leashandgrin

Last post, I fretted over not posting for a week.  Suddenly, I find myself not having posted for an entire month.

My apologies.  Part of it has to do, predictably, with holiday craziness, and part of it has to do with work.  But that's not 100% true—with most of my friends out of town, I've had plenty of quiet time, and work has been slow.  And it's not like I haven't had things to write about—even setting aside kinky encounters, I've been saving up cool/funny/amusing/arousing Craigslist posts to show you all.  So the material is there to distribute.

But...I haven't.

I can't point to exactly why.  My mood has been less than kinky.  My dating defeats this fall have been surprisingly demoralizing (especially when compounded with the moving away or alienation of other close friends).  My experiences on the fetish scene have been fun but yielded no satisfying long-term contacts.  And I'm feeling unproductive and old, especially as my next birthday approaches and I have no new publishing credits to my name.  Finally (and in direct response to the previous sentence) I'm trying to be more productive, which necessarily means less time on the Net.

The result is that I haven't been posting, commenting, or chatting much.

This isn't an official hiatus like I had this summer...but it is a quieting.  And I'm not sure if this post will signal more quiet or jazz me up to return to action. 

In the meantime, I hope my regular readers and email partners don't take it personally.  As the saying goes, "It's not you; it's me."

Over a week since I posted.  Last weekend I went to my first play party in D.C., and lost my scene virginity.  Plenty of vanilla life happened as well.  There’s just so much to talk about...

The details are for my friends to know. You should be my friend.

We interrupt my Friends Only emo bullshit whining to bring you this special report:

Britney Spears keeps secret 'fantasy room' filled with sex toys - report

A secret sex room? Feces-smeared couches? Another baby on the way? You can bet Kevin Federline and his lawyers are bound to take a keen interest in Star magazine's latest claims about his ex, Britney Spears.

The tabloid alleges that the plummeting pop star's Mulholland Drive mansion is equipped with a double-locked, X-rated "Fantasy Room" filled with ticklers, whips and fur-trimmed handcuffs hanging from the metal bedframe. (Please, hold your shudders until the end.)

The second-floor room also features a mirrored ceiling, a glass jar containing spanking paddles and a closet full of kinky outfits, according to an "insider" who stumbled into the den of sin.

"She wears Catholic schoolgirl uniforms, a maid's uniform and a Cinderella outfit," claims the mole. The source also contends Brit is so obsessed with Marilyn Monroe that she wants her nose redone to look like the blond model of self-destruction.

"Britney is sexually obsessed," the source tells Star.

The whole Daily News story is here; Liz Kelly's Celebritology dug it up for our pleasure.

The article, of course, is very "Tsk tsk" about this.  But unlike her bad parenting and potentially lethal driving, this is something Brit totally deserves a pass on (leaving aside rumors that she leaves the toys out where her kids might find them, which is not cool).  She's earned the riches to have her own play space.  Good for her!  I mean, I want that room (sans feces smears, naturally).  If you had the money, wouldn't you?

It’s a post! About a play party. Involving caning. A new paddle. Really good mix CDs. Dark fun. And why BDSM is like salsa dancing.

Alas, it is Friends Only. So stop idly browsing and show some commitment.

Or just watch this video and wonder how it’s relevant.

Sometimes I need to be reminded—as allrightwithme did yesterday—how lucky my existence is.  Even magical.

For instance, I ran across O. online the other day, who I haven't emailed since Germany and haven't seen since K. and I became serious.

A bit of the conversation went like this:

O.: VA is the best
O.: MD sucks
Me: Fighting words.  You shall pay dearly.
O.: punish me!

My eyeballs pop out at his point.  My loins stir.  My grin widens:

Me:   Don't tempt me, Missy.
O.: [I'm assuming she winked...Messenger was not showing me smileys that chat for some reason.]
Me: Those are words that should never
be said to a former teacher with a nice collection of
tweed jackets and a Catholic upbringing.
O.: lol
O.: so last time we talked, i believe you were
dating a girl
O.: still with the same girl?

