I had a festive New Years Eve...How about you?

I had a late night with Roman last night, and now I'm busy preparing for some NYE festivities, so in the meantime, please be entertained by the new column, and the Kink Calendar.

And make particular note of my darling partner Max's bondage class this Sunday...

Heads, Tits, and Bits: Bondage Techniques For The Head, Breasts and Genitals. Bondage instructor Max brings in guest presenters James Mogul and me, Mistress Matisse, to help demonstrate these specialized techniques in rope bondage. This workshop assumes no previous bondage experience and is appropriate for all genders and orientations. It's this Sunday, at the Wet Spot, from 2:30 pm-5:30 pm. Admission is $30, and Wet Spot membership is not required to attend the class. (Although you must be a member to stay for the party afterwards.) For more info check out his website at: BondageLessons.Com

It's going to be a great class. I'm of the shamelessly-biased opinion that Max is the best bondage instructor in the world, but James Mogul is also a terrific practioner of the art and a great teacher, too. As for me - well, I'll be the first to tell you: I am not a rope-top the way they are. I can tie some knots, and I know some techniques, but my strongest talents as a dominant lie elsewhere.
However, I know a lot about playing with and tying up boy's bits, and that's what I'm going to be doing. Oh, and three guesses who has graciously volunteered his bits as a model for the class? Gee, let's see - who do I know who's got the moxie to stand up in front a thirty or forty people with his wedding tackle out and let me show people ways to tie it up? Oh, you'll never guess...(Yes, you will, actually, if you've been reading this blog for more than a couple of weeks.)

So that's my weekend. Happy New Year!

Freakazoids...

Well, am I ever glad I wasn’t taking calls for the week around Christmas, because apparently, all the local phone freaks had me on speed-dial. When I cleared my voicemail on the 26th, while there certainly were some legitimate messages from both good regular guys and some potential new folks, there were also a number of really bizarre messages.

Weird-ass message number one: A guy who called and yelled, "Mistress Matisse! Mistress MAH-teeeeeeeese!" and then howled over and over, like he was doing an a cappella version of the Warren Zevon song, Werewolves of London. His voice had that oddly hollow, echo-y sound that you hear when someone is using a speaker-phone. He was taking advantage of the hands-free situation by also banging loudly on something – sounded like a tabletop or a counter – with one hand. I have no idea what he was doing with the other.

Weird-ass message number two: This one isn't that weird, although it's mildly frustrating. It was a woman caller who, while she claimed to have studied my website, apparently missed the fact that I don't see female clients. But I swear, the message was about two minutes long and she's just rambling the whole time, without ever actually finishing a sentence or even giving me any relevant information that would help me refer her to someone else. "I've been wanting to come see you because…oh, you know, I've just had these thoughts about, um…I think the main thing is…Well, let me just ask you…Oh, well, I'll call you back."
This doesn't make her a bad person, and I understand being nervous, but for god's sake, you called me. Have a sentence or two formed in your head, please. Or just hang up, but don't make me sit through one hundred and twenty seconds of verbal static in the vain hope of picking up even one key word.

Weird-ass message number three: We're definitely back in what-the-fuck? territory here. This caller left me a message that went as follows:
"How much drugs do you do?" (Heavy pause. He's speaking in a harsh, interrogatory tone. That street-smart, take-a-look-at-yourself-scumbag tone favored by prime-time TV show cops when they talk to petty criminals.) "How much drugs do you do? No, no. Let's not even talk about your whoring. But how much drugs do you do, huh? Huh?"
What, is Dr. Phil cold-calling people now? Is my phone number one numeral off from this guy's ex-wife's? Is Narcotics Anonymous doing an outreach program?
He spoke with the exaggerated deliberateness that I always associate with drunk people, and that, combined with that fact that the call came through after 2am, makes me think that the caller probably knows a hell of a lot more about drugs than I do, because my experience with recreational pharmaceuticals is actually quite limited. When I stop and think about it, I realize it's been several years since I illegally partook of any controlled substance. But gee, in this impersonal age, it's nice to know that someone out there is concerned about me.

Weird-ass message number four: A guy who wanted (I think) a session for himself and his girlfriend. That isn't weird in and of itself, but he was another late-night rambler, and he spent several minutes giving me a long-winded physical description of himself and his lover that was highly specific, yet also strangely disjointed. (How much drugs do you do?) Oddly, he also told me so much about their ethnic heritage that I could practically draw them up a genealogy chart. "She's one-quarter Cherokee Indian – no, no, Apache Indian, Apache Indian! And one-quarter Scottish, and half French. And I'm one-quarter German on my mother's side, and…" Not only can I not imagine why he thinks a dominatrix would want to know this, I really can't think of any life situation where knowing that someone was one-quarter Scottish has seriously influenced my opinion of them.

Weird-ass message number five: Another woman caller, not a would-be client, though. At least, I don't think so, although frankly I'm not sure what she wanted. Over the sound of what I think was opera music in the background, she said;
"Hi, my name is (X) I was told you knew a lot about…how to start out. I'm friends with (woman's first and last name) and she told me about you. Would you give me a call at XXX-XXXX."
I have no earthly way of knowing what this woman is talking about. The most obvious guess is that she wants to be a pro dom and she wants me to tell her how to do that. (Yeah, right.) But maybe she just means "start out in the community", or "start out topping my husband" or, something else entirely. Who knows? She mentioned this other woman's name like she expected me to recognize it, but I don't. Maybe she has me mixed up with another pro dom? And unfortunately for her, this woman (?) has a rather husky voice, making me wonder if she really is a woman, or a guy looking for free phone sex. But either way, I'm not calling back.

And just to round out the whole experience, we have…Weird-ass message number six: It's The Howler again. "Mistress Matisse! Mistress MAH-tee-EEE-eee-EEE-cee!" He draws out the last word and lets his voice go up and down like a roller coaster. Next, he gives a few howls, but then, for a nice touch of variety, he starts barking. Really enthusiastically. He yells my name a few more times, and then barks and beats on the table – or whatever it is. I guess he's switched from Warren Zevon to Baha Men. "Who let the dogs out?" indeed…

I'm still getting caught up with my real life after being out of town, but there will be a real post tomorrow. Really. I swear.

Meanwhile, enjoy a video clip of a deeply religious dialogue between me and Roman about the role that Jesus plays in our relationship. We think we should have our own talk show on the Christian Broadcasting Network.

(The visuals aren't racy, but the conversation is, so turn your speaker down low if that's an issue.)

Hello, everyone...Yes, I am home safe again in Seattle, after a long and crowded flight. I enjoyed my visit, but it's really nice to be home.

And speaking of safety, I got several concerned notes from readers who remembered that Jake had been visiting Thailand and Sri Lanka, and who emailed me asking if he was still there. The good news is that no, Jake arrived home a few days ago, so he's quite safe.
But wow, rather a narrow escape, I think - a lot of visitors have been killed or reported missing. Even if he hadn't been hurt or killed himself, it's likely he'd be stranded there, as I'm sure most travel has been interrupted. And my god, those poor people, such devastation - it's very sad.

So, I'm busy putting together a column and the Kink Calendar, but look for a real update later. Oh, man, did I get some weird-ass phone messages while I was gone, wait til I tell you...

I listen to my voice as I talk, and I can tell that, as I always do when I come back for a visit, I've fallen back into my old southern drawl. It'll probably last a few days past my return home, so if you talk to me right after I get back, don't be surprised to hear peaches and magnolias blooming in my voice.

It's not just the accent, either. There are some local turns of phrase I'd forgotten about. Yesterday my mother used an expression I hadn’t heard in the longest time. It was one of those moments when hearing something whisks you back in time – in this case, to my Florida childhood, when I heard lots of people say this, or something like it.

We were talking about the varied and aggressive insect population of the south, and went from there to a discussion of spiders. My mother recalled a time when I was little when she thought a large spider had jumped on her (not an unreasonable fear in Florida). She said, “Oh, if that had happened, they’d of just had to take me off to Chattahoochee.”

Most people from Florida will know what this means, especially central or north Florida. But for the rest of you, Chattahoochee, (CHAT-a-hoo-chee) is a small town where the Florida State Hospital is. The mental hospital, that is.

It was Florida’s only mental hospital until 1947, and even after that, for a long time it was the only place that dealt with the poor mentally ill. At one point, it’s inmates – and I use that word on purpose – made mattresses, and thus it was nicknamed “the Mattress Factory”. So I also heard the phrase “going to the mattress factory” as a slang term for “going insane” when I was a kid.

Apparently there was a lot of abuse of the inmates at various points in the hospital’s history – I believe some books have been written about it, and perhaps even a movie has been made about the place - and it definitely had a bad reputation. The hospital is still in existence, and of course they say the abuse of the patients is all in the past, but even now, nobody wants to “go to Chattahoochee.”

So, just an amusing example of a regional expression that used to be part of my vocabulary.