Alameda County Leather Contest • June 28–July 2

Back in the late 1990s, when I lived in San Mateo, CA, I started reaching out to have more than the haphazard leather community I had as a commuter into San Francisco (30 minutes each way).  There was no leather community in San Mateo county, so I ventured across the Bay to Hayward, where the Alameda County Leather Corps was based.

When I saw the call for contestants for this year’s ACLC contest earlier this year, I sent them an e-mail and offered to come down to be a judge for the contest.  My membership class included Andrew “Bootdog” Johnson (International Mr. Bootblack 2008) and Joan Norry (American Leatherwoman 2008), so there’s certainly something to be said for ACLC in the late 90s; I’m hoping to make it the latest big title for the class and the club.

As with IMsL in March/April, I flew down on Thursday and stayed until Monday, to work from the San Francisco office (and get reimbursement for some of the costs for the weekend).  With the contest in the East Bay (Hayward for the Meet & Greet, Oakland for the contest), I looked to stay in Oakland and checked out places close to both BART and walking distance to the contest site, ending up at the Washington Inn, right across from the Oakland Convention Center at about $90 pert night (including tax); easily $30 or more cheaper than staying in San Francisco would have been.

Meet & Greet

I took BART to Hayward and walked the few blocks to the World Famous Turf Club.  The Turf Club has changed locations in the past decade and Hayward has grown up so much in that part of town that I recognized nothing.  The Meet & Greet included dinner (salad, steak, potato, strawberry pie).  After introductions of the contestants (Christy Ford and Jay Williams) and the judges (myself, American Leatherwoman 2011 Trinity, Ms. World Leather 2001 Annie Romano, Ms. San Francisco Leather 2012 Miss Bethie Bee, and the first Mr. Alameda County Leather 1992(?) Mark McKee) and staff (tallymaster Mark Ingham, judges boy American Leatherboy 2011 Tyler Fong), we went upstairs for the judging.

Keeping with the sexplay focus of the LeatherSIR title, and having recently been the gay presenter at a pansexual leather conference, my first question was what they would teach at such a conference.  This was intended to make them think mostly about what they feel they are knowledgeable enough to teach, plus to put in play that potential unknown factor of teaching to a kinky straight audience.  The second question was what BDSM activities they did that would be “scary” enough to do at a perceived high-end queer play party, given that some people are reluctant to attend such because they don’t feel “scary” enough.

Contest

Saturday night, the walk to the contest venue (Humanist Hall) turned out to be longer than I expected, so I had to catch a taxi to be there in time… to hang around and wait.  After about an hour, the judges and some of the staff headed out to dinner at an Italian restaurant called Milano.  Once back at the venue, the contest flowed pretty well, although with only two contestants, there was an added break needed for a costume change.

There was also a decent sized silent auction.  San Francisco Leather Daddy 2009 Gauge Strongarm and I kept outbidding each other on a motorcycle jacket and riding gloves.  We eventually talked during a break and realized that he was more after the jacket and I was more after the gloves, so we made a deal to stop outbidding each other and split the win ($50 for the jacket, $30 for the gloves — Harley Davidson riding gloves with zip-off cuffs (can’t find an image online) for varying times of year).

The contest proceeded just fine.  The standout piece was Jay WIlliams’ fantasy, where a puppy with a cigar in his mouth led onto the stage trailing chains, followed by Jay in a major genderfuck leather outfit that looked like it was snatched from (leather Empress) Snatch’s closet: corset, long leather skirt open at the front, high heels (putting him at like 7'2"), and a high collar piece.  He lit the pup’s cigar, then took it for himself.  Very hot, and borderline disturbing.

Weekend Play

Fuck yes, I got some.

Friday afternoon, I played with a 24 year-old Australian surfer boy with small hands and a nice sized cock, which both fit quite nicely at the same time.  (A first for him.)

Friday night was a bust in two directions.  Foremost was the guy Alan I connected with off AssPig.  He talked a good story but when we got back to his place, he was incredibly scattered and unable to focus on actually getting down to play, so I eventually had him take me back to my hotel.  In the process, I had to turn down Bob, who has wanted to play with me for a while, and that offended him a bit.

