At The SP Winter Wonderland Party

Early in the evening, while my chaperones were still with me.

Innocent Bock with the Bock´s Virginity Protection Crew (Janttu and Guyke). All clothing and other paraphernalia is still on.

Later, when Guyke and Janttu had left me alone at the dance.

I Received Email Also

Today I received an email from my family in Finland.

I did not see it at first because it had been swallowed by my spam-filter. I really should have trusted my well trained filter and let it stay there, but my curiosity got the better of me when i saw the name of the sender, alas.

Let me just say that two men in Finland can count themselves as very fortunate, because the only thing stopping me from posting the video contained in the e-mail is my consideration for the delicate olfactory senses of my highbrow readership.

NOH8 Avatars 3

Guyke Lundquist

For more information about the The NOH8 Campaign and how to join it in SecondLife please read my previous post The NOH8 Campaign in SecondLife. There you will also find instructions on where to find the necessary duct tape and cheek painting free of charge.

When Guyke was there taking his picture, it took so long that a long line of hunky avatars (me) and others (two female avatars) formed waiting for him to finish. Guyke has been so spoiled by being married to a photographer that he lost his ability of  taking pictures of himself. Pathetic!

Finally Janttu had to be called in to take the picture above.

Guyke, myself & Janttu

If you would like to be a part of the NOH8 Campaign on this blog please send me your picture (fullperm), I will be happy to post it. Name the picture NOH8 and your avatar name and drop it on my profile or send it to my email lundamats@gmail.com.

Celebration

The evening before the American election my son Guyke and I had discussed that we should meet up this evening to either celebrate or mourn the outcome of together with our family. It was also a good opportunity for me to meet the new extensions to the family.

In the picture you see (from left to right) Guyke, my buddy Butch "I-don´t-understand-this-family-thing-in-SL" Diavolo, Dillon (son of Janttu and Fabiano), myself, my son in-law #1 Janttu and his husband Fabiano and my brother in-law D R E Y.

Missing in the picture are my sister Millimina,  my son in-law #2 Ziggy and my brother in-law Dej..

As we had at least three DJ´s present I of course forced them to play music for us. We had a wonderful time talking on voice and listening to music. The most special thing about this party was perhaps that I heard Janttu speak for the first time. I will only say that I went weak in my knees (and that even when I was sitting).

The new family members were charming, witty and good looking  but I never doubted that because the men in the clan know how to pick awesome men.

Clan McMillan and Hurricane Ziggy

So the hurricane Ziggy passed through the McMillan clan - officially yesterday - but unofficially some time earlier. When hurricane Ziggy hit landfall on Southern Charm it created havoc in the family tree.

The Much Honored Bock McMillan, laird of Southern Charm and prince of Cascade Falls, has finally caught up with all the changes now after an extremely long talk with his son prince Guyke Lundquist of Claddagh, who informed him of all the developments in very slow steps.

1. Guyke and prince Janttu Winkler of Claddagh have divorced in SecondLife (In first life they are still as lovey-dovey as ever before.)
2. Guyke and duke Ziggy Starsmith (kingdom as yet unknown) have partnered in SecondLife, which means that Ziggy is now my son in-law. (However, at this point in time I refuse to let go of Janttu as my son in-law so he still retains that title also.)
3. Janttu has formed a partnership with a beautiful man named Mr. Fabiano something, whom the laird has not yet had the pleasure of meeting. In the new partnership Janttu already has a grown son. (I forgot his name already, so sorry.)

I think thats it so far, further developments will be reported as they are revealed to the laird.

It´s all good. I get the added benefit of the charming Ziggy in the family while all the others remain. And the new additions will be excellent I am confident of that. The men of my clan have excellent taste in partners! My head is still spinning, but I am sure I will be happy when all the dust has settled.

Romantic Entanglements

While I was hanging out with my son Guyke and our friends yesterday I received an Instant Message from my son telling me that he wished to speak with me in private.

I was somewhat worried about what would follow, but told him "OK, what?". Whereupon Guyke said he had to ask me a very personal question, to which I answered "Of course" getting slightly more worried. Then Guyke asked me what my true feelings were for Ziggy. I had thought much about that subject so the answer came easily, "I like him alot  but I am not in love. He is partnered in first life, so on my behalf it´s a no go on the romantic level."

"Uhm well", the boy said, "we have been getting close."
"How close, my darling?"
"Well, very close actually. Is that a problem for you? Janttu knows this and the two of us will still be together in first life. "
"No, not in the least as long as you are all OK with it. I promise, I have no problems with you and Ziggy but please be good to him. I do not wish to see him hurt or lose him as a friend", I told him.
"You won´t!", Guyke assured me.

