Winter Wonders

As I mentioned before, Paul is in England until February, leaving me woefully unsupervised. In lieu of running through the neighborhood stealing cars and chopping down trees (which is what he always says will happen if he doesn't impose rules, structure and discipline in my life) I decided to head to the East Coast (from whence I originally came) to visit friends and family and to do some shooting with producers local to there. If you're located in within driving distance from central New Jersey or within public transit distance from NYC and want to do a session before January 6th, I have limited availability left before I leave. Email alexinspankingland@gmail.com and we'll see if we can set something up. 

I left for New York on the evening of the 11th, and had quite the adventure in not sleeping: I had an overnight flight, but had to leave my house in the valley at 9:00 to drive to Rafa and Zeki's place downtown, since they're using my car while I'm gone. Rafa then took me to LAX and I did all of the usual airport business, getting on my flight around midnight. I had a layover around 8 AM, Eastern Time, at which point I had not slept. I then got on another flight around 1:00, which got me to NY around 3:00. I went directly from the airport to my first shoot: I don't actually have the link to the site at the moment, but I'll update this post when I do, but it was delightfully dark and edgy, including limp/sleepy/chloroform fetish. I was remarkably not dead of actually sleepiness at this point, and I stayed awake even though a lot of the shoot involved me lying around pretending to be asleep! When we finished, they brought me back to the train station and I went up to stay with a vanilla friend in the city. We had to take some time to catch up, of course, but when we headed into her room to go to sleep, we discovered that the heat was broken.

Now, some people can survive when they're cold. I'm not one of those people. Being cold is a huge deal to me, and it was about 7F outside. My friend's room was cold enough that we saw our breath indoors. She didn't have tons of blankets, either, so I just sat up on her air mattress with my coat on and a blanket around me and shivered for most of the night. I didn't really sleep, because I couldn't relax in the cold. The next morning I got up and had the hottest shower I could stand. I was quite warmed up by it, and we went out and bought a space heater since the landlord "wasn't sure" when he could have the heat fixed. Oh dear. 0_0 The space heater was very effective, though! As soon as it got warm, I wanted to crawl into bed and take a nap, but it was time to get ready to visit Kelly Payne for my next shoot for her site, Tantrum Trainers. I'll hopefully have photos from that the next time that I post. In the meantime, here's Miss Payne looking sexy as all hell as she takes me to task:

I really enjoyed being over this lap. :) 

That shoot was very laid back and a lot of fun. I get along really well with Kelly, and I certainly consider her one of my friends. We chatted a bit and caught up before we did our scene. It was very long and quite hard, plus it was all done over the knee. I'm wearing some shimmery stockings. This made me very happy. Kelly spanked me so hard for so long with her hand that she actually got a blood blister during the shoot. Fortunately, she had a paddle nearby to switch to nearby. That paddle stung crazily. The hand-spanking had been long and thorough, and it had sort of mesmerized me. My whole existence was hot and swollen as smack after smack fell on my bottom. The paddling cut through that, making each swat a strong peak of sensation. I was actually thinking about this while I was being spanked, at first, before it overwhelmed me: I was imagining making meringue, and watching as "stiff peaks form" as the recipe describes it. I felt like such peaks of sensation and pain were forming for me. Eventually, though, everything blurred together as I reached the point of being overwhelmed (in a good way, of course). I started to cry and to apologize and, near the end, started to have trouble talking. You know a video has actually pushed me when I start insisting that I can't talk anymore near the end of it (or, in the case of this more severe video, quite early on in the spanking!).

Erica made a post a little while ago about not being able to articulate what happens in her mind during a spanking. I have the same experience. Once it reaches a certain point, it overwhelms my brain's ability to break sensation down and put it into language. One minute I'm interpreting my spanking through a visual metaphor relating to pie-making, the next, there are no words. It's just... there. Everything in my mind is the spanking and it exists in a place which, despite my efforts, I can't reach to describe with language. This is something which commonly happens to me in my "real life" play (it's pretty normal for Paul to try to talk to me while cuddling me after a scene and for me to insist that I "can't brain") but only happens on film every now and again, so it was kind of exciting.

Finally, on Friday night I headed back to my friend's house and went to sleep, after having been awake since Tuesday morning! Following this, I did some more hanging out and had a series of other traveling related hassles (as tends to happens to me: in addition to a last name, I share the characteristic with Malcolm Reynolds that "things don't go smooth.") Eventually, I made my way to Sarah Gregory's house in Connecticut. She and her submissive J_Dogg picked me up from the train station and we went to go pick out a Christmas tree for her house. I'm glad that I got to do this with her, since I didn't have a tree at home before I left. As I mentioned in my last post, my family isn't really fully celebrating Christmas this year since we're just trying to get set up in my mom's new place following losing our house in Hurricane Sandy, so we're not having a Christmas tree there, either. Last year, I had an adorable, tiny Christmas tree (Malignus allowed my friends to give me one decoration each and this was all he'd permit me to hang up, so a thoughtful friend made her one ornament a little, live tree, complete with lights already on it!) and I stayed in South Dakota for Christmas. The year before, my family didn't have a real Christmas celebration because instead we were doing my brother's memorial service. So, decorating the tree with Sarah was the first time I'd done a full sized Christmas tree since 2010, and it was very refreshing to do so! So much so that I put tinsel all over myself:

Chriiiiiiistmassssss, bitches! 

The tree turned out wonderfully, and Sarah and I got to spend lots of girly time talking and hanging out. The next day, we woke up to find out that the world had been covered in snow (and by "the world" I mean "Sarah's town" because it was recently brought to my attention that my common use of hyperbole is "awful"). We got dressed up in snow gear to go outside and have a little frolic. For me, "snow gear" meant wearing tights under my skirt and over my knee socks, boots which Sarah had been so kind as to give me since I had none, my new coat and big, pink bow. And braids. Braids are an important part of being in the snow.

Sarah took some photos of me playing outside, and I was really blown away with them. She's a very good photographer!

Such winter. Wow. What snow. 

Frolics! 

