by Susannah Indigo
(10/29/03)

I subscribe to a Zen publication that recently changed its name to Thirty Thousand Days, that being the number of days in an average person's lifespan. The consideration of this tends to make fascinating late-night conversation -- forget the old standby question of ‘what would you do if you only had six months to live?’ -- it's much more interesting to point out the thirty thousand number and then talk about it. How many days have you lived? How many left? What have you been doing with the fifteen or twenty thousand or so days that have passed you by? What do you hope to do with the X-thousands left? How many kisses do you suppose you can get in?

It occurred to me recently that I’m more than half way through my own thirty thousand, a sobering thought that required some immediate action, so...I got my first tattoo. It worked -- my beautiful tribal rose now engraved on my left breast, barely peeking out near my cleavage, knocked at least a couple thousand days off of my mental count. It makes me feel young and sexy...so I'm planning on adding a new tattoo every five years (if I can wait that long!) from now on until I reach my own thirty thousand-some finale.

Five years from now at Clean Sheets...well, it's hard to imagine, since the Web world changes so rapidly. But as we celebrate our five-year anniversary at Clean Sheets this month, those 1800-some days gone by seem rather miniscule within the big picture, yet gigantic in Web terms. We watch other zines, both print and online, rise and fall, and remain proud of our ability to maintain our enthusiasm for the erotic in all of its glorious forms. Time and energy, the wise woman says, underlie all of our dreams, both personal and artistic, and Clean Sheets would not be here today but for the unlimited time and energy contributed by many creative people:

The backbone of Clean Sheets, the "old-timers" in Web terms, include the remarkable talents of Brian Peters, William Dean, Bill Noble, Nola Summers, Naomi Darvell, Gary Meyer, and our delightful newsletter editor, /amqueue. All of them give of themselves week after week for no reason other than to help define the highest quality available in erotic writing and present it to our worldwide audience. We are eternally grateful for their perseverance, energy, and talents. Others who have joined in along the way are also priceless in their contributions and dedication, and only a full and energetic staff makes Clean Sheets happen with the precision we are known for.

We are also grateful to our offiicial sponsor, Toys in Babeland, who has helped keep us financially stable as Web advertising crashed, without ever having to resort to the dreaded pop-ups or paid subscriptions -- shop with Babeland as often as possible, and tell them we sent you. And of course no thanks would be complete without including the original energy behind Clean Sheets, Mary Anne Mohanraj, and also our appreciation for the hundreds of contributing writers whose work can be read in our archives.

In the coming year you can expect to see more contests at Clean Sheets, more serials, more books, more kink, more Sex & Laughter, but most of all, fifty-two weeks of solid erotic content, the variety of which will continue to amaze me right up until my thirty thousandth day.

We value our readers also, every one of you, and we are always open to ideas and comments about Clean Sheets (mail to editor@ cleansheets.com), and we do listen to everything that is offered. Personally, I'd like to think that somewhere around day 30,001 we all get evaluated on just the basic things: how many days did we really listen? How many hugs and kisses and gentle caresses did we squeeze in? Hours of kindness? Moments of passion? Or maybe it will all come down to just how many really good dirty stories we read....

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