Time Keeps on Slipping...

into the future...

My Most Vanilla Friend and I decided back in June or July that this year's Christmas theme would be nutcrackers. If you know me in real life, it won't surprise you that one of the first holiday purchases I made were 2 journals with nutcrackers motifs. Probably didn't surprise you that we picked out a theme in July either. Anyway, two journals. One to give my Most Vanilla BFF, and one so I can record every single detail of a most magical holiday season, ever. I intended to anoint some pages with cinnamon and clove essential oils to create a multi-sensory experience when it is revisited in the future. I pictured myself settling at the end of each day in November and December with Fiona and a cup a hot chocolate to note both the magical and the mundane moments. I even fantasized a future spa vacay where Most Vanilla and I could share and revisit our 2025 holiday memories while lounging by the pool.  

The vision was perfect. The execution? Well... 

We fully committed to a magical holiday season. Christmas 2023 and 2024 sucked pretty hard, you don't need me to recap that, right? Let's stay present, this moment really is a gift. Insofar as having a magical holiday season, it was 100% a success. It was jam packed with memorable moments. A Christmas trivia night, The Nutcracker and The Slutcracker, time with friends, time with family, so much shopping. Stitches, our North Pole in-house snitch had his hands full every day. I would have needed KY and a crowbar to fit any more festivities. 

But insofar as recording, journaling, immortalizing those moments, perhaps more like a 40%. Some did get done, but far less than intended. Eh- better than a zero though, right? 

I also had this idea that I would tie the vanilla theme of nutcrackers with a CBT kink theme, and that I would journal the best of those moments here and on Fetlife. My holiday kink season kicked off just as perfectly as the vanilla. Thanksgiving Eve I had a scene that was equal parts playful and sadistic with this pain slut, Rachel. You know that's my favorite, right? The spot where playful and sadistic intersect. When Master John says, Let's play a game. Or in this case when Rachel says, I picked up an eggplant. For those who follow me on Fet, that picture with my whole foot inside of...., well, that's Rachel.    

Alas I didn't get to that either. It has been a life-long journey trying to find the precise fulcrum of living a life worthy of documenting and saving enough time to make note of it, and clearly, I haven't quite mastered it. There's still time though, right Tim?  

Last night I finally had a chance to watch Nicholas's YKF Interview of John Baku. For my non-kink readers, YKF is the podcast Your Kinky Friends hosted by my good friend Nicholas Tanek. You've seen his show before, you watched my interviews on his show (haven't you???). John Baku is the founder and CEO of Fetlife. Nicholas is a prolific creator, sadly I don't catch all of his podcasts, I'm so glad this is the one my YouTube algorithm suggested. 

December 2009: 334674 I am irrationally proud that my membership # is in the low 6 digits. On occasions when I find myself pointing that out to a rude newbie tourist, I follow it up with- and I had 10 years in the scene already in 2009. So, while Fetlife isn't where my D/s and kink journeys began, it does now hold the longest continuous stretch of it, and it very much feels like home. 

John Baku did not match the prototype I held of him in my mind. Understand that Fetlife is a big place, and while it is clear that Mr. Baku is a hands-on creator, I don't know him. I'd be embarrassed to share how far off my imaginary version of Mr. Baku was from the actual John Baku in the interview. The next time I encounter preconceived notions about being a Dominatrix, perhaps I'll view it as an invitation to help someone grow and not an opportunity to make a muggle cry.

 I said perhaps, no promises. 

Let me focus on what I loved about the interview. My timer has been reset twice, and I'm cutting into the time I allotted for getting ready for a concert tonight. If I don't finish in the next 30-minute block, I'll have to reschedule picking up the magazines for the New Year's Day vision-board event I'm co-hosting. Local friends feel free to DM me for deets on that, haven't done my fair share of promoting it. 

For fuck's sake, focus. 

Note from my future self: you should know I'm editing this post. I simply didn't have the time to document all my thoughts right now. But it was written in ink on my Sunday agenda: post to my blog, with an annotation: *impress my top. 

What I loved most was how protective Mr. Baku sounded when asked about the choices he's made for the site. I loved hearing the origin story. It reminded me that so many in this community started from a place of feeling weird and ashamed of themselves for the things they found interesting and exciting, me too. I've shared this here before, haven't I? In my 20s, I literally hid my copies of Anne Rice's Sleeping Beauty trilogy from my live-in partner. The first time we checked out an alt event together was after our break-up, and much too late.  

alas, everything happens for a reason. 

I loved that John Baku came across as a normal, wholesome, perhaps a little bit shy man. I appreciated that he talked about his family including an adult child who's active in the scene. I also have adult children, some of whom are active in the community. It's tricky to navigate, and it's really difficult to identify mentors to show you the best way to steer through that territory. 

I loved that he seems to sincerely believe people are fundamentally good. He said something to the effect of if we focused on the ways we are alike rather than our differences, we'd be happier. It's a sentiment I think our community and the vanilla world would benefit to hear and practice. He had a mantra he shared that I hope to have a reason to share with my top before I forget it. When Nicholas asked him to share any fantasy, I could hear his hesitation. I know that internal debate, is this an appropriate space, a safe space to say what truly matters to me?  And then he shared one, and it echoed one of my own. I was a little sad that he didn't seem to know how FOSTA-SESTA impacted our community. In fairness though he doesn't live anywhere near that intersection in our community. It is a sex-worker issue. If he doesn't know how Pro-Dommes and other sw's in kink are impacted, the responsibility is on us to explain it. 

December 28th at 11A.M. and I haven't documented my holiday season, vanilla or kink. But it isn't quite over yet, is it? Hold your breath, I might get to it still. 

