One more family-holiday highlight: I turned my mother on to the Fatboy Slim music video, "Weapon Of Choice", which she loved. She has a major thing for men who dance. And like many people, she actually didn't know that Christopher Walken was a trained dancer. She insisted we watch it about four times in a row and I had to swear to send her the link for it. Very cute.

Okay, have to run, I'm gearing up for a very festive weekend indeed. Hopefully I'll get some pictures from the annual New Years Eve debauch that I can post...

New Column in The Stranger...

Today I fly home. My power is on, I'm not traveling anywhere for a while, and there are no major holidays coming up. I'm really, really looking forward to getting back to my usual happy, kinky routine...

Well, I had a nice Christmas day, and if you observe Christmas, I hope you did too. I’m not the biggest Christmas fan. Left to my own devices, I’d probably swap a gift or two with my loved ones and then spend the day hanging out quietly at home or going to a movie.

But my family makes a big deal out of it, so I go along. It’s interesting to be down in Georgia again. My relatives have been coming out to Seattle a lot lately, so it’s been two years since I visited. Max tells me that just a few short hours after we stepped off the plane, my southern accent was back in full force. I believe him – it took me some time to un-learn it when I moved north, but I didn’t want to sound like a hick. Thus, if you see me within a few days of my return Wednesday, don’t be surprised to hear me drawling and ya’ll-ing…

Notable moment: Max and I were at a large family party being given by my mother’s husband’s daughter. (That’s a mouthful, isn’t it? But saying “my stepsister” seems odd, given that my mom married this man when I was in my mid-twenties, and I hardly know her.) Anyway, suffice it to say that this lady and her husband are both gracious and genteel people, if rather conservative, and definitely not the sort to whom one would make lewd jokes. Max and I and a half dozen other people were sitting around the enormous mahogany dining-room table, finishing dessert after a buffet luncheon. Everyone was perfectly groomed and dressed in the usual way of well-to-do Atlantans, and everyone was, of course, on their very best social behavior.

Our host – who has the air of a man who might actually be a lot of fun if you got him alone and gave him a few drinks – was commenting on his impatience with their rambunctious pedigreed dog.

“You need to give Daisy her Christmas present,” his wife observed.

“I did!” He explained to the rest of us that he’d bought the dog an electric collar – the kind that gives the dog a small shock when it barks, thus inducing it to be quiet. Max and I exchanged glances. I own an electric dog collar, too. But I don’t put it on canines. I strap it around the genitals of human boys and zap them. It’s big fun.

The host went on.“And I put it on her, but it’s not working, Daisy's still out there barking like crazy.”

Without missing a beat, Max piped up. “Maybe she likes it.”

There was a momentary silence and then a titter of nervous laughter around the room, and I elbowed him under the table. My step-brother-in-law gave Max a look. “We’re not going to get into that conversation.”

But one corner of his mouth twitched.

It was sunny and seventy-something degrees on Tybee Island today. I could have gone swimming in the ocean.
Maybe I should come down for Christmas more often.

Spent a lovely day in Atlanta, and today I hop a plane over to Savannah to see my father. He actually lives on an island off the coast of Georgia, Tybee Island. Tybee is an interesting place in a time-capsule kind of way. Twenty years ago when my father bought his house there, it was a funky little beach town with a very sort of late-sixties look and feel to it. It was certainly not a moneyed place, not like Hiltonhead or Sea Island, and while it's slowly getting gentrified, it’s still pretty working-class. But he likes it, and the beach is gorgeous. I miss southeastern beaches.

Okay, last picture from the Malixe shoot, until I get back to Seattle and process some more…I think the three of these make a nice triptych.

I'm safely in Georgia. (That is, if one can ever be said to really be safe in Dixie when you're as big a flaming pervert as I am.) It was an uneventful flight - so I didn't leave bruises on Max's arm from squeezing it. At least not any serious ones. I'm a rather nervous flyer. But as long as I have half a Xanax and someone's arm to clutch, I get through it okay.