Ah, the inappropriately sequed question about a girl.  Women only do this if they are a) interested, or b) if you've just crossed the line and they want to highlight that fact.  It is almost always easy to tell which.  (It's like watching a cat's back arch—at the shoulders, she's angry; at the hips, aroused. Either way, something's going to get scratched.)

In other words, I'm still in if I want to be.  And I have an excuse to bring up spanking and other discipline within a flirty context anytime I like.

(Do women realize they do this—the "other woman" l non sequitur?  Because they all do it, and I've never figured out if it's intentional or not, since usually they're mind-bogglingly subtle.  I'm tempted to think it's genetically hardwired into them for the propogation of the species; without it, men would never know when it was time to breed.  It's like being handed the cheat code to Contra—an impossible-to-beat game is suddenly rendered vulnerable.)

I assured her K. was long over.  Earlier I'd mentioned needing to visit friends in O.'s neighborhood, and her as well, so I later continued smoothly:

Me: My dating status or lack thereof
(and yours for that matter) does not change the fact
that I owe you a drink next time I visit my Arlington
friends.
O.: great!

The conversation ends soon after.  I leave to count my lucky stars. 

It's always nice to have a semi-guaranteed flirting/kissing opportunity, like a derringer, in one's boot.

Wow.  I go away for a few days (well, really a single day, but my Friends Only readers will soon know it was such a marathon day that I needed the rest of the weekend to recover from it) and my Friends section just explodes. 

(And since I mostly read fetish journals, I'm supposing that explosion was...er...sticky?  Ewww.  There's a feat: I just grossed myself out with my own conceit.)

It's like all of you out there on teh Intertubes just bottled up all kinds of sexual desire and anxiety and revelations for an entire week and then, the moment my back was turned, KABLAM!!!  (Actually, in the case of kitteninstrings I think that was literally true).

I'm trying to catch up on the backlog.  But in the meantime, since we've been on an obectifcation kick lately, I'd like to point all of you to this lovely rag doll post in fetishconfess from commiegirl21  I'll let you read her words rather than spoil it by describing it...I'll just say that the set-up, pacing, details, and the number of kinks she rolls into one fantasy are all spine-(or some other body part)-tingling.  What's tingles the imagination, though, is that this wasn't even originally her fantasy—it was her boyfriend's, and she took it, internalized it, and ran with it.  That's worth saluting along with her writing—if only every girlfriend was so GGG...  Props to her!

I can't believe I'm using two Aerosmith songs to tag my posts in a single week.  But they are both thematically appropriate.  Still, I feel dirty.  (Although in high school I knew a girl who had been in the "Rag Doll" video.  I also slightly know a girl who works for the senator who came up with the whole "the Internet is a series of tubes" quote in the first place...and boy are he and his friends in trouble.)

I’ve gotten a bit more free with the Friends Only posts (like today’s), but I want to make sure there’s plenty here for the casual reader.

Here’s an ad that causes all kinds of debate inside me. The feminist side of me is appalled. In my professional capacity, I have to say: that’s one damn strong ad. And meanwhile, the kinkster in me is absolutely enthralled. (I discovered this ad thanks to this post from consciousobject. It’s best watched at this link she found, but I embed the YouTube clip here just so my page will be all bright and shiny.)


Not only is it done well, it’s done perfectly. The popping of the nozzle. The sinking of the head. The way he jiggles her feet to shake out the air. Her bouncing slightly as she’s pulled. The sublimely erotic act of literally rolling her up to put away. Even the way her eyes, the split second before she is balled up completely, close—simultaneously both reminding the viewer of child’s doll when laid down and indicting that she is still alive and aware, just deflated—shows a staggering attention to detail that a true fetishist has to love.

Though I rarely look at them now, transformation fantasy stories—including the inflation/deflation subset—were among the first erotic material I ever found on the Net, so I have fond memories of such stories and images as one of my gateway drugs into kink. To this day, I’m still fascinated with Mark Gooley's “The Struggle,” where men and women inflate, deflate, possess, and wear each other in a bizarrely wonderful Darwinian game of office politics.

I love Liz Kelly's blog, Celebritology. It's the quick and easy way to stay abreast of pop culture without having to really care about or follow it.

