We’re gearing up for a busy couple of days around here, because the two-day bondage intensive Max is teaching this weekend. (Not to be confused with the regular bondage class May 7th, "Bondage For Sex.) The intensives are a lot to orchestrate – registration, space, caterers, equipment, et cetera. But you know, I’m really proud of Max and how he makes things happen: these two-day events, and the regular monthly bondage classes. All the teaching he does is a responsibility, but he’s good at it, and I’m pleased by the fact that a lot of people acknowledge that and look up to him for what he does. I’m a very driven, achievement-oriented person myself, and that’s something I really respect about Max. My work (and there are a lot of different activities that fall under that umbrella) is important to me. I need to have that in a partner. (Roman is this way as well.) I’m always sort of puzzled by people who don’t seem to have any goals. They don’t necessarily have to be the same type of goals I would have – but shouldn’t we be striving for something?

Speaking of goals, here’s the weekly column.

Another smart, driven woman - who happens to be a pal of mine - would be local pro domme Mistress Lydia. She apparently gets emails that are just as stupid as some of the ones I get.

I am eBaying, BTW. Just clothes and shoes at the moment – and I don’t mean used panties, I mean real clothes. I need to go through the toy closet at the dungeon, too, though, I’ve got boxes of stuff just sitting there.

Have a lovely weekend, everyone…

Men, unless you are a serious metrosexual, this entry will probably bore you. It’s mostly about clothes.

I’ve decided my closet needs an overhaul. Time to get rid of the things I don’t wear, and get some new outfits. I’ve bought stuff on eBay, but I’ve never actually sold anything there – however, I think the time has come. I’ve got an armful of dresses and such I don’t wear and they’re too cute to give to Goodwill. So today I’ll get out the camera, snap some pics of what I’ve got, and see if I can get rid of it. I’m told it’s easy, but if any of ya’ll are veteran eBay sellers, feel free to give me tips.

Meanwhile, I’m lusting after summer dresses. Isn’t this cute? And this one, too. And you can’t go wrong with Diane von Furstenberg, can you?

Look who’s giving Rose Algren a run for her money: Norma Kamali. Okay, not really – for thing, it’s not PVC, and no easy-access zippers. But still, it’s a sexy catsuit and I definitely want one.

For shoes, though, I’ll wait a bit – my mom lives in Atlanta, where there are many, many designer shoe outlets, and I’m going to visit her soon. I’ll just bring a spare suitcase.

But I'm not totally lost to vanity and fickle fashion today. I'm also eagerly anticipating reading this book, which I'm told is stupendous: A Writer's Life, by Gay Talese. "Thy Neighbor's Wife" was a fascinating, if meandering, examination of the swinger and sex work culture, far ahead of it's time, and I'm interested to see what Talese has to say about the experience of writing.

A woman who I have known casually for a few years has recently become involved in the local BDSM community. Of course I always knew she was kinky, but people have to be in the right place in their lives to act on things. And Scarlett is now, apparently, which is good. In a recent email she mentioned an incident that happened a couple of years ago at a non-kinky cocktail party…

"…some mutual (vanilla) friends of mine and Matisse’s were throwing a party, and Matisse came with Max and Jae and I forget who else, and oh, what a scene got created that night...when it came time for Matisse and Max to leave I threw a fit and wouldn't let Matisse up off the couch (she was sitting next to me) and Max took that as invitation to threaten to cut my stockings off with a large serrated bread knife (from the kitchen), and then one of the other vanilla guests went berserk. (Editor’s note: we had all had a few cocktails, which perhaps led Max and I to be slightly less discreet than we might have otherwise. Oh well.)
The rest of the story wasn't as funny but, you know, there's a reason why neither Matisse nor myself hang out in that crowd anymore... I sometimes think you can find more crazies at a vanilla party than a kinky party any day of the week."

Yeah, it seems that way sometimes. No one could have thought that Max was seriously threatening to harm Scarlett, but lord, that other girl absolutely freaked out. Of course, if that girl had seen some of the things Scarlett's been up to lately, I’m guessing she’d flip out even more.
Not that all vanilla people are uptight or anything. But it’s one reason why kinky people tend to stick to their own social circles. What seems like mild, innocent flirtation to us seems to induce full-on PTSD in certain other people.

Well, I had a nice weekend. Roman’s lovely wife was out of town, so he and I decided to take advantage of that to do something unusual: spend a weekend together. We rarely get two nights in a row together, and it was perfect in that it fell on a weekend where neither of us had any pressing social obligations.

It’s one of the nice fringe benefits to living with a partner but having a separate house for my professional space – I have a place where Roman and I can be together on our dates. (Roman has a lovely house, but he also has a sweet, friendly, furry dog to whom I am so very allergic.)

And I like my new house so much that I’m happy to spend time there. My old place was okay, but it was a charming older house with some really uncharming features like inefficient heating, capricious plumbing and the occasional four-footed visitor. I didn’t want to be there very much. My new place is a happy place to be.

So Roman and I just hung out together, ate yummy Stellar's pizza, lazed in the benevolent sunshine on my deck, cuddled in bed and watched two excellent movies (A History Of Violence, and The Ice Harvest) and just generally had a delightful weekend together.

Oh, what - you want to hear about the sexy parts? What makes you think we did anything sexy? Ah, yes, I suppose you have a point. Well, we did do some other, less innocent things as well, involving rope and clothespins. And we conducted a little electrical experiment – purely educational, really – in which we discovered that if you put one sticky pad on one person’s naughty bits and the other sticky pad on the other person’s naughty bits and you put those naughty bits together…you’ll get a tingle. A very noticeable tingle.

We like tingling.