Bob,

I’m sorry we didn’t get to play, but don’t go calling me a flake for standing you up.  An exchange of a few messages on Bear411 two months before the trip (and none since, and no other direct contact info for in between) where we say that yes, playing during the weekend would be a good thing does not constitute a date.  If we had set a specific night of the weekend, maybe — I was there for four nights, even if you were only available for one — but we didn’t set things that well.  Sorry, but I was neither an ass nor a flake.

Saturday afternoon, I ventured into San Francisco to play with Philippe, a furry bear from Paris.  We only had about 90 minutes to play before I had to head back to Oakland and him to the airport, but that bear had a hungry hole, eating up hands and cock.

After the contest, I had hoped to get into the City for the FistCity party, but by the time I walked back to the hotel and got ready, it was 11 pm.  Fortunately, I had a backup option: Sergio and José, whom I had played with back in March.  This time, I brought my own lube, remembering their penchant for using water-based hot lube(!).  I still didn’t take Sergio’s fucking huge hand, but José set a new depth record and made it past the second sphincter!  I slept at their place until about 7 am, when I could catch MUNI and BART back to Oakland, where I caught another 3 hours sleep and then had a mediocre dim sum buffet brunch.

Saturday afternoon, I went over to the home of Brad (whom I had played with at FistFest) and Gary (whom I had played with in April), to play with them and a fourth guy whose name I don’t recall now.  Brad and I started off with some hood play and mild CBT, and then into fisting.  After a while, we switched and Gary and I fucked and fisted.

Played out, I made it back to the hotel and collapsed into bed.  Worked the next day from the San Francisco office and made it home (with no plane delay this time)!

Dream Journal: June 30, 2012

Oh, dear.  Now I’ve started dreaming about the contest!

I was in a forested setting, apparently an outdoor camp with cabins, and it was International LeatherSIR contest weekend.  All the contestants were there, as were Sir Alan and Pup Nitro.  Everyone was bare-chested with towels in hand, going to or coming from morning showers.

The camp cabin concept was obviously left over from the presenter housing at Northern Exposure.

Leather Spirituality

During my contest interview, Luna asked for my views on Leather Spirituality (or maybe it was Leather and Spirituality; I’m going to treat those as the same thing, although they may not be).  I gave a somewhat rambling answer, circling around the question before landing on it.  (I’m not sure this post will do any better a job.)

Religion can be a sensitive subject in the gay and kink community, or at least practicing religion or even respect for it can be.  Declaring your disdain for it, or how you have overcome it, those are commonplace.

Some people reading this are thinking I made a jump from spirituality right into organized religion and are starting a mental protest.  And that’s true, so far as it goes, and it’s why my original answer had rambled.

I’m a PK, a Preacher’s Kid.  My father was a Presbyterian minister, who then shifted to become a Methodist minister about the time I was 10 or 11, I think.  (I don’t know the details, beyond that the small town church he served was jointly shared by both denominations and I think at least a third as well.)  To me, separating religion and spirituality doesn’t register.

I gave up on organized religion years ago.  I respect it.  I respect those who embrace it.  I value the Bible, I accept the validity (if not the explicit truth) of the Christ myth, etc., but I don’t have a need for the “organized” part of it, for the creation of community resulting from having someone else do to the formal job of worshipping for you.  If I need to feel the presence of God, I just look out at nature.

I don’t seek religious or spiritual experiences through sex play, either.  I don’t look to transcend earthly reality or to find metaphysical enlightenment via intense experiences in the playroom any more than I look for them on the dance floor during a really hot line dance or taking the curves on a fast-moving two-wheeled vehicle.

(Maybe it’s my analytical, Virgo nature as well.  I seek understanding, not that which cannot be understood.)

All this said, despite not looking for spirituality in my sex play, I have had extreme experiences during sex which others might attribute to the godhead.  On the basest level, this has included sensations of floating, being physically disconnected from the events, and “going to my happy place” (complete mentally separated from what is going on).  Fisting is especially prone to these feelings, with its extreme sensations and deep connection with the play partner.  The sensory deprivation from a hood can also provoke these sorts of sensations.  Mild drug use like poppers and pot can also be contributory factors.

