Lazy
I had a sweet, slow-moving morning with Roman today, so I'm late with the link, but here it is: the new column...
Have a lovely weekend, everyone...

What I Need

I need a lot of things, but the two things I want right now are a hot stone massage and new photographs. Okay, maybe not right this instant, but soon. Perhaps you can help me.

Massage: I’m not a big fan of the traditional Swedish massage that you generally get when you go to a professional. The long strokes usually feel uncomfortable to me, like it’s pulling my skin. It’s never relaxing and sometimes it’s downright painful. (And not in a good way.) Oddly, when friends and lovers rub my back, it feels good - they usually do smaller, deeper, more circular strokes, and I love that. But I’ve never been able to get a professional masseur/masseuse to do it the way I like it.

However, I may have found something I like. My mom and I always go to spas together when she’s here visiting, and on our recent spa trip, I had a hot stone massage, and it was very nice. It seemed like using the rocks made a difference in the type of strokes the MT used, and adding the heat element worked nicely for me, too.

However, the place we were at is way over on the Eastside, and while the massage was nice, I wasn’t impressed enough with the spa overall with to trek back over there again. (It wasn’t terrible. It was just kinda meh.)

So, okay, Seattle massage fans, who does a good hot-rock massage, in the downtown/Cap Hill/Leschi or Columbia City neighborhood?

Photos: I need new pictures. Now, I do have a ton of friends – yes, like you, Malixe – who shoot as a hobby or semi-professionally, and I’d like to do some stuff with them. But I need new professional images for the MM.com website, so I want to book a glamour shoot with a serious professional photographer with a studio and fancy lights and a makeup artist and all that jazz. (I also need a new website, but that’s a whole other matter.)

Normally I would call Tommy Edwards for this. I’ve worked with Tommy numerous times for years, and he rocks. But this time I feel like I want something different, a fresh eye, new ideas. I like this guy’s work, and it’s exactly the kind of thing I need. She has some interesting stuff, too, although I don’t know it’s quite as glam as I need. Any of you model-girls know anybody else good for glamour work? In Seattle, needless to say - I’m not traveling for this.

All suggestions warmly appreciated.

I Love My Regulars

It’s weird how things go in streaks in this business. I’m always busy, but for the last few days, the phone, it will. Not. Stop. Ringing. I mean, like crazy.

And almost all brand-new people. Now, I’m not saying I don’t like to meet new guys ever. Every one of my dear and cherished regulars was once a new client to me. But I have to admit: I’m spoiled. When the guys I know call me, it’s easy. 2pm, Thursday? Sure, I can do that. Or No, I can’t, but how about Friday instead? It’s just a matter of logistics.

When new person calls, I have to stop whatever I’m doing and sit down and really listen to what they’re saying, and think about both the intended message (My name’s Bob and I’m into spanking and role-play) as well as the subtler ones. And I have to assess, based on that information, whether this is someone I want to meet. No one else can do this but me. I’ve wished many times that I could outsource the screening-new-people duty, but it’s simply not possible. I trust no one but myself to make this call.

So being in the dungeon with a new person? Fun. Spending time on the phone weeding out the roughly seventy percent of new callers that won't pan out into a session date? Not so fun.

It’s easy to tell who’s been reading my blog, though. Yeah, ya’ll know who you are. You wisely don’t say anything you shouldn't and so, hey, I usually like you. Other guys, who just found my number on god-knows-what adult entertainer’s site, just call up and say things like this:

Me: Hello?
Caller: Yeah, I’d like an appointment for this afternoon.

Guys, you’re not reserving a table at a restaurant. You’re calling a stranger to talk about spending time alone together engaged in a rather intimate activity. Let’s put it this way: if you approach a woman in a brusque, impersonal fashion like this, how do you expect her to treat you warmly and intimately? It’s in your best interests to observe some social amenities. Like saying “Hello”, for example.

Not to mention, of course, that the chances of getting a same-day appointment with me bring to mind the words “snowball” and “hell”. There’s a reason why I hide my phone number on my website. I’m trying to force people to know some basic things about me before they call. I’ve toyed with removing my phone number from my print ads, giving only a URL, for the same reason. I’m not ready to take that step yet, but the day may come.

