Registered for Floating World

We're set. We registered a few days before the deadline. I have both excitement and a certain trepidation. This will be the first event we've been to since the final Ohio Leather Festival (OLF). I'm slowly packing the gear and making preparations.

We've been talking a great deal about what it means that the "pro" community has interwoven so completely with with the more general community- particularly around events. It has changed so much from 'back in our day'. Add in the net and the publishing boom and cliched as it may seem, everything's different now. And it's all so public and accessible. I don't know that we're adapting well.

In any case, today has been good. I'm sitting here writing in my large padded cuffs, and we spent some time this afternoon doing WIITWD. (Yeah, I know, a "net term". I'm not thrilled, but I'm linguistically stuck.) We are still struggling to find language- "play" certainly doesn't cut it, but we have no word of our own for it.

In any case, now that the room is 90% together-ish, we're just starting to enjoy the tools at hand. I'm teaching (from the "bottom") certain things- certain touches, how much time it takes to process, different ways of using the tools, and how my body reacts. Sir is still very much in control, but the room has become a laboratory of sorts, where we can experiment, learn from that, and then go forward.

All these things are things that had the first decade been what normal kinky people do, we would have spent more time on long ago, but us being us, well, this is where we are right now. Lots of new tools to work with and learn what they are capable of of.

We spent time talking about some of the tools and the Artisans who made them and how some of them don't anymore, or have died. Shops have been bought, people have moved, things have changed a great deal, and much of it is not without a certain sadness. It is an honour to provide homes to such tools.

In a sense, it's not dissimilar to the point in Japanese tea ceremony where the guests learn the history of the objects, the Artisan who created the pieces, their age, where they come from. Sir and I and our collections now comingled, have a similar feel.

Along those lines, there is one last bit to report; I earned my jacket many years back- from Sir, but time has passed and we've both changed through the years. So, in prelude to the Floating World, Sir has procured a new jacket for me. While it will be odd to wear 'new leathers', unbroken in, new too is a milestone for us, and in this case, it's merely an update to more appropriate on a piece I earned long ago.

I have also gotten him a ten-year demarcation of sorts- a wide leather belt from Mr. S.. Sir is not particularly into the 'wardrobe thing', but this was an appropriate gift, and a way to mark our first decade together. "Look" is FAR less important to him than comfort, he is who he is and he has no one to prove anything to.

The really exciting news is that in addition to my jacket, Sir has also ordered a leather vest for me- although I've not earned it yet. I may or may not earn it before the event, either way, it is about us, not the event. I'm overwhelmed, and honoured. And most of all, I'm wondering what he has in mind! I can but daydream, hope, and look forward to what that process might be.