I especially love it when it mockingly features celebrities in catgirl form:



Even better, it pointed me to this Daily Mail article full of costumed stars displaying questionable taste.

Remember how I said I likely wouldn’t be hearing from Aphrodite again? 
 
Well, we’re still on each other’s Yahoo! Messenger lists, and her Away messages have gotten progressively dire.  So I send her a nice note.
 
She messages back on Monday night at 10:00 P.M., just as I’m about to try to go to sleep early for once in my life. She’s tired of her job her town, and all boys (mindful of a recent date in which I expended a ton of effort and consideration, I snarkily protest being included in that list).  Meanwhile, and foremost on her mind, her ferret may be dying in her arms as we’re typing.
 
So I keep her company for two and a half hours, sending music and chatting disjointedly, as we wait to see if her pet mustelid will make it through the night.

She does.

Last night B. comes over, continuing her transition from online fan of BDSM to real-life participant (details after the cut). 
 

By 10:00 I am on my own again.  By 11:30 my light is off, and a refuse to leave my bed until 8:00 this morning.  My dreams—several of them—are outstanding.  Finally I get a good night’s sleep.

I’ll try to keep this entry spare.  I have a feeling I’m going to fail.
 
Now that you’ve expended God knows how much energy just reading my last few posts, you can imagine how much energy it took to live them.  So Thursday I was an absolute zombie.  Luckily, it was a light day at work with the boss gone.  I did however, stop in a local shop (linked below) and sign up for BESS.  Then I slunk home and slipped into blessed sleep.  (I was actually supposed to take part in a kind of post-Halloween coda, but it didn’t happen.  If it does I’ll blog about it; otherwise, feh.)
 
Friday I had a lovely day finishing up a DVD project and went home early(!).  That night I was supposed to go bowling, but it fell through.  I was going to stay in for once in my life, and attempted to feel proud of myself for doing so…but eventually I got antsy and walked to the tequila bar.  This nearly resulted in an adventure (after the cut), but it’s probably better it didn’t. 
 
 
Later, I was awoken by various text messages from my ex N. and her drunken friends, who were throwing a party, stating in various ways that I should take advantage of her in the near future.  I have zero idea if they were joking or not.
 
Speaking of which, with all my whining about dashed romantic/erotic hopes lately, it’s easy to forget that I actually have at least one, if not more, person(s) actively volunteering to share by bed. Saturday B. and I were supposed to have a scene, but she got delayed long enough that playing was out of the question.  Instead we hit two fetish shops to look at toys and clothing.  We also had the “Leash is not in a place to get too serious” talk and the “Is it okay to play with others at play parties?” talk.  Both conversations arrived where I wanted them to, thankfully. 
 
I then went down to Greenbelt and had an amazing evening—even more so than usual—playing folk music at a friend’s birthday party jam session.  (We even had an audience(!), because a prof friend of the host visiting for a conference had brought a bunch of her students to the party.)  I ended up bringing my gear back to my apartment and jamming with one of my roommates and his friends again on Sunday. A good, relaxing, mentally healthy weekend all around.

And now, at long last, we get to Halloween.  Again, I’d love to share all the details, but also again, those details are revealing enough they shall remain Friends Only.  If you want to read them, you know what to do.

We interrupt our all-Halloween extravaganza for a special gift to all you object transformation fans: women becoming vending machines!



As reported at Gizmodo:

To ward off criminals, fashion designer Aya Tsukioka has conjured up some neat transforming clothes/accessories to deceive potential muggers.

It's no hoax, as The Washington Post's humorist Gene Weingarten originally surmised, just experimental design. More details can be found (and still for free, at time of writing) at The New York Times (slide show here and article here). Check out the fire extinguisher backpacks and manhole cover purses as well.

One friend recently shared with me her enthusiasm for male ATM costumes, which neatly combine objectification and money slave fantasies in one convenient package. If she can get that, surely I can at least get a soda...

At some point in the last few weeks, one of my readers, wickedpuppy, has teased me about being a costume fetishist, and dagnabbit, she’s right.  So let’s address that before I get to Halloween and then we leave costume season entirely.

