The House of Zadeh

It’s been a significant amount of time since I updated this blog. Seeing as:

• my Second Life has been “eventful” of late (whose is not? Wait … I take that back!),
• several folks have commented to me in-world they’ve seen no new content here (meaning some folks are looking but not commenting! And you know who you are, Jay!), and
• I’ve quiet a few SL “issues” working through my grey matter and emotional sub-neural processors at this point

… as I recall when my good friend Private Vasquez once saying, “Let’s Rock!

Me at Clannagh Estates, pondering my Second Life

It occurred to me a few days ago, when experiencing an intense emotion (or in an emotional state), every song I hear I can easily map onto the emotional state I’m experiencing. I’m not sure if this is just me, or if others share this ability, but I suspect it’s a relatively-common experience.

A person hears a song they know intimately and deeply appreciates, recalls or begins singing the lyrics to themselves … and with a flash of insight gasps, “Wow! This song matches exactly how I’m feeling right now!”

You may now all emote an “omg!” I’ll wait.

Back?

I’m no psychologist, but I suspect this happens because songs enter our unconscious in sneaky little lizard-brain ways … getting deep down in there and sneaking past our ability to filter our perceptions. Couple that with an emotional state … you’ve got a soundtrack to your life.

This occurred to me because my intarweb sucks.

More properly, as I live in a relatively-rural area, and there are many times where my Internet connectivity less than meets my rather forgiving expectations. My intarweb crashed.

I was in-world at the time, and the lack of connectivity was rather … frustrating at that very particular moment.

Get your mind out of the gutter! I was dancing in a club!

Okay, yes … with two guys. And yes, I had inventory issues and was not wearing much clothing but …

More on this later, perhaps.

Regardless, when my intarweb goes down there’s just no telling how long it’s gonna be before it’s back. Sometimes the connection just hiccups for a few picoseconds, falls down, and can’t get back up. It’s just frustrating enough for me to blurt an expletive or two while I ejaculate frustration at the multiverse and reset the cable modem.

Other times, my local service provider must be feeding pigs out on the back ‘40 and forgot to close the door to the server room. At many times my ISP’s competence at keeping my Internet connection up mimics effectively Second Life’s programming staff at keeping inventory items from disappearing. [I'd insert a link to Linden Labs here but I don't want to risk a net-wide meltdown or gross grid-wide flame-out in-world. You never know ...]

This particular failure looks like it might be of the pig-farming type. So I go grab my iPod, head out to the porch, and commence to listen to some tunes under the starlight.

I’m a big fan of a fella‘ who whips out a nasty mashup. I’ve always liked remixes … if I like a song, I like multiple iterations of that, song flavored with some variance. A good mashup to my mind tastes like a “remix gumbo.” If the artist doing the mashup (the “mashupper?” “Chef?”) chooses ingredients I like (songs) and cooks the stew right (mmm …. gumbo!), I’ve some soul medicine.

Check out Audiodile’s Tom’s Flaming Cowgirl Diner. (If you like mashups, bookmark his site. I doubt you’ll be disappointed.) So we have Miss Vega singing about her coffee, Underworld in a cowboy hat, and Brian on fire.

Come back with me to that night in SL. I was dancing in a club, with two fellas. One I love deeply, passionately, completely … and have for so long in my Second Life he is my Second Life in many ways. The other I love fresh and cruelly … and it’s a new and shiny love. We’re dancing, enjoying the chat, alone — and of course together — in the club, vibing on the tunes …

… and my intarweb is gone.

I head out to the porch, fire up some tunes … my Ipod’s on shuffle so let’s see. Tom’s Flaming Cowgirl Diner …

“Wow. This mashup so matches my internal emotional state right now!”

Hold my hand now, we’re going inside my head. It’s generally safe but I’d recommend shields to maximum and maybe a hard hat. Clues drop from the sky at times and they can hurt. Cue up Tom’s Flaming Cowgirl Diner if you grabbed it. Listen along. If not … this is not going to make much sense … not that I suspect it will.

You’re inside my head.

