The smile afterward . . .

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SIG

I did a fair amount of both rigging and being rigged at yesterday's SIG, and learned a few new tricks with bamboo: a quick-release harness with a small central pole, a new way to attach wrists to a 'crucifixion' pole over the shoulders, and a way to use bamboo spreader bars as attachment points for a hog tie.

All this, and I got to be suspended. I've been needing it: the more stressed I am, the harder I want to be played. And so I let myself sink deeply down into the suspension for a while, taking a few minutes to just let everything go and move where I was moved. I was still flying a bit hours later. Exactly what I needed.

(Well, maybe not exactly. I still could use a massive spanking, but I'll take what I can get.)

Alive and well, if a bit hoarse

I am in fact still alive, although with a deep cough. My girl is using her sneaky ways to convince me to see a doctor soon. Ah, turnabout. Sadly, the deep and rumbling cough is not quite the flavor of "daddy" I'm aiming for . . .

Ideally, however, the cough will just pass and I will make it to the local rope SIG Sunday. A friend took Steve Indand's class in Austin when I was away. I'm looking forward to swapping notes with him on what Steve covered in the intermediate class, which I haven't taken. With town nearly cleared of kinksters from South Plains, it ought to be quiet, which I'm actually looking forward to - that should give a lot more space and ease to just dig in and play.

Praise, effort and smarts

Very interesting article in the New York magazine on The Power (and Peril) of Praise. In short the article starts to dismantle conventional wisdom on praising kids for their inherent abilities, and instead recommends refocusing praise on effort.

Randomly divided into groups, some were praised for their intelligence. They were told, “You must be smart at this.” Other students were praised for their effort: “You must have worked really hard.” . . . Then the students were given a choice of test for the second round. One choice was a test that would be more difficult than the first, but the researchers told the kids that they’d learn a lot from attempting the puzzles. The other choice, Dweck’s team explained, was an easy test, just like the first. Of those praised for their effort, 90 percent chose the harder set of puzzles. Of those praised for their intelligence, a majority chose the easy test. The “smart” kids took the cop-out.

Lots of meaty stuff here, and as one of those "smart" kids that did worse the higher I went in school, I relate to a lot of it from the inside, and I'm thinking a lot about what I might do differently as a teacher. Well worth the read for anyone who teaches, trains, or . . . well, trains.

On being tied up . . .

Isn't that just the weirdest turn of phrase? "Sorry, I couldn't make it, I was all tied up."

Ironically, that's the excuse that falls out of my mouth for not making the Rope SIG yesterday. I got tied up with other things, and we couldn't make it. (Sadly, there was no actual rope involved in the other things . . . )

"Wednesday is for washing"

I try not to wash my rope too often. For regular play, I don't. Hemp rope and water don't play well with each other, and over time too much washing will break down rope. When there's no serious need to wash, this isn't worth the trade off.

For other types of play, many reasonable riggers disagree on whether or not to wash. Some do, others don't. Jay Wiseman -- known for his focus on safety, and his fanaticism for medical research related to BDSM -- notes that there are no known cases of any disease being transmitted via rope (Jay Wiseman's Erotic Bondage Handbook, Greenery Press, Emeryville, CA; 2000, p 116), and that any disease would need a moist environment to survive, such that merely drying one's ropes thoroughly after play should suffice (118). That said, he then goes for several pages to talk about disinfection for those who want it.

For me, the question of actual disease transmission is really secondary to the squick factor. I once saw Jay borrow rope from a couple for a demo. The couple were none too happy to have the ropes back after they'd been in a stranger's crotch, and no amount of Jay's research was going to make them any happier about it. I ask myself the question: Would my next bottom want these ropes on them if they knew where they'd been last? How about in their mouth, when I decide on the fly to make a rope gag? If the answer to either of these is "no," that rope gets hand-crocheted and put in the washing pile.

The fun part is once I've washed and line dried a batch, and am oiling it to put away again. Ah yes: this was a lovely rope gag when I did that hog tie. And this is what I used as crotch ropes with the Magic Wand. Oh and this! This was that lovely hand-tied dildo harness. Mmmm, memories.

