Hello. You know you can say more than just "hi". If I don't answer you in abundance, that's nothing new, and it doesn't mean that you're not welcome to speak. I don't appreciate your wearing Akasha's name the other night in the chat room though. First of all, it's just not appropriate, for she is for better or worse, the history of all here who you wish to commune with; The Immortals. She is gone, she was our mother, she was my lover and my queen once, and you need to remember that as everyone must. Chastising done…

I wonder sometimes if the magic is ever really gone, so long as we don't imagine it disappearing. Magic is what you make it, I've found, inside and out. It is regrettable that the length of our posts and conversations are now gone, but such things happen, and it reminds us that technology is fallible. We start anew, and perhaps onward to another level.

Ah, thank you for that clarification. No wonder I didn't know where the amusing little quotation was from. I haven't ever watched that program, nor do I really intend to.

Does that simple little icon unsettle you so? Imagine what the real thing might do, if I were beside you, or sitting across the room from you watching as you tried to hide your glances over those stuffed shells, which may or may not have a whole tubular, phallic analogy all their own. You know of course that it's not -my- body, but I've said that in many ways, Townsend's form is very similar to mine. It might make people wonder if it was coincidental that he was chosen to portray me, or was it maybe something more? Have any of you ever wondered how someone, an "actor", who didn't even "know" me, could get some of my expressions and such so dead on once you overlook the ludicrous moments? -laughs- Who knows, hm? Maybe there's more to it than the public should or ever will know. Think about it.

As for your accusations, dear Malice… I am all of that, and none of it in the same breath, but isn't that the duality I'm known to possess? I plead my very own little amendment: I am the Vampire Lestat.

Am I angry with you? I wasn't aware that I was, though when I do come to chat, I appreciate being able to have intelligent conversation with those who are there and not spending my time with silliness and drama. Believe me, I can create enough of that all on my own at a vampire's level. That's not to say that you or anyone shouldn't be comfortable in chat, even if I or another immortal is present, but it may very well become evident that we're not.

Why do you feel so lost, confused and forgotten? Did I overlook you in the last posts I left? If that's the case, tsk, Cherie, I've told everyone here more than once not to take it personally, so now don't you start doing just that. If it is just because of all the words being lost, don't worry, I've seen how quickly this little venue can and will be restored. Words are just words after all. The meaning and thought behind them… the weighing and consideration, that is what matters, so I look forward to having more here from you.

How silly of me to think that perhaps you hadn't thought already of the many possible, creamy applications to be tested out. Of course you have, I'm sure. I'm left to wonder if it's not something you might wish to write out some late night when your fingers are idle.

Your Emerson bit reminds me of something I read long ago from Einstein no less:

"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds"

It's very true, I think. There is more to be said on that matter about how small minded souls have and are laying ruin to so much just by -not- doing anything, but I think I will leave that for another time. I'm feeling rather… Hm, not apathetic, no, but how do I say, calm? No.. just, not having much thought on much, though I don't know how to say that concisely. As I've told you sometimes when my mind wanders, the words become tangled and imprecise. Another night…

My reading is varied at times, I'll admit, but really that book, The Prophet, is one I advise everyone to read.

We have time, yes, to let down whatever defenses we've developed, if we choose to let them go, or time to move more comfortably in our pale bodies, more than we ever could have in mortality. Speaking personally, I don't know that I'd ever go back again to my youth, even if I could. I'm who I am now, and though I of course haven't ever, ever been a man of complacent acceptance as to "that's how the world is, deal with it!" I do find a certain serenity in acknowledging that the modern world moves around me and I must find my place in it somehow by in some way, blocking it out, and indeed saying -that- out there, is how it is, and it's not -here- in here, where I am, who I am. Does that make sense? Don't worry about the concept of naivety because it is belief, and hope, faith and trust that makes you all so beautiful. While trust and willingness changes over time based on betrayals and swords thrust to it, the thing in itself is still incomparably wonderful.

You say:
But, it's just too easy to become swept up in improbable aspirations, sometimes...especially ones so desired! ::sigh:: But does it even matter, ultimately? Does anything?

Now this question is something I've played over and over again in my mind for what is it now, two centuries and counting? More lately, though trust me that it isn't in a depressive, apathetic manner I think such a thing. It's more like a contemplative, philosophical, circular way the thought revolves in my mind, quietly. Aspirations, whether they be improbable or realistic, are far too easy to become 'swept up' in, I'll definitely agree!

You say you're waiting and watching, and feeling stationary? But you aren't. Not at all. There is infinitely more in the world than most are willing to pursue. There are veils and curtains to be lifted quietly, and shadows and light to be walked in while others fear to tread. It only requires that you listen, quietly. That is the best, least complicated bit of advice I can lend, that and perhaps to not mind so much what others believe and feel and think, because in the end, you are the flower, Cherie, and so long as you grow, there is completion.

I comprehend all to well when you say that the longing to be close to me is too compelling a desire. I say that not with conceit, but with my understanding alone. Is it easy for me, to feel love for those I write to in this two dimensional medium? Yes, it is. There are those with whom I feel more of an affinity, or whom for whatever reason might get under my skin, or into my mind in as much as I will allow it, though there are times, oddly enough, when even I am surprised to find how I care for certain people out of the blue.

Don't feel foolish for pouring out your words as you have in this post. It is a length of expression I've found most worth reading, if that helps to assuage your self doubt. Be strong, little night song, really. Your sincerity is evident, and endearing, and I thank you for such a well written and emotional message.

Yes, indeed it is "anti", most things in opposition to the social and cultural ways of most societies, and as such no, I don't think that is the challenge so much, to wrap around it and accept it so much as the challenge might be to metaphorically sit our preconceived notions of what is and what should never be aside in a box for a while, and as they say, think outside of that box, yes? I'm sure if you read what message I just left for Chanson you will find some of my … what can we call it, -smiles slightly- enlightenment? Think of that, an enlightened vampire. Isn't that a tad contradictory somehow? No, perhaps not. We are what we are, and we must come to find sensibility and purpose in our existence long after the need and urge for the blood has passed and left us something other than what we were originally.

I think of this message from Khayyam, since you mentioned him. I think it fits.

"I sent my Soul through the Invisible,

Some letter of that After-life to spell,

And by and by my Soul returned to me,

And answered "I Myself am Heav'n and Hell."

That is but one reason you, mortals, are beautiful and endearing. Another reason is, in some, the ability to leave simple little words as you have here, infused with a higher understanding, yet without sounding pretentious. It makes us (me) smile.