Thursday, October 8, 2009

October is just getting started....

October is a month spent at home… well more time at home then normal. So far I have only taken 13 days off of work since I won my title. Work has yet to see what is coming up…. Send off party on the 10th for Sir Ky, boy eddie and Brandon. They are all competing at the International Leather Sir/boy/community bootblack competition on San Francisco and I will be there!!! I am very excited about this trip. I have leather family in the bay area that I will get to see, tons of friends that will be at the weekend but most important I will finally get to spend some quality time with my Canadian friend that I am courting. I look forward to her getting to know me… to me letting my guard down and trusting. I am scared to do this but if I am ever to find personal happiness I have to open up. So we will be spending a couple extra days and going to the redwood forest. A walk in the woods will do my soul some good and no matter the outcome I will always have a Canadian friend who means the world to me and I will be a better person for it.

I think the biggest lesson I have learned these past couple of months is trust. I am learning to trust people again. Novel idea. I trust my board to pull together the fundraiser while I am gone for the week. I trust my namesake to be me and girl go fix it will be arriving in Philly the same time I get off the plane from California. It seems everyone is pulling their weight and it is coming together. I believe…..

A Septermber to Remember.... yeah I know... but it fits!

Labor day weekend…. and I set off for one of the largest growth experiences of my leather life. It was the Master slave Conference in Washington DC. I had attended last year for one of the days and this year had decided on attended the entire event. I volunteered to help with the Carter/Johnson leather library. The library was placed gently in my truck and the most important cargo of my life sat next to me for the drive, I got one on one time with a woman I now call Mom, Vi Johnson. Setting up the library is an experience all on its own and I wound up watching other family members take charge and poof it was done. I spent a lot of time that weekend with the books and periodicals. I recently joined LSM and I took the time to go thru a lot of that organizations history. I also was able to attend a couple of the class’s. It felt so right being back in the M/s environment. I could feel the energy in me rejuvenate. It makes sense… it has always made sense. The weekend left me with a lot to think about. I know the direction I am supposed to be going. The conference helped lead me to the right road.

My friends won the weekend contest. The new Northeast Master/slave team is Master Steve and slave tami. They were the very first ones to believe in me when I ran for my MAL-W title and threw a fundraiser to help get me there. You better bet I’ll be at SouthPlains LeatherFest/ International Master/slave Weekend in Dallas cheering them on.

The rest of the month has been preparing for my upcoming fundraiser. Philadelphia Leather Pride Night. Our little fundraiser has turned into something much bigger. We now have a committee of 18 members representing 16 different groups from 4 different states. That is a wow. I have two amazing women flying in to help, one is my namesake and the other is girl go fix it from Louisiana. The night will be run similar to LPN in NYC with a live auction by Jo Arnone. It is now meeting after meeting and countless hours with phone calls and emails. One thing I am doing different… I am taking one day a week for me. I have been to NYC twice with one of the visits being a backstage tour of Phantom of the Opera. That was a dream come true. I then sat thru the musical holding back the tears. Hell I’ll admit I cried thru two of the songs. I have seen Phantom numerous times on Broadway and in Philly and I just can’t get enough. I am a big softie at heart. The other time I took for me was in Baltimore. I was honored to be a guest at a private spiritual cutting ceremony. I was surrounded by chosen family… family that I am damn proud to call family. I met up with friends for dinner the next day and one asked me.. so Cowboi… its been a couple months since you’ve won your title…. I didn’t let her get the rest out.. I immediately answered … it’s the best thing I’ve done in my leather life. I have grown so much in the last couple of months and I have found I can use my title to help make good things happen like P-LPN. I am very happy and proud. I look forward to the next couple months and wait to see my next adventures.


The one thing that was eating at me all month.. it was test time. I am down to one CT scan a year with oncology appointments quarterly. I passed the test again. I have yet another year to torture everyone…lol. I am a monster every time I see that doctor. I feel for anyone around me. I don’t eat… I don’t sleep… I am just a mess… hell I am a scared little kid that wants to act out and scream. It has been more exhausting living in remission then it was battling for my life. At least then I knew what I was fighting… now I find the fight within and I am tired. Its now 7 years… and I turned 40. Even my docs are pleasantly surprised at how well I’m doing. Perhaps now its time to believe that I am no longer a danger to others. For years I’ve lived with the philosophy that it is not fair to others to have me in their lives and for me to die on them. I never want to hurt someone to that degree. I would rather be alone then to hurt someone I care about. So I care from a distance and I push. There has been a huge monkey wrench in the way I’ve lived… it seems in the last couple of months I have wanted to let people in. I want to be the one who has a happy ending. I just don’t know how…. so forgive me while I put on my new shoes and try this living thing. I’m going to stumble a bit and I’m sure to get some blisters but I am ready to go for that walk in the woods. I do think I have earned it and I deserve it. I no longer want to live like I’m dying.

August... and still going....

