I float like gravity

Photo of myself and my dear friend Thomas Knoll at the TechCrunch50 August Capital party by @wmmarc – Wm. Marc Salsberry.

I had this post all organized in my head last night when I had a fever and was trying to fall asleep. Then I had awesome fever dreams from watching Hitman before bed (which I loved).

We’re long overdue for catching up. You likely saw that my book Lust hit #1 yesterday in Amazon’s erotic bestsellers. No small feat. The really exciting news is that I’ll be presenting on the primary stage at the top Internet conference in Europe, Le Web, in December — Paris, France. I’m sharing the stage with some pretty amazing people. While in Paris, I’ll be doing a book signing for my French translations, then going to London for the holidays — where I’ll be doing at least one more signing and another event (details TBA). I’m in negotiation to speak at Yale this Fall, as well as a Kinsey-flavored event at Indiana University in October. We’re still talking to Oprah and that’s shelved until Fall, but her staff loves my books so I’m happy enough. Next month I’ll be presenting to a San Francisco neighborhood association about what it’s like to be a homeless adolescent in SF — I’ll be telling my personal story about living on the streets in a bookstore, to a crowd of strangers. Of all these things, the last one scares me the most.

What I’m doing for money: books, so many books, and the column — still a contest of wills at teh Chronic, but I love writing the column still, despite it making me a hate magnet — plus some consulting. I finished three books within the last two months, and am on deadline for a fourth. Last week I’ve been going back and forth about cover art: I didn’t like the covers the publisher chose so I made a nuisance of myself about it (and got my way). These are all print: Best Women’s Erotica 2010 (new cover forthcoming), Best of the Best Women’s Erotica 2 (five years of my work on the series distilled into one volume), and I wrote a new how-to guide called Seal It With A Kiss: Tips, tricks and techniques for delivering the knockout kiss. The last title is more than the print version of my How to Kiss ebook (or audio book); it’s a very different guide with no erotica, filled out with many more techniques. I’m almost done editing Sweet Love: Erotic fantasies for couples — the modern version of my bestseller, Sweet Life.

They want me to sign more contracts.

I just want to sleep and eat and be a sex and tech nerd. And a troublemaker. But that usually finds me, as we’ve seen.

Always for love, never for money… I stepped down from teaching last semester and took a sex ed intensive refresher course: 60+ hours of class time, interfacing for client counseling, and more study. Next round, I’ll be back in front of the class; it’s gotten so crazy that now only half the people that apply and interview get into the course. Currently, and ongoing, I spend three hours a week volunteering on a sex crisis hotline, which I can’t disclose to you because it’s confidential counseling, and I’m cautioned that celebrity will interfere with the good work we do. It’s true, and I agree.

My next goal is to take the community negotiation skills I use with diverse, underserved and overserverved communities in real life into Internet community management. I’ve ended up in many situations online that I’m trained to handle in real life — negotiating with people who ‘speak’ for a community and bridging the gap — from the other side of it. I have proven communication models that I use when I’m counseling or moderating/communicating about, say, LGBT community issues, that online community managers could really use. That community manager you just appealed to at FaceSpacekr about your account — they grew into that job and the chances of them knowing what their job looks like in the real world is slim to none. Think about it: most website community managers get their experience from looking at a computer and going “oh, fuck.” What makes someone think they can speak for an entire community? That’s where I want to educate next: bringing real life community negotiation models and skill sets to websites that would benefit from the training and experience I have — and that I regularly teach.

Now I’m going to back up, and get personal.

I broke it off with Hacker Boy for the last time early this year. Three days and many tears later I realized that being alone was absolutely no different than being with him. And then I went into introspection mode — it was painful. I was sent to SXSWi for my own good, and had the opportunity to try the conference hookup/dating buffet, but I just stuck close to a few dear friends instead, and declined dates. It felt safer. It felt good. When I got back from SXSWi, I wondered if I’d returned to nothing. A few days after landing I went and talked about being homeless (at a neighborhood outreach event). Homeless youth outreach workers were presenting their services to Haight Street neighbors and business owners, and were met with much hostility. I was in the audience and wound up taking the floor to explain to the angry people what it’s like to be young and homeless, why the Haight is such a homeless youth magnet (that’s where I was on the streets). I got in a couple of arguments with angry “we need more cops” people who are under the impression that being a homeless kid is a choice, something to be “discouraged.” That’s how I got asked to come back and speak next month. The outreach workers rushed me afterward, in a good way. You don’t see many survivors like me, I guess. After I walked out alone onto Haight Street — like it’s just another day — after feeling so tiny, scared but fierce, I felt like the loneliest wrung-out punk girl in the world.

My friends say, how can you feel lonely, so many people… It’s just not like that. I have no family except what I create. Without a thread from my heart to a human being, I float on, and away into the black.

A writer can go for days without talking to anyone without even trying. When this happens, I can get jumpy at the sound of my own voice.

I lost too much weight. I started to friend-seek. The staff of NOPA — most especially my friend and kitchen hero line cook — adopted me and made it their task to keep me smiling, lubricated and to fatten me up. As did other friends: I was force-fed at the House of Squid more than once. I loved being in the kitchen with Mrs. Squid. And Mr. Squid is so very close to my heart. I became a semi-permanent fixture on the couch of a couple I love (he works at StumbleUpon, but that’s a side note), and realized that while I avoided the dating scene that was literally on my doorstep (and sometimes my notorious bed) more than once — I felt better when I was around happy couples. I spent my time with people in love; I ate their food, I used their wifi to work, I listened to their FTW advice, and I felt loved. That’s all I wanted: to feel that love and be inspired to believe in love by the couples in my life, and to allow my work to heal me.

I have some amazing friends. Lots of new ones who will be around for the long haul, like Thomas Knoll, 5733, line cook, and one particular boy who makes me laugh every single day. My house has never heard so much laughter. No new girl yet, but I’m working on that (and yes, I’ll be staying away from blondes and girls whose names *begin* with “X”). And as always my dear longtime friends are close even when as far away as New York — though I’m excited to say that Jonno is staying with me next week and Eon is coming up for a visit to make it a week of trouble and fun.

I also have a book to finish. If you see me, feed me.