So there it is. I fully accept and completely encourage and support the relationship between Guyke and Ziggy. I congratulate them both on finding such good men as each other.

I know myself well enough to know that for me a romantic relationship with someone who already has a first or second life relationship is off the charts. I can barely handle one man, even the thought of making allowances for another romantic relationship in the life of my chosen one completely overloads my emotional systems and always has. I am a "one-man-at-a-time-guy", which is neither better nor worse than being able to handle more than one at a time but just the way it is.

The only thing I may miss a bit is Ziggy´s flirting with me... but I will survive that I am quite sure!

The Splash

The evening started out slow. I went over to Guyke´s and Janttu´s place and we were joined by Ziggy after a while. We had a good, long and enjoyable chat, just lounging around with some interesting news and a lot of foolishness.

When we got a notice about DJ Yifu´s Splash party at the Gay Riviera we decided to go there for some music and dancing. Before going we had to prepare ourselves for the party by undressing and putting on some necessary attachments.

The place was filled with naked - or almost naked - guys and girls. The music was great, the chat was funny and the sights made my head spin.

Onslaught of Crow-Men

I was standing on the back deck of my home minding my own business and talking to sweet friends in Instant Message when an onslaught of crow-men suddenly hit on Southern Charm. At first it seemed like an invasion of thousands of huge birdlike creatures but when all the dust settled and the wings were drawn in it turned out to be only Guyke and Janttu paying me a surprise visit.

Once I had recovered from the initial scare we settled down for a nice talk in or under a Halloween tree that Guyke had in Inventory.

The conversation circled around, but was not limited to,

• the titles of catholic clergy,
• the Frankenstorm Sandy hitting the U.S. east coast today and our well wishes for our friends their,
• the upcoming American elections and our worries about the possible outcome,
• the size of governor Mitt Romney´s cojones,
• if we would ever want a man that wears magic underwear or not,
• how long it takes for ones virginity to grow back,
• the foaling of horses,
• the nasty customs in Belgium and Sweden around visits to the restroom,
• if we knew a good Halloween party coming up,
• the ultimate busy or away response in SecondLife and last, but by all means not least,
• what Janttu may - or may not - have been doing on Skype to suddenly agitate Guyke in the middle of it all.

Zig-Bam-Boom

I am sure you all know of Ziggy Starsmith. Ziggy is (to quote myself from a comment on his blog) "my dear, sweet, charmingly hotheaded, fiery and wonderfully passionate but extremely rash darling buddy". On his blog (Ziggy On The Edge Of Second Life) he regularly rants wildly about different viewers, sim-crossings and such things. To put it succinctly, Ziggy does not - and I emphasize not - love Linden Lab and that company´s customer or product services as much as I usually do.

Well, after my horrendous experiences inworld yesterday I was extremely close to agreeing with him. It was the second worst night of my whole existence in SecondLife. Whatever I did, and even if i did nothing at all, I crashed, crashed, crashed and - yes, you probably guessed it - crashed again and again.

The laird at the lowest point

I was white with rage and fuming with smoke coming out of my ears and my nostrils flaring  To top it off. my dear, sweet and loving son Guyke takes the time to inform me "I and Janttu are actually running Firestorm viewers on the Ultra graphic setting and are having no problems at all!" 

Murdering one´s stepson is not considered acceptable in polite company, but I was just seconds from doing just that. Luckily I crashed and was thus saved from that fate.

The impertinent boy also told me to upgrade to Windows 8 and to abandon the official Linden viewer (Viewer 3) and install Firestorm again. So after my last crash, the one following the murderous thoughts, I did just that to cool myself down.

The upgrade to Windows 8 Pro was simple and cheap (around US $40). The upgrade assistant did all the work well. I love the sleek new look 

But when I tried going inworld again with my Windows 8 Pro platform and the Firestorm viewer, guess what happened? You got it, I crashed, crashed and crashed! Then I decided to call it a night and try again today, reports will follow.

Shooting the Breeze

Following my escapade to the Burn2 yesterday, I felt an immediate need for some peace and quiet at home, preferably in pleasant company but alone would have been fine too.

I was happy when I saw my buddy Ziggy inworld and sent him an Instant Message, I was even happier when he invited himself over for a visit. We started by taking a walk around the home sim and checking the state of things but after our walk we ended up on the porch of the barn and engaging in some idle conversation about this and that and everything inbetween. Comparing stories and experiences is a good way to get to know one and other better.

