Entries Tagged 'The Dude' ↓

Another Great Postcard From PostSecret.com

My life is weird.  I’ll admit that.  I spend my days talking to latex retailers, adult baby diaper manufacturers, crossdresser clothing designers, fetish models, and sex writers.  That’s not normal.  It is fun, though!

I am so looking forward to tonight.  I’m meeting M for dinner and drinks.  Aside from that, there is some secret package there that I haven’t been able to guess all week - what comes in 4 boxes with a sum total of 70 lbs. that M would have ordered??  I hate suspense!  It will be great to get away for a few hours.  Next weekend I will be in NYC! That’s almost impossible to believe!!

Saturday I think I’m not doing anything, but Sunday I’m going for my weekly French toast with The Dude and then a very special evening with Mr. Johnson.  He also has something up his sleeve, and I’m curious what he’s up to!

Countdown to NYC: 6 days!  I leave on Thursday, the party is Friday, and then I’ll spend the rest of the weekend hanging out with my favorite New Yorkers.   Mostly I’m stressed because I don’t know what to wear!  What a dilemma.  I know this complaint may make some of you throw tomatoes at the screen, but all of my clothes are too big for me - I am wearing W’s size 1 jeans.  Marky says I have to stop losing weight, but I have 20 lbs. to go still!  I’ve lost an entire person - 140 lbs.  None of my corsets fit anymore, and I need to get a coat.  I hear that there are places where it’s cold in November.  Here in Charlotte it’s still in the 70’s most days, and I’m cold!

Have you bought your calendar yet?  If not, get on it!  If you ask me nice, I’ll arrange to get it signed by all 12 ladies for you ;-)  And now I’m off for a nice 3 mile run.

If you are curious to see what I look like these days, I posted a picture of myself on BestSexBloggers.com today.  Don’t be frightened, Dude, it doesn’t show any of my private parts, just the shadow of my lovely bum.

I had quite the experience at Wal-Mart today.  I finally had to get my glasses replaced.  If you aren’t aware of it, they are presently held together by a bungeeish cord that is kind of rainbow pattern, like a kid’s shoelace almost.  Yes, it’s quite sexy.  I tend to try to avoid wearing them in public, but since I can’t see much without them, that is difficult.  I generally depend on M to order for me when we eat out, since I can’t see the menu.  Besides, I like it that he orders for me.  Yes, I’m a feminist damnit.  I still like it when M orders for us both.

I digress…  I was at Wal-Mart today to have an eye exam and get new glasses.  Now I have to wait a week for them since I have coke bottle lens prescriptions that have to be special made.  Um, did I mention I’m a nerd?  So I went for the classic black, square frame, plastic frames.  I think they’ll be perfect.  Hey, at least The Dude will stop telling me that I look like a Mom who is about ready to do the 5k Fun Run.

Over on CatalinaLoves.com today you’ll find my latest rave about Liberator products.  I wrote a review of the Fascinator Throe and it is a great product.  The nice thing about reviewing for really great companies like Lelo.com and Liberator.com is that their products are so good it makes it unbelievably easy to write a review.  All I have to do is open my mouth (metaphorically speaking) and out pours the praise.  You just can’t go wrong with either company!

And that’s about it.  I have to work on Fetlife projects the rest of the evening and then I’m going to watch some tv and go to bed.  Tomorrow, Nikki is coming over to work with me on some projects I’m going to be handing off to her for Quid Pro Quo.  As we grow, we need to grow, so Nikki is officially coming on board to work with Satine Phoenix.  After that I’m going out for my regular Friday night in Uptown with M.  Not sure where we’re going yet, but there isn’t a place he would choose that isn’t going to be fantastic.  I kind of like that element of surprise actually, all I know is how to dress and to be there at 8pm.  The rest is unknown.

27 Days Until I Arrive In NYC!!  Mark your calendars for Nov. 14th so you can come to the launch party and say hi to me (and buy a calendar!)

I’m in such a funky mood lately.  I flaked out on The Dude yesterday for French Toast at IHOP (on Cox) after he finished with church (yes, The Dude is a good little Catholic boy, which is why I want to corrupt him so badly).  Two of my favorite things - The Dude and French Toast - and I canceled.  Yes, I suck that way.