Oh hai from both of us! :)

The roads were not exactly great that night, and I think most people stayed in their houses, but Sarah and I really needed to get out and do something exciting. Sarah took a shower right before we went out, though, and put her hair up in a wet bun. While she was cleaning off her car, it froze. I poked at it a bunch and it was just... a haircicle. Yiiiiiikes. Soon, we were safely on our way (with Sarah driving very carefully). We went to eat at a Southwestern place which Sarah likes a lot called Mo's. I'd never had it before, but we had a nice meal there, and I may or may not have abused the fact that you can add flavoring to your soda there. Cherry vanilla lime raspberry coke is actually not as good as it sounds. After dinner, we went to the local mall and got tickets to watch The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, which neither of us had seen yet. We were a bit early as we'd overestimated the amount of time it might take to get to the mall in the snow, so we did a bit of shopping, getting lots of bows and some other cute stuff. We both enjoyed the movie, and we got home safely afterwards where we continued do more girly talking until it was pretty late. We were doing a shoot the next day, so we had to go to bed.

The next morning, Robert Shore (CTPhotographer) came over so we could do our shoot. We filmed a Christmas special which is currently running on Sarah Gregory Spanking called "Not What She Wished For." In this film, I play a naughty little girl who sneaks down to the Christmas tree to start opening presents without waiting for the rest of her family. When Robert catches me, he scolds me and then turns me over his lap for a spanking, right in front of the tree. I wore some cute pajamas and pigtails and made quite a fuss about getting spanked on Christmas. Originally, I thought that the idea of getting spanked on a holiday was a bit dark, but the scene came out to be very sweet and cute, actually. I played my character as being greatly in need of a spanking, Christmas or not. It was the first time that Robert ever spanked me, but we had great chemistry on camera, I think.

I'm hiding the present I was opening behind my back and pretending to be innocent, but I'm somewhat delighted with my own mischief and can't help but smile. I feel that this is a face that Paul probably sees from me on a pretty regular basis at home!

It's Christmas! Who gets spanked on Christmas!? Soooo unfair!

Handprint!

That evening, I left to go back to NY, as I had a session the next day. I'm glad that Sarah and I finally got to spend some time together, and I feel that we really connected. I'm looking forward to doing more fun stuff with her in the near future! :D♥

Derbyshire: Part 1

When I last left off in the tale of my adventures overseas, I'd just been picked up at the airport upon my return to England from a brief stay in Holland. I'd been greeted by Paul Kennedy (of Northern Spanking) and Zoe Page (who is a different person than "Zoey" who has been mentioned in a few older posts). The three of us were going to go by car up to Derbyshire, where we were going to meet John Osborne and do two days of shooting: one for Northern and one for Triple A. It turns out that Zoe had been feeling sick earlier that day, but had gotten enough rest to feel up to coming along despite that. This was the first time that I'd ever really gotten to ride in a car in England, and I found that kind of excessively exciting. I was very aware of how different certain things were. I was pretty fascinated by this stuff, but I also tried to keep this at least somewhat under wraps: I didn't want to be "that girl" who comes to a foreign country and marvels at every dumb little thing and annoys everyone around her. Still, I liked riding in the seat where I'm usually driving (they let me sit in the front ^_^) and noticing the different wording on signs and such things. I was particularly amused by a series of signs that listed the cities we were driving towards and included "THE NORTH." I can't exactly tell you why this made me giggle a lot, but it did. 

We stopped at the first service area that we found to get something to eat, since I was pretty starved. I there encountered a minor problem: I didn't know what the fuck most of the stuff on the menu was. I was a matter of things having different names combined with not being sure how similar food items would be to what I was used to. This lead to me asking about eighty questions, throughout which Paul and Zoe were surprisingly patient. I had originally been slightly intimidated by Zoe, since I had seen her be pretty terrifying on film before meeting her. I was glad to see that in real life, she was sweet and awesome, and my rival at being a goofball. We related on a few things and giggled quite a bit. Then we got ice cream, which is instant happiness for me. I was pretty happy with my life, and instead of feeling worried like I had upon my first arrival, I felt excited about whatever adventures were in store for me. 

After dinner, we got back in the car and drove the rest of the way there. I discovered that I'm not fond of the roundabouts system: it makes me a little bit queasy. The ride didn't seem too long to me, probably because I was very contented, even though I was much quieter than I usually am because I was still adapting to my surroundings. Eventually we arrived at the hotel where we would be staying for the next two nights: it was a small and quaint bed and breakfast. The caretaker greeted us and showed us to our rooms and then asked us some questions about breakfast. I basically just agreed to everything that she said, because I didn't actually know what a "full" breakfast entailed and I didn't want to look ignorant. Then we went up to get settled. Zoe and I were sharing a room, and I thought it was super cute, even though it was a bit cold. 

Zoe in our quaint little room :)

They had left us a tea set which I found excessively adorable: 

In case you cannot tell from my lousy photo, the mugs have cats on them.

We then went to meet John and chat in the other room. We talked about the studio where we'd be shooting, looked at some content that John had shot there previously on his computer and just chatted a bit while we had a glass of wine. I was wearing my bunny pajamas, which Paul pretty instantly decided he wanted to use for a film that we'd be doing the next day. This pleased me greatly, because I'm a little obsessed with my bunny pajamas. Eventually I got tired and Zoe and I retired to bed. 

The next morning we got up and packed our things for the day, then met the guys downstairs for breakfast. We were a little bit late. That's what happens with girls (read: Alex) in the mornings sometimes. :/ The woman who ran the B+B (who from this morning on was referred to as "breakfast lady") brought out our plates. The plate was filled with stuff that I wasn't really expecting. I ate all my meat and some toast, and then sort of picked at the rest of the stuff. Eating beans at breakfast wasn't really all that appealing to me. There was a big pile of mushrooms on the plate, and I'm super-deadly-allergic to mushrooms, so I refused to eat anything they had touched out of fear of going into anaphylactic shock, which is generally not how I like to start my day. And since I hadn't asked for anything otherwise during the conversation with breakfast lady where I agreed a lot, my eggs were served with uncooked yolks. I know that this is simply me being fussy, but I just won't eat eggs that aren't totally and entirely cooked. I'm tremendously stubborn, because I think they're gross. Serious_Face once refused to let me get up from his table until I'd at least tried one, and I sat there petulantly for three hours until he gave up and beat me instead (still better than the eggs). Fortunately, no one at this table wanted to waste the entire morning watching me not eat, so we told breakfast lady that we were finished. She was not pleased with me, and gave me lots of dirty looks for not eating her breakfast. We all found this infinitely entertaining. After a quick visit with the fat, hotel cat named Monty and a brief incident in which John hit a trashcan with his car while trying to backup, we were on our way to the studio. 

