For the first time in months of forever I had a full weekend of downtime. No rent career stress, no presenting, no classes to teach OR take, no new family health emergencies. Just recreation time. It was fabulous & very needed. There wasn't even any art to make. Making art is what I do to feed my soul but it is still work, and still requires mental (& physical) energy.

We celebrated birthdays with 2 dear friends, rope_guy  being one of them. We went to IchiUmi, a Japanese buffet in midtown. It was SO much fun. A block long, all you can eat prix fixe cold/hot buffet with sushi, snow crab legs, a raw bar, veggies, ramen, beef rolls, fried soft shell crabs, and a slew of cooked fish - broiled salmon, monk fish liver, just all kinds of stuff ... plus a dessert bar. Plus a fruit bar. And ice cream, if you perhaps weren't full yet. Afterwards we strolled down Fifth Ave, stopping by JJ Hats for a little "window licking." We walked down to Washington Square (Park! Yay, Park) where they were showing movies on a big inflatable screen under the night sky. We stopped at Bruno's for pastry so we could have breakfast in bed on Sat & trotted home

There was nothing to do on Saturday until eve, so we lazed about in bed & ate pastry, then took a walk around the Village & had lunch at a sidewalk cafe, getting  home before the rains came. And such rains ... torrents of water streaming down under sparkling bright sun. Amazing. When we left later for birthday #2 (more sushi! cupcakes!) there was a rainbow. It never rains on Pride in NYC, or almost never. But this year Pride weekend had a rainbow over the birthplace of Pride, the home of Stonewall. Nice :)

Today of course was the Pride parade ... I've marched almost every single year for the past 20 but this year I just didn't have it to get up early & run around under the sun. Instead, we took a slow start, strolled through the park (Park! I'm so in love with our new park) & found easy viewing on Fifth Ave where the parade turns into 8th Street.


And now ... I'm sitting in the living room, watching my window & waiting for the fireworks. Next week, tomorrow will be another week of running & being *on* but for right now the breeze in the window is lovely, and there will be fireworks soon. Ahhh :)

SOS ... Need help from da Intrawebz!

My elderly stepmom just had knee replacement, is about to be released to PT rehab. There's no beds @ Rusk, our #1 choice. Who knows good facilities in Manhattan? And where do we steer clear of? We don't have the list of options yet & I need some targets to point my google-fu tonight at so I can help direct my dad towards some options for tomorrow AM ....

Any scuttlebutt on the topic would be appreciated!

thank you, many thank you's ....

Been mired in issues with aging, ill parents & the attendant stress. There's been a lot of that in recent years & I have a low threshold now. It can all close in on me pretty quickly.

Today was a brief bit of remedy. My love affair with the renewed Washington Square continues unabated. After it reopened D & I decided to make an effort to take more time for strolling the park. Today was park perfection.

Right off the dog runs was a puppet show, Castle Critters. They were lip-syncing (do puppets have lips? ... ) to Hotel California. Very entertaining. Then there was the fountain, which never fails to make me smile. It was all glittery in the sun, full of smiling, drenched children (always charming at a distance) & threw a cooling mist onto the promenade. We sat on a bench & took it all in. There was a couple of guys strumming not too badly on guitars & making up lyrics about the mise en scene before us.

Taking up the puppet theme (I'm lookin' at *you* seraphin_13  ) musically was The Marionette Roulette with trombone, accordian, saw (!), guitar, fiddle & cello. Not the most polished performance ever but for a day in the park? Joy.

We came home. I made the Best Salad Ever (until the next one): with shrimp, sugar snaps, grape tomatoes, pignoli nuts and avocado in a warm lime-dill & chili garlic vinaigrette.

Now, back to the couch to read The Emperor of Scent & nibble on chocolate maple creams.

My Fellow Brown Coats!

Perhaps someone out there could enlighten me. I've watched "Safe" a few times. That's the episode in which Simon and River get snatched by intergalactic hillbillies (and we get the classic lines from Mal and Zoe: "Looks like we got here just in time! What does that make us?" "Big damn heroes, Sir!" "Ain't we just?"). I love it! Now comes the Personal Firefly Mystery: how in the hell did the hillbillies know that Simon was a doctor? I can't see a scene in which he's ever called "doctor" outside of the ship. There's the rustling in the woods near the corral but no one ever says "Doctor, take your crazy sister into town so you can get kidnapped by intergalactic hillbillies."