(Thank God, you're all probably saying.  Get back to the petplay!)
 
Yes, I’m into costumes.  I think I have been for a long time, but it’s gotten dramatically more pronounced since I left grad school.  And certainly the tarting up of the holiday has a lot to do with it—Halloween has gone from a kid’s holiday to an adult’s holiday to an “adult” (as in “adult film”) holiday.  There are a lot more people running around looking ridiculously hot, both female and male (guys aren’t my thing, but you have to love some of these Jack Sparrow and Angel of Death dudes’ senses of style…and their ability to fit into those trousers, the bastards). 
 
But for me, it’s not just about looking at “girls who get to dress and act like whores and for one night it’s okay” as one of my more Grinch-y friends groused.  That’s a symptom (or should I say benefit?) of the holiday, but not the root cause of my interest.
 
So what’s so great about costumes?
 
Costumes Make People Act Different
In costume, people step a little outside themselves. Most don’t take it to extremes, and really act like another person—though one person I know did spend an entire Halloween once behind a mask, utterly silent the whole time. But they do put on slightly different mannerisms, take risks, and otherwise perform.  In the process, they often reveal a side of themselves you might not have thought them capable of.  Some escape into silliness or horror or sci-fi, and you may see some live out desires and fears and wishes involving the person they’d like to be.
 
When dressed up, people also take risks they might otherwise not.  And often, the more complete the costume, the bigger the risks, especially if a mask is involved. Anonymity is power.
 
And, yes, eroticism can be part of any of the above.  Think back to college. I’d bet that the most notorious night for hook-ups were Halloween, Theme, and Cross-Dressing Parties.  They certainly were at my school; that and exam stress were the only things that drew most of my classmates out enough that they would take that risk and actually kiss somebody.
 
Costumes Give You Permission to Look
Note that I did not say “leer.”  The French maid wants to draw heads with her décolletage, but does not want said bosom actually drooled upon.  But when she saunters by, if you don’t turn your eyes her way, you’re letting her down—I think it's safe to say that no one dresses as a French maid unless they’re looking for someone’s attention (though admittedly it might be not specifically be yours).
 
Under ordinary circumstances, your eye is not supposed to linger.  You can take a quick glance and offer a quick compliment, but to look someone up and down is not appreciated (nor should it be.
 
With costumes, people put themselves on display.  They want you to look. They want you to notice. They want to be examined, appreciated, and complimented.
 
No costume is accidental.  You never just “throw on” a costume.  Even the choice not to wear a costume, or to wear a lackluster costume, is a series of conscious decisions that can merit an entire conversation.
 
Or you can just appreciate from across the room.
 
Costumes Give You Permission to Interact
The rules are different.  It’s a liminal time.  The usual iron hierarchies of physical attractiveness and social status relax.  Anyone can talk to anyone else.  The unapproachable dream person is not unapproachable.  They want to talk, to flirt, to interact.  They want to be recognized for who they’re purporting to be.
 
Only twice—twice—in the four days of partying I did was anyone less than approachable or happy to be asked about their costume (and so I will stow their grumpiness after the cut).
 

Everyone else was thrilled.  If I'd had a camera, I’m sure most of the people I talked to would have posed.  (I certainly did whenever anyone asked for a shot of me.)  I talked with more strangers than usual.  I danced with more strangers than usual.  And two out of the past three years, I held someone close, and our lips parted. This year, as you'll see, I wasn't so lucky.
 
Costumes are possibility…artifice…masks…performance pieces…excuses…and permission slips.  And if you’re lucky, they’ll involve a garter and thigh-highs.  What’s not to love?

Good God.  It’s already Sunday, and blogging-wise I’m only up to last Monday (10/29).  I need to get my act together and post about the rest of my week, before all the details get completely lost in the fog of memory.  Plus, I need November to be a really productive month, and too much time spent blogging is not time spent on writing, possibly looking for a new job, hitting the gym, catching up on The New Yorker, or doing any of the other myriad things I need to put time into besides kink.  I knew I was going to lose October in a haze of partying, but now it's time to have my nose to the grindstone clear to Thanksgiving.