Once we arrived and unloaded at the studio, I became aware of it's primary feature: it was cold. I don't like to be cold. (Question: why do you live in South Dakota, then? Answer: have you seen how many things that I don't like but do?) Fortunately, Zoe was basically the best ever and made me tea approximately every 20 minutes to keep me warm. 

Once set up and makeup were completed, we got to filming the first scene. It was between me and Zoe and filmed on a stable set that included several bales of hay. This hay got everywhere, and it's actually STILL in my hairbrush, but it looked awesome and was kind of fun to romp around in. 

Filming with Zoe was interesting because most of the scenarios we were involved in were written so that we were peers and Zoe's character wasn't so much of an authority figure over me as she was just a bully. This was a fun and refreshing change of pace for me. Also, Zoe is really hot. And she's very creative within a scene: I was immediately taken aback by how quickly she came up with ideas of new directions in which to take her bullying and bossing. Plus, she was great at spanking. This scene was actually my first riding crop scene (I'm pretty sure, anyway, and certainly my first on film) and I liked it quite a bit: stingy and whippy without feeling like any other implement, in particular. 

The second scene that we did was similar in terms of character relationships: Zoe's character was kind of an awful bitch and I was a goody-goody and a bit of a nerd. That obviously worked well for me, because that's sort of me in real life :P. This was set in a school room, which made me very happy indeed. 

The desks in the school set were covered in graffiti  which kind of fascinated me, especially because a lot of it had slang on it which I didn't recognize. I then got a vocabulary lesson on various ways to call people a slut in England. I also couldn't help but add to the vandalism a little bit: 

Add that to the list of "bad things that I did and got away with!" 

And I added a little love for my bestie: 

Our third scene was a very traditional and straight forward, bedtime punishment scene that Paul did with me. There isn't actually anything that unique about it, but it's probably my favorite scene that we shot that weekend (honestly, it's probably among my favorite scenes I've done on film). This is because it appeals to a lot of things at the center of my kink. My character was genuinely a good girl, but she was clearly quite far out of line this time and had gotten herself into big trouble. There was a domestic setting and the inclusion of my cute pajamas, which are both good things in my book. The spanking was primarily OTK while on a bed, which is my personal favorite spanking position, and the more severe stuff which followed was given with me lying over pillows, which is a very familiar position for me, and one that I find very emotionally comfortable. And I got hit on my thighs.

I stole this photo from John's blog, because it's awesome. 

All of this plus Paul's attitude in the scene fostered a lot of vulnerability in me, and I just dove into it. I let myself get really worked up and I either cried a little or came very close to it (I don't remember now). When it was finished, I felt very genuinely cozy. 

I'm possibly smiling more than I was supposed to be. :P

I know that I'm only half way thru a day of shooting, but I'm going to stop here and continue on in the next post, because I have approximately 87 things I need to do before I leave for BBW. So. Many. Adventures. 

More posting soon! ♥

Spanked in Uniform Shoot: Day 2

The next morning, I got up and finished my packing before Mike came to pick me up for our second day of shooting. I was well rested and well organized, although I had not eaten breakfast. In fact, I had not eaten breakfast either morning. The woman at the check out desk pointed this out to Mike, serving as foreshadowing for hotel-staff-not-pleased-by-my-lack-of-eating-breakfast to come.

After the check out process was completed, we drove over to the train station to pick up Leandra, who was going to shoot with us for the second day. Leandra was definitely interesting to hang out with and fun to work with. She's very different than me: a lot of our conversation was based on me trying to explain to her that yes, most of what I do is spanking videos and yes, I get spanked in my personal life. Lots and lots. She was never judgey about my fetishism, just kind of fascinated, and we chatted about this between scenes.

Our first scene was for Real Life Spankings, in which Leandra was getting a maintenance spanking and I happened to peek in and spy on her, which of course, resulted in me getting spanked myself while Leandra watched from the corner. I was actually legitimately interested in watching her get spanked.  I mean, she's pretty hot. And there was spanking involved. These are two pretty sure fire ways to hold my interest. I like the way that Leandra keeps all her limbs off the ground while getting spanked. I tend to do the opposite of that, for stability and comfort, but I definitely like the way that her positioning looks.

GASP! Spanking!

My turn!

After this scene, we shot a set of scenes for Spanked in Uniform's Rockford School of Dance. This involved Lenadra and I dressing up like cheerleaders. Cheerleader uniforms are a kind of funny thing for me. This shoot is the only time I've ever worn one. When I was in high school, I was weird and unpopular and all the cheerleaders and their friends bullied me. My girlfriend at the time was originally a cheerleader, but our romantic involvement lead to the team's unanimous decision to expel her from the squad. So while I've always thought that cheerleading outfits looked pretty hot, I had never been able to get too far past the "mean girl" idea that I have in my head. When I put the uniform on I didn't feel weird about it at all, though. Admittedly, it was only very loosely related to the outfits that were worn by my peers, but I felt pretty okay about being a cheerleader. It was almost like I was taking something back.

Also, my skirt was really inappropriately short. Bonus!

I've been kind of delighting in darkness during video making recently, and I think it would be great to get to play a really horrible, cruel cheerleader, like the kind that picked on me day in and day out for those long two years when I went to High School. I certainly know a lot of the lines. :P

The cheerleader scene that we did was much more straight forward and a lot less mean than that. It starts off with me being hired to teach a group of European cheerleaders some moves (being from America, I obviously know all about cheerleading) and being told that if the girls get out of line, I'm to punish them with spankings. That very day, Leandra gets on my bad side and I take her upstairs and to task over my knee.

Spanking Leandra was pretty fun. She has a pretty beautifully shaped bottom, and her responses to the spanking were very cute to listen to. It's one of the only topping videos of me where I don't think I look kind of silly. The film has been released, so I'm happy to share a few photos from it!

You can sort of see down my shirt in this photo. That's almost as good as being able to see up my skirt.

We then shot a sequel video to this in which I get spanked, but I won't go too far into detail about that for fear of giving something away.

After we finished this we had some lunch and got back to work with filming. The rest of the day was spent doing school girl films, which was obviously fine with me! It made a lot of sense to me that we saved this for the second day of filming when Leandra would also be there. One school girl is a good thing, but the awesomeness of school girl films increases exponentially in my mind based on how many girls there are, especially in matching outfits (this is why I love Sternwood Academy so damn much! There are a lot of us, and we all match!), so having both of us made those films a lot of fun. Again, I won't talk too much about the film before it has been released, but the character that I played in these scenarios was a little bit different than how I usually behave, which is always an interesting thing to do.

