Buh-BYE, Blogger

* * *I HAVE MOVED!* * *

Listen up, kids. I'm sure you all know by now that Blogger has waged war on "adult" blogs, and will no longer allow nudity or sexual photos after March 23, 2015. If your blog contains any such photos, it will be designated as "private." In other words, it won't be deleted, but it might as well be, because the public will no longer be able to access it.

I decided, for the time being, anyway, to migrate over to Wordpress. I know they aren't perfect either, and who knows, maybe they'll adopt the same censorship. But I'll deal with that as it happens. I don't wish to buy and maintain my own domain for now, especially since my blog generates no income and I don't want to have to pay for it.

I found, via a spanking book group on Facebook, a woman who provides all sorts of online services, including moving blogs for people. You can read about about Lisa Pietsch's services HERE. (Scroll down and look for Blog Mover.) She took care of this for me today, answered all my questions, did some tweaks I requested, and charged me $25! Such a deal! And she was very nice. So if you're like me and don't know squat about blog migration and don't want to deal with the aggravation, I heartily recommend her.

Now, without any further ado so I can get the fuck off this Puritanical site, here is my new blog address:

https://ericalscott.wordpress.com/

Please update your blog rolls with this address, and help me spread the word!

Fun weekend

On Saturday, John and I went to a belated surprise birthday party for Paul Kennedy. His birthday was in January, but he was in the UK at the time. So several of us convened at Alex and Paul's house around 7:00; he had taken off, as he was told that Alex was doing a session until 8:00. When he came home, he was thoroughly surprised! One of Alex's friends had made a large casserole dish of homemade mac and cheese, we had a table laden with snacks and a beautiful birthday cake decorated with strawberries.

For the first portion of the party, we had to be very well behaved because one couple was completely vanilla and had no idea about any of our proclivities. (There were a few other non-spankos in attendance, but they were all kink-friendly.) When they left, Alex blurted, "OK, we can be dirty now!" and we let our hair down. It's not a party until you see Sarah Gregory's boobs, so they made an appearance.

Oh, and because Paul couldn't take his own birthday spankings, of course, he doled them out to several of us. :-)

For a b-day present, I went to a cute little place near me called "Oh Fancy That!" It specializes in British foods and gifts, so I made him up a treat bag filled with all kinds of snacks (crisps, Hobnobs, a Cadbury bar, and yes, spotted dick). I even put in a can of Bass Shandy Ale.

A great time was had by all, and it was a perfect warm-up for 50 Freaks this coming weekend. Speaking of which, the stress begins. I've got a ton of stuff to do and not enough time to do it, and yet I find myself sitting here paralyzed, spinning my wheels instead of getting off my butt and hopping to it. Also, I have been working on a collection of five books, and I finished the third one on Friday, thinking I'd get #4 over the weekend and work on it last night. But I haven't gotten it yet; it's not ready for me. So now it's going to be a crunch, even though I did my damndest to keep it from being one. And I probably won't be able to get #5 done before I go after all. :-(

And why is it that the little unexpected time-consumers crop up when you're already under the gun? The clasp broke on my favorite necklace last night. So I'm adding jewelry repair to the list of errands.

Yeah, I know, First-world problems. I stress, therefore I am. I even misplaced my car keys yesterday while we were at brunch, and damn near had a panic attack until John saved the day and found them wedged between my car seats.

Enough. As long as I'm waiting for work, I'd better make the most of my time. Hope everyone had a good weekend.

Ohhhhhhkay, fine

Ya know, on Wednesday, knowing I didn't have a session to blog about and that I was going to be busy for while, I tried to post something that might generate some interesting and thoughtful conversation. And it fell flatter than a deflated football. Fine! Whatever. I give up. Screw being cerebral. I have a ton of work to do and a fun weekend ahead, so I'm not going to give this post any thought. You want a picture? All right, here's a picture. Happy No Pants Friday!