On several occasions, I have seen balls of energy and even neon lightning flash around the play space.  I routinely speak in tongues during a scene and afterwards may have quiver reactions similar to seizures (or aftershocks).  I have experienced at least one genuine out-of-body experience, seeing the entire scene from several feet above.  And one time I saw elder gods and screamed in terror.  (Note: elder gods don’t respect safewords.)

Seattle Pride • June 23–24

After two weekends away — Palm Springs for FistFest and Anchorage for Northern Exposure 3.0 (URL to come) — it was good to not be away from home for a weekend.  But that didn’t mean I had a free weekend.  This was Seattle Pride.

Northwest Leatherboy Dan was up from Eugene.  Last time, he stayed with me, but this time he decided to get a hotel, to give me some “recover from being gone so much” space.  He didn’t have to do this, but I understand the choice: I usually prefer to ensure I have my own space during a potential “play” weekend, rather than be dependent on someone else (and rather than occupying them, forcing them to tend to me rather than their own preferences).  I’ve always been more of a solo traveller, self-sufficient and wanting to make my own path.

Leather Community Picnic

The weather report for the weekend originally looked less than fabulous, and Saturday sure held to that.

Generic Leather Productions of Washington held their 6th annual Leather Community Picnic in Cal Anderson Park.  This year, they (we, since I was involved in the planning, too) moved it from the far corner of the park to a more central location, to increase the visibility.  We arranged with Local Dogs (a hot dog cart owned by one the GLPW members) to supply dogs and drinks as a fundraiser, which required some permitting and extra costs.  A poster was designed, printed, and distributed around the city.  Events were posted to Facebook, Fetlife, and so forth.  All the sorts of things which should have made the picnic a good success.

But it rained.  And not just Seattle sprinkles.  It fucking rained.

Realizing that we would likely get at least sprinkles, I dug around at the last minute and found my REI screen house.  Boy, were we glad I brought that, so there was someplace handy for people to get out of the rain a bit (although with mesh sides, it was hardly a real rain shelter, but it helped a lot).

A decent number of leatherfolk braved the rain, including most of our local titleholders (and some of the Oregon ones) and two of the SEA-PAH pup/handler pairs, who were planning to have a pup walk.  But after a bit over two hours, we called it a day and broke everything down and headed our separate ways.

The rain stopped pretty much as soon as we left, although we were all wet and the ground was soaked, so we wouldn’t have wanted to hang around anyway.

Contest Prep

One of the main reasons Dan came up was so that we could plot out the Demo and Fantasy pieces for the International Contest next month.

We had discussed a couple ideas for the Demo.  At one point, I wanted to do a kink swing dance demo with Ruin, but the demo needs to be Sir/boy.  Dan and I also discussed a depersonalization demo based on a workshop at Northern Exposure, but we came back around to something we’ve done before that we both liked and we think can carry some more pleasant weight than depersonalization.

We also fleshed out the Fantasy, based off an idea I came up with during the burlesque show at IMsL in March.  I can’t provide any details here, but it will hopefully come off fun, with some good title team interactions (not just Sir/boy stuff but incorporating Ruin as well), and some edgeplay stuff (our regional theme this year) which is not the old gun/knife/rape stuff.  I typed it up that evening and sent it off to Ruin, and she loved it.

I now have to build some set/props for it (I’m hoping just a couple hours work) and figure out what to do with music.

Saturday Night

I have long disliked Saturday night bar stuff on big event weekends.  If you aren’t out early (and I am never able to manage that easily), then there are long lines and inflated cover charges (supply and demand!) everywhere and you can’t change locations without more lines and more cover charges.  I recall at least once in the Bay Area (for Pride or Folsom, I don’t recall which), driving 30 minutes into the City, finding 30+ minute lines out the door on every place I might want to go, and driving home instead.

