If you worked in my building, if you saw me on the streets, if you met me at a party, would you ever guess I write this blog and post these pictures and do what I secretly do?

Probably not.

Outside of my partner, no one in “real life” knows about this blog. This is the case for many many (most) blogs I read. It is the case for many others, this blurry line between “real 3D life” and the virtual reality world we have created between IM and email and blogs and commenting and Twitter. So when I was at the party back in November, it was very surreal to be meeting these people whom, for some, I knew intimately from the neck down – “It’s so nice to put a face with the tits!” – and more surreal to be called Lilly as if it were my real name. But I got used to it, I got used to hearing it. It’s not a huge deviation from my real first name anyways.

Last night I met Naughty Secretary, whom I’ve been chatting up online for a number of months. We only live a few hours apart, it’s a wonder we waited so long! But we’re lazy. The reason for the monumental occasion was her birthday party.

First, let me ask this to other bloggers who’ve met bloggers: Were you surprised by how….”normal” the other person looked? I mean many of us post risque or pornographic photos, artistic nudes, words to make your mother blush. But you wouldn’t peg us into that at first look or first conversation even. Right? Have you ever been let down? Expected someone more flashy? Or do you, like me, merely sit there in the quiet moments and think “But you don’t look kinky!!” (as Catalina said of Nadia‘s MasterDoc when meeting him at the NYC party). Take, for example, NS’s man. As I played Go Fish with this guy, glared at him for taking my damn 8’s, or merely listened to him in conversation with others, the contrast between what I knew about him from her and what I saw in front of me proved moreso that you really really cannot peg kinky unless they’re dressed in kink leather gear or something. So I wonder what people think of me.

As I said, no one in my “real life” knows about my blog. When I might speak of those I’ve met online because of the blog, I’m always at a loss to say how I know them. I usually gloss over that. But at NS’s party, everyone there knew or would know that she has a sexblog and writes erotica. I was also introduced as such to everyone there at some point in the evening. It was surreal. Did they think “Really?? Her????”.

She’s awesome to hang out with, by the way. But no I wouldn’t peg her without knowing that she writes erotica so professionally. So deftly does she blur the line between fact and fiction on her blog that one never knows which is which.

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I got a new cell phone Friday. This was a harried occasion, I found out from the person who’s plan I had been on that they decided not to renew their contract. I couldn’t complain, I wasn’t paying for it (call it compensation for 3 years of brutal hell working for the man), but 2 days notice leaves one in a bit of a bind.

I really wanted a Blackberry but couldn’t yet afford the monthly plan for it – Later this year I hope to, and I might need more internet access in a phone because I still have no earthly idea what will happen when my department merges with another and we move to a different building. My job duties will likely change and there’s a decent chance I’ll lose internet access. I’ve mentioned it before. It makes me realize how damn attached I am to it. But it’s not something one can ask in their interviews for a new position/job – “Will I have internet access here so I can fuck around during the workday here and there (and everywhere)?”

So now I have this cool little AT&T Quickfire phone – all sorts of new for me with its QWERTY keypad and touchscreen. The photos that it takes are bigger than my last phone, I’m sure you’ll appreciate them more. I had originally gone with AT&T because I thought I’d want an iPhone. Indeed there are all these cool apps and the camera is awesome and blahblahblah. BUT it’s entirely touchscreen, you cannot use a stylus, and this phone I have now is making me feel like I have fat fingertips. So I do believe I would launch my iPhone across the room in short order, therefore, a Crackberry is the most advanced I’ll likely ever go.

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My patience is waning. I am getting bored more easily these days. I have become fickle and keeping my attention is not an easy feat. I will flippantly cut a blog from my public or feed reader blogroll. Quit following someone’s updates on Twitter. Glare suspiciously at the constant 1-2 dozen of people sitting there in my Twitter queue that want to be allowed to follow my updates and I reject most of them. If I don’t know you or know of you, it’s not real likely, honestly. I view Twitter differently than a lot of people, I think.

I am removing people from my IM buddy lists and my cell phone and email contacts. I am culling. I don’t know why, or what the end result will be. S, for example, disappeared around the holidays. Only to come back a few weeks later all apologies and valid (family) reasons. Fine….but then he’d disappear again. Come back again, disappear again. I’d hear from him for an email or two in 24 hours and then nothing for 2 weeks. And to be honest, I just lost interest. I’m not willing to get invested in a play relationship or friendship who disappears more than Houdini. Sigh….next!

As I trim the dead I realize that the ones I am keeping in contact with are the important ones, the only ones who really matter. I am not a social butterfly, I keep my circle tight. And even within that circle is an inner circle of which there are only a handful – at the end of the day only their prescence matters.

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This is the “Sunday-morning-I’m-not-totally-sober-or-awake-and-the-bed-is-comfy-but-here-try-out-my-new-phone” photo. Thrilling, eh?