After a while the youngsters dropped by to say good night before they logged off. Ars, and people in first life too, have always accused me of having limited powers of observation. If I go to a party with friends, be it in SecondLife or first life, we have never been to the same party. Others see and notice things that I haven't payed any attention to at all.

I could of course admit to the fact, but instead I defend myself with the excuse that my powers are not limited, merely selective. I tell them that I see and notice what interests me at that point in time, to notice and memorize more would probably overload my circuits.

Well, yesterday evening my attention was suddenly drawn to a tattoo over one of my son in-law Janttu´s eyebrows. I promise you I have absolutely never seen it before. The boys maintained that he had had that tattoo "for ages" and even that my son Guyke has one too under his eye (covered by the sun glasses at this occasion they told me). I still cannot understand how I have failed to notice any of those tattoos.

When the boys had left for bed, we were joined by our friend Butch for a while, but by then I had gotten too tired to take more pictures. My curfew for SecondLife came much too soon after his arrival but I had to log off to get some sleep before work. The other two party animals went on to a party instead!

Il Ritorno Del Laird

The Much Honored Bock McMillan, laird of Southern Charm and prince of Cascade Falls, having visited Stockholm to descend upon his royal cousins and to lobby the Nobel Committee (to ensure an invitation) for two days has now returned home again.

While in Stockholm the laird thought of his retirement from official duties in the far off future. It is true he has made plans with his sister Millimina Salamander that they would join households when that time comes, but they have not been able to agree on where yet. Bock emphatically refuses to move north and Millimina is hesitant about moving to the south of Sweden.

Well, during his visit in the northern city his mind cleared on where they should eventually retire after partaking of a delicious dinner at the wonderful restaurant The Trattoria by the waters on the quay at Norr Mälarstrand in Stockholm.

"It has to be Italy of course, nowhere else will do! Preferably Tuscany. in Florence, Siena, San Gimignano or any of the many other medieval towns there, The food is excellent, the climate is mild and warm and the men are beautiful. Guyke and Janttu could move into a villa, or apartment, nearby and see to it that we are well taken care of. It´s perfect and I am sure she will love the idea also!"

Very Strange

Son of Man (1964) by René Magritte

When I was inworld today something strange occurred.

I was first talking with my son Guyke, who had returned today from a tour of "the gay saunas in Finland", i.e. the home of my son in-law Janttu Winkler. Suddenly the little brat stopped answering me - or so I thought. He could of course be away from hiis keyboard or deep in a serious discussion with his hubby, so I waited a long while, thinking he would come back.

When he did not come back, I tried striking up a conversation with Mrs. Vampi Twine-DeSantis-McMillan instead, who is my chief technical officer in SecondLife. Imagine my surprise when she also i-g-n-o-r-e-d me!

I thought (with a shitload of self-pity), "Well, it may just be a bad day. Everyone seems to be too busy to talk to you so you might just as well log off!"

As it turns out, they did not ignore me because when I checked my mail after logging off I saw their responses there. It was just SecondLife acting up in an unexpected way, that I hav never encountered before.

So you two who are named in this post, I still love you but didn't get your answers inworld! I hope everything works better tomorrow!

In The Winery

As I told you all yesterday, I forced myself on to my son and son in-law yesterday and demanded a grand tour of their new sim (which I hadn't visited before).

The two young men were very pleasant as always - although Guyke got a bit flustered and tensed when I blurted out - with my usual tact, "I hate the drapes! Did they come with the building?"

Janttu had probably previously indicated to Guyke in his usual shy way that the drapes perhaps were not the best choice. Janttu really should have learned by now that subtlety doesn´t always work on my son. You need to drop an anvil on his head and scream, shout and kick for him to notice any objections when he is that mood.

However, Guyke is not the one to sulk - not always - and this was a happy occasion. When they led me to the winery I was expecting to be served a glass - or two or three - of their own home-brew. Little did I know that they had a policy of "you get as much as you give" and made me work for the wine by pulling me into an open barrel to crush the grapes by stomping on them to produce more wine. (If you click the pictures above and then use the left and right arrow keys to move from one to the other you can watch me work myself into a very thirsty state.)

I go my wine and was then showed around the rest of the seem where they had done tremendous work in a very short time. Everything was either lovely and beautiful or darned scary (they have a weakness for Halloween and celebrate it all year long).

The Dreamboat

"The coolness that is Janttu"™

A man cannot turn his back to the world for a few weeks without finding that his son in-law has turned into a perfect dreamboat when he returns. Is that really fair?