This year, I rode to the Cuff, saw about 100 in line, then rode around the block and over to Diesel.  There, I was able to walk right in.  It was packed in there, but at least I could get in, get to the bar, and find some people I knew.  I got to talk for a bit to International LeatherSIR 2010 Hugh Russell (one of my judges for the International contest), who was out with his partner (I think; I’ve never met his other half before that I recall, but this wasn’t one of Hugh’s boys); Hugh told me he has been reading this blog and is pulling together questions for my interview.  (Mmm, hope the blog won’t have backfired on me!  No, must remain confident that this better allows me to control the interview, both by ensuring I have better thought through various issues and by helping to feed what I want to talk about to judges who do read some of the blog.)

I gave a good hard cruise to a cute shorter bearded guy named Greg, and it paid off enough to get me a night of make-out and cuddle/sleep at his place, although not much more than that.  He expressed that he’s recently had some bad drama in his life, and I think that may have led to a reluctance to go further (nor to go back to my place).  I’m hoping to get the chance to know (and play with) him some more in the near future.  We shall see.

Pride Parade

A few years ago — perhaps coincident with moving the Parade from Broadway to 4th Avenue — the leather community became irritated at potential random placing of our group in the parade, where if we were in the back half of the parade, we could guarantee having a low turnout.

Other groups around the country have also had the same issue.  Some have tried raising a stink and giving an ultimatum of “Give us better placement or we won’t attend” (to which I hope the local Pride committee replied “Fine.  One less group we have to wrangle, more room for others”).  The Seattle community took a different tack and would gather funds from various groups who would be marching under the banner to provide a “bribe” to the committee in order to get better placement.  This year or last, though, we have formalized this and changed from a “bribe” to a formal community sponsor, ensuring us a spot along with the other sponsors in the first third or so of the parade.  (This makes me at least much more comfortable with the process.  Words have meaning, and “sponsor” carries a much more positive, legitimizing weight than “bribe”, even if the net effect is the same.)

In order to further entice leather participation, Seattle Men in Leather advertised that they would be providing some snacks and coffee and encouraging light “street play”, to turn the pre-parade wait into a sort of Sunday Leather Social.  I didn’t get to the staging location until 10:45 or so, so I don’t know how well this actually worked, but turnout was some of the best I have seen, between Seattle Men in Leather, the Center for Sex Positive Culture, a truck of SEA-PAH pups, Seattle Girls of Leather, GLPW, Leather Reign, and all of our Northwest titleholders except Mr. Oregon State Leather.

With the disco music from one of the nearby contingents, Ruin and I did some West Coast Swing dancing on the street.

The weather report had only promised sun through the morning, changing to a 30% chance of rain by early afternoon.  But the weather report was wrong, and the entire day turned out to be sunny and warm enough (not hot, but suitable for going shirtless during the parade).

For the length of the parade, I was twirling my flogger, including using it some on Dan and Ruin and Ms. Oregon State Leather Ms. Tracey (and a handful of bystanders), as well as loaning it to Tracey to use on Dan.  I was very nervous of my right wrist, which has been problematic for months (and flogging sessions in Anchorage the previous weekend didn’t help), so I swung mostly from the elbow and shoulder or with my left and I seem to have escaped most aggravation.

We gathered most of the titleholders after the parade for some pics, although Seattle Leather Daddy Ryan and Seattle Daddy’s Boy Damien had to head up to the Cuff immediately.  I’ve been generally pleased with the pics of me from the parade, both the posed ones and the candid shots, because indeed, I didn’t look fat to myself in the pics.  I has been a few years since I’ve been willing to be photographed shirtless and not cringed at the pics.

Click here for my Flickr photostream of the event, with more pics.

With SEA-PAH Pup Gadget on the street and the Seattle Pups & Handlers truck behind us.	Regional Titleholders Northwest LeatherSIR Jim, Ms. Oregon State Leather Ms. Tracey, Washington State Mr. Leather Colby, Washington State Ms. Leather Nyx, and Northwest Leatherboy Dan.  Photo courtesy of the Seattle Gay News.
Northwest Title Team Northwest Community Bootblack Ruin, Northwest LeatherSIR Jim, and Northwest Leatherboy Dan.	Street Dancing with Ruin Tah-dah!  Big finish!
Regional Titleholders Washington State Mr. Leather Colby, Washington State Ms. Leather Nyx, International Mr. Bootblack/Oregon State Bootblack Nick, Ms. Oregon State Leather Ms. Tracey, Northwest Community Bootblack Ruin, Northwest LeatherSIR Jim, and Northwest Leatherboy Dan (kneeling).  Photo by Mike Graves.

