Arisia 2011, a trip to Boston
I spent this weekend in Boston at Arisia. My trip up was punctuated by a night in Columbia MD at The Empty City (K's parents'/childhood house). While there she showed me a couple of neighborhood parks covered with snow, we walked around for a while, and I met her best friend and that friend's boyfriend and siblings. I got to spend a few more minutes or hours around K's family, finding out her brother plays TF2, her sister is a typical teenage girl, and her mother is a lot more approachable than I had suspected.
We (K, myself, her mother, and her mother's friend) all went to the airport in MD together on Friday morning and had some great conversation along the way. The ride was otherwise uneventful. At the airport I had the usual excitement at security, they didn't like my violet wand (one xray, one chemical swab, one explanation) or my magnets (three xrays, two chemical swabs, two explanations), although they were unusually uninterested in my TENS unit or my gloves (both of which look unique and potentially dangerous-gadget-like on an xray). I then found out that Southwest puts far more thought into their boarding procedure than their passengers care for, with individually assigned boarding priorities that everyone seemed to maintain only a semblance of compliance with, and mutually understand that that was the normal state of affairs. The flight involved K and her mother doing Sudoku and me mostly napping. After landing we made it from the airport onto a Silver Line bus relatively quickly (ignoring that Southwest claims they have no control over BOS' luggage location signs, so we had to wander for a bit to find out which conveyor ours would actually be on). The bus took us to the World Trade Center station, from whence there was a short (1000ft) brisk walk to the hotel. I should, at some point, write about how much MARTA could learn from the MBTA.
On arriving at the con we checked into our respective rooms. K's mom had hers, her friend had some arrangements with someone, and K was welcome in either mine or her mother's (or any of a half dozen others, I expect). I had a small SNAFU with my room, in that I had arranged to split a room with N AND I had a reservation for a whole room from the waiting list that I did not cancel until after the cancellation deadline. I had to pay $105ish for a night that I didn't spend in that room. Unfortunately the hotel person who took my phone call the night before, wherein I requested the remaining nights for that room be canceled, instead kept that reservation active and canceled N's room instead (because my name was on that reservation as well). So when I arrived I had to put my credit card on file for my room (since her information had gone *poof* when her reservation was canceled, my keen hotel training tells me), add N and K's names to the room so that they could get keys when needed, and then finish checking in. K and I dropped our things off in my room and had a little play time as well.
We were finally ready to experience the con around 3PM, I think. I spent a few minutes finding the appropriate registration location to get my badge, then a few more getting my packet as a Program Participant. The next hour or two involved a thorough exploration of the hotel and its convention space, which was spread out in a very suboptimal fashion (80% of panel-panel trips require a walk through the lobby, past the front doors and hotel reception and huge crowds). Once I knew where everything was, including the locations for my impending and future events, I stopped by the green room to get some food.
I should stop here for a moment to explain Arisia's approach to running a con. Arisia is a classic fandom convention. They do not spend money on guests. Where a "modern" anime or media convention might pay $500-5000 appearance fees for a movie star or band, Arisia puts that money toward making the convention experience more fun and bearable. That means larger department budgets (despite how much my friends on staff might scoff at that statement) across the board. Where this is particularly obvious is in the Tech department, whose capability and equipment rivals that of 10000+ person conventions I have worked at, and absolutely dwarfs any other 1000-6000 person convention I've been to (MTAC, OhayoCon, AWA, etc). The other major difference is in lounge space and food for attendees of all sorts. Arisia boasts a con suite open to everyone at the con, which itself puts the con suite at any similar sized convention to shame. There is also the Green Room, which is open to anyone who participates any sort of scheduled programming, including guests, panelists, game masters, etc. Then there is the Volunteer Lounge, which offers relaxation and snacks for volunteers, which I had only limited access to, and the Staff Den, which provides the same for convention staff. All told, it is virtually impossible to go hungry or lack for a place to sit down and have a conversation (of any level of quiet or boisterousness you desire) at any time during the convention.
