I am going to start filtering some of my more private musings. Since blogger does not have a tool for that, you will need to visit my Live Journal and ask to be friended there. I will continue to post Daily Gratitude and other subjects here. There is also a FAQ for my Journal at the same link.
Recommendations requested
| Tuesday, September 11, 2007 @ 07:49 As some of you know (esp. those that read slave boy's journal), I have recently added someone to my household. she is new to the bdsm/leather world and braved her fears of the unknown to request the opportunity to be of service. Since she lives in Tucson, we only see her on weekends, but we maintain contact throughout the week. I'll try to write another time about how grateful and amazed I'm feeling. Right now, I'm requesting your recommendations. Since she is so new (but solidly committed to learning about service, submission, surrender, SM, etc.) she's not quite sure what label fits her and is looking for guidance in finding her path. While I have a number of resources to share with her (as does boy), I'm looking for some quality web pages and possibly discussion groups for her to investigate. she has very limited computer access, so it needs to very high quality content and low to zero noise level. It's hard to believe it's been 10 years since I was a newbie (and several times that for boy) and 3/4 of the sites I bookmarked five years ago (when I was working with another newbie) are now gone. I need to know what is out there to provide information and support to a submissive woman who is exploring service in its many permutations: slave, girl, boy, 'submissive'... I am grateful to have such an experienced and intelligent circle of friends and readers and look forward to reading your suggestions. (0) comments
group behaviors
There is a new yahoogroup that focuses on M/s relationships. I joined it almost as soon as it was started and watched it balloon to 100-150 messages a day. Way too many for me to read, let alone respond to. So, I skim. And I try to catch up every day or two. I believed in this group because so many of my FOC and COF (local and geographically far) are members. Even more people I know and respect from around the country have posted intros. While I hardly expected everyone to agree 100%, I had hopes that it wouldn't fall into the normal cyber-drama of online groups. With so many people "real" and regularly encountering each other at events and clubs, I was naive enough to believe there would be some level of civility. In the few weeks I've been skimming messages (I currently have over 200 "unread" in my e-mail), I've been insulted twice and witnessed at least one little flame war about whether or not someone was being rude. From the select messages I've skimmed since I got home tonight, it seems that at least one person has left the group - which only led to more heated debate about whether the treatment of her was worse than her treatment of others. *sighs* This morning, as I got ready for work (I think I was 100 message behind at that point), I was extremely bothered by the two insults to me. I even commented to slave boy that I couldn't figure out why I was letting them get to me. Neither was directed specifically at me -- I've only made one post to the list introducing mysElf. And why was I so upset that a call for dropping value-ladden language by someone I respect was met with counterattacks and defense of "passion?" She certainly doesn't need me to answer for her or to feel badly on her behalf. She's one of the strongest, most articulate women I know and her Master is formidable as well. (The two insults? A slave/submissive woman posted that she addresses women by their name, whether submissive or dominant, but dominant men as "Sir." -- not unique. This type of sexism is so prevalent in our extended community that most people defend it rather than recognizing it as the discrimination it actually is. After being indirectly called "inferior" by her, I was then more directly labeled "unethical" because I choose to make decisions about slave boy's career and daily job. This was less indirect, as I had stated clearly that I did so and the comment calling all such Masters "unethical" was only one or two responses after mine.) I believe that people disagree. I believe that people have core values that are so core, they would literally die to defend them. However, most of life isn't that deep. Most of life is different choices and beliefs that we each hold. I respect and accept that others believe and behave differently than I ever would. I accept that some of my own friends and FOC may think me wrong, misguided, silly, or even stupid at times. I would hope they would call me on it and we would agree to disagree on those things that can't be resolved. For absolute strangers to call me unethical or inferior is beyond rude. Say my choices are wrong or that you disagree with my logic. Explain, as passionately as you want, that you would never do anything like that because it goes against what you believe. But don't insult me, or make blanket insults to large percentages of a list of several hundred people. Intellectual argument can be passionate without degrading the others involved. While few words are truly neutral, some words are blatantly insulting and used by the "impassioned" specifically to push buttons. As someone with strong pacifist beliefs, verbal violence is just as unsavory to me as physical assault. I realized on my drive to work (finally!) that this was why I was so bothered by these exchanges. I had hoped that this group might be a safe place for discussing M/s relationships openly and with some level of civility and acceptance. Just call me "Pollyana" I guess.
April 17th gratitude
Today I especially express gratitude
Please digg slave boy
A shameless plug for my property: If you are part of digg, please consider digging Kitchen Shaman's coverage of the 1st ever Food Network Awards. Thanks!
April 16th gratitude
Today I especially express gratitude
April 15th gratitude
Today I especially express gratitude
COA = Circle of Artists
April 14th gratitude
Today I especially express gratitude
April 13th gratitude
Today I especially express gratitude
April 12th gratitude
Today I especially express gratitude
RSS feeds & readers
As part of our developing business ventures, slave boy and mysElf are expanding our presence in the blogsphere. This requires us to wade into the world of RSS. However, neither of us have experience with either feeds or readers -- and we need to understand both. Does anyone have recommendations based on personal experience? We've done a few searches, but the stuff is too technical to decipher when we're this tired. Plain, simple reviews from people who've worked with them is what we're looking for right now. We'll figure out the technical stuff later. Thanks to anyone who can help.