When I get like this, I find the best thing to do is focus on that for which I should be grateful and take stock of the good things around me that I take for granted.  The obvious are my family, food, shelter, and clothes.  But there are less obvious things, things that aren’t tangible.  Love and friendship.  I have a wealth of love and friendship in my life and that alone is what matters in the end.  Trust me, I know, I once saw the end and waved to the other side (May 16, 1992) and it didn’t really matter that I didn’t have the “things” in life that I wanted.  It’s a good reality check.  Too bad it was such a catastrophe that made me realize it.

I spent a good portion of my day today talking to John.  He’s one of my closest friends and I trust him with completely.  He’s also sane, which helps when I am feeling less than sane.  I asked him how much he was going to charge me for today’s therapy - he’s taking it out of my paycheck (just kidding).  I wish we lived closer and could spend time together in person, but así es la vida.

I didn’t get a lot done today, but it was nice to spend the day talking with John.

Image dedicated to my friend Essin' Em (http://essin-em.com)

It’s a great day.  I got to sleep in, I published Peter Acworth’s interview, I cross-posted the Twitterific Contest Winner’s review on BestSexBloggers.com, I sent a few emails, and I’m about to take care of some more of them.  I have this set as my primary goal for the day - deal with email.

I decided to make it a goal to attend Frolicon in the spring.  It’s set for April 9-12, 2009 and Atlanta isn’t that far away.  What could be better than hanging out with fellow kinksters over Easter? Is anybody else planning to attend?  We stopped by their table yesterday at the Fetish Fair Fleamarket and i was pretty excited to see that they used one of the images from Altered Aperture for their postcard promo. Mark is so amazing that he walked away having sold them an ad for Fetlife.

I got to meet Tara from KJCanes.com, with whom I’ve spoken several times for Fetlife advertising.  She was at the Fetish Fair Fleamarket yesterday.  It was nice to put a face to the canes.   If you ever want to get in touch with me about advertising on Fetlife.com, my email is catalina@fetlife.com.

I’ve been corset shopping online as a little diversion to working online.  I said that when I got to a size 6 that I would have a corset custom made and now I’m there.  Now, though, I think I won’t have one made until I’m a size 4, but that gives me time to shop now.  Do you have a favorite corset maker?  Seamstress?  Know anybody who does it as a home-based business?  I really want a custom corset!

I just occurred to me today that it’s almost October.  There are some important things going on in October.  My sister’s birthday is in October, and although she no longer talks to me, I’ll be thinking about her on her 40th birthday.  I also have two friends taking major tests - The Dude is taking GRE and Laurel is taking the LSAT, so good luck to both of them!  After Laurel finishes the LSAT she’s flying out to stay for a week with us. She used to live with us back in Eugene.  I’m so excited I can barely contain myself.  W loves her, too - she was an important part of W’s life back in Eugene.  She very much imprinted on Laurel and we’re hoping that she follows Laurel’s path and be a beautiful, compassionate, well-traveled, highly intelligent, and very cool woman.  I’m hoping to set her up with M while she’s here.  I truly think they should be together.

…back to the inbox.  I’m looking forward to hearing from my friend, Ms. Sex in Stilletos, who did her first Kink.com shoot on Friday for FuckingMachines.com.  It will be a really interesting narrative.

Another Image From "Home" in Oregon

YAY!  Ellie is here!

Today was an interesting day.  It was supposed to go like this:  Fetish Fair Fleamarket, yoga with Susan and The Dude, and then home for an evening with or without Ellie and J, depending on whether or not they attend Purgatory tonight.  We figured it made sense for us to try to go on behalf of Quid Pro Quo, good PR for our own PR company.  Here’s how it went:  I drove to South Carolina to pick up W from a sleepover, canceled yoga with Susan and The Dude, went to the Fetish Flea Market and came home.  Ellie and J are still out and about and are thinking about going to Purgatory.  I know myself well enough to know that Purgatory isn’t my scene.

It was interesting that at the fetish event there was an entire workshop dedicated to a face-to-face meeting of people from a Fetlife.com group.  We didn’t even know that there was a Fetlife centered workshop.  We walked through the door, unsure we were in the right place, and introduced ourselves as being a part of Fetlife and sat down to listen to what they had to say.  It was neat to hear again and again how Fetlife has become a central part of their lives, a way to keep in touch on a daily basis with their family.  It was really quite touching.  I came home and told John all about it.  He couldn’t believe it, and then he received an email from someone who was at the workshop/meeting who had written to tell him how important Fetlife and how it has really meant a lot to them to have a place to feel at home.  Nice!  John, you are changing the world!

