me vs orlandoe + phoenix travel

I have another busy week ahead of me here -- this is what's going to be happening in the very near future.

First up, I'm very pleased that Orlandoe is back from her travels down south.  This means that our ever-smoldering rivalry can again blaze bright.  We have two separate custom video challenges scheduled this week.

On Wednesday, we're going to be filming Wrestling vs. Striking II.  This will be similar to the match I did with Shauna in May but more personal and I'm sure more ruthless!  Again I'm going to be the wrestler not the striker -- I don't expect to get out of this one unbruised, but I think my chances are excellent for pulling off the win.  Orlandoe disagrees...  Then on Friday, after we've both recuperated a bit, we're going to have an All-Abs Contest -- most reps in 2.5 minutes for crunches, sit-ups, and leg raises wins!

After that, bright and extremely early on Saturday morning, I leave for a trip to Phoenix.  This is going to be an all-too-short trip, Saturday and Sunday only, but I've never been to Phoenix before, and it was time I made it out there.  Since it will be a weekend-only stop, anyone in the area who'd like a session and hasn't contacted me yet should do so right away -- time is very limited!  And anyone who knows Phoenix should send me a recommendation for the ONE best fun thing I should see or do while I'm there.

Also a bit more general information -- I'm pretty sure I'm going to be able to go back to Muay Thai class this week.  My annoying broken toe is sooooo close to healed, and while it's been great for my grappling to have time off from stand-up training, I'd rather be doing both.  It's silly, but to keep myself from trying to go back too soon, I ordered a nice speed rope by slow post and told myself I had to wait until it comes to return to class.  This does have a purpose -- all my academy's warm-up jump ropes are mis-fit sizes for me and catch my toes when I jump!  And my new rope should be coming by the end of the week...

Finally, this is also the week that I'm determined to set my itinerary for the sessions road trip I'm planning in August.  Today, I started playing with Google maps and got a little distracted pinpointing everywhere I've already visited for sessions.  Very fun to see how many places I've gone -- more than I realized! -- as well as how many I still need to visit and where I need to return.  This got me planning all kinds of things way out of proportion to reality (for now).  But reining it back in, this August, I'm PROBABLY going to be swinging through Philly, D.C., Charleston, and one or two stops in Florida.  Anyone who wants to cast votes for these cities or others along the same route, please do speak up, and speak up quickly!

More news after some of these adventures happen!

great parties, great matches

I am so frikkin' tired today and just getting tireder. This is all because I ended up with no break between my Montreal trip and the party last night. Too much fun lately; recovery needed! But about the fun stuff...

Montreal was beautiful as always -- gorgeous weather, gorgeous city, new favorite patisserie - yum! I definitely need to make a longer visit next time. I enjoyed some shopping in the Latin Quarter and the Village -- found what I thought might be some good new wrestling video thongs, but upon further consideration, they may be TOO tiny. We shall see.

My match with Pamela proved to be an unexpected adventure. I had assumed we were doing competitive grappling, since that's what I usually do and no one told me otherwise beforehand. But I showed up at Gladiateur Gym and discovered we were doing a pro-style match.

Now I've done choreographed pro matches before, and back in my wild young wrestling days, I used to do pro-style jello wrestling on top of nice soft matresses in a pool of squishy jello. But never before had I done an unscripted match in a hard-surfaced ring with a drop through the ropes to a cement floor below. Ane especially not with an opponent like Pamela who was versed in all sorts of ways to lift, bend, and toss me.

But what the hell? I'm game and a pretty quick study too, so pretty soon we were yelling and kicking and Boston crabbing all over the ring, and I was getting lofted and hurled around (nearly straight through the ropes a couple times, which would really have been the end of things!) So that was a lot of fun and a little bit terrifying, and Pamela deserves super props for being great to work with and great at what she does.

After that shoot we got some good footage of me kicking judoboy's ass six ways to Sunday, and also some photos, particularly a little set of lift and carry photos. There hasn't been a second to work on any of this stuff since shooting it, but hopefully it will be up on Doom Maidens and my site soon. All around a good collaboration with the Fightingirls crew.

By this time I'd done a lot of fighting, and it was getting late, but I rallied and made it out to the Montreal Fetish Weekend Rococo Ball. Very high fashion event with not a trace of wrestling. I was an idiot not to take a picture, but my corset and sparkly, feathery masquerade mask definitely deserved one. I did cheat on the formality to wear my comfy dancing shoes though. There were good drinks, great perfomances (fetish fashion exhibits, of course, and also an excellent strip + trapeze dance number), and a wonderful spectacle made by the audience. And dancing!!!

