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So I'm flying to Boston tomorrow morning and I'll be there through Wednesday. If you live in Boston and you want to meet up, drop me a line.

I'm working out the details to present on Robots, Dollies and Mind Control (a.k.a. "The winterroseasfr Class") in Boston in mid-September. If you or your group want me to present for you as well while I'm there, go check out http://c4bl3fl4m3.googlepages.com/aboutc4bl3fl4m3 and see what you want me to present and drop me a line! Getting a travel stipend from you would mean that I wouldn't have to beg for crash space on someone's couch.

This will be an awesome thing to put on my sexual educator resume/CV. (When is it a CV and not a resume? I'm not sure.)

That being said... BOSTON! SQUEE! I've always wanted to visit there! And there's good deals on travel to there from both Toronto using Porter (SQUEE! MOAR PORTER!) or from BWI using Southwest. So perhaps this will be the end of my August Toronto trip?

Also, anyone know anyone in Boston I can crash with? (Radical Faeries, Hackers, Sex-Positive Folk, whatever.) Or, at very least, anyone know of any hella cheap hostels or the like?

I'm in NYC now. If you want to hang, call my cell or email me. Or you could just comment here.

The suckage is having to leave morningboon. Which was obvious suckage.

The awesome, however, is flying Porter Airlines. No hassles, a 2 min. ferry ride, VERY friendly staff, no waiting, a large lounge with complimentary beverages and snacks and a great coffee machine, free wifi, and even some Macs set up around with free Internet... and they're not set up special to block you out of using programs and stuff. In fact, I'm looking out at the airstrip now, writing at you on a Mac. All in all, I feel pampered... glad to be here instead of having to suffer the indignities of air travel along with my mourning of leaving morningboon.

I'm heading to Newark (EWR), and then heading to TESFest. Apparently I'm speaking on a panel of sex bloggers. I don't think of myself as a sex blogger, but I do write about sex, BDSM and gender in my diary here. (I'm realizing I haven't written about it in a while. I'm going to have to remedy that.) And it's technically a blog. I'm actually kinda excited about my volunteer shifts. I'm doing the panel, I'm taking care of the People of Size Swim, and I'm DMing for 4 hours.

I'm lucky that I'm going to a con after leaving morningboon. It's a lot better than me just going home to be alone and lonely. I'm going to spend days with my friends, doing something I love, and that's good.

So yes... I'll see you all at TESFest. If you see me, say hi! Hugs and snuggles are always good too.

It's raining right now, but it's soothing to me instead of depressing me. The sound of the water from the rain dripping out of the gutters and into the maintenance area outside my bedroom window, the occasional flash of lightning or the crash of not-too-close-but-not-too-distant thunder... it's quite nice, really. (BTW, note the mood on the post. Isn't that a nice mood to feel?)

I just watched an episode of Star Trek: Voyager (The Disease, to be exact) that dealt with new love and loss as a co-plot. The way that Harry Kim and Derran Tal felt about each other... I see a lot of morningboon and I in that. The episode made me feel lovesick, but in a nice way. I have to admit, I put our last names with Starfleet ranks... they sound good that way. I gave him Lieutenant, I took Ensign for myself. I bet he'd look absolutely dashing in a jumpsuit. I haven't decided whether to give him red, yellow, or blue green. I suppose yellow would be fitting, but I think I'd be a blue green.

I leave for Toronto on Sunday. Still so much to do, but I'm more worried about spending so much time up there. I had my last DO Happy Hour before I go tonight. Luckily, T. and A. were there. I love those 2 so much and I hadn't gotten to see them since before I left for the last time. I'm going to miss my friends terribly. I hope I make some new friends up in the Great (Not So) White North soon.

And now the cherry blossoms are blooming here in Toronto.

I'm going with morningboon to see them, as I would have done a month ago in DC if he was here at that time.

I look out the living room window over the trees in Rosedale, on Sherbourne Avenue, and I notice that today, a number of them have green leaves on them. None of them had them yesterday. There was one tree in yellow yesterday, but now we've got yellow and green and still some bare ones.

w00t! Spring!

Oh, and the tulips are in full bloom here now. These couple of days between 60 and 80 degrees have really helped.

Spring seems to come between 4-6 weeks later here than it does in DC.

Remind me to blog about what I've been up to. In short, WoW (Noblegarden is the suckiest holiday I've done on there so far), Corner Gas, Honest Ed's, subspace (the party), needles, subspace (the headspace), grocery shopping (including late night browsing at Metro), cuddling and dancing and just good times chilling to swing music in Christie Pits Park at an impromptu memorial service to Frankie Manning put on by local swing dancers, Mass at Our Lady of Lourdes, Little Mosque on the Prairie, birdies, copious amounts of double doubles, snuggling, the library, way too much good food, and lots of making out. Oh, and Spadina Bus and Romantic Traffic.

And, yes, that was the short version. :-)

Tonight there will be drinking and meeting up with yaksman. But now, writing in my journal in an attempt to pull myself out of my funk. (You know it's bad when I'd rather clean and tidy and sort than go outside. Srlsy.)

I'm going to put on some clothes and go wandering. I think I want to get to know Yonge better. Know it as a coherent street instead of just X thing is at X random place on Yonge. I'm thinking wandering up to Bloor, getting a double double (ah, what the hell, go caf this time), wandering west over to Yonge and then going south from there.

I really should blog more often. Blame the twits for getting me into Twitter moar.

Oh, and I love morningboon. Just thought I should throw that out there. Yeah.

