Hibernation.

It has been over a year since my last post here.

In some ways, not much has happened.  In other ways, too much has happened.

I don't wish to go into details.

I will say that I am tired, and I no longer find joy in the BDSM, Kink or Leather scene.

I still find much joy in my D/s relationship with my boy, and in play with him and others.  But the community... does not bring me joy at this point in my life.

So I am hibernating.

It doesn't appear to be uncommon to drop out of the scene for a few years.  Most kinky/Leather folks I know have had a period of their lives where they've dropped out and gone to live quietly in the suburbs for a while.  So I suppose this is just my moment to experience that.

I'll be back, of course I will.  This is a part of me.

But for now, I need some space.

Long Time No Blog

Hello blog, sorry for the long time spent away.

Honestly, there's been a couple of reasons for the lack of blogging.

The first is that I've simply not had the time to focus on kink.  My health has been dreadful, and we've been through a lot of stress - we've moved house back into the city, one of our cats got extremely ill, and generic life stress abounded.  So kink has been on the backburner.

The other reason is that, honestly, I'm still a little heartbroken over serina.  It's been well over a year now since we parted ways, but I'm a very ... I'm not sure what the word is, exactly.  Intense maybe?  Attached?  Person.  I am slow to fall in love, however once I am there I'm pretty sure there's no way out for me - I'm still in love with everyone I've loved, regardless of how our relationships went or ended.

And it is hard, as I said - losing not just a relationship, but a relationship that you had a future planned for... it's very hard to lose that future as well.

And so I've been heartbroken and not in the right emotional space to consider new relationships, and barely having enough drive in me to maintain the one I have with my boy.

We are fine, boy and I - we are going through a bit of a normal slowing down that we're working through.  We've been together eight years now, so we've become incredibly familiar, and the relationship does take extra work this far in to make sure no one is getting bored or resentful.

I am, however, finally starting to perk up in terms of my health and my situation.  Hopefully I will be able to get back involved with the community again in the coming weeks - I've missed it a lot, but I did need my time away I think.  Although I've never really felt "away" from the community really, I feel like I keep it in my  heart even if I'm not out going to things.

Still a long way off new D/s relationships I think, but that's comforting in a way, because there's no reason to add seeking stress to my rejoining of the local community.  It will be nice to try and slide back into things, it's been far too long.

Reflection on Responsibility towards Community

So, this girl who has approached me (I should give her a nickname for this blog, but I'm too tired of think one right now - next post maybe) has been back reading this blog, which I think is a great idea. It's also inspired me to do my own back reading of my blog.

It's been... illuminating.

What's interesting to me isn't so much anything about myself that's changed, but rather the things that haven't changed at all. That I am still, essentially, the same person I was when I started this blog. That's interesting to me.

When I came to this entry on responsibility, I had a lot of feelings come up.

I wrote that almost exactly two years ago.

In the last two years I have become more well known in my local scene and on the internet, I've gained more respect. More and more people ask for my thoughts, my opinions, my advice, my time, my effort.

I am still always, always cautious of the responsibility that comes with that. Reading that entry was a lovely reminder of - as I said above - something about me that hasn't changed.

But the more I grow and the more faith people put in me, the more responsibility I gain. It becomes more and more important that I carefully consider my words and my actions. It becomes more and more important that I do my damn best to be kind and compassionate and helpful. It becomes more and more important that I make sure I am worthy of their trust.

I do my best. I always will.

2011 Coming to a Close

Apologies for the absence over the last few months - but life has just been... interesting, hectic, difficult. Aside from my family troubles I've had health troubles galore, and it just hasn't been a very productive time for me.

So the new year is coming up, and I must say it can't come too soon. This year has been a stressful one, to say the least.

This month marks two years since I officially collared my boy, and we are as happy as ever. Our fifth anniversary as a couple is coming up in February and I must say that my gratitude for my boy, our relationship, and the stability and love of it all knows no bounds. I am so happy to have him in my life.

So here's to the new year, and all the adventures, love, and shenanigans it may hold!

And hopefully I will be writing here more frequently again, as things are finally starting to settle for me. :)

Family matters

I just got back from an interstate trip to my mother and sister's place to help sort through my father's things since he moved into a nursing home last month.

My father's currently in the ICU in Canberra. There's only a 50/50 chance he's coming back out again.

So I'm a little preoccupied right now. Sorry folks.

Life

Sorry for the neglect, blog. I've been really sick this last month, and there's been other stressors like moving my father into a nursing home (which seems to have gone smoothly, which is good). BDSM and Leather haven't been forefront in my mind recently - not that I haven't been thinking about them, because goodness knows I always do, but I've just had other things that require more focus, and Leather has been something in the back of my mind rather than the front.

I do have some things to blog about, which hopefully I'll get to soon. But mostly I just wanted to say hi, and life is mad right now, and we'll return you to your regularly scheduled program as soon as possible.

Busy busy busy

Oh boy blog, where to even start.