Once we wrapped our final scene, I had to get my stuff together because I needed to go to the airport. I was getting kind of stressed about this: I was really afraid that I'd get back to England and the immigration officer would say "No, sorry, you are never allowed to go to England again." Mike dropped me off and we said goodbye. I'm hoping that we'll work together next time I come back to Europe. :)  I  managed to get my baggage checked with fewer problems than I had last time (I didn't have to throw anything additional away) and then got to my flight. I was hoping to find something to eat before flying, but the airport I flew out of was rather tiny.

I got on a tiny plane and listened to music on my phone, trying to relax. The whole time I was in flight, though, I was rehearsing my conversation that I'd be having with immigration. I had all the papers I needed to and everything was in order, but I continued to worry after my experience last time.

When I landed at Standstet I was pleased to see that the lines were much shorter and less scary seeming than they had been at Heathrow. It still took a long time for it to be my turn, but while I was waiting, I started to chat to a couple of American girls who were studying aboard in Holland and visiting England for a week. It was nice to talk to other people who were equally concerned about immigration (although they had a lot less reason to be than I did!) and who had a similar background to me. I hadn't realized just how alone and sort of alienated I'd felt since I'd left Vegas. I don't mean that I didn't connect with the people that I'd been spending time with before: just that I felt very aware that I was in a different place and with people who I didn't really know. It was nice to be with someone who was in some ways similar to me, even if she was a total stranger.

Eventually I got called up to the desk, where a friendly looking man took my boarding card and I felt a lot more relaxed than I had a few minutes ago. He asked me very basic and straightforward questions, I showed him my papers and he stamped my passport. VICTORY! :D

From there, I went to the baggage claim where my bags were already waiting, and then exited the secure area. I was being picked up by Paul Kennedy and Zoe Page, and we were driving up to Derbyshire for two more days of shooting. It wasn't ideal scheduling, but it was the way things had worked out. I had only met Paul very briefly at Shadowlane last year, but when I saw him, I kind of breathed a huge sigh of relief. It was the first time since my goodbyes in Vegas that I had seen someone I had ever met before! It was a very refreshing feeling. In my first post about my travels I mentioned that I was waiting for something else that would make me feel secure, and for whatever reason, this was it. Having all of my immigration stuff completed and being with someone that I knew, at least a little, meant that I finally felt some sense of stability.

Hopefully it will be fewer days before I post my next segment. Things have been a bit busy for me since I've been home. ♥

Spanked in Uniform Shoot: Day 1

Well, that last post was bracing, wasn't it? Don't worry: this one has adventures, spanking and photos in it. Whew!

On Tuesday night, I arrived in Holland, where I was picked up from the airport by Mike from Spanked in Uniform and Real Life Spankings. We chatted about various things, including what we'd be shooting in the next two days while we drove from the airport to the hotel where I'd be staying. This was a much more welcoming hotel than the last one had been: I found my room right away, the lights worked, the room was warm upon arrival and it had much more space. I got on the internet and talked to Malignus for a while, then took a long, relaxing bath. I got my things ready for the next day and then got a good night's sleep.

The next morning, I got up and got ready, then Mike picked me up and brought me over to his studio. We started brainstorming about which scenes, exactly, we were going to shoot. I love dressing up, so shooting for a site whose whole point-of-concept was uniforms was a lot of fun for me. The first scene which we shot was for Real Life Spankings. It was a pretty straight forward scene (few details, as it is yet to be released) but I was surprise to discover just how hard Mike's hand-spankings were. He fell into the rare camp of Tops whose hands hurt worse than many implements.

The next scene that we shot has been released, so I shall show you some photos. It's for Spanked in Uniform's sub-series "Europe Airlines," and features me as a stewardess, what else? I liked the pink outfit: quite girly and adorable. In the film, I've been caught trying to smuggle foodstuffs and alcohol back to the US, and get promptly spanked, and then paddled with a leather paddle.

Alex Reynolds IN A CORNER? Now that's just unnatural. :P

I'm pretty sure that the next scene that we did was for Spanked in Uniform's Star Trek themed segment: "The Disciplinary Ship Genesis." I originally intended to bring my own Star Trek TOS uniform with me, to ensure proper fitting, but it was among the things that didn't make it overseas with me. Fortunately, one of the uniforms on hand suited me pretty well. 

Now, let me just point out that I'm into Star Trek. Star Trek spanking fantasies have been part of my life since I was a pretty young girl, although they were usually either based around the idea of being a Yeoman (I've always really fetishized service-type positions) or they were very directly Fanfictional regarding characters of Star Trek: TNG. In case you're kind of making a squinty face at me and saying "Really, Alex?": yes. Really. It's okay. This makes me hot. :D

So, because of this background, shooting any kind of Star Trek type scenes was lots of fun for me, and I enjoyed wearing that uniform very much. In these scenes, I play a misguided Ensign who will probably follow the path of Harry Kim and never receive a promotion, as I've been messing around and polishing torpedos instead of manning the Weapons Bay properly. My character's ridiculous judgement call almost costs everyone their lives when the ship encounters a Borg cube. Oops. There's no better response to almost getting everyone on a ship killed than spanking, though!

   

We took a break for lunch, after which we did two more scenes that have yet to be released. One was for the series "Mike's 50's Diner," which was a lot of fun to film because in it, I got to be a horrible, stuck up brat. A lot of the characters that I get to play are good girls: sweet, repentant, apologetic girls. Admittedly, because this is closest to my usual real life scene behavior and because this is sort of what I started out with, those are the characters where I probably do the best job. Still, I find other sorts of behavior lots of fun, and I've enjoyed getting more comfortable and proficient at being mouthy, witty, bratty and sometimes horrible. That scene was a fun example of that. 

The final scene of the day was on the exact opposite end of the spectrum. It was for the Military Academy series, and I played a character that was possibly more of a goody-goody than I actually am in real life. If I'm not being aware of it, I can sometimes be annoying good: you don't want to do that thing? Well, let me do it instead! Oh! I know the answer to that question! Pick me! Let me tell you some facts! 

And also, me.

This is not always the best way to make friends. In this scene, though, it was fun (and kind of refreshing) to be so super good, although I can rest assured that if I were in an actual Military School environment, every other cadet would hate me and want horrible things to befall me. 

