Writing isn't the only way to play with words. Take them down a peg, look at them as just letters, forms on a page and you can make a different art with them. This isn't writing, its a whole new creation.

ASCII art is my personal favourite so the links included with this newsletter are mostly ASCII art. But, there are other ways to get into the game of playing with your words. Typography is playing with fonts. What others have you found? Email me, I'd like to hear about them.

There is the whole riddle, puzzle, Scrabble issue. But, I'm looking at making plain ordinary everyday text into art.

Does anyone make ASCII art or am I the only retro geek? Someday, that ever illusive day, I want to make a whole website in just ASCII and ASCII art as illustrations/ graphics. I've seen one done in this way. It was very unique looking now. Back in the old days of dinosaur computers it would have been normal, if not cutting edge.

Anyway, this week take a break from fiddling with words and try something new. Play around and look at them in a whole new way. You and your keyboard will never be the same again.

Two of the best examples of a house I'd love to live in have been in movies. Not so strange, eh? They have huge cash budgets and the staff to do all the work, planning and dreaming.

First, that house they used in the Caspar movie and second that house they used in Practical Magic. Both were gothic looking with lots of nooks, crannies and old stuff. I love old houses, especially those sad looking, run down ones you sometimes pass on an out of the way country road.

I love the old gingerbread trim, the old hardware (I found an antique key still in the lock of one house I explored) the spiral stairs, the wood work, iron work too. All of it makes me want to discover more and restore.

I am not someone who does home restoration projects. Don't get the idea I have sandpaper in one hand, a level in the other while I balance on a saw horse. Although, I would be a great fan of anyone who does all this work, I'm mostly content to watch and admire. I can appreciate the refinished furniture without inhaling the varnish and paint remover. Maybe I will get daring and make some of that rustic furniture I admire, not a lot of chemicals in that.

Anyway, for now I will keep looking at pictures and see if my next husband might be the woodworking, fix-it man of my fantasies.

Do you ever think of your life as a team? I can remember my brother playing hockey against the garage door. He was always Gus, I guess it was a manly sounding name to him as a kid. Little did he know the full version is Augustus.

Anyway, he would always narrate the game for himself. Sometimes I would be tossed in as the adoring fan/ groupie. I love my brother, I'll spend the rest of my life cheering for him, back them it did feel a little silly though. I was the only fan.

Is it a man thing, the whole team narration type thing? Its kind of endearing. I've never done it out loud but there have been times when I've narrated privately, in my own head. Sadly, my narrations are never as uplifting as those hockey games between my brother and the garage door.

All this rambling today is taking up space. I'm scared. I don't think I can get back into living my life and all that trying again. I've tried a lot. To get into it would be reavealing too much of my life, some of the wounds scraped into your soul are just too sharp to share randomly.

So, I think this week my team is losing. Maybe I will sleep on it tonight and things will be all fresh and rosy in the morning. I promised one of the other BackWash columnists that I would find someone to talk to when I got back here. But, inside I really thought I could do it all on my own. I don't like talking to someone face to face and telling them all the really deep feelings, the fears and the fact that I don't even trust myself any more. I think I must be part drama queen, but how much is real emotion? Am I allowed real emotion?

Anyway, this week my team is losing it. But, somehow hope always springs eternal, I'm the eternal optimist. Each time I get really down some part of my brain clicks on and starts coming up with new ideas, new solutions and once again I'm not ready to give up.

Look at this!!!! On a day when I thought it would be dangerous to get much lower... this was waiting for me in my email. I only wish I had someone to tell. So, I'm posting it here for the world and all the randomness on the Internet.

I'm so glad I got the idea to ask if they wanted a column or articles about the Internet and sent in my resume to back it up. What a great thing it would be to have a job doing exactly what I love!!!