There's a lot going on with me. Stuff is very complex and I'm very busy at the moment, and unfortunately my disability has decided to be a pain in the ass at the same time.

I'm behind in emails something shocking, I'm stressed and busy and blaahhh.

I want to update you on something but I'm honestly not sure what to write about. At the moment a lot of my mental energy is dealing with my vanilla family (specifically my father and his dementia) and when I do have moments to spare to think about kink and sex I just find myself a little overwhelmed with desire but completely lacking energy. It's a rough place to be in.

The rehearsal for the high protocol dinner is this sunday, so that will be interesting to go along to. And hopefully it will ease many of my nerves about the whole affair.

I've got pretty high expectations of my boy for this dinner. I don't normally have high expectations (in fact I'm often rather lenient) so it will be interesting to see how he responds to the added pressure.

100th Post!

So this is my 100th post to this blog!

I feel like I should do something important, like make a special post or run a contest or something, but honestly I can't think of anything. So I suppose I'll just talk about my life in Leather and where I'm at at the moment. That's still a pretty decent thing to do for my 100th post, I think.

So let's talk about the boy, first. Boy and I are doing very well. Our fifth anniversary is coming up in a bit over six months and I'm already freaking out about it a little - this is the longest and most successful relationship I've ever had (admittedly not that big of a deal at my young age of 25), and it shows no signs of cracking or going downhill any time soon. We suit each other very well and are very compatible both now and in the long term. Things are really good between us.

My own journey is plodding along very nicely. I am a slow sort of person by nature, I like to think about things a lot and move slowly, and I am moving perfectly well at my own pace. I am valuing the journey very much.

I am well connected in my community to many friends and acquaintances that enrich my life and make being a part of the community as important to my Leather life as my inclination to D/s. Even though I'm very shy and I'm still struggling with that (and probably will for some time yet), I have only ever been welcomed and treated with love and care.

I am passively in the market for a slave, but I am not looking very hard yet. I am still sorting out some details in my life before I worry about actively looking.

Despite recent challenges, my life is going extremely well and I feel that Leather enriches my life and fulfils me in a very important way.

So that's my 100th post. Life is good. I am happy.

A lot's been going on.

Life's been getting in the way of me posting here. Sadly not all of it is good either.

I don't particularly feel like sharing much, but suffice to say I haven't had a lot of spare time and I'm worn out. I will blog again soon, hopefully. I do have a lot to talk about. <3

Busy busy busy

It's been a busy week or so! I've barely had time to think let alone blog, and boy do I have a lot of thoughts that I'll slowly let trickle out of my brain in the coming weeks.

Stuff that's happened in the last week or so:

* Two play parties, Chains Feat. Newbie Night and Provocation.

* The 1st Melbourne Fetish Awards.

* Melbourne Leather Dinner.

* First meeting of a local alternative pornography production team.

* Big Talks with the boy.

and probably more.

So I have a lot going on, but I've been faaarrrrr too fucked to write about it. But I'll start doing that soon. :)

In the meantime, my 100th post is coming up soon and I feel like I should do something special, but I have no idea what. If you have a suggestion, I'd love to hear it.

Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2011! I have really good feelings about this year, I think it's going to be a good one.

My new years resolution is to stress less. The last - well, the last four or five years have been pretty stressful for me, so this year I'm focussing on caring for myself, having fun, and generally improving my health via stress relief (after all, stress is one of the big killers).

I used to be very against new years resolutions, saying that people shouldn't only want to change once a year, and blah blah, you've heard all those arguments before I'm sure. But then I came to realize that a) new years resolutions are a ritual, and rituals are important, b) resolving to change something at new years doesn't mean you won't also change things at other points in the year and c) why not resolve to change something you want to change at new years?

Anyway!

Boy completed his year of orgasm denial, and we slipped away a minute or two after midnight for his release. It was apparently worth the wait. :)

The adventure of orgasm denial and chastity was not one I expected. I had no interest in it at first, but it was a big kink of the boy's, so I indulged. Starting out slow, I soon came to learn that I'm actually quite into it. The year of orgasm denial showed me that this is now my kink, as well.

Last night I read through the entirety of my blog, and I realized that I wanted to update you all on the situation discussed in this entry.

The person we helped remove from a toxic situation? Is now not only in a happy, healthy position themselves, but is now set up to begin actively contributing to the community. Without going into detail, I can honestly say they're going to be tremendous help to the community and give a lot to us as a whole. I am so very, very pleased. About all of that.

And finally for this first entry of the new year, on January 1 I received a well written, polite, and charming message in my fetlife inbox from someone seeking to be the best slave they can be. What an amazing start to the new year.

Happy new years, everyone. I hope 2011 shapes up to be your best yet. :)

Chronic stuff

Sorry I've been kind of absent. Despite having a lot to talk about, I've been physically very worn down and in a lot of pain recently. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before that I am disabled with chronic illnesses, well, they've been getting the best of me these last couple of weeks. Hopefully I will pick up soon. :)

What This Blog Is For

So, a little about this blog.

