Well, I’ve been hunkering down in Colorado at my best friend K’s place and it looks like we have another big storm coming through tonight, maybe lasting through Saturday or Sunday. I’m really going to love getting back to sunny California in a few days, and getting back to work. I feel like 2007’s going to be awesome.

Thankfully my flight was scheduled to fly into Colorado Springs, rather than Denver, or I never would have made it. It was cold and snowy when I got in but nothing like the pounding that they got 60 miles north. Apparently there are still people stuck in the Denver airport waiting for a flight out of there – poor bastards…

But today it was clear enough to drive up to Denver to see some of my family. The snow’s piled up everywhere.

I’m heading off to LAX later this week and was just looking at some air traffic safety statistics, out of curiosity. It’s really amazing the safety record of U.S.-based airlines when you compare them to the thousands of traffic fatalities that occur every year. I have a bit of a morbid streak so I always find these kinds of statistics quite fascinating. When you consider the thousands of flights that occur every day it’s amazing that this list of fatalities fits on one medium size web page. Of course, that’s not to diminish the horror and loss of these awful events – especially 9/11 and that awful crash in Belle Harbor, NY, a few months later in 2001.

But when you then look at highway fatalities, things are really crazy – 43,443 people dead on our highways in 2005 alone. That’s like 125 people every day. That’s a lot of people. With figures like that I sometimes wonder why I drive at all.

I’m going to be traveling a little bit over the holidays later this week, so I’ll probably post this week’s update a day early, probably sometime late Wednesday night. I have some new Kelli pictures in a cute nurse’s uniform.

So I’m hoping my blog won’t be completely dead while I’m away, but it probably will. I always enjoy the end of the year and tend to get a bit sentimental looking back on things. We all have those points in our lives where we made a decision – a job, or a move, or a relationship – that then impacted everything that followed. I’m much better now, but I used to get really sad looking back and wondering about the path not taken. But I’m a lot more comfortable with myself now and really can’t complain. One good thing about getting a little older is that I find I tend to indulge in less emotional self torture and perhaps accept things more the way they are.

Wow, this year’s almost over. I’d have to say it’s been a pretty good one for me and I’m really looking forward to the new one. The upcoming DVD looks like it’ll be clocking in at about an hour. I still have a lot of editing to do on it, especially on the audio, but I have most all of the picture edited. It’s been a bit more involved than my usual videos, with lots more cuts and editing and different angles. I’ll write more as I get closer to wrapping it up.

Another thing I’m looking forward to is a possible shoot with a fairly well-known bondage model. I don’t want to give too much away in case it doesn’t happen, but there’s a good chance I might be shooting some pictures early next year with a “real” woman, probably something where I’m in my “domme” Sandra role and tying her up. I’ll probably be a little nervous if it happens, but it would be something completely new and could be interesting and a lot of fun (and hopefully pretty sexy too!) I’ve tied up a few “real” women at parties and during demos but have never actually shot pictures with a GG (genetic girl) before. We shall see.

Earlier today I was at the grocery store, in boy mode, just heading in. I paused a moment, and saw this guy nearby just ahead of me, also going into the store. I grabbed a cart, went in, and maybe 15 seconds later I was passing by this same guy. You know how sometimes you’ll make eye contact with someone just by chance and then you look away a little nervously? Well, I did that, looked away, and then for some reason looked back. He sort of nodded, seemed to hesitate, and said in a normal tone of voice, “Are you okay?”

I was kind of startled out of my fog and said, “Oh, yes, yes, I’m fine,” smiling and making sure I sounded reasonable and sane. And then he said, “Because you looked like you were upset about something.” I was surprised, since I was feeling fine – actually feeling something pretty close to “happy” – and I said something like, ” Oh, no, no, I’m fine, everything’s okay.” And he said, “Okay” and continued on.

