No, the other foot.

Last night was the one year anniversary of the fetish dress code party, Strict Machine, held at the Mercury. Jim and I were among the first performers when the party got its start. Due to breaks ups, we hadn't performed there in a while. We were honoured to be invited to perform again.



The Mercury has quite the low ceiling; about 9 feet high. There was much back and forth as to whether we should do aerial bondage work there or just stick with suspension bondage. Either would be dynamic, but the aerial bondage is much more fun and interesting. The decision is made to go with the aerial antics with plenty of passionate interactions so as to lengthen the performance. If we do nothing but the aerial work, I am barely good for 5 minutes, as it is a strenuous activity.
 
We get off to a good start, despite Jim having to warn people that they will get kicked if they don't steer clear. That's to be expected when doing any kind of ambient performance, especially being located on the dance floor. Our energy and excitement builds through the interactions and the first gentle throw. In our usual manner of drastically ramping up, the second throw has more oomph and I pop upside down. My left foot smacks into the support beam that holds our hardpoint, which causes me to spin in the opposite direction. I finish the spin out and when he catches me, I whisper that I whacked my foot, that it's bad but pretty sure no broken bones. Continue? Oh, hell, yes! And off we go again.
 
As I start to get tired, I can feel the pain increasing. The worry sets in, and I signal the wrap up. He gets me down and I hobble off to check my foot. I barely get my boot off and immediately regret that I'll have to put it back on. The lateral side and top of my foot were quite puffy already. A hasty exit and soon I am home with an ice pack on my foot and a hot pack on my thigh. (This is a great trick to bring down inflammation very fast.)



I have been icing on and off all day, and therefore doing quite well. This injury doesn't even warrant a picture. Except for the extreme pain when trying to push in the clutch of a standard transmission car, I can get around mostly pain free. (I didn't even try on the motorcycle boot.) I figure my foot is bruised, though hopefully not the bones themselves. Bone bruises take forever to heal. At least it wasn't the right foot, like the last 4 foot/ankle injuries.

Endorsement of the week.

Fact: I have long curly hair. And finding someone who can give a haircut that still looks good a month later, or even the next week, is difficult.

About six years ago, my beloved "hair artist" left Seattle for Chicago. Since then, I have suffered through some less than stellar haircuts. One day in desperation, I cut my own hairs in a spring time ritual. After the lack of dire results, and because I didn't have anyone who would take me to task for doing it myself, it became a yearly tradition.

And then I met Eric, the master of long curly hair. After the 4th friend recommended that I go to the Robert Leonard Salon and ask for Eric, I figured I should. I am immensely pleased with the results.  A month later, I shake out my hair from a ponytail or when I crawl out of bed and it still looks fabulous!

Toe update!

Healing is commencing at a satisfactory pace.

I have been a bit nervous about giving a report on my toe. Seems like every time someone asks me how it's healing I say "great!" and then later that day smack it on something, causing it to swell and ache for a day or two.

I wore high heels when I went to see "My Time with the Lady". That worked ok for the first half hour. After that, it was increasingly uncomfortable. Even sitting down, if my foot was on the floor, the position that the shoe dictated was still putting pressure on the littlest toe.

This reminds me that I haven't given my review of "My Time with the Lady". The short version is that I highly recommend it. I found it to be a beautiful testament of how essential a vibrant sex life for humans to be whole & happy. I was pleased that masturbation was being put forth as a valid way to express one's sexuality.  I am quite partial to Ron, the co-writer and actor, so I thought I should give some non-biased reviews. The Seattle PI did a write up as did the Seattle Weekly, complete with horrible puns. The Everett Herald even wrote up a nice review. Go, Everett!

You can still buy tickets online or at the Little Red Studio box office (400 Dexter Ave. N.) when the doors open at 7:30pm on Thursday the 26th, Saturday the 28th and Sunday the 29th. This is the last weekend of this play's run.

After party reporting.

Last night I went to and 80s prom themed party in honour of TwistedMonk's business and birth anniversary. My dear PopeBacon and I decided that punk was where it was at.

