Here's the new column in The Stranger, about kink bloopers... Just about everyone I talked to about this column had a lulu of a story for me. It was hard to pick just a few. Enjoy reading about the painful errors of other good tops - as long as you don't repeat them!

Schedule Notes

EDITED at 6pm Thursday May 7th...

Here's what I know about my availability for the next few weeks...

I'm booked the rest of this week.

I have time next week Tuesday the 12th and Weds the 13th.

Maybe a little on Thursday the 14th.

Friday the 15th I'm unavailable.

The week of the 18th to 22nd is still pretty free.

I'm out of town Monday the 25th through Thursday the 28th.

And then I'm out of town again from Weds June 3rd to Saturday June 6th.

Hope that's helpful to my friends...

Highlights From A Family Wedding

So every other Seattle sex blogger – and several from other places – have blogged about how great SEAF was. The Thursday night party certainly was lovely. But since I spent the weekend in Orlando, Florida at my brother’s wedding, guess what? I’m writing about that instead.

The whole event was very nice. The dress I picked out, after all that agonizing, turned out to be perfect. I wasn’t a bridesmaid or anything, thank god. I have pals who have impressive collections of bridesmaid’s dresses, but I’ve never been one, and I see no reason to break up that winning streak now. I instructed my brother very firmly that I was not to be given any official role in this wedding other than guest.

I actually haven’t been to that many weddings, period. So this was my first exposure to some of the silly wedding-reception traditions I’ve seen in movies, like throwing the garter, lots of teary speeches, a DJ who plays cheesy music and tells everyone what to do, ect.

It was also my first experience of a wedding reception that went on for hours. And hours. With an open bar, and a lot of toasts. Everyone, including my mother's rather prim sister, got pretty well lubricated. (Watching my sweet but staid aunt dancing to “The Humpty Dance” was an experience I’m not sure I can do justice to with mere words.) My brother’s wife is Italian, and her family is very nice – and very Italian. Her mom reminds me of a petite Mercedes Ruehl. I think they have a greater ability to handle alcohol than my Anglo-Saxon family.

But they like my brother, so that’s all fine. I remarked to the Mercedes Ruehl-ish mother of the bride that my brother was a sweet man. She replied, in a heavy Jersey accent, “A sweeta man nevah lived!” With the accompanying palm-out, wrist-snapping hand gesture. Seems he’s got his mother-in-law firmly in his corner.

The other amusing thing about the weekend: I hadn’t thought about the fact that my brother would naturally invite a bunch of his childhood/teenage pals to the wedding. Since my brother is two years older than me, that means: people I also know from my childhood/teenage years. To include - the first guy I ever dated. More specifically, the first man I ever had sex with.

The night I arrived at the hotel, I walked into the bar where everyone was meeting up, and thought, “That guy looks familiar, who is that?”

And he grinned at me and said “Oh, fine, don’t recognize me.”

I about fell down on the floor. I was not expecting the first person I saw to be my teenage sweetheart. I met him when I was fourteen, we started dating when I was not-quite-sixteen, and I haven’t seen him since I was about twenty-one. We did have an email exchange not too long ago when, through some social channels, he made the connection of “my old girlfriend” to “Mistress Matisse.” I was pleased to hear from him then, and he was highly amused by my career choice. He’s married to a really sweet woman and they have two adorable children. I’m so glad he’s happy.

And you know what? Spending a little time around him reinforced my opinion that he was a good choice for me as a young girl. Looking back now, I can see where he exercised self-discipline and integrity towards my virginal teenage self. He had a reputation for wild behavior among his male peers, and he was by no means a seventeen-year-old saint with me. But he was a gentleman about the things that mattered, and I respect him for that. I’m glad I had him for my first lover.

We had a lot of fun kidding around and catching up. And we agreed that while we’re both different people now, we are also still, in many essential ways, the same people we were then. He was teasing me over something at one point, and when I reacted, he said, “Oh how cute - you still do that thing where you stomp your foot and try to scowl.”

The First Boyfriend was not, by any means, submissive. But I told him, “You know, I can recall telling you about sexual fantasies I had about women, and about kinky stuff. You were extremely cool and supportive about all of that, even stuff that wasn’t about you, or anything you would be personally into. Thank you for that.”

“Of course I was.” He looked genuinely puzzled. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Yeah. A very good choice for my first sexual partner.

The Bindings Project - Teaser from Aaron Nanto on Vimeo.

This is a teaser for Monk's show at SEAF. It's going to be great!

What am I doing this weekend? Well, while ya'll are all basking in the glow of great sexy art and going to workshops by Mark Yu, I am going... to Orlando. Yes, it's my brother's wedding. I could kill him for picking this weekend, but - c'est la vie.

