They Come in Colours Everywhere

 
Distraction is everywhere. It comes in shiny colours making vivid pictures in my head. The supermarket has never been so much fun.

HNT - Not Quite Atlas Two

Regretfully up until a couple of years ago I had no idea how good it would be to feel strong. Who knew about triceps and lats, and deltoids...and all those other great names? Since then I've been mucking about with weights regularly and pretty much loving it. I plan to be a tough old bird! Or at least be able to wrestle you to the ground if the occasion arises.

Go wrestle Osbasso! Happy HNT everyone.

Not Quite Atlas One

Tico Tico

I am a little in love with this sweet thing.

HNT - The World, The Flesh and The Devil.

"Sex takes us deep into the body, deep into the emotions of love and desire, and deep into the entanglements of relationship. Because of this inward and downward movement, sex has been regarded as temptation against higher human aspirations and has been relegated to a dark trinity of values known as the world, the flesh and the devil.

From that place in us where we imagine a life of virtue, orderliness, and social responsibility, sex may appear as a threat or an obstacle. In imagination it is often placed low, as though it were a weight holding us down from our more exalted concerns.

From an archetypal point of view, where we try to find a place for all human inclinations and fantasies,it is valuable and necessary to be pulled down by our sexuality. We need depth as much as we need higher vision. We need the shallow side of all life, and sex offers plenty of opportunity to experience the shadow. We also become persons of character by dealing courageously with the many challenges sex offers during the course of a life.

But there is another aspect to sexuality that can easily be lost in the dark and downward emphasis on the sensuous life. Sex also has a role in the upper regions, where the spirit is dominant. Sex can lift our attention upward and offer a visionary experience of life based in love and passion that is the equal of any abstract philosophy or highly spiritual form of contemplation. Sex is not only earthy, it is also sublime."

From Thomas Moore - The Soul Of Sex - Cultivating Life as an Act of Love 

How would it be if we valued sex and sexuality like this,  like a life enhancing precious thing?


Happy HNT! Go visit the Big O!

Love Letters and The Resumption of Regular Programing

You could be forgiven for thinking that I have forgotten about this blog. I haven't, but apologies all round on the lack of posting.

To be honest I have been doing more reading than writing and just throwing a few lines out there at Twitter to show I'm still alive. It may be that winter is dragging on and I am still heavy hearted, but these last few weeks I seem to be feeling maudlin and fragile all the time. Perhaps it is hormonal?

I dunno, I have been upping the ante with more exercise to try and shake off the flatness and taken to cupboard clearing with a vengeance. It's not ennui, just a rawness. I used to feel more resilient but not so much anymore. Whatever it is, I hope it's not going to hang around too much longer - I have a summer to plan, a garage sale to organise and a life to live.

Thanks as always for continuing to visit and for those kind souls who have sent comments and notes - cheerful, flirty - pick-me-up notes, my thanks.

Regular programing will resume shortly.


 "I like you very much indeed... what do you say if we become engaged..." enjoy the letter here

In keeping with the wearing of my heart on my sleeve, and the walking wounded mood I've been puddling around in the Australia Post "Letters Of A Nation Archive". I've  loved letters for many years. Helene Hanff's "84 Charing Cross Road" remains one of my favourite books. I've just waded through the very wonderful "Words In Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell" by Thomas Travisano with Saskia Hamilton and wiled away an hour or two revisiting the lovely  "George Sand - Gustave Flaubert Letters" at Project Gutenburg.

 "...Darling you don't know how much I love you and long to be with you for ever and ever..." enjoy the letter here.

The shining declarations of love and heartfelt proposals in so many of the Australia Post letters are deeply moving, and as mentioned above it doesn't take much to make me weep nowadays, but I think it's the idea of sustaining rich, rewarding, affectionate relationships through text over many years that speaks to the real romantic in me.

"I don't know what sort of feeling I have for you, but I have a particular tenderness for you, and one I have never felt for anyone, up to now. We understand each other, didn't we, that was good. "

Gustav Flaubert to George Sand

The Conquest of Happiness

"Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness."

Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

Some Of My Fave Posts @ Wilful Damage

With this blog fast approaching its fifth birthday I thought I'd start pulling out a few posts from the past that I've particularly enjoyed writing. You'll find them in the sidebar and I'll update the list every few weeks. Indulge a girl a little nostalgia will ya!

In the meantime I'll put me head to thinking about how to celebrate.

To read, go click. :)

A Common Anatomy
The Scents Of Sixteen
The Romance Of Cocksucking
Another Year Older and Deeper...
Soft Focus
My Provocateur

Sometimes...

Sometimes decorum gives way to desire.
Almost all the time.

For more vulgarity go here.

“The Intent to Arouse: A Concise History of Sex, Shame, and the Moving Image"

Image courtesy of Comstock Films

Readers of this blog will know that I've been a fan of Tony Comstock's particular brand of filmmaking for a long time. You might also know that I am keen on exploring ideas around sexuality and expressions of sexuality in society. To that end I have particularly enjoyed reading Tony's "The Intent To Arouse" blog where he's been digging a little history, telling some stories and recounting some of the challenges and battles (a couple fought here in Australia) he and his wife Peggy have faced in the quest to make films with real people, real life and real sex.

Tony's observations on "Sex, Shame, and the Moving Image" are on one hand broad and intelligent and on the other, detailed, insightful and very personal - all are fascinating. I'm not sure if anyone has ever told this story and certainly not from this perspective. If you haven't already, go visit the blog, or if you are in New York go along and hear Tony speak as a special guest presenter at the Tisch School of the Arts this coming Wednesday. Details are below.

Tony Comstock - The Intent to Arouse: A Concise History of Sex, Shame, and the Moving Image

Event Date and Time: Wednesday, September 23,2009, at 6:15pm
Location: Department of Cinema Studies, Michelson Theatre
Tisch School of the Arts
721 Broadway, Room 648

Guest Speaker
Tony Comstock – “The Intent to Arouse: A Concise History of Sex, Shame, and the Moving Image”

In a world that seems awash in sexualized imagery, why is it that so little of this imagery speaks to the common pleasurable reality of sex? Award-winning filmmaker Tony Comstock (Real People, Real Life, Real Sex erotic documentary series) takes us into the legal and business realities that shape and too often warp the sexual imagery we see.

Drawing on examples from Hollywood's history of self-censorship, landmark obscenity cases, and the collision of technology and image-making, Comstock offers an expanded framework for understanding how what we do and do not see in cinema effects our understanding of our own sexuality.

This event is free and open to the public.

Refreshments are provided at all Wednesday Night Series events.
For more information -

Jeff Richardson
Phone: 212-998-1649
jeff.richardson@nyu.edu

Or visit for details and transport information - Tisch and for the whole program go here.

Feasting

She was hungry, of that there was no doubt
She could think of little else
When noon struck, her stomach spoke
But lower in her belly was the real hunger
When ten past rolled by, she needed sustenance
Or spend the afternoon light headed and distracted
Home was where she had to be
She needed lunch and she needed it now
She’d needed it at midnight and seven and ten
At 11.45am the ache that was want, gnawed
She needed lunch and she needed it now
She needed it fast, good and hot and plenty
Plate piled high - need met chance
with fingers and the flash of steel
And greedy repeatings
‘til dolce brought a sweet,
syrupy satisfaction of fullness
She feasted at lunch

Half Nekkid Thursday - Lace Edge

The lace edge is soft and stretchy - demure almost, and it serves to mark where fabric and skin meet but there is almost always a tussle, a dispute over where that line might be.

Happy HNT to you all! Go check Osbasso for all the other lovely HNTers.

I Make Him Drip

I make him drip, little love drops, glistening in the Saturday morning light, sun shining through our window telling us we should be up, but we are not. We have taken to our bed in our child free house, after a very late night, we need sleep, but we need each other more.

“I love the way you smell, I love the way you look” – he takes my pussy into his mouth and tugs at my lips.

And all the while the drip. Shiny threads drip down. Clear and bright.

There are fingers and tongue and the loving stretch of a fist twisting and turning making me moan and fly. The slippery drip makes him glide over my flesh, lubricating his thumb in its placation of my clit.

There is this way and that, bending, kneeling, straddling, spreadeagle – his arms spread my legs impossibly high and wide – it’s too much, too deep, too wide, too hard, too perfect.

And the drips find their way in wet, silky threads – with a fingertip I lead one from him to me - joining cock to cunt. I make him drip.