And afterwards I was very tired. Got back to New York late on Monday (scenic route = beautiful but loooong), stayed up late on Tuesday tweaking the Party playlist, and stayed out late at the party yesterday.

And the party was great. I invented a Solar Sorceress costume for the superhero theme (complete with solar sceptre and solar sandals). This was all an excuse to wear my cool new shiny gold leotard -- worked out well. I got to see, fight, and chat with a lot of good friends. But I did have two fierce and very large men gunning for me all night -- after having The Bulk (280 lbs.) and Mike (220 lbs.) going after me as hard as they could, I was yet more exhausted. But still victorious in both cases!

Aaaand today I was very good and responsible and made it into work by 9 a.m. Thank god that's done now. Now I will go home and RELAX!

true blog revival!

OK, so it's the end of August, and most days it's horrid and sweltering out. Actually, I think that's great. I love hot weather, but it is very lazy weather and makes it hard to actually do anything. I'm distressed that I've been trying for a week to make it to any Fringe Festival show at all and have been prevented by subway malfunctions, over-scheduling, or heat-induced fatigue. (I WILL succeed tomorrow night; there is no other option!) I STILL have to make it to the beach this summer. My academy has added several new class options in the morning, which is ideal for me, but I haven't managed to increase my training frequency yet despite a couple weeks of good intentions. (Again, this WILL happen this week; I'm determined.)

However, some very good things HAVE happened lately. Somewhat in order they are:

My vacation at the beginning of August. I swung south to Wildwood on the Jersey shore for a couple of days, where I had fun strolling the boardwalk, witnessed a fantastically impressive storm sweep in off the ocean, and was able to watch some live MMA at a Reality Fighting event there. Then I proceeded out to western PA for my yearly trip to Pennsic, a giant medieval festival. I spent a week camping and sword fighting (well, I personally use a polearm rather than a sword) in huge armored battles with a 1,000 people per side. I got a bit carried away buying belly dancing costumes even though I can't belly dance – although I did take a class while I was there. Unfortunately, it was a fairly advanced class focusing on the particular art of balancing things on your head while belly dancing. So now I know more about balancing than the basic dancing. Oh, well. Also went out to a few excellent parties around campfires. The best one was the Ladies’ Night Party, which featured ungodly amounts of wonderful food and drink and (mostly) attractive shirtless male servers being indecently harassed by the feasting ladies. And, yes, this too was done around a campfire. Great night ;) And great trip.

Next, I confirmed that I’ll be travelling up to Montreal again this year for the Fetish Weekend there. I’ll be doing sessions and shooting wrestling videos with Pamela and judoboy while I’m there, but enjoying the city and the fetish galas will be a big part of the trip. I’m having fun planning for the high fashion scene at MFW (designing Rococo Masquerade Domina wear!), and in anticipation (and as a result of actually not having the past few weekends at home) I’ve been getting out to New York parties again. Dropped in at Suite Abyss the other weekend, and I must say that club dancing is a good time. Planning on much more soon!

(Other upcoming travel notes – I won’t be going back to Atlanta in September after all, sadly. But I will be going to Indianapolis later that same month. Should be an interesting trip – I’ve got family out that way, and they’ll get to meet some of my wrestling colleagues. Worlds will collide.)

Also, there was lately the Grapple Den Two-Year Anniversary Party. We had a summer beach theme and an arena rock soundtrack. A lot of good matches – we’ve had great talent over the past few months. I continue to believe, though, that more people need to be brave and try oil wrestling at the beach theme parties. Sure it’s a little disgusting, but it’s great fun. Cloberella was game for it and, of course, Tony, who’s always game. Props to them.

Also a good news/bad news note – I had such an utter hell of a time putting together the party music on my dying laptop that it finally convinced me to get a new laptop. Alas for hellacious difficulties. Yay for the new laptop! I’m composing on it now.

Finally, there was the afore-mentioned video rematch with Kim on Sunday. That girl is so much fun to fight and really frikkin’ good. I’m thrilled with my takedown performance this time around, but I also nearly died in one choke… It was an even closer fight than our last December battle, and our highly critical video editor has been raving to me about it. A good sign! And best of all, it will be available very, very soon. [ETA: It is available NOW: VeVe vs. Kim REMATCH Video] This should be the start of a good run of video production – besides the Montreal matches, I’ve got a mixed competitive video and a second (and maybe third?) spandex match lined up. Good stuff heading into September; stay tuned!

photo shoot plus odds and ends

I was extremely pleased with the photo shoot I had last night. I was working with photographer Lou Benjamin, and I put together two excellent variations on a punk Apocalypse outfit. One involved an ironically contrasting dainty white blouse, and the other made use of my giant black buckled and bespiked "stompy" boots. Both used stockings, garter belt, G-string, and my ridiculously badass posture collar made of bullets.

