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/

Oh my god, I got totally overwhelmed by Yahoo 360, so I’ve decided to put my Yahoo 360 page on the back burner (at least as much as Yahoo will let me, that is) and just go back to my regular profile. I don’t mean to be rude, I was just getting so many messages and invites from it – 30 to 50 a day – and couldn’t keep up, and I don’t want people to think I was just ignoring them. The best way to contact me is still through my email on my website (again, I apologize if I’m slow at getting back) or through my Yahoo Group, and you can always leave comments on my blog here too.

Ever since I’ve been online I’ve had a really hard time trying to select a last name for my Sandra identity. I’ve played around with several different ones but have never really felt happy with any of them. So for the longest time I’ve been Sandra T. (as in TG or tranny), but I’m kind of tired of just having an initial.

A few weeks ago I was thinking about just using my real last name, the one I was born with, which is Gibbons. I actually feel pretty comfortable being Sandra Gibbons. When I ask myself, “What would my last name be if I had been born female?” Well, obviously it would be my family name. I can also imagine it being the name of a librarian or school teacher, which totally fits into my fascination with the good girl in bondage fantasy. (The funny thing is when you do a Google search there actually are several Sandra Gibbons’s out there who work in Academia.)

One of my major goals in life is to be completely open and honest about my identity. Using my real name seems consistent with that goal, but I wonder, am I being crazy? Would this somehow come back to haunt me or cause problems? It’s not like I’m actually legally changing my name to Sandra Gibbons (though that idea does really turn me on – even the more androgynous Sandy (or “Sandi”) would be really cool.) The thing is, I find when I don’t hide myself, I’m always happier.

I’ve had this crazy idea for a while that it would be really neat to walk from the middle of L.A., where I live, all the way to the beach. I had today off, so I started out this morning just outside the Los Feliz area and headed down Santa Monica Boulevard about 13 miles until I found myself on the Santa Monica Pier looking down at the water. My toes were so damn sore by the time I got there. Let’s just say I didn’t wear any heels on this outing (Yeah, bummer, I was in boy mode – Hey, maybe next time).

I was struck by all the homeless people I met along the way, some scary, some nice. I get the feeling this world of ours isn’t sustainable the way we’re going. Our social problems are so shocking but no one has any idea what to do about them.

Lately I’ve been on a roll of remembering embarrassing things from the past. I’m a huge believer in exposing one’s shames and humiliations as a way of neutralizing them. The past has such a hold on us all.

1. I was at church when I was maybe six years old and had a killer rash on my balls from using too much Mr. Bubble in my bath. My Mom tried in vain to keep me quiet while I sat there squirming and itching, waiting for the priest to hurry and finish up.

2. I was in an acting class in the early 90s. We were doing a marriage scene and I said “Man and Wife” instead of “Husband and Wife,” and everyone groaned as though I’d just said the most politically incorrect thing in the world. I felt like sliding under the floor.

3. When I was in my early teens, my Mom told me she found “white stains” on my sheets when she was doing the laundry. I had no idea what to say and my face turned beet red. Later I had numerous revenge fantasies.

4. When I was nine, there was a kid up the street known as the “Little Banker.” He had a cigar box full of money – tens and twenties – and he would loan it out at eight percent interest. I didn’t get the concept: I thought you just had to pay the interest and nothing else. It was like, “Hey, he’s giving away free money!” Once I learned how it really worked it somehow seemed less appealing.

5. I grew a sad spindly little pot plant in my bedroom when I was sixteen and my Dad found it and said, “Look, I don’t care if you do that stuff, just don’t bring it in the house.”

6. When I was a kid I loved to dance. I was over at a friends house and some music was on and I said, “Hey, let’s dance!” The other kid’s Mom was there and she gave me a big smile, which I thought meant that I was a source of amusement to her. Suddenly I felt so embarrassed and completely shut down. Needless to say – no dancing. In retrospect, I think I totally mis-read her smile and in that moment grew more inhibited. She was probably just being warm and supportive.

Someone said, “Adults are just big kids who forgot how to play.”

A nice guy wrote me and had this picture on his profile. I just had to steal it and re-post it (thanks so much, LDS!)