And do you notice that deplorable white condition of my behind? Not for long, kiddies. This time next week, I should be matching these panties and beyond. Vegas, baby! 

Wait... not enough pictures? Okie-dokie. Happy No Clothes Friday.

Short and sweet, back to work for me. Hey, given the cursed popularity of You Know What, should I change my Friday signature line to "Laters, y'all"?

No? All right, all right. Have a great weekend, y'all. ;-)

Some hump-day blathering

Sorry, no Steve scene this week. The poor dear called me yesterday with a barely recognizable voice. He insists I did not give him my cold, because he came down with it a week after he'd seen me... I hope he's right. Actually, his is worse, because he has a throat infection and his doc had to give him a Z-Pak.

As it happens, the found time was welcome. I find myself scrambling right now, as I'm trying to get work and other things squared away for the next week until John and I head out to Vegas next Thursday, for four days of spanko camaraderie, debauchery and revelry. I am attempting to get a series of five short books proofread in this time, as well as prepping and doing all the last-minute stuff one needs to do before abandoning all for a few days. Times like this, I wish I had a Surface Pro or something like that, so I could bring my work with me and do some of it in my downtime. But so far, I haven't made that happen.

Something occurred to me yesterday and has been percolating in my brain ever since, regarding This Thing We Do, the scene overall and the state of it these days. I've been watching the endless and ubiquitous FSOG debates rage on and on (and granted, I've done my share of contributing to them). I've seen the outcry, the protests, the defenses, the dichotomy of crappy reviews and box-office records broken (re. the movie), the spoofs, the backlashes, on and on and on. Someone made a good point on Twitter yesterday: Fourteen years ago, Secretary didn't get this much insanity. Oh, there was a lot of talk, but I don't recall anything like what's been going on with FSOG. Is it because Secretary was a better movie -- or because social media and its ever-increasing ripples outward is so much more advanced now than it was in 2001? Why are people harping and haranguing, for example, about Christian Grey's non-consensual behavior with Ana, but there wasn't nearly as much squawking when E. Edward Grey quite non-consensually put Lee over his desk and spanked her? Are we much more uptight as a culture now, since everything we do is open for scrutiny?

I don't know the answers, and I don't want to get into that debate here, because that isn't my point. This is my point: There is so much arguing out there now -- not just with FSOG, but all sorts of scene issues. Consent. BDSM vs. spanking. Inclusivity vs. exclusivity. Sexual orientation. Etiquette and protocol. Looks, age, bodies. These issues always existed, but now, with Twitter and FetLife (and even Facebook) and the instantaneous nature of social media, they are discussed far more openly, and many times, more combatively.

When I see this, I can't help thinking, "Damn. I'm so glad I'm not new to this."

How sad, really. I know I bitch a lot about my age, but as I tweeted yesterday, there's something to be said about being older in this scene. I no longer have to worry as much about what people think (although a part of me still does and always will), and my fear of predators and outing and falling in with the wrong people and all the other shit that newbies face as they're navigating is much lower than it would be if I were just stumbling into this. 

This is not to say that the kink scene is a bad place now. There is still so much joy and fulfillment and kinship to be found. It's just that you have to wade through so much more BS to get to it, it seems. I see it and/or hear about it every day. 

As much as I think ageing blows, I have to admit I feel pretty lucky these days, scene-wise. I have no children, no family to worry about. I am self-employed, so I don't have to worry about Big Brother Bosses. I am in a long-term relationship, so I don't have to sail the treacherous waters of dating in a rape culture era, I don't have to fret about who didn't call or didn't text or didn't email, if my older butt isn't sexy enough, if I'll have to attend kink functions alone, blah blah blah. I don't openly broadcast who I am everywhere because I don't wish to out those close to me by association, but as far as I am concerned, I couldn't care less who knows. 

When I see the climate of fear and paranoia out there, the confusion over who to trust, the terrible repercussions of outing, I realize I'm in about the best place I could be right now, and I don't take it for granted. 