While we were prepping for the evening's shenanigans, a flossing mishap left me with a mouthful of blood. I asked him if it would be in character to have blood on my shirt. He gave me the thumbs up which turned into a whoop of delight when I spit the blood out so it ran down my shirt front.

Since the Mean Man is out of town teaching a workshop, I made sure to keep him up to date, including photos.

Not again!

*grumble grouse grumble*

Last night, after a lovely R&D scene with a bendy beauty, I stubbed my baby toe on the mats that I had used to be safe. Yes, the same toe I broke last month. This incident hurt just as much, if not a smidge more than the first injury.

I still don't want to go to a clinic. I don't have a regular doctor in Seattle and it's not terribly convenient to go to the last GP I had. Going into to urgent care clinics or the walk-in clinic has been very hit and miss. Sometimes I get taken care of beautifully, and other times I am shuttled through and my questions brushed off.  The brush offs are particularly disheartening. I consider my health to be of supreme importance and to have a professional not answer my questions with detail limits my ability to heal. I know that's silly that only a few medical professionals have given me a bad taste in my mouth about the whole of western emergency medicine.

I'm a grown up!

My first grey hair!

No one I have shown this to in person has been excite or interested. This is a right of passage! This marks the beginning of a new period of my life. At least I have always assumed that going grey would mean something.

I associate grey hair with mature individuals who are responsible and distinguished. I'm definitely responsible. Distinguished is fairly open ended in my case. One can have many different things about them that are distinguished, right?

Oh I give up. Grey hair is hot! I don't need any other reason than that to be excited.

The story of my Injury.

I realized that in all the hubbub of reporting on the status of my healing toe, I have neglected to share how I came to be in this state.

Short of it:
I tripped and broke my pinky toe.

Long of it:
I was just trying to be safe. Really! I was suspending a dear friend of mine and was doing my very best to be safe. We had wrestling mats down and I had taken off my heels. After much frolicking, we got a little more serious and the movement become for aggressive on both our parts. I gave him a strong push. Stepping back to avoid his arms reaching for me as he sung back toward me, my foot caught my high heeled shoes. The baby toe on my right foot was pulled back and away from the midline.

The pain was awful. But then, stubbing your toe is always worse feeling than the damage you sustain. The pain persisted. I reached down to squeeze my toe, knowing that putting pressure on an area that is painful often settles the sensations down. I heard and felt a crunch that was immediately followed by more pain. At this point, we called the scene.

I motioned for his partner to come over and promptly sent her for and ice pack. In the mean time, I stood on one foot and untied my bottom. He's a rigger when he isn't being tied up by me, so he tried to help. I let him undo a few of the up lines, and insisted I could finish taking the rope off of him while we both sat. He fussed over my foot, that I was dutifully icing by this point, and I untied him and coiled my rope. It is quite important to me to have that resolving act. The swelling slowed, then began going down, giving cause for relief.

At first, because of the sound and movement upon grasping my toe, I assumed it was dislocated, put back in place and I was only dealing with a sprain injury. Not terrible, but an awful long recovery ahead of me. The fact it was the pinky toe made it not as big of a deal. I had an appointment with a chiropractor the next day already scheduled, so I asked his opinion about getting it x-rayed. His was the same as mine: if it's broken, the doctor will just tell me to tape it up. If it's sprained, they'll tell me tape it up. He handed me some tape and sent me on my way with the advice of keeping shoes on and walking was ok.

Well, walking was/is not ok. I was throwing my hips and low back out of alignment walking in such a fashion so as to not increase the pain in my toe. So I went and bought crutches. Now that got me around much faster, which makes up for the inconvenience. Shouldn't have gotten rid of the pair I had after the last foot injury a  year ago.

As the swelling has gone down, I realized that my toe was noticeably crooked. Ok, then I broke it. This is the first bone I have broken and I don't have a good story to go along with how I got it. The Mean Man says I can honest say that I have only broken one bone and I set it myself. That sounds pretty burly. I can roll with that. I'll just gloss over the fact that it was a toe and I tripped.

Still with the hurt toe.

Toe Update!