Here's a new column...

Here's a new picture... I don't recall when I was threatening to do to her in this one, but I love the expression on Jae's face. The body language says, "Yikes!" but the smile says, "Come get me!"

Enjoy...

Okay, we got power back at 3:30 Tuesday afternoon. And after running around like a madwoman for the rest of the day and evening, I think I actually got my life caught up again after five days of it being in suspended animation. My clothes for Atlanta are sitting out on the bed, ready to be packed, the house is warming up nicely, the dirty laundry is done, the stinky refrigerator is cleaned out, the bills are paid, my column is written, and my cat is sleeping blissfully on top of the heat vent.

So, back to our regularly-scheduled kink. Remember that shoot with Malixe? That seems like about a million years ago. But I have some more pictures.

Malixe does good posed portraits, but I have to say, I think his greatest strength is how he captures the more candid shots, with more than one person. He caught some of Jae and I that I love. Here’s the first one, I’ll post another one Thursday and another Friday… They’re all sweet alone, but I like them as a series best. Jae’s creamy Celtic skin is so pretty in this one. (Large image, not at all work-safe.)

Meanwhile, I’m off to Georgia. I plan to revel in soul food and barbeque when I'm in Atlanta with my mother, and in fresh warm-water seafood when I’m out on the coast with my dad. The slightly warmer weather and the fatty, really-bad-for-you food are the best things about going down to Georgia. That, and the shoe outlets, of which there are many in Atlanta. Many, many. No Wolford outlet, more’s the pity. (Although I know someone who’s going to the one in Vegas this weekend, the lucky duck.)

Bye!

One Down, One To Go

Some progress has been made: I am told that power is on at my dungeon, but as of 6pm Monday, it was still dark and cold at the house where Max and I live.

Anything could have happened since then, though. That's the only bad thing about not having electric answering machines anymore. For all we know, the lights came on ten minutes after Max left. Since my cat doesn't have opposable thumbs, she doesn't answer the phone, and thus cannot give us any updates.

But I'll be swinging by there early on my way to the dungeon, hoping for the best. Max and I would love to be able in pack for the trip to Atlanta without our fingers turning blue, and sleeping in our own bed for one night before we're in my mother's guest room for a week would be nice too.

I'm sure you're tired of hearing me fuss about the no-electricity situation, but hey, I hate being powerless! When I get back to my normal kinky mindset, I do have more pictures to show you. But at the moment, they're marooned on my dark and silent desktop and thus, you must bide your time while Max and I unwillingly compete in the "Last People To Have Their Power Restored In Seattle!" contest.

Now I must write a Stranger column. It's hard to write something witty and entertaining when one's own sights are set at a much lower point on Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Perhaps I'll pull some letters from the email file to inspire me...

Sunday 11pm: Still without power at both houses. I am extremely cranky. Did I say extremely? I meant extremely. I'm right in the middle of what one might laughingly call Seattle's urban core, and I might as well be right back in the boondocks of Florida. Grr.
I'm hoping Seattle City Light gets itself together to get my power back on Monday. (Of course, I've been hoping that every day for three days now.) If you have time booked with me before I go to Atlanta, call me and touch base. My internet acess is spotty, but the phone is on.
And anyone who's ever wanted to do a scene with me where I pretend to be furiously angry and proceed to beat you within an inch of your life while viciously scolding and berating you, well, you just get yourself a Seattle City Light uniform and call me. I'll make you such a deal.

(Edited to add: Yes, yes, yes, I know it's not City Light's fault the power went out. I know they're trying to fix it. But I have to vent somehow, and I think beating a man in a hard hat and a tool-belt would be a charming way of doing that. Or maybe I should get someone to pretend they're a City Light executive. That would be fun.)

Okay, kids, here's the post-storm report from Matisse and Max. We're still without power - it went out at 2am Thursday. It's out at both my dungeon and our house, which is a bummer.