Its Rodeo time... Aug 1st and 2nd was the 2nd annual Liberty Stampede Rodeo. The location this year moved to the Shriners Temple in Plymouth Meeting PA. They have a permanent rodeo arena set up and are some of the greatest guys on earth. Once again I brought my horse Quinn and entered in 8 events. The events are barrel racing, pole bending, flag race, calf roping, chute dogging, wild drag race, goat dressing and steer deco. It was hot on Saturday...very hot. There were a bunch of speed demons with their horses and I decided right off the bat to have fun. Quinn is a valiantly handsome man who can do it all. He has the biggest heart but not the fastest legs. I completed every pattern with him. I wound up placing in almost all events and took 1st in the wild drag race with my friends Mark and Jim. Sunday the skies opened up and the rodeo was canceled. The results from Saturday rolled over and I wound up winning my 8th All Around Cowgirl Title. I have now competed in over 80 rodeo's across the country and have buckled in 7 different events.

The big memory of rodeo weekend was the riderless horse ceremony. It was done in memory of Caren Cunningham who was Ms NJ Leather. She had passed in December of last year to cancer. I was given a chance to say goodbye to her the cowboy way.

I still had not fully recovered from the flu bug I caught in NOLA and it came back 5x's as bad. This time I was home and could see my own doctors. I was grounded... The timing could not have been worse. It is Aug 3rd and I turned 40 on Aug 7th and had a flight to Toronto on Aug 8th. I never took such good care of myself. I stayed home and canceled all birthday plans. I ate/drank soup took my meds and slept as much as I could. Friends showed up the night before my birthday and slid my birthday dinner in the door. I found myself wrestling with the dogs for my Outback Prime Rib. I was happy. I made it to NYC on the 7th and had a fabulous dinner with my friend. Then we flew to Toronto on the 8th. Surprisingly I was able to pull it together enough to not get stopped at the boarder. This was a dream trip. I am quite smitten with my Canadian friend and I adore to court the girl. So three of us went to Niagara Falls for the night. It started with a helicopter ride and ended with the Maid of the Mist. As you only turn 40 once I splurged and we stayed in the Fallsview Marriot with a wall to wall picture window overlooking the horseshoe falls. Damn… what a view! The rest of the week was down time...there was a BBQ at the house and a birthday dinner later on. I couldn't help but rest. I came back still sick and doubling up on the flu medicines.

While still recovering I decided to take some me time and go camping. Not just camping but Princess camping! It was leather weekend at Oneida Campground and I rented a cabin complete with electricity and a fridge. 3 of us went and I brought my dogs, they deserved a vacation too. Ironic that I went from being with 2 femmes the weekend before to 2 butch’s. We must have been quite the sight. Upon arriving at the campground I was asked to judge the leather contest. I was very happy to do so and it was a wonderful experience. The weekend was just what the doctor ordered and I was even able to get some dancing in. I was finally feeling better. I can’t wait for next summer…. I’ll be back and I am ready to rebook the same cabin.

Next up Floating World in Edison NJ. I was head DM for the event. It was a sold out event with 1200 paid attendees plus volunteers, staff, presenters, medics, vendors etc... I spent most of the weekend in the play area. It still does something to me when I'm around the energy. The big highlight of the weekend was being accosted by a gaggle of lesbians not once... but twice. Poor me... I had to have been on my feet 35+ hours over the weekend on that damn industrial cement floor. I knew I was in trouble by late Friday night... by the time I got home I could barely walk. Nothing like a stress fracture in my left foot to try and slow me down... yea right.
Home from the event I now had two local events to attend. My title sibling Brandon had his fundraising party that Friday night. He is getting ready to compete for International Community Bootblack in October. The day after that was a BBQ/pool party to raise funds for our local play space.

August is over.... now the work starts.....

Saturday, October 3, 2009

July's Adventure

July started off with a bang. July 4th I got to witness the Phillies beat the Mets..yet once again. As a reward an unexpected guest surprised me and we had quite the evening. Later that night I was called to help a friend out and woke up for the first time in years. It was time I learned to let people in.
Several days later was the great American road trip to New Orleans. Only 6 weeks after winning my Mid-Atlantic Title I was on my way to the American Brotherhood Weekend to compete for the title of American Leather Woman. I decided to take some time to reflect and drive down to NOLA, stopping in the Great Smokey Mountains on the way. What a beautiful sight they are and I stayed at a hotel on top of one of the mountains. The view was breathtaking.
That weekend wound up being a trial of pure willpower. I was hit full force with the flu on the 2nd day of the drive down and wound up twice at an Urgent Care Facility. I gave 100% of what I had to give. The people I met were worth it all. A certain bootblack has wiggled her way into my life and I am blessed to call her friend. Girl go fix it… and she did…

I am damn proud to have finished what I started and came back home with my current title. The winner is a wonderful woman named Dakota out of Myrtle Beach S.C. I look forward to our paths crossing several times later on this year. I came home from New Orleans a sick cowboi and took some time to rest up and gear up for the upcoming Liberty Stampede.


June's Adventures

June is Pride central and I never had so much fun attending events.

The month started with NJ Foreplay then Asbury Pride. I headed to NYC for another fun weekend. Friday night started with a LSM class taught by Lady Sabrina on spanking then that night led me to the NE Leather Sir/boy competition at the Eagle. On Saturday I taught a class at the Center for DM'ing and Dungeon Safety. Later that night was LPN. Leather Pride Night is close to my heart and I have attended every year since 2001. I presented several items on stage. I was proud to be up there as a title holder. On Sunday Folsom Street East was a wow... the things that get caught on camera... The LSM party that followed....

I do think it would be illegal to show a single picture from there....lol.
At the end of the month my local community threw a send off part for me... its time to compete for the American Leather Woman Title...