Ahhhh.

Day One of the Singletails workshop. Things kicked off with a fairly fascinating presentation by Joe Wheeler on whips and whipmaking. Mr. Wheeler is something of a madman. And I mean that in the best possible way. What would it be like to delve into an arcane skill and go further or as far as anyone in human history?

I have a deep appreciation for connoisseurship of any stripe, and found it fascinating to hear Joe Wheeler discuss the ins and outs of braiding whips. Did you know, for example, that to make English buggy whips (this was how the craft developed), the optimal material was leather made from the skin of an unborn calf? I mean, Jumpin' Jehosophat!

Then we got to cracking. Master of Mirage demonstrated the overhand, over-the-shoulder, side, and underhand throws. I was using my five foot wheeler whip. Overhand and over-the-shoulder I've never had a problem with. I'll admit to showing off a little. But still, it was good to be able to focus specifically on my form and hear feedback from ARt and Master of Mirage. Throwing from the side has never come easy to me, and I usually avoid the throw in scene play. As I tend to concentrate on backs rather than butts, this isn't much of a deficit. The real eye opener for me came with the underhand throw. I do that throw--as I learned it--with my wrist pointing down. M. o' M. does it with his wrist upward. I could not get it to crack that way. So, in my obsessive little way, I have some homework to do tonight. I'm going to perfect that, dammit.

I wish I had just started with my bullwhip and stuck with that rather than my five-footer. That's what I really am interested in working with. At the conclusion of the session, we would up doing a sort of Master Class kind of thing, lining up in groups of five and doing the various throws. At that point, I picked up my long whip. And because I've only thrown it maybe twenty times in my life, my performance was mediocre to say the least.

Ah well. Tomorrow is another day.

After the workshop, I went for sushi with Past President. He mentioned that he had had a moment of jealousy at one point, along the lines of, "He is talking to him! I responded that I had had several moments of "Yo! He is talking to him!" during the course of the afternoon. Odd... I can only draw one conclusion: bring out the whips and the air is instantly erotically charged. The air was instantly dense with the musk of testosterone feuled animal longings.

Which is another thing I like about whips.

After an amazing sushi dinner, I wanted chocolate, so I stopped into Chocolate Bar on Hudson Street. A wonderful conclusion to that trip into the city.


Oh. One other thing. Straight people are different. They just are. Straight men in particular. And I don't just mean the apparent absense of any fashion sense whatsoever and outright neglect of their corporeal selves. (But c'mon, how do straight women put up with that?) It's just this way different energy that they have. I feel a greater degree of kinship with kinky straight people than I do with non-kinky straight people, but all the same. Straight people are different.

They tend to remind me of kids I knew in high school who kept snakes as pets and went to Star Trek conventions. Something missing from the genome that I can't quite put my finger on.

Don't get me wrong. I like straight people. Why, some of my best friends are straight people...

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