a rough draft before you make a final copy)

7. HOW MANY MEN DOES IT TAKE TO PUT A TOILET SEAT DOWN?

(don't know...it never happened)

( C'mon guys, we laugh at your blonde jokes!)

And the personal favorite:

8. WHY DID GOD PUT MEN ON EARTH?

(because a vibrator can't mow the lawn)

Childhood Memories

My brother sent me an email today. That in itself is news worthy. We never were that close and we usually only talk on holidays and Mom's birthday. But he sent me this email. It's about life in black and white for those of us who are over 40 years old. Ok, I am way over 40. It's a long email with a bunch of pictures. Let me give you a few excerpts:

• My Mom used to cut chicken, chop eggs and spread Mayo on the same cutting board with the same knife and no bleach, but we didn't seem to get food poisoning

• My Mom used to defrost hamburger on the counter AND I used to eat it raw sometimes, too. Our school sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper in a brown paper bag, not in ice-pack coolers, but I can't remember getting e.coli.

Note: Two things, I personally have never eaten raw hamburger. I don't care for steak tartar and you can't pay me to eat raw fish. My wife eats raw cookie dough and raw spaghetti which grosses me out. But I did get food poisoning once in the first grade from a sandwich with mayo. I switched to PB & J and didn't eat bologna again for years! The funny thing is that it was probably the mayo and not the bologna that made me sick.

• We played 'king of the hill' on piles of gravel left on vacant construction sites, and when we got hurt, Mom pulled out the 48-cent bottle of Mercurochrome (kids liked it better because it didn't sting like iodine did) and then we got our butt spanked.

• We didn't act up at the neighbor's house either because if we did, we got our butt spanked there and then we got butt spanked again when we got home.

This email brought back a bunch of old memories for me and I wanted to go back home again to see the places where I played as a child.

There was the sandy lot across the street where my best friend Ryland and I organized our toy soldiers into two massive armies to battle against the forces of evil. We also used war surplus ammo belts to make our Batman utility belts full of a arsenal of crime fighting devices to defeat the Penguin and Joker.

Just a short bike ride down a busy two-lane highway was the home of my classmates Chris and Scott. They were twin brothers who, in later years, would become local sports heros and big men on campus. But in our pre-teen years we were blood-brothers and great friends who built a tree house in the woods behind their house and had pine cone wars in the old rickety barn nearby.

Finally there was THE FORT. It evolved over time. It started out as a shallow depression in the ground in the woods behind my grandfather's shop. When I was a child this building was already a dark and mostly unused relic. My grandfather, who died before I was old enough to fully appreciate his genius, was a master mechanic and inventor. He didn't just built machines. He could and did forge the parts he needed in his designs. The forge was in the front of the building and I remember watching my father use it once. Most of the other machine tools had been moved to a new shop building across the road from the family peanut processing plant several miles away.

THE FORT grew as we added walls of salvaged wood and tin roofing that just 'happened' to be laying around. To make it livable in winter we added a fireplace of bricks and rocks with a flue that never did draft properly. One side of the complex was more open to "attack" by hordes of toy machine gun wielding invaders, so we wove a fence of thorns that was quite painful to stumble into in the dark.

It was a wondrous place where we used our imaginations and fought battles against commies, nazis, and aliens (the outer space kind). I wanted to see it again. I wanted to return to that magical place so I used Google Earth to go there. At least I tried. I found the shop, but the beautiful rural woods of my youth had been sub-divided into lots with roads and homes. Sigh... Tom Wolfe was right. You can't go home again.

Signs of Friendship

This is a short posting today. My sister just sent me some humorous signs. I've picked a few to share with my friends in Second Life. Enjoy! May they bring a smile to your face.

Second Life is a Community

The fact that Second Life is a community is not apparent to everyone. Some people are here for business. Some are here to play games. Others are exploring a place they have never been before. Most will say that their real life is private and separate from SL. When they think of their community they are thinking of the town or city they live in the real world.

Newbies don't realize it at first, but it should be obvious to the long-term residents that Second Life is a community (really many communities). Many of us work to make this world a better place. We police ourselves and try to discourage bad behavior, hard to define, but easy to recognize. We help one another. There are official SL mentors in many of the welcome areas and there is the Help People group that trains volunteers, but then there are many of us that will stop and help a confused looking avatar change their appearance, give them a landmark, or help them find someone who speaks their native tongue.

We also give. When wildfires ravaged Australia, more than just a few groups and clubs held events to raise funds to help. I don't know how much was raised over the whole of SL, but the club I was in at the time raised over $300 US for the Australian Red Cross. The Relay for Life has become an annual event in Second Life. We talk and raise awareness of issues that affect all of us on this planet.

Our groups of friends become very close and important to us. That became very apparent to me yesterday. My SL girlfriend had been sick, very sick. She was in the hospital for 11 days. When she finally returned online yesterday I was so happy, so relieved to see her, I wanted to shout it to everyone. We spent a lot of time talking and catching up on what had happened, but I had to share her with so many others who wanted to talk to her too and let her know how much she had been missed.

I was a bit peeved at first because I wanted to monopolize her time, but she had so many instant messages to reply to that I just had to be patient and share her with the whole community of friends. All day long it was "Hold on. I have an IM that I need to answer". I didn't mind, much. She was home (in RL and SL) and with me.

She told me later last night how overwhelming it was to have so many caring people in Second Life concerned for her. Sadly more friends here than she has in real life were worried about her health and expressing their gladness that she was on the road to recovery. But it made me think again about community.

Over the ages man has formed communities. Our ancestors gathered families together in tribes to hunt, grow crops, raise their young in a protected environment, pool their knowledge and pass it on to the next generations. Communities share common values. They share the good times and suffer the bad times together. A community provides the strength that we don't have always as individuals. Yesterday I saw that strength and a sharing of love that is wondrous and beautiful in any community, but I was so grateful to see it in MY community in Second Life.