Rambling Personal Notes
This may in fact be my worst blog entry ever. I have very little instructional to say and this is going to come very close to a chatty “personal” entry of the type that I generally deplore. But in this case it’s a way to keep in touch with people and it’s more a quarterly update than “how my last date went.”

This is the busy season…I’ve mentioned that. I’m running interactive theatre most of the time. I get to be producer which means that I spend an inordinate amount of time negotiating, trying to exert control, and occasionally begging. Which to paraphrase Robin Williams “is nice if you in scene, but not so nice if you in the jungle…” See there is this fantasy that goes with the word “producer.” It conjures up swimming pools, and dwarfs in elegant red uniforms carrying around plated phones. But the thing to understand is that those are producers who can afford to pay people. Producers who work with volunteers. Well let’s just say it’s a little different. Still it’s rewarding and I wouldn’t trade it and the people are good and passionate.

Speaking of passions. Life goes well. S. has a new submissive and that seems to be working out well. I’m gearing up for MAsT with M., and that’s looming right up. It’s my first MAsT and I’m not sure exactly what to expect. Obviously it’s not a fuck-fest. Based on guests and workshop descriptions, obviously I’m expecting it to be more discipline oriented which is of course fine, and what you’d expect. We got banquet tickets because that worked out well for S and I at Dark Odyssey in terms of meeting some new people. I’m not sure how I’ll come across there. Despite having some traditional values in regards to D/s, I just don’t fit the mold of the heavy-beared, leather vest-wearing, daddy. I don’t have anything against that look, it’s sort of the classic old school profile, and you’ve got to respect those guys. But…times change. I recently got out to the Midwest, and that was a good trip with some very pleasant connections with people I don’t get to see enough.

A new girl who I haven’t asked about referencing by initial, so we’re just going to leave blank for now, has me up in Baltimore from time to time. This is a drill I learned ages ago when A. worked near Penn Station, and I’d take the Penn Line train up to meet her. I just end up punting an hour and a half of work in the morning, because there is no way I am rolling out early enough to get back to DC on time. Aside from that, I enjoy the trips.

FetLife

Recently, thanks to M. discovered FetLife. http://fetlife.com/ She described it as the “new bondage.com” and I’m inclined to agree. There’s nothing really wrong with bondage.com. But the site always gave me this vague feeling that I was on an adult dating site, and that it only happened to have some kink stuff. I was paid there for a while, and even posted a bit, but never kept up with it much. There were some good discussion threads, and it wasn’t a bad place.

Fetlife has more of a feel of “for, by, and about the kink community” to me than Bondage.com. I’ve also noticed a goodly number of people I actually know from the local area have put profiles on FetLife, so I think that’s a recommendation. There’s less of a feel of a hook up service, which I think likely is going to make people feel more comfortable about it. So far the forums are interesting. Found a spillover group from literotica.com, forum related to online play, which I had an interest in for a while and still try to keep my hand in every now and then. I also notice that the ads tend to be for things and events I’d actually be interested in rather than being random “make your dick bigger” or “find women in 47 states now!” shit. FetLife advertisers are places like JT’s Stockroom, or Montreal Kink Festival. I’m probably not going to Montreal any time soon, but I can support ads for local events.

Anyway, I’d recommend it. There are only two things I don’t like about it. The first is that after coming up with a name that is a hell of a lot less damning than Bondage.com, it has an intro graphic that makes even me, Mr. has a screen filter at work, take pause before clicking into it. It’s the sort of thing that just doesn’t leave much doubt, if anybody is watching at all. The only other thing I don’t like is that it slams your age right up there in the header with your name. You know I could live to let people look at the picture, which is in fact current taken this December, and guess my age. But as a girl recently told me, I’m vain.

Large, Kind of Ugly, Art…

Okay the sex stuff is basically over to the extent there was any, so you can leave now. For the two of you remaning…I mentioned I’ve been taking the train to Baltimore (and Laurel, but that’s a different story) a bit recently. So, there is now a huge honking sculpture in front of Penn Station Baltimore. It is a good forty feet or so tall, and depicts a male and female shape in buffed anodized aluminum. They meet in the center to form a sort of hermaphrodite. Now I’m all for hermaphroditism. And I’m all for modern art. I have a lot of friends who are snobby representationalists. They don’t appreciate the influence of abstract art on the 20th century, and dismiss Picasso, De Kooning, Rothko, Calder, and so forth because they don’t paint like Hopper or sculpt like Rodin. These people think Renoir’s bronzes are “a little wild.”

Me, I grew up in the Hirshorn. Not literally of course (I say that to be funny). But my father was a member of the Art Director’s Club of Metropolitan Washington, so an art education I got.

I am not usually one of those people who says “that’s ugly.” But I am going to say two things. First I don’t really like the piece. I realize that’s subjective, but at least I am not coming at it with the thought of dismissing anything of the sort. I just don’t think much of it.

That said, who the fuck thought that a good thing to “liven up” Penn Station would be an anachronistic sculpture by Borofsky that literally dwarfs the station. It’s a dignified, stately, old rail station, Art Nouveau period like Washington Union Station, but not on so grand a scale. The low angle on this shot doesn’t really get across the degree to which this thing looms over the station – objects in photos always appear smaller than they do in real life. I understand it’s cheaper than a fountain, but a nice planter with flowers would be good. Or even some other modern sculpture that didn’t clash quite so powerfully with the background. Adding modern art to historic settings should enhance, not look like we’re expressing the power of the new revolution or something.

Nothing really sinful about that, but I’m going to use the hermaphrodite reference and my artistic pretentions to class it for this blog.