Anyway, Monday I take a break from the Halloween craziness to have my date with Aphrodite from ALT.  We all know it was doomed from the start (so the gory but very read-worthy details—including the best first date introduction I've ever pulled—will remain under the cut).


So let’s recap: a mediocre Halloween Observed Saturday, stood up on Sunday, and a date on Monday over before it even began.  As a final insult to add to my injuries, I also find out around this time that I won’t be meeting the last remaining girl from ALT, Worm, in the coming week as planned.

Tuesday, mercifully and wisely, I take things easy to gear up for Halloween itself, relaxing at home and finally cracking open the Battlestar Galactica: Season One box set I got as a gift on my last birthday. 

I also do at long last indulge in at least one bit of kinky fun.  One online friend I semi-regularly talk to has been especially good of late, and to show her how much I appreciate her attention and eagerness, I gave her a brief show structured around her fantasies.  That I’ll leave to your imagination.

Now we get to a series of depressing incidents.  Saturday through Monday was grim (not actually grim or depressing in any real sense, just featuring hopes, erotic and otherwise, being raised and dashed).
 
I think it’s best I leave my record of at least Saturday’s shenanigans Friends Only—not because anything scandalous happened, but because it is packed with identifying details.  If you want to read it, comment or add me.

So we’re up to last Friday, and since it’s the weekend before Halloween, that means…erotic costumes!
 
That day my friend Deborah came up from Arlington to hang out in Baltimore.  I gave her much of the same tour I’d given Asha and Thrush, only she actually enjoyed herself.  As we were walking home we passed Illusions Magic Bar & Lounge.  In my neighborhood, there’s a famous magic shop run by former Ringling Brothers clowns.  Their son is now a magician and escape artist renowned in his own right. To give him a place to perform and hone new tricks when he’s not on TV or on tour, they created Illusions—an excellent place to spend a night watching Spencer extricate himself from a straitjacket over slightly overpriced drinks and for only a small cover.
 
As I point it out to Deborah, the owner (who I recognize but who doesn’t remember me yet, as I only go occasionally) encourages us to come back later for a costume contest.  And as we leave, we see a woman walking by with her husband or boyfriend. They’re both in overcoats, but she’s in white plastic-looking boots up to her knees, with wide-holed white fishnets.  I ask what they are, and get “Naughty nurse” and “I’m her patient” in reply.  Works for me.
 
Deborah’s on her way back to Virginia, but eventually I round up one of my roommates and we return.  By this point there’s a torrential downpour, so I end up not going in costume.  (I did bring a scary flail topped with a spiked ball as a conversation piece though.  Had we realized it wasn’t too late too sign up for the contest, my roommate and I later decided we should have been Old South Baltimore and Gentrification; we would have gotten some good (if classist) laughs when I drove him from the stage.)
 
The show was the usual: an opening act (this time a juggler with some jokes), and then the main event.  So far it’s been similar most times I’ve been there: Spencer comes out to Fatboy Slim’s “Weapon of Choice,” there are some card tricks and other magic laced with double entendres, then he trades his suit for Under Armour, gets strapped into a straitjacket, hangs himself by his ankles, and then works his way free to Moby’s awful version of “Mission Impossible” (four beats per measure?—I know it’s techno, but why sacrifice the pulsing end-rushed 5/4 bars of the original were half the piece’s success!).  It’s a good time.
 
Since I’d seen the show before (and because I'm a perv), I amused myself watching the audience.  (I teased one girl near us that watching her was half the fun since she was so into it; she laughed  and said, "God, I know, I'm like a little kid here!"  Also, Spencer and his assistants have an eye for audience participation, so of course they tend to pick out attractive people (usually women) to help them.  Many of these also ended up in the costume contest.
 
So what did I see?
 
Well, the Naughty Nurse was indeed there sans overcoat.  I dug the boots, but on the whole I was mixed—that image is so wrapped up in porn plot associations it’s usually more pornographic than erotic anyway, and most of the costumes on the market just make things worse by being so blatantly over the top.  (Many French maid outfits suffer from this as well, or go in the opposite direction, and become so aineme-esque beribboned and beruffled as to be lost in details that only a total otaku could love.)  I recognized that Nurse was dressed sexy, but her look wasn’t sexy to me personally. She ended up being both called up as an assistant for a trick and winning in the Sexiest Costume category, so apparently the judges disagreed.
 