I also liked the outfit that was worn for this series. The little hat was particularly enjoyable: 

By the end of the day, I was basically toast. My bottom was sore in lots of different ways, but it mostly felt raw, and my skin was getting kind of hard and dried out. This was kind of intimidating for two reasons: the first being that I had three more consecutive days of shooting coming up. The second was the fact that I had dumped my lotion when trying to lighten my bag and that hotels in Europe don't seem to give out as varied an assortment of toiletries as American hotels do. Still, I'm basically a champion when it comes to spanking stamina, and I had hardly a mark on me at the end of the day, so I wasn't too overly concerned. 

We packed up all the mean, awful things that I'd been getting hit with all day: :D

It's an instrument that's hard to play quietly.

and then Mike and his lovely wife took me out to dinner at a restaurant which was bear themed. They didn't even do this on purpose, either, but it was entirely perfect for me. There were bears everywhere, and I couldn't stop staring at them. 

BEARS

I even took a photo in a bathroom that wasn't of my butt reflecting in the mirror!

I basically need this in my house. 

After dinner, I felt refreshed and relaxed and I went back to the hotel, where I soaked in the bath for a long time. Being a resourceful girl, I decided to apply some hair-mask to my butt to take the place of lotion. Please note that this isn't a recommended "asscare" practice, but it worked in a pinch. Before too long, I had gotten tired and drifted off to sleep. ♥

A Rocky Start

So, I'm back home from England. I didn't blog at all during the final segment of my trip, mostly because I was not consistently at my computer and I was using any and all down time that I had to obtain cuddles, which is a life choice that I'm entirely okay with. The situation that leaves me in, though, is being an entire month behind in terms of what part of my narrative has been shared and where I am in my daily life. It's my goal to get thru this entire section before I leave for BBW, so I need to really get to work on this stuff. YS has been very flexible and forgiving about my lack of updating, but I'm getting a bit cross with myself. Unfortunately, when I have so much material to cover, it gets hard for to plow thru it. It's just daunting. I know I only make it harder for myself when I DON'T post, though, so I'm going to get into high gear and start telling stories. Onward to the story of the rough start that I had, which, fortunately, lead to great things. :)

When I last wrote (not counting my video blog, of course) I had just finished recounting the story of my epic scene with Richard Windsor. Following that scene, I basically had to start packing right away in order to get to my flight. I was kind in a sad emotional place at the time. Leaving people is always hard, and I had to leave before the party was really finished, which was even worse. Additionally, I was very nervous about going to England by myself. SF, with whom I was intending to stay for the majority of my visit, had contacted me early that morning to let me know that he was dealing with a pretty awful personal emergency and that he wasn't sure what his availability would be, which had made me feel extremely unsettled. Additionally, I'm kind of horrified of being deported. Things like immigration and customs always really scare me. What if I say something wrong and they send me away and never let me back into England ever again?! I know it's a kind of irrational worry, but it has always been a worry, none the less.

Once my packing was finished, I exchanged some tearful hugs with my loved ones, particularly ellee, YS and PTL. Lily Starr and Robert Wolf had agreed to take me to the airport again, which was wonderful. When we were packing up the car, Robert asked me what time my flight left and I explained that it was in about three hours or so. He praised me for planning in advance, which made me feel good, especially because the last time that I had been responsible for logistics with something involving him I had kind of let things get messed up, so I felt like I had redeemed myself a little bit.

I arrived at the airport, got my bags checked and went to the gate. I was flying on Condor, which was really, really cheap, but is not something that I would recommend. There were no entertainment options, the space was smaller and more cramped than the usual airplane and there wasn't even an overhead light. The flight was long and tedious, and my mind went back and forth between reliving the awesome scenes I had experienced in Vegas and basking in the comfort and warmth I'd felt when surrounded by people I was close to and worrying about what would happen once I got to England. My stomach was tied up in knots a lot of the way there because I genuinely didn't know what was waiting for me when I landed. I knew that I had SF there, who would hopefully be able to let me stay at his place like we'd originally planned, and who I really wanted to see. I also knew that I'd be spending a week with Pandora Blake, who I had met at TASSP the year before and developed a very close internet friendship with over time, and I really looked forward to that. The rest of it was a big question mark, though. I had lots of shoots booked, but I didn't actually know any of the people that I'd be working with, really. I had met a number of people I'd be working with for Northern Spanking briefly at Shadowlane last year when I did my first shoot for the site, but I certainly couldn't say that I actually knew any of them. Basically, there was nothing about the trip that made me feel entirely secure, but I kept telling myself that it would be alright. I do know how to take care of myself, even in a far away place.

I transfered planes in Frankfurt, Germany, where I got horribly lost in the airport and just made my connecting flight at the last possible minute. That flight was quite short and straightforward, and before I knew it, I had landed in England. This is when my trip became less exciting and more stressful.

I walked up to Immigration officer, who I was unhappy to see was pretty cranky looking. She asked how long I intended on staying in England, and I tried to explain to her that I was only there for one night before I went to Holland (where I was shooting with Spanked In Uniform and Real Life Spankings, but I obviously didn't tell her that!), but that I'd be returning after two more nights and staying in the country for the rest of the month "visiting friends". There were various complications and a lot of questioning relating to this plan and the documents I had about the rest of my travel, and it didn't exactly end well for me, although it could have been worse, of course. In the end, I was given a 24 hour visa and told that my passport was being flagged for when I attempt to re-enter the country. She refused to explain what, exactly, that meant. I was shaken and scared by this whole exchange. It took all my energy not to break out into tears in the middle of the airport.

Now, despite the fact that I spent a few weeks in England back in 2010, I had forgotten a lot of the ways in which the country was different than the US, especially from South Dakota. I found these differences a little overwhelming when I first arrived. I was feeling very lost and alone when I finally had obtained my luggage and dragged it all out of the secure area of the airport. There, I did not find SF waiting for me (although I wasn't sure if I would or not, as I mentioned before). I paid for internet, then messaged back and forth with Malignus a little bit about my visa situation. I ended up booking myself a hotel room, and getting a bus to the hotel for the night. When I arrived, I was informed that the room was on the first floor, so I wandered around the lowest floor of the hotel dragging all my luggage for approximately 20 minutes before I remembered that in England, that means one flight of stairs up. I managed to find an elevator (lift) and get myself to my room. When I entered the room, though, it was dark, none of the light switches worked and the heat was off. After having been in Los Angeles and then Vegas, I found England to be cold. I was alone in a foreign country which didn't want me to be there, uncertain of where I'd be going for the rest of my time, exhausted from not having slept on the flight, suffering from party drop after my spank-fest in Vegas and in a cold, dark room. I didn't even bother to try not to cry.