So watch for my Twitters about the Shakespeare-on-the-Gulf family-comedy that will no doubt be transpiring in Mousetown. But at least I get to catch the Thursday night show. Yay!

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Can I just say that while I'm a girl who likes almost any movie with hot guys + lots of violence and explosions, I'm really, really extra-looking-forward to seeing Crank 2: High Voltage?

True, I'd buy a ticket to see Jason Statham perform in, say, a community theatre production of Bartleby the Scrivener. But I can't imagine anything better than watching him attach electrodes to his nipples, and taser his own cock.



Well, all right - watching myself attach electrodes to him would actually be better. But this movie seems more readily available.

***

(P.S. Only Jason Statham can attach car batteries to himself and be okay. You are not Jason Statham. So don't do this in real life, okay? Don't taser your own cock, either.)

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I have a new column up, about something I noticed on my visit to a swing club a few weeks ago...

***

A sad emotional event for me: I had to let my kitty go yesterday. She was my much-loved companion for twenty years. I really wanted to keep her with me longer. But I soon saw that no matter what I tried to arrange for her comfort, it would selfish of me to do that. So she had a quick, painless and peaceful passage - in my arms, at home, where she felt safe and loved. I'll miss her terribly.

I'd like to thank all the people who offered me support and suggestions for her health while she was alive, and the many people who have sent me messages of condolence about her passing.

I’ve been thinking, the last few days, about how Twitter and how much I have come to use it.

Twitter seems to be a rather polarizing thing – people either love it or they hate it. (And some people start out saying they hate it, but then wind up getting their own account and happily tweeting away on it. Not that I know anyone like this, of course.)

Twitter-haters say “It’s so mundane, it’s a barrage of banal trivia. I don’t care if someone’s making toast, or is bored at work.” I recall that people said much the same thing about personal web sites, and then about journals and blogs when they became popular. “Why would anyone want to read about some stranger’s private life?”

Well, apparently they do. So I would say that yes, Twitter entries certainly can be banal and devoid of interest. But that’s true of any form of communication. Have these people never had a face to face conversation that was mundane and boring? I envy them.

I feel that as a writer, the challenge is to create 140-character snapshots of one’s world – either the outer world, or one’s inner one - that are interesting to read. It’s a good exercise in learning capture a reader’s attention concisely.

(It’s also a useful tool for quickly mobilizing large groups of people – witness the Amazon episode – but that’s a different conversation.)

Because you can talk to me on Twitter, it also takes the place of the comments feature on my blog. (Which was abolished mainly because it was hijacked by porn spammer and a few vitriol-spouters.) It’s always been possible to email me, but some people like to publish comments to me, too.

And I think the fact that Twitter is often assumed to be dedicated to mundane trivia is useful for me. Mundane trivia adds dimension to who I am. My friends and I joke about how people think, because I’m a dominatrix, I fall out of bed every morning in a corset and thigh-high boots. I think if I had time, it would be terribly amusing to start a Twitter in the voice of that mythical stereotypical Mistress. Like this:

Mistress WhiplashYourAss: Got out of bed and stood on slave while I brushed my teeth. Then administered beating to him for not squeezing toothpaste from bottom.
9:25 AM Apr 12th from web

Mistress WhiplashYourAss: Drinking first cup of coffee at kitchen table while slave licks my six-inch stiletto-heeled pumps. Kick him for whimpering about beating.
9:55 AM Apr 12th from web

Mistress WhiplashYourAss: Going to the post office. One of 4 super-buff slaves who carry me everywhere in a curtained litter has ingrown toenail. Administered beating.
11:07 AM Apr 12th from web

That’s actually not what my life looks like, and I’d rather not have to unravel those assumptions when I meet people.

I’m not sure my Twitter would be interesting or make much sense if you didn’t know who I was, and you didn’t read anything else by me. But I think it works well as an addition to all the other words I publish.

And as a reader, I myself am enjoying following the daily lives of other interesting folks. So Tweet on, people.

I had planned to actually write something for today, but I wound up taking my elderly and irascible cat into the emergency vet last night, and I didn't get home until about 3am. It's my hope she'll be okay soon. Watch the Twitter feed if you want up-to-the-minute updates on that.

And for now, enjoy the newest installment of the web-series about polyamory, Family.



EDIT: Apparently YouTube doesn't like poly, or something. The video got pulled, I have no idea why.

2nd Edit, later: And now it's back up on Youtube. Weird. But, okay, whatever.

Perhaps in revenge for last week's video of him with nipple clamps on his eyebrows, Monk took a video clip of me in the shower. (I wanted to take one of me doing something terrible back to him in retribution, but we agreed that 12seconds people probably wouldn't like any videos that involved his dick.)

