Last night Kim and I went out to the Lodge. Word is that they’ve lost their lease and will be closing this summer.

It was an odd night. There seemed to be a lot of people I’d never seen before (not that I really go that much), and the vibe felt different. At one point we went over to the dance floor and the sound system wasn’t working, it was just jukebox music, so people were just standing around talking like at a cocktail party. Later things picked up a little. One very funny guy insisted on sitting on my lap and taking some pictures and an interesting guy from the techie end of the movie business told me about his interest in one night stands with trannies, and about keeping it secret from his regular straight life (married with kids). He wasn’t gross or anything, just matter of fact since I was asking him a lot of questions. He didn’t hit on me, which was nice (he knew I was a bondage freak but shared none of those interests). We just had an interesting talk, which can be rare in clubs.

As I mentioned earlier, at the end of May the folks at Threshold in North Hollywood have gotten me to agree to teach the new monthly bondage class. I’m really looking forward to it, and I’m trying to brush up on my skills a little between now and then.

Harmony’s Bondage Life magazine had a great series back in the early nineties called Chelsea Pfeiffer’s Bondage Techniques. I’ve got a few of the old magazines but I knows there’s some that I missed and I’d love to check them out. I think there was one issue specifically on chair ties and another on chest ties and harnesses, and some others I can’t remember.

If anyone has any of these old issues, or even just the articles from them, and is willing to part with them, I’d love to do a trade: maybe a month or two of membership at Trannies In Trouble, or I could exchange some other old Harmony magazines or VHS tapes or even my CD-ROM. Anyway, if you have any of them feel free to leave a comment or drop me an email.

Here’s the issues from that series that I already have (#s 44, 47, 48, 49 and 52):

I was reading about people who’ve been using the sleep drug Ambien and have been sleepwalking, binge eating, and even driving without being aware of it. And it reminded me of something that used to happen to me when I was a child.

I never used sleeping pills, but occasionally I used to get overheated at night and then sleepwalk around the house. It was a really disturbing experience because I would be in a kind of half asleep / half awake state. I sort of knew what was going on but couldn’t snap out of it. I remember I would usually have some strange delusional idea going on at the same time. Once I was convinced that someone had buried a bomb in our backyard and that we were all in danger. Another time I remember walking into my parents’ room without even knocking and my Mom screamed bloody murder. My parents turned on the lights and tried to calm me down but I was so disoriented that I had no idea what they were saying. Another time I dug out a bunch of board games and vaguely remember looking through the “Chutes and Ladders” box, imagining that I’d lost something terribly important and had to find it.

Eventually I would come out of it but it always seemed to take a while – maybe 30 minutes or an hour – and while I came to my senses I would be shaking and crying with this weird feeling of danger. Not pleasant at all. I think the last time that happened I was probably about thirteen.

Sigmund Freud’s Birthday. So then I was reading the Newsweek cover story about Sigmund Freud. As the article says, he was wrong about so many things, but had some major ideas that are still with us today – among them the idea of the unconscious and the idea that “human life is essentially conflicted,” that we all have wishes and impulses that we actively suppress. I’m always amazed at the inappropriate thoughts I often have – petty resentments and jealousies and desires for revenge. If we could all look into each other’s minds without any filters we’d all be so damned embarrassed that we could hardly function.

Dream Last Night. Speaking of the unconscious, I had a funny dream last night. I was back in my childhood home and this young couple were on the back patio gesturing for me to let them in. They told me a story about needing help, I let them in, and then the man pulled a gun on me. I said something like, “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding.” He pulled out a roll of duct tape and told me to put my wrists together. I told him, “Look, I’m always able to escape so don’t bother.” He paused a moment, looked at the woman, said, “Well, okay,” and then they just gave up and left without even trying to rob me. Weird.

Tristy has been planning to move out of the area for a while, so I’ve been seeing her a bit more than usual. I’ll really miss her when she goes. We spent the evening at the St. George Motor Inn in beautiful Tarzana, California, last night and I shot a lot of pictures with her. The San Fernando Valley gets no respect but I really like it up there and would probably move there if it wasn’t so blasted hot in the summer.

