NIN of the Above

Talk about Domme cred. My friend The Headliner invited me to the Nine Inch Nails concert Wednesday night (Aug 27) at the Izod Center (uh, the Meadowlands Arena). Me in my leather tank top, Armani jacket, pencil skirt, and sky high shoes. Early to arrive, we scored a prime spot near the front of the stage, next to the mosh pit.

I love standing among the front row faithfuls, who mouth every word, every chord on their air guitar. Last time I was in this same arena it was for opening night of Springsteen's reunion tour with the E Street Band (1998? 99?) and I was overwhelmed, frightened even, by the torrent of raised white fists pumping Born! in the! US!A! Ten years later and I'm getting hit with the sweat from these these thrashing, snarling, muscle boys, bouncing their bodies off each other like repelling magnets and I'm not a bit afraid. In fact, I'm desperate to crash into them, feel that punch and ache and sweat and hold my own among the big dogs ... then I look down at my open toes.

In these shoes? I don't think so.

Proof I haven't been a dominatrix all my life? Years ago I stood next to Trent during a Mardi Gras parade and hollered for beads from the passing floats. Nine Inch Nails. Rockstar god. Uh huh. I know. But also short, pale, thin, and obviously shy. Whatever, dude. Excuse me.

"Hey! Throw me something, mister!!!"

At the concert though, I drank the Smirnoff Ice and became a believer. On stage he was none of those things I saw on that St. Charles Ave. balcony. He's buff, gorgeously lit, and clearly knows his angles. Swoon, I did.

Listening to the verses swirling around me, echoed by the crowd, I fantasized about being the kind of dominant Trent is singing about. Or to. Even the kind of Domme that has a session playlist full of NIN. I imagined myself the cold, strict bitch to whom he'd scream, "I'd rather die than give you control!" and then I'd take it from him anyway, fuck him like an animal. He'd find happiness in slavery to me.

Etc.

But, you know, I'm not that bitch. God knows I wanna be sometimes. Every time a client I adore tells me some fantasy he has about being at the mercy of a cruel, capricious woman, I wanna be that for him. Be that for ME, even. A few of the dominas I admire most are of that classic "dominatrix" style. They've got that steel allure. Mystery. They're calculating and sadistic. Yet their play is still connected and genuine and intense. I admire and envy that.

I can be strict, cold, and harsh: don't get me wrong. But when I am those things, it's not a role. I'm not playing. It means I've been pushed to a bitter, defensive place that just feels ugly to me. It's not what play or dominance means to me at all. When I'm in that punitive space, I am all too aware that my grip on my self-control is slipping. That once I start, I cannot stop myself.

When I first started domming, I struggled with what I thought a dominatrix should be like, how I thought I was expected to behave and the kind of dominant I actually was. I was the one who'd flinch and gasp sympathetically when I wrapped the flogger or caught his scrotal skin in the zipper. I was the kind that found the proud horns and drums of Nina Simone's "Feeling Good" more inspirational in session than the boom and clash of NIN's "Discipline."

Everytime I felt the push from a client or a more popular Domme in my House to be something else, I'd try it on. Soon, I felt pinch in the waist, the tightness in the sleeves of someone else's clothes. After a while, I realized I can't walk in anyone's shoes but my own.

But, uh, yeah, Trent? You like Nina Simone, too, don't you?

Call me.

Great Chastity Device Information

My friend Aarkey has put together a pretty great FAQ on chastity devices. If you're into chastity or curious about it, you really ought to click this link.

Those of you wondering where my "Closer"/NIN post went ... it needed to cook in the oven a little longer. It'll be back as soon as I have room in my head to figure out what I'm really trying to say. Thanks for your patience.

Come Again

He'd been on "at will" chastity for over a week, mostly at his own counsel, though three days before he was due to see me, I emailed him in response and said,

"I love it when I can occupy a man's mind without ever having even met him. Dare I make myself even more present in your thoughts and order you to refrain from masturbating or any orgasm/release until directed otherwise?

Yes. I think I do.

Please consider yourself in chastity to me until we meet. You are honor bound."

When he arrived at Salon d'Orleans, I immediately locked him in a chastity cage. "So that you don't forget," I told him.

Later, he's blindfolded and wrapped in rope on my bondage bed. I'd been using his immobility to inflict all kinds of sensations: fingernails pressed into his nipples, stinging kisses from the violet wand, igniting blue circles of flame on his skin. I smiled seeing his cock grow and shrink with the pain and pleasure of it all in its cage. I pressed a vibrator to the cage to intensify his erection and the feel of the points of intrigue that dug into it. I leaned in close to his ear.