Well, the picture shows you my son in-law Janttu Winkler in his latest hair. My son Guyke tells me he had to drag Janttu to the store and force him to buy the hair, because the man claimed "his old hair was only two years old". 

Janttu should know by now that it is not easy to refuse Guyke and that Guyke has impeccable taste in everything - well,  except possibly drapes.

More about my visit with Guyke and his husband tomorrow, I am off to bed now.

---
American Heritage Dictionary 4: (drēmˈbōt) noun; A person considered exceptionally good-looking and sexually attractive.

Joie de Vivre

On Saturday I caught my boys, Guyke and his husband Janttu, dancing on the fountain in their dance area, it was a perfect image of the ebullience of the joy of living. Once in a while they happened to pushed each other off the fountain, but soon they were both up there dancing again.

Sunday, which was the last day of my summer vacation this year, my local news paper had a headline saying "The summer comes next week". It had been a rather wet and chilly summer so far with the temperatures between 12-15 ºC (54-59 ºF). And the meteorologists were correct, the weather has become much warmer and finally feels like summer.

Monday was a good day, I love my work and like the people I work with so it was good to be back. When I came home I went to bed for a short nap at 6 PM and did´t wake up until 7 AM this morning, so I guess I was tired again. Today I have resisted the urge to take a nap but will get an early night of it instead.

My healing after the recent operation is progressing much better than the doctor expected and I have had none of the complications he warned me about, especially because I am a smoker. Well, not yet may be best to add.

Friday with the Boys

Yesterday I had a prearranged meeting with Ziggy Starsmith at The Rainbow Yacht Club. He was going to pick me up there to show me his new home in Second Norway.

Even though I was a bit nervous about his typing at the same stime as he was driving everything went well and we soon docked safely at his new home. The house lies directly by the waterfront and you only have to get out of the boat to be there.

I was relieved to hear that his next door neighbor was Mialinn Telling herself. She probably wants to keep an eye on him, quite understandably, even if he has calmed down considerably during the time I have known him.

Although Ziggy only moved in a few days ago he had already gotten a new house in place and had finished furnishing and decorating it. That usually takes me a couple of weeks or months. We had a great time inspecting the new parcel, the house and just talking.  All the time I was secretly looking at his wonderful hairy calves.

Then I got an IM from my stepson Guyke, inviting us both over to take a look at the work he and his husband Janttu had been doing in remodeling their homestead. The results so far is great I can tell you and a immense change from earlier.

When I saw the new privy they had installed I felt the need to try it out, and I can tell you it was very comfortable.

Although it seems as if I am alone on the picture, I had an audience of three watching me so it was not my most restful moment on the loo.

I tried to get a picture of the four of us together in front of their beautiful new green house, but the two young ones both had their irritatingly fidgeting cruising Animation Overrides (AO) on. This is the best I could do with Janttu showing himself from his best side. (Well, I did actually get a good picture of all of us facing forward, but this was still my favorite.)

We finished the visit with some ballroom dancing in the boys wonderful new dance area, a gazebo with a stunning fountain in the middle. It was very relaxing to dance and talk among friends and after awhile I felt the Friday coma set in and had to leave for my beauty sleep.

 

The Return of C&C™

Yesterday the Much Honored Bock McMillan, laird of Southern Charm and prince of Cascade Falls, received the joyful news that the awesome C&C™, i.e. the team consisting of "The Cuteness that is Guyke" and his husband "The Coolness that is Janttu", have decided to return to SecondLife on a more regular basis.

The message was delivered in person to the laird by the heir apparent himself and led to a hug and kiss fest that hasn't been seen on the sim since the Kiss-A-Swede event in June.

My Boys

Well, after all the confusion and misunderstandings we had I finally got to see and talk with my boys again. With "we" I am, in this case, mostly referring to myself of course.

As I understand it, my young ones these days like to play a game called "First Life", which means they lounge on their sofas - one in Belgium and the other in Finland - and look at and talk with each other on some newfangled thing called Skype.

Now they were finally with me again in SecondLife and we talked in voice and had a good time together. In this case I mean my stepson Guyke and myself when I say "we". My son in-law Janttu had a very bad cold with fever and could hardly get a word in sideways except those occasions when Guyke and I stopped talking for 5 seconds to catch our breaths - and then only typing in local chat.

That actually reminded me that I had never heard Janttu speak. I told him that if I did not hear him speak in voice next time we met I would start suspecting he was a devious woman who had succeeded in turning my stepson straight. (What would Ars have said, I wonder? )

To this Guyke responded that it had taken him "ages" to get Janttu to speak with him in voice. Knowing Guyke that would mean little more than 20 minutes. I never could teach the boy the virtue of patience, well I may not be the best teacher but at least I try - sometimes.

