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I was deprived of a young girl's dream
By the cruel force of nature from the blue
Instead of a night full of romance supreme
All I got was a runny nose and Asiatic flu
It's raining on prom night,
My hair is a mess
It's running all over my taffeta dress

-

It's raining on Prom Night, from Grease


Well, last week, I was feeling pretty run down, as I mentioned before. Sunday night, I was supposed to go dancing. Oxbridge was playing in the band, I was struck down with either a head cold or mongo allergies. Regardless, instead of twirling about the floor, I stayed home and fished on Gaia. It was something, I suppose, but not really what I wanted to do. I had this feeling of "Sheeze, here I am pretending to be off fishing, instead of actually out dancing."

Of course, in that case, I had a good excuse, and was mostly just feeling sorry for myself. But I have started playing Gaia, even when I'm at home. I usually fish in the morning when I drink my tea, and have been entering writing contests and even taking part in an online theatre company. So, after a month of exploring this virtual world, I have to ask myself: Am I occasionally substituting it for the real world?

Well, I don't think so. For one, I do a lot of things in the "real world"--I went surfing again yesterday, and got good, beat up and tired. Then I rested, chatting with people while fishing (I'm getting pretty good at fishing. Surfing, that's a work in progress, though confused ). I had a moving discussion with one fellow who had just come back from Iraq, broken only by a very rude fellow fisher who kept pressing him to talk more than he really wanted to. Rude person started off with "the army sucks" (nice thing to say to a veteran!) and moved onto "did u kill anyone?". The answer was a long pause followed by "yep". You think that would be enough, but Rude Person had to exclaim "OMG! u killed someone O_O" I apologized to the vet, and at his request changed the subject.

I thought about that for a bit. I was quite upset with Rude Person, and felt for the obviously decent fellow who had had to do something that he might regard as duty, but by no stretch of the imagination felt was enjoyable. Did the "chatroom" environment provide a place for Rude Person to be such an a**? (pardon the language, I call them like I see them). Maybe, but there's people who will be like that in real life, too. Perhaps the asses are safer here, but--men's macho posturing aside--I don't think the threat of being hit really puts brakes on conversations in reality.

What that vignette demonstrated to me was that the conversations in Gaia are every bit as real as the "real world". Maybe I'm trying to justify my fishing addiction here, but I don't think time spent talking with other residents of this benighted globe we call home is particularly wasted. Especially not when they are as honest and as open as people are on Gaia (some might argue, too open, but one can always sign off if you don't want to hear it).

The writing I do for the contests is "real", if not particularly publishable. And I even feel that our theatre productions, while perhaps not as involved as a real theatre production, are worth the investment of time. The medium has its limitations, but if people are enjoying watching and performing, why is that somehow less "real" than if someone is actually in the room with you? Behind our avatar costumes, we are all real people. Besides, if nothing else, our after hours cast parties are tons of silly fun mrgreen


Oh that reminds me: