I had a lovely afternoon yesterday, spending time with old friends and new. I ate yummy food, a talented musician played her cello for us, and we talked about different ways of branding people. Delightful.

And as we all emerge from our L-Tryptophan haze... here is the new column and calendar.

Happy Bird Day, everyone…

What am I thankful for? I’m thankful that this damn holiday only comes once a year, because sex workers, this is the week from hell. If one wants to actually see clients, that is. The phone is always very quiet Thanksgiving week - most of my good regular guys are understandably busy with family. But those of us who are buying houses soon are sitting around drumming our fingers and staring at the phone, because we would like to conduct business as usual Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.

And when the phone does ring, I let guys who I know, absolutely know, are dodgy and unreliable sweet talk me into booking time with them. I know they’re unreliable because they’ve made and then cancelled appointments before, or I know because I can just hear it in their voices. But having nothing else to do, I give them a chance….And then they call back and cancel. Grr.

No, I haven’t actually been stood up, thank god, and yes, I understand, things do happen, at least they’re letting me know, yeah yeah yeah. But I’ve had four cancellations this week. Normally I get about one or two cancellations a month. It’s frustrating. I don’t know why Thanksgiving is so much worse than any other holiday, even Christmas, for this kind of thing, but it is.

Oh well - it’s over now, and I even got to rant about it a little, which helps. And I’m thankful for the cool guys who have made and kept appointments with me. Enjoy your bird.

I was in bed last night, reading this: Extreme Encounters: How It Feels to Be Drowned in Quicksand, Shredded by Piranhas, Swept Up in a Tornado, and Dozens of Other Unpleasant Experiences.

It's an interesting book. But then I'm the girl who really liked Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, and The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook.

However, I did have very odd dreams.

So, since some of you seem to know it anyway – yesterday was my birthday. (And no, I’m not telling you how old I am. Nope. No way.) I didn’t not-say anything on purpose, I’m just so focused on everything else in my world right now that frankly, I hardly noticed. Max had some plans for us to do something special over the weekend, but they were scuttled by the fact that I had caught a touch of that cold that's been going around town. I feel fine today, but I was sort of blah and uninterested in going out for a fancy dinner, etc.

Roman has some bizarre bit of birthday performance-art in store for me, which, knowing him, probably involves lawn gnomes, some duct tape, and a gallon of Marshmallow Fluff. (To read about last year's birthday surprise, go here.) But based on both our schedules, we decided we'd wait until Friday to have that little party.

And I'm not upset about any of this, because in general, I’m not interested in making a really big deal about my birthday. My theory is that I get to be a diva on a regular basis, so it’s not like I have to save it all up for once a year and then demand that everyone fuss over me. I get fussed over a lot year-round. Lucky me.

It's also that I prefer to take my moments of happiness and celebration of life more spontaneously, rather than scheduling them. I’m like that about all the publicly-observed holidays as well. I don’t have a strong objection to them, they just seem sort of contrived.

(I don’t mind presents, you understand. Presents are always a nice thing. And I got some very lovely ones, so thank you, thank you, to the sweet people who gifted me so generously.)

I’m currently rather preoccupied with my real estate situation, which is coming along nicely, thank you. I'm not going to talk it about much now, because I’m superstitious about talking about anything until it’s a done deal. Can’t jinx it, you know. However, I have chosen a house, and everything is progressing as it should at this stage. I will reveal more about that as it become appropriate.

Max is cooking a traditional dinner for us and a few friends on Thursday. Of all the holidays, T-day is the one I’m the most what-ever about. Left to my own devices, I’d order pizza and go to the movies. But Max likes to cook, and it’s always nice to have people for dinner, so, as long as there’s no televised football involved, I’m fine with it. (Actually there is never, ever, televised football in our house anyway. It’s one of the reasons why Max is so right for me – he hates sports.)

So, yes, birthday - thank you, Mom, for not drowning me at birth, or any other time, even though I’m sure I deserved it. And yes, Thanksgiving, after which I can return to my regularly-scheduled crazy life that I am so fond of.

A relatively quiet weekend, which was nice. Max and I did go see the new Harry Potter movie. The theater was packed, luckily we got there early and snagged decent seats.

The movie itself? Eh, not bad. I enjoyed it well enough because I’ve read the books. But I think it’s the weakest HP movie so far.

(Here follows a critique of the movie. Yes, I’m a professional dominatrix. Yes, I’m a perverted sex freak. And yes, I like Harry Potter. Give me any shit about that and I’ll set your genitals on fire*.)

I think the movie suffered mainly because the source material was so long. Since the book is 700+ pages, the movie disposed of about the first quarter of it in the first seven minutes, completely eliminating certain characters and great swathes of action. And instead of the actual movie, I sort of felt like I was watching a ninety-minute trailer, because it was all quick cuts and selected scenes, with big jumps in the storyline. If I hadn’t read the book, I would have been very puzzled by certain parts. Perhaps the DVD will have some deleted scenes, but I doubt it’s got, oh, another hour or so, which is what it would take to really do the book justice. Even watching certain parts with Maggie Smith and Michael Gambon, I felt like they were almost rushing through their lines, as if someone was saying, “Hurry, hurry, we only have a few seconds for this scene!”

That said, I enjoyed visiting the characters again – although there wasn’t nearly enough Severus Snape in this film, and I missed him. When he was onscreen, though, Alan Rickman definitely didn’t rush any of his lines - God bless his nasty heart. Makes me want to go rent that stealth-kink classic Closetland once again. (If you ever wanted a how-to movie for mindfuck scenes, Closetland would be it.) With Alan Rickman, it's The Voice, you know, and The Stare. I've seen guys try and pull off The Voice and The Stare in real life, and they usually come across like silly posers, but with Alan, he makes you think he'd be that way over breakfast.

And Daniel Radcliffe is turning into nice eye candy, if you like young boys. Which I usually don’t, but one can make exceptions.

Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort? Um, not bad, I guess. Not particularly creepy, though. The fact that he had no nose was distracting to me, although I understood that they were trying to suggest a resemblance to his snake. His dress was definitely too billowy, though. At one point, it bore an unfortunate resemblance to a gown worn by Julie Andrew in a very different movie. “The cemetery is alive with the sound of music…!”

Overall, not the HP movie to start off with, especially if you haven’t read the books, but entertaining enough as such things go.

*And yes, I do know how to do that.