Twenty-one Things About Me

This was a meme going around FetLife that I'm cross-posting b/c I know not everyone is on Fet.

1.    I generally don’t cry at movies, but the one movie that usually makes me cry is the end of E.T.  The last movie that made me tear-up was Warhorse.  Fucking Steven Spielberg!
2.    I think I have a mild form of prosopagnosia (AKA face blindness); I often have great trouble recognizing faces, even of those I’ve known for years.  I know people more by voice and body, clothes, and context, but if you just show me a photo of someone’s face…
3.    I ride a motorcycle: a 2004 Yamaha FZ6.
4.    For about a year and a half I went to a Zen Center once a week for meditation and dharma talks.  I really liked it.
5.    I drink lots of milk.  In the summer I can go through a gallon in just 2 or 3 days.  I also eat lots of cookies.  One of my best friends says I'm on the Santa Clause diet.
6.     I like art-house films (like Richard Linklater's "Before..." trilogy) and classic movies (like The Big Sleep) and generally can’t stand most “popcorn” Hollywood contrived-blockbuster flicks (like Transformers).  But I'm not a film snob; I also love James Bond and Indiana Jones...  And I'm not a Star Wars prequel hater; I like the original trilogy more, but didn't hate the prequels.
7.    When I was a kid they thought I might be dyslexic or have some other undiagnosed reading disorder: my comprehension has always been very good but I read slow and my spelling was very, very bad (i.e. in high school I still occasionally misspelled my own name).  Now I thank the gods for spell check.
8.    I am slow to anger, and I’m no good at holding grudges.  I shrug things off easily.  Ma'am and I have been together for 9 years, and she's only seen me get really mad like two or three times.
9.    I read a lot, but mostly non-fic.  I usually only do 1 or 2 novels a year.
10.    My dad died when I was nine.  I never really got over it.
11.    When I was a kid, my favorite superhero was Spider-man.  As a teenager, my favorite was Wolverine.  In college, my favorite comic was The Sandman.  I haven’t bought many new comics since about 2000, but I have a huge collection I enjoy re-reading.
12.    I have three undergraduate majors; one is in philosophy and one is in fine art.  After I finished my Masters Degree in 2000, the plan was to work for about 5 years, then go back for a PhD and find a job in academia… instead I bought a treehouse and got married.  So far, I’m good w/ this.  :)
13.  I'm secretly part Thri-kreen.
14.    I love Shakespeare.  (But also just live theatre in general.)
15.    I’ve been a huge fan of the late mythologist Joseph Campbell since I was like 17.  I love how he can blend spirituality w/ art, psychology, and great storytelling.  I was one of the original members of the Joseph Campbell Foundation back when it first started in 1995 or so.  That was the first thing I really used the internet for: their online newsletter and listserv. 
16.    I grew up in Fairyland.  Literally.  Fairyland, GA.  My house was on Oberon Trail.  I am a creature of the Fey.
17.    I am an introvert.  I’m not at all shy; there is a difference.  I just find people taxing, and need lots of alone-time to recharge after socializing.
18.    I have been elected to the CAPEX board four times, but only served a 12-month term once.  Twice, I was elected to a 6 month term, and once I resigned after three months b/c the board was paralyzed by a few assholes who were making sure nobody was having any fun.  (I really had hoped to smooth things over and get things on-track, but after a couple of months I saw that this wasn’t going to happen.)
19.    My earliest memory is being 3 years old and lying on the roof of our car at a drive-in movie watching Star Wars.
20.    My brother and I are total opposites.  He is type-A, neurotic, extremely socially conscious (i.e. always nervous about what others think of him), homophobic, very right-wing, likes to thump his Bible (but I doubt he has any really deep spiritual beliefs, thoughts, or questions), loves computers and is obsessed w/ the latest social networking technology, obsesses on college football, loves Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, racist (he thinks it’s funny to swap “nigger” jokes w/ his redneck friends), and believes man-made climate change is all a left-wing conspiracy.  Total opposites.
21.    My chief value is friendship – and always has been.  I don’t want popularity, but I need a small circle of true, loyal friends.  My peak moments in my life have been w/ my friends.  I am excessively loyal to them.  I have a circle of friends going back to Jr. High School – we’ve hung together for 25 years – but my best friend is my Owner.

A Bloody Good CAPEX Weekend for the Treehouse Family

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Loki on the Law

Long, long ago, CAPEX hosted a class taught by a kinky NC law enforcement officer on BDSM and the law.  It was one of the best classes I can recall ever attending.  There’s a lot of important things anyone seriously involve in BDSM/kink/leather-sex should be aware of in regards to legal risks and protections.  That’s also why CAPEX has always been a sponsor of NCSF, the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom.  Every year for the last decade CAPEX has donated money to NCSF.  Their website has a lot of good resources on it.  When CAPEX legally incorporated six years ago, NCSF put us in touch with a lawyer to help us.  And a few years later, when She-who-must-not-be-named threatened to out various CAPEX members in the media, send the cops after us, file a lawsuit, burn our houses, steal our women, and rape our cattle, I believe NCSF was one of our first go-to’s.

On the latest episode of the NoSafeWord podcast, they interviewed a kinky lawyer in Atlanta (who also happens to be my favorite Alpha Pup –licks– ) on the legalities (and illegalities) of BDSM.  If you’re kinky, whether you run a dungeon party or whether it’s just you and your partner enjoying rough sex in the bedroom, there are some important things and helpful tips you should hear.  Domestic violence calls, kidnap scenes, dealing with the cops, transporting your toys (and your poppers and your prescriptions)…  Do yourself a favor and take a listen:  Loki on the Law.

