Folsom Fringe

I had the pleasure of traveling across the country to go to a few lovely events on the west coast. My first thought that comes to mind about the trip and events is that people on the west coast sure know how to party and have a good time. It was really refreshing to go to these events. The area was beautiful, the people were friendly, and the hotel was interesting.

I’ve been to California when I was younger with my parents, southern area. I went to California this time with that memory in mind and I should’ve known better. The flight over was hellish to say the least. I was not prepared and didn’t believe my travel partner. He doesn’t like to fly and now I know why. My legs were on fire, my head throbbed, and my stomach was kicking my ass. Sleeping was out of the question and I think 3 hours into the second flight I wanted to jump out of the plane to get away from how shitty my body felt. Once we got on the ground, I’m pretty sure I kissed the ground a few times and had one really long smoke. I told Sir, “I don’t know how You are getting me home to Pittsburgh, cause I refuse to ever get on a plane again.”

The hotel was cute and gave me more than one laugh. The name, “the domain” just cracked me up, who would name a hotel that? The restaurant was named bytes and that drove Sir nuts. Which I will admit just made me laugh a bit harder. The hotel rooms were really nice and we had a balcony, my first one ever! There was some phrase painted on the wall above the beds and there were all sorts of computer references. For someone who doesn’t work in a computer field it’s cute, for someone who does it’s a bit overboard. But props to the hotel for running with a theme.

On the day we arrived, since most of the time we arrive a day early, we ran into fellow kinky peps. I had known they were kinky not from their clothing or any other general kinky flags but from I had met them at Floating world. They are vendors and have wonderful whips and other impact toys. Sir and I have two of their whips and I’m still attempting to learn and use in my play. They drove from the southeast and I was really ready to hitch a ride back with them so that I wouldn’t have to get on a plane again.

We met other lovely people from the west coast. They are fun and relaxed. I totally understand and to an extent support the cell phone rule that is rather common at most events that I attend. You don’t really need to be using your phone all the time and it makes people nervous with the camera phones (and what phone doesn’t have one?).

I’m a supporter of vibration mode (for more than one reason) and if it’s out of site it’s out of mind. People talking on the phone in hall ways, outside in smoking and nonsmoking areas and bathrooms doesn’t bother me at all as long as they are not interrupting someone else’s activity/class/scene/ and so on. At this event people were pretty much like that as well. Nobody freaked out over seeing a cell phone, except me because I’m not used to that relaxed set of rules. I can’t think of any class or scene I attended that was affected in a negative way due to cell phones. People were respectful and pleasant about their use of cell phones.

The presenters really impressed me and I learned a ton of new things. This event is where my mind set went from: “I’m never going to do needle play” to “hey, I want to try it and see if I might like it.” The basic needle play class was great as was solo poly, with Allena. The class was wonderful, not only was the presenter great but the people attending the class were also great and gave wonderfully new points of view.

The play party had an interesting vibe going on, I was unsure of myself going into it. People had their scenes going on and I had a hard time seeing hard points for suspensions and partial suspensions. There were two points in the corner that would work okay. They were wood frame type deal with “ladders” on either side for impact and other plays but not so hot for what I wanted to do. There were two lovely scenes going on them after we started our scene that caught my eye and I watched for a few moments at a time. Between those two wooden frames was a suspension frame that I had second thoughts on. I can’t remember why I had second thoughts on it for and I didn’t mention it to Sir. He started to tie me and it was bumpy for a bit. I enjoyed it but both of us had a touch of frustration going on for different reasons. Once I went up once or twice in His ropes, I came down and started adjusting ropes without thinking.

That’s just how I am at this point, why wait for someone to fix a problem when I can fix it myself? Well, giving someone a chance to get their kicks, figure out something for themselves and other reasons I hadn’t thought of at the time would be a good reason NOT to do what I did. I find that when I make a mistake finding out about them used to be easy, but fixing them was hard and took time. The time it takes to build up a relationship to where it was after a negative event happens is really rather long in my own opinion. Part of me doubts that the person I’m in a relationship with will be willing to put the time and work into fixing it, maybe I’m not worth it in their views? I hope that I am, but I know to some I might not be and I have to be willing to accept that at some point.

I learned weeks after Folsom that I had made a mistake that night, and I’ve been attempting to now fix it and learn from it. Even though I have a sense of gosh I fucking messed up again! After the scene that night I crashed hard and fast for the first time ever. Usually I’ll have a few moments after a scene where I’m okay and hoping around being my playful self. This time I walked outside, sat down, and crashed. Sir saw that and gathered everything up and we hauled ass back to the hotel where I passed out on the bed.

One night we went up to the Citadel in San Francisco and I was crossing my fingers for the best, never being there before. The one thing I didn’t consider is what my “goals” were and if I did have goals, were they reasonable. The one or two goals I did have were not reasonable. I enjoyed the space and how many lovely dressed kinky people could be fit into the space. I knew I couldn’t play because of the mindset I was in that night, but I really wanted to play. The few hard points were in use nonstop, and I don’t blame them, they were fucking HOTTT hard points with fucking HOTTT chicks tie from them. The feel I got from the place was more high protocol then relaxed. I enjoy high protocol to my limited knowledge of it. It was rather refreshing to get that feeling that I had yet to get before at a club.

AND then there was the street fair . . .

~Raven~