Friday morning I went to my gym to shower, and re-arranged my session for the day as an outcall, thinking power would surely be back on in one of the houses by nightfall.

Wrong. And of course every hotel in town was booked to the rafters, so we spent a cold Friday night sleeping on a mattress we dragged up close to the pretty but not-very-efficient gas fireplace, with my cat huddled up with us.

Tonight, though, rescue came in the form of Matt, who loaned us his beautiful and extremely comfortable studio to stay in. We had numerous offers from dear and kind friends to put us up, but frankly people, when I'm this cranky, I am no fit houseguest for anyone. And I am cranky.

But I'll live. There's a line I use when I'm pissy about something and trying to get over myself: "Oh, I hope it's the worst thing that ever happens to me." If this is the worst thing that ever happens to me, I'll be all right.

Thank you again to all the super-fabulous people who offered help of all kinds to us. Your thoughfulness is much appreciated. Everyone else, keep your fingers crossed that we get power back soon.

This week's column: wacky phone calls.

Also, there's just one more day to bid on the Strangercrombie auction package that wins you a session with me, some of Monk's rope, and various other kinky goodies. It's for charity, people, so feed the hungry and get your kink on.

Bye!

I seriously lack the time to write today. So – here’s a few more pictures! I got a spiffy new camera for an (early) Christmas gift, whee! I took some shots around the dungeon to test it out.

My trusty bondage chair, custom-made for me by Mr. Wood, my favorite carpenter. I have spent many happy hours standing in front of this piece of furniture.

A bin full of nasty spanky things. And some spreader bars.

One of my toy cabinets. I know exactly where everything is in there.

One corner of my dressing room. Once, a rather silly man asked me, in reverent tones, if he could see “my shoe closet”. He was imagining neat rows upon rows of carefully arranged fetish footwear. Whereas I was thinking, “You put shoes in a closet? Huh. Who knew?”

When I took the picture of my dressing room, I thought: someone is going to ask "Uh, Matisse, what’s that weird thing on the dresser?" The short answer is: Nerdy’s favorite toy. Really! Would I lie? She loves it. She just pretends to think it’s an abhorrent Teutonic crime against nature. Clicky here to see it up close and personal!

(Edit: I'm kidding - Nerdy has never used that toy, Roman and I just tease her about it for no reason - other than the fact that we're mean.)

I got a CD of pix from Malixe yesterday, yay! I need to go through them and pick out my faves. But for now, here’s a semi-candid shot of Jae and I horsing around.
Possible caption: “Why the hell didn’t I bring my strap-on?”

Edited: Clicky-click for the bigger version, so we don't mess with people's display...

Yesterday, as the final event of a jam-packed week, I did a photo shoot with my friend Malixe. I should get the raw images from him today or maybe tomorrow, so I hope to have some fun pictures to show you soon. Malixe isn’t a full-time professional shooter, but he does very good work and because he’s a pal, I’m very relaxed working with him, which is nice. It’s a pretty laid back situation compared to my other shoots – I do my own make-up, and I don’t do anything special to my hair, which means that while the results aren’t as polished and glam as, say, a Tommy Edwards shoot, in some ways they look more like my everyday self.

We had been doing some shots that centered around my feet and stockings, since I’ve had a lot of requests for those lately. I had just changed into my black mesh catsuit when Jae showed up to keep me company and participate in the shoot.

She also showed me some of her fun new make-up finds. As with music, I am not uber-hip when it comes to cosmetics, and I need people to tell me what to buy. Even when they do, I’m not all that skilled with it, so I tend not to bother. Some things I do wear all the time, like mascara and eyeliner. I understand how to do those, and they work. Eye shadow, on the other hand? I often get suckered into buying it, because the colors are pretty and those cunning little containers make it look like candy. But I wind up taking my index finger and rubbing a little of one color on my eyelid and that’s about it. And in an hour or so, it’s gone. Powder blush is the same deal, and I have never gotten the hang of cream blush, it always looks like clown paint on me. I cannot wear liquid/cream base because I always look like I’m wearing a mask, so I just wear pressed powder.