Once I was sufficiently fed, I made my way to the Crafty Space, which was an open area full of round tables for craft-oriented events, located in a corner of the Art/Dealer room. I spent an hour and a half teaching origami to the few people who stopped by (5, I think, thanks to being one of the first timeslots in the con, in a difficult-to-find location, and due to someone in Programming scheduling the adult and kids origami classes at the same time, which I later heard resulted in some parents being "stuck" in the latter). After that I wandered around a lot more. I spent a lot of time getting reacquainted with people I had met in Boston at last year's Arisia, or on previous visits to see K (such as at various dance events or misc parties). That last would turn out to be a recurring theme of the weekend, leading to my giving my contact info to a lot more people who actually remembered me or seem like they might be worth having ongoing conversations with, or even seeing again less than a year from now. As evening progressed into night I visited a lot of parties (of which there were far more this year, as this was a much more party-friendly hotel despite stricter corkage enforcement). On Friday I explored a number of parties, which ranged from very tame (book launch parties, a WorldCon bid, and a number of classic fandom gatherings-cum-socials) to average (parties with dance music, mixed drinks, themed decorations, etc). One exciting part of my evening involved renting a ZipCar to drive to the Children's Museum where I was told I might find used LEGO bricks in bulk, which turned out to be a mistake as it took longer to find the car than it would have to walk to the museum, and I only needed the car if I had legos to bring back, which I didn't because they didn't have any. I spent a half hour in the hot tub alone, due to the mere existence of the pool being a well kept secret, and its hours more so, then went in search of company for food and conversation. Night began to turn to morning as a group of new acquaintances spent the wee hours chatting about nothing in the lobby and con suite. I ended up sleeping alone, much to my lament, but not unexpectedly as I had told K that I would be explicitly not seeking out her company since I was abducting her back to Atlanta for a week post-con and this was her only chance to hang out with a number of other [boy]friends all in the same place at the same time.
Saturday started early; I had to be up before noon to prep for the LEGO building competition on the kids track. I had spent a little time on Friday night, both before and after my museum adventure, trying to nail down the status and whereabouts of any expected or potential donations or loans of lego bricks for the competition. What we had to start was a half-bin of bricks, numbering possibly 3000, which is somewhat low for 20-30 kids who each have 2-3 hours to build. In the end we were loaned the personal collection of one of the competitors (or his father, the precise providence of the bin was unclear), with the admonition that it not be mixed with our other supplies. Since his collection was larger than our other supply in total (perhaps 8000 pieces), we ended up using his alone. After a rocky start due to schedule overrun of previous events we were set up to start the competition about a half hour late. We started with about 20 kids, and 5 more joined throughout the duration of the event. I stole a page from a costuming event I helped run at MTAC and organized the competition such that each child began with a small random handful of pieces and they could take turns diving into the pile for specific pieces while everyone else was building. This worked out reasonably well, with only one child vocally complaining about someone else taking "the piece I wanted!". Toward the end of the competition I began sorting the entries by the child's age and the 25 entries split reasonably well into groups of about 8 (ages 5-7, 8-9, and 10-12). I asked the judges to each pick and rank their top 3 choices in each age group, then I assigned numerical weights (7, 5, 3 points, respectively) to each choice and totaled up all of the points for each entry. By chance, this provided a very convenient distribution of results without having to "massage" the data at all, leaving us with a clear #1 in each age group, then 4 remaining high scorers overall who were titled runners up and an honorable mention, comfortably matching the seven prizes that we had available. Only one parent expressed disapproval that we did not supply prizes to every entrant, at which I scoffed in the manner that I generally do when a masquerade or costume contest invents such categories as "Best Fantasy Costume from a book starting with the letter E" in order to sate parents' insecurities about their children. Winners were announced, prizes were claimed, and a few of us (staff, volunteers, and myself) carried the winning entries to their display table in the art show while the parents and kids accompanied us in a single file line that proved predictably humorous considering that it contained many 5-8 year old kids. The rest of the day continued my social butterfly strategy, targeted mostly at the lobby and con suite during the afternoon and the parties in the evening. I