Ummm, I think I broke it. As the swelling keeps going down, I can see that my baby toe is crooked. It wasn't crooked last week.

I am still on crutches and I figure I will stay on them a little while longer. While at home, I tend to not use them as it's a wee apartment. Please don't lecture me about moving it as much as I can to keep the circulation going; I hobble around quite a bit. Enough to make it hurt and remind me that I should be on the crutches.

Day 3

The colours visible on my toe are much more vibrant today. Most likely because I spent 7 hours on  my feet teaching.  I wasn't able to go out and get crutches before my classes started. On a healing stand point, that was bad. On a teaching stand point, it was way better not having to maneuver around as a 3 legged creature. By the end of the evening, I was in a fair amount of pain that even elevating and icing my foot didn't reduce.

It was worth it, though. My classes went really smoothly. I am already getting emails and tweets of thanks. One person wanted to let me know that he has "already put the theory into practice, with quite favorable results.'  Squeeeeeee! It's comments like these that really light me up. Spreading and increasing joy is why I teach.

*an hour later*

I am pleased to report that I have procured a pair of crutches and I am ready for the rest of my day. I had to strike a deal of putting my foot up for most of the day in exchange for getting to go to the nursery and pick out plants for our mini-garden. Then it's a mellow day of planting, BBQing and friends.  Everyone have a safe & happy 4th!

Palpation opportunity!

Good news for y'all who are coming to the palpation class today!

I sprained my little toe really bad and I have some decent inflammation going on there. The picture was taken yesterday afternoon and it is worse now due to a silly re-injury last night. This means that everyone who attends will get the chance to palpate inflamed tissue; an invaluable experience for being able to recognize the presence of the inflammatory response when there are no visible signs.
 
My life is in the service of science.

It's that kind of day.

I want to stay in bed and masturbate all day. Unfortunately, I do have to work and run two errands for SEAF.  And I did promise myself I would go around Greenlake this afternoon.

So, I can't stay in bed all day, but I think I will get back in bed later in the afternoon. I already had a lovely time this morning with my hand and a story on Literotica. My evening plans fell through, so an auto-erotic date would be one of the best ways to spend the evening.

It's really too bad that I have stuff to do. The last time I spent all day in bed masturbating I got up to five orgasms. It would be fn to try and break that record!

Sunburned? Really!?

I have a sunburn for the 3rd or 4th time in my life.  Should have known better. Laying around, reading in the midday sun for two and a half hours usually has this result.  The last time this happened was when I was 17 and reading on a Santa Cruz beach for almost five hours. That was really bad. This time, just a little uncomfortable.

Anyway, it was worth it. Being in the watsu pool for 7 hours a day left me with tan lines even though the pool was covered.  Photographers and artists generally don't appreciate it when models have glaring tan lines. At least those are mostly obliterated. Also, I am pleased to be the colour I consider to be natural for myself.  I was a brown person before moving to Seattle and always feel better when my skin has a chance to manufacture more melanin than is possible in Washington.

This is the zipline I am supposedly going to encounter this weekend.  I can barely wait!

KinkFest Report. Pt. 2

A bit late, but it's always best to let your play partners know whats going on with you directly, rather than through your blog. This is especially true when new and more serious information is involved.

For Saturday's play party, I had arranged with PopeBacon to do a "take up" scene.  This is a resistance scene where the goal is for the top to fully suspend the bottom while they are fighting back to prevent that event from occurring.  A fairly dangerous sort of play, and not something that should be entered into without the full understanding that there is a high probability that everyone involved will get hurt.  Like Rugby, no one plans to get hurt, but it is going to happen.  The protocol starts with a simple chest harness and one up-line to the suspension ring.  From that point forward, the bottom can fight back. 

We picked out the suspension rack we wanted to use and waited for our turn.  Both of us were quite anxious and excited.  We talked, teased and looked hungrily at each other as the energy built.  Finally, the rack opened and we commenced setting up the suspension rig and preparing the space. He set out his ropes and I stretched. We shared a breath and I did my best not to fidget while he put on the chest harness.  When he finished, I tested it by turning it into a suspension. Satisfied, I gave him the thumbs up.  He stepped back and we squared off.

