—Big Trees to Big Apple—
USA Roadtrip w/ Nixie Neutron
After months of planning [coordinating remotely from different continents], a revolving roster of rad ladies [to gallivant with in the woods and assemble sandwich cakes with before seeing us off], a farewell via Finnish sauna [to sweat out the demons and soften our muscles for the tribulations ahead], and liters of frozen bone broth [to keep our joints well-lubed and gut microbiota well-populated]…we were off!
Our first day comprised of ten hours of driving [largely through the Avenue of the Giants], a photo shoot with a dear friend of mine, puer tea and a white cat, and a night nesting in a gorgeous coastal garden on its own tectonic plate and well beyond cell phone range.
We spent the following morning catching up on admin, admiring chickens and sea cliffs, briefly wandering around a Zen center, and availing ourselves of an auspicious cold spring [while being evaded by a hot one] on our way to our first session of the tour.
We were extremely excited for our inaugural duo session in our much-adored Bay Area dungeon base, with a victim whom we’d previously each beaten up separately, who graciously facilitated taking photos of some of the predicaments we got him into over the course of the evening, in the matching outfits he’d gotten us for the occasion.
One of us would take his legs into a lock as the other got him into a Triangle Choke or Americana, then we’d switch. I also loved beating him up a bit with some striking [my personal favorite]: Nixie would hold him back in a rear naked choke, or would hang onto some ceiling-mounted stirrups in order to get him into a head scissors while he was standing upright, and then I’d pepper him with some punches and kicks—hard enough to hurt, but lax enough to make it last more than a couple seconds. The grand finale was seeing how many submissions we could get with our final minutes: we managed to get ten out of him in five minutes before he had to throw in the towel and yelp the safe word. We all had a blast, as evidenced by this excerpt from the email he sent us the very next morning:
It was unreal to get so thoroughly beaten up by two beautiful women in dresses. The juxtaposition of beauty and unstoppable skill in wrestling is amazing. The striking was impeccable. I’ve watched the videos many times and they are so wonderfully accurate. You two are both a dream come true. I love playing hard - and love the safety I feel with both of you. I’m quite convinced that if I could have lasted for the last 10 minutes, you would have hit the 20 submissions easily. I absolutely LOVED doing a 2 on 1 session with the two of you.
We spent International Women’s Day in Santa Cruz with a couple of my favorite ladies for the beach boardwalk, sea lions [i.e., condom-dogs] and an otter, pinball and laser tag, a filial banquet, a late-night hot tub trespass. Then drove along the cosmically astounding PCH, past goats and sand-flipping elephant seals, dead architecture, and spent a night of flopping upon pink sparkly everything.
Elephant-in-the-room time: Coronavirus.
After the idyllic start to our journey that I’ve outlined above, it’s gotten a bit more real in the last 24-48 hours for us re: the implications of a global pandemic, not to mention the ineffectual ways many people are dealing with it [example: I’ve heard of people going to crowded parties, bumping elbows instead of hugging or shaking hands, and then proceeding to talk close to one another’s faces, share glasses, etc., as if bumping elbows is going to nullify the close contact of being in an intimate party with a load of strangers]. So we realize the importance of taking the minimization of our exposure risk into our own hands.
We are staying as informed as possible on the road, are exercising near-obsessive hygiene, talking to others about mitigating risk in practical ways [rather than senseless fear-mongering, hoarding, and superficial gestures like bumping elbows at a crowded party].
We’ve been economically impacted already [and also feel a lot of concern and empathy for everyone else who similarly works in fields that don’t support working remotely: servers, caretakers, session wrestlers, sex workers, etc.], facing cancellations [of course, we’re all too happy to have people cancel on us if they might be infected, themselves!] and a much-slower-than-usual trickle of inquiries, and have also made the executive decision to cancel some of our planned visits and appointments with people we believe to be at greater risk [due to age or pre-existing conditions], which saddens me as I as much looking forward to visiting some friends and family along the way that I now, in good conscience, do not feel I can take any chances with.
Still, for the time being we are soldiering on, with day-to-day lifestyle adjustments but otherwise more-or-less as planned, doing the best we can with the resources and information we have [and with new information as it becomes available], looking forward to kicking some of your asses nonetheless!
Will have further updates [fun and functional] in my next blog post, so stay tuned. And wash your hands, you filthy animal!