spread word that there was to be a 2AM hot tub party (the convention negotiated with the hotel to keep the pool area open until 3AM, for which I am quite grateful as an attendee and envious as staff at other cons) which occurred on schedule and with the desired level of company. A and S showed up, which made for quite enjoyable scenery, and there was conversation on random geeky topics to be had. I had some fun with my gloves, as did my subjects. When security asked us to leave at 3:15 we all showered up and wandered off. Thanks to a sudden increase in nerve on my part I managed to ask S if she'd like to be tied up again[0], shamelessly cockblocking another of her pursuers as she seemed quite eager in her response. Unfortunately everyone involved in the idea of the rope play had sleeping roommates, so we ended up heading to the con suite. There was a bit of an audience as I tied her up, some questions and answers on the subject of rope were had and I found that she was quite more fond of being tied up than I had previously noticed. The tie that I put together over about an hour consisted of a chest harness (which was QUITE fun as she weighs about 90 pounds soaking wet[1]. Given another half hour and a little more room I could have added a waist harness and suspended her _in my hands_), a two column wrist tie using the "lightning" style of binding which then held her hands behind her head, and a pair of ankle cuffs also tied to the harness. An acquaintance in charge of the con suite expressed his mild concern at our use of the public space, but did not object outright. His counterpart on the security team was not so understanding, and our compromise was to move to the much less frequented other room of the con suite[2]. I spent another hour or so slowly building up another tie with her while I explored her sensitivity to the rope and pushed toward her various thresholds, which consisted of a t-rex tie[3] to which I attached her big toes while she was curved upward as if hogtied. When we were done and retiring for the evening I steeled myself to ask if she'd like to share my bed for the evening (on the pretense that it was better than her plan to sleep on the floor elsewhere), which invitation she accepted, much to my surprise[4]. I almost let the night pass as passive bed mates, but took a chance and ended up with a wonderful cuddle for the night[4].
Come morning she decided to skip an early event in favor of more cuddling and sleep. Early afternoon brought us to our waking hours, which gave us plenty of time for the important conversations (play, limits, safe words, sex, safe sex, etc). A short shower later and I got a chance to show her the violet wand, which we were both quite happily surprised at her positive response to after her much earlier adamant insistence that TENS was not for her and hearing that she did not generally enjoy the idea of electrical play. I tied her to the bed[5] and got to play a lot rougher with the wand than I am generally used to. She did not want the especially strong settings or implements, but was quite sufficiently responsive (in pleasure, pain, and surprise) to the moderate levels that she could tolerate. Shortly before we finished with the wand N returned to the room with her guy. We had previously discussed the idea of sharing the room for play time in general, but hadn't made any specific plans. The deciding factor was her guy, who was OK with being in the room together as long as our play didn't cross some specific lines and he didn't have to watch, both of which were easy to accommodate. I finished up with S with the wand and caressed her burn marks a bit before untying her, then we spent a little time cuddling before wandering off to find food and go our separate ways[6].
Having nothing specific to do until my rope class after midnight, I did mostly nothing for the next 8 hours. I did a lot of different nothing with a lot of different people, and it was quite relaxing and enjoyable. A few one-time acquaintances turned into potential long term con friends, and a few did not. I learned a lot of things about a lot of random fandom subjects, and spread my share of trivia as well. As the rope class approached I gathered my rope, books, and other toys (as I didn't plan to be back in the room before the night came to a close) and headed downstairs. The class went well, with Percy taking the lead and myself and Mycroft providing further information. We then took turns doing instructional demos for the class. I opened with my favorite pair of cuffs on K (discovering that she is quite fond of my new bamboo rope, a very expensive thing to learn), Mycroft followed with a karada which I also demonstrated on K, and Percy finished with a butterfly tie and a lightning body wrap. The class ran long, which unfortunately killed the hot tub party plans for the evening. Everyone split up to find food and toys and solo play, then a handful of us ended up in a friend of a friend's room for some social play and conversation for a few hours. Our last stop in the con suite yielded an absolutely fascinating encounter with a beautiful Indian girl to whom we both took an immediate fancy. More to come on that front, we hope. I took K back to bed and we both passed right out after 3 long days at con.