April 11th gratitude
Today I especially express gratitude
April 10th gratitude
Today I especially express gratitude
April 5th gratitude
Today I especially express gratitude
April 4th gratitude
Today I especially express gratitude
April 3rd gratitude
Today I especially express gratitude
April 2nd gratitude
Today I especially express gratitude
March 30th gratitude
Today I especially express gratitude
March 29th gratitude
Today I especially express gratitude
January 14th gratitude
Today I especially express gratitude
and recognize that I am grateful for so much more.
January 13th gratitude
Today I especially express gratitude
and recognize that I am grateful for so much more.
January 12th gratitude
Today I especially express gratitude
and recognize that I am grateful for so much more. Here's a pic of this morning's toast tree:  .
Phase I over
It was a hectic weekend. Besides trying to mentally process the sudden promotion at work and what it will mean to the household, I was swamped in activities for the Southwest Leather Art Exhibition. The deadline for submissions was Friday night. I had to process, verify, track, code, and format all the images to be forwarded to the judges. I had to communicate with judges & with SWLC bigwigs & prepare draft decision letters and other minutia. In between that, I met our landlords, they had the heat fixed and a back door lock installed (finally!). I also managed to make it to the MAsT-Phoenix meeting. Then we met with the judges, who made their choices for the Art Exhibition and we all walked the space and made initial plans for display. I've turned most of that over to boy to coordinate. I just sent out the decision letters to all the artists. Now I get a bit of a breather before the artists start sending in further information and I have to coordinate volunteer hours, program content, & related tasks. Next year (if there is a next year) I'm going to have a larger committee than two to get all this organized and handled!
First Ever Southwest Leather Art Exhibition
SWLC Seeking Artists and Artwork for First Ever Southwest Leather Art Exhibition SWLC is pleased to announce that the first Southwest Leather Art Exhibition will be a part of our conference in January 2007. We encourage artists in the Southwest region of our leather tribe (AZ, Southern CA, CO, HI, NV(excluding Reno), NM, OK, TX, UT) to share their expressions of heart and spirit and submit their creative works. Artwork does NOT have to be kink-related or erotic in nature, though those subjects are welcome. All artwork must be submitted electronically (jpegs by e-mail) for consideration. Deadline for submission is December 15, 2006. A pre-selected panel will review all artwork, and selected pieces will be displayed during SWLC 2007. Details and submission guidelines can be found here: http://southwestleather.org/artexhibit.php
how do you test drive a computer?
I'm looking into buying a used laptop (or a new one if I can find an awesome pre-Xmas or inventory clearance sale). Given that I've only bought one computer in my life (back in 1997, I believe, the rest have either been boy's or hand-me-downs) and it was new, I'm not really sure how to proceed with checking out a used computer before handing over money. If you were going to buy a used laptop, what would your "test drive" include? I appreciate any suggestions you can share -- and be as thorough as you have time to be.
NaNo wrap up, Part 1
I'll have more to say in another few days about the process of writing the first draft of a novel in a month (and 54% of it in four days!). For now, I'm still getting over the last bit of this nasty cold and trying to restore some sort of order to the house -- oh, and catch up on the SWLAE & my other duties that fell by the wayside -- and sleeping! I figured if I could post an excerpt on the NaNoWriMo site, I could post it here -- though I may decide to delete it at some point, since this was the first draft, not a finished piece of writing. Thank you to everyone who posted encouragement in my comments (esp the last few days of frenzied writing) and who gave them to me via e-mail or in person. It really helped to know so many people believed in me.
Done!
Words written since 6pm on Sunday: 27474 Time finished: 6:15pm MST (so 27474 words in 96 hours, minus 4 days at work and various errands, not to mention sleep time). Words needed: -565 (but it's still untitled)
Nano update for 11-30 -- part two
Current verified word count: 48061 Words written since 6pm on Sunday: 24970 Hours remaining: 6:57 (minus one LILA meeting and allowing 19 minutes to encrypt the story and verify my count). Words needed: 1939 (including a title!)
NaNo update for 11-29 --part 2
Current verified word count: 45558 Words written since 6pm on Sunday: 22467 Hours remaining: 23:37 (minus two days of work and one LILA meeting). Words needed: 4442 (including a title! and a killer closing line)
NaNo update for 11-29
Current verified word count: 40194 Words written since 6pm on Sunday: 17103 Hours remaining: 40:36 (minus two days of work and one LILA meeting) Words needed: 9806 (including a title! and a killer closing line)
still here
After falling sick last Wednesday, I spent most of my time glued to the couch (I let boy have the bed, so he would have less chance of catching my bug). I'm still far from 100%, I have a cough and persistent sniffles, but I'm better, if tired. boy worked three 12hr shifts over the weekend and spent yesterday and today recovering. Between illnesses, work, novel writing, and recovering, the house is in probably the worst shape I've ever seen it. I really need a houseslave/boy/girl. As for the NaNoWriMo goal -- As of 6pm on Sunday I was still at 23091. Trying to reach 50000 by Thursday at 11:59pm MST is still my goal. Right now I'm somewhere between 34K & 35K. I'm just taking it 1K at a time and we'll see how far I can get. Time to go back to writing.
November 22nd gratitude
Today I especially express gratitude
and recognize that I am grateful for so much more.
NaNo progress report 11-22
Report for 11-21:
November 21st gratitude
Today I especially express gratitude
and recognize that I am grateful for so much more.
NaNo progress report 11-21
Report for 11-20:
NaNo progress report 11-20
Catch-up report:
November 20th gratitude
Today I especially express gratitude
and recognize that I am grateful for so much more.
NaNo progress report 11-16
Goals from Day 15:
November 16th gratitude
Today I especially express gratitude
and recognize that I am grateful for so much more.
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