What a huge mistake. After the exhausting weekend, I woke up with barely enough time to get myself out the door and not be late for work. By 'barely enough time,' I mean that I could shave, shower, dress, and walk the dog, but I couldn't make a nice pot of Kwaa-zulu Estate Tea. That's right. I headed out the door this morning uncaffeinated. Since the effects of caffeine are in the fore of my mind after doing the GMSMA program on drugs and S/M last week, I'm sort of swirling through my day. When I ran out for lunch, I got a Grande Latte from S'bucks. Hopefully that will kick in soon. Boss Sunshine is in Albany, as is half the staff, so things are quiet here. And, we're closed on Thursday for Passover (Thank you, Jews!) and we're closed on Good Friday (Thank you, Roman Catholics!).

The weekend at the Leather Leadership Conference (or as I've been referring to it when talking to myself, which I do frequently, the Leader Leathership Conference) in Boston was great. With only one exception, all the workshops I attended were just superb. I'm bursting with ideas for GMSMA next year. What were these *ahem* "workshops," you might be asking? Effective presentation skills, how to run beginners groups, leadership and leather contests, that kind of thing.

Among the many highlights was a roundtable discussion of Safe-Sane-Consensual and Risk-Aware-Consensual-Kink (aka 'RACK'). It was really interesting. From a legal persepective, Safe-Sane-Consnesual is effective as a defense when things go awry. It's essentially the same as the legal framework that embraces extreme sports. However, RACK implies, "I knew the risks, and I did it anyway," and that line of reasoning can get you ten years in prison.

For readers not in the know who may be thinking terrible thoughts, please be reassured that the overwhelming majority of S/M scenes conclude with everyone involved walking away feeling happy and sassy. However, there are a handfull of exceptions. Most of those exceptions involve breath-play, wherein, from time to time, someone turns up dead. Even here, there are far more fatalities from auto-asphyxiation than there are from scenes with more people involved. Serious breath-play--meaning depriving someone of oxygen until he or she passes out--is eschewed by everyone that I know personally, and I would never take that on myself.

There is, of course, a sort of deeper issue here. Namely, many edgier players get all smirky when Safe-Sane-Consensual is brought up. A prominent author, Laura Antoniou, had a private rant she wrote complaining about a flogging bottom who stopped a scene when the flogger wrapped (traveled around and hit her painfully on the flank instead of landing on her back). Antoniou wondered how the Scene had become so milquetoast and nannyish, and blamed Safe-Sane-Consensual for this. Although I can see where she might have felt frustrated by that, I don't think that S-S-C was necessarily to blame. Any good thing--such as safer sex, or eating right, or doing S/M in a safe, sane and consensual fashion--when driven to it's logical extremes or taken as absolute, becomes counterproductive and absurd. The cultivated eye sees no black nor white, but only shades of gray. Ultimately, you need to make your own decisions on a case by case basis, playing it as it lays.


Anyway, I had a blast in Boston. Friday night, exhausted from the drive up, I went to bed early. But Saturday night I hit the town, going over to the Ramrod. What a great bar. They have a big room filled with those huge oilcans painted black. You must be wearing leather to be back there, or take off your shirt, and regardless, white sneakers are not permitted. Boston has a leather bar. New York City, sadly, does not. Not since last Wednesday. Even the New York Historical Society recognizes this, and has requested the door of the LURE for their permanent collection.

The men at the Ramrod were very hot. And maybe it was just the out-of-towner's enigmatic charm, but I got a lot of attention. I ended up the night by... uh... shopping for gloves. The glove salesman was very helpful. He is the president and organizer of an organization called Fits Like A Glove (or FLAG), and is the rep for a company called Damascus, that makes leather gloves favored by law enforcement officers. I never wear gloves, because I smoke. And fishing in your pocket for your lighter and lighting your lighter and wielding a lit cigaret with gloves on can be awkward. But not these gloves. Not these skin tight soft yet slightly adherent black leather gloves. The salesman was great to work with. He allowed me to put the gloves through a pretty strenuous endurance test to make sure that they would be comfortable and not get in the way in some pretty demanding situations. The gloves performed magnificently. And so, incidently, did the salesman. Damascus is well served.

Throughout the conference, I couldn't take my eyes off two fellow attendees. A Sir and his collared slave. The slave was always at his Sir's side. He would open the door, pour a glass of water, carry the bags, get drinks from the bar, wait for his Sir to sit down before sitting himself, squat by his Sir's chair if no chair nearby was available, the works. But he did it with such effortless grace, and it was so natural and unforced. It could look like Jerry Lewis being a third wheele on Dean Martin's date, but it totally didn't, not once. And Sir's boots had a beautiful shine on them. I was deeply (DEEPLY) envious of Sir. I really want a slave. And sooner rather than later.

I've been corresponding with Blade66 on the matter, about issues like conviction, and dedication, and selection and screening. Blade is seriously well-endowed in the slave (and boy) department. If he has three, there's no reason why I can't have one. And, candidates are making themselves known. Blade recommends coming on strong (shock and awe) and then finding a timbre that works well. My boots are a wreck. Guess what job one will be?

Y'know, I've been thinking that I'd like to take a week off. Maybe visiting Does Mean Well in San Diego, maybe going down to Fort Lauderdale. But it sure would be fun to take a whole week and spend it breaking in a new slave.

And here's one of the poems I owe you.

(ponder, darling, these busted statues)
by e. e. cummings


(ponder, darling, these busted statues
of yon motheaten forum be aware
notice what hath remained
- the stone cringes
clinging to the stone, how obsolete

lips utter their extant smile . . . .
remark

a few deleted of texture
or meaning monuments and dolls

resist Them Greediest Paws of careful
time all of which is extremely
unimportant) whereas Life

matters if or

when the your- and my-
idle vertical worthless
self unite in a peculiarly
momentary

partnership (to instigate
constructive
Horizontal
business . . . . even so, let us make haste
- consider well this ruined aqueduct
lady,
which used to lead something into somewhere)

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