Slavedriving

Shelly, upon whom I so enjoy inflicting pain, likes doing the same to me…in the form of exercise. She, Kelly (kellyasmith), and I are just back from the gym.

And the frightening thing is, I like it. I never, ever thought I’d see that day come!

Leaving on a jet plane

The business trip I’d all but given up on is once more back on the books. I will be in New York City the third week of this month. Shelly may accompany me.

Pity I don’t know anyone in New York. Anybody have any ideas about what to do? Any good S&M clubs in the Big Apple?

The compulsion to commit art

I have a set of negatives from a photo shoot two weeks ago with my friend K and a new model, which have been taunting me and teasing me. I haven’t really been in the mood to go into the darkroom, but the negatives have been calling me anyway, like a thorn in my brain.

Whenever I go more than a certain amount of time without doing any photographic work, I feel like I’m being poked with a sharp stick. I don’t really want to go into the darkroom, but I think I will anyway, just to get this stick to leave me alone already.

And then comes the party!

K is having a birthday party tonight. Kelly, Shelly, and I will be going tonight; if all goes well, I’ll get hammered and be obnoxious.

The Future

Major changes happening in my business. This time next year, I’ll either be very wealthy or struggling like hell, but it’s unlikely there will be any in-between.

Welcome to the world of the small businessman.

Saturday saw Kelly, Shelly, M and I headed out to the S&M party for the evening. M gave Shelly a new outfit, which she wore after I put a karada (a Japanese rope harness) on her:

Isn’t she cute? 🙂

At the party, Shelly and I took turns flogging M for a while. M also got her first taste of the crop, which was fun.

Then it was Shelly’s turn.

Occasionally, people ask me why I like inflicting pain on my lovers so much.

The answer, and another picture of Shelly, is here (warning: explicit and NOT work-safe!)

….aaaargh!

Too late.

Friday: Chaos

I love introducing new people to Mao. Friday, we played host to a number of friends (including lordfuckbeast) and I created a couple of new variants of Mao, both of which had provisions for creating new rules mid-game under certain circumstances.

It didn’t take long before the new rules involved clothing. I should have been able to anticipate that, really.

We had planned to go out to the Castle–a local goth club–but never quite made it. C’estla vie.

Saturday: The Day of Significant other’s Significant others

Shelly has anew potential romantic interest, D. Saturday, I got to meet him for the first time.

Shelly and I were working on turning long acrylic rods into illuminated bondage devices when he arrived. No sooner had he walked in the door when we announced that we had to run to Home Depot–my favorite toy store–to get some more parts for the bondage implements. We dragged D and our friend J along; to his credit, D didn’t even blink.

Which is always good.

Upon our return, it was time for all of us to head out to my “other” girlfriend M’s birthday party, where I got to meet her other boyfriend, also for the first time.

The nice thing about being involved romantically with people whose judgement youcan trust implicitly is that meeting their other significant others is generally painless. M’s other boyfriend is also quite cool, and by the end of the evening had offered to make J a new flogger.

The end of the evening came either too early or too late, depending on which way you look at it.

Too early–we all of us, D and J and Shelly and Kelly and I, bailed before the birthday floggings started. Too late, because we still got home well after midnight, which gave us only a few hours to sleep.

Sunday: Day of the Living Dead

You see, many weeks ago, I did something deeply, profoundly foolish.

I scheduled a photo shoot with Shelly and Keirston and a new model I met at an S&M party some time ago. Downtown. At sunup.

Normally, the only time I see the sun rise is if I am still up, not if I’m getting up. This goes triple if I’ve been partying the night before.

So, needless to say, when 5 AM rolled around, we all looked and felt our best.

Still, we made it downtown. The shoot went quite well; downtown was largely deserted save for a few homeless people, who got something of an eyeful, but everyone left us alone.

Then it was back home again for a couple hours’ worth of sleep before PolyTampa. Then off to dinner with the PolyT crowd at a Japanese restaurant, whose staff seemed rather overwhelmed by the crowd.