"I'm going to keep you in this cage for as long as I have you. While we play. While you sleep in bondage tonight. In the morning. Perhaps I'll even send you back where you came from, still locked up," I said, the vibrator clacking against the hard plastic of the cage. "Because I control your pleasure. I decide your release. I hold the key. " He groaned ecstatically. I looked at him, feeling intensely powerful. Keyholding goddess. In control.

And then he shuddered and came in his cage.

I yelped in surprise.

This, uh, wasn't the plan. I was so glad he couldn't see my face while I tried to figure out how to respond to all the different emotions. I was bemused: all powerful, keyholding dominant. Ha! I was definitely annoyed: he should have warned me he was close, but he was also a new play partner so he wasn't familiar with my scene communication preferences. I was shocked: I don't think I've ever had anyone orgasm in a chastity cage. Didn't think it could be done! I was also pragmatic: experience has taught me this is a harder disappointment for the bottom and any punishment I might think to give him wouldn't come close to the beating up he was silently giving himself right then.

So what to do?

I untied him methodically and without speaking. When I finally did speak, I was surprised by the "Domme-y" tone to my voice. "Stand up, go to the center of the room and get on your hands and knees," I commanded sternly but quietly. I fitted the humbler over the cage. "This is called a 'humbler,'" I told him. "I think it's appropriate. Now, crawl to the bench." He complied.

Taking my singletail from the rack, I moved towards him, swinging. He winced at the bites and licks on his unwarmed ass. "You realize you're being punished, yes? Do you know why?" Still with The Voice.

"Yes, Mistress. Ugh! I think so. Because I came against your orders. Ow!" A few dozen more strokes and I put down the whip and sat on the bench in front of him. "Rise up and look at me," I ordered. He did. I saw his face: pained, confused, submissive, uncertain. I gave him a slight wink and a half smile that said, This is play.

"Since clearly your desire to come is stronger than my control, that's what you're going to do," I said, removing the cage. I spread a wee pad over the rough, jute rug underneath him and scattered peppercorns on its surface. "Kneel here and bring yourself to orgasm. Now." He gingerly placed himself on the pepper and looked at me while he fisted his cock. Minutes later, he shot again.

I put him back in the cage and we went out for a quick bite to eat. It was late. Once back at the studio, I ordered him to orgasm a third time, this time feeding him his come. As promised, he slept in the chastity cage with the large points of intrigue. "I want you to feel me gripping you all night more than I want you sleeping," I told him.

In the morning, I unlocked him from the sleeping cage and put him back into a very tight rope bondage body harness and tethered him to the bed. An inflatable leather hood compressed his head, covered his eyes and mouth. I took out the Venus.

"Come again."

He did, his body strained agonizingly against the ropes. "That looked like it hurt," I told him. "The thing about a machine, though... it doesn't care. It doesn't care if it hurt. It doesn't care if you came. It's just going to keep sucking, relentlessly. Come again."

He moaned in resistance. I played with the speed of the suck: maddeningly slow to demandingly fast. "I'm going to sit here until you come again. I don't care how sore you are. How exhausted. How overstimulated. We have nothing but time. I will milk you dry."

When he came this time, he screamed. The Venus continued to suck anyway. Machine.

"Mercy," he whimpered. "Please, Mistress. I can't take anymore. Please. No."

Mmmmm. Yes.

Because I'm the Dominant, That's Why!

I often find myself challenging a lot of what's considered "dominant" behavior. I rarely kit up in fetish clothes (ironically, most of that 'trixy gear is so demanding to wear, I end up feeling like I'm submitting to it). I'll sit on the floor at his feet while I tell him all the tortureful things I'm going to do to him. I'll get on my knees while I'm whipping him or, even better, tying up his cock and balls (I l-o-v-e the mindfuck of kneeling in front of a man, my face inches from his cock, as I inflict pain on it. Sometimes I'll even look up at him and open my mouth suggestively, tauntingly just to make it worse.) After I've taken him out of bondage, I'll give him a nice backrub.

See, there's no question in my mind that I'm the dominant. That I'm in control. I know what it may look like, but that ain't what it IS. I revel in that contradiction. There's such space there.

