An apology...

As anyone close to me knows, for days I have been grappling with how best to reconcile myself to the people of Second Life, to acknowledge my own wrongdoing and still to maintain my focus on the work as a self promoting whore *coughs* I mean fashionista.

Others are presenting my defense on the facts, the law and the ToS. Nothing I can say now can add to that. What I want the Second Life people to know, what I want the Mean Girls to know is that I am profoundly sorry for all I have done wrong in words and deeds. I never should have misled the grid, the Mean Girls, my friends or my family. Quite simply, I gave in to my shame.

I have been condemned by my accusers with harsh words, and while it's hard to hear yourself called deceitful and manipulative, I remember Ben Franklin's admonition that our critics are our friends, for they do show us our faults.

Mere words cannot fully express the profound remorse I feel for what both the grid and the fashion community is going through and for what members of the Mean Girls are now forced to deal with. These past days have been a torturous process of coming to terms with what I did. I understand that accountability demands consequences, and I'm prepared to accept them. Painful though the condemnation of society would be, it would pale in comparison to the consequences of the pain I have caused my family. There is no greater agony.

Like anyone who honestly faces the shame of wrongful conduct, I would give anything to go back and undo what I did. But one of the painful truths I have to live with is the realty that that is simply not possible. An old and dear friend of mine recently sent me the wisdom of a poet, who wrote, "teh lolcat what haz teh cheezburger, is happeh, but teh powah that cumz from teh cheezburger iz unwashed by all teh tearz".

So nothing -- not tears, nor wit, nor lolcat, nor cheezburger -- can alter what I have done. I must make my peace with that. I must also be at peace with the fact that the public consequences of my actions are in the hands of the people of Second Life and their representatives in the Mean Girls. Should they determine that my errors of word and deed require their rebuke and censure, I am ready to accept that.

Meanwhile, I will continue to do all I can to reclaim the trust of the metaverse and to serve them well. We must all return to the work, the vital work of strengthening our community for the new windlight. Our grid has wonderful opportunities and daunting challenges ahead. I intend to seize those opportunities and meet those challenges with all the energy and ability and strength Philip Linden has given me. That is simply all I can do, the work of the fashionable society.

Thank you very much.