Okay, the word "shibari" has now officially jumped the shark. Not that this isn't a very cute dress, because it is. I'd wear it. But when Saks Fifth Avenue is selling something called "Shibari Shift Dress", it's no longer an in-group sort of word.

A mere $1495. But I'm sure there will be knock-offs soon. I think it's highly amusing!

I was snowed in all day yesterday, which was slightly annoying, since I had a date I wanted to keep. But there was no way I was driving anywhere. True, I do have a four-wheel drive Audi, but four-wheel drive doesn't really help if all four wheels are on ice, a fact seemingly lost on many Seattle drivers I have seen spinning like roulette wheels on the slick hills.

However, I made the best of a quiet day at home. And I am proud to say that thus far, I have not verbally flayed anyone who started chirping at me about pretty the snow was. That has not always been the case, in winters gone by. But I am learning to be both compassionate and self-disciplined about the views of people who actually like this stuff.

However, if this snowbound nonsense keeps up, I would not push that with me. If I wanted non-stop Winter Wonderland, I'd have moved to Chicago instead of Seattle. I have a life to live, and places to go. Thus, when it snows, I would advise you to not discuss the weather with me, unless you're prepared to endorse my view that vast quantities of frozen water falling from the sky is only slightly better than, say, a rain of frogs.

Puck and I are so mean. Look what we did! But you know, if someone buys you a box of sixteen-gauge needles and gives them to you, well - what can one do? One has to use them. It would be a crime not to!

Click on the image if you dare. It's a big, big needle! That black thing is a clamp, by the way. Because if you're putting needles that big through nipples, it's important to get some tension on the flesh. Otherwise, it's hard to push the needle through quickly, and you get a sort of dragging effect, instead of the quick punch through the flesh that I enjoy.

Of course, I'm told there are people who like putting needles in really slowly. Now that's mean!

The latest in a web-series about polyamory, called "Family." This one has nudity, so it's not work-safe.
I will also remark that if one was conducting an secret affair, I would think that one would not talk about it loudly in a Pilates studio, in front of one's (clearly disapproving) trainer, as if she were a post or something. Regardless of the subject matter, I'd do something painful to someone like that just for the rudeness of acting as if I weren't there. I forsee this guy getting some comeuppance in future episodes.

Today I'm off to spend a few days with a friend, so while I finish preparing for that, here's a book I've been reading that I enjoyed greatly...

Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious by Gerd Gigerenzer

From Booklist: Trust your hunches, for intuition does have an underlying rationale, according to this accessible account from a German scientist of human cognition. Permeated with everyday scenarios, such as picking stocks, schools, or spouses, the book adopts an evolutionary perspective of how people act on the basis of incomplete information (usually successfully). He sets the table with an example of a baseball player pursuing a fly ball, who relies not on conscious calculation but on an evolved "gaze heuristic" to make the catch. Definitions of such rules of thumb dot the text, which Gigerenzer embeds amid his presentations of studies that indicate, for example, that financial analysts don't predict markets any better than partially informed amateurs. Explaining this as an outcome of a "recognition heuristic," Gigerenzer argues that knowing a little rather than everything about something is sufficient to take action on it. He forges on into medicine, law, and moral behavior, succeeding in the process in converting a specialized topic into a conduit for greater self-awareness among his readers.

Anyone who reads me knows I love books about how we make decisions, especially ways that aren't strictly rational. Sociology geek that I am, I'm a total sucker for any book that uses the word "heuristic" a lot. Talk academic to me, baby!

So yes, this is a more scholarly book than Malcolm Gladwell's stuff, although Gladwell says he was influenced by Dr. Gigerenzer's work. So while it doesn't click along at Gladwell's pace, it's still absorbing, if you enjoy learning why we do the things we do, and how we know how to do them.