PrideFest

Several years ago, after losing a lot of money on the weekend, Seattle Out & Proud cut loose the afternoon festival and concentrated just on the parade.  A local community organizer picked it up and has managed to turn PrideFest at the Seattle Center into a great event.  (Especially when it is sunny!)  Two stages of entertainment, shopping and community group booths, food booths, and dancing in the International Fountain are hallmarks.

Rain Country Dance Association, our local GLBTQ country-western dance club (which I’m one of the founders of) again this year had an info table inside Fisher Pavilion.  These are low-cost tables for non-profit community groups, sports teams, etc., and there is a beer garden half in/half out of the pavilion which keeps people flowing in the area: a great option for us.

I was scheduled to staff things at 4 pm, so I decided to ride home, change attire and drop off the title sash.  Going home was great.  Coming back should have taken 20 minutes and took 50, as I took the freeway, bypassed the usual exit because it was stuffed with traffic backed up from the parade and festival, and then rode pretty much all over Eastlake, Denny Triangle, and downtown trying to get around things and back to the festival.  (Would have been another 15 minutes in a car, I’m sure.)

Phil and I staffed the table, which have giveaway beads and candy, plus info sheets about country-western dancing, postcards and a banner for next year’s hoedown, and a computer slideshow of dance pics.  At about 5:15, the number of people walking around was dropping, so we consolidated to a half table, and a bit after 5:30, Pete came back and we packed things up and headed them back to his car.

Getting home, I took a short nap and then thought about going out for some evening partying, but decided against it.  The best place for that would be the Cuff, at the end of their street party, but they charge a hefty cover all day, even after the entertainment is done and crowds are thinning.  I don’t like to pay more to get in than I’m going to pay for the drinks I’ll be consuming while there, and I don’t dance to thump-thump music, so it wouldn’t be worth it to me.

---

Updated on August 2, 2012:

Added picnic poster.

Pics from Palm Springs (June 7–10)

Here are pics from my Palm Springs trip.   I’m trying to get better at taking and posting pics.

The base station for the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway

And a video of the tram ride:

Thoughts on “Old Guard” Leather

This was prompted by a post on Fetlife’s Gay Mens Virtual Leather Bar from several months ago.

Here is a collection of thoughts on the subject of “Old Guard” Leather.  It is not intended as a complete survey of the subject, nor even a complete picture of my own views on it.

Codewords and Definitions

• When someone describes himself as “Old Guard” or “Old Guard trained”, this is a code phrase, attempting to distill a communal understanding of what this person accepts and expects into a sound bite.  Which means that if you don’t have the same understanding as he does, the communal part of it can get lost.
• What are they guarding?  Does it even need guarding?  Or are they guarding against something?
• Interesting definition of “old guard” (from Wikipedia): “A conservative, reactionary faction that is unwilling to accept new ideas.”  Boy, that doesn’t sound like something positive for the leather community.
• The Wikipedia entry on “Old Guard” leather is is pretty sparse, and loaded with “citation needed” notes, indicating pretty clearly that it shouldn’t be trusted as complete (and maybe not as accurate).
• So far as I know, the term “Old Guard” in reference to leather generations dates only to 1989, to an editorial from Andy Mangels in Drummer Magazine.  Like many things dubbed ever-so-important to leather today, the concept didn’t exist at all 20-some years ago and didn’t gain the mindshare it does now until somewhere around the turn of the millennium.
• As a lover of puns, may I offer up that leathermen who like old Thor comics are Mid Guard?  Or that leathermen who are graphic designers and typesetters are Avant Guard?  Or that anyone who wants to battle about this subject should be required to say “En Guard!”  (And that if you don’t get these jokes, I think you need to get out more.)