I think this video clip thing could become a Thursday night habit.

A few notes about my schedule as I know it today…

Tomorrow: I have nothing at all going on Thursday afternoon, and that just seems like a shame. Someone I like should email me and fix that.

Week of April 20th-24th: I have time available on Tuesday the 21st, and a little on Wednesday the 22nd, in the later part of the day. Otherwise next week is pretty much booked, unless someone has to cancel.

Week of April 27th –May 1st: I’m in town Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of that week and I have some time free. Thursday the 30th I’ll be getting ready to leave town, and I have a very important event to attend that evening, so Thursday is pretty iffy for me.

I’m out of town – at the much-mentioned brother’s wedding – from Friday May 1st until Monday May 4th. I can see people starting Tuesday the 5th.

I’m also going to be out of town from Monday May 25th until Thurs May 28th.

A few thoughts about scheduling... The ways in which I spend time with people is always evolving. Some of my dearest friends are busy people who steal time for short but sweet interludes with me from an already jam-packed life. Other people are asking me to spend entire days with them. I’m also traveling to other cities with a few close friends, which I used to not do so much.

All of that makes scheduling with me sometimes a challenge. I know that. But I do value all my relationships. Each one of you participated in making me who I am today, and that means something to me. You guys who’ve been seeing me ever since I was in my very first dungeon – remember that awful little ramshackle building near REI, with unreliable heat, and no shower, and the homeless people sleeping on the steps? Even if I only see you for an hour every four or five months, the fact that you’ve stayed in touch all these years pleases me. You knew me when, as they say.

So yes, my schedule is a bit more complex now than it was then, but that does not mean I don't want to hear from you. I hate to disappoint people, so I appreciate your patience and polite persistence. But if you're a friend, it’s always all right to ask if I’m free, even on short notice. Because sometimes the stars line up and I say, “Tomorrow? Sure, come on over, let’s play.”

A new podcast! Monk and I answer letters about rope tops getting overwhelmed by girls who want to ride the bondage-go-round, and then talk about a letter from a woman who says she wants to hire a male escort. About fifteen minutes.

Note: We're going to go record some more podcasts tonight. We have some good letters in the chute already - lord, we have some doozies - but if you have a long, complex question and you'd like to hear our take on it (along with a few random dirty jokes), send it along to one of us!

Complete and unedited text of a recent letter….

dear misress

me and my girlfriend are trying to learn about the mistress/master/slave activity but we need some basic tips for me as a slave to become a good slave and tips for her as a mistress so she can become a mistress. please mistress we like to take some of ur time to give us some tips. if you like to help that will be great if not its ok we will respect you no matter what all we need is a few tips thx for ur time mistress.

Good lord, I didn’t think anyone could use the words “tips” this many times in such a short email. Maybe this person is a barista in a low-end coffeehouse. Or a peep-show dancer.

Regular readers will know this hits all of my "intellectual laziness" buttons. (In fact, I'm adding a new tag just for that.) And I could work up to being slightly offended that this writer thinks a few bits of bumper-sticker wisdom will be all he/she and his partner need to have a dominant/submissive relationship. Because, yeah, it’s just that easy, right? Nothing challenging about my sexuality at all, no sirree. A trained monkey could do it.

But let’s look at it positively. Let’s say that this person thinks I am just so incredibly wise that I can, actually, condense all the complexity of BDSM dynamics into a few pithy soundbites. He’d be wrong, of course. If I could do that, why would I continue to blog and write a column and generally talk talk talk about this whole BDSM thing?

So, you want tips? Here’s some tips for you. Buy low, sell high. Don’t take any wooden nickels. Look both ways before you cross the street. Wash your hands after you go to the bathroom. Never play cards with any man named "Doc." Check your flight status before you leave the house. Don’t click on the links in emails from strangers. Don’t stick your dick in crazy.

And last but not least, JFGI.

***

EDIT, next day: All right, I never do this. I never take pity on someone whom I have justifiably spanked here. If you send me badly-spelled, sloppily-written letters, you deserve to get schooled.
However. Just this once, because I am feeling nicer today, here. And read this book by Patrick Califia. And use your damn spellchecker.

So I was lying in bed with Monk last night, with toys and rope and bottles of lube strewn around the whole room, like a kink bomb had gone off. Which indeed, it more or less had....

I said, "Oh God, I can't go to sleep, I have to get up and write a blog post. "

Monk replied, "How about if you just take video of me doing this?" And then he proceeded to do something really silly with nipple clamps. I laughed, grabbed my Blackberry, and took a 12 second video of it. (Worksafe, actually. It has sound - of me, laughing.)

Then I went to sleep.