“Everything everything everything everthing … “

Underworld just kicks ass. What song is this? Cowboy? Yeah, Cowboy!

“Everything everything everything everything … “

Over and over, yep. When you love someone … it’s everything all at one huh?
Everything you see reminds you of them,

everything you feel is flavored by that love,

everything you hear reminds you …

Oh wait, the song continues …

“I’m invisible. I’m invisible. I’m invisible. I’m invisible.”

“Everything everything everything everything … “

Wow nice chords here! And nice chords “hear” too!

Damn, English is funny!

“Here” and “hear!”

Wait … don’t recall this in the original song, let me listen …

“I’m invisible. I’m invisible. I’m invisible. I’m invisible.”

I am invisible. I’m not in Second Life!

I was there a just a moment ago,

before the multiverse and some dopetard minions thereof conspired … all against me!

Oh, cool! I hear BT now. What song is that? I know I heard it before!

Damn this mashup kicks ass!

It’s me against all of them! This happens all the time in SL, dammit!

Wait, relax … that’s all paranoid … and the song continues …

“I’m invisible. I’m invisible. I’m invisible. I’m invisible.”

“An eraser of love. An eraser of love. An a razor of love. An a razor of love.”

Wow! Yeah not being there in Second Life is an eraser of love. That’s just how I feel …

Wait! Is that “an eraser of love” repeating in my head

or “an a razor of love?” Could be either … love is sharp like an razor.

Razors cut deep and quick, they are sharp and shiny.

Wait. “An a razor of love?” No! It would be “A razor of love.”

Well … maybe that’s like artistic licence. Underworld does do that. But which is it?

And the song continues …

“Why don’t you call me? I feel like flying in two. Why don’t you call me? I feel like flying in two. Why don’t you call me? I feel like flying in two.”

And so it goes.

Now as mind-expanding as it was to hear Tom’s Diner on fire in my head, what hit me harder was listening to the very same song a few days later … this time in a completely different space in my heart and head … and hearing / feeling the song work on my soul again.

I was deeply pained because of an incident um … “inter-networking with someone” in Second Life … and felt as badly as I think I’ve felt in Second Life in my Second Life.

I headed to a mellow and quiet sim, centered for a bit, waited.

Centered some more. I have a rule in my Second Life, if I become hurt, agitated or upset in-world, I try to calm down or work out the upset before logging. It’s worked well for me to date, helping to keep my Second Life clean.

I’d rather sort out my feelings rather than sort up my inventory, after all. That’s clear by how often I run about in-world in my underwear.

So after an hour or so sitting in a mellow place and visiting with some folks in IM, I felt better.

Much better, in fact!

So I left my SL for the morning / evening / whatever. I moved outside to the real life and the stars, cranked up Mr iPod, and lo! and behold! …

Tom’s Flaming Cowgirl Diner.
This time my feelings were completely different as I listened to the song. In fact … I was a different person than the one who’d listened to the song a few days before.

But all the lyrics worked … they were just layered with more meaning. I heard the same tune, but my mental re-mix while listening was completely different.

This song is definitely in the soundtrack of my life. I hope you download it and give it a listen.

In the meantime (for those who have downloaded it) …

I am sitting.

I am waiting.

I am looking.

I am shaking.

See you all soon.

Aemilia Case and Menno Ophelia

“The world is made of stories, not atoms.”
Poet Muriel Rukeyser, quoted in The Philadelphia Enquirer

One of my favorite magazines is The Week. It’s fundamentally a clipping service, but what makes it stand out for me is its broad international scope (where else in the United States can a person subscribe to a weekly that devotes from four to ten pages of its 50 pages to news and editorials from around the globe?) as well as its liberal editorial slant.

It’s also a short read, and I can obtain both a concrete and abstract overview of the week’s events by spending a few hours with the magazine.

The Week features a column, Wit & Wisdom, with quotes taken from publications globally. Why is this column of interest to me? I like collecting quotes, and the Wit & Wisdom column offers a group of “themed” quotations each and every week. The quote above I pulled from the December 15th issue.