I tried a variety of things in an attempt to get the lights to turn on, but eventually gave up on them and found an outlet on the other side of the room which had it's own on/off switch attached, and which worked. I plugged my computer into my power converter, paid 12 pounds to use the internet for the night and then got online. Malignus and some of my other friends helped me figure out what my options were regarding my visa situation. I ended up getting on the phone with the US Embassy and getting things straightened out. I got a list of documents that I needed to print out, and after a lot of running around the hotel I managed to figure out where they printed to and collect them. Malignus was loving and supportive and this made me feel somewhat better. As soon as things were taken care of and I felt confident that once I left the country they would let me back in, I figured out what I had to do to get to my flight in the morning. It was out of Standstet Airport on the other side of the city, so I quite a journey ahead of me. Once I had my directions all straightened out, I realized how tired I felt. I told Malignus that I needed to get some sleep and he supported me in this idea and I signed off for the night. I wanted to take a shower, though, and was scared to do this in the dark. I went back to trying to figure out the lighting and heating situation, since it was so cold that I was wearing my coat and knit hat indoors. I eventually discovered a weird looking device on the door in front of the bathroom. After trying to turn it on in various ways, I realized that I needed to insert my room key into it. Once I did that, the lights came on and the thermostat started to work. I turned the heat all the way up, turned on all the lights in the place and then got into the shower. After showering, the room was still chilly so I attempted to dry my hair, but as soon as I plugged my hairdryer into my only power converter, it made a horrible noise and then stopped working. I tried to plug my computer into the converter again to discover that this had broken it. I towel dried my hair, said a bunch of angry things about the situation under my breath and then put every blanket I could find in the room in a giant pile on the bed and made myself a little nest. As soon as I put my head on the giant pile of pillows that I had collected for myself (since I was also using the spares from the closet) I passed the fuck out.

The next morning, I woke up feeling rested but still pretty filled with anxiety. I tried to focus on the fact that I had gotten everything taken care of, but I couldn't ever feel entirely confident. I knew that there was some point at which I was going to feel alright and let myself relax, but I didn't know what that would be yet. I had a lot to do that morning. Even though I hadn't eaten anything the night before, I skipped breakfast to focus getting myself to my next airport. This process was difficult and expensive. I took the bus back to Heathrow, and then the Heathrow Express to Central London, then two different trains on the Underground, then the Standset Express. I did all this while carrying my backpack, satchel and two very full suitcases by myself. I was kind of impressed with myself when I got to the airport. Upon arrival, I went to check in, only to discover that my bags were dramatically overweight for what was accepted in Europe. This idea hadn't actually occurred to me: despite carrying a bunch of crap across the country with me basically all the time, I've never had an overweight bag before. I ended up dumping whatever stuff I had no attachment to whatsoever that I was carrying (snack food, extra toiletries, intentionally ugly pajamas, et cetera) and still paying a pretty hefty fee. But once that was done and they had finally agreed to let me take my possessions with me, I had purchased a new power adapter and I had eaten a meal, I discovered the thing in the world that made everything okay for a little bit: a store which sold underwear. Purchasing my first international panties (with cats on, no less!) made me feel better. This may sound slightly ridiculous, but eh, this is me that we're talking about.
Shortly after this transaction was completed, I was able to get on my flight and I took off for Holland, where my adventures continued.

So, I made you wait for two weeks for a post and then it included no spanking and no pictures and was mostly me talking about how hard traveling is. As my darling friend The Bad Alex would say: sorry I'm not sorry! (More upbeat, photo filled post coming tomorrow! Woot!)

Busy, Busy, Busy!

My poor, poor blog. I'm so sorry.

I've been quite a busy girl! Often, being busy doesn't influence my ability to get blogging done, though: I just sit down and write a post once I finish with whatever it is that I've been working on. Recently, I've had a combination of being busy and being exhausted. I finish my work for the day, come home from my adventures and then basically faceplant myself into bed. I'm finally a bit more caught up on sleep at the moment, though. Hooray!

I'm currently in the middle of a whirlwind of adventures again. This is the way that I tend to do things: I'll travel straight for a number of weeks, going from place to place instead of flying back home again in between. It's cheaper and more efficient, but it obviously has a few downsides: the busy nature of each stop often leads to a tired version of Alex without any days to snuggle in my warm, quiet, South Dakotan bed in between sites, and the obvious disadvantage of not seeing Malignus for many weeks at a time. Still, we make do: we talk when we can, and we both have confidence in the fact that the other is doing a good job to take care of his or herself when we can't.

Now, I shall begin to tell you the tales of my adventures.
On Sunday night, I was packed and prepared to leave early on Monday morning. It takes an epic amount of luggage to prepare for six weeks of shooting, especially given the variety of shoots that I will be having during my adventures, AND the fact that I'll be spending a weekend on a spanking holiday during the trip.

Much to carry!

On Sunday night Malignus and I stayed up late to make the most of the time we had before I needed to leave. When we finally decided that we were tired, he sat down on the edge of the bed and called me over. "I'm going to give you a quick spanking because I love you, and because you belong here," he told me. I melted a little at this, and crawled over his lap. He spanked me with his hand, as he'd been doing for the past few days. There was quite a bit of thigh spanking, but none of it was too hard. I just felt cozy and safe and very loved. After we finished, I snuggled against his chest and fell asleep.

All too soon, it was time to get up and go to the airport. When I got out of the car, it was -9 degrees out. In a few hours, I was in LA where the temperature was 61 degrees. When they announced that, I nearly cried. The winter had been taking a toll on me, and I was overwhelmed with happiness to be outside without a jacket and to not feel cold. Rafa picked me up and we went to get lunch together, where we ate outdoors. The idea of eating outside in February was almost absurd. I was so pleased.

BEST FEBRUARY WEATHER EVER!

My first day in LA was pretty luxurious, but from there, it just got more and more hectic. I was working on a custom project that took a lot of time and dedication, plus I was shooting pretty constantly. I shot every single day, and some days did more than one shoot, even getting three in one day sometimes. That didn't prevent me from getting in my requisite adventures. I spent a lot of time in Little Tokyo when I was free, ate Indian Food with Epipelagic and headed to Knott's Berry Farm with Zekyt (another of Rafa's girlfriends who I love very much!). At the end of each day, I basically felt like I hadn't wasted a minute of it. It's a satisfying feeling, although not a relaxing one. I'd fallen into a kind of overdrive where I did very little sleeping and lots of running around, hopping from place to place.

