I'm glad that you decided to in some sense face your fears. It's a very valid thing to do, you know? You say correctly that storms are capable of inspiring both awe and fear, but it seems to me that most worthwhile things have that potential. Many things that at first seem forbidding or over powerful turn out to be full of raw beauty, if only you look closer.

Of course really I'm sure most of us in the Family understand that we don't need a glided invitation to attend any function here, yet it is still nice to receive them. Many people I know had a good time, and I don't think it was or is a bad idea overall to have such events, though every week or every other week even might detract from their "special" feel I think. -winks- Remember Cherie, surprise is the best element. As for my making a proper entrance, well, I have to confess that I didn't read it in any suggestion you had posted. I've been around to enough online get-togethers that I suppose I just did what comes naturally by now, and naturally enough, I'm known to make an entrance.

You say:
I feel at times strongly that something of you is beseeching for recognition.Oh I mean not to imply I am special and can fix whatever is wrong. No, I mean that it is akin to a light beacon that only some can see.Is it for certain that the beacon comes from within you?

Empathetic, are you? Then you might be at least partially right in these thoughts you have. Am I looking for recognition? Some would argue that is my character, that I'm always looking for validation, acceptance, and to be noticed, and that if I don't I'll demand and act out until I receive it for better or worse. That kind of recognition, that "Oh look, it's Lestat and all that name means," isn't precisely what I'm after with all the prophetic whisperings I've been doling out. Maybe what I'm after is just to be heard, and understood as I move with whatever this is that leads me and seems to put such thoughts and words into my head that they may and do come out here for everyone to read. Is it a light or a beacon only some can see? Oh yes, I do believe that. It would be impossible for every one here, or anywhere to understand my passing raptures. What a thing it might be if everyone did, can you imagine? Mass enlightenment. Might I be then accused of being the next incarnation of .. what was that man's name, the one who had his followers drink the magic juice of death, you know they called it kool-aid in Guyana? Jones, wasn't that it? Ah but you have to wonder, or at least I do, about the mentality behind cultism, fanaticism, religious fervor… all of that. People so desperately need and want validation, belief, and proof of faith. Can what I'm seeing and saying to anyone here who takes the time to meditate and understand my words offer Nirvana? I can't say, can I? What I can say is that this feeling, these things I offer are real, and they are simple truths that feel like blessings inside me, and that is something I haven't experienced in a long time, if ever. If I can in any way convey that, and in quiet, honest dictation, share it, then how can I resist?

Now I read your words to me, and hope that given all that I said to Ava in the above reply, you can understand that you don't really have to try so hard I think. Perhaps that is the secret of so many things, do you suppose? If we merely are, and go along, just being and listening, and moving with time, maybe that in itself can be our teacher, who knows?

I loved your description of this special place, and believe me, it did do well to convey your thoughts. I could picture it quite clearly you know. The spongy earth and moss, the way time seems to fall upon you, as if to say, "Ah, so you've finally arrived, I was wondering when you'd get here." And then the trees swishing, their wood warming inside, cracking softly on the evening breeze in a whispered conspiracy, like they've known all along you would find this secret place because those who deserve it, sooner or later always do.

Thank you for sharing, my friend, and as your time allows, so shall I be here.

Don't faint darling girl, for it would be only too tempting for me to scoop you up in these arms of mine and take you away so that I might discover what thoughts and longings you've had for so long. Welcome to this place, and I'm sure we'll have many conversations along the way. I look forward to it, don't you?

You say:
I know that you watched your family/friends when you were first turned, and you went back for your mother, but when did you stop? Do you still think of them a lot, or had you ever thought to trace as Maharet did? Perhaps I'm sounding naieve as ever right now. Trust me when I say this Lestat. I know that you do not always do what it is you want to do. I realize you seek goodness and all of the stuff that comes with it. Is that not what Nicolas saw in you as well?? You've tried to please all of your fleglings, it seems at times you want to please us, you wanted to please the audiences as all actors want to do.