I found a few nice corsets at the fleamarket, but it was difficult to find my size.  Now WTF?! When I was a larger size I couldn’t find a nice corset that fit and now that I am small, I can’t find a corset that fits.  Today all the corsets were too big or the few I found that were 22″ were like $500.00.  If I’m going to invest that kind of money into a corset it’s going to be custom made for me.  Doesn’t it seem to you like someone should make a corset for me so that I can promote the fuck out of their corsetry business?  I would work for trade.  Hey you corset seamstresses - are you listening? :)

Cleis Press sent me Tristan Taormino’s new book, Opening Up, to review.  I have only heard good things about it and as a polyamorous soul married to a monoromantic, an open relationship can be a challenge - so not ony am I looking forward to a good read for the review, but also I am hoping to get something out of it personally.  Well, that’s where the best reviews come from, anyway - though a book can be good and still not really be appealing to you.

I dd hear from my NYC friends that they are all getting set for tomorrow’s shoot.  No alcohol, strict orders by the photographer will make for a less interesting evening, though if you put those 12 women in the same room, I don’t think it matters, the energy alone would be intoxicating!

Next week’s posts on Catalina Loves are going to be really good, if I do say so myself.  I have an interview with Kink.com CEO Peter Acworth, a very good toy review on Tuesday, Lochai starts his new job with Hogtied.com Monday, so there will be lots of Lochai news, there is an interview waiting for me to post from Sgt. Major, who is a Kink.com dom, but also owns his own site: BackdoorBondage.com.  I also have to write an interview for Madison Young, who sent me her new movie (w00t!) and hopefully Nikki will have some new images ready for me next week from our photoshoot this week.  That’s a lot of good stuff, and that’s off the top of my head, so set make sure you subscribe and get all the goodness that there is.

Alright, enough babble for now.  I swear upon all things holy that I will get through my email this weekend.  It’s become a huge priority at this point!

Okay, so apparently the demands made for cleavage were met by the deadline and we were all blessed with Tess’ beautiful, soft, perfect boobs today.  In fact, you all must have bought more than the 10 calendars she was holding hostage, because she even did a pic with her Njoy Eleven between her boobs (and one sucking it!)  So whatever you did, do it again!

The 6 Degrees of Catalina list is being called HABO (instead of HARO), I see today in a message on Twitter, instead of Help A Reporter Out, I think it has become Help A Blogger Out.  Cool.  I like it.  It’s nice that it’s being twittered around and people are telling other people.  I have several things to put out on the list already, but I want to make it a semi-regular event rather than just sending a thousand emails a day to people.   It is very cool to see graphic designers and bloggers and photographers sign up!  It will be a project forever, I can’t imagine it ever being complete, but I like the way it is shaping up!  Send an email to me at catalinaloves@gmail.com if you want to be added to the list.  It’s really that simple.  Spread the word, twitter it about - the more the merrier.  Submit your requests for the first official HABO list launch!  And think about the crowd on the list - nothing is really too weird.

I’m dying to see the pictures from the shoot with Nikki yesterday.  It drives me nuts to know that there are pictures there and I can’t see them!  It is truly a disorder of some sort.  I spent part of the day cleaning my bedroom/office to get my mind off of it.

So I’m texting back and forth with The Dude trying to talk him into joining me for yoga on Friday - I want to go to the same class with the same instructor.  He has to play baseball or football or something like that in the morning so he asks, “Can I come all sweaty and dirty?” and a thousand thoughts raced through my mind at once before realizing he meant to yoga class. Looks like Susan will also be going.  WooHoo!

I’m going to try out a new yoga class tomorrow at 10 am.  This is different than hot yoga Saturday - there is a gym near my house that I’m hoping to join.  I would still go to hot yoga as a treat, the vibe there is nourishing, but it would be great to lose those last 21 lbs sooner than later!  I have a new goal, size 4, 119 lbs.  And no, Dude, I haven’t done my abs workout and I probably won’t unless someone is standing there making me do them.  I miss your sadistic ways!