I love lipstick, both because it’s pretty and because I feel so girly putting it on, but most of the time, it only stays on a short time before it, too, mysteriously vanishes. Maybe I’m kissing too many people. But I think there’s just a tom-boy streak in me that’s subtly fighting the makeup. I keep thinking perhaps I should take lessons or something, but then I don’t bother.

Plus, I don’t really want to, because something in me doesn’t trust make-up. I mean, it lets you down, doesn’t it? It smudges, it fades, it smears. It’s inherently untrustworthy. I’d rather spend my money on various facial treatments, so I look okay without much make-up. But Jae informed me that I need to stop being such a make-up Luddite and gave me a Sephora list.

So I went over to the Sephora website. And good lord, there’s a lot of stuff there. I mean, yes, obviously there is. But I’ve never really looked at it all before. I’ve been in the store, of course - but you know what Sephora is like. After about five minutes, I’m all overstimulated with the hundreds of thousands of brightly!colored!shiny! things to look at, and I just have to leave. It’s like an ADD attack or something. I can hardly even focus my eyes, let alone make crucial decisions about Urban Decay vs. Stila.

But online you can look at one thing at a time and I like that much better. So now I have a Sephora list to work on. I'm not sure whether to thank Jae or smack her. Perhaps I'll do both. She'd like that.

Books on the Nightstand

The Ghost Map, by Steven Johnson.

"On August 28, 1854, working-class Londoner Sarah Lewis tossed a bucket of soiled water into the cesspool of her squalid apartment building and triggered the deadliest outbreak of cholera in the city's history….Johnson builds the story around physician John Snow, (pioneering developer of surgical anesthesia) who posited the then radical theory that cholera was spread through contaminated water rather than through miasma, or smells in the air. Against considerable resistance from the medical and bureaucratic establishment, Snow persisted and, with hard work and groundbreaking research, helped to bring about a fundamental change in our understanding of disease and its spread.”

Max bought me this for my birthday and it’s great. Yes, I'm the kind of girl who gets excited about the history of cholera. Kinky, I know.

Sex with the Queen: 900 Years of Vile Kings, Virile Lovers, and Passionate Politics,
by Eleanor Herman.

“In this follow-up to her bestselling Sex with Kings, Eleanor Herman reveals the truth about what goes on behind the closed door of a queen's boudoir. Impeccably researched, filled with page-turning romance, passion, and scandal, Sex with the Queen explores the scintillating sexual lives of some of our most beloved and infamous female rulers."

The history of royal sex lives sounds juicier to you? It is. And now I know that Catherine The Great did not die while having sex with a horse. (She was apparently on the toilet, which you may or may not think is more dignified.) Anyway, it's fun to read.

Blowing My Cover: My Life as a CIA Spy, by Lindsay Moran.

"When Harvard grad Moran entered CIA training in her late 20s, her expectations had more to do with Harriet the Spy and James Bond than with drudge work or service; the reality, as she represents it in this memoir of her training and case work, was a sexist environment filled with career-oriented, shallow people….Though Moran is a likable spy, the wait for significant insights or breakthroughs goes mostly unrewarded for writer and reader alike.”

I don't recommend this - I was rather underwhelmed. The beginning is sort of interesting, as she describes the training, but it loses juice quickly and just sort trails off.


Books I want but haven't got yet...

The Family That Couldn't Sleep: A Medical Mystery, by D.T. Max
Being a chronic insomniac myself (Thank god for Ambien) I’m quite interested to read this. (Although no, I don't think I have prion disease.)

“In 1765, Venetian doctors were stumped by the death of a man who had suffered from insomnia for more than a year and spent his final months paralyzed by exhaustion. Over the next two centuries, many of his descendants would develop similarly fatal symptoms. Finally, in the early 1990s, their disease was recognized as a rare genetic form of prion disease... Looking at prion disease in general, Max doubles back to the English mad-cow epidemic of the 1990s, retracing established backstories among New Guinea aboriginals and European sheep herds. There's enough fascinating material—in particular, a theory suggesting that early humans were nearly wiped out by a plague spread by cannibalism—to keep readers engaged, but they're likely to want still more about the genuinely captivating family drama.”

