The Chattanooga Fetish Scene and Loca Luna parties

Okay, I want to make a statement about the fetish community here. People, it's large, but it ain't that large. Complaints pop up that the Loca Luna parties are BDSM lite. Yes, they are. We don't have permanent private space (yet) and must cooperate with the hotel owners or bar owners to even have avenue. Someday, SOMEDAY, maybe we can have those exclusively leather events we all dream of, but, while Chattanooga has many alternative lifestylers in it and surrounding areas, this isn't New York City. We have to be inclusive, and yes, that means that the swingers, and crossdressers and non-BDSM people in general who just may be curious, are invited. And that means we can't all be quite as open as we'd like.

But I like to view it as cross-fertilization in a public place. The vanilla people can bring their curiosity to us and we can show them it's not quite as scary as they think, that it's actually, fun! We get to meet our transsexual or gay neighbors, the goth kids, and yes, the swingers. Cruising doesn't mean dangerous, we just gots to let them know the rules. One way to teach them is to show them!

So, lighten up, Frances, and come out and enjoy the party, not as a full-on, hard-core scene, but as a cocktail party where you can enjoy the eye-candy and might actually meet (surprise) someone that you didn't know was kinky, and who didn't know you were kinky, and, hey, wanna meet up later?

Loca Luna and the Jungle Party

Come 24th of July (2005) they are having a public party and fetish scene and birthday party all in one! Loca Luna, the exotic clothing store, is organizing it in conjunction with Buck Wild's Bar on Market Street in Chattanooga, TN. I am busy sewing rabbit skins dyed to look like leopard into a skirt to wear with my black corset. Yay! Check out the site www.localuna.net

Also wanted to list my favorite fetish author's blog: http://lantoniou.blogspot.com/ It's not that I agree with all her politics, though I do a good deal, but I highly recommend her books as good for the BDSMer's soul.

Don' tell HIM

I 'forgot' to mention the copperhead I found under my hot tub cover Friday morning. I flipped it up to get some post-work reading time in and found a young -- about eighteen inch -- snake parked by the controls, in a crevice between them and the tub edge. My hot tub sits out on a cliff edge overlooking the valley and the secondary ridge twenty feet below me is rife with snakes sunning themselves (Hell, the snake-handling sect originated just north of Chattanooga on Sale Creek and continues to this day on this very mountain.) I don't mind them so long as they stay below me.

On average I see one snake a year (although one year a litter hatched in my side yard and I had baby copperheads pop up three times in a month!) I've only ever felt endangered by one -- a three foot rattler parked under a hedge near my sidewalk who was as thick around as my foream.

Mostly I take a live and let live attitude, but this was too close for comfort. I debated telling my man, but knew he'd come out with some gun (He's from Ohio and is afraid of snakes) and blow away both the snake and part of my deck. The snake meanwhile eyed me as I eyed it, debating whether to kill it or do my usual -- scoop it up with a shovel or pole and toss it over the cliff. I figure this way I give them a fighting chance -- if they can fly and land safely, then they're entitled to continue living, otherwise, well, it's in God's hands. But I didn't want to leave him to get a shovel, afraid he'd hide somewhere I couldn't find, so I wouldn't be able to enjoy my soak. I finally leaned down and picked up a metal pole (used for hanging torches) and planned to pick him up with it. As soon as I touched him, he coiled to strike, and I flipped him which got him to moving and he dropped off the deck edge and hurried under the leaves. About that time I heard my neighbor's dogs barking and summoned them over to me and they sniffed around interestedly, but, apparently, he had departed.

Damn it, now I'll have to walk down there a with a shovel and a dog for a while.

More on NaNoWriMo

I've actually been keeping to my schedule of 500 words per day. It's been fun so far as I let my character guide me as to what comes next (that and the latest news stories about on-line predators using the chat rooms to find their victims.) I am refusing to do any research other than what I hear or already (think) I know, just letting my imagination fill in the gaps for now, knowing that, in the future, if I end up with something that I truly like (when I get to that magical 50,000 words or so) I can do the research then. But, I am turning off my left brain editor that requires me to constantly stop and ponder, then ties my feet up so that I can't proceed because "I haven't resolved a conflict...." I will write my story the way it wishes to be written and worry about the facts later. So far, seems to be working. No hitches. (And I refuse to sit down and try to parse out a plot at this point, let my mind wander ahead to possibilities, but refuse to put anything rigidly in a timeframe on paper.) I'll let my story tell itself.