These things you ask aren't so easy to explain, not for the fact that they dredge up anything painful. Too much time really has passed, for the most part for me to wince over words. When did I stop thinking of the mortals I'd left behind in that other life, or that other world? Not for a long time. Of course once I had Gabrielle, it was enough, and the relative amazement of her transformation both physical and emotional was a distraction for me that allowed the other world to fall away. There was, additionally, the encounter with Armand as I've written, and the wraiths of the old coven which prevented much lamentation for things in my past.

What Nicolas saw in me I can't say. There are times even now I think on him, and that… does make me wince, so I'll leave it alone.

I have tried to please them all, yes, as I try to please you here in small, perhaps insignificant ways, yet I please myself more, or really there is no point. Above all Gretchen, what a good actor wants more than to please his audience, is for them to -feel- him, to understand him, and to BE him, just for a little while. Remember that.

Where does your quote come from? I'm always interested in knowing and it's so good to hear you won't be shy for much longer.

Indeed it did turn out to be a long bit of expression you left for me, but grate on my nerves, no, it did not. So long as there are worthwhile comments and conversations to be had, how can I mind? Of course I suppose that means it's subjected to my sense of what is and isn't "worthy", and some here dislike that, but what -everyone- should remember is that I will usually converse and take the time to reply with courtesy so long as I'm not wasting my time or saying things I've stated before over and over again. That's not so horrid, is it? Who likes doing that? That you find some meaning and passing amusement in my offerings is more than enough reason to leave them, and yes, you may keep any "quotations" you like. Now I go on with what I might have to say to you, picking and choosing as I go along:

You say that I like having the attention of all of you here and in the most basic way, I can't and won't deny the appeal of it, but read over the last two replies I just left and hopefully you'll see it's more than just conceited desire.

"A kiss should make you forget everything in the world but keeping that kiss." - Oh yes, how very true. A kiss should be fully able to stand on its own and render each participant breathless. Though my capacity and interest in other areas is, has been and will be debated throughout history, I'll absolutely confess to a love of long, sensual, most intimate kissing that is, all on its own, enough.

About the television tantrum? I don't recall what it was that set me off, but probably some lack of worthwhile programming, or advertising which can send me into a diatribe due to the absolutely insulting way it capitalizes on people's fears and ignorance. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with clever marketing. It serves me well, but then mine are far subtler than what the latest infomercial might offer. I didn't destroy those sets I think, I recall just leaving them there knowing someone would take them who wanted them more than I did.

Chris Angel, yes, I did go to his page and I'm sure he is most amazing in person, not to mention more than attractive in a darkly alluring way. I'll have to look for him! And yes your sentiments on Mr. Rice are better late than never. I know Anne appreciates all who have said as much.

Lastly, I'm pleased to hear that your stream once more is beginning to flow, as you say. It's not a bad analogy you know. I believe there is a force within each of us much like a stream that sometimes develops into an ocean. Ha. But then sometimes does it not dry up into a puddle as well, I say to myself? To continue the metaphor, at times climbing the mountains are necessary to allow the flow, down and out, and also to see what lies around you, and how far you have come.

Be well on the journey, Gypsy.

I think that it's natural, especially for those of a certain age group or mindset to feel "Well I've been hurt before only because I cared, so now I will just close myself off, and how wonderful, I won't be hurt again!" - But that thought is a lie, just like so many that mortals, and perhaps even immortals tell themselves. In slamming the door, the hand is caught and the heart is locked away like a foolish child who's only mistake was innocent faith, and isn't that pain of a different nature, to deprive yourself of the most basic human need. Don't be a martyr for the sake of pride.

I've said before that I don't know whether that story will ever be completed. She's safe now, and living a life she never would otherwise have had, and for me that's enough. I know, you all might want more, but that will have to suffice for now. It's easy for some on reading all of the prolific details I've offered in the books to think I just sit down and pen stories and events in one whole sitting, but more than often that isn't the case. Perhaps I shouldn't leave just a partial bit for people to read, but then you know I like teasing.