I started this blog for two reasons.

The first was that I ask my boy to write a weekly blog so that I can know where he is with things, how he's feeling about our relationship, and get an insight into him and so on and so forth. It's a common thing for dominants to ask our submissives to do - to keep a journal.

I figured, if we ask for such transparency from our submissives, why shouldn't we also be transparent in our thoughts and feelings, in a similarly easy to digest and access sort of way? I have little desire to be the mysterious dom in a dark corner that just barks orders and never reveals anything about themselves. I like to think of myself more as a lover who can bring you to trust me by proving I am worthy of that trust; a rakishly handsome rogue who smiles a lot and still makes you melt; a hero who takes you on as his sidekick; a teacher and guide who can take you to the places you want to go (and others where you should go, even if you don't want to).

In short, communication and transparency is a valuable tool in all relationships. So I started this blog to be transparent to my partners, to let them see inside my brain on issues about BDSM, Leather, relationships, love, and all that other nonsense. :)

The other reason I started this blog is much more simple. There are very few BDSM/Leather lifestyle blogs written by dominant men.

I don't know why. I see lots of blogs by submissives, slaves, boys, girls, bottoms, femme dommes, Mistresses, female switches, etc. But for some reason we male dominants don't seem to want to write about ourselves.

So I started this blog also to add a dominant male voice to the internet. I don't claim to speak for all dominant men (far from it, actually, I think I'm quite different from a lot of them), but I'm not claiming to be the definitive anything. I'm just me, a young man making his way in Leather and alternative relationships, and writing about them.

I mention all this for two reasons. The first is that while I've mentioned this sort of thing before, never so blatantly. These are the reasons my blog exist, and remain the most important reasons to me.

The other reason is that I just found the 'stats' option on my blogger dashboard and have found out that aside from the 30+ subscribers I have, this blog tends to get around 100 hits a week. Which came as a bit of a shock. Adding this to the fact that the lovely Jey has nominated my post about community and caring for the Bloggers Who Make You Think List, and I'm starting to realize that I'm not just posting random nonsense from my brain just for the sake of my lovers and a couple of friends, but some of you actually read this thing. :P

So, while it won't be intentional, this knowledge will shape how I write in my blog a little bit over the coming months. Who knows, I might even plan something for my 100th post.

But I wanted to post about my reasons for this blog. They're the most important reasons and they're the reasons I continue to post. So if you ever wonder what this blog is all about... it's about that. It's being communicating with my partners, and showing that male doms are humans after all. :)

Happy Belated Birthday, Blog!

Apparently two days ago was this blog's 1st birthday!

The reason I didn't notice this was because I kept feeling like this blog was barely six months old. I still feel like *I'm* so new to Leather (and I am, having only identified as Leather for... well, if the blog is a year old, probably somewhere around two years? Honestly I can't even remember right now, I'm not very good with dates anyway).

I feel like I should do something to celebrate, but I can't think of anything, heh. This would be much easier if I were a monetized blog, then I could run a competition or give something away or something. I guess if you're in Melbourne and you'd like to get tied up or something, I can offer that.

This reminds me that in about a month and a half it will be the first anniversary of my officially collaring the boy. What a strange thought. It feels both much longer and much less time than that has passed, simultaneously.

Another milestone; on New Years the boy will have completed his full year of orgasm denial. How terribly proud of him I am! And how well he has learned the lesson that sometimes it can be dangeous to tell Daddy your fantasies... because he *will* make them happen.

Well, I must say that life is going splendidly, and I think the saying "the first year of many to come" applies as much as ever.

Bloggy Things

I've been thinking about this blog, and my approach to blogging.

I don't blog here as if I am writing articles. This is not meant to be some definitive example of behind-the-scenes of Leather or kink, nor is it particularly meant to make people think, or have any influence whatsoever.

I blog here as a diary. Because that is also the name of the blog - Diary of a Leatherman. Because that is what it is.

This is just a chronicle of one soul's journey. This is just me plonking my thoughts and experiences into the internet. I'm not trying to prove anything or show anything in particular. This blog is really more for me than it is for any audience.

The reason I initially made this blog is still relevant: there are a lot of blogs out there by submissives of all genders, about their journey, and there are a good number of blogs by Mistresses and femme dommes as well. But there is a very, very small number of blogs by dominant men, about our lives.

Very few of us write about how we feel, what we think, what goes on within us. Those that do tend to blog tend to be very external bloggers, who write more about things that happen rather than what's bubbling beneath their skin. I want to write about all of it, the good the bad and the ugly, and what goes on inside my head.

So I'm not blogging this as if it were a zine or something. I'm blogging this as a record of this part of my life. It may bring some interest or light to those seeking answers, or it may not, I am fine with both of those things. Either way, I will have something to look back on in some years to see where I was and how I was feeling about this step of my journey.