It was another good party at Club Fantasy tonight. I’m beat, it’s nearly 2:00 AM, but it turned out to be another fun one. I got to tie up a couple girls, including a cute new girl for whom I believe this was one of her first times dressing and her first time ever being tied up. It’s fun to corrupt the young ones. I’m still a little wired from the post-party excitement so I’m just farting around on the web before I call it a night.

I brought a bunch of heels to give away and my friend Blair brought some things too. We were able to give away quite a bit but I still have a big bag left over that I guess is going to the thrift store. Hopefully I won’t buy back my own discarded heels the next time I’m out shopping there.

So tomorrow, Friday, June 15th, I’m bringing about 15 pairs of heels to the Club Fantasy party in N. Hollywood to give away. There are some strappy heels and some ridiculously tall platforms and a few others, mostly in size 12 womens, though there are a few other sizes that other people have given me to bring. And quite a few of them have never been worn at all. They’re just taking up space in my tiny apartment and they have to go. I’ll take anything left over to the Out of the Closet thrift store, one of my favorite places.

See you tomorrow in Hollywoodland!

(Update late 2010 – since doing the Forum more than three years ago my interest in Landmark Education has dropped way off, though it’s still always interesting talking to others who have done it or who are still active in it and hearing what they think of it. I did two other Landmark classes after the Forum but frankly they were very unsatisfying in comparison, and in fact the last one I took was very unpleasant and anxiety-provoking. I don’t really regret doing Landmark, though my bank account is a little smaller. However, would I really recommend it to anyone? No, not really – unless you really really love this sort of thing.)

I haven’t been online much this last week because I was busy over the weekend doing the Landmark Forum. It’s an intense three-day seminar that’s designed to make you look at your life and how you’re living it. It grew out of the est workshops that were started by Werner Erhard back in the 70s. It’s a fairly controversial program. A lot of people have taken it and say it has had a powerful and positive impact on their life. Critics, on the other hand, have accused it of being a cult or of using mind control techniques. A friend who took the seminar earlier this year introduced it to me and I was curious enough that I reluctantly signed up for it. I did it in “Robert” mode.

It is very intense: three 12-hour days in a row. And it’s designed to be confrontational and to really make you look at your shit. I’d have to say it was one of the most intense things I’ve done in a very long time. I resisted it a lot and had many ups and downs over the weekend, more downs than ups, to be honest. But last night there was a short wrap-up evening session and it really brought it all together for me. Before last night I was feeling a little bit freaked out by it.

The funny thing is that there really isn’t much that you need to “buy into” or understand when you’re doing it. It’s certainly not a religion, and although they present many concepts or “distinctions,” as they call them, there’s no pressure that you have to agree or accept anything. It’s also very much concerned with your relationships to friends and family and other people, which leads me to discount the cult charges. Cults are groups that tend to separate people from their families and from others, and create an insular and structured group that has the “right answer.” The Landmark Forum on the other hand is nearly obsessive about your relationships with others and about making even stronger and more authentic connections with other people.

Would I recommend it? If you’re drawn towards this kind of thing, then yes, I definitely would. It’s an experience that’s hard to put into words, and what each person gets out of it is unique. You could write down a long list of the “distinctions” that they present but without the experience of being there it’s just not the same thing at all.

Also, it’s quite expensive – $450 dollars. But having finished it I’d have to say that the money is now a non-issue. It was a really wild up and down ride, but I’d do it again just like that.

Oh, and the gender and kink stuff weren’t even much of an issue over the weekend. I told a few people what I do for a living but I could have not brought it up and I don’t think it would have made a difference to the experience one way or the other.

Some other links and perspectives:

Landmark Education on Wikipedia

Landmark Forum on the Skeptics Dictionary

I’ve just been getting ready a new set of pictures from my last visit with crazy Rebecca H. Heels. I’ll be posting the full set for this Friday’s update on the Ts in Trouble site. It’ll be a self-bondage scene with heavy cuffs, and as always she gave me a totally over-the-top look. Here’s a little preview.

I was feeling a little down the other morning, though I sprang back pretty quickly. Like I’ve mentioned before, women scare me, especially when they’re attractive. I think part of the reason it’s easier to do bondage play and to fool around with other tgs or with guys is because I know I’m not going to develop some deep emotional attachment, and figure they’re not going to feel that way about me either. The only times in life that I’ve felt as though I were falling in love was with “real” women. But at the same time, there’s that little voice of self-doubt inside that expects to be rejected by women (because I’m a transvestite). Of course, real life has shown that that’s not always the case – yes, many women would not want to be with a tranny, but there are some out there who don’t mind, and a few who might even be into it. But those old patterns of self-doubt die hard.

Anyway, I was out the other night, just in guy mode, doing some volunteer work for a group I sometimes get together with. A new girl was there and I felt really nervous around her. I wasn’t even that particularly attracted to her but my shyness kicked in and I felt awkward and uptight. Driving home later I found myself growing more and more depressed about it. I try to remind myself at such times that my emotions aren’t dangerous and that there’s really nothing to be worried about, that after a good night’s sleep I’ll be feeling fine. But I still felt pretty down, and lying in bed I had one of those “looking into the void,” moments, where you feel so alone in the world and life feels like a low-grade nightmare. I know that none of this is true – I have friends and family and most of the time life is pretty good. But those dramatic feelings are one of the characteristics of being depressed – that it feels deep and “dangerous,” as though if it were to continue I would never recover. That never happens, of course, and yes, after a night’s sleep, or a long walk around the neighborhood, I’m usually back.

An update on the Jay Wiseman presentation sponsored by Threshold: The topic is “Bondage You Can Actually Use,” and it’s going to be from 7 to 9 PM on Wednesday, June 6th, in North Hollywood, CA. Hope to see you there!

(And here’s an easy-to-read page on the L.A. Doms and Subs site (LADs), with all the information on the Jay Wiseman presentations.)

Hollywoodland Studios (Entrance in rear – plenty of free parking)
11300 Hartland St.
(off Tujunga, 1 block north of Vanowen)
North Hollywood, CA 91605

Map: http://tinyurl.com/fnwd7

A guy from the Middle East just wrote me a nice email complimenting me on a few of my pictures that he really liked, and he also wrote to say that where he lives most adult sites, including Trannies In Trouble, are blocked and can’t be accessed. This is nothing new, of course, but still the idea of a government deciding that their citizens simply will not be allowed to see or read certain material just blows my mind. The United States obviously has no shortage on messed up behavior and social problems, and is now generally despised throughout the world thanks to our current president, but still we’ve got it so good over here.

Even if our government went on an all out war against pornography, I can’t imagine that things could become as repressive as they are in some parts of the world. And I hope I’m not just being hopelessly naive. Of course, I’d prefer not to end up in the court system for shooting bondage pictures that don’t even show sex or nudity, but I’d also like to think that if it came to that, that I’d have the balls to see it through to the end, whatever that would be. Of course, there’s no way to know unless it happened, and hopefully I’ll never have to find out.