Went to IKEA at Sheppard and Leslie (NEAT station art there!), rode random streetcars, had Indianfoodplex, explored a bit of the PATH, had Korean BBQ again, did late night Pizza Pizza after drinking (apparently not the one that the King of Spain works at, because it was crap as usual), partied at the Spacing.ca's Toronto Newest Issue Release party. Got to meet the mayor of Toronto there. Seriously. Awesome guy, great mayor. He seems to actually care about his constituents and about making his city great. (I'm not too crazy about his positions on guns, but hey, you can't win them all. And there are more important issues, like housing and transit.) And he Twitters as @MayorMiller.

But yeah, met lots of urban and transit hipsters at the party, got much kudos for my downtown TTC lines sweatshirt. Finally got the Spacing TTC station buttons. Didn't spend enough time geeking out over transit with others, but I got to dance to good and extremely varied music (from Little Lulu's "To Sir With Love" to Outkast's "Hey Ya") with morningboon, drink Canadian beer (didn't really like Molson's Canadian, but this supposed IPA [I've never tasted an IPA with that few hops before] from Nova Scotia was drinkable in that cheap, blue collar piss beer way), and make some new friends (waves at the lovely, same sex male, half-Canadian half-American couple we met last night) and met some of Boon's old friends (waves at his Science Communicator friend as well... she was awesome).

I know I've done more than this, but I can't remember it right now. Depression is kicking my ass pretty hard.

So much to do today to get ready for Toronto. Files to put on my HD (anyone know what to dump from the iTunes directory so that I can put it on another Mac and trick it into thinking it's my iTunes at home? 1.) I want my music but moreover 2.) I want the abiilty to sync my iPod Touch. I was just going to put the whole thing on there.), dishes to dorat cages to clean (wow, with the kind of litter I'm using now and the ShopVac, it turned from a 15 min serious ordeal into less than 5 minutes and EASY AS FUCK), laundry to wash, suitcases to repack with clean clothes and my speakers from the bathroom (can't live w/o them, I figured out when I was up there before. NEED MY MUSIC IN THE SHOWER.) and tasty treats from the US (yay Grandma Utz Potato Chips! I may love Canada, but they don't know how to do chips up there, sorry.). I'm waiting for my meds to kick in so I can get it started. I can feel it starting to, but I'll give it another couple of minutes just to make sure.

UPDATE: ZOMG I forgot how I felt on a full "work" dose of my meds. HOLY FUCKING CRAP. I can FOCUS. I become FUNCTIONAL. I totally forgot what functional was like... I didn't realize how bad I was until I took 12.5 mgs. HOLY CRAP. WOW. Just... yeah.

I guess this means I need to find an anti-depressant that works with my meds.

My last post, on getting emergency contraception in Toronto, brings up a good issue. You might know the sexual laws and norms where you live, but do you know them in other countries? I went to Toronto, had a buttload of sex, some of it being kinky. I realized I had no idea what the BDSM laws were in Toronto/Ontario/Canada. If the cops come to the door on a noise or domestic violence call, should we hide the BDSM stuff? Should we just let it all out and let them know the truth? I realized I didn't know about emergency contraception. Or abortion laws, should something really bad happen. I figured you could just buy condoms at the drug store. But what if I want to get on some other form of BC? How about sex clubs? What's legal and illegal for them? I mean most have the rules posted, but it's still good to know.

So, yes, sexual education for what you need to know to have a good sexxin' time in a country other than your own. I mean, I've fucked in France and in Germany and in Poland and now in Canada, but these things are good to know before you go and fuck. And I realize that my blog has international readership (/me waves at the non-Americans reading!) so... if you went to America, would you know the laws? Or even for Americans, if you live in a liberal city, would you know the laws if you went to a conservative area and fucked there?

So I decided I'm going to do some research and add a few new classes to my class listing. One will be called Fucking the Maple Leaf and another will be called Fucking the Stars and Stripes. And it'll be about what you need to know about having sex in other countries. Maple Leaf will obviously be about having sex in Canada, and Stars and Stripes will be for non-Americans having sex in America.

I'm doing it on Monday morning. My bus leaves at 8 am.

Honest Ed's is one of the most awesome places in the world. It reminds me of a cross between Ollie's and The Williamsburg Pottery, with a dash of Pechin's thrown in. (And a little bit of Gabe's, if you count the clothes.)

Not to mention the place holds a dentist, a hair cuttery, and an immigration specialist. Also not to mention the awesome story of "Honest" Ed Mirvish and how he brought theater to Toronto.

My dad would love this place, not to mention his (deceased) father. And my mom would appreciate it as well, although not have the fondness for it that Dad and Pap Pap would.

BTW, they carry an amazing array of souvenirs at ridiculously low prices. Damn near everyone's getting something.

There's a damn good chance I'm leaving Toronto on Thursday Friday, going to NYC, spending the night (or a few nights) with miscreeds and coming home. FYI.

Toronto is really awesome. Except for the cold weather thing. (God, the next time I'm invited to go to Toronto in the Winter, someone stop me, ok?)

Canada is exactly like America... except when it isn't.

Tim Hortons? GOD IN THE MORNING. Double Double & Canadian Maple, plz. Speaking of which, Canada's large coffee is a little bigger than America's small. SRLSY.

Canadian Tire = awesome. Canadian Tire money = hella cool.

Dude, why does Toronto have such a high concentration of hot geeky guys? I must have seen like 5 yesterday in like 2 hours or so.

ZOMG herodotusjr THEY HAVE CADBURY'S CRUNCHIE. I AM SO JEALOUS.

Korean BBQ = TAAASTY.

Oh, and the TTC is pretty neato. Their subway font is fantastic. And streetcars are cool.

AND ACTIVE SURPLUS IS THE WINNINGEST AWESOME THAT EVER WAS A STORE. Seriously, asciilifeform and winterroseasfr would totally squee and die over this place.

