So if you read his blog, you already know. But if you just got here: My other partner, Monk (usually referred to here by his blog nickname, Roman) had a fire in his shop Wednesday night.

Not a good thing. Quite bad, in fact. In what I’m told is the usual way, the water from the sprinklers, and the firefighter’s axes, did more damage than the actual fire. (Not that I’m dissing the firefighters, you understand.) Monk, Nerdy and Tambo spent all yesterday mopping and sweeping and carrying loads of now-worthless merchandise out to the dumpster. And then I bought them stiff drinks.

Today, they are able to summon, barely, some flickers of optimism about the future. But it’s a helluva mess. He sent me some pictures. Here’s Monk and Nerdy (I think that’s Nerdy?) looking at the outside of the building. A shot of the standing water on the floor, and a box of Bridget Harrington’s new bondage book, ruined by water damage.

He'll get everything going again, of course, and there is insurance, although god knows what getting money out of them will entail. (I do not have good experiences with insurance companies.)

In the wake of this, I’ve gotten several emails from kind readers asking me if they can donate to a relief fund. It’s a very sweet idea. I mentioned it to Monk, and his reply was: “Wow, that’s very kind and generous of people. We’ll definitely get back up and running no matter what, but if readers want to do something to help us along and speed up the process, I would think that was a really nice gesture on their part. It would certainly help me make sure all my employees still get paid on time.”

So if you want to, you can donate whatever you want here, through Paypal, and I’ll see that it gets to Monk.

Monk also said that cookies, supportive emails, and some patience are very much appreciated. Oh, and pictures of naked boobies. Those help, too.

Oh, and the usual Friday fodder: My new column, and the calendar...

Cat Suspension

I've been meaning to post this for a while, because it's funny. I'll pause while everyone makes the obvious joke to themselves....

And now I'll tell you the story behind it.

There are two ladies in Seattle (both of whom read this blog, I believe) who like rope bondage. One of them apparently bet the other that she could suspend her cat. I forget what the stakes of the bet were - perhaps someone will remind me - but this photo was offered as proof that in fact, you can do a two-point horizontal suspension on a cat. Although I don't recommend this as practice for suspending humans.

I would also point out: I think this is an extraordinarily accomodating feline. I myself have a cat, she's nineteen years old, and never, at any point since I plucked her from that mobile home in Tampa with the "Free Kittens" sign, would she have been willing to tolerate such lese majeste.

Given her humble beginnings, I don't know where she gets her severe and imperious attitude. Yes, I've had her since she was a tiny kitten. What does that have to do with it? Hey, are you trying to imply something?

(Thanks to Midori and Kelly for the photo.)

Also: I have time available this week Wednesday and Thursday.

Domestic Stress

This is going stun some of you newer readers, but in fact, I do not get my house cleaned by saucy little slaves dressed in French maid uniforms who do it just because they worship me. (Or Max.) That kind of arrangement is always more trouble than it’s worth, in my experience. We pay people to do it.

I’ve paid people to clean up after me for years. I’m not a huge slob – I’d call myself medium-tidy. That means I won’t let dirty dishes sit around, but stacks of books and piles of papers do tend to accumulate, and I’ll often just throw down my jacket wherever. Stuff like that.

And really, what is the point of making good money if you don’t use it to make your life easier? So I hire people. My first housecleaner was great. Then she became a sex worker and started making ten times as much money per hour, and so of course she quit. I had a couple of cool but transitory people after that, and a few flakes, and for several years I’ve had a very nice woman, V, doing our house. I’ve known V for years, we have a lot of acquaintances in common - including some of her other clients - and she’s a lovely person. However, either she’s got more clients than she can really handle, or she’s got some other issues going on, because Max and I feel she’s canceling her days with us – with no notice - more than we’d like. We entertain a lot, and we have a lot of houseguests, and so it’s often an issue for us that the house actually does get cleaned that day. So we’re exploring our other options.

We’ve talked about using Merry Maids or some outfit like that, but I don’t trust those big services. I want to hire an individual person, preferably a sole proprietor, who I can meet and look in the eye and decide that I trust them – or not - and have that person and no other be in my house. I mean, V has her own key, for god’s sake, she usually comes and goes without us being here. I totally trust her. So that’s one of the requirements.

They also need to be if not kink-friendly, at least kink-tolerant, because there’s a lot of kinky stuff around the house. I don’t mean we leave used sex toys around, we’re much too polite to ask anyone else to deal with those. I mean the big ole cage in the bedroom, for one thing, and a lot of somewhat pervy art on the walls, and various magazines and such. V did also vacuum and dust the basement playroom, because the dungeon furniture didn’t bother her a bit. But we’d be willing to excuse a new person that duty, at least until they got used to the idea.

So if you are know (or if you are yourself) an open-minded, professional, reliable housecleaner, with references, in the Seattle area, drop me a note. Good help is hard to find, but we need it.

(A brief note to be super-clear, because some people don’t read very carefully: this is not a personal ad. I want someone who does this for a living, not for erotic gratification, or because they want attention from the Mistress. Professional. For the money. Not sexy. Got it?)

Round-Up of Recent Events

The Human Sexuality class: Went just fine. I’ve done stuff like that a lot, although usually they just want me to talk about one specific aspect of who I am: being kinky, or being poly, or being bi, or being a sex worker. This class got sort of an overview of the whole crazy salad of my life. A one-hour class isn’t really enough to cover everything in a satisfactory way, and I think some of them walked out with their heads kinda spinning with all the bits of information I gave them, but they were great kids and I enjoyed talking to them.

The Mom: Is indeed here, although she leaves today to go up to Victoria for a few days. Saturday night I took her to the Late Night Catechism show at The Act. I’m a second-generation Catholic schoolgirl - my mother went to Catholic school back in the day when the nuns ruled their student with an iron ruler. (Yes, both of us went all twelve years.)

She and her husband loved it, but the show was actually much gentler than I’d expected. It pokes fun at the church, but it’s clearly geared to not offend practicing Catholics. So while the actress, Aubrey Manning, is very quick-witted in her improvisational schticks with the audience, overall the show is amusing but toothless. Although I suppose there are worse things for entertaining one’s mother. I took them to the B&O Café for dessert afterwards, which was also a big hit.

Bondage is the Point Party: Grand as always. It’s great to have a regular party where I can count on most all of my friends showing up. I mean, a party I don’t have to throw myself.

The Kaotians, aka "the Darlington Sex Slave Cult": I got this email a day or so ago.

Tal Matisse

Came across your blog just a moment ago.

I see my father has been doing the rounds again.

I liked your comments after his letter *grins*

wish everybody saw things like you did.

To set the record straight, i only knew lee for about 3 weeks before meeting him - not 7 or 8 months as my father claims.

anyway, good post.

Regards

Zach Nicodemous.

“Tal” is not a badly-spelled indication that he thinks I’m above-average height. Rather it is how people in the Gor books greet each other.

Pervy Phrase of the Day: “…a peeping cyclops”. Isn’t that a cool phrase? I think you should all try and guess what it means. I’ll tell you the right answer tomorrow.