Tim Gunn's Favorite Fashion Photos

Diverse Designs by Christian Dior, 1957
Photo: Loomis Dean./Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Jan 01, 1957

It maybe a little caustic, but dear God I do love Tim Gunn's take on the modern model. Of the vintage image above he says -

"What strikes me about this image is the maturity of the look of the models. Their faces say, 'I've seen a lot of the world, and I'm confident in my style, and I possess a sophistication and beauty that is enviable.' This is in stunning contrast to corresponding photo shoots today. Today's editorial models appear to be barely out of puberty. Their faces say, 'I've been to a few rock concerts, I use a lot of illegal substances, and the closest I come to a book is reading the wall on my Facebook page.' C'est la vie…"

...just what are those girls doing on the ladder? But the gowns, the gowns!

Thanks to Virginia at Deep Glamour. For more of Tim Gunn's Favorite Fashion Photos - go here.

My Mother's Passing

My mother is dead, dear, wonderful woman that she was. I have trouble believing this to be true, but sadly it is, I saw it with my own eyes and felt the coldness that confirmed it.

My Mum had rapidly advancing Alzheimer’s and as is the way of so many elderly folk, broke her hip in a fall and some six weeks later she suffered a severe stroke that left her in a semi conscious state. Her carers and specialist declared, well, not so much declared as quietly suggested, that further treatment was futile and that moving her to a hospital was not advisable.

So she stayed where she was, in the very lovely care centre that had been her home for the last few months, in a private room that overlooked a sunny garden courtyard. And her passing was eased. In that last week she took no food or water, no medication, just a clean, expertly pressed nightie each day, some talcum powder, a little salve on her lips and four hourly turning. We sat, held her hand, stroked her hair and talked with her.

My daughter had sent her Grandma hand drawn cards – entreaties to “Get Better Soon” and heartfelt declarations of “We Love You So Much” – decorated with big purple love hearts and flowers – gently, gently we shared the news that this time there would be no getting better.

My mother looked like a little bird there in her bed, she was quite still save for her quiet breathing. The contrast to her previously feisty, vibrant self was so very stark.

She was terribly thin. She was terribly vulnerable and she was terribly dying, each day spending a little more time deeper in sleep.

I opened her curtains so that the bright sun of northern Australia that she so loved would shine in – the sky was deepest blue every day that week. We gathered to tell stories around her bed, each one of us adding another vividly coloured thread of our memories to her story. She seemed to hear our voices. She loved Test cricket, and flowers and knitting and dancing and Scrabble. She lived for breakfast and tiny cups of strong espresso coffee throughout the day.

I filled her room with boughs of the exuberant purple blooms from her favourite tree that grows so vigorously outside her kitchen window. She loved the view from that window, especially when the tree would fill with birds in the early evening – I wanted her to be surrounded with the life and abundance and the colour she was so fond of. She wore bright batik sarongs and borrowed library books by the bagful, she loved ice cream.

I played her favourite passionate tangos in the vain hope that some of the intrigue and sensuous life contained therein would nourish her. As a child I had loved her telling the story of how she had met my Dad at a dance and that she was quite sure on that first meeting that they would be wed. Her love was like that – sure and enduring. At dances she’d tire my father out and still want more. Up until her 80th birthday she’d dance, and just as she had when we were children, she’d take our hands and encourage us to move and be moved by the music. She believed in the power of music to transport, to transcend and transform. In her declining years the music moved her beyond the limit of her illness. She loved the Samba, the Rumba and the Cha Cha Cha.

I kissed her dear, dear face and breathed the familiar scent of her soft skin and her beautiful hair wanting desperately to imprint her in my memory more securely. I told her I loved her, that we all loved her and that we would look after our Dad. She loved romance and opera, she loved Greek and Roman mythology, she loved languages, she loved her husband, she loved her children and she loved our children.

Facing the inevitable we clutch and grasp when it comes to life and death and each parting becomes a time of terrible uncertainty in which goodbyes must be said in the knowledge that each time might be last time, until one day, it is. We were close she and I, and though we lived at a distance, I never doubted that I was in her thoughts as she was in mine. We were used to goodbyes, but that week of comings and goings from her bedside, morning and evening was hard, so very hard.

I listened while the dear man, who as my mother's doctor for more than ten years, had concluded each consultation with a hug and a fond kiss to her forehead –the same family doctor who in 2005 had been loathe to give my father the news of my mother’s official diagnosis because, “Alzheimers is a bastard of a disease”- soothed my Dad’s torment and sadness about the decision to stop her treatment and sustenance, and his terrible feeling that he was literally starving her to death.

I watched as that young doctor rose quietly to the occasion. He calmly gave my father exactly the information and reassurance he needed to hear, in a way that he could hear it – each word chosen to bring maximum comfort, frankly and gently confronting the truth of her impending death and his sincere wish that her last breath and passing be peaceful.

Hardest of all was leaving my courageous father alone to tell his beloved wife of 55 years that she mustn’t be afraid, that it was all right to let go.

My brother stayed with her through the nights that week, we didn’t want her to be alone. She passed away in his arms very early in the morning on the Friday, the same morning that I slept in her bed, in her bedroom, in her house. When his call came and we’d talked, I made tea and sat in her chair in the quiet of the house that she loved and weighed up the kindness of letting my father sleep a few more hours before having to bring him the news. Later, just before dawn I tucked him back into bed with his grief.

Days after, having been strong for my Dad, having been organised for my family, after being calm for my kids, I was angry. I was furious – not at her, no, not at her, but at this gross injustice perpetrated against her, against our family, against my dear father, angry at a disease that granted her little peace. How could she been so reduced, how could her world have been made so tiny? How could she be dead?


I wept in her garden. I cried so many tears, sobbed great hard sobs there under that tree with its purple blooms, I cried like a child until I thought I would break. Later I sat with my father on the sofa and let him be my Dad, holding his hand while we talked and became resigned, letting him comfort me. I told him that I was sure my mother had felt well loved all her life and how grateful we were of his steady and compassionate care of her in the last years of her illness. I told him how very well loved he and our mother had made us feel all our lives.

We reminisced about travelling and the fine holidays we had fishing and camping all over the country. We spoke of her feisty tenacity and her ability to enthuse people into doing whatever was necessary. We laughed about the times he and she would lead a team cooking for two hundred fire fighters battling blazes in the Victorian bush for weeks on end and how much those fellows had loved my Mum’s food and loved her for cooking it.

When the time came we sent her off in fine style with a bower of vivid blooms, we wore colourful clothes in her honour. Her friends scattered scented rose petals and patted the pale wood of her casket in the same gentle way they might of patted her shoulder in conversation.

Eulogies were spoken – we spoke of her sense of fun and adventure, her keen intellect, her vivacity, her energy, her dignity and mostly her love of family. Her love was all embracing, generous, and non judgmental.

We spoke of her love of life. We spoke of her great capacity for friendship.

Even in her seventies she gathered friends and admirers. One such dear fellow recited with a voice thick with emotion, romantic passages from The Divine Comedy by Dante Aligieri at her wake, recounting fond times when he and my mother would discuss and share their love of literature. Dear little white haired ladies who’d link their arm in hers and say of their friendship, “She’s my long lost sister!” with big grins on their faces, were saddened that there would be no more little chats and sharing of confidences.

And so, Nat King Cole crooned “These Foolish Things” while we reminisced over lovely photographs and after poems and prayers were said we played “Shall We Dance?” from the King and I – quite loudly. When the first notes were heard, through their tears, friends and family smiled in the full knowledge that my mother would have liked that -

…Or perchance,
When the last little star has left the sky,
Shall we still be together
With our arms around each other
And shall you be my new romance?
On the clear understanding
That this kind of thing can happen,
Shall we dance?
Shall we dance?
Shall we dance?

– she would have liked that very much, and her answer of course would have been an unequivocal, enthusiastic and emphatic, “Yes!”

I miss her dreadfully already and even on the days when I think I’m okay something will trigger a moment when I’m quite not okay – I understand that that is just the way it is. She’s not gone though – she’s here when I throw the dish towel across my shoulder when I cook, when I discuss the Latin and Greek origin of words with my eleven year old, when I call my daughter ‘Stellina’, when I say “take care’ each day when they leave for school, when we say “buon appetito” each meal time and “buona notte” before “sweet dreams” each and every night. She’s here when I kiss our kids and tell them they are clever and lovely and kind and that I love them very much and my dear, sweet Mum is most certainly here when we dance.