(I'm also amused that I can now have about 90 feet of rope out of commission and not feel a loss!)

Dayplanners, and the onset of spring

Once upon a time, I was involved with a bard. It was a long-distance love affair: we'd gotten hot and heady over email, tossing Crowley references about and arguing philosophical minutiae. By the time we met at my first Pantheacon in '96, we agreed to make a trickster's bet and I was aiming to lose so we could sleep together.

All went to plan, and that began a completely whirlwind year. The bard and I saw each other in person only a very few times that year, but they were deeply meaningful to me. We called and wrote as often as we could. On one whirlwind trip, I met one of his other sweeties and her partner, who later became my lovers. The bard floated through life, living large as tricksters do, loving and eating and cracking bad jokes and playing heart-breakingly beautiful songs. I got to play muse and foil, and also stood up to him more than I think most folks did. It was a hell of a year.

It was the bard that gave me my first dayplanner. He was stunned I could live without one, and as I got to know him better I understood why. Not only was he touring the country to give classes and concerts, but he seemed to have a string of sweeties in each town. (It's good to be the bard.) You're going to keep a social calendar like that, you need a day planner.

These days, I am convinced that the day planner is the poly person's very best friend and confidant, tracking dates with gentle precision.

In our Brigid ritual the other day, I taught a song I learned from the bard, with the line: "I want to be merrily courted in spring." I warned folks up front: sing it like you mean it, or don't, but it's a spell. In the less than two days since the ritual, I've been suddenly flooded with new connections, two renewed offers for rope bottoms, and a fervent modelling request from a photographer who kisses rather well.

At the moment, I'm sitting with all of these lovely potentials and eyeing my calendar. Oh, bard, why didn't I get my dayplanner in order before the ritual? I know better.

Sadly, they don't all live in Texas

I have the world's best exes, I swear.

I was still smiling over my Darling Ex-Husband (tm) making Monty Python jokes at me to cheer me up when I got an invite from one of my first girlfriends to the Sex Workers Art Show. How cool is that? Heck, I might take one of my other (and more local) very favorite exes to go see it with me.

At coffee the other night, a friend suggests that it has to do with poly: that we poly folk have a continuum of relationships and that this allows us to maintain better terms with our exes than other folks might. Jack Rinella says something similar in The Compleat Slave, that you might decide that a certain kind of relationship -- say, M/s -- isn't for you, but that doesn't mean you can't be friends or even play partners again.

Maybe. I'm not sure what it is. Right now, I just feel blessed.

When I Rule the World . . .

. . . there shall be a rope SIG every weekend, as well as matter transporters between here and cities with cool rope classes.

Sadly, my rulership of the world has not yet been confirmed but I am looking forward to the Houston SIG, which is only a weekend away. All that talk of poly yesterday, but I think it's not really the poly part that gets to me. It's geography, and the solid fact that my darling Pyrate Lass and Cap'n live three hours away.

In the meantime, I have these vague ideas of a big date with a garden center on Sunday morning. I think I might use my newfound rope skills to put in the bean trellis to end all bean trellises. I'm thinking a bamboo tripod with tons and tons of 4mm unprocessed hemp creating a pretty web for the pole beans to climb. This requires putting in a new garden bed big enough to hold the darned thing, which means a day of futzing around, digging and sheet mulching. (Which I have to say is more appealing at the moment than my alternate plans of possibly dancing till all hours Saturday night. Sometimes I'm just old and boring that way . . . )

Polyamory, emotional distance, and practice

Mistress Matisse has some very astute things to say about polyamory this week.

And I think she nails the absolute key quality that helps keep things working: perspective.

No one can predict with perfect accuracy how he or she will feel about anything, but exactly how you feel isn't as important as how you respond to those feelings. There is a key trait in people who do polyamory well, and it's this: They are good at regulating their strong emotions. By that I mean, when something emotionally intense is happening to you, either good or bad, you're able to see it as part of a larger whole and keep it in perspective.

There's a lot of very good, pithy examples in the article -- go forth and read it.

