Journal Update
Not that you asked-
My heart is heavy today. Our sump pump at the studio couldn’t keep up with big storms in the area this morning. We are directly across from the Detroit River on top of it. It was completed flooded (not wet, but flooded) the bar, the jail cell, the unfinished side, where the green sofas are, where the blond dinette set is, the laundry room where I dye girdles for my lingerie site….etc, etc at least 3000 sq ft of space. Tony and I and other friends slaved over the finished space since the last use was for an iron works shop and then it sat empty for 3 years when like many Detroit companies they were bankrupt. I also put on a mask and scraped up asbestos tile in 1500 sq ft of the basement myself.
I like girlie things but they are a far cry from the reality of my childhood and young adult life. From 11 years old on I worked 40 hrs a week in a sweaty machine shop running cnc running lathes and mills, doing grunt work and getting filthy pounding graphite bits into wear plates for the stamping industry. I was 8 when I started working there cleaning machines, sweeping, putting barcodes on plastic bags of parts. My steel toed boots hurt my feet something terrible and I wore sneakers one day. My dad came out and saw me and said I needed to be a better role model to the people in the shop. He took away my pay for the week. I was 12 years old.
At one time we had a large lot in the suburbs, over an acre with mature trees. My younger brother sat on a riding mower and it was my responsibility to use a push mower around all of the trees and bushes. I had a terrible grass allergy (which I later outgrew). My face was swollen and red and my eyes watered. My dad didn’t think I had done good enough with the push mower. He made me get the kitchen sheers and get down on my hands in knees and trim around all of the trees. It took 3 hours as he watched on yelling at me saying I wasn’t doing it good enough. My mom and brother tried to calm him, but it just angered him.
Shortly thereafter I was sent to boarding school in Connecticut, which seemed like the biggest punishment on the planet, but it wound up being the absolute best thing that ever happened to me….I still came home and worked in the shop summers but experienced a different way of life during the academic year where we wore dresses and heels and had formal dinners and I met different types of people from all over the world. I was happy there, teachers pet, got straight As.
My father may have done some damage and even at 36 years old I have clear daddy issues, but he wanted me to understand the value of hard work and a dollar…We are on OK terms now after we almost lost my mom to a heart attack and were forced to spend time together in the hospital in 2011. I have no tolerance for self entitled lazy people but it is upsetting when the pay off from the hard work is ripped right out from under me. Selfishly the beauty of hard work for me has always been the pay off in the end- whether that meant praise or financially. At 22 I took over one of the family businesses. I ran it entirely. I was no longer doing the grunt work buy calling the shots and wining and dining and use my knowledge from my childhood there and now my sexuality- satin blouses and heels to get what I wanted. It was great for 5 years. I was walking on a cloud and then things went wrong and it wasn’t fixable. I grew a lot of balls in 2008 and left my life as president of one of those companies. I was disowned by my father, who didn’t even know what I had chosen for a new career choice- I just wasn’t doing what he wanted me to do. I lost a good portion of the people that had been a part of my life since elementary school once they found out what I was doing. You know those good old midwestern values they possessed meant I couldn’t be a part of their lives. I had nothing. I lost a ton of weight from anxiety and depression, lol. I rebuilt for myself a little bondage empire that many said would never be possible because of my unconventional body type and demeanor…
Something about this storm and our destroyed basement roused up so many memories, sorry for that. Tony ( my significant other since mid 2011 and webmaster) also just finished the drywall for his NEW police department and jail cell on the unfinished side of the basement two weeks ago since he lost his shoot space upstairs to my lingerie website. We are proud and resourceful do it your selfers in regards to our mom and pops websites and studio ( an old bank built in 1902, then an American Legion Hall, then a machine shop, and then another rotting Detroit building until we came along).
I won’t be editing today but I hope some of you enjoy the clip of Dixie shot last summer from Tony’s hogcuffed.com…sorry for the lack of clothing and hose for you outfit fetishes….
Days like today I wish when I’d quit my old career I just would have packed up and gone to Costa Rica and sold tshirts on a beach and chosen a much more simple life- Instead of completing the pile of unfinished projects at hand we will be redoing what was already done. It could be much, much worse. I know. I know…
Send positive vibes our way. We need it! Thanks for your memberships and clip purchases. It is greatly appreciated and especially needed this week.
Sincerely, JJ