The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero, by William Kalush, Larry Sloman.

“Kalush and Sloman appear to have raked through every known Houdini archive to produce the most comprehensive and controversial biography ever written about the man, with its contention that he was a spy who may have been murdered by a cult."

I can’t wait to get this one! Houdini was such a fascinating person, and I'm very interested in stuff about 18th and 19th century spiritualism.

The new column and calendar...

My eBay auctions continue, but now you can actually bid on time with me in person, in The Strangercrombie Gift Auction. It's for charity, baby, so buy me!

Bye!

A few thoughts from the weekend…

I went to see “Casino Royale”. My response: “What, James Bond thinks that is torture? The guy’s just barely tapping his balls with that piece of rope. They aren’t even tied up, there’s no weights on them, nothing. Man, 007 is a candy-ass compared to a lot of my guys, they’d just laugh if I did that to them.”

Monk: “Well, he actually did start laughing, but to me it looked like he was getting a little endorphin buzz.” Pause. “I liked the shot of the girl all tied up on the road. They should have showed more of that.”

But, other than that, it was a good Bond movie. Everyone pooh-poohed Daniel Craig when he got tapped for the role, but I thought he had a charmingly brutal energy that’s more reminiscent of Sean Connery than anyone else who’s had the job since. You can actually see him being a guy who kills people for a living.

I myself think I should get a job as sexy-torture consultant for movies. Or maybe I should work for the government training government agents to resist interrogation and CBT through a careful hardening process. Whoops, did I say hardening?

The Partial Suspension class yesterday rocked, thanks to all of you who attended that. And speaking of cocks in bondage, next month Max is doing a class that covers bondage for the head and hair, and also bondage for the genitals. Guess who's helping teach the genitals part? That would ME. Guess who's going to be graciously providing me with a stunt cock to demo said genital bondage on? I'll give you a hint: it ain't Max.

There will be female genital bondage demos also, and while I haven't actually asked her yet, I'm going to take a chance and say that I have a stunt model for that part too. She's never let me down so far...

In other news: Monk comes home from DC today, and I will be very happy to see him. My eBay auctions continue - I added some new items. And I’m writing up a weird phone call for the column next week. That’s the shape of my world today…

Hey, bargain-minded ladies! I’ve gotten a lot of new clothes lately – and that means I have to get rid of some older stuff. So, eBay, here it comes, and yes, I'm going to use my blogger fame to sell this stuff.

I’ve got about thirty items altogether, but I’m going to stagger the listings so I don’t wind up trying to box and ship all that stuff out at once. First round: coats and jackets. In a few days, I’ll list the pants, and after that, the dresses and tops.

So eBay is fine, but I wish I had a close girlfriend who was my size so could swap clothes. Miss K is six feet tall and the complete opposite of me in body-shape: very hour-glassy, with big boobs, this little tiny waist, and full feminine hips. She looks like she’s wearing a corset even when she’s not. (Bitch.) She has this long, thick, black, naturally curly hair, too. I often kid her that if we told a random person that one of us was a dominatrix, guess which one, they’d point to her every single time. She so looks the part.

Jae is shorter and slightly curvier than me, has totally different coloring, and a somewhat different fashion esthetic overall. We like the same kinds of boots - but she wears a size three. So that’s not much good.

I’ve given some stuff to Puck, but she’s taller than me, with a longer torso, and so a lot of it won’t fit her, either. What is a girl to do?

So, if you’re in a shopping mood, go check it out.

It better not snow today. Not very much, anyway. Or at least not where I am. I have been very patient about this weather for the last three days, but I have things to do and people to spank today!

While I watch the sky, read the new column...