Today (Monday) everyone was in get-out-of-the-hotel mode. We all checked our bags at the front desk and went about our end of con activities. I caught the end of the dealer hall and considered then rejected a few very tempting deals. I discovered the ZipZow(?) auction, which consisted of a large number of poorly documented lots and singles of sci-fi books and classic toys of varying degrees of value and rarity (one first edition sci-fi anthology went for $100, another for $5). There was still a bit of food to be had in the green room, of which I availed myself heartily. At 2:30 we all met up in the lobby to claim our bags and catch a cab to N's house, where K and I are spending the night before our flight back to Atlanta tomorrow. In N's kitchen is where I am now, writing this as payment to K for the use of her laptop while they are out learning and performing Scottish Country Dancing in a social setting this evening.
Tomorrow we will take the T to the airport for our flight, which is about 3 hours long. I expect another round of excitement at the hands of the TSA, and yet another chance to explain to them just how each and every item they point at is a sex toy[8][9]. We will land just in time for me to be late for work, since I have to drop K off at my place instead of my previous plan of going straight to work with my luggage and dealing with it all 10 hours later. There is a small chance that I will call in a personal day, depending on how tired I am and how bad things are at work in the aftermath of the snowpocalypse that I abandoned them all to deal with without me (after being the only person at the office for 3 days in a row, including a day I was called in for overtime!). If you're lucky, K might insist I write more later this week, but don't hold your breath.
PS: Parts of this entry are NSFW, because I like to have FUN at conventions.
[0] we met last year at Arisia and I got to tie her up once in the con suite, purely socially
[1] which she probably was, see previous sentence about being fond of rope
[2] the Bread Room, for any attendees who remember how it was laid out
[3] widely separated cuffs, hands bound in front below the breasts, elbows bound behind the back, with forearms parallel on opposite sides of the torso
[4] note to self: boldness works, try more often!
[5] note to Westin: beds with legs are awesome, your purchasing staff rocks
[6] which is unlikely to be the ongoing state of affairs if I have anything to say about it, as she and K both find each other cute and play-worthy, and I'm determined to make that happen
[8] Everything is a sex toy. Everything I own, everything K owns, everything at Home Depot, everything at Kroger. If you can't figure out how, you're not thinking hard enough, or you aren't imaginative enough in terms of fetishes.
[9] There are many threads on Fetlife and elsewhere about how to explain your sex toys and fetish gear to police / security / TSA. The answer is easy, "It's a sex toy". Be direct and blunt, tell them exactly how it's used if they insist on inquiring further.
We (K, myself, her mother, and her mother's friend) all went to the airport in MD together on Friday morning and had some great conversation along the way. The ride was otherwise uneventful. At the airport I had the usual excitement at security, they didn't like my violet wand (one xray, one chemical swab, one explanation) or my magnets (three xrays, two chemical swabs, two explanations), although they were unusually uninterested in my TENS unit or my gloves (both of which look unique and potentially dangerous-gadget-like on an xray). I then found out that Southwest puts far more thought into their boarding procedure than their passengers care for, with individually assigned boarding priorities that everyone seemed to maintain only a semblance of compliance with, and mutually understand that that was the normal state of affairs. The flight involved K and her mother doing Sudoku and me mostly napping. After landing we made it from the airport onto a Silver Line bus relatively quickly (ignoring that Southwest claims they have no control over BOS' luggage location signs, so we had to wander for a bit to find out which conveyor ours would actually be on). The bus took us to the World Trade Center station, from whence there was a short (1000ft) brisk walk to the hotel. I should, at some point, write about how much MARTA could learn from the MBTA.
On arriving at the con we checked into our respective rooms. K's mom had hers, her friend had some arrangements with someone, and K was welcome in either mine or her mother's (or any of a half dozen others, I expect). I had a small SNAFU with my room, in that I had arranged to split a room with N AND I had a reservation for a whole room from the waiting list that I did not cancel until after the cancellation deadline. I had to pay $105ish for a night that I didn't spend in that room. Unfortunately the hotel person who took my phone call the night before, wherein I requested the remaining nights for that room be canceled, instead kept that reservation active and canceled N's room instead (because my name was on that reservation as well). So when I arrived I had to put my credit card on file for my room (since her information had gone *poof* when her reservation was canceled, my keen hotel training tells me), add N and K's names to the room so that they could get keys when needed, and then finish checking in. K and I dropped our things off in my room and had a little play time as well.
