TT - "My Place on the Internet"

(Cele suggested this week's Talk Thursday topic after reading this post on the blog of one of our mutual friends, Tewkesbury.)

“Hey, check this out,” the email said.

Of course, because the email was from Mr. Millionaire, I followed the link he provided. It lead me to an online article about real life people who were making real life money by "working" in a virtual world – enough so that they were able to quit their real life jobs. I was intrigued and read on. At the bottom of the article, there was a link which I followed into a whole new world.

Thus began my love affair with Second Life.

With more patience than I normally have, I waited a very l-o-n-g time as the game downloaded whatever it needed to download onto my computer so that I was able to venture into Second Life. I was excited – bite my nails, excited. I was going to be a millionaire!

I got my avatar, having no idea what the hell an avatar was but learning quickly. My avatar was the cute little virtual Barbie doll that I got to play with. I named her KaraMat Blankes and she got to be all the things I wasn’t – 6’ 6” tall, tan, slender, stylish. I could change her hair and eye color on a whim. She could go from ivory-pale skin to black skin to orange skin in a blink of an eye. She could shrink or grow in any direction with a slide of my mouse. Virtual plastic surgery without any drugs. It was magic!

She got to do all the things I couldn’t – run so fast her feet disappeared; swing her hips so sexily that it was practically illegal; slam into walls without getting bruises; walk through walls and remain in one piece; fall off of skyscrapers without being dazed, shattering or dying; dance on the ceiling; walk on water; walk under water with the fishes without needing breathing paraphernalia; and, most importantly, she could FLY! all on her own without the equipment one would need in real life.

It totally rocked and I was so hooked that my real life became secondary to my virtual life. I made friends on the first day. Then one of my friends, Trinity, became my sister and we made a family, found a few brothers and some cousins. We built a house. I created furniture and bought oodles of virtual clothes and shoes for my avatar. I got tattoos and skads of bling for her. Then KaraMat had lots of virtual sex with her virtual partners. Hot! And then Trinity and I became high-priced escorts in an exclusive club and got to have lots more of virtual sex. Yes! She did everything in Second Life that I didn’t do in real life. The only thing she did do like me was spend money faster than she created it.

Then – horror of horrors! – my computer system crashed and it spent two months in the hospital getting fixed. I had been broken, cold turkey. Second Life withdrawals were wretched and I decided I wouldn’t put myself through it again. I never loaded the software back on. And, eventually, my credit card recovered.

My adventure with MySpace began about a year after I fell of the Second Life bandwagon. It started as a fluke because I wanted to watch my former husband amass a harem of Wannabe Playboy Bunnies on his page. Then I started getting friend requests of my own. Eventually, I had over 300 “friends” – two-thirds of which were crummy bands and people who had no idea who I was. So I cleaned house and brought it down to a believable number. My MySpace page became a place to talk about what I do and I created it to be a bouncing off place. A place where, when I am famous, my fans can find me. I like my page and visit it regularly, although I don’t live there like I did in the beginning.

I roped a friend into MySpace and then he, in turn, roped me into Facebook. Ugh. Facebook. That social networking site is way too needy. It requires constant babysitting with all of these “fun” applications that could hog up your entire life if you let it. Easily. It annoys me to the ends of the earth.

Through all of that socializing, I grabbed myself some of my own real estate on the web... www.momentsofawakening.com (shameless plug). I created it myself, sweating and swearing my way through and loving every minute of it. Within my website is my most favorite place of all in this electronic web the world has woven... this blog. It is here that I have found a community of like-minded people. I have found connection with friends near and far. I have found people who read what I write, give me feedback, support me, encourage me and love me. It is here that I truly have become the Phoenix. By far and away, of all the places I have “lived” online, here with my blogging family is the place I love the best.