I see so many Mistresses get so hemmed in by the dominatrix conventions, they think wearing pink is a subversive act. That was one of the reasons I initially swooned over Bitchy Jones: she was one of the few women I saw who intelligently asked "Why?" about a lot of these behavioral codes. (One might argue BJ's finding her position a tighter corset than she anticipated at this point, but that's another post.)

Really. Why does wearing fake patent leather six inch platform shoes make a woman dominant? If a man's fantasy is to be led around on a leash and he pays a woman to do that, why is that power exchange? Why does groveling, mewly voiced will-lessness equal submission? Why does sneering, stentorian edict throwing equal dominance?

Well, I know why. It's because that's what the porn tells us. But porn is caricature. It's fantasy. It's not real. It's like, back when I was writing professionally, my life occasionally resembled Carrie's from Sex and the City even though it wasn't until I became a professional Domme that I actually could afford a pair of Manolos. What we see isn't really what we get. Maybe there's some benefit to looking at what's actually in front of you and figuring out what about it genuinely works for you and what ultimately doesn't matter.

*****

One of my readers asked me privately recently if I noticed that I'd been getting fewer comments on my blog lately and why that might be. His theory was that perhaps folks were turned off my by my "Whence Kinky?" post and comments. He suggested that perhaps I was "too honest" and that I may have bruised a couple of imaginations with my ruminations on the provenance of my kink.

I replied that not just this blog, but my practice as a professional dominant itself is about my own pathfinding in dominance and BDSM. "I'm pretty honest about who I am and why I'm here and what I want out of this. In a way, I'm as demanding as a client," I said. "So I kinda have a 'fuck you' attitude to whomever's gonna be such a bitchy li'l prima donna about their kink identity as to get sniffy that I'm exploring mine. "

I then reminded him that is IS August. Who's around to read this stuff anyway?

Whatcha Want?

It's not at all unusual for me to ask a client, "So, what are you in the mood for today?"It's also not unusual for the client to respond, "Uh, I dunno. Whatever you'd like to do, Mistress." While I appreciate the verbal carte blanche, the thing is ... well, if there was something I was of a particular mind to do, I'd do it. I ain't askin' ya just to be polite.

Fact of the matter is, I've got a lot of stuff. There are innumerable things I am capable of doing with the gear I've got. If I may be so immodest, it's a bit of an embarrassment of riches and it's not always easy for me to just pick one. Or five. I also have a fairly active practice, so if I'm keen for a particular scene, the likelihood I have a client on my schedule who would *love* for me to do that with him is pretty high, too.

Part of why I bring this up is because I had a conversation recently with a craftsman that I'd been talking to about making something for me. I'd described for him what I was interested in and asked if he would enjoy making something like that. He said, "Troy, I have a lot of customers who commission me for all sorts of projects. If there's something I want to do, it seems the person who wants it always finds me at the right time. So I just want you to have what *you* want. If I can make the thing that will make you happy, I will be happy."

It was a revelatory moment for me, because he was able to articulate what I'd been feeling about the "whatever you want, Mistress" clients in my practice. I don't think of my asking you what you want as being "service Domme-y" or indecisive: quite the contrary, actually. I'm giving you a say, which to me means that it's mine to determine in the first place. And, mind you, just because you say, "Oh, I was really hoping you'd ____ and then stick ___ in my ____ and then ___ like ____ and then tie my ____ down and grab your ____ and ____" that I'm going to follow your script. Really, it's more that you just point me in a direction and I drive the car til we get where we're gonna go.

Does it feel like you're "in control" (snicker) when a Mistress -- or I -- ask what you'd like to do? Do you have particular cravings for certain kinds of play or is it simply the escape/surrender/submissive feeling you seek? Is it more a pleasure to take that Nestea Plunge and see what happens? Tell me.

Some Serious Bondage!

I've referenced the JGLeather's Bubbler Bondage scene on Serious Bondage a few times on this blog and elsewhere. Tonight, I finally got to recreate it for myself.

The big dilemma was whether to use a leather or latex straitjacket. My client has a fetish for both. I, however, have a fetish for bondage, so I chose leather because I wanted to be sure I could strap him down to the chair nice and tight without worrying about damaging the rubber. Next came the medium electric plug from Mr. S, as well as a corona cap, and a blue band to round out the electrics. Once in the Fetters leather SJ, he sat down in the chair where I hitched the pinion straps through the wood of the chair back. I added extra leather restraining belts at the biceps, thighs and calves to points on the chair to keep him in his seat. I further secured him with HumaneRestraint's locking leg braces.