Hello, Laura. Ian passed your letter and resume on to me. I'd like an opportunity to meet with you in person to talk about your skills and experience. I'm leading the internet strategy team at our news group and perhaps there may be some mutually beneficial opportunities we could explore. Can you let me know what your schedule is like next week? I could meet you at our office, if that's most convenient to you. (In my job, I travel all over the region, so it's not an inconvenience for me.) Let me know if you can meet Thursday, Aug. 8 in the afternoon in. Thanks for sending your resume and letter. Regards,

Originally posted to Adult BackWash, my weekly column was Bait and Switch: Wednesday July 24, 2002

Being a Domme should be about doing what turns you on, not about satisfying all of his whims, fetishes and turn ons. You are the one in charge after all. Otherwise, what do you really get out of it? Sure, its nice to please your mate, but that's not the name of this game. You please him by pleasing you. So, wipe your slate clean and start fresh, with a new mind set.

First, consider tossing out are those fetish wear clothes and heels. Unless you really do find pleasure in wearing them, why torture yourself? Think of something practical, like boots you can stomp around in. In your mind play "These boots were made for walking" and get yourself walking in a new pair of sexy, woman in charge boots. Spike heels optional. When you think of clothes why wear something expensive in leather. Check out some denim, its washable and easy to wear. As we all know, cotton breathes. If you can sew put together an outfit, maybe a dramatic cape too.

Once you're dressed for success put yourself in the picture. Think of things YOU would really like to do to or with him. If having him kiss your feet turns you off, his feet fetish is on the back burner. Instead, have him brush your hair, wash it too. Or he can be of some use polishing your nails, running your bath water, making dinner and cleaning everything up afterwards. Be creative but don't cater to his desires unless you want the same things. Do you hate cleaning the bathroom, would you like a servant to scrub your back in the shower, would you like a bouquet of fresh flowers sent to your work or would you just like to see him naked and waiting for you to make use of him, hoping that you will notice him sometime before the evening news.

You might not even want to play this game at all. It could be all his nagging, pestering or demands have put you right off the whole thing and its become a job you have to do. Take some time off from it, regroup and see if there is some aspect of this you could enjoy. Experiment on him. Tie him to a chair for the morning and just leave him there. Blindfold him, gag him, play with him or ignore him - he is totally in your hands. This is one time when the pace of the foreplay (or sex) is all up to you.

Find new things for him to do, household chores, pampering you, or spending a day at your mercy. The most important thing is to remember you are the one he should be pleasing, not the other way around.

One thing anyone reading this newsletter has in common is that we are writing online. Its a different market/ medium from print, obviously. But not always in obvious ways. The language is different. The rate at which content needs to be refreshed is much different. The problems with having content stolen are also different and more challenging. But, there is a huge audience out there, if you can lure them in. You don't have to be a big ticket item like Woman's Day, Cosmo or National Geographic to pull in readers. But, you do have to find a way of pulling them in.

One other difference that not a lot of writers take advantage of is self promotion. You can set yourself up as the controller of your own little empire. Add all the clips you want, promote them everywhere possible and even break into new markets by offering free content to other sites.

But, you do have to take those first steps and get yourself out there, into the community. A big part of doing that is a personal/ professional website. You really do need a place to hang your hat online, an address to send people to when they want to know more about you, see what you know and how you think. Also, of course what you have that someone else doesn't already have.

One important thing is balancing personal and professional. Unless you have a couple of separate websites You need to make sure your website isn't saying too much about you. There are some hobbies, collectibles, activities, political leanings you might not want to offer up right away. For me its Wicca. My sister was looking over my resume and was astonished that I had left in a reference to my BackWash column, Bewitching Vagabond. She strongly suggested I take it out. I decided she was right and I have removed it. The resume is now loaded onto my site. Though in an HTML file it lost all the formatting I had done in Lotus and again in Word.

Anyway, I am having to revamp my personal site again due to the Witchiness of it. The easiest solution is to remove that section to a secret location on my domain. In other words just take the link off my front page. That is probably what I will do. All my clips and essays are still there but only available upon request or to those I choose to share them with.

What about your own site? Is there anything there you need to consider a problem area? Assuming you have a site, of course. If you don't the links below might help you get started.

Add a resume to your site too. Just don't be careless about leaving your street address and phone numbers on there. Blank them out or just delete them.