I love Daylight Savings Time. Yeah, I remembered. I stayed longer at the Lure than I normally would have last night. Drove home. Set the clock in the jeep back an hour. Set my watch back. Got in. Stumbled around the block with my dog. Set the alarm. Went to bed. Got up this morning, having slept through a half hour of the alarm. Damn! Only a half an hour to get out the door. (It takes me about fifteen minutes to shave my head.) Shaved, showered, got dressed. Put on my watch. I forgot to set my alarm clock back an hour. I have an hour to kill.

And that's so nice. Long walk with my dog this a.m. Then church. Then brunch. Then the MAsT presentation at the Center on Young Masters. (I'm sort of giggling about that. I'm thinking of Young Master Theodore, Young Master Aloysius, Young Master Brattleboro... a panel comprised of eleven year old spoiled brats, the eldest sons of English gentry... "I don't see why I can only have Christmas Pudding at Christmas. Cook is perfectly capable of making Christmas Pudding at any time of the year. Mother is being completely unreasonable on this point. I want Christmas Pudding every day!)

No no no no. The program will present a panel discussion of several men in their twenties and thirties, who define themselves as Masters. Presumably, they'll talk about the challenges they have with credibility given their relative youth, both among other Masters and among boys and slaves. I find that pretty compelling. I don't know that I've faced a similar 'credibility gap,' possibly because I've always looked older than I am. (When I was an 18 year old freshman in college, I used to buy liquor for 20 year old seniors.) I'm actually more interested in coming to define yourself as a Master, rather than as a Top. I think of myself as being a Top. Noted Author at Inferno asked me, "Are you Top-wired or Master-wired?" I believe he discusses this in one of his essays. Beyond questions of 'what makes a Master?' I sometimes wonder if Tops are viewed as being lesser beings in the great S/M Chain of Being. I don't see it that way. In fact, I've considered writing a book, along the lines of Jack Rinella's The Master's Manual called, "The Way of the Top." It would discuss the ethos of being a Top, the spiritual, intellectual, sexual, and physical aspects thereof. I really like Cain Berliner's take on the subject: "Someone said to me, 'So you're calling yourself a Master now, huh?' and I said, 'No, my boy is calling me a Master." When I was involved in ACT UP, it irked me the way people tossed around the word 'Activist.' I hesitated to call myself an activist, as my own efforts seemed rather dilletante. But, when people whom I admired and respected referred to me as an activist, I didn't quibble.

Is one born a Master and come to discover this identity? Is being a Master something you aspire to, with a sort of requisite set of accomplishments? Is it a vocation? A destiny? Or merely a descriptive term applied by others who understand the power of the title?

I actually don't think I have a problem with someone defining himself as a Master. On the complicated map of the leather world, it helps to establish what territory you've ventured into. "Oh, so this is Master Chuck I was just introduced to. This tells me that Chuck tends to be sexually dominant, he desires submission, and owns a slave or seeks to own a slave." If I'm meeting "Chuck," and I notice that Chuch is wearing his keys on the left and has a black bandana in his left pocket, then my assumption is that Chuck is a Top. (Chuck is sexually dominant. He's a skilled and accomplished player, who enjoys S/M play where he takes the role of orchestrating the scene, whether it be bondage, flogging, dog training, electricity, cock and ball torture, ass play, or whatever. He enjoys the intimacy of men surrendering to him. He may play with one other man, or with several other men, or as many men as he possibly can.)

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In the shower this morning (brief and hurried as it was), my back had a really wonderful sort of burning, smarting sensation under the stream of hot water. If I get the opportunity, I'd like to buy ARt some small token of my appreciation.



At the Lure last night, when I was hanging with Mr. New Jersey Leather 2001, Mr. Lure 2002, his partner, Mr. Hillside Leather 2003, and a few other great guys, I had a glimmer of what I felt so profoundly at Inferno. "There's so much love." Among Leatherfolk, there is so much love. This wonderful, sweet, kind, playful, heartfelt, warm, enfolding, supporting, sustaining, enduring, free-flowing love. And love is the only thing worth living for.

Special Guy gave me a great book, "Sister Wendy's Book of Meditations." Sister Wendy is the art lovin' English nun. ("Rubens has given her such lovely and fluffy pubic hair!") In this book, she offers meditators, the jumping off point of which is some piece of art. One section deals with meditations on joy. She makes an interesting distinction between Joy and Happiness. Happiness is selective. We decide to be happy. It is a function of focus. Seek out rainbows, duckies and kittens, conviviality, chocolate, down comforters, health, and things that are nice to look at, and you'll find happiness. Joy is different. We find joy by opening ourselves up. Joy is the whole ball of wax. The pain and the pleasure, the love and the heartbreak, the agony and the ecstacy, the beauty of the created world and the widespread suffering that is found therein. Embracing all of it, taking every stroke, that's how you come by joy. It seems to me that this is intrinsically understood by Leatherfolk. I've heard that the first fundraisers for gay men stricken by AIDS were held among motorcycle clubs and in leatherbars, as there was a long-standing tradition of doing so. Love means embracing the inevitable loss and grief that will come with separation from that which is loved. The skull beneath the skin. Life more abundantly.

Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am'rous birds of prey,
Rather at once out Time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapt pow'r.
Let us roll all our Strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one Ball:
And tear our Pleasures with rough strife,
Through the Iron gates of Life.
Thus, though we cannot make our Sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

Andrew Marvel
To His Coy Mistress

Enjoy your day, Dear Reader.

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