Everything is Amazing and Nobody is Happy

I love this!  This is my whole life philosphy in a four minute rant:
http://www.thatvideosite.com/v/94
Nuff said!

Puppies Breed like Rabbits!

IPC titleholder Slavepup Axel recently posted a very interesting (and thorough) report.  He did a qualitative survey of lots of pup group leaders around the country about challenges they face.  I can tell Axel put a lot of time into this report, and it offers a really great, big-picture overview of the state of the pup community right now… which amazed me w/ how much it has grown and is growing.  He mentions numerous pup organizations, clubs, and contests.  (I’ve decided that we pups should boast about the fact that we are so cool that we require TWO international pup contests.  One isn’t enough to capture our collective awesomeness.  LOL)

Let me first back-up here…  I’ve been active in the BDSM scene for 12 years (preceded by a couple of years of Stand & Model S&M) and I’ve been a pup for almost 9 years (since very early [February?] ’05).  For almost all of that time I was the only pup I knew.  There were no other pups who ever came to CAPEX or TAAG or Lynx or LaFortress or Whippersnappers or any of the places I haunted.  My Owner took me to Frolicon almost every year since it began, and she would always let me pup-out and led me around on-leash at the con in front of hundreds of people.  Loved it!  But there was just me.  (The one exception in all those years was Boy Andy’s puppy persona Needa w/ whom I was able to romp a couple of times.  And also I guess you could count the first time we went to SELF [2007] when I briefly encountered another pup who said there was going to be a mosh that night in the dungeon… but Ma’am and I weren’t able to make it, so that was that…)  Even most of my old friends in my home club (CAPEX, Charlotte) had never even seen me pup-out… and the couple of times at CAPEX I did pup-out it was just me.  For years I did almost all of my pupping out at home w/ only my Owner.

All of that is pretty tough if being a pup is your main kink and an important part of your identity.  I’m still almost the only pup I know of in NC, but now, I’m a member of the coolest puppy pack out of Atlanta, GA.  So my pack is about a 4.5 hour drive away from me.  I make it a goal to get down there to sniff everybody once a month, and sometimes the stars align and I see my pack twice in a month.  But the fact that there is a pack w/in 5 hours of me is something that would not have been the case just a couple of years ago.  I joined Loki’s pack last year and brought the “official” membership up to three.  There are now like five of us in the “core group” of Loki’s pack w/ several (maybe 7 or 8?) other Atlanta puppies who circle in more or less elliptical orbits around Sir. So, I could say, in general, the number of pups I know of in Atlanta looks like it doubled in just the last year.  It’s crazy.

Now let me return to Axel’s survey.  Te read about so many pup groups springing-up around the country (most of the pup groups/clubs/packs surveyed are less than two years old) is very, very cool.  To read of pup/Handler groups w/ 40 or more members makes my jaw drop.  It’s amazing to me how fast this scene is taking off.  And 60 members in SEA-PAH!  Wow!  What are they putting in the water up there?

It’s definitely a really exciting time to be a puppy.  One of my major goals for next year is to make it to one of the big pup gatherings: I’m looking at either IML’s Woof Camp or CLAW.  (CLAW falls right on Ma'am and I's birthdays next year, so that would be a cool birthday trip...)  I’d love to go to all of them, but financially I think I can only really afford one event like that per year.  Maybe I’ll see you there!

Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game, and Contradictions

Today I read a fantastic interview on Salon.com.  In 2000, Donna (“commie lesbian”) Minkowitz interviewed Orson Scott Card.  Here’s an excerpt:

Now, I’m someone who loves contradictions, especially in writers. I think Ezra Pound should have been allowed to remain in the Poets’ Corner of New York’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine because his fascism and anti-Semitism will never make him a less beautiful poet. I have great fun reading Andrea Dworkin, even though I agree with her about exactly one thing: Rape is bad. And Allan Bloom’s translation of Plato’s “Republic” is fantastic and remains fantastic, even though his politics were gross.  But it’s one thing to admire a bigot on the page, and another to endure a two-hour conversation with one. And my love and admiration for Card only made it worse. Talking to Klansmen was nothing compared to talking to the author of the most ethical book I’ve ever read.

For those of you who don’t know, Card is the author of Ender’s Game, one of my favorite works of sci-fi/fantacy.  It’s about a boy who grew-up in violence, who is then trained in violence by an abusive, manipulative military academy that wants to mold the young super-genius into a literally genocidal military commander.  It’s a book w/ a lot to say about drone technology, preemptive attacks, just wars, post-traumatic stress disorder (in children), and killing-by-joystick… but also about compassion, communication, and overcoming Otherness.

That’s ironic.  Because Card is a ranting homophobic bigot.

This interview is really, really good.  Minkowitz perfectly captures (w/ both mockery and venom) what a disgusting creep Card is… while also managing to convey how really good (quality-good and morally-good) his book is – despite its author.  This interview is definitely worth reading – Oh, but before you read, it’s worth knowing that in terms of Jungian psychology, your “shadow” is made-up of those yucky, nasty, bad qualities in you that you can’t bear to consciously recognize, so you project them onto others, refusing to see them in yourself.  Keep that in mind while you read Card’s idiotic (but strangely revealing) prattle:

http://www.salon.com/2000/02/03/card/