I am quite blessed to know some amazing people in Second Life, and to have some of my most treasured real life friends as, also, a part of my second, virtual existence. If you'll give me leave for a moment, I'd like to give a little bit of space to them.

Rosie Barthelmess - pictured here - is my best friend in both worlds. She has been a constant in my life since we first met online years ago - connected through our rl-blogs - and I simply cannot imagine either life without her as a part of it. Rosie has been my go-to person for personal crises, a shoulder I lean on when life brings me down, and one of the very few people in this world I will - and can - truly open up to. She understands me, innately, and even still likes me. In fact, she loves me to pieces; as I do her.

Rosie has really taken to Second Life; doing things I could only ever hope to imagine. She has opened her own jewelry store, Sable Rose Jewelry, where she creates some of the most beautiful, one-of-a-kind, high-quality pieces in Second Life. She has a few stores, Filataponic, Sn@tch City, along with her main shop at Gallinas. She also has work up at Xstreet. I do suggest checking her out, and I don't just say that because she's my best friend. Her work is truly lovely and unique, and deserves to be seen.

As well as being a content creator, Rosie has recently begun tentative steps towards becoming a live singer in-world. I am amazed, truly, for the thought of singing live in front of anyone makes my toes curl in nervous apprehension. Nervous or not, Rosie belts out tunes with her powerhouse voice and everyone is charmed. Some people are simply born golden-throated and with a natural ability to sing and Rosie is one of these. If ever you get a chance to see one of her shows, I do suggest you make it a point to stop in. You won't be disappointed.

Rosie amazes me every day. Whether it's her Mama Bear-approach - an iron fist in a velvet glove, to be sure - helping run Lounge of Dreams, where we both work, or her tireless efforts to raise money in-world for cancer research through Relay for Life, spinning tunes as a well-renowned DJ, pursuing her dreams as a singer, or spending hours piecing together beautiful jewelry pieces for SL residents, she always has time for a friend. She's quite the powerhouse, but you'll never hear her act like top dog or thinking she's better than anyone else. She won't put up with any shit or be taken for a fool, but she also deals with each person honestly and openly, with a shy smile, a flirty wink, and a pithy comeback. She's brave, intelligent, warm-hearted, funny, down-to-earth, silly, business-minded, fair, and all around beautiful - inside and out. She is, quite simply, one of the most awesome people I have ever met and anyone who knows her is quick to exclaim how much they "love Rosie!"

I know so many beautiful, wonderful people in SL and I'd be here all day trying to name each and every one of them. Many I know from Lounge of Dreams, others I share a home with at the beautiful Four Corners. Still others I have simply met in my travels, or knew them before they ever stepped into the metaverse. All are special to me; each makes my life better for having them in it.

One that stands out is my dear, dear friend, Belmont Roux. Bel and I have been rl-friends since 2000, when we met at the apartment I had just begun sharing with my childhood best friend. Quirky the both of us, we hit it off immediately and - throughout the years - have remained good friends. We became especially close right before he left Louisiana for Nashville, TN to pursue his Master's in Music, and I urged him to get back into SL (where I'd had him dabble a bit before - both of us, also, being total geeks) so that we could continue to hang out and do things together, even if it was just virtually.

Eventually, Bel got back into SL full-force and was recently hired as a new host at Lounge of Dreams, for which I am so excited for and proud of him. I know he'll be a great host; anyone with a sense of humor that keen and side-splittingly funny is sure to keep a club full of avatars in stitches. Bel is, hands down, one of the funniest people I know. He could be a stand-up comedian, for he has no qualms taking on any subject and being "politically correct" isn't even in his vocabulary (which I love about him). He is a sweetheart, and I do adore him - my Mom and sister are two of his biggest fans, and we even created a "fan club" for him when he lived down here in Louisiana and was on television and the radio doing traffic reports. His quick wit and big heart make him a special guy, and we are in talks to be married in SL - I would be quite proud to be Ms. Izzy Roux-Graves (or Ms. Izzy Graves-Roux, I'm still not sure which sounds better).

