At this point, I feel compelled to back up a bit , back to the age of 14 and write about something that I had left out.
Not long after I bought the maiden and dragon statue, I returned to that peculiar little shop and bought a statue of a sorceress with a raven on her arm. Beside her on a rocky ledge was a curiously empty nest ; that particular part of the statue seemed so strange and unasthetic at the time.
I also painted her and placed her to the left side of the maiden and the dragon.

Correcting this, I feel no need to re-visit that part of my childhood now, and instead continue this story at the age of 20.

Age 20 - at all places in all times

Feeling quite under the weather and bored, I decided to do a search for a video game series I particularly enjoyed. Typing in the keywords and selecting a site that seemed to fit the bill, I was quite taken aback when I realized it had little to do with the game itself - instead, it was a website devoted to astral projection.
By this time, you may be asking why keywords for a particular video game would bring up a site like this - the explanation is as follows : one of the people posting on this particular site made the claim that he could astrally project into this video game world at will.
I shook my head in disbelief at the insanity of the notion - and at the time I was quite ill and frequently in the hospital, so I began following the thread out of amusement and wondering just how far it would go.
The person's explanation (whom I will now call Jay for the sake of convenience) was that worlds that we dont even think are real somehow influence this one at times, which inspires artists to write about them , paint etc, without fully knowing that they have an objective reality of their own.
Over the weeks that passed, I got to know this particular individual a bit better, and learned a few odd things about him. No, perhaps the word "odd" really doesn't work in this instance, I may as well use the term "bizarre" instead.
Jay claimed that he was partially human, and partially dragon, What he meant was that while his body was human, his astral self was that of a dragon.I , of course, still thought it was insane and very entertaining , although I didnt explicitly state to him exactly how I felt, but let the story carry me along.
The story of what happaned to Jay and I would be in and of itself very long and only briefly touches upon the topic of this memoir and has been introduced for reference purposes, especially the concept I have introduced.

However, this next installment is where my story properly and truly begins.

Age 20 - and your point is..?

Prior to when I had met Jay, but before I had discovered that strange little website, I found myself quite amused in a debate chatroom.
A friend of mine was blathering on about a guy she found particularly attractive - that is, before he Imed her and told her she looked like a man.
I don't think anyone alive would think my friend looked like a man and quickly filed his outburst underneath the "troll" category.
What surprised me was that he had Imed me next and tried a similiar tactic.
"Oh, i suppose your opinion isn't relevant, since i'm a lesbian."
Not strictly true, but I always love having that particular explanation on hand.Eventually left me alone, acting slightly confused.

Age 21 - Debate chat, continued.

Another day wasted in debate chat , but incredible fun, I listened as a pagan type elucidated his belief in gods, but in this case, he thought that there was no real difference between thoughts and reality.If we thought that a god existed, it did, regardless.
I had changed my name from on ethat began with -sparklin , to a name that began with -techno , and to my surprise, someone with a name that started with -techrelent was also arguing with this same person. I was amused and Imed them.
As we began talking, I realized this was the exact same person who had started trouble with me about six months ago, although their name was optionexplicit at the time.I didn't come out and ask the person anything because I didn't want them knowing I knew. It was a very strange situation, and normally I think I would have been quite harsh and abrasive with the person, but since i was quite ill at the time and very bored, I was curious as to what direction it might take.
I don't think I ever could have guessed that particular direction, though.

Age 20 - Hello, Shane

That's the point where I think our formal introduction began.He was extremely bright, bored, abrasive, and very blunt. I had all of the last three covered, although I don't really think I could have handled the type of computer dexterity that Shane possessed.He wasn't a hacker per se, but could do all sorts of little tricks that soon convinced me he knew his stuff - and ii'm not easily impressed, ive been around script kiddies and wannabe hackers, I was raised by a computer technician.
Besides his work as a programmer and other computer odds and ends, "Shane": had some most unusual interests which took me off guard.I didn't discover this all at once, however.