The Myth of “Old Guard”

• Some people treat “Old Guard” as an identifiable or definable era or set of people, typically as a set of originators, although the actual definition or identification is never pinned down.  Unless you buy into “intelligent design”, though, you recognize that the leather community as we know it was not created wholesale on the first Sunday after autumnal equinox (the old traditional date for Folsom Street Fair, of course) in 1956.  What we have today is what evolved from what we had years ago.  Whatever we had in that never-quite-definable era that is dubbed “Old Guard” also must have evolved from what came before it.
• As a result of that evolution, tagging any particular era or generation as “Old Guard” and implying that they were the start, or at least the first self-recognized group, has problems.  In general, no grouping of leathermen is going to say “We were first”; they will say “The guys who came before us were first”.  Which is why we can’t pin these things down, box them up, and put a nice bow on them (with a fancy shibari knot, of course).

The Truth of “Old Guard”

• If you feel you have to tell me you are “Old Guard”, then you probably can’t show me.
• If you have to tell me you are “Old Guard” because you’re not allowed to show me, then I know you’re full of shit.
• Proclaiming yourself as “Old Guard” is one-upmanship, a way of saying “I’m a real leatherman (and you aren’t).  Prove me wrong.”  (Challenge accepted!)
• Saying that you are “Old Guard” or “Old Guard trained” tells me clearly that you aren’t.  It invites me to look for the cracks in your claims, where otherwise I would be content to take you at face value.

FistFest (Palm Springs, CA) • June 7–10

There are two major weekend-long non-leather kink events taking place in Palm Springs each year: Wet ’n Hot and FistFest.

Wet ’n Hot is primarily for watersports (piss) play.  I got into watersports play in the late 1990s, and went to the second or third Wet ’n Hot event in 2000, when it was primarily occurring at Cathedral City Boys Club.  My interest in the event waned over time as attendance dropped and non-watersports “pig play” became much more prominent at it.  (I also found it increasingly difficult to incorporate watersports play into play scenes, especially after the Puget Sound Pissers Society [PSPS] folded.  In large part, this is because while everyone has to piss at some point, it’s only at a group party where there’s always someone who has to piss now.  You can rarely make piss play the centerpoint of an extended play session with one other person, needing to make it a small portion of a larger scene instead.)  A couple years ago, I revisited Wet ’n Hot and found that attendance and energy and piss content had picked up, but my own interests had shifted more to fisting.  So after attending the 2011 event and spending more effort angling for fisting scenes than piss scenes, I decided to move on/over to FistFest.

I had heard of FistFest before, but I had some trepidation.  Was I good enough to fist with the “big dogs”?  Let’s see: I play an average of at least weekly, I both top and bottom, I’ve been to fisting play parties in several other cities, I host regular parties in Seattle with 20+ guys at each one, I’m making regular advancement in my skills in entry time and depth and width, I have been experimenting with lube formulas…  Fuck yes, I’m good enough!

Bill U. from Seattle (who has managed the local fisting parties in years gone by) invited me to room share with him, and advised me to come Thursday and leave Sunday (vs. my original plan, to arrive Friday and leave Monday).  He arranged to borrow an additional sling stand from a buddy in Palm Springs, so that we would have two available; I just needed to bring a sling and hanging stuff.

Thursday was marred slightly by heavy traffic going east.  (I flew into LAX.  It’s right now about $50 more to fly into Ontario [halfway to Palm Springs] than the Los Angeles airports, and about $70 more than that to fly direct to Palm Springs, so if you also have to rent a car in Palm Springs, $120 more vs. a couple hours driving and gas in each direction can be a hard sell.)  I was expecting to arrive about 4 pm, but it was closer to 5:30 when I finally got there.

Not that such stopped me from playing that night.  After a couple trips to the store for play supplies and some food — breakfast, especially — I prepped for play, and played four times that night.  (I remember Bill from Philadelphia and Ton from Palm Springs, but other names escape me.)