I did some pretty awesome shoots, including shooting with lots of art photographers, doing several bondage shoots and my first suspension (more on that later) and shooting with Ken Marcus. Lots of these were really excellent experiences.
I realize that this post is shorter than usual, but it was written while I was still in that overdrive kind of state. You can expect a series of shorter but (hopefully) more frequent posts for a bit.
:D
Alex

Shadowlane Highlights

I was going to somehow try to skip writing about Shadowlane, because I don't really like writing posts which are just "this happened. Then this happened. Then this happened!" and because so many other people (especially Erica Scott and Beth Eisley) have written great posts describing the party. That said, I do have good stories, and stories are part of what my blog is all about. Also, I'm going to feel a bit more "free" once I'm entirely caught up on what I'm "supposed" to post about.

Heather and I arrived in Vegas on Wednesday afternoon, and we got dressed in better clothes and did our makeup in the parking lot.

Much more presentable than I was before we Vegased ourselves up

We then went to Holstein's in the Cosmopolitan: a place where we had eaten during our first trip to Vegas.  I ordered something which was called the "Nom Nom Burger" pretty much entirely because of the name. It had potato chips on it. I nommed. Heather and I got an alcoholic coke float which also included poprocks. It was amazing.

OM NOM NOM

We went into a couple of stores, but then Heather had a session to go to, so she dropped me off with Ten and Drlectr at the Suncoast, the hotel where the party was held. I have infinite love for those two. We hung out a little bit, then we went to go get all you can eat enchiladas and margaritas. I had JUST finished eating my Nom Nom Burger, so I just got a margarita. It was massive and delicious. I didn't even finish it in the time that it took my friends to each eat two plates of enchiladas.

Ten and Drlectr were going to a show that night, and I was feeling tired and wanted to get to Dana Kane's house, where we were staying over, so I decided to stay and hang out in the hotel. Fortunately, I met up with Richard Windsor and Tomdiscp at the bar, and they proceeded to buy me drinks and chat me up. Richard is at the top of the list of people I wish I had been able to spend more time with: he's funny, clever, caring, respectful and nice to be around. Also, he let me wear his hat:

I hope that some Richard Windsor/Alex Reynolds collaborations are coming in the future!

While hanging out at the bar, I also got to meet Caroline Grey, the Canadian spanking model living Ireland. She was all jet lagged but still all awesome. I kept drinking (which, in case you've noticed a lack of posts about me drinking, I really don't do very much of that anymore) and by the time Heather picked me up, I was texting Heather Wayland (The Boss of Me) and telling her that I was "too drink" to come visit her that night. Sounds about right. I sobered up while Heather drove me over to Dana's.

It was awesome to see Dana and her husband! I first met them nearly a year ago when I did my first Spanking Court shoot, and I really got to know them when Heather and I stayed in an apartment with them during the production of Sternwood Academy. We got there close to the time at which they were preparing for bed, and we were tired, so we spent a little bit of time hanging out and then got ready to sleep. I did sneak a peek at Dana's closet full of implements, though. My god, that thing is FULL OF IMPLEMENTS. It puts my collection to shame. Just the sheer amount of canes that she has startled me. She saw me eying them and told me: "I break a lot of canes." I suppose that's probably accurate. Ouch!

Dana has a cat named Noodle that I'm kind of in love with. He doesn't seem to understand that he's a cat and therefore is supposed to be aloof. He's so dog like, in fact, that he plays fetch and actively tries to get pets and cuddles. He also tries to eat human food and go places he shouldn't, but all in all, he's a very lovable scamp. I added this to my collection of photos of me with famous spankos cats:

I think that collection was previously full of just Clare Fonda's cats. 

The next morning we had some breakfast and then hung out a bit. Dana gave us some good advice, and we enjoyed both of our friends' company a little bit more before we had to go. They were not able to attend the party, which was sad for everyone, but I'm glad that we got to visit them before it got into full swing.

We packed up our stuff and drove back to the hotel, where we got ready to do a shoot for the Clare Fonda sites. I really love working with The Camera Man, and this time, I got to meet and shoot with Veronica Ricci. She's A LOT OF fun to work with, and incredibly hot.

Later, I met up with and hung out with my friend, Whooperine. We've been at every party together, and we had the same first party, so that's kind of a neat thing we've got going on. He had a pretty awesome suite, and I had fun taking a tour of it with him. I discovered that his bathroom included THE SUPER CORNER:

It's probably not good for claustrophobic spankos, but I found it very comforting. Extra wall-hug!

His bed also had about 80 pillows on it, so I made a giant, plus mountain to lay over:

Most. Comfortable. Spanking position. Ever. :D

Later still, I finally met up with Heather W. We've known each other online for ages, but had never had a chance to be in the same place at the same time. There was hugging and photo taking and rejoicing. I also met Beth Eisley for the first time and fell instantly in love. Ugh. She's the best. She's perfectly cute, super sweet, and incredibly smart. I'm smitten.

That evening, we went to a bunch of suite parties and drlectr gave me my first night, midnight paddling during a mass group effort. This is the part of the story where the details kind of break down. I did a lot of hanging out with awesome people, and I had a lot of fun, but I didn't stay up too late because the next morning was my shoot for Shadowlane itself!

Unfortunately, the Shadowlane shoot didn't go perfectly smoothly. There were mixups about time schedules, so the scene which had originally been planned for me and Mila Kohl never got shot. We did get to do a scene with Amy Hunter, though, which was most excellent, and I think turned out very well. I'm just disappointed that we didn't get to do anything full length. Eve did say that she would have me back to work again when it wasn't so hectic. I don't have any pictures from the shoot yet, but I'll show you when I do.

After I finished with Shadowlane, it was time for me to shoot with Northern Spanking. This was very exciting to me, because there's something very thrilling about being on sites overseas. The Top for the scene that I shot was Stephen Lewis, who I'd seen in many videos but never had a chance to meet before, and I was very excited about that. I don't give away the storylines for shoots before the content goes up, but I will say that the scene which we shot (which also included Heather Green) was very formal. It was, in fact, the most formal scene I've ever participated in. It totally pushed my buttons in all the right ways. I feel like it is almost inappropriate that I like being spanked by English people so much, like it is some how linked to hegemony or fetishizing the other or whatnot. But the truth is, the stories that I first encountered when I discovered that there were stories involving spanking where all stories written in England and they were all overflowing with formality. When I got into my first spanking relationship, it was with SF, who is both English and ridiculously formal. Stephen had the same sort of thing going on in this scene: he was formal and rigid without seeming cruel or even cold. I just ate it up. It was one of the best scenes I've ever done for a video. Everyone from Northern Spanking was incredibly nice, friendly and accommodating. I'm planning to get over to the UK sooner rather than later, and I look forward to working with them again when I do!