Assistance, please!

Washington Square Park has been re-opened. This thrills me. This evening on my walk home the fountain was on, children were playing, people were strolling or running about recreating or siting on benches & benching, it was just fabulous. I stood just watching those glorious sprays of water in the sunlight & was filled with the kind of joy that happens from being present in the moment. The air was warmed just enough by the sun & for NY, fresh. Spring fresh. Ahhhh.

And as grumpy as I've been about the fences & the No Park for months on end, it IS better. It's more open. There's more flow. It just feels more ... relaxed.

Oh! And there was music! There was a ragtime band - fiddle, tuba, guitar, tuba .... and dancers! Four couples doing ragtime dancing. So fun! I smiled so hard I almost cried, it was just so .... spring! music! park! sun! dancing! yay!

Michael Rosen was kind enough to share a couple of shots he took of me while we were at seaf . The first is from the performance I did with twistedmonk  and the second is from the photography class Michele and fd_midori  taught. I was one of the three models for the class (kimosammy  and bonafide_ss were the other two). I think they're fabulous! Thanks Michael!

I had a fantastic time at seaf  and I just can't thank everyone enough for all the fun, art, food and warmth! "Mayhem" will be one of my favorite memories for years to come and I can't wait until I can post a gallery from the images Michele shot! Thanks twistedmonk  I got to play model on Sunday in Michele and fd_midori 's class along with kimosammy (Whooo! Believe!) And the walk in the a.m. for breakfast with sfracerx  was relaxing, despite the incompetence of certain service sector employees. Many thanks to silvergoth  and Matt for their hospitality and companionship. grimwish  and pirate_molly , I miss you both terribly! Thanks, too, to soapysophie  for the gift of sharing rope with us on Monday...what an amazing way to cool down from such an intense weekend!

We'll see you in a few months, Seattle!

jeez. what made me think THAT was a good idea??

still very happy about SEAF but utterly wiped, fried to a crisp from the re-entry. cannot imagine being capable of function tomorrow.

Gliding into cool down from this year's SEAF. Feeling oddly weepy about re-entry. It was all so great, so energizing, so deliciously connective & creatively stimulating. I'm feeling weepy & sort of like when I was a kid & summer camp was over & it was time to go home to Real Life. I used to have that a bit about leather events. I don't any more, really. But for SEAF ... yeah. This is camp for me. But this is also real life for me. This is a vacation into all the places where I live. Thank you, Seattle.

Happily tucked away @ Vivace with D, fd_midori  & sfracerx after dim sum & a wander through the International District.

Very content.

Looking forward to dressing up (with flats tonight, gold embroidered Indian slippers with a red trim) tonight. Looking forward to having D on my arm. Looking forward to D & twistedmonk 's rope play at the event. Looking forward to shooting photos of the scene/performance (yay, Fri night photo pass).

I hear they're expecting 1,500 people tonight.

Whoa. This is me being all grinning & stuff.

24 hours in & I'm wearing my vacation smile. Comfy, easy Jet Blue flight with an empty middle seat that deposited me into the hands a very very wonderful person who waited at the airport to pick me up at midnight & drop me off. Ahhhhhh.

Love the place I'm camped out at, a generous friend's comfy downtown condo. Skyline view, mountain backdrop. Woke to sunshine & blue skies & a short walk down the block for a Vivace coffee.

Did a quick run to drop off my store stuff at the Exhibition Hall which was a hive of pre-show industry & then off to lunch with old friends in Capitol Hill. Then home to dress & meet up with Michael Rosen for the SEAF Artists' Reception. And it. Kicked. Ass. The place is huge, the art is stunning, and the performances. Wow.

twistedmonk  has this big steel rig with monitors roped into it & a projection screen behind. He's doing 4 hours of bondage every night. Tonight I watched him rope this lithe, sinewy beauty in a silver zentai suit. The girl was in suspended within a diamond shaped spinning silver frame. She looked like molten metal, flowing inside the rope & around Monk. The study in contrasts, organic/synthetic masculine/feminine hard/soft, the reflected light, the pale relected image projected behind them, Monk's intensity as a rigger .... dayum kids. And it's just night one.

