Barely-controlled bedlam here. Fetish clothes and BDSM toys are being tossed about the room in a frenzy of packing. iPods are being loaded with road tunes. Cats are sulking at the sight of suitcases (What? she thinks, my slave is leaving town? Inconceivable!). And SEAF-related spontaneous houseguests have materialized, because Max and I are so the Hotel Kink in Seattle.

But this is not your chaos to organize. Go read about how not to pick people up, based on an extensive survey of a dozen of my pals at a brunch party two weeks ago. Plus (ahem) years of personal experiences, both triumphant and catastrophic.

And go see SEAF. It's great.

Bye!

I’m busy!
I'm finishing a piece of writing for a April 1 deadline.
Getting ready to go out of town tomorrow.
Going to the VIP reception for SEAF tonight.
And trying to conduct the rest of my life as usual. I’m pretty swamped.

But color me excited: I just found out that Coinstar doesn’t take the service fee if you take Amazon vouchers instead of cash for your change. Yes, yes, I know, Amazon is evil, but I have a ton of change around the house in various jars, and so I think I can make an exception in this case. I haven’t been spending money on books lately, what with the new dungeon and all, but I want these:

A Devil's Dictionary of Business: Monkey Business; High Finance and Low; Money, the Making, Losing, and Printing Thereof; Commerce, Trade; Clever Tricks; Tours de Force; Globalism and Globaloney, by Nicholas Von Hoffman. I’ve never had an office job in my life, so the whole corporate thing is very alien and mysterious to me. This will be like reading a book about a foreign country.

The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque : A Novel by Jeffrey Ford I read his other novel, The Girl in the Glass, and liked it. I didn’t love it, but I liked it, so I’ll give ole Jeffery another spin.

Flashman on the March by George MacDonald Fraser. Love the Flashman books. Love them! Have them all. Good trashy-historical fun.

Ten Percent of Nothing: The Case of the Literary Agent from Hell, by Jim Fisher. Because while I’ve already researched the whole idea exhaustively, and feel sure that I’d know a legit agent from a scam artist… Information is never a waste.

The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists by Neil Strauss. This one’s just going to piss me off, I'm sure. And I hate the idea of contributing even a tiny amount to the royalties of a guy I suspect is a total jackass. But I admit it: I’m curious about what he has to say.

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. Historical thriller – woot! I’m in heaven.


And in a completely unrelated note: The President of Oglala Sioux Tribe strikes back at South Dakota anti-choicers! “I will personally establish a Planned Parenthood clinic on my own land which is within the boundaries of the Pine Ridge Reservation where the State of South Dakota has absolutely no jurisdiction.” Cecilia Fire Thunder, you rock!

News, Both Good And Bad

Well, this is depressing. The anti-sex, pro-censorship regime we’re living under continues to chip away at what adults are allowed to see and read. Please make a donation to the NCSF as they fight for our right to be sexy.
March 20, 2006 - Washington D.C. Today the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the
Federal District Court's decision in Barbara Nitke and NCSF v. Alberto Gonzales,
the challenge to the Communications Decency Act, #01 CIV 11476 (RMB). The Supreme Court has affirmed the lower court's decision without hearing oral arguments,
sending a clear signal that the court will not protect free speech rights when it
comes to sexually explicit materials....(Read More.)

In more fun news: Max is teaching another 2-day rope bondage intensive on April 29/30th. Go from clueless newbie to black-belt Nawashi, overnight! Okay, not really. But seriously, Max starts at the basic, 101-level stuff and takes you all the way through full suspension. He doesn’t teach suspension as a stand-alone class, so if you want to learn it from him – and there is no one better to learn it from, I assure you – this is the opportunity. It’s a limited class size and it will absolutely fill up quickly, so register now and save your spot.

There’s also a bondage class with fetish photographer Michele Serchuk and her partner, Delano, of DelanoInDistress.com – that’s coming up on Sunday April 2nd. There will be a slide show of Michele’s work with Delano. Mmmmm, pictures of a cute guy all tied up – sounds yummy.


Finally, a shopping question. This stuff, Sex Grease, is my lube of choice. I used to buy it at Babeland, but it seems they no longer sell it. Wah. Has anyone seen it being sold around Seattle anywhere? I can order it online somewhere, but I'd be happy to support a local business if it was convenient.

My romance with my new house continues. I’m thinking about remodeling my dungeon bathroom sometime next year – because it’ll take me that long to save up the money – and after looking through lots of design books, I realize that what I want looks a lot like the bathroom on the first floor of the house Max and I share.

You see, our sexy bathroom was actually designed to be a handicapped-accessible bathroom. What that means is that it’s kind of a big open room with a showerhead and a drain in the middle of the floor, and shiny chrome handrails. Because I don’t give a damn about bathtubs, what I like are sexy showers. Mmmm-hmmnn. They're so useful for all kinds of scenes.

I've certainly photographed it a lot. The first porn shoot I ever sold to a magazine, I think about 2002, was shot there, with model Rose Algren.

I did some pictures of porn-reviewer Jane Duvall there too. In spite of all the sexy wet shots we went on to do in this shoot, I love this one because it’s such a very Jane facial expression.

And of course I did some self-portraits there too.

So yeah, I want a big open space - big for a shower, I mean, perhaps eight by eight? Done in dark stone, because that blinding-white tile thing is not my kink. I think several water sources – showerheads, hoses, you know. And ADA handrails all around, the kind that are set deeply into the wall and designed to take lots of stress and pressure. That’s a sexy remodel.