As a magickal person, I'd add that this is yet another place where having a daily practice fits in for me. I don't particularly care what someone's daily practice is, but I am a huge fan of having a solid anchor to return to when emotions get off kilter. For me, that's my morning pages (unpublished writing in which I can rant for twenty minutes), my sitting practice, and my yoga. For someone else it might be regularly grounding and centering. Or aikido. Or a regular workout routine. For a poly person, it might be a regular time to personally sort through their feelings before a checkin with their sweetie.

The key to me is that these kinds of practices create just a small moment of distance between ourselves and our emotions. I have emotions, I feel them - but I am not the same as what I am feeling. "I am angry," has one set of implications. The difference between this and "I feel angry" is more than semantics.

The other thing for me about a daily practice is the discipline of it. I'm very good at pushing through the steep incline of learning something new. I absolutely detest the long plateaus that inevitably hit my practice afterward. Working through the sore muscles of renewing my workout practice? No problem. Actually getting on the mat twice a week no matter how I'm feeling? A lot harder.

But, I'm thinking a lot about what Matisse has to say about maintaining existing relationships in the face of new ones.

But you can't act like a junkie who needs an endless New Person fix or your original partner will freak out. You have to feel all the good emotions your new relationship is bringing you, while continuing to love your existing sweetheart the way they need to be loved.

True, that. And, also the lesson of a daily practice. Daily practice -- with the emphasis on daily -- is all about returning to center in the face of the new shiny. I write my morning pages as close to daily as I can, no matter what's up. At my best, I do the yoga whether or not I feel like it. And, the real nugget there for me is that despite all of my resistance, I always feel better after those practices than I did before. When I am on the mat, I may feel a ton of resistance. I tend to bargain with myself to make it through just five more minutes of class. It's just like trying not to safeword, some days. But when I make it through, I never have the thought that I wish I hadn't. I never once leave feeling that that investment is a waste of time. In a way, my practice is my existing sweetheart, and my practice gives me the skills to (one happy day) nurture a primary partnership through both the inclines and the steep slogs.

A Kinkster's Guide to Pantheacon - Pt. 2

So, what's happening this year in the erotic, kink and poly world of P-Con . . . ? Let's see . . .

Looks like tons of stuff on the intersection of pagan, queer and transgender issues. Cool to see a bit more of this every year. I honestly can't recall anyone speaking to transgendered issues at all ten years ago; now there are a few groups doing that, either as part of a queer topic or by iteself.

Live the Dream is doing a Poly workshop, complete with a "love magnet" meditation. Hmm. Perhaps the workshop will be interesting, but not for me. I'm thinking that for my poly life I need a "day planner" meditation. Lots of Boundary/PLAY workshops and rituals. Donald Michael Craig is doing something on sex magick.

Oh, here we go! Luisah Teish is doing "Silk and Honey: Erotic Storytelling from the African Diaspora". These are good, good stories. Want to gossip about the erotic romps of the gods? This is where to get the dirt. I've done Teish's workshops before; she's fantastic.

Looks like she's up against one of LaSara Firefox's flirting workshops, though. Magickal techniques in flirting, eh? I'm guessing NLP, and knowing LaSara I'm guessing it will be interesting.

Of course we Scarlet Women can't miss the PombaGira Devotional to the sacred whore. Yes, I was afraid of going onceuponatime. Those days are over. Pack me some red and black and The Fuckoff Boots; I have some dancing to do.

And um, hmm. No Dossie Easton this year. Damn. No Joy Wolfwomyn either, at least not as a presenter. Hmmph.

I guess it's my year to have a 'vanilla with espresso' con. Oh well, there's always the regular roster of high magick, permaculture, witchy stuff, kabbalah, devotional work from every diaspora, absinthe parties and whatnot. Lots of cool vendors. Enough Reclaiming and Feri homework to keep me more than busy for a weekend. And if I get terribly bored, I suppose I can do a pickup workshop "meet me in my room" style . . .

(I wonder if anyone would go if next year someone did a workshop on magick and rope play? We'd need rope, though. Lots of it.)