When I observe all the arguing and debates and uptightness and political correctness and so forth, I realize I've been in this long enough to know my own mind, what I like and what I don't, and what works for me, and I don't have to look outside myself for validation that I'm on a good path. This makes me feel a rare peace today.

I still admire all the younger folks who got into this early, who will experience everything in their youth that I scrambled to achieve later in life. I envy those who never knew a world without Internet, who didn't have to keep their desires and questions and fantasies in the dark recesses of their minds. But for now, I think I'm in a damn good place, or at least the best place I can be, at this time, in this scene of ours.

Of course, this doesn't mean I won't feel completely different once again next week or tomorrow or next month. I mean, just a couple of weeks ago, I was in a tizzy about scene evolution. So I will acknowledge the good feelings now, and enjoy them.

Any thoughts, y'all? For people who have been around TTWD for a while, have you noticed the changes?

Valentine weekend

John and I had a lovely weekend. Quiet, nothing fancy, just the two of us, dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, chocolate, sweet cards. My favorite moment of the weekend? When I pulled into his garage on Friday. John has a two-car garage, and there is a lot of stuff piled up in there (it is a garage, after all), so in order to help guide me into my spot and let me know when to stop the car, he hung a brightly colored tennis ball on a string. I know exactly where the ball is supposed to tap on my windshield when I drive in.

Anyway, on Friday, this is what I saw instead of the tennis ball:

He'd saved an old candy box from last year and hung it there. That's my John.

I wore John's favorite red dress on Saturday night. Didn't take any pictures of it, but you might remember I wore it a couple of years ago and took pictures then:

We went after dinner to our favorite café in hopes of getting our traditional German chocolate cake, but they were out. Booo! They did, however, have a German chocolate cupcake, complete with Valentine decoration.

Back at home we exchanged cards, and John had written in his to me:

You are my best, my favorite, my joy.

I love you too. ♥

And of course, this weekend was the opening of That Movie. So John and I spent a fair amount reading copious quantities of reviews and discussing the pros and cons. Here's my overall take, and I think (I hope) I'm done talking about the damn thing:

• The reviews, whether good, bad or in between, appeared to agree on two points: 1. the books were terrible, and 2. the movie improved on the books. However, considering just how badly written the books were, the movie had a very low bar to rise above.
• Apparently, the movie did away with Anastasia's insipid monologues rambling to her Inner Goddess. This is huge, since that nonsense was about a third of the book.
• Sounds like they made Ana a bit stronger and feistier than her book counterpart. Also good. But still, not enough.
• According to the reviews, the sex and kink is greatly toned down from the book, because they had to keep it to an R rating. And the kink is more suggested than shown, although I guess they keep a belt spanking (for which Dakota Johnson used a body double, FYI). I'm sure Chross will have this available for us as soon as possible.
• The movie took in over $81 million at the box office this weekend. I suspect the audience was divided into two general camps: The Missionary Mommies giggling and squirming their way through it, and the kinksters who wanted to laugh at it. Several friends on FetLife said they went to see it just for fun.
• Let's recap: the conservatives hate it because it's sinful; the feminists hate it because it's demeaning to women; the PC folks hate it because it "glorifies abuse"; and the BDSMers hate it because it represents what we do with a bunch of clichés and misinformation. And yet, look how many people flocked to see it. I give up.

In short, for the sake of cultural literacy, I will probably watch the thing on Netflix eventually. But pay for it in the theater? No way.

I'm still coughing and sniffling. Worst cold ever. But slowly feeling better, and at least I'm sleeping through the night now without waking up coughing my spleen out. Should be quite fine for my belated Valentine's Day spanking tomorrow. :-)

Final thought: Did anyone else watch the Saturday Night Live 40-Year special last night? I did, all 3 1/2 hours of it. As a baby boomer, I have watched the show in real time since its inception. What did you guys think of it? I had my opinions (no surprise there), but I think I'll withhold them until I hear from others.