A third and final costume had something of a showgirl look -- turquoise vinyl top, mesh panties, and rhinestones.

I've gotten to see the raw images at this point, and my favorites are definitely the stompy boot shots, though there are some winners throughout. Lou did very nice work with the lighting, so the two blouse-less series turned out as beautiful muscle shoots. Lovely shadow and accentuation. I can't wait to get images up in my photo gallery.

I do begin to wonder, though, if it's somehow mandatory for photographers to own cats they forget to mention to the models in advance. Resulting in a practically ritual exchange before shoots --

"Oh, I'm sorry, you're not allergic to cats, are you?"
"No, no, that's fine."
"Oh good. Well, this is [cat's name], and sometimes she likes to get into the shots."
"Of course, she's the star after all."

And only after this formality is complete can we proceed further.

A few other things I've been meaning to mention, i.e. stories from my return trip to Atlanta over the past weekend.

Had a great time Friday night despite horrible weather related mishaps. My traveling companions and I were supposed to meet up with some local wrestling friends of ours at 1763, a BDSM club that was large enough and kind enough to give us permission to lay down mats during one of their parties. We fought our way out there through torrential rain to discover that not many other people had gone to the same trouble. And that the lady bringing the mats was feeling ill and didn't want to take herself out into the weather.

We ended up rerouting to a nice publ with the couple of other brave souls who showed up. We planned more grappling on future trips (and also potential white water rafting -- ???) Lovely low-key night.

I then spent the rest of the weekend WATCHING a lot of grappling. Saturday night I enjoyed the UFC at a splurge-worthy, posh sports bar. I wasn't pleased with the outcomes of the fights necessarily (I was definitely rooting for Marcus Davis over Dan Hardy, and Cheick Kongo is one of my favorite fighters, and he made a complete ass of himself against Cain Velasquez), but I fully approved of my crab cake burger.

On Sunday I saw the kids' division at the NAGA tournament. This was well worth watching. Some of the kids are amazingly impressive, and some are just freakin' adorable. I don't like kids normally, but fighting children are able to (temporarily) change my mind. I saw a 3-year-old girl, who actually trains in judo, hip throw a 5-year-old boy. And then go around for the rest of the day with her medal hanging down to her knees, grinning beatifically. I wish I'd started training so young -- I like to think I'd have conquered the world single-handedly by now.

excited for travel...

So things are a little quiet at the moment, but they're about to get exciting. Right now I'm hanging in, keeping up with my training and lifting, making a concious effort to get up-to-date everywhere and with everything online (getting my MySpace out of the Stone Age...), and looking forward to getting my poor old clunking laptop fixed up at the Apple store tomorrow.

But I'm very excited my upcoming session tour at the end of the month! I got the whole thing confirmed after a good bit of uncertainty, and I'll be making stops to offer wrestling sessions in Pittsburgh on May 26-27, in Chicago on the 27th-29th, in Milwaukee on the 29th-31st, and in Cleveland on the 31st-1st. It will be a lot of driving, but fortunately I love that. It's high time to get out of New York for a little while and take the fighting on the road!

Also on this trip I'll be competing in a grappling tournament on the 30th (I can't get enough, clearly). AND I'll finally get to meet some online grappling friends from the Madison area -- they'll be coming to my tournment and hosting a fight club afterparty at their hotel that night. Cheering squad + party = tons of awesome. Can't wait to meet these folks. And to top it all off, I have a few video prospects along the route as well.

So this trip probably doesn't count as a vacation. It will be great, but madly busy. That said, anybody out there in Pittsburgh, Chicago, Milwaukee, or Cleveland who'd like to get together for a session while I'm visiting should get in touch and schedule! Time will be precious!

And as a final note, things are getting ready to pick up back home in New York as well. I have a few video and photo prosepects brewing here as well; more soon when I see what materializes from them. Grapple Den is increasing its training workshops from once to twice this coming week, and since the weather is FINALLY getting nice, the Wednesday session will be moving outside to Washington Square Park. And of course the Grapple Den Nerds vs. Jocks Party will be May 20. Should be a good kick-off to the travels!