Is it Thursday yet? :-D

********************
Leave Thursday, March 12, 2009
American Airlines 4740 Economy | Embraer RJ140 (ERD) | 1hr 5min | 215 miles
Operated by: AMERICAN EAGLE. Please check in with the operating carrier.
Depart: 10:00am Washington, DC Washington Ronald Reagan National (DCA)
Arrive: 11:05am New York, NY New York John F Kennedy Intl (JFK)

Change planes. Time between flights: 1hr 10min

American Airlines 4766 Economy | Embraer RJ140 (ERD) | 1hr 45min | 352 miles
Operated by: AMERICAN EAGLE. Please check in with the operating carrier.
Depart: 12:15pm New York, NY New York John F Kennedy Intl (JFK)
Arrive: 2:00pm Toronto, Canada Toronto Pearson International (YYZ)
Total duration: 4hr 0min | Total miles: 567 miles

**********

Return Tuesday, March 17, 2009
American Airlines 4772 Economy | Embraer RJ140 (ERD) | 1hr 35min | 352 miles
Operated by: AMERICAN EAGLE. Please check in with the operating carrier.
Depart: 10:25am Toronto, Canada Toronto Pearson International (YYZ)
Arrive: 12:00pm New York, NY New York John F Kennedy Intl (JFK)

Change planes. Time between flights: 1hr 59min

American Airlines 4679 Economy | Embraer RJ140 (ERD) | 1hr 16min | 215 miles
Operated by: AMERICAN EAGLE. Please check in with the operating carrier.
Depart: 1:59pm New York, NY New York John F Kennedy Intl (JFK)
Arrive: 3:15pm Washington, DC Washington Ronald Reagan National (DCA)
Total duration: 4hr 50min | Total miles: 567 miles

********************

NOTE! I will NOT be bringing my cell phone with me on this trip. (I don't need the roaming charges.) If you need/want to reach me, please just email me. I will be bringing my iPod Touch with me and will be checking mail regularly.

I'm realizing that I'm really burnt out and going to NYC really isn't what I should be doing now. So I'm looking for something more low key in the DC area. And if it means spending NYE by myself reading and playing video games and watching the television, that's just fine by me. Who says it has to be some big to-do? (Besides, there's always Adams Morgan if I want to go out and about.)

(I'm just proud of myself for learning how to say no when I need to say no.)

So amcurtis1 and rebelrose75 have invited me to go to NYC with them for New Years. So that's where I'll be. I'll have some free time when they go to see Shrek the Musical. I'd love to hang out with friends then.

You wanna meet someone I went to college with and his awesome SO? Let me know. We'll be in the city on New Year's Day, which is Thursday.

I'm going to my parents' house tomorrow night. I'm going to be there or in Bethlehem until like next Monday or Tuesday. But I'll have come back with most/all of my Christmas shopping done. I'm doing it at the Evil Store Ending In Mart That Must Not Be Named. (Because I'm po', that's why. Don't give me grief, folks.)

I'll be on dialup for the most part until I get to Bethlehem. (There are places there with WiFi... hell, my hotel might even have it. I know one of the cheapass hotels in that little area does.)

I'm also going to take a little trip to Tractor Supply w/o my father to go shopping for kinky stuff.

***

And now, check this out! http://www.whybelieveinagod.org Ah, humanists, how I love thee. Now if only you'd get off your high horse about the secular part and welcome us spiritual humanists with open arms as well. (Most of us live reality-based lives, too... SRLSY!) Oh well, I guess that's what UU is for.

***

And how I love BR. I love it because there's lots of cute, sexy, smart girls there that like me. Yay for them!

Home from NYC.

( REALLY Long NYC Poast Inside )
I have other things to write about, but they're not NYC related, so I'm going to have to put them in another post.

So I'm going up on Thursday and staying through Wednesday the 10th. I'll be staying with miscreeds who has put me up plenty of times before. (Yay for old lovers/current friends!)

I really wanna see rob_t_firefly and nyghtowl and his sweetie E. and escapade52. And my new friends from the kink scene who live there. And speaking of kink, what's going on in the kink scene while I'm there?

My next post is going to be a voicepost, but it's not from my journal. There's a LJ comm called interpretivelj, where you record yourself saying OTHER people's posts. I'm going to be reading from a hilarious blog post about a new mom's attempt at getting her preemie baby to shit.

So, yeah, if you listen to it, I didn't spawn, rather, I'm reading someone else's blog.

Thanks.

OH! And I realized something. If I AM able to go to NYC for this week, I will FINALLY be in town for a NYC2600 meet. Which I've ALWAYS wanted to go to. For YEARS. So, please, please, please, can anyone put me up?

Let's see here.

Rose just left for Raleigh, NC, because he didn't have a job or a place to stay here. He crashed with me for 10 days, but it really wasn't feasible for him to stay here with me more than that. (So I'm still a little weepy... be nice to me today.)

I'm looking at cheapass busses from DC to Raleigh. I haven't been able to find any yet (GoToBus USED to do that route, but not anymore. Now they're just NYC-Raleigh.) but am curious if anyone else knows of any. I'm also willing to go DC-Richmond-Raleigh. I've found some DC-Richmond lines but am still looking for Richmond-Raleigh.

Ended up at the Crucible on Saturday. Ended up playing with dystonic (who looked fabulous in her pretty magenta dress), niyamas, and Dr. Extreme. This wasn't a planned out thing... it started with me showing Dr. Extreme a decent way to tye up Dyst's wrists with the ribbon from her dress, and ended up with a bunch of us hitting her with just about everything in Niy's toybag made for hitting (and more than a few things that weren't meant for it. Ever hit someone with one of those BR travel coffee mugs? I have now. :-D) Niy did fun things with her and knives. I have to admit, I was jealous. I wish it was me he was doing those things to. She was a lucky girl on Sat. night. And apparently she's still sore now. I guess that meant we did good. :-)

OH! And Dyst and I gave Dr. Extreme his first needle scene. I did the piercing, she did the stroking of his head and basically talking him through it and all that jazz. It went well until the very end when his body & psyche quite suddenly had had more than enough "trauma" before we could get the needles out and we had to get them out quickly and talk him down a bit, but considering that he added needles to his FetLife profile as something he's into, I think it all worked out ok. :-)

As for events coming up...

