*yawn* Tired tired tired. Less than an hour left in my penultimate day at work. Horrifyingly, I haven't even begun to write my exit memo. But, hey, how long could that take? I mean, I'm writing about doing my job. It's not like I need to head to the library to find supporting sources, right?

I was mulling going to Fort Lauderdale next week, but I've changed my mind. Saturday-Sunday-Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday-Friday-Saturday-Sunday. Nine days tooling around in NYC. I'll clean my apartment! I'll take my dog to Liberty State Park! I'll hang out in seedy gay bars drinking beer and flirting with boys.

Oh. And here's an interesting development. Next Friday, I'm going to get whipped.

What's that about? Well, I'll tell ya. I was talking to one of the many world renowned whipsmen at Inferno. I was sort of the blushing, stuttering ingenue, and he was the old pro. He had several helpful suggestions, and we both spoke enthusiastically about mondo singletails. Then, he looks at me dead in the eyes and said, "And you know, you must take the opportunity to feel the whip dance across your back, too." My reading of that line at the time was that he was trying to get some fresh meat. But, as one-by-one, the world renowned whipsmen showed up on the Rialto with hamburger backs, I came to realize that he wasn't just talking turkey. So I thought it through. At first, my motive was purely selfish: Surely more bottoms would be willing to let me have at them if they knew that I had taken what I've dished out. But then I started to wonder, Could I take it? Getting flogged by Does Mean Well at Inferno had a sort of playful, quid-pro-quo aspect to it. Taking a whip will be different. Think of My Fair Lady vs. Turandot. There absolutely is a quality of grand opera to whipping scenes. Showmanship, mise en scene, and, or course, blood and tears. And then it dawned on me: this will be transformative. This will touch the deepest parts of me. Special Guy once told me that he didn't understand what fisting was all about until he took a fist himself. So then it became pretty clear that this was something I had to do.

I decided that ARt would be the guy to do it. He, along with Miragisto conducted the workshop on singletails (seems like yesterday, seems like years ago) where I was introduced to the whole thing. I haven't had much subsequent interaction with Miragisto, but ARt sort of took me in hand after that and was always willing to give his time. So ARt would be the guy. We negotiated the wheres and whens via email, and it's looking like next Friday will be my day.

Nervous? Oh yeah. But not about the ordeal. He whips, I scream, he whips some more, I cry. I feel confident about letting ARt break me, because I trust him to put the pieces back together. No, here's what I'm nervous about. I don't want to be a wuss. Well, let's face facts: I am a wuss. One clothespin bites my tender flesh and I'm willing to give the Commandant all of our troop positions that he wants to know. But I hope that ARt doesn't not have a good time because our scene lasts for all of thirty-five seconds instead of an hour. But again, I trust him. He knows what he's doing. He'll be able to coach me beyond my limits. So I guess what I'm really nervous about is the fact that I'll be seeing the world in an entirely different way.

That's the fact, Jack.