That evening was the Vendor Fair, I think. I'm having trouble with the timeline of things, again. I got to see Erica again, which was wonderful, and to meet her boyfriend, John. He's a really great guy, and I was very impressed with him. I wasn't vending, so I wandered from booth to booth and said hi to lots of people. I noticed at Ten's booth that I was on the cover of one of her DVDs. Sweet!

I'm on the bottom right. :)

Heather and I also hung out with Veronica a little more, and we ended up talking Pokemon. Uh, can you say BFFs?

Later that night, Heather and I participated in the Spankolympics, as hosted by Northern Spanking. We only did the first event before the room got too hot and noisy for us, but we owned it: we took the gold medal in "sprinting," which meant that Heather had to spank me 100 times as quickly as possible. Due to her extreme physical fitness, we did better than a bunch of "real" tops (Heather is pretty much just a bottom) and finished in 15 seconds. WINNERS.

We spent the rest of the evening hanging out at suite parties and having fun. I also changed my clothes six or seven times.

This is me as a contrite school girl.

I don't remember too much of what happened during the day on Saturday-- I think I was mostly working, in either shoots or sessions. I know that when I saw Erica at dinner she told me that she didn't see me at all that day, so that's probably the most accurate description. Eventually, though, I did start getting ready for the banquet.

Now, let me start off by saying that I've never been much of a girly-girl, in case you haven't noticed. I'm in my element in clothes that I got six or seven years ago and don't quite match each other, a kind of fluffy skirt, a panda t-shirt, maybe a pair of knee socks and my now overly worn saddle shoes which were once upon a time, kind of fancy. I get girlied up for shoots, but I've never been super at it. Recently, though, I've wanted to embrace that side of things more. The Heathers helped me with this: they helped me pick out my outfit, Heather W picked out my bling and did my makeup and Heather G straightened my hair for me. Heather W suggested that I should wear a pair of her heels. I did it. I was about six feet tall with them on, but instead of feeling HUGE I felt beautiful. It helped that everyone kept fawning over how good I looked all dressed up. It also helped when Beth showed up at the door in her underwear and just said "HAIRSPRAY?!"

There's a sexier photo of me somewhere. I will obtain it and post it later.

The banquet itself was a lot of fun. There was pretty good food and I got three pieces of cake, so that I could sample them and decide which one was the best.

The best part was after we finished eating, though, and they played some slow dancing music. I never really had a traditional "prom" experience. I went to two, but one was with The Worst Boyfriend Ever and the other I got basically thrown out of for being there with a girl. I've always wanted to slow dance, but neither of my boyfriends are really the type for it (I don't THINK Rafa and I ever slow danced together. Maybe we did at graduation or something. Unclear). Anyway, Whooperine and I danced together and he didn't even tell me to take my shoes off. It was kind of magical-- everyone kept telling me I was pretty and that I looked great and none of it was backhanded. Everyone I ran into was smiling at me because they actually liked me. I was slow dancing with a boy, not sitting at some back table being an outcast. I try not to be mushy, but the experience was all kind of a dream come true. I might have teared up from happiness at one point.

Later, the music picked up and we all danced to fast songs, which I am horrible at, but was not ashamed about. At one point, our dance circle included me, Heather G, Erica, Sarah Gregory, Princess Kelley and Mila Kohl. It was probably pretty hot. I was constantly surprised at how all the girls in my age group knew every song they played. "These songs were my college years!" Kelley explained. Ah. Right. I never heard any songs during my college years, because you are not allowed to play the radio in the library. :P

Again, the evening was spent bouncing around from suite party to suite party, catching up with people and having a blast. Sunday morning was the Corporal Punishment Court (I think) and I came dressed like this:

Court was ridiculously fun. Almost all the cases were really funny, and they left me rolling around with laughter. Beth brought a case against someone which was really adorable, and there was a Heather vs. Heather case, because "regular Heather" (Heather Green) kept losing her key to the room and asking Heather W for it. Anyone who knows Heather G would not be surprised by this at all: when we lived together, the two of us were frequently in trouble over lost keys. This is a habit which enough being in trouble got rid of for me, but apparently not for Heather. Anyway, having fun at the expense of your friends is what friendship is all about, right? This time, it was at the expense of six strokes with a leather implement, delivered by StrictDave. As a side note, Dave was very impressive to watch as a Top. We didn't scene together (he's on the list of people I would have liked to spend more time with) but I was blown away by his technical proficiency when delivering a spanking. The man clearly knows what he's doing, and he turns a spanking into some kind of crazy dance.

The rest of the party was much more relaxed for me. I hung out with people and chatted, had some fun scenes, got to know knew people and catch up with those I've known a long time and just have fun.
I could go into the play by play of the last day, but really, I don't have the energy to do things justice, so I'll say this: the people at Shadowlane made the party amazing for me. I love so many of them, and I felt wonderfully at home and accepted.

It was the best party ever. The only thing that would have made it better would have been in Malignus could have been there with me. And ellee. And Naomi. So, more people. But especially Malignus. Being away from him for six weeks was a long time.

After Shadowlane was officially over, Whooperine and I spent an extra night in Vegas at The Mirage. This involved lots of fanciness: we had a big, beautiful room with a wonderful view of the Strip, he had rented a Porsche which we tooled around in, we watched La Reve, which was absolutely other worldly and we ate a really excellent meal beforehand. That evening, Ten, Drlectr, Jerry Diamond and his partner came to hang out in the hotel and we had lots of fun goofing around. Jerry consistantly referred to people as "Bob X" if X= the person's actual name and he had us all in hysterics. After they got tired and went back to where they were staying, I took a bath in the fancy tub and went to sleep. The next morning, after a bit of running around, Whooperine and I went to go see dolphins and tigers at the Mirage's Secret Garden before going to the airport. It was AWESOME.

I took this photo of two dolphins making out.

It was the perfect end to the perfect party. That afternoon, I went to the airport and got my flight home. I was delayed, of course, because this is me we're talking about, but by a bit after midnight, I was home again.

And home is wonderful place to be.