Let's see... I still have those tickets to NYC and I'd go if I had a place to stay. Can any of you put up just me for a week? It's the 4th through the 10th. Please? I can contribute some money towards groceries at the end of the trip.

The 3rd is my WMATA RAC meeting. Yay for getting to geek out over transit!

The 13th is the AB/DL Munch (I'm looking forward to seeing symelion again) and the Radical Faeries Yule (@ PeggyLee's house! Yay! I miss him and his partner.)

The weekend after that is Bethlehem with Mom. Also very much looking forward to that.

For Christmas, I'm having a small, select group of people over for a Misfit's Christmas. If you don't have anywhere to go on Christmas (or if going home to your family sucks), let me know, and I'll see what I can do. There will be turkey and Christmas dinner. And maybe we'll even do "Jewish Christmas" that night. (Yay for Chinese and a movie!)

The 27th is my Annual Holiday Party. I've invited hella people this year... I hope I have enough room in my house for everyone. (It's a small apartment.) If you wanna come, check out the following URL: http://www.evite.com/app/publicUrl/TLDBDICTKHERNTKEAWWB/5thAnnualHolidayParty

I couldn't afford a real Christmas tree this year, so I have a fake one I borrowed. At least I don't have the fiasco of putting it in the stand this year. Or putting lights in it. I still have to put the lights up around the door, though. (Anyone wanna come over and help me trim the tree?)

faceless_wonder tried to get me Shmoocon tickets today, but couldn't get through. But then again, apparently one of their servers crashed hard under the load, so they may do another intermediate sale sometime this month. (If anyone knows when this is going to be, please alert me or faceless_wonder immediately.) It's so nice of her to try to get me into Shmoocon.

(Why the icon? Because I felt like it, that's why.)

We're back at my parents' house from Western PA. (Why was I there? My Great Aunt Janney died on the last day of BR and today was her memorial service.) I slept on the way there. Talked to awesome relatives, some I didn't even know I had. Must get together with the McVays more often. (Mom's cousins)

Aunt Janney kept scrapbooks. She had old newspapers in there, some for WWII (Like V-E Day) and stuff and lots of photos and they had them at the wake, which was cool, going through them.

Mom cried. I cried. People cried.

The thing is, I cried hardest not because of her death, but I almost completely lost it when the minister was telling us about how the United Methodists have open communion and how all are welcome to receive communion at God's table. It's not that fucking often when religions welcome ME into them. To think that yes, even me, the weirdo I am, am welcome at God's table, well... yeah. I'm not used to being welcome for all of me.

I got a few things to remember Aunt Janney by. Including some old WWII ration stamp books which are hella cool and I suspect are worth some money (And the crazy thing? Antiques Roadshow happened to be in the town where the funeral was at today. Weird, eh?)

and... well... remember when I told you about Nannie? She took my parents in as family when they didn't have any when they first moved out here after getting married. She was like a 3rd grandmother to me. Well, I never got a momento when she died, and I feel poorer for it. Well, Aunt Janey had an old card game in her effects, one that Nannie used to have and I used to play there. I snatched it up quick as anything. Finally I have something to remember Nannie by. I can put some closure on that. (Maybe now I'll stop having dreams set in her house. Not that they were a problem or anything... it was nice to have those dreams, because of all the memories.)

I also visited Baba for the first time in years. She's my father's mom. God, she got so THIN. She's a shadow of who she once was... and yet, she's actually more lucid than the last time I talked to her on the phone.

I finally got to meet the Franks, old friends of Mom's side of the family. Mr. Frank is a RIOT! (I mean, how often is it you hear "Oh, and speaking of cremation..."?) I can't believe I never got to meet these people before! We only got to visit for like an hour, but dude... MUST VISIT THESE PEOPLE AGAIN.

And as we were leaving Western PA, I got Mom to drive back past Bentleyville, past Ellsworth, and to Baba and Pap's old house. (Baba moved out of there and literally the next house down from my cousins, her other grandkids when she couldn't take care of herself anymore.) I hadn't been there in YEARS. You know, I probably hadn't been there since 2001. Most things stayed the same, but in a bad way... nothing changes out there, the area is so economically depressed. And it was good to at least see the outside of Baba and Pap Pap's old house again, even if I didn't get to go inside, smell its familiar smells, listen to the strange plastic-sounding creaking sound that the front door makes, see the familiar sights. I told Mom that when she dies, I want to visit the house one last time, to put peace and rest to my memories.

And then Mom and I took the 4 hour ride back home. And had a fantastic discussion about religion and spirituality most of the way. Wow, I forgot how good of a conversation I can have with Mom sometimes. Not as good as with my friends, but still quite satisfying. Left me wanting more, really.

OH! And Aunt Janney had one of Uncle David's small shell paintings in her house. Mom knew I've wanted one of his works for a LONG time, so she's going to check with her brother and see if it's ok if I have it. If so, OMG, I'm SO happy. I'd put it up in my bathroom (as my bathroom is mostly tropical fish themed with some general seashore stuff) but I'm worried about the moisture.

If I book now, I can get Megabus.com tickets for Thu, December 4th through Wed, December 10th for $8 or $9 round trip for both of us combined. Even though I don't know if he or I or both of us would be working then, I'm loath to pass on that deal, especially considering he's never been to NYC.