More information on Alzheimer's Disease here and here.

The King and I - enjoy!

Not Drowning - Waving

Apologies for my neglect of this, my small corner of the internet. The sailing isn't so smooth at this point in time, and on land, I'm looking forward to the return of the leaves to the trees.

At 46

Earlier this week I celebrated another turn around the sun with tea in bed made by my ten year old son, hand crafted cards decorated with many, many kisses, a fabulously extravagant gift of perfumed goods, glorious books, flowers, cake and calls and kind messages of love from family and friends.

A dear friend and mentor who has known me since I was 21 sent me a lovely note wishing me a “spectacular year of great happiness.” It was that generous message in particular that had me contemplating the nature of happiness and how sadness and happiness interact and maybe balance each other out – mellowing the “spectacular” and at the same time softening melancholy.

My happiness these days is tempered by a deep sadness at the decline of my sweet mother – last year we danced together a little, holding hands in her front room to a Tom Jones tune. I’m so glad we did. She’s not going to be dancing again as far as I can tell after making a poor recovery from a hip replacement operation and sliding ever more deeply into the grip of Alzheimers. She’s chair and bed bound now and her world seems to be getting smaller by the minute.

Then there is my dear old Dad – he’s a slightly lost but brave soul missing the love of his life who has been his partner for more than 55 years. “I miss my girl,” he tells me and my heart breaks a little more. It’s a strange kind of limbo. She’s not gone but she has gone, if you know what I mean. Gone into a kind of holding pattern that doesn’t allow for the relief of grieving. I miss her too.

Against this background a new love begins and brings me joy. My beautiful niece has found the love of her life and will marry later this year – the very same niece I recall cradling in my arms when she was an infant what feels like just a few years ago. The same sweet niece who was the flower girl at my wedding has chosen my own dear little daughter to be hers.

As always the arrival of children into my life brings great excitement as the news that two very eagerly awaited babies have joyously been welcomed into the world and their respective mothers, dear friends of mine, are well and happy. There’s a little piquancy when I look at my own beautiful children and think that they too were babies only moments ago. That feeling is countered by my very real and abiding pleasure in the wonderful people my children are growing into. They are lovely.

And for every acknowledgement that my youth is slipping away comes the happiness that my minor triumphs bring. I am possibly fitter and stronger than I have ever been, I can lift heavy weights and enjoy it very much. My sweetheart occasionally feels compelled to give my shoulder a hearty, blokey slap every now and then, and make remarks like “I like that you’re not flimsy.” I’m taking that as a compliment! The fact that after nearly 21 years of marriage we still find pleasure in each other’s company and in each other’s bodies is very sweet indeed.

At forty six I have plenty to be happy about.

Muscular Admiration

Photo from Just Jared Click image to biggify.

Love her or hate her, you have to admit Madonna has great quads.

Testing, testing...

HNT - Unsuitable Tights

This afternoon brought with it an icy blast straight from Antarctica that made my lacy tights quite unsuitable leg wear - there's obviously more skin than fabric. I did however have some fun making a few images with my iPhone and a cute app called Camera Bag . Happy HNT! Go tickle Osbasso. A few more at Flickr.

The Duel

He said it was cluttered, I said it was clustered. Cluttered. Clustered.
I know clustered when I see it. It was very clearly clustered.

Back and forth it went.

We bickered, batting combatant words like a tennis ball around the courtyard.

Then he struck a low blow.

He said he didn’t like what I did with the plants.

I didn’t like that he didn’t like what I did with the plants.

It, of course was not about the few plants in pots.

It was a territory battle. The garden is his, apparently.

It seems, unbeknownst to me, in a treaty unsigned by my fair hand, he was awarded ownership.

Back and forth we traded insults with all the panache of two juvenile delinquents.

Idle threats were made – “I’ll just move them back when you’re not here.”

“I don’t think so.”

With the ball in my court, I went for the slam, “You should be nice to me.”

“I am nice to you.”

“You should be a whole lot nicer, I am your wife.“ He grinned at that.

This duel ended as only duels can, with pistols at ten paces.

Water pistols.

He doesn’t shoot fair, in fact, having grown up with a younger brother he’s unscrupulous and borderline vicious, aiming for vulnerable water-averse places like inner ears (the Geneva Convention be damned!)

Growing up with two older brothers, I’m well versed in the art of commando water warfare and am nothing if not malicious and persistent.

Shots were fired, streams found their target, much ground was covered - up around the vegetable garden, under the grapefruit tree, vantage points were taken up, behind the chook shed, sniper action was encountered, until at last the ammunition was all gone and we were both very wet.

This high noon showdown and the preceding squabble I am ashamed to say was witnessed by neighbour friends who’d dropped by. They feigned mock discomfiture at our arguing until I reassured them, “Don’t be worried, we argue so we have something to make up over.”

They thought we were (and remain) quite mad. There was a real risk that they too would get caught in the drenching water crossfire.

Our kids looked on in amusement before returning to the sanctuary of the house – they decided to leave to the safety of the neighbour’s house, taking the neighbours with them.

Water dripping from our respective heads, we retreated into the house in search of towels. When I’d dried the worst of the soaking, I went in search of him – retribution would be mine. I meant to make him pay.

I cornered him in the kitchen, puffing myself up to my full five foot, six inches I was at my most menacing best. I can be formidable you know? I could tell he was scared, he had that look in his eye - scared enough to immobilise my wrists in a tight grip and pull me into the walk in pantry.

His fear oddly manifested itself in the desire to shuck me out of my top. He pushed my bather top up until my tits bounced free. Perhaps he felt I’d be less of an opponent when rendered semi-naked. Whatever his cunning plan, my breasts seemed to be the target of his attention.

“You can’t do that, I’m still sandy from the beach.” He didn’t care, pulling the gritty flesh into peaks making me grunt a little with each tug.

Soon my shorts were on the floor and I’m was being lifted bodily.

This part of the duel ended as only a pantry based offensive can – with fucking.

Me, splay kneed on the counter, him with jeans tugged down to his ankles, standing between my thighs. Him, pushing his way into me, kissing me to stop my moans escaping our hideout. Kissing me to stop me talking, kissing me to stop me claiming my rightful victory.

“Clustered.”

“Cluttered.”

“Clustered.”

Brett and Melanie:Boi Meets Girl

Tony and Peggy Comstock have announced the release date for their next film Brett and Melanie: Boi Meets Girl and opened up pre-orders with a great price offer.

Says Tony;

"A classic story of: boi meets high femme girl; boi wears big, black, strap-on; boi and girl share a spirited romp with their toys and each other. Wait, you mean you don't know that story? Trust us, it's a good one!

Brett and Melanie: Boi Meets Girl is the seventh film in our Real People, Real Life, Real Sex erotic documentary series. We're very excited about this film for the way it opens up questions about strength and vulnerability in the context of how we portray and interpret gender. Throughout Brett and Melanie’s interview, there is a constant dance of who is strong for whom, of who is vulnerable and who nurtures; and this dance continues when Brett and Melanie make love.

Brett and Melanie: Boi Meets Girl is currently in post-production with an anticipated release date in Fall 2009. This is your opportunity to pre-purchase Brett and Melanie: Boi Meets Girl at a super-special price ($17.95)—available for a limited time. "

Go here to see a clip from Brett and Melanie's interview and take advantage of the pre-order price!

Half Nekkid Thursday - Brace Face

It’s been eight months since my teeth went into brace bondage and while I was kind of eager to just get on with it, part of me was filled with a sort of claustrophobia, a sense of getting into something and becoming trapped and being unable to escape or turn back – the labour of childbirth was the last time I think I felt like that.

For the first few weeks a good deal of my energy just went into learning how to eat and speak with a face full of metal and establishing a whole new oral hygiene routine, the details of which I will spare you dear reader. I am getting used to this contraption that seeks to tame a slightly errant bite and I am doing okay after a shaky start that involved a near death incident when a crusty crouton provided an unexpected choking hazard at lunch just a few days after I had the braces installed. I narrowly averted calamity by having a quick rethink on merit of talking and eating, lucky I was with friends huh? I had to laugh when I looked up from my soup bowl, I must have been concentrating hard because all three of them had looks of sweetly concerned amusement as I negotiated liquid from bread – my companions were apparently preparing themselves to perform the (now outdated) Heimlich manoeuvre on my unsuspecting self should the need arise.

