Abandon (Second) Life and Dust off this Blog!

Three a.m. of a Friday morning. The summer is well past. The semester is well begun. I have to wonder what is keeping me up tonight. Perhaps it is the weight of the undone, but that burden is lighter than usual, all things considered. Maybe it is just restlessness -- that sibilant need to rustle about, that paucity of repose. And maybe, as I turn to this seemingly abandoned blog for something to occupy my sleepless mind, the cure is revealed as the cause. Oh the guilt! A blog gathering virtual dust; a good intention paved over with neglect.

I started this Blog this summer. Strike that. I restarted (and relocated) this blog this summer. I found myself involved in on-line arts projects. I found myself growing tired of the resources at the Wal Mart of social networking sites -- that endless Book of Faces. I found myself looking for outlets, electrical and plugged in to something more exciting. I found myself turning to the blog as a source of expression, a virtual theatre space for on-line performance, an enhanced outlet for words and pictures and video. I found myself eager to grow a little in technical sophistication, riding the wave of gadget advances and the advent of Web 2.0.

And then, of course, my newly resurrected blog went the way of something like 98% of all blogs started in a given year: abandoned in a forgotten corner of the digital closet. Maybe I didn't have the discipline to keep up. Or maybe it was Second Life. Or maybe the summer just did what summers do and got busy with things to do away from keyboards and desktops.

Well, now I find myself up at night at that desktop. The summer is fading in memory, eager for its own opportunities to be recorded somewhere, however partially. And I've followed what I've learned is a common trajectory with Second Life -- enjoying a little over a month of digital dress up and flying around imagined (but kinda repetitive and uninspired) sims before getting bored with it all. Amused by SL's faux economy trying so hard to be real, trying so hard to be an opportunity for profit; happy to live my second life as a homeless stray, lacking Linden dollars; happy to transform from mecha to furry to GQ model with the click of a button. Then a little less amused, and less, and finally just bored. Is this all there is? Then let's quit rezzing. Realizing how most SL interactions involve "standing" in a circle somewhere and having conversations, complete with old school text gestures even though everyone has supposedly animated avatars. Coming to terms with the fact that even though the graphics are cool, I'd rather my fantasy life not be burdened with so much lag. Learning how boring dancing and even sex are when the gestures, of necessity, are scripted -- the better scripts costing money. Amused and then disgusted by turns at my de-de-detachable penis -- the better genitals, again, costing money. Sad and a little shocked that such delicious absurdity can so quickly become banal.

And so, with my virtual tail between my legs, I slink back to this blog. Is it, too, a banality? A late night call into the dark? A diary left open on a park bench hoping for a passing reader with a purient eye, fearing it will be skewered by a custodian and tossed into the dust bin? Perhaps.

Or maybe, as I feel the grit crusting in the corner of my eye, sleep finally insisting on its own time, this post is nothing more than what it is: a re-entry. A return. A new first step back into practice. And a promise to keep up, to build community, to write engagingly of things that interest me. A space at once its own escape in figurative language and visual display; an affirmation of my first life and the importance of reflecting on the experience of that, rather than some retreat into a shared and overly scripted fantasy alternative.

Next up: Something about my end of summer trip to Alaska. Stay tuned.