Anyway it was wonderful to have them close again and knowing they were doing well. I love them to bits and look forward to seeing them in-worlds a bit more often in the future. Otherwise I will start considering some kind of addiction therapy to get them off this "First Life"-thing.

The Concept of Family in SecondLife

From a sociological and/or anthropological perspective a family is a group of people who are affiliated by marriage, consanguinity, affinity or co-residence. Families are formed as a source of mutual love and support within the group concerned. Sexual relations among family members are regulated by rules concerning incest such as the incest taboo.

In a virtual world we don´t need to focus on consanguineous relationships as sexual relationships cannot end with an independent issue. All relationships are created by choice through affinity and affections and are either romantic or non-romantic.

The Family Chart. Muted colors mean that the avatar is (mostly) no longer around
Yellow circles signify partnerships/marriages, red circles previous partnerships/marriages and yellow arrows mutually elected non-romatic relationships of a family kind (sister/brother or child/mother or father)

In the beginning there was Ars Northmead, a charming, friendly, clever and multitalented avatar.

Ars was - among many other things - a DJ in SecondLife and founded the Sarco Sound Group with his friend and business partner Sarco Halderman. One of the first DJ´s recruited to the group was Andrey (D R E Y) Messmer. Ars and Andrey developed a close non-romantic-friendship, with much love and trust between them.

Shortly before Ars and I met there may - or may not - have been a brief sexual relationship between Ars and Guyke Lundqvist (I am not altogether sure about this and have never really worried about it). Anyway, by the time I appeared on the scene the relationship between the two had evolved into a relationship between a father and son. When I teamed up with Ars I also became Guyke´s evil-stepfather.

Ars and I became a couple, shortly thereafter Andrey and Guyke became a couple also, this was however before we had established the family. When Andrey´s and Guyke´s relationship ended, Andrey became Ars brother. Both Andrey and Guyke went on to form new romantic relationships that were included into the family.

When Guyke became partnered with Haakon Meads, his elected mother Starry Sweetwater and her husband Sir Trifle became in-laws. Similarly I become the uncle of Skip Turbo´s adopted son Liam when Skip and Andrey were partners.

Ars also formed brotherly ties with Dej Mycron and Jeb Nicholls, while Martial Eisenhart and I and Millimina Salamander and I also elected each other as siblings, well in the last case I more or less forced it on the poor girl. Martial formed a partnership with Elorian Scarbridge for a while through which Elorian and I became brother in-laws. Dej has of course also had partners, but I did not much like the last one so I am not mentioning him (I am invoking my literary license on this).

Postscript
I am happy that I took the time to make the family chart, because looking at it clarify some things that have been a mystery to me earlier.

As I understand it, these kind of chosen family clusters are supposedly more common among the gay population in SecondLife than among the straight population. An explanation to this could of course be that many gays already have experienced the concept of "choosing your family" in their first life due to the shunning and ostracizing that still occurs in all cultures, albeit to a lesser extent nowadays that 15-20 years ago.

I have no sure information on how common it can be among lesbians, either in first life or SecondLife. As we all know lesbians seem to provoke less animosity in the straight culture, possibly because the women are better at staying "under the radar" than gay men. The fact that straight men find women "playing with each other" so fascinating at least while they wait for him - the macho male - to arrive. I am also certain that part of the explanation is due to the unequal status of women in society, "what women do does not matter".

If heterosexuals ever think about homosexuals, there seems to be a strong tendency to focus on the sexual activities rather than on the feelings and attractions. I did not choose to become gay to engage in fellatio or have anal intercourse. I am gay and therefore use the sexual activities and techniques available to me to give and receive pleasure from another man - and hell yes, I damn well love it!.

A Gift From Millimina

I had a good evening with my Ars today.

Some friends came by and sat with me for awhile, others I talked with in IM. It was a wonderful time we talked about Ars and myself somewhat but also about their lives and their experiences. Sharing is always good.

First I will show you two beautiful pictures taken by Millimina Salamander that she gave to me from last years gathering. In the pictures you see, from left to right, Sarco Halderman, Andrey Messmer, me, Janttu Winkler, Guyke Lundqvist and Millimina herself.

"Remembering Ars 2011" by Millimina Salamander

"Remembering Ars 2011 in The Jesters Hats" by Millimina Salamander

This is a picture I took earlier in the evening while I was still alone and just enjoyed the peacefulness, the music and the sweet memories.

Remebering Ars 2012 by Bock McMillan