Well, no… If I'd wanted to disclose who called me, I would have, don't you agree? It was a mortal I've known for some time now, who moved to the West, and that's all I'll say. Allow me my little secrets when I share so much of myself, oui?

As for the avatar, poof it is gone. It was amusing enough and yes I do love causing a commotion as Madonna might say, but surely you ladies (and gentlemen?) have better things to do than focus on a blinking facsimile of my body?

Ah but you are "off-putting", and well you know it! I would venture to say that you are ahead in the "competition", but then I have to wonder what you and SuperVixen would have to say to each other then? Would there be a vicious fight that a crowd would pay to see? Ah what difficulties I can and do create! Well, as I've told you, I'd like reading your thoughts, stream or no stream, to use the aforementioned metaphor once again, and I know that somewhere, sooner or later you will leave them for me.

Now it has been a good long time since you've stopped by, hasn't it? However, I don't think for some reason that you could have nothing interesting to say. I'll wait for it, dear girl, whenever you're ready to leave it!

You say:
….I am sure you are familar with the sensation of recoiling back into one's self and observing the spinning world as through a veil of dark gauze.

… I even have an effigy of you a corner of my studio on the floor. An old portait I did in the early nineties. I am not sure why I am hesitant to show it to you. I use the excuse I have no good photos of it and so forth to translate it to this electronic medium but that *is* only an excuse. Something stays my hand.

… But back to the problem( at least for me) at hand. And that is my seeming unability to find intriguing questions to throw at you.I know I have some..I must. I can't simply be relying on imangined conversation with you all these years. I ask myself, am I afraid of what you may say...will your responses not meet up to built up expectations. I then chastise myself. I have read all your words to others and pondered them and I have never been...I dare say..dissapointed with anything you have relayed. But perhaps it is like we have said before, words are not always needed with us.

That veil, how it can be so dark and hazy, or thin and silken like a fevered dream. I know it, but fortunately, not lately. Oh no, not at all and though I am ecstatic to not have been in that funky hold for some time past, I can and do feel for the Sea of Whispering Dreams, as one of my fledglings refers to it, though your consciousness may be not so vacant and indifferent as what that place and named loss of emotion is to us. I hope your situation is resolved and once more you are able to find the treatment that is best able to help you. I hate to see you suffer, though I won't deny in some right, it is always a garment you've worn beautifully.

That effigy, though I'd like to see it, something stays your hand for a reason Aaron. Keep it close and your own as you might the long hours of conversation, unspoken, unwritten and gone without witness, that you and I have shared in your secret spaces over the years.

Lastly, you should know that you don't have to have anything rampant and prolific to say in your words here. I've never found inane drivel from you Aaron, and I don't expect that I will. Remember what I told you and Antinoo and anyone who has ever taken a much needed sabbatical from posting here… complicated minds need that nourishment, and when again you're ready to come back and speak, I'm here listening, and you know that. Trust that you are enough without the extra added effort, for sometimes too much color distorts the canvas, yes my friend?

You worry too much dear girl. I merely asked out of curiosity and nothing more. You're welcome to come to the chat of course. I'm glad to see more people in there with the passing weeks.

Dennis and I had a great time while unsuccessfully trying to pass ourselves off as fellow Irishmen, Patrick and Sean but then again, with all the stout and ale flowing around us, and all the other ethnicities trying at least for one weekend to be Irish, it hardly mattered.

I do like the words I find, but I don't like repeating myself over and over, thus wasting my time. Though I have a bounty of that very thing, redundancy has never been my favorite pastime. You can choose to give up, or you can choose to understand.

Now at last after all I've written tonight, I come to this, your post. I don't mean any offense or disrespect either, but I'm definitely even more the type not to remain quiet.