But I need to know who would be willing to put us up then. Those dates are final for it, so you don't have to worry about that. I'd prefer to stay in NYC proper because it's cheaper than having to take the train from Long Island (we still love you rob_t_firefly!) and I don't think we could afford the $16 round trip per person to stay out there.

I'm not going to book them until I can make sure there's a place for me and winterroseasfr to lay our heads. Anyone kind enough to let us crash with them?

/me needs a travel icon.

I guess I've gotta write this one as if noone was reading it, 'cause else the words just won't come out.

I'm in Pennsylvania. Rose is currently in his car, getting further and further away from me at a speed of probably around 70 miles every hour. He's driving to his mom's house to sell his old car and get some business done there.

We had another rough night a few nights ago. A fight, sorta. He thinks it was the worst one yet. I'm just numb to these things. Yeah, it was horrible at the time... he was crazy and I was scared and stuff... but, you know what? Damn me if I'm not used to this. I don't know anything other than being used to insanity in interpersonal relations.


I really wish I wasn't so fucked up that I can't keep a lover.

( Woooo! I ramble a lot. Here... have an LJ Cut. )

I suppose I should update you.

winterroseasfr has really been damaged by my freaking out so much lately. We're spending time apart so he can heal. We're still a couple, so it's not like it's a trial separation or anything. We're actually doing this so we can stay together. I don't necessarily feel it's a negative sign... I mean, who says that the sign of success for a relationship should be if you can stand living together, sharing a room? Frankly, even if I permanently lived with a partner, I'd want my own room... my own space. Rose would want the same, and wants the same now. Hell, we both do.

Anyway, I'm spending some time at my parents' house in PA. Dialup, let me tell you folks, sucks hardcore. I arrived here on Wednesday evening and I'm going back either Sunday afternoon or Sunday evening. I spent the afternoon yesterday with my father and we didn't fight once. Which is awesome. He also taught me how to make coleslaw the other day. I'm learning how to make all sorts of foods, but I'm forgetting how to make ones I've made before. Perhaps I should start writing down how to make all these foods so I can come back to these recipes years from now and make them again. I mean, I definitely need to relearn potpourrifae's African spicy peanut sauce served with a cornmeal paste again. (Speaking of her, I need to read her LJ and get caught up on how she's doing.)

And I don't even want to get into the bullshit that's going on with the food stamp agency. They're completely incompetent, understaffed and full of bureaucracy and red tape. You'd think that they didn't WANT to help people. That all the crap there is set up to discourage people from getting the benefits they've payed for and earned. The whole thing needs a total overhaul. SRLSY.

( All sorts of interesting talk about my presentation at HOPE, as well as a request for sexual information from people who know. Please click this and keep reading, even if you're not going to HOPE. )

I'm a bit concerned about getting my speaker's badge, as they said if you are speaking under an alias, you need to bring proof that you are your alias. And I emailed them, asking "what would be proof?" and I never got a reply. rob_t_firefly, do you know? Do you know who would know? Or should I just drag you with me as my living proof? :-)

Also, I volunteered for setup and take down, as I'll be in town those days, but I haven't heard from Cheshire Catalyst (the volunteer coordinator... he's a cool dude) about that. I got an mass email from him today, but it didn't have anything in the body, just his sig. I'm going to wait to see if he figured that out yet and resends. If I don't get anything by tomorrow, I'll drop him a line. I'm sure he's busy as hell.

Also, a question about HOPE... does anyone know how many seats are in the room I'm presenting in? 'Cause I want to give out a handout but I'll need to know how many I'll need. Also, damn, it's going to be expensive. I wish there were some funds I could get from HOPE to recover my copy costs.

So I've heard from my Aunt (whom I need to email back) about seeing her, and I've heard from escapade52 about seeing him when I'm up there. I still need to contact FARB about seeing him, and I still haven't heard from nyghtowl about seeing him. miscreeds knows I'm coming (as I'm staying with him when I'm not at the con), but I need to talk to him about arrival on Wednesday and all of that jazz.

I also need to get together my list of things to take to the con. Where I have to remember I need not just the sextoys, but also clothes and my new airbed and the airpump for that, as well as my Seventh Doctor costume (rob_t_firefly said I could borrow his Seven vest to wear and to take pictures of. BTW, just reminding you about that, Rob!) and the special surprise I bought for Rob a few weeks ago. (Yes, Rob, I has a prezant for u. Supar awesome prezant.) I should probably also bring some food. Oh, and I can't forget the earplugs (in case someone snores) and the sleep mask.

Ok, enough typing out of me.

Using MegaBus.com. Tickets cost me $6.50 total. w00t!

Wed July 16, 2008
Washington DC, Union Station to New York, Penn Station
12:15 PM Depart Washington DC, Union Station
Arrive New York, Penn Station 4:45 PM


Fri July 25, 2008
New York, Penn Station to Washington DC, Union Station
4:15 PM Depart New York, Penn Station
Arrive Washington DC, Union Station 8:45 PM

w00t!

BTW, yes, this means that I'm going to be in NYC for more than just HOPE. If you'd like to hang out with me some, drop me an email. I'm looking at a bunch of you.

Doctor Who, Season 4, Ep. 1? ZOMG FANGIRL SQUEE AMAZING AAAAAAAAH!!! So many squee worthy moments. There is some stuff that I have some issues with, but I'll give it a shot. I'm afraid that Doctor Who is going downhill in an irretreviable way (I wasn't that pleased with season 3, and I'm worried about season 4), but dude... NEW DOCTOR WHO EPS!!!

Watching it with winterroseasfr was amazing, as we both fanned out together over it and there was much squee from both of us.

I'm heading back to DC with Rose's stuff in tow either Thursday or Friday. We're leaving early in the morning so we can take a bit of a detour and visit Mema and Granddad (my mother's parents) in Williamsburg for most of the day. I haven't seen them in ages and I miss them. That and, well, they're getting up there in years, so it only makes sense to visit them whenever I can.