The Naughty Policewoman (also called up to be a assistant) was decent as well (and more my age demographic), though again erotic law enforcement never been a thing for me—again, too porno.  There was, also, however, an Ice Cream Parlor Girl who was awesome. I’ve tried in vain to find a photo to post for you all (Google searches bring up another, far less individual one), but the fabric was a cool synthetic, whether plastic or vinyl or pleather or something else I’m not sure, really cute.  The cat’s-eye glasses, dark hair, and purposeful (she flipped up the back of her skirt) flash of black-and-white ruffled panties didn’t hurt...
 
Don’t worry, I wasn’t just out looking for my own erotic amusement—there were plenty of non-“adult)” costumes to salute. In particular, there were a couple that came late as Jim Dangle and Trudy Weigel from Reno 911 who looked so like real cops I didn’t recognize the reference until saw his shorts.
 
I was also disappointed in myself for not braving the rain, thinking I could have won the $50 prize for Most Interesting with my custom superhero.  (Scariest was the third and final category, by the way.)  My decision was vindicated, though, when a guy got on stage whose costume would have destroyed mine.  A cowboy sporting a beard and peyos, he called himself "The Jewsperado," which brought down the house.  It was a great costume playing off/wryly commenting on existing imagery/stereotypes (remember Dustin Hoffman on The Simpsons: “And for the record, there were a few Jewish cowboys.  Big guys, who were great shots, and spent money freely.”) and Baltimore (white Baltimore at least) loves its proud members of the Tribe.  I would have lost, and though I would have been happy to do so to such a worthy costume, I was even happier to have it dry and folded at home.
 
But special points for both effort and eroticism go to another pair: an Alice and a Sexy Mad Hatter.  The Alice was cute enough on her own, but disappointing costume-wise—just a camisole-type thing with a dishtowel pinned in front as a poor excuse for a pinafore.  But her friend, in the Sexy Mad Hatter costume that seems to be one of this year’s new offerings on all the costume websites, was stunning—as hot as the outfit looks on the Web, it is even hotter in person on a real, sweet brunette instead of a made-up, overdone model onscreen.  At one point, I told her she was robbed for Sexiest; smiling, she said she agreed.
 
My roommate and I bailed after the show and failed to find more costumed conversation either at Sly Fox or the otherwise pleasant Captain Larry’s.  After an Irish Car Bomb, I navigated home in the rain, leaving my roommate to wait out the storm over some Grand Marnier with one of the bartenders, to his everlasting regret in the morning…

More on the way.  We're not even up to Saturday yet...

More Halloween discussions on the way, but I wanted to elaborate on a line of though prompted by my last post.  Nun's "bad" behavior got my thinking about polyamory in general, and some real bad behavior I've seen in particular.
 
You’ve probably picked up on that fact that I’m a massive flirt, with tastes that are reasonably voracious and catholic (note the small “c”) to boot.  So naturally I like the idea of polyamory in theory.  The reality is much more tricky.
 
My own experiences in this world are limited, and barely worth reading (after the cut).
 

 I think to be a good polyamorist you really have to be born one, and have free, giving heart to go with it.  Those that are seem to be very happy, open, and playful.
 
And even for them, there’s definitely a certain amount of work and communication involved.  Two people is hard enough, so once you started adding a third—or a third on each side, or whatever—the amount of communication and consideration necessary is huge.  A woman I’ll call Pirate Queen whom I met at a recent event told me she’d taken her profile off CollarMe for just that reason; her primary relationship needed work, and extra people were only complicated that core work.
 
Sometimes, though, I fear a certain amount of bad behavior goes along with certain brands of polyamory—though I think it has as much to do with being young, self-centered, and recently out of school as it does with the label itself.
 