I didn't want him going anywhere.

Finally the Studiogum MultiFunction rubber hood was put on. We were nearly there. As anticipated (thanks to some well-timed water drinking), I really had to pee, so I filled up the bubbler bottle with my piss, and attached the funnel hose to the gas mask. The bubble is much like a bong: when you inhale, air is passed through the fluid in the bottle before it gets to your lungs.

I love the idea that every breath he takes goes through "me" first: he smells me, breathes me. For this brief time, he literally can't live without me.

When we're done, this is how it looks. Click here for the video.


As the Top in a scene like this, it's really all about the rigging (well, I admit I did get a little giddy hearing that gurgle of his breath through the bubbler and seeing just how little he could move). A little later in the scene, I sat on the floor between his legs and held the Venus receiver on his cock. I loved watching him try to fuck the sleeve and just being completely frustrated in his movements.

When I took the hood off his head, sweat poured off him. His eyes were glazed and slow to focus. "THAT was intense," was all he could say at first.

No kidding. I can't wait to do it again.

The Best of Me

He's from Southern California. A dozen or so Dommes have notched his belt before me. This is our first visit.

I tie him to a chair and rest my bare feet in his crotch while we chat.

"Tonight, you'll get the best of me," I whisper in his ear. I sheath his cock in leather, spread his legs rigidly, sleeve his arms in leather and bind them before his chest, tighten the leather hood on his head then affix him at the anchor point for a flogging and a taste of my Strain whip.

I lock him into the cock and ball pillory to wait for me while I set the springs. My bare legs and arms flex as I move about the suspension rig. I'm dancing a little, to the music, to my thoughts of what's to come.

The leather strap cage. The sumptuous leather sleep sack that makes me swoon with the pleasure of its luxury every time I unfurl it. He slides in. Zips. Lacing. Belts. Straps. Clips. Springs. Hoists. Just before lift off, I tighten blue electro bands around his cock and turn on the ErosTek.

Suspension. The pulses in his jutting cock cause his body to flex. He bounces on the springs. This pleases me. I can tell.

I take him down, out, and down further still to the floor. Rope his ankles together and pull this way. Rope his wrists together and pull that way. He is stretched underneath me, abs extended, his breath the only thing that moves him. I dance my feet over his body. A sensual hopscotch.

When I'm done with him -- the ropes off, the hood removed, his skin wet -- he finally speaks. "I will miss you."

Mostly Dead and Read

Lifted and reprinted with my notations from Roxi Fox's blog.

FWIW I have no idea who or what "The Big Read" is but I'm appalled there's no Toni Morrison on here. Or DeLillo. Or Walker Percy. Or "The Sheltering Sky." Or "The Corrections." Or "Their Eyes Were Watching God." I thought Jonathan Safran Foer's "Everything is Illuminated" was a wonder. Ditto "The Hours." And if you're going to include kids' lit, where's "A Wrinkle in Time" or "Bridge to Terabithia"?!? There are easily a dozen more books/authors that I could name right now that really ought to be on this list instead of "The Secret History" (which is one of those weird books, like "Geek Love" that I seem to see on everyone's bookshelf). I'm a little more in favor of Time Magazine's list, personally (it was the first to come in when I Googled "100 best books of all time"). Not sure what my notations below say about me. Probably mostly that I stopped reading books regularly around 1998 and that I clearly have something against the Russians.

I promise I'll write substantively about kink again soon. Got a couple of posts in the works, in fact. :-)



The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed.

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you started but did not finish.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own blog so we can try and track down these people who’ve read less than 6 and force books upon them.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh -
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73.The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

What Goes Around Comes Around

One of the things I love about my BDSM practice is how it's always evolving and changing. Scenes or activities that may have been mainstays at one point may fade out and be replaced by another "favorite thing" which then cycles out for the next activity, which may be new or may be a revisit of a previous focus.

Right now, I'm rediscovering my love for flogging, which was one of the first implement-driven corporal scenes I learned. I was taught by Domina M, an admirable flogger. I was mesmerized by the way the tails swirled in her hands as she Florentine flogged (that's double flogging with a whip in each hand. There's a crappy demo here.) As I learned other corporal techniques, however, flogging just became one of those things I did as a warm up for other implements. "It's like shiatsu," I'd shrug when describing it to someone.