I'm looking forward to hanging out at WiseGuy's house this weekend some. Apparently, I used to work with him years ago and one of our old coworkers that I'm sad I lost touch with is going to be there for a D&D game, so it'll be cool to see him again. That and WiseGuy's teenage sons are really cool people and geeky to boot.

Let's see, what else.

Oh.

Something I didn't tell you. Rose has an overall plan to move out to Los Angeles and work in the gaming industry and become a voice actor. He was initially going to do it within the next 6 months, but I convinced him to put it on hold for a year to a year and a half so that I can go with him.

No, this is not some example of me being head over heels and following a man like a puppydog. I've wanted to escape DC for a while now, and I've wanted to head west to California for years, but never had the gumption to do it myself. Having a friend and/or lover that's doing it with me will be a big help. Even if Rose and I aren't together at that point in time, we'll still be friends and I still want to go anyway. I'm a little concerned as I'm afraid I won't like LA, but being out there will be closer to being in San Francisco, which is where my career probably lies. Although I'm sure there's also a sex positive scene in LA.

So, yeah. Driving cross country to move to California in a year to a year and a half. Exciting, but cool. Scary, but something I've always wanted to do. You've seen me mention getting out of DC in my LJ before. Now I just have more solid plans on it.

***

Later today, I'm going to be meeting up with a guy named Shawn. I met him months and months ago through the feeder/erotic weight gain scene and we talked a lot last Fall and did a lot of Skyping. He was supposed to come up and visit me right before Thanksgiving but then his car broke down and he couldn't. Well, a few days ago, I remembered that, wait, didn't he live in North Carolina? Turns out he lives about 20 miles from here. So we're meeting up today, hanging out, going out to eat, and probably playing. I may or may not be spending the night with him.

I'll admit, this is my first time having a date with someone else who's into erotic weight gain. It's my first time having someone with whom I can play with this in the bedroom and who also has the same sexual attraction to it that I have. This excites me very greatly, and makes me a little nervous.

So, yeah, wish me luck on that one.

In Concord, North Carolina. Packing, making copious love, talking through important relationship issues, and totally getting ourselves distracted with geekness on the Internet.

Not much else, really. Miss you all, wish we could hang out together sometime soon.

winterroseasfr is a little, oh, I don't know... nostalgically sad? about leaving his home, or, more accurately, his office. As much as he's 20 different types of ready to get out of here, it only makes sense that he's a bit sad about leaving his sanctuary behind. I suppose all I can do is be here, support him, listen and empathize.

I do miss my friends. I do hope we can hang out when we get back in town.

Hi everyone!

I'm still alive. winterroseasfr is still here. I'm letting him sleep an extra hour as he was desperately tired when I woke him up this morning.

Things are getting more complicated here in Blissland, but we've been doing the important talking and working through the logistical issues. It's NICE to be able to be this openly honest and to talk about the things on our minds.

We still don't have our tickets to NYC because I STILL haven't found a place for him to stay. Neither rob_t_firefly nor nyghtowl have been able to come through for us, which is ok, I suppose. As much as I'm loathe to do it, I do hope that miscreeds will put both of us up. Because I'm running out of ideas for places for him to stay for free. (I wish I had a better couchsurfing.com reputation (right now I have none), because if I did, it would make finding a free couch a lot easier.) Anyway, I know how miscreeds can be a little, oh, I suppose jealous would be the honest word here, when I bring up wanting to bring a lover along, because I know how much he still likes me, but... *shrug*.

I'm honestly not sure if I'm going if I can't find a place for winterroseasfr to stay.

Let's see here. We went up to my parents' house earlier this week. Tuesday evening through Friday afternoon. We took it easy, had fun with hypnotic trance, made some nice love, RPed various roles with each other, oh, and we went up to Kings Gap, which was gorgeous as always. Did more thrift store shopping. I got some KILLER red "leather" pants.

Saw niyamas on Friday. Wherein I considerably freaked out over the poly thing, even though neither of them were freaking out... they were both very very cool with each other over it. Niy & I had dinner and a drink, and then we went back to my place, where winterroseasfr + Niy did various things to me like putting me into hypnotic trance, or tying me up with rope, or just simply snuggling with me while we talked. It was nice, but very scary. My heart isn't used to being able to just let go and be poly, as strange as that may sound.

Today is Tourist Day for us. I'm going to mass at the National Shrine to the Immaculate Conception at noon. He's interested in the mosaics and the architecture, so he'll look around while I do my mass thing. It'll give us both some good down time. Then we're going downtown. I'm assuming we'll end up doing a Smithsonian museum or 3, maybe a monument or 3, and we'll wander around to see the cherry blossoms.

I miss the Radical Faeries.

We're going to WiseGuy's house for dinner tomorrow night. I was promised tasty chicken.

I'm really worried about the NYC thing and I hope we can find a place for him to stay soon. (Live in NYC? Want to put up my lover for a few days? Drop me a line.)

Oh, and introduced winterroseasfr to Potbelly. Which was met with great acclaim. I'm like "Dude, I'm fat. Trust a fat chick to know good food." :-D

Oh, and one last thing. asciilifeform left a message for me on my phones last Saturday night while winterroseasfr and I were deep in hypnotic trance. I had meant to get back to him, but keep forgetting. I'm terribly sorry about blowing you off. I'm not sure what your message said, but I have a feeling it had to do with hanging out, and yes, we'd love to hang out with you and devvieish sometime soon.