We circled each other. I had a foolish grin on my face, giddy with the adrenaline.  He dove for my legs, encircling them both.  I brought my knees up in an attempt to pull out of his arms but he had clamped down.  No chance of slipping out so my best bet was to kick free.  I began to butterfly kick, pulling my torso forward for added leverage.  Unfortunately, he rose up and we collided: the back of his head with my cheek just below my eye.  "Stop!"

Our scene was 15 seconds long.  Within 60 seconds, there was so much swelling I could see my own cheek without a mirror.  The pain was severe and the inflammation came on so fast, I could feel fluid moving and for a moment, I thought my skin had split open.  Ice was fetched and far too much attention was given to me.  I tend to feel embarrassed when I get hurt, and this was no exception. I just wanted to crawl into a hole, hiding from the pain and the repeated questions: Are you ok? What happened?

The ice did a great job of bringing the swelling down.  I slept on my back in hopes of avoiding the pooling of blood in my eye.  It worked, too, until morning shenanigans had me laying on my belly with my head turned out to the left.  Hello Black-Eye! 

Fast forward 4 days.  There is a palpable bump on my zygomatic arch where the impact occurred.  Uh oh, that doesn't feel right.  Is it a clot, scar tissue or swelling in the periostium?  The pain is no longer localized so I schedule time with my chiropractor.  He points out that there is a slight chance that there is a crack in the bone.  I elect not to have x-rays since there is nothing to be done if I do have a cracked bone.  So, I process that info, let the Pope know and reassure him I'm ok.

Turns out that isn't even my main concern.  I am recovering from a concussion.  It was the fourth minor injury that caused me to do a little research.  We had noticed the day after the incident I was having difficulty with basic tasks.   Here I am, a week and a half later, and I am still having problems.  My balance has been off.  Mostly, I have just been stumbling a little on stair steps, though I did have one fall that left me with another nasty bruise.  Keeping focused on a single task has been a challenge. (I.e. "Can we talk about xyz."  And I immediately start checking SEAF email.)  I now have a very good idea of what it is like to have ADD.  Thank goodness the tearfulness is finally over.  I am not a fan of being over emotional, unless it's in exuberance over something fun and happy.

 At first, the social stigma of walking around with a black eye was fascinating.  Now, the physical recover process from the concussion is what fascinates me.

Add 2 more injuries to the list!

One smashed ring finger and a first degree burn to the neighboring middle finger.   And I haven't even written about the injury on Saturday of Kinkfestivus.  I am so far behind, I know.  I need to consult with my partner-in-shenanigans of that evening before I post anything about that one, though.

Last night's performance was off the hook!  I went a bit overboard in my exuberance to be performing again.  While the Mean  Man & I have made it a habit to perform every 6-8 weeks,  we haven't done so at the Little Red Studio in quite a while.  Not only is this my home stage, it is also the place that is safe enough to try new things and allow ourselves those authentic moments when they arise.

With the first throw, I decided I was going all out.  An old friend of the Mean Man's was visiting from Chicago and I wanted ensure that he was impressed and enjoyed our act.  As a result, I used far more strength than necessary to pull myself up after a series of tricks and my right hand went through the ring.  This is the hand that is connected directly to my left foot.  This has always been a danger, but until last night, an unrealized one.  As the angle of the swing changed, my weight shifted so that pressure on my hand was increaseing, making it difficult to extract my hand.  Fear at the pinch in my middle and ring fingers introduced the burst of adrenaline I needed to pull my hand back through the ring.  I could feel the ache in my fingers through the whole performance and when we were done, I reported the injury.  Ice was fetched and the badgering for the rest of the evening commenced. I know ice helps, but I hate being cold.

All in all, I am pretty damn lucky that after 3 years, a smashed finger is the worst injury I have had doing the aerial bondage performances. Sure, there have been some strained muscles here and there, and once the Mean Man was kicked in the head, but my straight aerial work has been far more injurious. 