We were finally ready to experience the con around 3PM, I think. I spent a few minutes finding the appropriate registration location to get my badge, then a few more getting my packet as a Program Participant. The next hour or two involved a thorough exploration of the hotel and its convention space, which was spread out in a very suboptimal fashion (80% of panel-panel trips require a walk through the lobby, past the front doors and hotel reception and huge crowds). Once I knew where everything was, including the locations for my impending and future events, I stopped by the green room to get some food.
I should stop here for a moment to explain Arisia's approach to running a con. Arisia is a classic fandom convention. They do not spend money on guests. Where a "modern" anime or media convention might pay $500-5000 appearance fees for a movie star or band, Arisia puts that money toward making the convention experience more fun and bearable. That means larger department budgets (despite how much my friends on staff might scoff at that statement) across the board. Where this is particularly obvious is in the Tech department, whose capability and equipment rivals that of 10000+ person conventions I have worked at, and absolutely dwarfs any other 1000-6000 person convention I've been to (MTAC, OhayoCon, AWA, etc). The other major difference is in lounge space and food for attendees of all sorts. Arisia boasts a con suite open to everyone at the con, which itself puts the con suite at any similar sized convention to shame. There is also the Green Room, which is open to anyone who participates any sort of scheduled programming, including guests, panelists, game masters, etc. Then there is the Volunteer Lounge, which offers relaxation and snacks for volunteers, which I had only limited access to, and the Staff Den, which provides the same for convention staff. All told, it is virtually impossible to go hungry or lack for a place to sit down and have a conversation (of any level of quiet or boisterousness you desire) at any time during the convention.
Once I was sufficiently fed, I made my way to the Crafty Space, which was an open area full of round tables for craft-oriented events, located in a corner of the Art/Dealer room. I spent an hour and a half teaching origami to the few people who stopped by (5, I think, thanks to being one of the first timeslots in the con, in a difficult-to-find location, and due to someone in Programming scheduling the adult and kids origami classes at the same time, which I later heard resulted in some parents being "stuck" in the latter). After that I wandered around a lot more. I spent a lot of time getting reacquainted with people I had met in Boston at last year's Arisia, or on previous visits to see K (such as at various dance events or misc parties). That last would turn out to be a recurring theme of the weekend, leading to my giving my contact info to a lot more people who actually remembered me or seem like they might be worth having ongoing conversations with, or even seeing again less than a year from now. As evening progressed into night I visited a lot of parties (of which there were far more this year, as this was a much more party-friendly hotel despite stricter corkage enforcement). On Friday I explored a number of parties, which ranged from very tame (book launch parties, a WorldCon bid, and a number of classic fandom gatherings-cum-socials) to average (parties with dance music, mixed drinks, themed decorations, etc). One exciting part of my evening involved renting a ZipCar to drive to the Children's Museum where I was told I might find used LEGO bricks in bulk, which turned out to be a mistake as it took longer to find the car than it would have to walk to the museum, and I only needed the car if I had legos to bring back, which I didn't because they didn't have any. I spent a half hour in the hot tub alone, due to the mere existence of the pool being a well kept secret, and its hours more so, then went in search of company for food and conversation. Night began to turn to morning as a group of new acquaintances spent the wee hours chatting about nothing in the lobby and con suite. I ended up sleeping alone, much to my lament, but not unexpectedly as I had told K that I would be explicitly not seeking out her company since I was abducting her back to Atlanta for a week post-con and this was her only chance to hang out with a number of other [boy]friends all in the same place at the same time.