Have I mentioned how cute he is when he's asleep? Yeah. :-D

Change of plans for going to NYC. I'm going to arrive later than I initially expected, due to the bliss I'm pursuing with winterroseasfr. (YAY! Look at me! For the first time in my life, I'm going out of my way to pursue my bliss! w00t!) :-) He's never had the chance to do the DC tourist thing, so we're going to be showing him around DC, etc. I am, in fact, coming up. The latest date for that is April 1st, as that's when I'm scheduled to go to dinner with my aunt and uncle.

That being said, winterroseasfr has never been to NYC and is jumping at the chance to go. As I figured that miscreeds probably wouldn't want both of us staying at his place (and if that's not true, let me know), I'm looking for someone to put him up with. He's good people, a kinkster and a Whovian and all that jazz, and I personally vouch for his awesomeness. Putting him up with nyghtowl would be optimal, as he's on a subway line and he's not all the way out in Long Island which is an hour ride and $8 one way to the city. As well as nyghtowl already knows him.

Having dinner with my aunt and uncle on Tuesday, April 1st. This night is booked.

(And yay for family that doesn't suck!)

Ok, my tickets have been rebooked. I leave NYC at 3 pm on Saturday, April 5th. I *WILL* be at the April NYC2600 meeting, come Hell or high water or Dalek invasion. (Well, I don't know about Dalek invasion.)

A-01
Purchased By: c4bl3fl4m3
Route: New York 33rd and 7th to Washington, D.C. 11th and G
Date: 4/5/2008
Departs: 3:00 PM
Arrives: 7:00 PM

Fares: , $7.00 (1 ticket)
Total Charges: $7.00

Passenger Name: Confirmation Number:
c4bl3fl4m3 *******************

Oh my god.

I just realized I'm going to be missing the NYC2600 meeting by a DAY.

And I've always wanted to go.

Ok, that's it, I'm leaving NYC on the 6th or 7th. Change in plans.

/me goes to rebook the tickets.

Met up with markwhi tonight. Had a nice talk. He's grown A LOT. He can, zomg, COMMUNICATE better now! YAY! Yay for people who can talk about their feelings when they feel them!

We're gonna be friends. I'm surprised that I'm actually hurting because I really want to be friends with benefits. God, I'm still REALLY attracted to that man, especially now with the biking thing. So we'll see how well I do at beating down my libido with a stick.

But, oh, he took me for a ride on his motorcycle. I'm completely in love. I MUST get a motorcycle. Dykes on Bikes INDEED. I love the speed, I love the vibrations, I love the roar of the bike, and I like how confident I feel and how sexy I look in biker gear. (I don't like the cold of the wind or the fumes. Or the way the bitch seat hurts my crotch. But, OH, IT'S WORTH IT!)

I think I'm in love! Harleys pwn! :-D

So, yeah, I'm left at the end of the night feelin' all horney and having noone to lay. (Upstairs neighbor wants to be friends for now, 'cause he just came out of a painful breakup.)

niyamas and I are taking a 2 week vacation from each other so he can concentrate on his relationship with spiralsong. It's nothing I did wrong, she just needs some extra love and attention and time to work things out right now. Still, it hurts, and I miss him. I won't see him again until I get back from NYC.

Speaking of NYC. March 27th - April 4th. That's 8 days... a Thursday through a Thursday. You wanna see me? Pick a night and leave a comment and I'll see what I can do. I already have FARB who wants a night with me, and I need to see my Aunt Jackie & Uncle David in there somewhere (I missed them last time and promised I'd see them this time).

Can I just say I had a fantastic day with niyamas today? Yeah, I did. I met him at BWI, then we went up to his business in Hunt Valley, then we went to this fantastic Indian buffet there (yay Indian buffet!), then he took me to the $5 or less store (which pwnz... I got new Jibbitz for my Crocs), then to the comic store (where he got me 2 Doctor Who comics!!!1!!11!11!!!1!won!), then to the Baltimore Museum of Art (where we saw awesome art, I went into some dark creepy subspace because of music being played in an installation, and we saw a large bird of prey in the sculpture garden), and then to Paper Moon Diner, which is completely fucking amazingly cool (MUST take Mom there!). Then to Mayorga Coffee near my place, and then back to my place for some amazingly good play.

Have I mentioned that part of me really has a thing for Niy? Yeah. Totally. He's amazing. I keep having to remind myself he's only human. I mean, he's THAT amazing, in bed, out of bed, he's sensitive and caring and says all the right things and he's sexy and knows how to turn my crank. And he gives me new outlooks on life. And I love him for that. Yeah, Niy fucking RULES. I have the Best. Companion. Ever. And spiralsong is the best wife ever for sharing him with me. I mean, RLY.

Next time I spend the day in Baltimore, I want to do the Visionary Art Museum and Fells Point.

And then after all of that, I check my email, and I got one from markwhi. Yes, Mark. Yes, I know, it HAS been 4 months since I've heard from him. He wants to talk. I don't know how I feel about this. I want to talk, but I know there's going to be crying, there's going to be pain. But you know what? My relationship with Niy has taught me that, yeah, sure, ok, you go through that, and? And you get to the other side. That, and, well, I *do* have my relationship with Niy. I doubt I'd fall as head over heels crazy in NRE with Mark this time around, and whatever I have to go through with Mark, I have Niy there to help me through it. So maybe this time will be different. I don't know what I could get out of continuing something with Mark, but that's just because it's been so long and I've repressed so much because it hurt so fucking bad. But, yeah, talk is good. Talk over coffee.

So that was my day. And it was good. I feel happy. But maybe it's just post-sex/post-scene endorphin afterglow. But even so, that's ok with me. :-)

Fuck it. I booked 'em.

rob_t_firefly you better be able to clear out some time in your schedule. That's all I'm saying.

Oh, and date I leave NYC is subject to change (more time? less time?), as long as I can book a cheap bus out of there.