The new Stranger column is up. Backstory: I saw the witty and irreverent Ms. Mollena Williams at Kinkfest two weeks ago, and recalled that we'd met once before, quite briefly, years earlier. She was such a fun and entertaining presenter that I went up and re-introduced myself to her after her class, and asked her for an interview on a rather edgy topic. Wow, she delivered!

(There's some talk of her coming to Seattle to present some kink workshops, so I'll keep you posted on that, too.)

A new blog link! My rock-star fabulous pal Lamalani is this year's International Ms Leather. I have known Lama ever since she was just a sweet young butch working at Babeland, and look at her now! I'm very pleased that someone from our community here in Seattle won this contest. Lamalani is a great person, and she'll do a fine job acting as a kinky ambassador to BDSM communities in other cities.

***

While I am in this link-y mood... A quick link-back to some of the Greatest Hits, for easier reading.

The More Recent Ones:

Nazi Play
S/he's A Lady
The Bank Job
Bad Approach
The Bra-Fitter
D/s And Relationships
Must One Bottom Before Topping?
My Wedding Photos
Getting Your Partner Into Kink
Getting Started In Life As A Kinkster
And, my favorite: What Not To Say - The "Puffy" Man.


And, from the dusty vaults: Older Greatest Hits (Hint: Lots of Silly Phone Calls in this list.)

A new podcast, in which Monk and I talk about "name-dropping" versus giving references, and then we say things that will make furries everywhere hate us. (Adult babies, too.) It's a testament to power of good marketing. Or not.

About fifteen minutes, not work safe.

So my blogging has been a bit off this week, as you may have noticed. You see, I've been being topped by Mistress Lateral Epicondylitis. It's the first time I've ever bottomed to her, and whoo, she's a bitch!

In less formal terms: I have had a bad case of tennis elbow. Like, ow. Serious ow. It started in December and it's been bugging me ever since. What brought it on? Who knows. I had a massage therapist work on it at Kinkfest some, and he earnestly informed me it was too much flogging and caning. That's a pretty thought, but I'm inclined to think a lot of time on the keyboard could have something to do with it.

So I've done massage/ice/brace/ibuprofen and still: ow, all the time. So yesterday I said, "I have had enough of this. Okay, Doc, shoot me up." And got a cortisone shot.

It's my hope that I'll soon be able to type again without discomfort, but right now, my arm is a little extra-sore from getting it poked with several needles. (Even though he was very gentle and careful. But yes, all the people I have stuck needles into can chuckle.)

If not, I'm going to have to start doing a lot more photos and podcasts to keep ya'll entertained. And learn to use my left hand to flog people. Anyone want to stunt-model for that?

You know how you go out of town and you forget about all the not-fun stuff you left hanging in your absence? Or is it that somehow, in a not-really-rational part of your brain, you think that little kinky elves will come while you're away and do all those tedious chores? And then you come home and there they are? Yeah. I hate that.

Like what? Like Ikea, that's what. I have a list of household stuff I require, and none of it needs to be spendy, so Ikea it is. (I know, Miss K, I know - you're going to be mad that I didn't take you with me. But I have to go today, and it's going to be just as quick-and-dirty as an Ikea run can be. Pray god the rug-rats aren't out in force on a weekday afternoon.)

Also, I have to find a dress. Oh, Matisse, you say, you have dozens upon dozens of dresses. Why would you possibly need another one?

It's true that I have a ridiculous number of dresses. But this is a very particular kind of dress. It's a going-to-my-brother's-wedding dress.

I said that to my partners, and they both replied, "What, you can't wear one of those Herve dresses?" Typical men. No! Of course not! Good lord, my mother would keel over if I wore one of those skin-tight, bodda-boom, bodda-bing numbers to a family wedding. (Not that I am not seriously lusting for some of the Spring 2009 offerings.)

No, I need something a Nice Southern Girl would wear to a summer wedding in Florida, in May. You may well imagine that I actually don't have a closet full of such ensembles.

And I'm mildly annoyed to see that my darling brother and his (very nice) wife-to-be have scheduled the ceremony for 6pm. Any well-brought-up lady knows that there's a big difference between what you wear to a daytime wedding, and what you wear to an evening wedding, and 6pm awkwardly straddles that divide. Sigh.

I'm unclear on whether the ceremony is being held in a church. But the bride is Italian, so I bet it is. So there's that, too.

Thus: something not black or white, and sort of evening-y but still not too sexy. Sleeveless is fine, perhaps even preferable since it's going to be hot. But nothing strappy or way low-cut, and the skirt should be not terribly tight and at least near my knee. And yet, with all that, not impossibly dowdy.

I could really use those elves or magic fairies right about now.