The title vest was on display in my room all weekend, hanging from the sling frame and visible from the window, and I was wearing it on Friday and Saturday nights.  I also met last year’s California Leatherboy, Mike, at the event, although we didn’t get a chance to play.

On Friday afternoon, Bill U. and I took off to take the Aerial Tramway up Mt. San Jacinto.  Cliff and I tried to do this in December, but found a 2+ hours wait and no cell signal at the base.  Now on the edge of summer, we got on the first tram after about 10 minutes wait.  Up top, we took some photos and Bill had some lunch, and then we walked down to the valley floor on the other side to hike around there for a short bit before catching the tram down.  I got some video of the tram ride down, which takes about 10 minutes with the tram rotating full around 2.5 times.  It’s actually a pretty cool ride, and the entire trip was worth the $23 or so that it cost.

(Back at the host resort, we missed a fisting workshop and a door prize raffle, and the chance at afternoon play.  Oh well, I’m sure I’ll get plenty of hand-to-ass exposure during the weekend!)

Friday night, more play (of course): Carl and Sparky (I’ve played with Carl before, at HellHole in San Francisco), Richard (who was told by Ton to keep an eye out for me; love those pig-to-pig recommendations!), and a couple others I am forgetting.

Saturday afternoon, I played for a couple hours with Brad.  Great guy and he made me actually shoot three or four times in the session; assgasms are one thing, but ejaculation is a bit rarer.  We could have kept playing a while longer, but he had dinner plans with buddies.  (We later realized why we each looked a little familiar to one another: I had played with his other half when I was in San Francisco in April.  We briefly met twice that afternoon, once in the playroom and once in the kitchen, but didn’t play that day.  He’s setting up a four-some for the three of us and another guy when I’m in San Francisco again the weekend before July 4th.)

I went out to catch the room lottery for next year (since there’s more demand than rooms at the host resort, they do a lottery, which is a bit fairer and rewards those who attend one year with a chance at a room the next), run by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.  Ran into my past Palm Springs play buddy John, in Sister face; he seemed to think I knew he was a Sister, but I don’t recall it (doesn’t matter, though).  They also had a ticket raffle, with prizes ranging from lube and gift cards to a portable sling.  I bought $20 of tickets and really recouped my money with a Square Peg toy (the Worm) donated by Gear leather and fetish shop and a gift certificate for a stay in the Master Suite at the Canyon Club (made even better by the certificate being able to be used on weekends rather than just weekdays, as is often the case, although not on event weekends).  Hmm, need to wrangle another trip to Palm Springs in the next year, and not during an event or holiday…

Saturday night led off playing with Marty, whom I had met the night before but now found him on the resort lawn with two guys slobbering over his “larger than average manhood” (it was a good 9 inches… a very good 9 inches!).  After I had a go at swallowing his cock, we packed up from there back to the sling in my room where he fucked me a bit and then fisted me.  Yummy!  Following that, Brad and I tag-teamed Gwynn.  I then got to play with Ken, a leather buddy I’ve known and been hot after for 15 years or more, but never got the chance to play with until tonight.  I hope it won’t be another 15 years, because Ken set a new depth record for me!  The night closed with one last session with Gwynn.  Again, I think there’s another name in the mix that I’m forgetting.

I cruised around some later Sunday morning before I had to drive back to Los Angeles, this time to Burbank airport, but not much was going on.  No further fisting, anyway.  The trip back was on Delta, with a plane change in Salt Lake City.  And what do you know, but just like two weeks before with the trip to New Orleans, there was a plane issue and an added delay.  They almost cancelled the flight, but got us on another plane instead, and we fortunately made it back to Seattle in time for me to not have to cab it home this time.

When travelling, I try to not hit the same restaurant twice (Starbucks and other coffee shops excepted).  For a fisting party (or full weekend), I eat light.  Thursday night was tacos at El Pollo Loco, Friday night was a pulled pork sandwich at Big Mama’s Soul Food, and Saturday was a quesadilla and a taco at Santana’s.

Bill has a room reservation set for next year’s event, apparently on the third floor where there’s a balcony with room for several slings outside.  I’m looking forward to it already!