I put Tristy in about four or five different ties and had a wonderful time with her. She’s always so thin and smooth and I love getting the ropes on her and feeling her up a bit. I’m sure she didn’t mind. At the end I hugged her for a long time and felt a bit melancholy knowing that she’d soon be leaving and that this might be the last time we get together for a long time.

I had a great time on the webcam last night, though it was over much sooner than I had hoped. Bondage is tiring! My friend BT was over here and we started around 3:00 in the afternoon. He really put me through it, doing several fairly stringent ties, spanking me HARD many times, pulling my hair and even bagging me briefly. By 7:00 PM I was a mess and we were signed off around 7:30. I’ll have to make it up with an even longer self-bondage next time. I still love the idea of broadcasting a 24 hour bondage session but I think the only way you could do it is if it was only moderate bondage with no extra torment going on. Just being tied up for a long time is exhausting enough. If it were a stringent hogtie with spanking and pinching going on there’s no way I could make it past a couple hours.

I went in for a yearly check-up this morning (in boy mode) and was shocked to see that I still had some hickey marks from the cupping set that Ms. D. had used on me Friday night at Club Fantasy. There were still two red circles on my abdomen that were quite visible. I don’t even know much of anything about cupping, but had tried it out on a whim. All weekend I’d been watching the marks and thinking, “Surely they’ll go away by Monday morning.” But no.

Oh well, actually the nurse was very cool and at first thought the marks were from an acupuncturist. Later I had to tell her, “Well, no, it wasn’t acupuncture.” I told her I’d been playing around with some mild S&M with a friend, and she was quite interested and it actually led to a nice conversation. She mentioned a large S&M house that she’d heard about in Los Angeles back in the 70s. Later we got to talking about our families and health problems of certain relatives. It was a very nice chat, so I guess the lesson is, if you get weird marks on your body from doing something kinky just cop to it and tell the truth. Everything will work out just fine (Yeah, that’s the ticket…)

I went out to Club Fantasy tonight and wore my green top since it was St. Patrick’s Day. The turnout was unfortunately pretty low. I played a little with my friend Ms. D., who’s a total sweetheart (though she doesn’t want word to get out).

I was also talking to Tim, the coordinator at Threshold and he wore me down and finally talked me into teaching a monthly rope bondage class, starting in May (He can be very persuasive and is a real asset to the organization.) But Yikes! I do know a lot of the basics of tying people up but have never considered myself an expert by any means. I have been hoping, however, that they would start such a class, and since they needed someone to get it started, I guess it’s me. Plus, it’ll help push me out of my comfort zone, as speaking in front of people is about as much fun as dental work. I guess I really have got to get my stuff together and study up. I can deal with looking like a fool, I’d just prefer to not come across as a bumbling fool.

Someone recently sent me these amusing Photoshop-enhanced billboards from Dribbleglass.com

Several weeks ago some friends and I got to take part in the fashion show that Glamour Boutique put on at Threshold, in North Hollywood. I only have a few pictures but here’s some that I like. There’re a couple of Tristy – who I think looks just stunning – and a couple of me. The one with Tristy in the examing room was taken in one of the theme rooms at Threshold. And that shiny black PVC dress that I got to wear was awesome. I gotta get one of those.

If you’re in the area, I’d highly recommend Glamour Boutique’s newest store in Studio City. And say hi to Darya – she’s an absolute dear!

It’s funny, I rarely ever get comments here and I was starting to think this must be one of the most boring blogs in the world. Then I realized that I had it set so that only registered users could post a comment. Wow, what a hassle that is – I always groan when I’m asked to create yet another user name and password. Anyway, I changed it so that anyone can post comments now, so if you’d like to post a comment, it should be much easier. Hey, not that I’m fishing or anything! (And for all I know it still may be pretty boring…)

Saturday night I went to Threshold to see a hook suspension being performed by the lovely Ms. Ellie. A really nice guy at the club, Alan, had six piercings done on his back with large fish hooks – I mean, really large, these were probably 6 or 8 gauge needles and the curve in the hooks was probably about two inches across.