I immediately went down an aisle and felt a little embarrassed. I mean, none of this felt hostile or confrontational or anything like that. And I didn’t get any impression that he was trying to pick up on me or wanted to start a conversation for some reason. So I was thinking, how could I look like I was upset? Did he perceive me as emotional distressed, or pissed off and looking for trouble, or worried, or something else? I almost wanted to go back and ask him for more details, but figured that would seem crazy.

It was really unusual and the rest of the time I was in the store I was wondering – How do I come across to people? Do I appear to be an angry person? Preoccupied? Concerned? A pushover? Dangerous? I was stumped and couldn’t get my head around it. It just goes to show how personal everyone’s experiences are. We’re all trapped in our own little world, and so much of what we see out there may not have any real bearing to reality. It makes me wonder, how often do I read people or situations wrong? Probably lots, maybe most of the time. We all have those expectations and “self stories” that we’ve carried around since childhood (“People are assholes, people are nice, I have no luck with women, children don’t like me, I’m not good at soccer, blah blah blah) and they just operate automatically without even being aware of them.

I was just dying to know: What just happened? What did this guy see? What made my reality and his apparently so far apart?

I’ve been meaning to mention that last Wednesday I had the chance to be on another BDSM panel, this time at an undergraduate human sexuality class at CSUN in Northridge. There were probably 40 or so undergraduate students and four of us on the panel. At first I’d heard that there would be ten people on the panel so when I realized it was much smaller I had a moment of nervousness. But once it started going it went okay. Everyone on the panel was really nice and knowledgeable and the room felt pretty relaxed. I was in my mild “androg” mode, makeup and girl’s jeans and a top, but nothing too extreme. The class asked some good questions and I was able to share some of my experiences from the TV side of things. I don’t know if I’ll do a lot of these panels, since it is a big time commitment, especially if I dress beforehand (which I prefer to do), but from the two that I’ve done, they can be fun and you meet some really nice and interesting people.

Wow, it’s been a busy week here and I haven’t written anything in a long time. Last Monday I finally got to do another self-bondage webcam session and had quite an enjoyable time. Self bondage can be a real hit or miss thing. Sometimes it’s exciting and really sends you out into the ether and other times it can just be tedious and unsatisfying. This one was pretty good. I used way too many ice cubes – about 18 – so it went longer than I expected. I was on the cam around 5 PM, probably tied up by 6 PM, and then the ice didn’t melt and allow me to free myself and reach the handcuff key till well after 10 PM, so it was at least a four hour session in bondage. Here are a few framegrabs from the webcam.

So this Monday night, December 4th, I’m planning to do another self-bondage session on the webcam. It’s been a long time and I’ve had a hankering to tie myself up for a while. I’m planning to start around 5:00 PM Pacific time and probably go for about 3 or 4 hours. I’ll post some links on the Ts in Trouble homepage just before I get up and running.

The other day I had an interesting experience appearing on a panel on bdsm and alternative lifestyles at a college in Thousand Oaks, CA. It was a small group of maybe 15 graduate students who were all studying to be therapists and there were six of us on the panel with different perspectives – gay, straight, and tranny (me). I thought I’d be pretty nervous but actually it was really laid back and I felt quite relaxed. I’ve never been talkative, and true to form I was one of the quieter people there, but I seemed to do well enough and answered some questions without sounding like a total nut.

One of the topics that came up was about the so-called “bdsm community,” of which I have to admit I’m sometimes a little skeptical. The variety of interests that are usually included under the term bdsm are so diverse that it’s sometimes hard for me to see that there really is one over-arching community holding everyone together. I have quite a few kinky friends and acquaintances, and there are organizations I like and events that I like to attend from time to time, but does all that make a community? I don’t know the answer. I can’t say I really “feel” like I’m part of a community, but maybe I am. I’ve never been much of a “joiner” either, so maybe that explains some of my questioning. And even though it looks like I’m fairly active and involved, I’d have to admit that at parties and events I oftentimes feel like more of an observer than an active participant. So it’s a tough question to answer. My own personality quirks may just be a big part of my feeling of being separate.

Speaking of the “community” question, here’s an interesting article I recently read on the same topic