October is shaping up to be a landmark, deathmarch of a month. Between supplying rope to Max’s upcoming Portland intensive, Midori’s Kansas City Rope Dojo, restocking Kink.Com and the usual mountain of orders coming in via the site, I’m one busy boy.

How busy? This was my day yesterday
7AM Alarm goes off
7-8AM wander around the house in a daze searching for fresh coffee and clean socks (in that order)
8-9:00 Gym, lift heavy things till shoulders give out then do sit ups till I feel like I’m just about to puke, all the while threatening my trainer that one of these days I will get even with him by photo shopping him into donkey porn
9-10:00 Post workout coffee with Tambo, compare schedules for the week. She just looks at me funny and asks me if I want another cup of coffee.
10am Arrive at Abbey, crew has already been at it for an hour.
10-12 review new inbound orders, check email, phone messages, orders in progress, stock levels oh and the main water pump seems to have blown out. Race across town to get a replacement and fix it before the first dye job of the day is ready to be pulled.
12pm Pull first dye job, drink coffee,
12-2 Fill orders, send one minion home sick, send the another off to start billing orders, start second dye job of the day.
2pm Wolf down frozen Mac& Cheese, washed down with coffee, scan LJ/Fetlife/Blogosphere/ARA… nobody taking my name in vain? Nope? No rumors that I am dead or was maimed in a bizarre bondage accident? Nope? Ok, back to work.
2:15-4 Continue with filling orders.
4PM “Anyone else want coffee?”
4-6pm Pack finished orders, race to post office to make last call for a rush order, review new orders and begin setting up orders to be filled tomorrow… Man are we gonna need more rope, what we sold out of that book again?! Quickly dash back up to office and place stop gap orders for more Midori books.
7-9pm spend “Quality time” with alex,
9Pm untie alex, hop onto motorcycle, and roar into the chilly autumn night in search of much needed post play food.
9-10pm Ravenously attack dinner, waitress asks “you want coffee with that?” Response: “And how”
10 get alex home at a reasonable hour, somebody still has homework to do!
10-11pm check email, write blog, load up toybag for play date tomorrow, send Matisse “I miss you note” and wait for UPS Germany to open.
11pm, call Germany and sound like a dork cuz you only speak 6 words of German and 3 are obscene.
11:30 close up Abbey, hop on bike and head home. With any luck I’ll be in bed by midnight.


The clock on my laptop now reads 7:55am and I am looking at another day much like yesterday. After nearly 5 years of doing this, the trick I have found is that this is not a sprint, but rather a marathon. Balance between work, play, creativity and physical health is a delicate one but one that is needed if you want to keep this sort of lifestyle up for as long as I have.