I am blessed to have such special friends; truly I am. Be sure to tell the people in your life that you love them and how special they are to you, for we are not promised tomorrow. In the last year, death has visited my family twice in a short span and it reminds me how each moment should be treasured and that you can never say "I love you" or "I am so happy you are in my life" too often.

It's damn good to be back.

I spent the last couple of nights just hanging out a Lounge of Dreams and catching up with all of the wonderful people I've missed.  I was also delighted that my dear rl and sl friend, Belmont Roux, decided to give the virtual life another spin.

We fared well doing the hurricane; other than the ample overtime we had to work, we lost nothing property-wise and most of our friends and family turned out to be equally as blessed.  The time away from my favorite Internet pastimes and Second Life was awful, though;  I've realized I may have a wee bit of an Internet addiction!

Coming back into SL after some compulsory time off is such a relief; personally, it signaled that my rl was calming back down and that I had the free time once more to enjoy my favorite extracurricular activities.  This weekend I was able to share time and laughs with some of my favorite people in some of my favorite places outside the realm of my physical, tangible day-to-day life.

It makes me realize what an awesome escape sl can be.  I don't mean "escape" as in avoidance of rl, but as a healthy and fun addition to rl that offers some relief and relaxation away from the toils and strife of daily existence.

In that vein, I see my virtual life - the one I live in sl -  as an enhancement of my self and the life that I live day to day.

Not only does sl allow me freedoms in movement, reality, and distance I'd not otherwise have, but there are many social freedoms that I find are more easily enjoyable (and accessible) in sl.  The bigotry, pretension, social awkwardness, and neuroticism that ensconces a good deal of rl social affairs and casual meetings simply aren't present in sl where the walls of social inequity or physical imperfections simply do not exist.

Everyone is - truly and without pretense - equal in sl; from the low-primmed ruths to the bling-starred socialites, it is the personality that shines through an avatar that determines how that individual is treated and judged.

In sum, it is simply delightful to be back and I have missed each and every one of you very much.

"Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: "What! You, too? Thought I was the only one." - C.S. Lewis

Friendship is, I have learned in the past few months, one of the most precious and important aspects of a life. Our friends - those personally favored people that we have formed a special bond with - are extensions of our very self; revealing wondrous, often hidden, facets of our psyche.

Carl Jung once said, "The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed."  I would like to share with you how my friends - old and new - have transformed my very being.

In the past couple of years, I - dealing with a death, family and work stresses, and my own bipolarity - became somewhat anti-social.  All of my close friends had moved away and I was lax on keeping up with them and completely remiss in making new ones.  Even at work, everyone I had been close to and formed a bond with had gone on to other jobs.

In my dismal and rather unhappy state, I really did not mind the absence of close friendships, shoulders to lean on, and shared laughter.  In fact, I was rather happy not having to deal with any of it, as the act of pretending to be jovial when you're down in the dumps is exhausting - as anyone who has suffered from any form of depression or even a simple case of the blues can tell you.  So I did not miss my friends as I normally might have; I soon slipped easily into a reclusive state.

The past year has been different.  In fact, my thirtieth year on this orb we call Earth has been very good for me.  I am finally actively working to control and live with my bipolar disorder; which I have also accepted I have.  I am concentrating more on my writing, and I have - with the help of an amazing pain specialist - finally found some relief from my leg pain.

Something, even more amazing than all the others combined, happened as well.  I made a friend at work; an employee who joined our agency.  Then an old friend came back and I became closer with the older lady who worked across from my office and we, too, became friends.

One day I realized that I no longer hated my job; I no longer, at night in bed, dreaded the next day with anguished anxiety.  In fact, I found, I was looking forward to going to work!  Every night as I went to bed, I simply could not wait to get up, go in to work, and start my day.  When this change in my attitude occurred, I pondered it only a short while before it hit me - it was my friends that had made all the difference.