Limbo

My car might be dying.  Looking on Craigslist for the next new-to-me car is a little depressing. The only thing interesting was coming across Domenico's ad proclaiming his race bike is available for purchase.  This is truly a hooligan bike.  He never bothered to get it tabbed because it's so fast he would just end up getting arrested if he ever rode it on the streets.  This was the bike that inspired the quote: "It is possible to giggle like a school girl at 182 mph." At least he is supposed to go that fast on the race track.

Tempting, but, no, that won't work. I already have a motorbike.  If I buy another vehicle, it should be one I can haul stuff around in. I wonder if the Ninja would look silly with a side-car?

At least the DVD version of my favourite workout tape arrived so that I can get some regular exercise.   Callenetics is something I have done on and off since I was 15.  For the longest time I only had the VHS tape, which I snitched from my Mama.  It's copyright is 1986, so do keep that in mind when you see the leotards and hear the music.  It's great toning workout, though, that focuses on protecting one's lower back.  The exercises don't aggravate my lordosis and make my butt look good.  Hard to go wrong, there.

What's your super power?

The Mean Man promises that he can always think of a way to make something, anything worse. This is what I think of as a super power: something you are consistently, often uncannily, good at naturally.

I'm not sure what my super power is. I am torn between two possibilities. One: I can make it better. Meaning I can find the bright side of anything and I can physically make people feel better. Or, two: my mutant ability to heal and resist injury.

A recent example of the latter is an inverted suspension by only 4 wraps of 6mm hemp rope. Not a Herculean lack of rope, but definitely not enough to be comfortable. It started as a horizontal, face up suspension. Not too strenuous, a bit hard on my neck. I was having a hard time staying connected with the Mean Man and asked for more touch and eye contact. Ever accommodating, he readjusted my leg and hip up-lines, lowered my chest so that my head was about two and a half feet off the floor and laid down underneath me. Neither the chest or hip harness were altered, making this a difficult position with all of my weight being supported at one point with so few wraps. We're talking quite a few pounds per square inch.

After he brought me down and the rope was off, an inspection of the skin that had been under the hip wraps showed minor irritation: red, a bit puffy and tender to the touch. By morning, I was left with a light red mark on each side on my hip, approximately 2 inches long. Now, two days later, you have to strain to see them. A bit unsatisfying to not have anything to show for a brutal scene.

So, I don't know. Mutant healing power? Or, always make it better power? Maybe I can have both!

"Do you think you can turn this into a full suspension?"

Here is a photo of the hog-tie that did my back in.


This was during a particularly challenging and charming scene I had with Max earlier this month. How long I was in this tie is unclear to me, but he tightened it 3 or 4 times, so that tells me it was a while. (Time is hard to keep track of in these instances.) Only my belly is touching the ground. Generally, one makes sure there is a bony structure, in the case of a hog-tie that would be the ribs or the hips, for stability and support.

I have a habit of turning any partial suspension into a full one, which is why Max made his suggestion. In this position it was incredibly hard to gather the leverage necessary to lift off the ground. I did try, though, and I am suspicious that my efforts are the direct cause of my back going out of whack. Well, I am sure there were more factors that just that. In all honesty, I know I am going to play that hard again, so if I can figure out what the "last straw" was in this past injury, I can avoid it in the future.

geeking out

Fixed? Maybe. I think so. Probably. Yeah, fixed for now.

So, the rib at T-6 is back in place. Feels like it's going to say put this time. The T-9, -10 & -11 vertebrae were still in place from last week's chiropractic adjustment. I have been doing my chest stretches and mid-back strengthening exercises, as well as getting some massage yesterday. I think I am back in working order. Usually takes a day or two for my body to settle after getting bodywork. We'll see if I am back in working order on Christmas Day. I had better be, since I have a performance on New Year's Eve at the Center for Sex Positive Culture.

Now the trick is to keep doing all these things even when I don't hurt. In the past, I would be religious about my exercises until I had been pain free for a few weeks. Then I would rationalize not making time for exercising since I felt fine. An awful cycle, especially since I am aware of it. Time to break it. I am not for new year resolutions, but this may be a special exception. Spending half my life recovering from some injury is not fun. (Even if it does make for good stories.)