Age 21 - the woman through the mirror

One evening, I was watching Shane on webcam. I can't really figure out how we got so close so quickly, especially considering how he had eventually admitted to being the person who had insulted both me and my friend, but it did occur.It was quite late, and i almost began to drift off, but not quite.As i focused my eyes back on his image, I saw the faint image of a woman embracing him. I blinked again, she disapepared - although I had gotten a fairly good look at her features.
"Do you have a girlfriend?"
"Yeah.But she's not here right now."
"Who was that, then?"
"..What do you mean?"
I told him what the woman was wearing but I didn't go into great detail about her appearance. He sent me a file of a woman he had been drawing that looked very similiar to the woman I thought I had seen.
"Oh..that looks like Kristen, we broke up a long time ago."
We discussed Kristen a bit and then I shifted the topic to independent movies. Since he possessed a sick sense of humor, as did I , i told him about a movie I had recently seen called Gummo that may be up his alley. We talked a bit more and then went to bed.

Age 21 - Kristen, the weave tightens

A couple of days later he discussed meeting up with a fellow who, for lack of a better way to put this, sold pot.Anyway, while discussing man's best friend with this person, the guy abruptly asked him if he had ever seen a movie called Gummo - and they discussed it a bit, Eventually, Shane found out that this person had married Kristen, the girl I thought I had seen in the webcam just a couple of days ago.
Of course, this obviously sounds like it's a lie - I thought so too, until it started happening to me.
Shane also told me that it wasn't unusual to dream of this woman or and have her do something similiar to what she did in the dream a day or so later. He told me she had had extensive occult experienced, and as I learned, so did he.

This story is very long, so i'll take a break for a while, and then resume the rest. By this point, I think I am about twenty five percent through.

Age 21- the Knight of Wands

At some point, I had a feeling that Jay's peculiarities and Shane's eccentricity could possibly be tied together. I started tentatively asking him questions about all things draconian.
"Have you ever felt as if you had a connection to dragons," I asked.
He took out a sheet of paper and began to draw a pentagram clutched by a dragon.
"I had almost forgotten this.."
He inscribed the word "Vovin" underneath the image.I understood right away what it was.
"When I was a kid, I always felt as if I had lost parts of my body that had been there before. Wings, a tail..I felt as if it was hard to keep my balance.As I got older, I put all of this stuff aside - became a suit, started making real money.You made me remember again."
Shane brought a box into his bedroom and began to pull out various articles.It was filled with journals - I saw at least 10 of them crammed inside that box, as well as other objects - the one that stands out the most distinctively in my mind today was a tarot card.
"The Knight of Wands,"I blurted out. "Why is this in the box?"
He paused, staring at it, and told me why.
"When I was in my teens I was in this occult group we called the nine - nine kids were in it, and each one of us chose a court card.This one was mine."
That particular card brought back old memories for me, as well.

Age 16 - Signs

Back when I had first broken up with my blond ex - i was a hysterical mess. Going into the reasons why isnt really important to this memoir, but suffice to say it was enough for my friend to drag out her tarot deck that she had just bought in an attempt to see what she could find in my future.
The person I would meet in my future was represented by the Knight of Wands.

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At this point , it seems almost as if I was seeking out such a thing. The experiences with my sister, with Shane, and stumbling across that strange website all happened out of the blue. I look back and wonder how someone, who, by default is on the skeptical side, could continuously fall into adventures such as these.
But enough reflection, I am trying to condense this story enough so that it doesn't turn into a novella.

Age 21 - Bring me to life

As my friendship, or whatever it was, with Shane progressed, I realized how terribly thin and weakened he looked.Even given his faults (he was rude, sometimes cold, and was eccentric to the extreme), I couldn't justify being a bystander.And besides, I enjoyed having a living person to experiment with.
After several inquiries about his health the picture began to surface.Not only had he used copious amonts of drugs in his past, especially Esctasy and Lsd, but presently smoked tobacco like a freight train.He slept only 3 hours a night,and the only food he consumed generally came out of cans.
My solution was fairly simple - I slowly coaxed him off of the piles of cigarettes he smoked, got him to pare down the pot usage a little, and taught him how to cook.This was a litlte more daunting than one might imagine. This is the man who thought okra was "exotic cucumbers", for crying out loud, and didn't even know what a turnip was!
For all his brilliance he was sorely lacking in several areas.
I would also write his grocery lists and watch him carefully in the kitchen while he prepared food according to my instructions. I was sickly and bored, and this amused me greatly. Incidentally and embarrassingly enough, this was one of the happiest times in my life.
Shane soon began to fill out, and even as cold as he was, he thanked me for what I had done and credited me for saving his life.
" I was trying to kill myself."he said. "You gave me a reason to want to live..I want to send you something.."
At first, I was very hesitant to receive something from a person online and he seemed extremely hurt that I didn't awnt to get his gift. Eventually, i relented.