Braces certainly make you consider food in a totally new light and the most innocent of condiments or garnish can provide unexpected challenges, for example seed mustard – grave mistake my dears, don’t do it.

In the first few weeks the things I missed were rubbing my lips together in that MMMMMMing motion to smooth lipstick, I’ve learned how to do this now but eating spaghetti remains especially difficult. Lately my top lip which is quite full at the best of times, now has this slightly odd pouty thing happening – after every visit to the orthodontist for an adjustment my teeth feel very slightly loose like I have been punched in the mouth. Not very sexy I’m afraid. However, and again I think this goes to show that there is indeed a kink for everyone - at a forum I visited for adults with braces the forum moderators warn against posting pictures of your teeth in braces as they’ve found that the images end up on fetish sites devoted to orthodontic devices. Who knew? Who knew I ask you!

And yes, it is entirely possible to give a blow job with a face full of braces. :) See previous post.

Happy HNT - go hit up Osbasso!

The Romance of Cocksucking By Candlelight

As the winter begins in earnest and I’m home with a cold that’s rendered me weak and cranky my thoughts have turned to summer… or particularly, summers passed.

My sweetheart has a thing about light. He likes to do it with the lights on and for that matter so do I, we’ve been known to fuck in the living room and use the reading lamp to create a bit of theatre. We have nice lamps that throw around a warm, flattering light in our bedroom at home. I have a beautiful little antique silk shade on my side of the bed and he has a brighter, whiter lamp on his bedside table, together they combine to make enough light to see the juicy details but keep the atmosphere intimate. The bedroom we have under control, it’s camping that throws up all sorts of challenges when it comes to lighting design.

Friends kind of make fun in a light hearted way when they know we’re off to camp over the summer (at powered sites) I don’t exactly pack light. Our tent based bedroom is a love nest – rug on the floor, top grade mattress, underlay, good cotton sheets, bedding according to the season, extra pillows and a soft furry rug – the bedside table is usually makeshift, a box of some kind that we’ve used to transport our stuff – upturned it holds the lamp, a travel clock, a book or three and a drink – the ever so handy built-in tent pockets alongside our heads hold lube and massage oils in carefully zip locked bags. I see no reason to abandon comfort or the trappings of leisure that I enjoy at home – I’m not backpacking, I’m not required to carry this stuff on my back, I will make a tent my home in the fashion of a luxury safari as opposed to that of a scout.

That said, as mentioned before at this blog, the proximity to one’s neighbours in the highly sought after beachside paradise that is the coast not far from here, can be tricky for the vocally inclined or even the visually inclined. Without careful attention to light placement you can find yourself putting on quite the shadow play…

Thing is, I like to see him, he likes to see me, the way he looks is a major turn on for me and he’s very fine looking. At home in our bedroom, we often like to be at opposite ends of the bed and tease each other just with looking, drinking each other in, in a leisurely way. Camping, whilst it appears to be about living more simply, if even for a short time, can actually make lovemaking more complicated, so we play this balancing game of wanting to remain relatively private, quiet and discreet but wanting to be able to see each other. That’s where the candles come in.

A couple of years ago as part of a school fundraiser we bought a batch of pretend candles. When I say pretend, I mean they are short, squat candles made in a soft, cream coloured plastic with a low golden light powered by a couple of batteries. They sound dreadfully tacky but in fact they are quite sweet and have done duty when the occasion needed some sort of safe night light for our kids. Anyway, the candles seem to find their way into our camping gear regularly and the children keep them close to their camp beds in case of midnight toilet excursions.

On this particular evening our kids were tucked into their sleeping bags, fast asleep after a busy day at the beach, cosy on their stretcher beds, zipped into their own private tent bedroom, their father and I just on the other side of the canvas wall in our own space.

It’s warm and we’re naked, we kiss, he kneels alongside my head so that I, without too much effort can lazily take him into my mouth. Everything is going along fine. He looks beautiful, long sleek body poised right there. He feels so good on my tongue, in my throat. He stifles little groans. I suck quietly as his hands roam all over my body. We have light. It’s a nifty torch that converts to a lamp that gives off a soft glow but not soft enough to blur the now explicit shadows of his kneeling body complete with rampant cock, that paint the outer wall of our tent. He notices this.

“Hold on,” he says.

I reluctantly relinquish his cock while he leans across and shifts the lamp to another position aiming to obliterate the shadows.

“Okay, that should do it.”

Only it doesn’t. Now the shadow quite clearly shows my head bobbing towards his belly while his cock slips down my throat – in, out, in, out.

This makes me giggle and it’s hard to giggle when you’ve got a mouth full of lovely cock.

“Just a sec, this should fix it.”

Again he shifts the lamp. Again I resume my work, all the more eager for the interruption.

Somehow this time the effect of the lamp is to make us both huge, so not only are we naked, and cock sucking, but enormous, our shadow taking up an entire wall of the tent. The end wall. The wall that faces onto our fellow campers tent.

“Bloody hell,” he murmurs, cussing under his breath. “I’ll be back.”

He zips through the wall and disappears into the kid’s room, grinning he returns with a plastic, pretend candle. My sweetheart can be ingeniously single minded, remarkably inventive and clever when his quest involves my mouth around his cock.

He turns off the pesky lamp.

The room plunges into darkness, emerging into dim light as our eyes adjust to whatever moonlight makes itself available and the warm glow of the pretend candle.

He kneels again, thank goodness I think, looking forward to snuggling my head into his lap again, picking up where we left off, feeling him grow hard again in my mouth. Apparently we had the shadow issue under control. We could relax.

Everything was okay until I took the opportunity to glance upward from my place at his thighs to see my sweetheart with the aforementioned battery powered faux candle held proudly aloft, his arm high above his head, dim light of the candle cast triumphantly heavenward.

For a brief moment I saw myself sucking the Statue of Liberty, I know she has no cock but dear God I broke out laughing, he laughed too but tried to silence me by pushing his cock further down my throat, but my mirth wouldn’t be contained.

By the fourth night we thought of the brilliant idea of moving the light sufficiently to the outer edge of the tent so that it threw what shadow it might back into the tent

Of course, now we’re back home, I can’t look at the little candles in the same light ever again.

The Big Chill - Robe

Time to drag out the cosy robe here.

The Splendour That Is The Sartorialist

If you haven't visited The Sartorialist lately, now is a very good time to do so. I am pretty much in love with the fantastically beautiful photographs he generally takes but even if you're not a fashion hound it's hard not to enjoy the sweet exuberance of the most recent Dance Day Sunday photos. Really wonderful photography stands out by a long mile.

Over 40 Never Looked So Young

Photos via The Age

Writer, Melissa Hoyer imagines she'll be whistling Dixie for sometime yet waiting for fashion houses to use more normal sized or older people to show off their wares. She calls out Country Road who recently launched a line aimed at over the 40's but still remained true to type by using very much younger models to show the range.

Country Road CEO in a media release dated February 2009 -

“Our 40-plus customers remain loyal to Country Road and shop our stores regularly. But we get hundreds of letters a year from long-standing, loyal, Country Road shoppers who are looking for a brand with the same focus on style, quality and value but designed to meet their specific fashion needs. We believe this market is highly under-serviced and presents a significant opportunity for us.”

Yes, the over 40's market may well represent a significant opportunity, but it seems to me that Country Road and their new brand Trenery, may have missed a great chance to genuinely connect with their market. For the record, the male models also all looked to be in their mid twenties, which of course no great crime but does fall quite a few years short of the age group at which Country Road says its aiming the brand. Is this like sending seven year old's down the runway in clothes branded and aimed squarely at the tweens?

Melissa's piece reminded me of the ruckus in 2007 surrounding underweight models and the revealing comments made by designer, Allanah Hill (Allanah You Vex Me So).

Nothing has changed.

HNT - Woolly Legwarmer Weather

The chill continues. I guess if legwarmers came all the way up they'd be pants, no?

Happy HNT - sending warmth!

Chilly

It's so cold here all of a sudden with snow below 500m and rain and sleet and puddles and everything. Possibly not cold for you inhabitants of the Northern side of the world used to the chill, but cool for us accustomed to more temperate weather. It's almost too icy to lift a woolly skirt for quick bit of mischief, I'm sure I would have frozen if it were not for the scarf.

Thighs Of Steel Here I Come?

Squat Update - Week Three, Day One complete, 19, 24, 19, 19, 35.