I’m still exhausted. Morning today was sheer agony. I never really feel sufficiently repentant for my sins, though. Which probably says someting about me, though I don’t quite know what.

Last night, with the help of Shelly, I finally learned to Florentine–use a flogger in each hand.

I rock! 🙂

Must…not…let…brain…melt…

From an article at The Register…

The marketing materials for a gizmo made by NewColorShop.com, a company selling laptop computer accessories, makes it crystal clear precisely what their product is used for:

“Fusing the material which is superior heat-insulating uses the material and the super superfine origin thread which had self adsorbability. With the appropriate thickness, 1.5mm the stroke impression and feeling good touch heat-insulating compatibility. Do not use the paste and the tape and peel, angle rub cleanly you do not give. To administer also photocatalyst processing, be superior in the anti-bacterial going out bad-smelling performance.”

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. I need to turn that into a Flash animation somehow.

Plastics make it possible

I tracked down a plastics manufacturer that sells extruded acrylic rods today. bandage and I want to start making bondage equipment, like spreader bars, made from rods of clear polished acrylic with LEDs embedded in the ends, so that they glow when you use them. I figure that’d be, like, totally lumpy.

And speaking of lumpy…

Shelly and I are trying to coin a new word in American vernacular…”lumpy” as a synonym for “cool” (as in, “I just got a new Porsche!?” “Really? Lumpy!”>

We aren’t going to be happy until someone uses this expression on an episode of “Friends.” Be warned…you will be assimilated.

And that’s lumpy. 🙂

Eating a bowl of Cap’n Crunch cereal for lunch this afternoon (okay, I admit it, I have the dietary habits of a six-year-old), and what do I see on the box but the new Cap’n Crunch advertising slogan:

“Crunch-a-tize me Cap’n!”

I shit you not. My God, what I would have given to be a fly on the wall at the meeting where the marketing geniuses came up with that one.

I particularly like the “TM” on the slogan. Yes, boys and girls, they trademarked this slogan.

Ye Gods.

Just finished a major revision to my Web site, and created a whole new wing.

Billboards.

Yep, billboards. They’re more than just visual clutter; they’re also social commentary.

And sometimes unintentionally funny social commentary, at that. Who knew that the secret to group sex with hot bi babes was drinking Captain Morgan’s Spiced Rum?

Someone asked the question on a technical forum recently, “If you could go back in time and change the events in your life, would you?”

It’s a good question. My answer:

This is a question I’ve wrestled with quite often.

If I could go back and change some of the things in my past, I could no doubt spare myself–and others–a great deal of pain and regret.

However, I’m not completely convinced that it would be worthwhile to do so.

Aside from the philosophical issue that having a life free from pain is not necessarily a desireable goal, there’s the simple matter that the person I am right now is the result of the accumulation of experiences, good and bad, that have shaped and developed me and the way I see the world–and I like the person I am right now.

The parts of my life which have been the most painful–failed relationships, poor decisions–have also been the parts of my life where I have learned the strongest lessons about how to live my life the way I want to live it and how to seek happiness for myself and those i love without doing so at the expense of others. I would not choose to erase those lessons–not for any reason whatsoever, certainly not just to spare myself some pain.

Pain is a part of life. If you never hurt, you never feel. To wish for a life free from pain is to wish not to be alive at all.

The biggest regrets I have are not about times where I’ve been hurt, but rather about times where I have hurt other people. If I could change the things I have done which have hurt others without losing the value I have gained from those experiences, i might choose to do so, but I doubt it–who am I to judge the lessons those people have learned from those experiences? And is it any more realistic to desire a life where you never cause pain for anyone else, directly or indirectly, than it is to wish for a life free from pain yourself?

Many years ago, I dreamed of building a couple of small jet engines and mounting them on my Volkswagen Bug.

Apparently, it’s not as difficult as I thought. Ever wanted to build a jet engine or a cruise missile in your garage? Your prayers are answered.