Weekend Fashion Blogging

Is this not the most gorgeous dress you've seen all day? I'm slightly surprised that the designer brought it out for fall, because to me the colors and the fabric look like spring/summer. But who cares, the blues and greens are so yummy I just want to eat them with a spoon. And it looks slinky, too. I like slinky.

This one is so not my usual style, but there's something about it that I like. It's exotic.

And more appropriate for the cooler months ahead: After searching high and low because they're sold out everywhere, Armani actually found these Giuseppe Zanotti boots for me in my size! I'm very excited.


Edited to add: I'm sad that I've been outbid on this dress, because I think it's smokin'. But I have a limit, and it's gone beyond it. Curses!

Edited again: (This is the last edit, I swear. I need to stop shopping and get busy with other things.) I really like this skirt, it's a great cut for me, and I'm interested in adding both more white and more gold to my wardrobe. It's a decent price, too.
But please tell me, fashion ladies and gentlemen, what color top I'd wear with it, because I'm stumped. Black seems too contrast-y, and I fear red would make me look like a Christmas-tree ornament. So would gold.
In a perfect world, I'd wear a plain knit shell that matched the white, but I know that the odds of find a plain knit shell that exactly matches the skirt are slim.
I have a rule: if I don't know what I'd wear with something, then I can't buy it. Unless one of you offers me a brilliant solution, I'll have to let it go by.

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It's new-column day, but first, a note: if you read the paper copy of The Stranger, they are undergoing a re-design process right now. For the time being, my column will appear online every week as usual, and I'll link to it here as I always do.

But I will only be in the dead-tree version every other week.

I've already gotten some plaintive "hey, what happened to your column?" calls and emails. And I'm glad you're reading me! However, this is not within my control, so I'm just being patient while the higher-ups shift things around. Any suggestions you might have about it should be addressed to the good people at The Stranger.

And thus, here is the new column...

Books I’m Browsing

The Harlequin: Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Book 15, by Laurell K. Hamilton
Yeah, I know, the last couple of them really sucked. (Pardon the expression.) But there was a sweet spot for this series, when it was as addictive as cocaine-sprinkled brownies. I keep hoping Ms. Hamilton will find her way again. (The Meredith Gentry series does nothing for me.) I have yet to find another paranormal fiction line that amuses me so much, and I have read some real dogs of books trying. Hence, hope springs eternal. But I’m buying it used.

Don't Believe Everything You Think: The 6 Basic Mistakes We Make in Thinking,
by Thomas E. Kida
This looks extremely interesting. I’m always very interesting in understanding why people – including me- think and act as they do, and this books looks to be all about the debunking of pseudoscientific crap pushed at us by, say, Madison Ave and the Bush Administration.

The Pleasure's All Mine: Memoir of a Professional Submissive, by Joan Kelly
Looks like an interesting twist on the more common pro-domme memoir.

The Art of Detection (Kate Martinelli Mysteries), by Laurie R. King
I prefer Ms. King’s books about Sherlock Holmes and his wife (!) to the modern-day stuff, but she creates good characters and has a knack for building up tension and dread in a thriller.

The Emperor of Scent: A True Story of Perfume and Obsession, by Chandler Burr
I don’t wear perfume. For one thing, I have a not-very-acute sense of smell, so I’d probably put on too much and make people’s eyes water in elevators. Also, alcohol-based perfumes leave tiny brown blotches on my skin wherever I’ve applied it. Some kind of allergy, apparently. I tried the essential oil thing for a while, but really, between hair products and lotion, I’m sweet-smelling enough anyway.

But I like knowing how things work. Publishers Weekly says: “Nobody knows for sure what makes our noses work the way they do, not even the $20-billion-a-year perfume industry's legions of chemists, whose jobs depend on appealing to those noses. So what happens when Luca Turin, a likable scientist who happens to possess an unusually sensitive nose, proposes a new theory of smell that promises to unravel the mystery once and for all? That's what readers find out in this often funny, picaresque expos‚ of the closed world of whiffs, aromas and odors-and the people who study them.”

Really nice things that happened yesterday:

I went with Monk to see a shoulder specialist, who was extremely helpful and reassuring. He told us everything was going as it should be, and he fixed Monk up with a high-tech brace/cinch sort of thing that gives him much more mobility and much less pain. Yay. Kisses to the fabulous medical man who helped me arrange the appointment.

Then I went off and had a dee-lightful interlude with Armani and another young lady, who may identify herself if she wishes to. Red, warm behinds were the order of the day.

Oh, and that Prada bag? It got Armani’s vote, and he ordered it for me. I think there are some tall black patent boots in the works as well. Example # 3,427 of how I have the sweetest guys in the world.

I listened to (yes, I’m admitting it) Kayne West’s new song, Stronger. Several times. It’s embarrassingly catchy.

Upcoming stuff: Miss Candy is having a kinky-ish fitness fundraiser in Cal Anderson park at 2pm this Sunday. Here’s the very lovely poster for the event, but basically, she’s having a 30-minute Boot Camp class, which I gather is some sort of exercise-based torture. (I so don’t do exercise classes.) But there’s a pushup contest, raffles, free food and drinks, and all queer and queer-friendly people are welcome.

Also, I am judging the Northwest LeatherSir, Leatherboy & Community Boot Black Contest the weekend of August 31st /Sept 1st. If you’ve never been to a good old-fashioned leather contest, here’s your opportunity. Way back in the day, leather title contests like this used to be one of the few publicly-accessible kink-based events. Not so much anymore – there are so many other social venues. But there’s a charm to them – just look at Miss Candy, who is the reigning Washington State Ms. Leather. She’s extremely charming!

I myself never ran for a title because, frankly, I thought I’d hate the high level of kink-community attention one receives when one is a title-holder. Every little move you make gets scrutinized and talked about, it’s a lot of pressure. I mean, you can’t so much as pinch someone’s tits without…
Oh, wait a minute. That happens to me anyway. Whoops. How did that happen?