While at Shibaricon this past May, however, I took a side trip to the International Mr. Leather conference going on in downtown Chicago. Heartwood was vending there and I picked up a gorgeous, thuddy double elk flogger that just felt like home as soon as it was in my hand. Compared to my other floggers ... well, it just doesn't compare. I love throwing it. It feels amazing.

So that was the tinder for my renewed interest. Several weeks later I had a conversation with MVX (who bought several Heartwood floggers on that trip herself) about flogging and she started describing the pleasure she gets out of a flogging scene:

I like it a lot. I like the physicality of it, the rhythm of it. I like how it affects breathing. I like how it can be done for a long time. I like how it can dial up or down in intensity. It's very accessible. I like how it has a kind of trancey quality to it. In my experience, upper back flogging makes people cry more than anything else.

I started thinking about ritualistic flogging like Victoria was describing and it was really appealing. But because I'd been using flogging so much as just an appetizer for the main course (usually singletail), I just couldn't see how the bottom wouldn't be bored getting flogged, "Yeah, yeah. I'm warmed up. C'mon! Bring the heat!"

Then a friend of mine was talking with me about corporal and commented that since he's a switch but mostly bottoms in his personal relationship, he doesn't get a chance to corporal Top much. "I really love to throw but now think I'm getting rusty cause I never get to do it," he said.

Thinking about my new flogger and how I like to bottom to all my corporal toys just so I know how each instrument feels when I'm dishing it out ... and still wondering about what it's like to be on the receiving end of a long flogging, I suggested he practice on me for a bit.

He skillfully took me through my entire flogger collection (clearly, flogging's like riding a bicycle...) and not only was I not bored, I just didn't want it to end. It IS like shiatsu ... and, you know, shiatsu feels GOOD! Though I have to admit some of my floggers felt better than others. I really want to get more Heartwood floggers (I hope they're vending at Floating World next weekend!) because the quality is just exceptional.

And that, my dears, is why you shouldn't be surprised if I pull out the floggers on your next visit.

Good Times, Good Times...

Those last few weeks of July kept me hoppin' in the studio. Realizing this past week was going to be fairly light, I decided to take the week off. Besides, my neck, shoulders, and back have both been addled by some kinks lately that definitely feel far more intrinsic than artistic so I figured a bit of relaxation would help.

Tuesday night I met up with MVX and we dropped in at the bar at Scarpetta, a recent fave, for dinner (great timing, great choice: the next day Scarpetta earned three stars from the NYTimes. Bruni is totally right about the tomato, btw...). After fritto misto, beet salad, and polenta with truffled mushrooms, we met up with a vanilla friend of mine at Union Square and we all went over to my studio to play Boggle.

I mentioned I was going to Barcelona again in September.

"But I won't be going to bars, alone-a," I giggled. I'd had a lot of wine.
"As long as you're not wearing anything Gaudi."
"Jamon! Who do you think I am?!"
"Serrano!"
"After Spain, I might go visit my friend in Brussels ... but I'm waffling."
"I'm a-Frites of what might happen..."
"Just don't leave any Bruges, Troy."
"Can't say I give a good Van Damme if I do."
"Well, have fun a-Ramblas through Europe!"

And, yes, I won the Boggle game.

Swamp Yankee

One of my readers was kind enough to point out recently that "Swamp Yankee," a phrase I jokingly use to refer to my "cultural background" does not actually mean what I say it does.

Harrumph! And I have such a strong appreciation (one might even call it a fetish) for linguistic precision.

I ain't changin' it though. Nyah!

Teamwork

I was having drinks with a man at a rooftop bar recently. Next to us was a group of business folks, though the man immediately next to us seemed quite left out of his group's conversation and apparently quite interested in mine.

"Excuse me, I don't mean to interrupt, but what did you just say?" he asked me.

I glanced at my companion, just to make sure he was up for engagement. He was.

Crossing my bare legs and letting the sandal dangle from my foot, I turned back to the fellow and repeated myself, "I said that I'm undateable."

Nosy looked baffled, "I find that hard to believe. Why....why... what do you mean?" He looked at my companion. "I'm sorry. I really don't mean to get into your conversation. But I'm just very curious. Do you mind?"

"Sure, feel free to talk to her," he said. "I should warn you - sometimes you walk into something thinking that you're the cowboy in a cowboy movie. Turns out you are the cowboy, only you're in a vampire movie. And you're lunch."

Grinning, I turned to Nosy. "Hi, cowboy. "