Bending the lines between virtual reality and reality with the story of Lasambra and Seventhsin

So….. it’s been quite awhile since I wrote any semblance of an update. Here’s what’s been going on in life, inspiration, and word-crafting (long post inc): 

I traveled to meet Val at her home. It was the greatest trip ever, and it was even better than I expected. While I’ve always known that Val is an amazing person, she proved to me even more how great of a friend to me she truly is. She was waiting on me outside of the airport when I arrived, and when she got out of the car as I walked up to it, we looked at each other and laughed. She said, “You really are short!” and I said, “You really are tall!” We laughed again, and fell in just like the old friends we are.

It was early in the morning, so we went to get breakfast at IHOP. I told her about eating there with Seventh when he was here… she said, “Wow, talk about irony. That’s really strange that we decided to come here without even realizing it.” She was right, but I giggled. We talked about everything we normally talk about, and about what we were going to do each day of my trip. She had planned everything out and told me about our plans. The day of my arrival was for driving around the “shithole” of the closest town she lives near, and I laughed at her description of it. It used to be a thriving industrial town, but had since fallen into dismay and disrepair. We laughed at the “shithole” comment again while I snapped a picture. We were in a flower garden that was beautiful and smelled amazing, and we took several pictures of each other. At one point, we took a picture of ourselves only she had to stand two steps down from me so that it wouldn’t look strange. 🙂 

She then drove me through the surrounding towns where Seventh, Aeneima, and her lived and thrived during the time that I knew Seventh. We also went through a drive-thru convenience store! I’ve never been to one of these, and it was a completely foreign concept when Seventh first told me about it. Totally amazing though…. you tell them what you want, and they bring it to you… no need to park! lol We snapped pictures as needed for my creativity, and after seeing those places my writers’ block was immediately cured. Val was right about that… she knew that it would help to clear my head. And I wanted to see these places during this year of my life because it was during this year that Seventh originally came into my life, both through WoW and in reality. 

I also met Val’s sister and some of her extended family. Her sister was a lot of fun to hang out with too! That night we went to dinner, where I met Aeriel whom I’d also played with in TBC. It was great putting a face to a voice, even though I’d seen her in pictures. 

Val took me to the largest roller coaster amusement park in America , and that was a blast! I rode the rides with her husband because she didn’t want to ride any of them. Instead he won her a bunch of stuffed animals including a Domo!!!! And…. I pansied out of going on the largest roller coasters there… I went on the second largest, and skipped one that went straight up and over because I knew that I wouldn’t be able to handle going straight down…. her husband didn’t want to go on it because repairmen had been working on it for several hours throughout the day. 

The next day we went to breakfast with her cousin’s family at a place I’d never heard of. It was fantastic! We relaxed around the house during the afternoon, and ice cream was in order… that was also fantastic! It was a local place to her township, and dammit I wish we had those here. 🙂 That night we went downtown to go to some clubs and just dance and let loose. The first two places we went were mostly dead, so we packed up and went to hers and her sister’s favorite place. They said there weren’t as many people as had been there the weekend before, but we still had an awesome time. The bartender was pouring drinks of pure liquor and the dj was playing teh hawt tunes, so we drank and danced. We were there for several hours and shut the place down. Val’s sis was hungry when we left, so we hit up a Taco Bell off of the freeway, and then drove the long way back to the house. The sky was so clear and the wind was so calming. 

The next day was psychic reading and camping day! Val was very excited to take me camping; I wasn’t so sure about camping since I’ve not been since I was a child. I was excited to be doing something different for sure, and once we got there and got everything settled, I remembered why I once loved camping. Even if there are people surrounding your campsite, it’s still peaceful to be out in nature and away from the hubbub of the city noises. We had “hobo sandwiches,” which were completely new to me and completely tasty. Val and her family then took me to the spillway where there are fish galore, and you can buy bread to feed them. The rain picked up just as we pulled into a parking space, but no one was really bothered by it. We went over to the spillway, and Val and her husband bought a couple loaves of bread for us to throw in. The fish jumped all over each other to get to the small pieces we threw in – it was one of the funniest things I’ve seen in nature. We stayed there throwing in bread for thirty minutes before we headed back to the campsite. We hung out, built the fire back up, and Val prepared some more “hobo” sandwiches… but this time they were dessert sandwiches with chocolate, cherries,  lemon filling and any combination thereof. Those were also amazing!

As the night darkened, we nearly fell asleep by the fire… Val said that she wanted to go for a drive, and invited me to go with her. We drove around for several hours talking about everything, and when we returned to the campsite everyone was sleeping. In our rush to get out of the house that morning, we’d forgotten sleeping things. With a lack of blankets and pillows, Val said, “It’s not that late and I’d prefer to sleep in my bed.” I replied to her, “I’m okay with driving back if you are. I’d prefer to sleep on your couch I think.” We drove back to her house, and proceeded to pass out. 

On my last day there, we had planned to visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Instead, we slept in really late because of the busy-ness of our weekend. We’d discovered that we’d photographed the wrong house for Seventh, so we’d planned to drive back out there to photograph the correct house. Due to our sleeping in, we decided to just hang out in her town until it was time for me to go back to the airport. We got lunch at a little Italian place that made a killer chicken parmesan sandwich, and drove to where Seventh lived during our relationship. Val insisted that we go to the famous candy store just over the border, so we visited there and I took pictures. It was a cute little store with all kinds of candy and gifts inside. I was trying to find my mother something, but didn’t really find anything that screamed, “This is where I was!” We drove back to her house to pick up my stuff, and headed to the airport. 

As I said previously, this trip was one of the greatest trips I have ever been on. I have cut down the expansiveness of everything we did for time’s sake, but it was truly amazing to spend real time with Val and to get to know her on a personal level… it was like meeting up with an old friend for a weekend. And that’s just what we were and are: old friends. We met in a time of turmoil and insanity, but I count her as one of best friends. Most people don’t see you in hard times and in good times, but she’s known me through both and supported me; I can only hope that I have done the same. My trip to see her gave me a sense of purpose, opened my eyes to new places and people, and helped me overcome my writers’ block. I will never be able to thank her enough for supporting my decision to fly there, and for allowing me to sleep on her (uber-comfy) couch for that weekend. 

❤ – Las