I really need to work on The Good Things list and The Week in Kink.  The Good Things List I’m only doing on Catalina Says now, because it was just too much work the other way.  The Week In Kink I have opened up to submissions, so if something strikes you as especially kinkworthy, please send the link to me!  I’d like to mix it up a little bit.

Also, I thought I’d mention for those of you who prefer to order your intimates online, I found some amazing Cuban Stockings on Amazon.com.  It’s hard to find them in the average department store and some people just don’t feel comfortable at the local adult store.  Nothing suspect about ordering from Amazon.com!  If you are a little more daring, go to where Mz Berlin goes and Julie Simone go - try Magnolia Hosiery.  I have an obvious fetish for stockings, so I spend a lot of time looking around for them.

Well, back to work for me.  I have a lot to do in a short amount of time if I want to have sex before my poor husband, who gets up every day with the children, falls asleep at 11 pm.  Thank You, Marky…  I love you.

Postcard from Postsecret.com

It’s hard to make a title and then write on CatalinaSays.com, because I generally just start writing and whatever ends up coming to my mind, I write about, then at the end I try to make sense of it and add an image.  Nothing makes sense today - this image has nothing to do with anything and it’s linked (click it) to an old post I wrote about being Mrs. Robinson on CatalinaLoves.com, which also has nothing to do with anything.

For example, today I traded a baby for a dog.  No, not literally.  I took S to the sitter’s house and The Dude brought his pup over today for us dogsit.  It turns out, it’s easier to take care of a semi-potty-trained puppy than a semi-potty-trained preschooler.  Our cats behaved vehemently.  The poor pup was scared of them.  She spent most of the day hiding between Marky’s feet.

Cleis Publishing contacted me today — I’m writing a review of Rachel Kramer Bussel’s book, Spanked, which is an anthology of (yep, you guessed it) spanking stories for Amazon.com.  Marky and I together are reviewing her oral anthologies, Tasting Him and Tasting Her.  They are super(duper) hot!  What’s the connection? Rachel Kramer Bussel had given them my contact information to be added to the 6 Degrees of Catalina Networking project I am working on.  Thanks, RKB!

I ate my first McDonald’s cheeseburger in over 18 months tonight.  That’s worth noting.  I don’t eat fast food.  However, my family does and for dinner tonight they wanted McDonald’s.  In my attempts to be a more reasonable person, I am trying to adapt to their life more.  So I ate a cheeseburger.  According to their site, that little cheeseburger was 300 calories.  By those same figures I used to eat 1,300 calories in a meal.  I also ate a Nutri-grain bar today.

If you were on the edge of your seat over the quilt that was sent by La Profesora, yes, it made it here and it is unbelievably beautiful and an absolute heirloom.  W and S have both tried to claim it.  Nice try, I’m still alive.

Now I’m expecting a package from Liberator.  They have a new shape that I’m going to try out!  I’m pretty excited about that.  The challenge will be, how many different ways can we use this?  I love a good challenge.  If I’m not mistaken, they are also sending a Throe to me, which I’ve been looking forward to for quite some time, since first hearing about them!  Thank you, Liberator, for the chance to review for you again!  I absolutely adore your products.

I considered moving to San Francisco for a few seconds, then came back to reality.  Of course, that’s where Lochai will be - The Armory.  My dream job, I think, is at Kink.com.  I want the job with the clipboard where you get to tell men (and women) to undress.  If only…

Well, I still have a movie review to write - Madison Young sent me her new movie, “Lesbian Life: Real Sex San Francisco”.  I watched it last night and so now it’s time to put it into words.  I’ve got to say, I think that where she has done a really nice job is in providing a lesbian porno for actual lesbians, which is a very special niche in the industry that is underrepresented.  I think she’s really smart to market a real lesbian movie rather than porno lesbians.  It’s not that they’re unattractive, the women in the movie, it’s just that they’re not the blonde haired, blue-eyed, fake boob bimbos that I think of when I think of porno lesbians.  In my opinion, real and authentic is always preferable, and Madison always brings that to the table.

Three companies have contacted me about writing columns for them this week.  I am still waiting to hear the details on that.  Getting paid to write would certainly be nice!

So that’s where I end up, it’s such a mishmash of stuff and things.