• Hammer Bar Incline Bench Press 40 kilos 3X8
• Lat Pull Down 55 kilos 3X10
• Shoulder Press Alternate 12.5 kilos 3X10
• Cradle Squat 50 kilos 3X12
• Hammer Pull Down 110 kilos 3X10

• Flat Bench Press 50 kilos 3X8
• Bent Over Bar Bell Row 65 kilos 3X10
• Forward Seated Barbell Raise 10 kilos 3X10
• Squat 65 kilos 3X10
• Wall Pulley Curl 20 kilos 3X10
  

• Incline Bench Press 40 kilo 3X8
• Low Cable Rev. Row 130 kilo 3X10
• Kettle Bell Upright Row 12 kilo 3X10
• Wide Leg Pump Press 40 kilo 3X10
• Rope Curls 60 kilo 3X10

Leg Extensions – 70 kilo 3X10

A weights/cardio circuit once a week.

That's my current weekly gym schedule. Somehow, (perhaps foolishly) I've agreed to take up the 200 Hundred Squat Challenge.

I'll let you know how I get on. Thighs of steel, here I come.

Meanwhile go play at Cameraplayforcouples.com or take up the challenge too!

HNT - An Erotic Way Of Life

"Being loyal to desire, giving certain desires time to show themselves more fully and reveal how they might make their way into life, is a form of sexual living. Broadly speaking, it is an erotic way of life." Thomas Moore

Happy HNT.

PS - That's an Njoy Eleven, I left it in the frame intentionally :)

Blue 4 You and Unseeing

I've spent a good deal of time with a camera in my hand the last few years but I'm still very much a novice even if I do like to think I have a reasonable eye for composition or for the way the light touches a subject, so it's with some interest that I read Tony's latest post at CameraPlayForCouples.com. on Consent, Context and Clutter. As well as taking photos, and being a strongly visual kind of gal, I reckon I've also used up a year or two of my life perusing a plethora of all that is good and not so good when it comes to photography on the internet. The problem with being able to "see" is that it can spoil you forever.

Take the example above - gorgeous, leggy girl, sensational shoes, pretty underwear, provocative pose, lovely natural setting on an incredible rock formation, blue graffiti.

Blue graffiti?

Is the leggy, gorgeous girl any less pretty, are her shoes less sexy, is her pose less cheeky or her undies less naughty as a result of the side dish of blue paint? No, possibly not. But are any of those things enhanced by its inclusion? No, not for me at least. Is it there because the photographer thought it added a certain dangerous, rebellious edge to the image? Is there some kind of subliminal message that I'm too obtuse to understand? It's not life or death for sure, but all I can think of when I look at that photograph is how hard would it have been to crop out the graffiti? And how annoying it is to have my eye distracted from the beautiful curves of Miss Rocky's smooth back.

From now on I guess I'll be checking the edges of my own work a little more closely.

Content Warning, Warning!

In the big blog blockout of 2008 you may recall I somehow ended up with the infamous "Objectionable Content" warning page. That stung a little.

Flitting around the internet last week I noticed that some blogs have a different warning page - one that alerts to "Adult Content" rather than "Objectionable Content"

I am, dear readers slow on the uptake it would appear, for on further investigation I've found that now if you go into your Settings page you can set for "Adult Content" and this removes the "Objectionable Content" warning and replaces it with the all together more reasonable text below. It's only a small thing, but "Adult" I can live with happily - "Objectionable" just made me sad.

Click images to biggify if you want the fine print...

Tittyshakers

Paste your tassels on girls, lean forward, loosen those shoulders and prepare to shake. I defy you to resist getting a little wriggle on! Dear God, I am in heaven - perfectly sublime it is too - inhabited by busty beauties who shimmy and shake and threaten to smother all in their path. Note though that this gorgeous site isn't just devoted to the mobility of breast flesh, it's about the music - gritty go go, raucous jazzy grinders, sleazy, down low dirty, fabulous, sex on vinyl music! Not since nights spent in wild crowds flailing around while The Cramps punked it upon stage with "Can Your Pussy Do The Dog?" have I been so totally in love with a music collection.

"The sound? Well fundamentally it is as the name implies, any form of music that makes you want to tear off your shirt and shake your titties, spinning the nipple tassels you are naturally wearing underneath your garments like the blades on a helicopter. Typically you will be grinding to the frantic beat doing the ‘Monkey’ or the ‘Dog' or the 'Shing-a-ling' or the 'Push and Pull' ... whatever dance steps that takes you really."

All images courtesy of Tittyshakers.com

My deep and abiding thanks to Martin Lawrie - the genius behind the site. A man after my own heart with comments like - (dancing) "the answer to all the world's problems. Only through shaking can you be happy..."

Be happy my lovelies, be happy! To get your shake on and listen - shimmy here.

Claude And The Hightones "MONKEY STUFF" in the Grinder section is all a girl could want, that is when you're not wriggling around to The Spinners "SLAVE CHAIN" or The Earthworms "MO' TATERS". And when you hear the The Untouchables do "Crawlin" you just know there's gonna be trouble... dirty, girl trouble!

Go shake, you know you want to.

Mommy What's A Tittyshaker? To read more wiggle here.

Thanks to the ADT Talker that put me onto the link. :)

Camera Play For Couples - Tips and Tricks For Camera Lovers

Congrats to Tony and Peggy Comstock on the launch of their new website Camera Play For Couples. "A blog and community devoted to sharing creative ideas for bringing a camera into your bedroom adventures, hosted by Tony and Peggy Comstock of Comstock Films."

Tony says, "... I feel like commercial erotic image making is at a dead end, and once again I feel like the DIY approach offers a way forward; a way to see the collision of sex and image-making as joyful and consensual, and most of all playful. A way to show that making love is as much a part of our life as children’s birthday parties, or weddings, or company softball games, and every bit as worthy of being memorialized with images."

I was very taken with this idea of Tony's - that creating images of our lovemaking is as important as the rest of what we choose to capture on film. I'm a firm believer and even though it's only been in the last few years that my sweetheart and I have begun to play in this way, I can say with great certainty that taking my camera into the bedroom has been a very good thing for us.

I've had the pleasure of knowing Tony and Peggy for a good few years and know that besides making most excellent films they have a bunch of great ideas and knowledge they'd like to share when it comes to helping us amateurs make erotic images. Charge up your batteries folks, the site promises to be a great resource and fun to boot!

Go visit, tell some friends and add Camera Play For Couples to your blog roll.

Looking, Not Seeing

The light plays games with my eyes.

Shall We Dance?

As a young woman I had a huge crush on Yul Bryner - watching him dance with Deborah Kerr still makes my heart flutter - watch her breathing when he puts his hand on her waist to dance more closely, such a simple thing but so very charged. Beautiful filmmaking!
In search of a bit of distraction from what has been a kind of gruelling last week or so, I headed over to Deep Glamour and enjoyed some very fun and glamorous posts on dance of every kind and most particularly fashion and dance. Go visit!

There are a whole series of posts to make you wish for a dance partner - right here and now.

Under The Clocks

Meet me
say you will
under the clocks
anytime
meet me
be there tomorrow
meet me
say you will
be there now
under the clocks

Room Wrecking - The Tall Guy

E Thompson - Tall Guy
Uploaded by AlderLindsay

Oh my goodness...remember this? Emma Thompson and Jeff Goldblum in The Tall Guy.

I wanna wreck a room!

Like Moths To a Flame - The Immorality Of Pheromones

pheromone |ˈferəˌmōn|
noun Zoology

a chemical substance produced and released into the environment by an animal, esp. a mammal or an insect, affecting the behavior or physiology of others of its species.

I’ll admit it. I have moths. Some folks call them Almond moths or Flour moths. Whatever you call them - I have them. Not me personally, about my body, but rather in my pantry. Pantry moths they are then. They come in with dried goods, rice, sultanas, beans, coffee, cereal, you name it. And as vile as it is to know, they lurk in mysterious muesli, carve a niche in the nuts and flourish in flour. They breed prodigiously. They are prolific, persistent and pesky!

They bore their way through plastic and resist eradication. Just when I get smug and think that I have defeated them with canny use of glass storage jars and expensive plastic ware I find a pallid grub cocooned in finest silk ready to munch the cellulose content of a roll of kitchen paper. They are nothing if not survivors.

I have been tolerant and I’m not given to waging war on the natural world if I can help it and I don’t mean to seriously upset the natural order or ecology of my pantry, so it was with some with trepidation that I assembled the little triangular cardboard tent shaped parlour that would be their doom. It’s tremendously sticky along the inner face and there in the middle, recently unwrapped from its sheer plastic wrapper, is the bait. The love lure. The perfume of life. The essence of wanton female moth.

