At that instant he saw, in one blaze of light, an image of unutterable conviction, the reason why the artist works and lives and has his being — the reward he seeks — the only reward he really cares about, without which there is nothing. It is to snare the spirits of mankind in nets of magic, to make his life prevail through his creation, to wreak the vision of his life, the rude and painful substance of his own experience, into the congruence of blazing and enchanted images that are themselves the core of life, the essential pattern where all other things proceed, the kernel of eternity.
-Thomas Wolfe, Of Time and the River

Semper ubi sub ubi.

Tonight’s performances (133 & 134) are dedicated to Stephanie, who’s worn the blacks, watched the cue lights, struck the props, and gets that the details are the show. Back in September she sent me one of the most wonderful and perfect things I have yet received, her handmade sampler that, when translated from the Latin, reads, “Always where under where.” If you’re not sure what that means say it out loud. Those who have read about my occasional problems with my show panties will get it. Unfortunately I am still enduring panty-trials, in fact it’s taken on new heights where I sometimes try to wear both pairs of show panties at once, or try to wear my show panties home after the show, or put my normal panties on under my costume by accident which is especially tragic on days when my normal panties were a thong.

The sampler hangs in the dressing room in what I think my dresser, Olga, will demand be a permanent place of honor. She points to it sometimes, absently, while holding my slave girl costume ready for me to wear. And then she points to it again, a little more emphatically, because my brain works in a way where I feel like I’m wearing panties just because I thought about wearing panties. But as Olga says, you have to actually be wearing panties to be wearing panties, and you have to actually be wearing panties to do the show. Olga thanks you, Stephanie, for this invaluable service. I may be incurable but eternal are the springs of hope.