Oh ya, and buy an ad on Fetlife!  Why?  Because we just crossed 40,000 members since January!  We just passed Bondage.com in our Alexa rating!  Because FetLife.com rocks!  And Because Catalina Says!

I was in the habit of writing these posts late, late at night, when I was ready to go to bed.  It was my way of unwinding at the end of a long day, but in an attempt to lead a normal life, I’ve actually tried to keep normal people hours.  I even took a weekend off!  Kind of.  I still worked a little.  There are certain things, like doing greeting on FetLife.com that would require someone else to take my work if I wanted time off.  This weekend was not the weekend to ask someone to take my work.  We were in the midst of adding greeters to help with the additional demand of hundreds of new members a day.  So I mostly took a weekend off.

My pregnant, Christian neighbor moved and my bitch, nurse neighbor is gone for a while.  This means that for a short time I can drown out the noise of my little one (who is 3, ugh) and the dog I’m dogsitting for The Dude with music.  I live in a townhouse.  We lived in our own home until we moved to North Carolina, so we didn’t have to worry about whether or music was reverberating through the walls.   The dog is actually really chill, considering she’s never been here before, there is a preschooler chasing her around, and three hostile cats sit on the other side of the gate and taunt her.  Chaos is an understatement for my working environment today.

We’re not really dog people.  We like them, but we just consider having a dog like having another child - that you can’t diaper and will eat your underwear.  On the other hand, you can leave it in a cage all day and go somewhere else.  The Dude’s pup is okay though.  He brought her house and said we could just leave her in her kennel all day, but that wasn’t working out.  She was howling from upstairs so we have let her run free reign in the house with the cats and the baby.  Yikes.   So far there has only been one YIP as she got her nose batted by a kitty.

I wonder what it’s like to get a task done without interruption.  Several other bloggers and sex writers I know are also moms and dads - we commiserate over the peaceful lives we once led…

Well, I have to wrap it up quickly today.  I have an short email interview to write for Peter Acworth — I owe one to TR for helping me with that!  One of these days he and I will meet and I’ll have to personally thank him.

Damn, I miss running!  And Lochai!  And Mr. F!

And if you haven’t yet, get your ass over to BestSexBloggers.com and enter the reader’s contest!  You could win a really nice (and yes, brand new!) sex toy from EdenFantasys.com

Image from Postsecret.com (READ IT)

I have so much to say, yet nothing.  I feel overstimulated, overworked, overstressed - inundated with information.  My goal was to get offline and spend the entire evening relaxing with my husband.  It is 1:54 am in this exact moment.  I don’t think I realized my goal.  I haven’t gone to sleep before 3 am for at least three days.  What I need is an entire day’s sleep.  A full sleep until the afternoon and then get up and eat and go back to bed for the night kind of sleep.  I don’t see that happening anytime soon.   I miss running!

I had a lot of errands to run today, basically being the Mom taxi to and from here and there.  W has quite an active social life and I try to accommodate her as much as I can.  It’s something I didn’t have as a child so it’s neat to see her live a better life than i did.  She’s already had amazing experiences and has had opportunities most kids her age haven’t had.  She is certainly at an advantage in her Spanish class, since she hears me speak Spanish and if we study for a quiz together, I know the correct answer.  She has to hold her own.  She does her own homework, I don’t look over it.  I help her, if she needs help, like I do for any other class.  Get out the textbook and find the example in the textbook and apply it.

My friend, M, is back in town and texted me.  I hope that he and I get to hang out sometime soon - it’s been weeks and knowing his busy schedule, we may not cross paths this weekend.  Who knows?  I am looking forward to hearing about his travels all over Asia.  Maybe he brought me a shell and a vial of sand?  I requested something small.

I’ve decided that from the perspective of a person like me who works 7 days a week, that Labor Day Weekend is nothing but an inconvenience.  Unless you have a sweet 9-5 gig with a great salary and benefits package, it just means that you can’t do business as usual.  I still have work to do, I’m just hobbled by the rest of the world that is closed.  I realize this is petty bitching.  That’s what I do sometimes.

September 11th is coming up, and I wonder a couple of things:

1) Will people stop and take notice or will it fade away with every passing year?

2) Will my grandma know that it’s her birthday?  She still thinks I live in Ohio, despite visiting here.