And so, is it silly to feel uneasy about luring moths to their sticky deaths using pheromones? The male moths flit about wildly from one provision laden shelf to the next, earnestly searching out the source of this irresistible scent only to end up stuck fast in the adhesive of love where they meet their ultimate end. It makes me uncomfortable. An outright blast of poison almost seems more just than watching them succumb to this trick that uses the promise of immortality and the potent allure of sex. It feels somehow immoral. Poor little beasts, do they die for love?

Fabulous Fonts

Image from Wunderkammer. Click to bigify.

This lovely post at the recently launched Wunderkammer had me drooling over the stunning modernity of Eurostile and Avant Garde and all agog at how typeface like fragrance can take you back to a certain time and place – their style and shape are evocative, bringing back memories of precious childhood books, familiar signs, labels and all manner of print media.

I've always had a fondness for art and an abiding love of fonts. I’ve been surrounded with print and design all my working life. Fonts need names and every now and again I see or hear an outlandish or interesting one and think I'd love to use the name in a story of the bodice ripper variety -

Grace Palatino -- the blonde ice queen. She's secretly in love with the wealthy, handsome rogue and star of the silver screen, Ransom San Serif, who recently married the aristocratic and haughty, Lucida Sans Serif. She used to be known as plain Lucida Bright. Her aunt, the Baroness, Perpetua Titling -- an accomplished and professional social schemer was responsible for the match, narrowly saving her niece from certain heart break at the hands of the evil Black Chancery. Perpetua is often seen on the arm the rakish cad, Garabond Bold and it’s rumoured that they both enjoy a discreet menage a trois with the artiste and playwright, Calisto Light. Calisto leaves his wife, the sweet natured Verdana in the care of the Gatekeeper, Goudy Stout just a little too often, giving rise to all manner of gossip in the village regarding the parentage of Verdana’s son, Bradley…

Grieving Elephants and Tear Drinking Moths

The moth uses its barbed proboscis to penetrate the eyelid of sleeping birds and drink tears (Image: Roland Hilgartner / Mamisolo Raoilison)

A lovely post by Microkhan on grieving elephants reminded me of this post at the Nonist that I linked to a while back. (The Nonist may have called it a day but his archives, like the Microkhan's are good reading.) Elephants, birds, moths - how fine is this web of creatures? Parasitic? Symbiotic? Whichever! Look at that dear little bird's sleeping face!

More at the New Scientist

Make Flowers While The Sun Shines

In a quiet moment over this Easter break I had a forage through my photo archive. It not only gave me a few pangs of nostalgia for a time when my life seem somehow simpler but reminded me of the notion of playing and making art whenever you can, often, everyday if possible - to seek out something pretty, something beautiful, something sensuous that feeds the senses.

I recall a book on massage that I owned many years ago that spoke with great wisdom of seeking more pleasure in the everyday - to take time when you shampoo your hair, gently massaging your scalp all over, enjoying the feel of the foam and warm water, to be mindful of the plush fabric of the towel, to take time when you apply lotion to your skin, smoothing it in like a lover might and that all reminded me of the idea of making small acts of art, naive and simple as they may be.

I spent time sewing with my kids this weekend. We made funny, sweet soft toys from old woollen jumpers, we stitched and stuffed and crafted lovable faces from buttons and silky embroidery thread - new friends were fashioned in an afternoon while the Autumn sun made us warm. I remembered how very much I like making things and that somehow I have not done nearly enough of it the last year or so. I plan to remedy this situation.

And to my photograph archive and flowers - I remember being mesmerised and delighted when I saw how the sun had turned my flesh to flowers, how the light had been transformed to pattern and how the pattern seemed to fit me so well. I think making suits me.

Oh Tango!

I am more than a little in love with this clip. I thought I'd watched every tango at YouTube until Tony Comstock pointed out this one. If this were vinyl I would have well and truly worn the grooves out. Dance my lovelies, dance! Tango while you can.

Happy Easter

Peace and sweet chocolate wishes at Easter.

HNT - Heels

When you teeter in heels it's easy enough to end up on the floor. Eventually.

Happy Half Nekkid Thursday to all. Go visit the lovely Osbasso and explore HNT for yourselves.

More heels at Flickr (I mean that in the nicest way... :) )

Sheepify The Nation

A screen grab I made last week of the Classification Board website hack - the matter is now under investigation...

"Sheepify" made me snort tea! Click image to biggify.

Blacklist Backfire

TIME online covers the ongoing farce that is the Australian government's internet censorship proposal. To read more click here.

WHY THE WEB NEEDS A RED LIGHT DISTRICT

I like Stephen Fry and I like this from his interview at the BBC - click for more here. Having said that, I'm not sure that I want my blog or anything that deals with human sexuality to be relegated to a "red light district" as such but in light of the current discussion here about proposed internet filtering, the city analogy works for me. More on The Tangled Web here.

The concept isn't a new idea but way back in 2000 the discussion centred on domain names. Oh and by the way, iNet has pulled out of the Govt's filter trial. More here.

"This is an early thing I said about the internet at the time things like AOL were still huge. I said it's Milton Keynes, that's the problem with it. It's got all these nice, safe cycle paths and child-friendly parks and all the rest of it.

But the internet is a city and, like any great city, it has monumental libraries and theatres and museums and places in which you can learn and pick up information and there are facilities for you that are astounding - specialised museums, not just general ones.

But there are also slums and there are red light districts and there are really sleazy areas where you wouldn't want your children wandering alone.

And you say, "But how do I know which shops are selling good gear in the city and how do I know which are bad? How do I know which streets are safe and how do I know which aren't?" Well you find out.

What you don't need is a huge authority or a series of identity cards and police escorts to take you round the city because you can't be trusted to do it yourself or for your children to do it.

And I think people must understand that about the internet - it is a new city, it's a virtual city and there will be parts of it of course that they dislike, but you don't pull down London because it's got a red light district."

Domestic Soup

I realised today as I stood in my kitchen that I am never more like my dear mother than when I am making soup. I stand like she stood, I drape the tea towel over my left shoulder exactly like she used to do, I section carrots with the big chopping knife just like she did. As I cook play gorgeous Latin American dance tunes quite loudly just like she was fond of doing. I speak in the past tense not because she has passed away, rather that I can say with some certainty that her cooking days are over. Nowadays she is cooked for and in truth, food has ceased to matter in the way it once did.

But food still matters to me and as Autumn begins to make herself known I am drawn to soup making and I go about it with authority, strong in the conviction that I am making wholesome food with love, that I am nourishing my family, that my efforts are good and worthwhile and very likely, virtuous.

Vegetables of every description swim alongside a dozen chicken legs (vegans cover your eyes now) – the bones make the soup, when cold, thick and gelatinous, and gloriously velvet when hot. When cooked, three or four of the legs get stripped and the flesh returned to the soup and the rest, oh the rest – it’s tender and cooked through having been simmered in the broth, all it needs now is a return of the flavour it so kindly gave up to my soup.

I heat a little olive oil in a heavy pan, lay a few twiggy stems of fresh rosemary in the oil, make it good and hot and place the chicken in the pan, I add a couple of cloves of chopped garlic and grind or two of salt – I let it cook up on high until the chicken browns, then turn a few times to brown all over. By this time the kitchen is filled with the most fantastic aroma of my childhood, for this is very much a simple, traditional dish and I remember it very well.

The soup is good finished with a drizzle of olive oil and served Italian style with a splash of red wine and a handful of freshly grated parmesan. The chicken is served very hot, after the soup, with a green salad and crusty bread. The next day I add pastina to the soup and it becomes a meal all by itself. My family loves this dish and by extension they love me for making it. I adore the happy anticipation on their faces as I ladle it up. At the table my daughter makes the pinch of thumb to forefinger sign of “perfection!” as she smiles and tastes it, and I can’t help but wonder how she will remember these soup days.

Scents Of Sixteen

I am sixteen and Sonia Mason’s sophisticated but hippy older sister has a to-die-for weatherboard bungalow bedroom all of her own – she’s the coolest girl I know. She wears brown alpaca ponchos and colourful skirts from places a long way from my small country town. Sonia’s sister, the one who lives in the bungalow, has standard issue grey school folders covered with yellowing photographs featuring blonde, shaggy haired surfers. They are clipped from groovy surf magazines like Tracks, carefully glued and covered with clear contact into a perfect banquet of beautiful boys. I love her and her folders and the way she smells of exotic Patchouli perfume oil and Sandalwood incense.