I'm not stupid either. Why don't you just come out and say you're not pleased with how I answered dear MAD? It strikes me as funny though, because you are brand new here, and yet you say you've read through my answers to the posts I've received. First of all, there was just last week a crash of this section of the forum that wiped out all the immortals answers but for those which had been wisely saved, as had the ones I've posted and locked. If you had seen my replies before that and also…. At the other forum before we even came to this one, you would have seen me state, at least six or seven times, heartfelt and explicitly, that if I overlook your post to me - especially if it was only one or two lines of nothing in particular --- I'm sorry beyond all logical measure, but that's just how it is, and as they say, stuff happens, yes? Move on, post again to me, cluck your tongue and let's all have a good old chuckle.

No, that's now how it is though, people have to be dramatic and lay their hands over their foreheads sighing and so on. Do you think I should have to have incessant patience for such antics when I've said at length that it's not so damn serious to begin with, and secondly that I apologize in advance if it does happen? No, I don't, and I won't, and if anyone wants to leave or walk away like a child because they can't handle that, then that isn't my problem, it's their own. Frankly, really, if any one of the administrators, myself included wanted to, we could put an age restriction on this board for the very argument you mention, but we don't. If people aren't old enough and mature enough to handle the occasional and unbelievably minimal rebuff, then frankly maybe they shouldn't be here.

You read over my posts, you see the outright eloquence and time I put into most of them, the intimate, personal revelations I'm sharing, and yet you criticize me for this that you don't really even know about in full? How did the post you're referring to (to me) come off as being full of undying love and admiration? You don't know the whole of the tiny dialogue so you shouldn't assume you do. No one should take that liberty.

I don't in the least discount the affection that is brought my way here in this place. If I did, I wouldn't be here. What you need to remember is that I am here period, at all, just as Armand, Marius, and any other Immortal is, because we choose to be, and as such, who and what and how we reply is left to our discretion. There is just no need for such a stir when something has already been explained more than enough, and when the majority of my replies are left with more patience and time allotted to them than should ever really be expected in the first place. I do it because I enjoy it, and when I don't, when I'm frustrated, that comes out too. For better or worse, I am myself. I strongly and emphatically suggest you remember that fact.

-breathes out-

Ok, well, everyone wants a slice, but my oh my how sweet it might be to have the whole pie and be able to put it piece by piece into your mouth, wouldn't you agree? Is that the final reward for the little tug of war you say is going on subliminally with yours truly? Ha. You know I do love it, I have to say. How it amuses me.

Now, let me think.. If a human was disfigured, would those deformities be eliminated with the transformation? Ah now why didn't any of us think to test that theory out on someone like Quasimodo or that Elephant Man? Of course, can you imagine Quasimodo going proverbially …. "apeshit" with fangs and the whole bit? -shudders- Now there's a thought. I guess that's why one of the supposed rules of transmitting the blood to another is that they be beautiful to begin with. Oh yes, I know, it has more to do with mocking God and all of that, but when you consider the image I just presented, it makes a lot of sense.

How I agree that having several sweet little moments is often better than having one ultimate bliss, which I know, negates my pie comment above, but then maybe I wasn't speaking about pie at all, was I? Maybe now even, whole and fully, moist and delicious I'm once again referring to the comfort of sweet little kisses in a darkened room. One can sometimes not be sure with me, what I'm alluding to, would you agree, but I know your heated dreams, Malice, and so I'll indulge you here with such whispers and ideas. After all, they're not so different than my own desires and everyone at least thinks they know how much I like to indulge myself!

As for the rules of love, ha. Now I know there were such things, but isn't it funny if you were to make such a list today, or to ask many people to make such a list of rules, what varying answers you would get? My own rules of love? Ah, something I might have to think on and list on another night perhaps. For now yes, don't expect me to follow any dictates when it's much more traditional for me to rewrite and rearrange them altogether.

Oh I remember you, little one. Now do me a small favor, and tell me how and why you chose this nickname? Do you do particular spells for the weather? I've heard there are such things, and I as always, am curious.