They used a winch with six cords hanging from a metal frame to attach to the hooks, then slowly lifted him upward standing vertically. It’s amazing how much skin can stretch. The winch went up a little bit at a time, allowing him to get used to the pressure. Eventually he was off the ground, with his feet about 12 inches off the floor and only a little trail of clear liquid from the piercings running down his back. Finally he was swinging back and forth so much that people nearby had to move back to give him space. It’s nothing I would ever want to do but I was really amazed by the whole weirdness of the spectacle and Alan’s amazing ability to do it. He was even chatting while they initially pierced him and reported that it didn’t even really hurt to be hanging from his own hooked flesh.

“Today I had some dental surgery” has got to be one of my least favorite sentences in the English language. It was pretty minor and something I’d been putting off, just a graft on a small spot on my lower gums, but, man, are my teeth sore! Looks like there’ll be no ball gags tonight in the bondage bungalow.

With my friend K. gone and back at home, I’ve been feeling a bit sad lately and tormenting myself with nostalgia. Before I moved to L.A. we used to live so close to each other that we were practically like a couple. I lived next door to her in her duplex in Colorado and saw her almost every day. When we first became friends, way back in the early 80s (I’m dating myself here), I had such a crush on her. But with my sexuality the way it is, and both of us having difficulties with intimacy, there was no way it was going to work. We can really drive each other crazy, the way old friends who are so comfortable with each other often do, but I would do practically anything for her.

Wow, it’s been a whole week since the last entry. I’ve actually been out of town for a couple days, spending some time with a friend in the Monterey Bay area. One evening we were out having dinner at a seafood place. I was in boy mode and the guy bringing us water came up to us and said, “Hello, Ladies.” At first I had a split second of embarrassment and then I felt really pleased and thought, “Oh, cool!” That doesn’t happen to me too often but I love when it does. I could tell the guy recognized his mistake once he set down the water, but it happened so fast and he was probably embarrassed himself and didn’t say anything else.

My friend K. is someone I’ve known for years and years from when I lived in Colorado. She’s a genetic girl and knows all about my dressing and website, but she herself has no kinky side. I’ve often thought that if I ever married a woman, it would have been her. But it just wasn’t in the cards. Almost two decades ago we tried to have a “relationship,” but it was a disaster. We do so much better as friends.

Wow, I feel great this morning! Relaxed and happy and only a little bit sore. Sometimes self bondage can just be tedious and boring but when it really works for me, like it did last night, it just rocks my world!

I had a great time on the self-bondage webcam tonight, using rope, leather straps, handcuffs and a duct tape gag. I ended up using ten ice cubes, putting them in a pantyhose with the handcuff key on a ring ready to fall once the ice melted. I was really surprised that ten ice cubes took about the same amount of time to melt as six of them had, about three hours.

I started chatting at 4:00 PM, had myself tied up and gagged and closed the handcuffs at 5:00 and struggled out of them around 8:00 PM, much earlier than I anticipated. There was a nice turn-out of friends watching the cam and afterwards we all hung out in the chatroom for another hour or so. It was a really sexy self-bondage session for me and here’s a few pictures from it. Looks like next time I’ll have to try 20 ice cubes. My dream is still to enlist a couple friends to help me do a 24 hour bondage session on the webcam. I’ve got to try that. It would be amazing.

I’ve really gotten a craving for some self-bondage lately and it turns out I have time to indulge tomorrow and go online with my webcams (both my paysite and free cam) – Wednesday, February 15, starting around 4:00 PM Pacific time. The last time I did it, I used six ice cubes for the ice cube and key trick (suspending the hand cuff key just out of reach attached to a pantyhose filled with ice cubes, so that when the ice melts, the key drops). I’m going to try to beat that, using anywhere from six to ten ice cubes, depending on the flip of a coin. So stop by if you get a chance. I’ll also post a notice in my Yahoo Group.

http://www.tranniesintrouble.com/main.htm

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TranniesInTrouble/