Not a single thing else had changed about my work experience.  I was doing the same work as before (more of it, actually), I was still, as they say, underpaid and overworked.  I still had the same frustrations with my supervisor, and dealt with the same annoying little problems I always had.  Only one thing had changed - I now had friends at work.

Initially, when the last of my friend co-workers had left our agency (the aforementioned one that is now back), I thought I was okay with being "on my own" and having no one I was really close to in the office.  I figured I'd get more work done; that I'd just come in, do my job, and go home.  Yet that is not what happened.  Unbeknownst to me, the lack of friendly faces, laughter, and someone to talk to had worn me down and made my days long, drab, and - to be honest - rather miserable.

This might not be such a startling revelation to some of you, but for me - the strong-willed and independent type who believes she needs no one - it was a striking realization.

Outside of work the situation was the same.  My small but close circle of friends had all moved out of state, and my best friend since childhood was busy setting up house with his partner; they recently purchased a 1920s bungalow in the area known as Spanish Town and were consumed with remodeling and starting a life together.  My boyfriend and I, homebodies to begin with, quietly and quickly adjusted to a life that no longer included an active social aspect.  At first, as I had believed with work, I thought it would be nice to not have to bother with going out, spending money, and eating up our downtime on the weekends.  We sort of relished the idea - with our busy, long-houred work days - of having no social obligations.

My social apathy leeched into my online life, and I chatted less with longtime friends in instant messenger - my daily chats with Rosie even became somewhat less (though, no matter what has gone on in my life, since we met, Rosie has always been a part of it).  I no longer visited message boards or forums I once enjoyed, and I - naturally - dropped out of the metaverse completely.

(Let me mention here that some of this going-inside myself was necessary to the healing I had to do as I came to terms with my bipolar disorder and leg condition and began to work on improving those circumstances in my life.  I needed a lot of "me" time, a lot of quiet space to self-reflect, relax, and find some peace.  I'm glad to say that - because I was able to have that - I am able, willing, and ready to get back into "social" life once more.)

They say the powers that be give us just what we need as we need it, and I believe that.  As I began to feel happy and free once more, I began to make new friends - and reconnect with some old ones.  My new friends at work were part of this, but they were not the only ones.  As I felt ready to reconnect with the living, so to speak, I - much to Rosie's utter delight - rejoined Second Life.  I was surprised to realize how much I had missed it, and often now muse how I left it for so long.

As I have been blessed with making new friends at work and home, I have also been blessed with reconnecting with old and making some new friends in SL.  When I came back in, Rosie was the only person with whom I still had a connection, and she graciously brought me into the circles of people she had been sharing her virtual life with in my absence.  I thank her nearly every day for introducing me to such amazing, beautiful, and delightfully unique people - some I knew from before but never had a chance to actually be friends with, and some I am meeting and befriending for the very first time.  I count myself blessed and honored to call people such as Camthan Hax, Marx Dudek, and Carmen Greenfield among those I call (and who call me) "friend".

I cannot even begin to tell you the change in my life, in my attitude about life.  I, always the loner, never really felt that I needed friends.  In fact, being the anti-social hermit I can sometimes be, I never felt I ever even really wanted friends.  That may sound harsh, but there it is.  I have always loved the friends I had - insanely so - yet I never really understood that I did, also, need them.

"Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born." - Anais Nin

In meeting and befriending all of these wonderful people - in my work, home, and virtual environments - I have learned a great deal about myself.  I have felt and experienced new understandings, new ideologies, and new nuances within my self by allowing these remarkable beings a place in my own world.  I like to believe I have enhanced and enlivened their own worlds with my presence as well.  That's one of the beautiful things about friendship - the natural, unconscious give and take; the ability to enhance each other's life simply by being a part of it.

Thank you - each of you - to the friends I have had, still have, have just made, and have yet to make - for making my world a better place to exist in.

"Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom." - Marcel Proust