Saturday started early; I had to be up before noon to prep for the LEGO building competition on the kids track. I had spent a little time on Friday night, both before and after my museum adventure, trying to nail down the status and whereabouts of any expected or potential donations or loans of lego bricks for the competition. What we had to start was a half-bin of bricks, numbering possibly 3000, which is somewhat low for 20-30 kids who each have 2-3 hours to build. In the end we were loaned the personal collection of one of the competitors (or his father, the precise providence of the bin was unclear), with the admonition that it not be mixed with our other supplies. Since his collection was larger than our other supply in total (perhaps 8000 pieces), we ended up using his alone. After a rocky start due to schedule overrun of previous events we were set up to start the competition about a half hour late. We started with about 20 kids, and 5 more joined throughout the duration of the event. I stole a page from a costuming event I helped run at MTAC and organized the competition such that each child began with a small random handful of pieces and they could take turns diving into the pile for specific pieces while everyone else was building. This worked out reasonably well, with only one child vocally complaining about someone else taking "the piece I wanted!". Toward the end of the competition I began sorting the entries by the child's age and the 25 entries split reasonably well into groups of about 8 (ages 5-7, 8-9, and 10-12). I asked the judges to each pick and rank their top 3 choices in each age group, then I assigned numerical weights (7, 5, 3 points, respectively) to each choice and totaled up all of the points for each entry. By chance, this provided a very convenient distribution of results without having to "massage" the data at all, leaving us with a clear #1 in each age group, then 4 remaining high scorers overall who were titled runners up and an honorable mention, comfortably matching the seven prizes that we had available. Only one parent expressed disapproval that we did not supply prizes to every entrant, at which I scoffed in the manner that I generally do when a masquerade or costume contest invents such categories as "Best Fantasy Costume from a book starting with the letter E" in order to sate parents' insecurities about their children. Winners were announced, prizes were claimed, and a few of us (staff, volunteers, and myself) carried the winning entries to their display table in the art show while the parents and kids accompanied us in a single file line that proved predictably humorous considering that it contained many 5-8 year old kids. The rest of the day continued my social butterfly strategy, targeted mostly at the lobby and con suite during the afternoon and the parties in the evening. I spread word that there was to be a 2AM hot tub party (the convention negotiated with the hotel to keep the pool area open until 3AM, for which I am quite grateful as an attendee and envious as staff at other cons) which occurred on schedule and with the desired level of company. A and S showed up, which made for quite enjoyable scenery, and there was conversation on random geeky topics to be had. I had some fun with my gloves, as did my subjects. When security asked us to leave at 3:15 we all showered up and wandered off. Thanks to a sudden increase in nerve on my part I managed to ask S if she'd like to be tied up again[0], shamelessly cockblocking another of her pursuers as she seemed quite eager in her response. Unfortunately everyone involved in the idea of the rope play had sleeping roommates, so we ended up heading to the con suite. There was a bit of an audience as I tied her up, some questions and answers on the subject of rope were had and I found that she was quite more fond of being tied up than I had previously noticed. The tie that I put together over about an hour consisted of a chest harness (which was QUITE fun as she weighs about 90 pounds soaking wet[1]. Given another half hour and a little more room I could have added a waist harness and suspended her _in my hands_), a two column wrist tie using the "lightning" style of binding which then held her hands behind her head, and a pair of ankle cuffs also tied to the harness. An acquaintance in charge of the con suite expressed his mild concern at our use of the public space, but did not object outright. His counterpart on the security team was not so understanding, and our compromise was to move to the much less frequented other room of the con suite[2]. I spent another hour or so slowly building up another tie with her while I explored her sensitivity to the rope and pushed toward her various thresholds, which consisted of a t-rex tie[3] to which I attached her big toes while she was curved upward as if hogtied. When we were done and retiring for the evening I steeled myself to ask if she'd like to share my bed for the evening (on the pretense that it was better than her plan to sleep on the floor elsewhere), which invitation she accepted, much to my surprise[4]. I almost let the night pass as passive bed mates, but took a chance and ended up with a wonderful cuddle for the night[4].
Come morning she decided to skip an early event in favor of more cuddling and sleep. Early afternoon brought us to our waking hours, which gave us plenty of time for the important conversations (play, limits, safe words, sex, safe sex, etc). A short shower later and I got a chance to show her the violet wand, which we were both quite happily surprised at her positive response to after her much earlier adamant insistence that TENS was not for her and hearing that she did not generally enjoy the idea of electrical play. I tied her to the bed[5] and got to play a lot rougher with the wand than I am generally used to. She did not want the especially strong settings or implements, but was quite sufficiently responsive (in pleasure, pain, and surprise) to the moderate levels that she could tolerate. Shortly before we finished with the wand N returned to the room with her guy. We had previously discussed the idea of sharing the room for play time in general, but hadn't made any specific plans. The deciding factor was her guy, who was OK with being in the room together as long as our play didn't cross some specific lines and he didn't have to watch, both of which were easy to accommodate. I finished up with S with the wand and caressed her burn marks a bit before untying her, then we spent a little time cuddling before wandering off to find food and go our separate ways[6].