Part of it is a semi-obliviousness (perhaps intentionally so?) about other people’s relationships, as if they can’t even conceive how monogamous couples operate: “I’m not bound by monogamous norms, so why should anyone else be?”  And I’ve see that naïveté, if it can even be called that, morph into its darker cousin, “I don’t recognize or respect your norms,” and that cousin's evil twin, “I’ll take what I want, and your norms be damned."
 
This is a bold claim.  Let me stress, I'm talking about a minority (a few bad apples) of an already small minority (the set of self-identified polyamorists at large), and I am, as I am wont to do, generalizing wildly. So I’d better be able to back it up with an example, eh?
 
The year after college my friend Boise moved to Seattle and lived in a house with several other girls all working for non-profits.  Just before (or after, I can’t recall) one of the housemates, a self-identified poly girl we’ll call Parrot (get it?), pursued and slept with Boise’s boyfriend. The resulting fallout was of course unpleasant—Boise and her boy weren’t too serious, but serious enough that it hurt Boise a lot.  But what really steamed her in the end was Parrot’s utter lack of remorse about the whole incident—essentially “Why should he be your alone?  I wanted him when I wanted him and so I had him.  Deal with it.”  This took a lot of time for Boise to get over, and made living with Parrot difficult in the short run, to say the least.  Somehow, they managed to rekindle a friendship, though largely because Boise ended up deciding not to care, rather than by any tokens of apology or goodwill on Parrot's part.
 
(Interestingly, Boise went on to have an open relationship herself—I once had an excruciating visit out there where I had to meet both separately, at a time when I was simply not ready or in the mood to deal with that particular drama.  So I guess she took her own lessons from that experience…and it seems to be working, given that she and her boyfriend invited me to their “We’re legally married so we can share health insurance” picnic this summer.  (I had to beg off; six "real" weddings were enough))
 
Anyway, it’s those twin strains of thinking/behavior I worry about, whether in poly people or in supposedly monogamous folk. And again, I think most of the time I’ve seen poly behavior that I’d label “bad,” it was really age, experience, and inherent kindness (or rather, the lack of these three elements) that were the real culprits. Polyamory was just the medium in which the damage was carried out.
 
Maybe that’s way I like Nun so far, from my whole two encounters with her (only one of which involved actual conversation, since the first time I encountered her she was more…performing).  Nun seems to be more about sharing (and/or offering of herself?) rather than taking.  (At least one of my readers seems to have a similar outlook, if I’m reading her posts correctly.)  Not that I have much right to judge, but for a polyamorist, that seems like an excellent way to be.  Props to them for making it work, and for making it look like such fun at the same time.

I started this entry on Thursday.  It took me until today (Sunday) to finish.  But it’s written as if this were still Thursday, because I’m not going back to change everything.  So we’re all going to agree to pretend it’s Thursday, right?

Good.  Because I am not joking, mister.  I will turn this post around and drive right home, young man.

Okay, then…

This entry was not supposed to be fetish-related.  Nothing kinky was supposed to happen yesterday.  But odd twists and turns occur, and suddenly I’m getting cock-blocked by a ginger poly vampire.

Wait for it.  We’ll get there eventually.

Since this post is so long, I decided to subdivide it (after the cuts).  So here’s the vanilla stuff…


…and meanwhile, in LJ-related news…


…And turning back to kink…


Okay, we’re up to Thursday.  Now let’s move onto the rest of the weekend with future post…

My schedule is so off.  I never really got back on East Coast time after leaving San Diego, so I keep not being able to fall alseep.  Frustrated, I end up staying up too late chatting or reading, then crawling into work the next day unshaven.

Meanwhile, all this kink journaling has got me tragically behind on my New Yorker reading.  How about Sasha Frere-Jones's article, "A Paler Shade of White,"  on the lack of black influences in indie rock?  Simply everyone is talking about it, and I haven't even skimmed it yet.

Blah, blah, blah, you say.  You haven't spun in weeks anyways.  Bring on the kink!

Fine.  (Savages.)  lilyinchains has a group called consensualslave that I've just joined and with which I am very impressed by the level of discussion on.  Props to her!  Go check it out.

Yesterday's News—My estranged friend got in contact with me (but still has not set a date for us to talk).