But really, this is all just a lead-up to saying: I have some really great regular guys, and if you’re one of them, I’d just like you to let you know that I appreciate you. I'm blowing a kiss to you all - you guys are cool, and I’m glad you’re around. You make my life so much nicer. Thanks.

iTunes Nostalgia

This is the time, and this is the record of the time. This is the time, and this is the record of the time.

~ From The Air

So I recently downloaded an oldie-goldie from iTunes – the “Big Science” album by Laurie Anderson. If you haven’t ever heard it, it’s an awesome mishmash of music/spoken word art-rock weirdness. It’s considered Anderson’s most “commercial” album – which means she got some radio airplay, especially in the UK – but while purists may sneer, I love it. My favorite song is “From The Air”, but they’re all good.

I discovered the album the summer between my freshman and sophomore year at college. There were several key things happening at that particular point in my life. I had a sugar daddy – he was my first foray into sex for money. He paid my rent, bought me my first car, gave me an allowance. It was a cushy situation moneywise, but stressful psychologically.

I was living, as roommates, with another woman, who was clearly, but clearly, a lesbian, although she was so far back in the closet you could have used her for a shoe rack. And perhaps in connection with her state of extreme closetedness, Sandra was a big ole pothead. I mean serious.

Now, I’ve never been a big fan of pot. I do get a slightly buzzed feeling, but mainly I just get sleepy, and my eyes get all slitty, occasionally I got the munchies, and that’s about it. It’s just never done much for me. I haven’t smoked a joint in years and years. But that one summer, I smoked a lot of weed with Sandra and other people, and it seemed like fun.

The main reason it was fun was because of my friends. One of my early rules about getting stoned – one I’ve observed to this day, about all substances – is “never do drugs alone”. For me, getting high was a social thing. I was too young to get into bars – most of the time – so it was my equivalent of martinis after work.

Plus, I knew it would piss off Tom, my sugar daddy. Tom was a rich redneck fifty-something Republican who knocked back gallons of Chivas Regal but though that “mari-joo-ahna” was a demon weed smoked by “those coloreds”. (And that was his polite way of referring to black people.) Most of our other political opinions were equally antithetical, which made being his girlfriend-on-the-side an exercise in biting my tongue.

I’m sure he sensed it – I’m not a very good actress even now, much less at eighteen. So the more he tried to control me and get me to be what he wanted me to be, the more I developed passive-aggressive ways of defying and annoying him - while still getting him to support me, of course. I didn’t mind the sex part, it was just that we were so wildly incompatible in every other way.

So, cut to me and Sandra and another pal or two hanging out in my apartment, with the bong, some bottled wine coolers we’d gotten someone to buy for us, and a bag of M&Ms. Sandra says, “I found this really cool album, you guys have to hear it.” And she puts on “Big Science.”

One of the things one notices about this album is that Laurie Anderson talks a lot in a very deliberate, measured voice, and she says odd things that don’t make much sense. It’s very artsy.

However, it struck all of us that in fact, Laurie Anderson was talking just like we were talking: in a slow, draggy voice, with lots of non sequiturs. Therefore – in our THC-fogged minds - Laurie Anderson must also be stoned! Cool! Cheech and Chong be damned, Laurie Anderson became our stoner heroine. (Really! Listen to “Walking and Falling” and then tell me that woman doesn’t sound like she’s baked. Just try.)

After that, Big Science got a lot of airtime in my apartment. Sandra and I got to where we could recite large sections of it from memory, which we were prone to doing at inappropriate moments, especially if we actually were stoned.

Tom hated it. So naturally I insisted on playing it while we had sex.

That fall I broke up with Tom, moved back into the dorm, and drifted away from Sandra. The Big Science album got lost and while I thought about it occasionally, I hadn’t heard it in years. Then for some reason it came to my mind, I searched for it on iTunes, and as I listen to it, I can almost smell the pot, taste the M&Ms, and hear Sandra’s laugh.