I'm gonna get paid

Hey, I'm going to get paid $150 for my story in the USHGAmagazine! This is more exciting than just getting published. My first professional job! you can read the unexpurgated version in the second Dec. post.

NaNoWriMo early

Decided to get a head start on the NanoWriMo early and started last pm. Thought I'd give myself a running start as that means I don't have to write 1500 words per day, only about 500 to 1000. Of course, if I finish the rough draft before I get to the end of the time, I may start another. I have so many incompleter novels since I can think of a title and an opening scene, and, sometimes even the ending. It's connecting the two that kills me. I have a great little novella, novelette that I finished in the mid-90's (finally) but it's about 80n pages, and ther, therefore, too long or two short for anything commercial. No one (at least not me) reads a short story that is that long (not in one sitting) and anyone who picks up a novel wants a little longer peice for the prices they chanrge for even paperbacks these days. It's left in limbo, though I quite love it. Maybe I should post it here for critiquing. Anybody out there want to post an opinion?

How to Ruin a Bahamas Sailing Trip

Take a 6th (unexpected and strange) person along. Make sure she is a snake. Then mix in thoro in a 42 foot sailboat with five others, no AC, temps above 90 with 100% humidity, one minimally functional head, no shower except a rinse off once a day in the back deck, ice gone by the fifth day, place them in isolated islands with no shade (and no way to find any other than in the depths.) Stir. P.S. Make certain that there is no place for the introverted (me) to escape from the snake (hereafter referred to as B to avoid a libel suit.)

The one place I had to disappear (and get away from her incessant insinuations, was in the water, snorkelling. Loved it and took every opportunity, but being fair-skinned and completely sunburned by the third day (despite repeated applications of 30+ Sunblock throughout the day) I had, frequently, to hide in the interior of the boat to escape further sun exposure. No, I didn't bite this woman in the butt; she is a long-time friend of the captain's (but even she got tired of B by the end) who I didn't want to offend (J being a long-time friend) by being ungenial. By the end of the trip, however, I was tense, tired, irritable and feeling like it was my fault for not being able to get in the "fun" spirit that B kept pretending to jolly me into, all the while slicing me.

I actually blamed myself for my moodiness, but, on the way home, a discussion with the 4th female member of the party (and my neighbor) revealed she had figured this woman out early. I'm just so socially dense that I figure everything that happens in a social situation is due to my inadequacies. It's taken me to 46 to realize that I'm actually an okay person. Not perfect, but not evil. This woman needed to be nipped inthe bud, but I didn't recognize how many of my chains she was yanking until I was on the (multiply) delayed flights home. Eighteen hours to get from Staniel Cay back home, a good eight of them spent in Cincinnati airport.

Bahamas Sailing

Will be gone on a short (8 day vacation) to the Bahamas with friends (who are not kinky) on the sailboat one of them manages for a man in FL. She is a certified boat and charter captain and I've been with her before. Pretty particular, but we do manage to have a good time. The other couple is composed of a nurse (also very bossy) and an engineer (not bossy at all), all hangglider pilots, myself and my love. He's never been on a cruisnig boat, never been on a sailboat, never been to the Carribeans. I'll think he'll be astounded by the blues down there. I expect lively political arguments on board ship as well since Jude, the captain, is an opinionated liberal and he is an equallly loud conservative. Let the fireworks begin! The only problem is that can't throttle each other (if it comer to that) I need him to run the store and her to get us home. I shall, whatever my personal leaning, remain neutral (she practices biting her tongue, tightly.)

Blahhh

One of those mornings you wake up and wonder WHY you're getting up. Third day on at work, third day of intermittent (now terminally drizzling) rain, third day of low back pain, body aches, sinus headache (all from the damned storm front). All you really want is to stay home, stare at the drizzle from the safety of the covered porch, book in your lap, cat curled around you feet (after sleeping in) and dose in the hammock. Alternatively, sleeping in next to a snuggly man appeals, being in a cold, windowless, loud environment, does not.

Novel writing -- the national challenge

As the sucessful author of, at least, 6 half-novels (none, alas, completed, some in progress since college) this site appealed to me, as well as the challenge. I think, if I made a job of it and just started writing for specified times, after winnowing it down 90% (adjectives, endless modifiers -- see! -- are my weakness) I might have something worth keeping (or sending out.) Anyway, for those of you who, like me, have reams of besmirched paper hidden away in filing cabinets -- check out the site and the challenge: http://www.nanowrimo.org/ and then some of the results: http://nanoblogmo.blogspot.com/