Quotations are good. I like them! A good quote is like an expresso shot of another’s brain. And one of my long-term plans is to update my Second Life profile.

Each resident in Second Life has the opportunity to provide other residents with some information on their interests, activities, significant others–just about anything they’d like–by entering information in their Resident Profile. By simply “left-clicking” on an avatar in-world, one resident can view another’s profile and learn something about them.

Reading a profile is very much a microcosm of the Second Life experience. Some profiles are fun to read. To read some is to waste the calories you’ve expended to click on the resident’s avie (avatar). Some are filled with junk.

Some profiles are obtuse to the point you wonder about the resident’s sanity; others are so filled with clarity they force you to step back from the monitor, rub your eyes, and make you feel you’ve put on a pair of eyeglasses when you did not realize you were nearsighted.

My Puppy, Varick Vilas

Profile parsing is clearly a skill I’ve not mastered. I confess each time I’ve behaved as if I actually understood another resident’s profile, I’ve either made a complete jackass out of myself (which I can do with grace and elan, of the making-of-the-me-the-jackass-of, 1!1! I R TEH 1337 HaXXor !! PWN4G3!) … or I’ve gotten myself into trouble somehow.

I won’t go into any details at this point, but I’ve made some faux pas based on my perceptions of a person, based solely on their profile, that are so ugly they make The Holy Father look kind and compassionate. No, better: my gaffes based on profiles have been so bad, by comparison, they make Dubya Bush look intelligent. Yeah, that’s a better extreme simile.

Each of us is more a story that needs to be shared, rather than a bag of atoms. I’ve been trying.

I’ve been intending to post some content to this blog for more than a few days. I’ve deliberately stayed very much out of the blogosphere for a number of reasons; primarily, I tend to “over-share” given the opportunity and motive.

My opportunity? Well a blog? My motive? An intense desire to share my internal states with others.

Let’s hope others have some interest …

In Z-space, I’ve found I blog very much as I “diary” … much an intense sharing of my observations of the world and how I experience them intellectually and emotionally. I’m hoping that by blogging a bit here for House Zadeh, I can explore how I journal an perhaps learn my essential tendencies in this medium and possibly demarcate some boundaries for my blogging.

So if you’re here I hope you’ll take the opportunity to share your feelings on what I spill here. This blog is very much an adjunct to my Second Life profile–it’s extant because the folks at Linden Labs decided a web-link was a good idea for a resident’s profile–and I’ve always found Second Life (SL) profiles an experience in …

Well, I’ll post something on my feelings regarding profiles at a later date!

So, without further ado about nothing (at which I excel!) back our post: The Real Thing, what I’ve affectionately termed for years in meatspace as Very-High Bandwidth Relationships (VHBRs).

[I'm wondering what else in metaspace is a VHBR ... but I'll check on that a bit later.]

It’s clear to me others experience VHBRs. I’ve even run across one or two songs about them. As I experience them, they’ve some salient features that distinguish them from other relationships. They:

• Manifest quickly,
• Are pleasurable emotionally (and in meatspace, often physically),
• Are intimate,
• usually play out or evolve into very good friendships.

I’ve discovered VHBRs happen very frequently in my Second Life. I’m still working out why they happen in cyberspace more frequently than in meatspace.

An example of two VHBRs I’m pleased to share with you are the ones I’m experiencing between myself and Haver, and myself and Saeya. I suspect they may be having a VHBR themselves, but I’ll leave that to your imagination.

I certainly imagine it.

Behold, a picture.

For those of you who’ve not had the pleasure, Saeya’s on the left and Haver is on the right.

Haver, please note, does not normally look like this. She spent a great deal of time working on her avatar to clean up for this picture. As always, I appreciate her efforts.

Hope to post more later. Haver, Saeya, thank you both for some “Real Thing.” Let’s Rock!

My good freind Aemilia Case took this picture of me today. I really like it. Thanks Aemi!

Welcome! As you can see, the House is very bare at the moment. Bear with me while I get things up and running.