Age 21 - the Gift

A couple of weeks later, my curiosity was satisfied. A large box arrived at my house from New England and was unceremoniously dumped on my bedroom floor. I opened it quickly.
Inside was a computer, complete with speakers and a keyboard, but what really caught my eye was a small golden envelope. I tore it open quickly and a round crytstal with silvery threads fell in my hand.
There was also a note inside a smaller white envelope, hastily stuffed into it, crumbled, and in Shane's peculiar, shaky handwriting.
It was rather short but contained layers of meaning in it, but I think I should explain precisely what this peculiar little round crystal was, and why he decided to give it to me.

Age 21 - The dragon's egg

When Shane was a teengaer, he scoured around in occult shops for his usual gear for the Nine.Seeing this peculiar little rock , he asked the owner how much it cost, to which the man replied that it was not for sale. Eventually though, he did buy it - and it became a very special object to him. It was shot through with titanium, which, i suppose, reminded him of a fertilized egg.
In a metaphorical way, he thought of the rock as his genssis, the place that he came from, and when he died, he hoped that his soul returned there. He kept it in a pouch around his neck for years, and also used it for scrying.
Looking at it, I walked over to my dragon and maiden statue. To my shock and surprise, the egg fit perfectly inside the empty nest of the sorceress statue.
Shane did not know about the empty sorceress nest, even though he was aware of the maiden and dragon statue that sat right beside it.
When I told him about it, he seemed a bit startled, but said it was as if it was meant to happen.
Doing a bit of backtracking, we realized that I had bought the statues around the same time that he had bought the Dragon's egg.
He had given me the egg in a promise that one day we would meet.
In the possibility that I would pass away (since I was of very frail health) he insisted that it stay with me always.

Stunned, I considered the peculiar possibility that things had been set in motion before we had even met.I had no idea that this was just the entrance to the rabbit hole, and that things would become 'curiouser and curiouser' as time progressed.

As I write this now, I feel exhausted with the weight of memory. That's an odd statement: to be exhausted with the weight of memory, but the emotion evoked by particular memories can send our nervous systems into overdrive.


Age 22 - pawn on a cosmic chessboard

From then on, we would both notice curious synchronicities, which would come in waves. For instance, one day I was reminiscing over how much I dearly loved this eccentric, rude beast which had somehow waltzed into my life while I was talking to another friend about the Afghani Buddhas which had been blown up .
Later, Shane told me me had had the exact same feeling while waking up at the same time, glanced down at the floor and saw an issue of a magazine he had been reading what that image as the cover.
Once, as I read the synopsis of an anime series I had wanted to watch for a while (and this series reminded me of myself, not only the main character but the people that surrounded her).As I read a review of a later episode of this series, Shane talked about how he was interested in a certain technology he would some day like to create, which involved the melding of human amd machine. I jokingly called him Professor H___ (fill in the rest of his name here).To my amazement, the next portion I read about this particular series was by a professor with the same last name, only with three more letters added to it, creating the exact same technology. He was not aware I was reading about this series at the time.
"I know we got off on a bad note when I first met you, Britt, and I fucking hate chat, I mean it, i fucking hate it..But I felt like I had to come back and find you and I don't know why..I just woke up one morning months later and felt as if, if I didn't find you, something terrible would happen."
In the earlier stages of this tale,such as the bit about Kristen, it did seem as if Shane could have been making this up - but since some of the peculiar synchronicity started happening to me, the more I felt as if I were some pawn in a game I couldn't fathom.
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I have read the thread on this particular tribe about the hypersigil in a book known as the Invisibles - and, it is possible Shane experimented with such things in his peculiar past - but is it even possible to set in motion a chain of synchronicities starting from a time in which we had never met, a time in which we both bought the statues and the dragon's egg?Can two people who have never met before be connected in such a way?The possibilities boggled my mind, and I also wondered if I was a bit touched in the head for even considering this.
I will post more as I regain more of a foothold of the intricacies that transpired.