I am sixteen and spending my summer as I’ve spent the previous two, at the beach, at the Surf Lifesaving Club. These are long glorious days, I’m as brown as a berry, happy in a tricolour string bikini that makes my father worry and my mother recall her own beach summers. The breeze catches the tropical promise of dark tanning oil, heady with sweet coconut. We ride ponies bareback and barefoot through the bush – horse sweat and eucalyptus mingle. The smell of diesel and the sea is the scent of warm days aboard a boat that takes us to secluded places. Coca Cola is sold in small green glass bottles and in the evenings features in drink abominations along with the cloying sweet smell of Southern Comfort and the aniseed buzz of ouzo.

I am sixteen and on the radio the DJ plays the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, MeatLoaf, Van Morrison and Donna Summer. Amy Stewart knocks on wood while The Pointer Sisters are on fire. In the car, on cassette tape, Bob Seger sings about Hollywood Nights while the cold winter brings the freezing salty wind off Bass Strait. There is football and netball and eucalyptus liniment. We go to unhip but fun old time dances where old people who smell vaguely of moth balls dance with young people and teach us the Pride Of Erin and the Progressive Barn dance. We see movies like "Grease" and sob at the sadness of "Sunshine" and smell of sneaked Alpine menthol cigarettes.


I am sixteen and zipped into too tight jeans or bright wrap around skirts, Quick Silver board shorts, Golden Breed striped tees, or pretty, grown up girly dresses bought with holiday job wages. We want to be Annie Hall – my first forays into vintage garb brings the powdery scent of old ladies which clings to the little cardigans and houndstooth skirts. I dab on L’aimant from Coty to appear more sophisticated, Wild Musk to apparently drive men wild with desire, or Gingham to act my age. The fresh green scent of Scandinavia arrives in my backwater Aussie town via the miracle that is Norsca deodorant, while Revlon’s Flex shampoo brings me one step closer to Farah Fawcett’s silky waves. Arpege, Tabu and Paco Rabanne's Calandre tester bottles in the local pharmacy see regular use from all the young women seeking to be a little more international and alluring. For the rest of us there’s Charlie and Nivea and Ponds face cream along with the sweet, berry scents of Bonne Bell Lipsmackers.


I am sixteen and everywhere I shouldn’t be. In the park when I should be at the cinema, in a car when I should be at the dance, in a van when I should be at a party, in his arms when I should be home. He smells of Blue Stratos and Palmolive shaving cream and lust. He says he wants me. I am in love with the smell of his skin.



I am very nearly forty six, browsing in a shop in a little country town in the hinterland just a few kilometres inland from a beautiful stretch of coast. This shop is pretty much like all the others that are common in exactly these kinds of rural places. It’s filled to the exposed rafters with trinkets and curios and fragrant with candles and an indefinable smell that is India. It’s like the store owner went to Asia in their early teens, fell in love – maybe India, maybe Bali, or Thailand – who knows. But such is the love affair that the only way they can survive being home is to start a little store and fill it with fabulously coloured and bejewelled treasures – burn a little incense, smoke a little weed, surf, go organic, opt out of the hustle and bustle of city life.

It’s right here amidst the wind chimes, the smiling buddas, the henna packs, and the bundles of colourful incense sticks that I spy a tiny bottle I haven’t seen in thirty years. Weaving past the temptations of Ylang, Ylang, the Sandalwood, Frangipani, and Peach my hand goes to the one marked Frankincense, plucks the black lid from the glass and there in that small rectangular vial is 8.5mls of pure distilled memory. Warm, and rich and exotic. Sexy and full of promise. A whole year of being sixteen is caught up in that small bottle of dark amber liquid. I am so completely transported, so thoroughly there, so immersed, so suffused in memory that I can barely breathe. But I do, long and deep, I breathe in the scent of sixteen and just for a moment I am there.

Perfume reviews for the real enthusiasts amongst us. :)

Let My People Come

Let My People Come - A Sexual Musical - OMG - why didn't I know about this before, sooner? I give thanks to the beautiful comedian who alerted me to the joys of Let My People Come last night.

Be prepared to be transported by the dulcet tones of Come In My Mouth. Oh the seventies were wacky, zany times weren't they!?

More here - a lot more in fact!

Gumboot Weather

Rather astonishingly for a state that's been in severe drought for 12 years, we had a fall of 60 millimetres of rain this weekend. There was rejoicing and much puddle jumping. My new gumboots came in very handy indeed.

Gym Boot Weaving

Fancy laces spotted today in the city - amazing what you notice when you have two kids besotted with all thing gym boot...

Clicky pic to biggify in the eventuality that you may wish to recreate this style with your own laces.

Not Drowning, Waving

Hello, hellooo!

Between fire, flood, shark attacks and small earth tremor this evening a girl could feel a little under siege but we are all safe and sound, and I'm feeling a measure of peace that I hope will bring with it the urge to write which seems to have left me the last few weeks, until then here's a few pictures I've been making in lieu of words.

How Much Can A Koala Bear?

"Mirboo North volunteer CFA firefighter David Tree gives water to a distressed koala in burnt-out country in Mirboo North, Gippsland, in Victoria's east.

David had been out fighting fires and whilst in the fire truck saw this koala on the side of the road. He stopped the truck and got out thinking the koala would run off. David approached the koala and it started pawing at his leg. David then got a bottle of water out of the truck, and started feeding the koala the water. Each time he stopped feeding the koala it pawed at David’s hand. Other crew then got the camera out of the truck and took this picture just after the koala had put its paw in David’s hand.

David was interviewed on a radio station this morning, and was bought to tears describing what happened between him and the koala."

From the Sun newspaper.

I started writing a blog post about the carnage wreaked upon my state and fellow Victorians the last few days by the terrible fires that continue to burn - to be honest it's been very difficult to string sentences together in any coherent way and I abandoned the piece because I've just felt too raw and too saddened and too shocked. Maybe in a day or two I'll be able to bring it together. In the meantime, the fires here have been catastrophic. If you are inclined to donate or can help out in some way here's a link.

The Red Cross link here.

I've been really touched by notes of concern from friends - my family and I are safe. Brokenhearted but safe.

Happy HNT - Heat Wave

Is it Thursday yet? The heat around here lately has meant I've spent a good deal of the time naked or at least half nekkid - for weeks! Sending warm thoughts to friends in cold places... return cooling thoughts gratefully accepted. :)

Happy HNT.

Garden Magic

I have to think that his motives were innocent and that really he was just thinking about my leisure when he surprised me with a gift of the sun lounge now gracing my garden. He was no doubt responding to my not so subtle hints about wanting somewhere to relax and recline in our lovely leafy garden, - to enjoy a book, the birds and some sunshine.

I was of course delighted when he led me outside to announce the arrival of a rather deluxe lounge crafted in beautiful dark metal – complete with a thick mattress in a sturdy but elegant outdoor fabric. It looks like it belongs there in the courtyard. It’s quite perfect.

I’ve enjoyed a couple of very nice lazy afternoons under the big Jacaranda tree, daydreaming while mauve blossoms tumble. Daydreaming is a much maligned preoccupation I’ve got to tell you. I think it’s one of the reasons I love our beach holidays so much – plenty of time to think, but think gently, slowly, at a civilised pace and time to pick up the thinking later if a nap becomes urgent. (I’d be lying if I said my daydreaming doesn’t sometimes take a left turn into full blown dirty fantasy weaving.) Well, now I have this lovely daydreaming facility available to me in the shape of a super gorgeous lounge right here in my garden. – weather permitting of course.

On that, the daytime weather here has been somewhat less that lounge friendly. We’ve just come through a bona fide heatwave with temperatures up around the 45 Celsius (113F) and evening temperatures staying at 30C. Sending a message to an overseas friend just now had me sounding like something out the diary of an early settler– I wrote “Weather becoming more temperate but the drought continues…” Fortunately my suburban location brings little risk of bushfire and to be honest the warm evenings bring pleasant pastimes. I could have written “The evening sees us in the garden until quite late…”

Readers of this blog may remember a few summers ago when my sweetheart and I took ourselves into the garden for a little lovemaking misadventure, so you’ll understand that it was with a little trepidation that at his suggestion, I scooped up a sheet to soften the feel of the sturdy but elegant outdoor fabric and headed off into the moonless garden one evening last week.

