I spent the entire day offline yesterday — almost. It was the pause that refreshed. Actually, I had breakfast with my friend Geoff Cordner and his beautiful, whipsmart partner Eden — they were visiting from LA because Geoff had a film in the Docfest. After breakfast I took Mark some lunch and gave my visitors a short tour of the SRL shop. Next I rushed over to the Haight to meet Mark Morford for coffee and some much-needed catching up and pep talking; I’m leaving friday morning to visit DC to sign books at Book Expo America and and get my award for best erotica book of 2006. So basically, I’ve been in a state of freaked-out unhingedness all week; Mark M has helped keep me sane by emailing me things like “Do you bring an assortment of wigs? Corsets? With what do you terrify the authors of ‘Ten Easy Steps to Crocheting Yourself to Jesus’?” Our conversation was pretty much along those lines; not to mention a wonderfully heated discussion about whether porn marketed as “interracial” is racist or not. I’ll post thoughts on this soon.
I cam home, put on pajamas (at 5pm!) and made the big plan to paint toenails, blog, paint fingernails, video podcast, repeat. But I checked my mail and saw a surprise — snarky poo-poo pants “I invented gangsigns on the internets” Sean Bonner was in town for almost 24 hours! I called him, and he had scored passes to the Wired Rave Awards and wanted me to be their plus-one. I asked what to wear and he said, “I dunno. We’re not really invited.” Metblogs party crash — cool! Except I had to be there in 45 minutes; like my World Horrorcon party crash, I threw on the black dress, sock garters, fake eyelashes and clop-clopped out the door…
Really great photo of me and Sean by Jason DeFillippo. See more photos from the party at this Metblogs post; skip the rest of this post if you don’t care for my personal digressions.
I met Sean, Jason, Joi Ito and Shawn Fanning out front. We hung out and waited for Richard Ault; when he was late (I was technically his plus one) we got to the gate and Fanning talked me in with one door monitor– at the same time Ito was doing the same with the other door monitor. They had me covered.
And how was the party? Well it was on the roof of the St. Regis, all under a plastic canopy with sashimi and ice sculptures and free booze, plus a lot of very elite looking, very clean looking a-list tech dweebs. I was for sure the freak — no wait, that would be me and my all friends in black. Luckily we were soon joined by my pal Annalee Newitz, who was also in black. We drank and watched — though I felt like we were being watched. Or maybe it was just my sock garters that were being watched. It was one ot the most wholly artificial circumstances I’d found myself in lately; here they were awarding kudos to revolutionary “renegades” in a room full of tech millionaires. It’s such a small club to excel in, the competition must be intense.
I felt like I was floating, in a hollow way, standing there thinking about who I was in contrast to all those people. Their money didn’t bother me — some of them were nice, some of them were scary dicks, they were just people. But there I was, worthless in so many conventional ways; no family, a gutterpunk from the streets who somehow crawled out by stealing, begging, sometimes selling illegal things (though no sex work, even tho my friends did), sleeping in abandoned cars and squats and the park for years, no formal education. No one. Alone. I used to beg people like this for money on the street. For a minute I was floating above the party. I snapped to thinking about this weekend, where my publisher will fly me to DC to sign autographs on (an anticipated) 300 books and to walk away from BEA an award-winning sex author.
It’s so quiet here in my house right now.
Not long ago I had sex with a man. It had been a very long time since this has happened. Unlike me, I opened everything to this person; my body, and for a minute my real self. People who fall in love with me discover after a few years that they really don’t know me at all. At one point I was above him on my couch, looking down. His hands cradled my slick, smooth, soft pussy. His fingertips found everything I needed, in the right time. I whispered urgently down into his ear, please put your fingers inside me. Please. I waited while he held me up like that, suspended. He didn’t do it. I said it again, please please please put your fingers inside me. He looked in my eyes. He made a decision and I saw it in his eyes; I didn’t get to have the fingers yet. It was like a spark; I wanted to tear my skin off for him. He held me up, above him, in his hands. And I was floating.
Sometimes I daydream about what I would do if I was in a motorcycle accident. I think a lot of moto people do this. I am sliding. I lose my brakes. I think about how I would survive — maybe I correct the bike in time, or eject myself from the bike in time. Or maybe I go over the top, headfirst, sailing, floating.
And I think, will I make it?
Will they find me?
Will they save me?
Will they try?
It’s hard to put so many things in perspective. Things will be better for me in a few weeks. But one thing’s for sure — the Wired Rave Awards were just really boring. George Clooney should be glad he skipped it. Even though I am a little ball of emotions right now, after the party nine of us went to sushi, made fun of that whole scene, and all was well. Tomorrow I pack for DC, practice autographing boobs (my own) and go out for fun times before I become the sex publishing equivalent of My Pretty Pony. I don’t ever agree to these sit-at-a-table and sign things gigs because I don’t understand the value behind publishing and old journalism’s antiquated rituals — I’d rather chat with someone who reads my books over a beer or caffinated beverage. But hey — it’ll be fun to blog. My room has wifi and I’ve got the will to provoke.