Oh, and did I mention the peacock dancer or the woman who was doing belly dance/burlesque performance?

Plus you know, the art. Some of which just floored me.  And yeah, fd_midori 's "sofa art" is too cool. Oh, and all the people. I love knowing so many people at the Festival - it kind of gives me the illusion of knowing soooooooooo many people all over Seattle. Really, I know about 20 but they were all there in one place lol. And I love seeing all of them :)

Tomorrow I'll have to round D up & go over during the day so we can really take some time to view everything. There's so much more this year, and a much wider range of work.

D's flight arrives in about an hour. I'm going to have to tuck him in fast because he's got a busy day tomorrow.

Nikolai the cat has a thing for Lester Bowie's trumpet in Rios Negros. Every time it comes up on D's play list Niko gets really attentive, looks over in that direction & tunes his ears that way. You know how they do. He loses interest in the less trumpety parts of the piece & perks up again during the solos. It's very odd. We first noticed it last week, were thinking it was just a passing feline mood but no, same thing this week.

More research is in order. Wondering how he feels about Louis Armstrong.

And now I really do need to get back to working on my presentation. Maybe I need more Mallomars ....

According to DeLano it was, anyway. According to me, that was just damn cool.

D & I went to JJ Hats to find summer straws. My first Real Hat, actually. This handsome Black man walked in. From the greeting the sales staff gave him he was obviously a regular. Nice looking, sharp dressed guy. And man, could he rock a hat. He just had it. Maybe he looked familiar, I dunno. D said he was dancing & singing a bit as he shopped but sadly, I missed this part.

Anyway. We all tried on hats together & chatted hats together. To the sales staff's credit they were equally attentive to us all. I got my hat, a beige Panama hat. The *stingy* model (narrower brim, dontchyaknow?); D made a mental note of a cool, black porkpie. The dapper dude left without one but promised to be back. They knew he would & knew what he'd be looking for. A regular, you know?

10 minutes later D & I are strolling down Fifth Ave & D commented on the quintescential NY Moment.

"What moment?"

"Shopping for hats with Ben Vereen"


Ohhhhhhhhhh. Oh. Heheh wow, cool.

Ben can really rock a hat, I tell you that ;)


Edit: So noted, dearest. Unbeknownst to me, he bought a hat. But he did say was coming back for the other one, the colored straw that you liked in green,

Gah! Stupid browser stupid thing ate my post. It was way more clever before I hit backspace & it all got ate.


So. I've decided to bring my camera to SEAF. Yes, the whole week/weekend is jam packed with goodness & fun but there's always time for beauty. So, anyone coming to SEAF or otherwise hanging about in Seattle who wants to steal some time to do sexyfunpretty with me, please find me. I think I need to make stuff.

Well, the Bondage Awards are done. Congratulations to fd_midori  for wining the writing category and to
twistedmonk  for placing in the top ten in all three of his categories! Applause! Applause!

We, however, didn't even crack the top ten of any of our categories. But I expected that to be the case. Am I disappointed? A little. I have at least that much ego. But the experience really just reinforces the fact that my work on DeLano Bound, and the work Michele does with me there, is unique and more than worth our efforts. We have more honest interactions and connections and explore more deeply than all of the SAM (Stand And Model) and S&M (Sex & Money) bondage sites out there combined. It's an obscure badge of honor and I wear it proudly.

In more joyous news, we had a shoot this weekend that underscored exactly how precious and exciting our work is. I can't wait for Michele to process the images because I want to post galleries as soon as possible!

Thank you for all who voted for us! We didn't come within miles of winning but we always win just the same.

From my friend Heather Corinna: www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK211IP2AQ0XSE9

Yes, I know I'm preaching to the choir but I thought it should be shared around anyway.


Edit: S. Bear Bergman posted this link: http://blogs.news-journalonline.com/247/2009/04/amazonfail-a-twitter-movement.html