3) How will the Presidential candidates use 9/11 to their advantage?  Of course they will each do something grand and I wonder what that will be.  I honestly still think I might vote for Ralph Nader.

That’s it for my questions.

I feel so out of touch with the every day world, like current events and what is on television.  In a way, that’s a very good thing.  There was a time when I just didn’t watch tv, and not for moral or ethical reasons, but because I didn’t own one, couldn’t pay for cable, and had better things to do than watch TV.  We had a tiny tv/vcr combo and we watched movies sometimes.  That sufficed.  I always tivo The Soup.  That’s how I know it’s Friday (or it’s recently been Friday).  The Soup and McLaughlin Group are at the top of the tivo list.  I think those are the only two shows I really keep up with now.  Random, I know.

Well, today has been a very rough day.  I have to call it quits.  Just a bit of advice to anybody reading: When in doubt, just do the right thing.

2:24 am officially.  I hate losing sleep over things I can’t really control.  Why do I do this to myself?

Lolcats are from icanhascheezburger.com

A couple of crazy weeks have passed!  It’s nice to be back to normal.  W goes back to school on Monday and she’s really excited to finish out her middle school years there.  She has had to change schools several times and it would have been such a disruption to her life to have to change schools again this year and then again next year.   Her education has benefited, it’s objectively obvious when you look at her transcripts and awards.

Next year she’s likely return to public school.  It’s not really an issue of private vs. public school.  These three years are the only years she has attended private school and that was due to my faculty tuition discount.  I suspect that most parents are paranoid about public school the way that some are about stranger danger, yet if you do your homework you’ll see that your child is safer walking (alone) to and sitting in public school in NYC than they are in a lightning storm and we have lightning storms here almost daily in the summer.

Public schools in North Carolina are terribly underfunded.  One of the best things you can do as a parent of a public school student is try to have your child placed in the honors programs.  Because W will finish the year at her middle school in honors Algebra 1, Spanish I, Latin, Chemistry, and an advanced English and History curriculum she will benefit in the pubic school system.    She has her own goal of attending a private, specialized school for math and science on scholarship her last two years of high school.  She is extremely motivated to do well.

Of course, I can’t say this without mentioning how imbalanced the public school curriculum is - for a public school system it still seems to be a very have vs. have nots system.  I recognize that this is a Privilege.  I also recognize that it’s in my job description as a Mom to do everything I can to give her every advantage that I can in life, while teaching her to be grateful, compassionate, and generous.

Okay, so enough about education and parenting.  Life!

The Best Sex Bloggers is doing great - our content is top shelf, the contributors are amazing writers, and the variety isn’t found anywhere else that I know of.  Most of the admin stuff is finally done.  Our header is up and looks good, we got the image problem fixed, and now we can start adding selected contributors to the project.

I’m going to be helping Audacia Ray with some promo work on some of her new projects, so that’s pretty amazing and exciting.

I’m going to review a movie for Madison Young that she sent to me.

Rachel Kramer Bussel is sending us some books to review for Amazon.com, as well as a copy of Spanked! for us to review.  I have another of her books that I am reviewing currently, called Dirty Girls, for Seal Press.  I am actually the only person holding me back from being done with that because now that I know her RKB, I want to ask her a few questions about the book before I publish the review and I have been distracted.  I’ll have to get back on track with that.

I’m talking with Lucrezia Magazine about writing for them, though since I’m still just talking with them, I don’t have really specific things to mention.  I just thought that it’s worth mentioning.

Lelo.com contacted me and asked me to review a product of theirs, so I chose the Luna Beads.  I haven’t even had an opportunity to try them out.  Yes, I know you can’t imagine, but it’s been a weird couple of weeks.  I assure you, I’ll get to work researching them and give you my opinion.

Finally, at least for now, I’ve joined The Femme’s Guide and will post there about some specific topics with some amazing women who are collaborating on the project.  It’s a nice opportunity and I appreciate being invited to take part in it.

All of my friends are out of town this weekend.  Seriously.  M is gone for three weeks traveling in Asia, Mr. F is in Pittsburgh celebrating his birthday, Mr. Johnson is in Colombia, I dropped The Dude at the airport yesterday for his weekend away, and Nikki is at Fetcon, as are Sabrina and Melvin.  No wonder I’ve managed to get so much work done today! :)