Today's News—I mailed off my polite letter to our friend from ALT, who by the way went out of her way to duck me again last night (I log on—with an Away message on, mind you—and she promptly logs off).  I managed to keep basically to my second draft and not add anything pointed ("The silent treatment was a nice touch" or "You hide on IM because you're...what, five?") or worse.  But, geez...

Back to the Weekend—It was a very corset-filled weekend.  Saturday was normal, of course (skipped film for a nap, bluegrass playing at a brat roast (wurst, not children) in the evening, classy party in D.C. to close out the night).  But Friday I had the already-described play party and Sunday I attended the Maryland Renaissance Festival.

It is probably a bad idea to attend RennFest hung over, by the way.   Just sayin'.

Despite a monster headache, dehydration, and the lingering frustration over the ghastly traffic I fought to get there, I basically had a good time.  I ate steak-on-a-stake, say sword-swallowing, listened to Mediaeval Baebes, and watched some jousting. 

I also spent a lot of time with my friend—we'll call her Asha, since I'm running out of initials—who needed distraction from her break-up with her boyfriend.  (Her friend Thrush bailed at the last minute, which is probably just as well.  Just after this post I took Asha and Thursh on a tour of Baltimore, and Thrush cast a pall over the whole evening by not liking any venue we picked and generally being disagreeable, after I'd worked very hard to show them both a good time—especially frustrating since being with them made me miss going to a soon-to-be-shut down club with other friends (the same place ALT Girl also cost me).  At least Thrush was enough of a Southern lady to send me a nice thank-you note after.) 

Also, L., my regretable incident from 2006's Otakon, was working there (I made sure to tip her handsomely).  And it turned out the parking staff member who guided my car in was one of my former students from my substitute teaching days.

Costumes were good—nothing particularly worth mentioning, just lots of corsets, breeches, baldrics, feathered caps, capes, and all manner of cool gear.

The occasional kinksters were out and about, too, if you knew what you were looking for.  I'm mixed about certain kinds of BDSM play in public—yes the rules are different at RennFest, but there are also kids around.  So collars and corsets are good, but beyond that I think folks need to tread carefully. 

So I was delighted, amused, but also a bit put off by one group I saw.  They were bantering pleasantly, and at one point one of them, a guy in priest's outfit (a bit more modern than the period-appropriate cassock) took a quick paddle stroke to the behind of one of the others, a girl.  Meanwhile, throughout the whole conversation, she had a boy kneeling at her feet like a puppy, complete with collar.  So the whole scene tweaked a number of my fetishes, but I did question the venue, particuarly at 2:00 in the afternoon with hordes of kids around.  Then again, I'm probably primed to recognize the scene for what it was, whereas most people would probably write it off to college-age horseplay

czgoldedition will be happy that I can report that there seemed to be a lot of furrydom coming ouft of the closet.  In some casses, it was blatant—a guy in a very cartoony mascot outfit and a huntress in a full cat makeup and bodysuit.  But also I simply lost count of the number of people I saw walking around who'd accented their Rensaissance garb with fox and wolf tails, and I saw the occasional animalistic mannerisms.  In most cases it was all far short of fursuiting, but it was definitely present to the point of almost being common.

I should also mention that there were some amazing Imperial Stormtroopers, Biker Scouts, and a Boba Fett providing secuirty for a group of peasant "construction workers."  The RennFest's Lord Mayor declared them "all wrong" but was impressed at their fearsome appearance.  I was amused.

Still, a RennFest hungover—with a bummed friend and haunting by ghosts of hook-ups past—is a long day for anyone.  I'm glad I went, particularly for the time I was able to spend with Asha, but after a few hours I was happy to hop in my car and go home.

One final note: it's so much cooler to go to the RennFest now that it used to be.  I think that's amazing.  Props to the Internet, anime on network TV, Buffy, and the hard work of my fellow nerds from the '90s for making geekdom of whatever stripe cool.  We raised a generation of baby geeks to come after us.  Take my former student, for instance: not that I'm talking credit for this, but years ago I talked with her about D&D and Invader ZIm, now she's staff at RennFest.  Huzzah!