*****

Purchased By: c4bl3fl4m3
Route: Washington, D.C. 11th and G to New York 33rd and 7th
Date: 3/27/2008
Departs: 11:30 AM
Arrives: 2:30 PM

Fares: , $1.00 (1 ticket)
Total Charges: $1.00

Passenger Name: Confirmation Number:
c4bl3fl4m3 *********


B-03 Purchased By: c4bl3fl4m3
Route: New York 33rd and 7th to Washington, D.C. 11th and G
Date: 4/3/2008
Departs: 3:00 PM
Arrives: 7:00 PM

Fares: $1.00 (1 ticket)
Total Charges: $1.00

Passenger Name: Confirmation Number:
c4bl3fl4m3 **********
Your purchase is complete. Tickets are non-refundable and date/schedule specific. All you need to do now is listen for your boarding group letter, then give the driver your confirmation number and photo ID. Please arrive 15 minutes prior to boarding. Have a safe trip!

I just thought I should let you all know.

So there's this guy...

Well, his name's xnecrontyrx/Justin. He's a coder and a professional photographer. Oh, and he used to be a prep chef, so he can cook like noone's business. (Gotta love a man who can cook and loves to do it!) He's smart and funny and doesn't mind my foibles neurosis foibles. And so far, we're pretty compatible in bed. Oh, and he looks like a chubby Gendo Ikari, which is tres sexy. And he plays tabletop RPGs. (He's going to let me into his new campaign starting in May.)

And I smile and my heart does that woosh of glee thing whenever I think about him. I've seen him, what, 6 times in the last 8 days? Yeah. I know it's probably not healthy, but... but when I'm in his arms, it just feels RIGHT. And the dynamic feels right when I'm in his arms. It feels protecting but I don't feel any of that lesser than you/better than me dynamic that has plagued me in the past with other people that I've gotten that protecting vibe from when they hold me. (It's a great vibe for the bedroom to be able to bring about, but it's not so good [at least for me] when it enters your actual relationship.)

So... yeah. I'm trying not to fall too hard too fast and I'm succeeding to an extent... but only to an extent. And that's ok by me.

If I get his permission, I'll link to his photo website and/or his LJ.

(Oh! I forgot to tell you where I met him! http://www.gk2gk.com/ = Geek2Geek, a geek dating website that has TONS of members from the DC area.)

So if you see me inordinately happy and singing Happiness Writes White by Harvey Danger or Daughters by John Mayer, you'll know why.

...also in the update field, the old goldfish died and I got a new one, named Moby (the singer or the whale, you decide). Bigger bowl + aerator + thingie to hide in/behind = happier goldfish. I still think this one has a case of fin rot, but the store said they were having a fin rot problem, so yeah.

Eden, the new computer, has been serving me well. It definitely needs more RAM, but I already knew that. It's having some wonky problems with the sound that I think is related to the connections on the mobo (I've already determined it's not the speakers) but whatever... I can play WoW and I can almost play Second Life.

And now I must run. I'm going up to VT and MIT with RS this weekend. Hooray for roadtrips! (And hooray for MIT!)

( Read the chronicle inside! )

****

More later.

So right now Groupie (my lover, if you haven't figured that out...

omg! LJ now autosaves drafts of posts like Gmail does! COOL!

..oh, sorry about that ADHD moment... back to my former thought...

So right now orcinus_dorka (my lover, if you haven't figured that out by now) is packing. Packing her suitcase to come over here. And it STILL doesn't feel real to me yet. I don't think it does to her either. I don't think it will until she's gone from here. Which is sad, but often times the way these things go.

I am getting quite excited. We have so many things we want to do together, I don't know how we'll fit them all in.

SO... our schedule, as of right now, is. Updated as of 2/18/2006
( It's LONG! Read it though! )

As you can see, there's lots of time there that says "FREE". This is time that you can hang with us. So drop me a line in this post (I'm looking at you, herodotusjr and asciilifeform/devvieish.) and we'll schedule when we'll hang.

escapade52, would you like to do kink stores (Christopher Street and/or others) with us, perhaps before the show, perhaps after? What are you doing that Saturday?

nyghtowl, when are you and Emily free?

rob_t_firefly, you wanna hang out with us that sunday? We'd love for you to show us around your favorite parts of Manhattan (and how well do you know Queens? I have a feeling Groupie might like to see it.)


...I'm wondering if I should visit my aunt and uncle in TriBeCa when I'm up there. I'm not out to them, but I don't see them freaking out. I mean, they're ARTISTS who live in NYC.

(and why the icon? I felt like it.)

Broken down into LJ cuts so it doesn't take over your Friends list ('cause it's LONG). Take a click and read on!

( Tentacles v.1.0 = Done! )

( The rest of the France pics are up. URL inside. )

( Wrote some erotica, but I need you to tell me if it's hot or not. URL inside. )

( West Coast Bound! (or, Wearing a GNU/Linux shirt at the Microsoft corporate campus) )

( Happy Birthday RS! )

1 set of airplane tickets, via Independence Air, round-trip, from Washington-Dulles to Upstateville, NY... check!
1 hotel reservation, 2 nights, 1 queen sized bed, to Upstateville Comfort Inn, right outside the airport... check!
1 car rental, compact (and hopefully cool/sporty looking) car, 2 days/nights, (at an awesome deal of $47... yes, they know my age) from Enterprise Rent-a-Car... check!

2 excited and scared women, who can't believe this is *really* going to happen... check!


She can't believe it's so soon... that's it's under a month away.
I can't believe it's so far away... that it's only a little under a month away.

Funny how you look at things from different perspectives.

So... yeah... 4th weekend in January, I'm heading out of town... I'm taking a little trip. :-D

Now all I need is help aquiring specific pieces of clothing:
white dress shirt with silver buttons
black pants/jeans
black duster or trench coat