We were both a little nervous given our near death experience last time with collapsing furniture but very quickly, escaping the heat of the house became scientific research to establish the Lounge’s credentials as a lovemaking location. And as far as I can tell – it was perfect.

It was perfect when he stood, legs bent a little and I sat there naked at the edge of the seat. His beautiful cock was so very perfectly just there at my face level in such a way that opening my mouth and filling it with him seemed the exact thing to do.

It was perfect when the ache in my pussy would be stalled no longer and I stood, turned and bent, the low, soft seat under providing balance under my straightened arms, body angled in such a way that he needed no further encouragement before pushing the length of his cock into me. Oh yes, it was quite perfect indeed when his hands gripped my hips in the near darkness and made his feelings plain.

And dear God, it was perfect when he reclined under me as I rode him, using the arms of the lounge for balance and purchase while my breasts swayed in his face, every hard push and thrust make them jiggle and bounce, making it harder for him to catch my nipples between his lips, making their eventual capture in his mouth that much sweeter.

When, after we slumped, hot and sticky and happy in the very slight breeze we both agreed the lounge was indeed a fit place for lovemaking and I’m glad to report that this time the gravest danger we faced were a few pesky mosquitoes.

Merry New Year

Didn't Christmas and New year all by go by in a lovely whirl? Been as busy as buggery the last few weeks, sucked into a kind of delightful vortex from which am only now emerging - only to be going off again - escape is taking the shape of a couple of weeks at the beach North of here. Speaking of escapes, I did sneak out to a fabulous exhibition of two of my most favorite artists ever, Rennie Ellis and Rosalie Gascoigne at the Ian Potter Center in Melbourne, if you are in town put aside a couple of hours, go along and be enchanted.

So, with that I wish Happy New Year to you my dear readers, I hope to get back to writing a bit more regularly when I return. Stay safe.

For more on Rosalie please click here.

Eartha, Eartha, How I Loved You

By now you’ll know that the lovely Eartha Kitt has passed away at age 81.

I have Eartha on vinyl, on cassette tape, on CD, on MP3 and indelibly imprinted in my heart and mind. I didn’t follow Eartha’s acting career but I was and still am very much in love with her music, for more than twenty years or so I have I just loved her naughty sense of humour, her outrageously sexy vampiness tempered with a make-believe innocence, an insouciance that made every witty double entendre virtually drip with an impish wryness.

Her rendition of I Want To Be Evil sort of became a personal anthem to me quite a few years ago, at a time in my life when I needed the strength to leave a destructive and unhapppy live-in arrangement with a fellow.

Not long after having made the decision to escape the way less than satisfactory relationship, I had the great pleasure of seeing Eartha play a packed concert hall. My dearest friend and I, already ecstatic about the wonderful seats we’d been able to procure were granted a little extra – in what was a capacity crowd the two souls who were destined to sit in front of us somehow didn’t make it to the show so the only two vacant seats in the house were directly in front of us, affording us the most remarkable view of the divine Eartha.

We, along with a couple of thousand other folks were spellbound while Eartha flirted with the front row, leaving fellows slackjawed and no doubt weak kneed at the sight of her gorgeous legs and sultry moves. Song after wonderful song she held us in her thrall, and when it was time for Eartha to sing I Want To Be Evil I came away thoroughly convinced that a lifetime commitment to “evilness’ was my moral duty.

Rest In Peace dear Eartha.

You Can Turn Me On

“Turn me on”– if I dwell on the words they have an amusing seventies feel about them, almost right up there with unisex and erogenous zone, or maybe they go back a little further to a hipster, cool cat sixties “turn me on baby” kind of flavour – whatever decade those words belong to, they were heard in my bedroom the other night and I was reminded how much I like hearing them.

“Oh, oh you turn me on.” – Quietly, deliberately, the words were said after we’d disentangled ourselves from the first reconnecting hugs and caresses that almost always begin our lovemaking – it’s like once we’ve established that we’re friends we can move to being lovers again and it’s okay to move away to opposite ends of the bed, to make a space between us, to create a distance that lets us look at each other. And it was in that looking time, just before the touching began again that he said it.
Such a simple thing to say, “You turn me on” – an endearment, a statement, a reaffirmation, as if his hard cock wasn’t enough to tell me what he was feeling – “You turn me on” – sweet and sexy, and a turn on to hear.

It’s Christmas now, I wish you a safe and sexy festive season and a year filled with turn ons. ☺ I'll leave you with the inimitable Tom Jones and the wonderful Sex Bomb. Turn it on!

Amazing Grace?

I am in awe ... makes my homemade door wreath look very small...

Crabby

What kind of a crab is that?

Happy HNT - It's Starting To Look a Lot Like Christmas

I met a man today (more on that soon), a man so angry at the world and so terribly lost in some great sadness that when at the end of his bitter tirade I asked "How can I help you, what can I do?" he replied "Nothing, you can do nothing, I don't want you to show me your tits!" - there was very little risk that I was going to, but ridiculously it kind of stung. The last I saw of him he was revealing his own chest to a pair of policemen. It's been a funny old day. Hoping you all have a Happy HNT!

PS. Not many sleeps until Christmas!

Bill and Desiree: Love Is Timeless Review

It might be about my own age or a higher than usual level of real life empathy with the film’s subjects but I felt a strong connection to Tony Comstock’s sixth film in his Real Sex, Real Life, Real People erotic documentary series – Bill and Desiree: Love Is Timeless.

And connection, rather than age is what Bill and Desiree is about. Age isn’t how they define themselves. “Lovers” is how they define themselves - they are givers and receivers of pleasure, lovers with a deep connection. Other than a quip at the beginning about an indistinct memory or interpretation of a memory which in my experience happens with lovers of any vintage, there’s little talk of age. There’s a good deal of very charming talk about love and pleasure and connection and the whole film has a wonderful romantic comedy feel about it.


Bill and Desiree have a gorgeous calm and wise presence on camera. Viewers will empathise when they talk of the warmth and security of being loved by someone who truly knows you, being seen and heard and loved, when Desiree comments to Bill “You know me” we understand that she means deeply – “You know me.” - it’s a powerful moment. When she says, “I’ve never been loved like this, or felt this kind of love before,” I felt myself nodding in knowing agreement.


Comstock’s camera work capturing pleasure on the faces of Bill and Desiree is some of the best I think he’s done, here he has perfected his documentary technique – gently taking us to where we can read Desiree’s delight at Bill’s caresses, anticipating Bill’s responses and skilfully catching loving looks between them, – they appear radiant, often lost in each other and in the moment. It’s quite something to bear witness to – it’s joyous and moving and very erotic.


Their lovemaking is in turns languid, tender and urgent interspersed with the kind of laughs, practicalities and familiar giggles that anyone who’s been in love will recognise. I loved their pleasure sounds, their little repartee, their laughter and moans and I very much loved Bill’s his earthy grunts when he reaches his peak.


At a personal level it’s a hopeful or hope filled movie – as my sweetheart and I approach middle years I guess I’m relieved and excited that love and sex can flourish no matter what age. I’ve known that in my heart, but as we rarely if ever get to actually see what real sex and real love looks like between people of any age, Bill and Desiree serves as proof for me – beautiful, life affirming, sexy proof.



Go buy Bill and Desiree - Comstock Films

Push The Escape Button Now

Sometimes, in a quiet moment I think of escape.

Escape from my braces - today I’ve had enough of sharp metal in my mouth

Escape from the calendar – who stole November and when am I going to get it back?

Escape from the clock – how is it that even on my day off I still need to be somewhere in particular at six time points during the day?

Escape from the extra flesh that seems to have added itself to various parts of my anatomy

Escape from the fact that my parents are ageing and that they live a long way away from me

Escape from my government who think an internet filter will be a good thing.

Escape, like Ms Naughty from a country where the judiciary believe cartoons are real people

Escape from the piles of papers in my office.

Escape from a world whose predominant fear is not of unending war or climatic cataclysm but of sex.

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Latest coverage on the internet censorwall debacle.

Lars Stephan

I've had a crush on Lars Stephan ever since I found him at Flickr. He takes nice photos. He has furry thighs. He now has a website.

A Closer Look

Sometimes website designers can get it so right.

Closeup - Full body

Closeup - Full body

This is one of those times. Viewing options are a good thing I believe. Really quite good.

Thank you International Jock. Thank you.