And go watch YKF while you wait: 

John Baku (founder/CEO of FetLife.com) - 12.2025 - Your Kinky Friends

Title, Photo and Final Draft Pending

As I have shared so many times, subtlety is not my kink or strength. I can do obscure, but then just like if I'm not talking to you, I will find myself unable to resist explaining the reference. Still, I am better at obscure than I am at subtle. Also please note, it really is a gift if I take the time to tell you I am not talking to you. It does mean that I still intend to talk to you again. 

Perhaps I'm better at subtle than I think. 

No, you're right, it needs more work.

Some of my readers read between the lines, most missed it. A client nearly wet himself when he put it together. Wait, why are your nails red? Then he proposed, and I referred him to my real estate agent. Go ahead, shoot your shot foot boy. 

 

Things change. 

Or they don't, and that's unfortunate too. 

I'm packing for a little spa vacay with my Most Vanilla Friend. Yes, another one. Here you should hear Sheila E taunting... it gets kind of rough in the back of our limousine.

During our last little getaway to that delightful cottage by the lake, in the Blueberry Moose state, I found myself trying to explain what I get out of my dynamic. Trying to identify what need of mine it meets

It's a challenging question to answer no matter who asks. I think we would all agree a D/s dynamic is by definition, alternative. Mine is unconventional even by the standards of our alt community.

The moon up above it shines down upon our skin, whispering words that scream of outrageous sin, we all want the stuff that's found in our wildest dreams...

Do we? Do you? Wildest? For real, because my wildest is rather intense. Consider where my baseline is set.  Sometimes my wildest is fucking terrifying.

 

Did I mention my most vanilla BFF is a therapist? It's important to me that if I explain at all, that I explain it well. If she were to think that I have Stockholm syndrome, I want her to know that my inoculation was intentional and with enthusiastic consent.   

It isn't just the endorphin rush of a high-risk behavior. It isn't only the flood of dopamine when a complex goal is satisfactorily met or the little bump when a small, routine one is checked off.  It isn't only that I am a standard issue gen X girl model, with abandonment issues who just wants to find meaning in any of this nonsense that is the human experience. 

For quite some time I've had a note to myself pinned in my inbox. A reminder that I had an idea to explore how sadomasochistic play echoes my birth experiences. Not in the obvious ways, and not through a lens of breeding kink, but the hormone-driven, extreme emotional experience of each. How in even the most carefully, thoughtfully, informed based plans will still likely give way to moments of extreme vulnerability, humiliation, terrifying fear, indescribable excruciating pain and then most of us,  fall deeper in love than we've ever experienced. 

So I suppose it's the oxytocin. And not the polite serving size one gets when they slip on a fuzzy sweater. I need transformative, alchemic level doses. It doesn't matter if it's terrifying, I wish to experience, to really master, acceptance and unconditional love.   

And I don't wish to be bored, not even for a moment. 

Over and Over

Yesterday I wrote, "It's Monday and raining, proof the Gods delight in my happiness.". I've given myself a new protocol: tap the keys for an hour as soon as I wake-up, every day, no matter what. It was completed, of course, but the final draft failed to feel worthy of posting. 

It's Tuesday now, a house lot is being cleared across the street. The noise is maddening. Multiple generators, engines, chain saws, stump grinding and a scared Fiona tapping to go in her crate then crying to come out. At least she's resigned that even her biggest bark, from her 11-pound pink poodle self, isn't going to scare the crew away.

The goal isn't to write something to post every day, but the dopamine reward of a completed product would have been such a plump, sweet cherry on a still delish sundae of a Monday.    

Then again, perhaps this pedestrian Tuesday, with its obnoxious noisy start, needs that cherry bump more than my perfect Monday did.  
I appreciate that Fate sees the fine details of the big picture far better than this mere mortal.  

Speaking of ch-ch-cherries, I saw Joan Jett recently. Flow with me through this stream of consciousness. I started dancing about a month before my 21st birthday. I regularly bemoaned that, despite fantasizing about it often, I didn't start sooner. Thoughts like, I have 5, maybe 6 years ahead of me before I'm too old to earn a living this way, worried me often. It felt like I had lost 3 years of income by starting when I was so very old at almost 21. When I discovered and transitioned to work as a Domme at 27, I was so relieved to imagine that I'd likely be able to earn this way until around 40.  By then I would certainly have figured out my calling, and be well established in a real job, a grown-up (but not adult) career. 

Wonder if Joan Jett's parents were supportive when their daughter first declared she wanted to be a rock star? If she even declared it, it sounds so silly, doesn't it? Wonder if she ever thought I need to do something more practical? That this moment might prove to be the last opportunity to choose a viable, still attractive, alternate path. Wonder if she ever worried that she might find herself past the age most people retire with calloused fingers still performing. 

What silly things to have ever spent any time imagining. 

Had a new-to-me client the other day ask if I might make an exception to my 2-hour minimum. Afterall he only wanted to explore foot worship, isn't 2 hours too much time for a foot worshipping session?  I'm happy to report my reputation at almost 53 remains intact. Never in the history of all time has a boy described being in my company using the words too much time. Next time I might make it 3 hours and task him with watching the paint on my toenails dry.

Perhaps it is so very silly. Perhaps I am delusional. Who cares? Every time I declare something so very outrageous, blasphemous even like rain on a Monday is proof the Gods delight in my happiness, I find a new thing to be happy about. Confirmational bias with a side of toxic positivity, I am here for it. A 67-year-old woman named Joan had twenty thousand people on their feet, belting out every classic she slammed out. 

How absurd that I ever spent a moment worried about when I would be too old to do what I love.