Having nothing specific to do until my rope class after midnight, I did mostly nothing for the next 8 hours. I did a lot of different nothing with a lot of different people, and it was quite relaxing and enjoyable. A few one-time acquaintances turned into potential long term con friends, and a few did not. I learned a lot of things about a lot of random fandom subjects, and spread my share of trivia as well. As the rope class approached I gathered my rope, books, and other toys (as I didn't plan to be back in the room before the night came to a close) and headed downstairs. The class went well, with Percy taking the lead and myself and Mycroft providing further information. We then took turns doing instructional demos for the class. I opened with my favorite pair of cuffs on K (discovering that she is quite fond of my new bamboo rope, a very expensive thing to learn), Mycroft followed with a karada which I also demonstrated on K, and Percy finished with a butterfly tie and a lightning body wrap. The class ran long, which unfortunately killed the hot tub party plans for the evening. Everyone split up to find food and toys and solo play, then a handful of us ended up in a friend of a friend's room for some social play and conversation for a few hours. Our last stop in the con suite yielded an absolutely fascinating encounter with a beautiful Indian girl to whom we both took an immediate fancy. More to come on that front, we hope. I took K back to bed and we both passed right out after 3 long days at con.
Today (Monday) everyone was in get-out-of-the-hotel mode. We all checked our bags at the front desk and went about our end of con activities. I caught the end of the dealer hall and considered then rejected a few very tempting deals. I discovered the ZipZow(?) auction, which consisted of a large number of poorly documented lots and singles of sci-fi books and classic toys of varying degrees of value and rarity (one first edition sci-fi anthology went for $100, another for $5). There was still a bit of food to be had in the green room, of which I availed myself heartily. At 2:30 we all met up in the lobby to claim our bags and catch a cab to N's house, where K and I are spending the night before our flight back to Atlanta tomorrow. In N's kitchen is where I am now, writing this as payment to K for the use of her laptop while they are out learning and performing Scottish Country Dancing in a social setting this evening.
Tomorrow we will take the T to the airport for our flight, which is about 3 hours long. I expect another round of excitement at the hands of the TSA, and yet another chance to explain to them just how each and every item they point at is a sex toy[8][9]. We will land just in time for me to be late for work, since I have to drop K off at my place instead of my previous plan of going straight to work with my luggage and dealing with it all 10 hours later. There is a small chance that I will call in a personal day, depending on how tired I am and how bad things are at work in the aftermath of the snowpocalypse that I abandoned them all to deal with without me (after being the only person at the office for 3 days in a row, including a day I was called in for overtime!). If you're lucky, K might insist I write more later this week, but don't hold your breath.
PS: Parts of this entry are NSFW, because I like to have FUN at conventions.
[0] we met last year at Arisia and I got to tie her up once in the con suite, purely socially
[1] which she probably was, see previous sentence about being fond of rope
[2] the Bread Room, for any attendees who remember how it was laid out
[3] widely separated cuffs, hands bound in front below the breasts, elbows bound behind the back, with forearms parallel on opposite sides of the torso
[4] note to self: boldness works, try more often!
[5] note to Westin: beds with legs are awesome, your purchasing staff rocks
[6] which is unlikely to be the ongoing state of affairs if I have anything to say about it, as she and K both find each other cute and play-worthy, and I'm determined to make that happen
[8] Everything is a sex toy. Everything I own, everything K owns, everything at Home Depot, everything at Kroger. If you can't figure out how, you're not thinking hard enough, or you aren't imaginative enough in terms of fetishes.
[9] There are many threads on Fetlife and elsewhere about how to explain your sex toys and fetish gear to police / security / TSA. The answer is easy, "It's a sex toy". Be direct and blunt, tell them exactly how it's used if they insist on inquiring further.