As usual, events are mentioned here after they've taken place. Hell, this announcement might even vanish from DreamHaven's site before you can click over and see it:
Saturday, October 5th, 7:00pm, Lake Street store
There will be a women's erotica reading featuring Hanne Blank, Heather Corinna, and Catherine Lundoff. Hanne is author of Big, Big Love and editor of Zaftig, Shameless: Women's Intimate Erotica, and Best Transgender Erotica. Heather is a photographer, writer, and founder of Scarletletters.com, a women's erotica website. Catherine is a writer and has had stories published in many anthologies, including Zaftig, Shameless, and several of the Best Lesbian Erotica series. You must be over 18 years of age to attend.
I'd intended to blend unobtrusively into the crowd, a skill perfected in small, dimly-lit clubs in Chicago and Urbana-Champaign. They were honed to such a point that not only did people tend to back into me, they also sometimes attempted to walk through me, reacting with mild confusion, then utter alarm, when they realized the small, human-shaped obstruction they kept bumping into was, in fact, a small human.
This meant my interactions with other patrons were generally limited to surprised yelps followed by muttered apologies, with my contribution restricted to quiet assurances that no harm was done. Which is pretty much pushing the envelope on my conversational abilities, so that's all right.
I realized upon walking into DreamHaven that these skills would prove useless, as the crowd was fairly small, and the store was brightly-lit. Also, it was the sort of crowd you'd expect to find in a science-fiction bookstore in Minneapolis at a reading of women's erotica, meaning it was composed chiefly of women, with most of them fairly fair-skinned, and fairly blonde. They also looked to be mostly my age, meaning I was the youngest-looking person around.
Luckily for all concerned, I was not carded.
You know, someone else has probably already written about this, possibly one of the participants. Think I'll have a look for a link before going on about it.
Yes, I did run out of coffee again. Think I'll try to find out if I'm near the route those Fair Trade guys take on their bikes, and see if I can just buy wholesale from them. . .
I assure you, you're not missing anything. I was completely out of my depth the entire evening, and responded as I usually do by being very obviously surprised at everything. So, you know, "Wow, DreamHaven Books & Comics has a large selection of books and comics by Neil Gaiman, and it must be very difficult for her to breath in that outfit, and oh look, that long-suffering young woman seems to have brought me a cup of coffee, which that nice John M. Ford is offering to pass to me, perhaps I should read another of his books besides the musical Star Trek one."
Coffee. What a good idea. Perhaps I should get some.
Update 10/9: Oh good. Hanne has written a much more detailed, informative account. Except the bits where she's obviously confused me with some other person in attendance. Easy mistake, that.
John Ford's THE DRAGON WAITING is one of the better alternate history novels I've read. Ford's frequently surreal, non linear prose style often annoys me and has kept me from reading a lot of his other stuff, but I liked this one. But then, I like anything where Richard the III is a Mithraist.
Other than that, your reactions sound much like mine would have been at a similar thing here in Tampa. Not that we have similar things here in Tampa, but we do have people who like to live roleplay vampires getting together at our SF bookstores, and, well...
No, I'm not going to say anything else, I'm already digging myself in deep enough.
D.
Honey, if you think you look younger than a freckled redhead in pigtails, you need some new spectacles.
Nice seeing you, by the by. And see? You survived the drive just fine. Save perhaps a slight tic, or a new phobia of loud women in small cars.
No, no, do tell us about the people who "live roleplay" vampires...
As opposed to undead roleplaying, I suppose.
Heather, I've decided that walking in a slight, chilly downpour is actually quite healthy, and will be politely declining rides in future.
Nice seeing you, too. And, really, it was Hanne's driving that worried me, not the company. That's why I waited until the car stopped moving before trying to bail. Stupid automatic locks. . .
VASpider, be Christlike. No, not by bleeding from the stigmata, you're making a mess on the keyboard.
Oh, hush. Both of you. That particular incidence of power braking was editorial (NOT habitual) and you know it full well.
Harrumph, I say.
The only real problem with that evening at Mud Pie, Aaron, was that I didn't have the presence of mind to shift my seat once the seat between you and Harry opened up. You can tell I was tired out (having worked it all day and followed it up with a reading, well, it just adds up) because I didn't instinctively respond to the opportunity to sit between two men I didn't know very well yet by moving my kiester into that unoccupied seat. Dammit. Sigh.
I guess I'll just have to come back for another go. Next time: you, me, Muddy Waters (or similar). No crowd.
And if you prefer, none of my driving, either.
Well now you tell me. Time to dig out the spare KB, I suppose.
Sorry. I'll be quiet now. Having met my husband at a live-action vampire game, I guess I'm a little sensitive.
As to 'hard for her to breathe in that,' I can only assume you refer to corsetry, which is, in my experience, eminently comfortable so long as it fits correctly. In fact, I've found them kind of relaxing -- it's nice to have something else doing all that annoying staind-up-straight-and-support-your-various-acoutrements work once in a while.
*sigh* Oh, for a little spare cash.
Hmmm. Well, I may as well just keep on digging...
As a long time roleplaying geek who has participated in a couple of 'live' games, I'm afraid I just don't get it. What's the point in dressing up in bad costumes and walking around in an empty building somewhere while the GM 'describes' the stuff you can't actually see, and everyone else 'describes' themselves shapeshifting, and all the sex stuff has to be 'described' because every good looking woman there (like you, apparently) has a jealous S.O. watching from a few feet away ready to bristle at the first actual contact? This is just tiring, and down here, it's also humid and generally mosquito laden. If you're going to 'describe' all that crap anyway, we should get to sit down, wear jeans and tshirts, and eat pizza while we listen.
I enjoy RPGs and run a great campaign, but until they invent holodecks, you're going to have to use your imagination for all the really cool stuff anyway. So why not use it for everything, and be comfortable?
I suppose if a smart, sexy, articulate, funny, gorgeous woman had ever coupled up with me at any of these things I might feel differently, but in my experience, every female gamer is taken, like, since birth.
D.
Mind you, Christ could be pretty rowdy when He got pissed off about something. And I didn't specify White Tara or Green Tara. . .
Garrity, it wasn't a corset so much as. . . oh good, the drugs have kicked in and I've forgotten the entire evening.
Hanne, not a problem. I look forward to seeing you again when you're not working such a hectic schedule.
And not driving.
This is a little like the telephone game, eh?
In the span of just a few posts, we've managed to transform the evening from the standard erotica reading it was to a gaming group in which people were dressed uncomfortably and purportedly vampires were in attendance, where cars were deathly (though that one may be so in this case), and we've drummed up several deities in the process.
Yeeha!
Actually, Yeshua Bar-David wasn't officially 'deified' until quite some long time after his purported death, and I'm not at all convinced that the clerics who suddenly decided he WAS an avatar of Yahweh after all really had a clue.
Anyway, I didn't say nothin' about uncomfortable vampires. Vampires are dead. They shouldn't care WHAT they wear.
Angel, Spike, Darla, and Drusilla to the contrary.
Sorry your LARP experience sucked, D. (Pun entirely intended). Mine didn't. Personally, I've fallen asleep at every tabletop game I've ever been to, so I don't do tabletop games, really. Doesn't make the games in and of themselves bad, it doesn't mean that the trappings of those games are necessarily bad (as you indicate the costumes being at the LARPs you've been to), it just means I fall asleep if I'm not up and moving around and doing stuff. I mean, if I'm going to be acting stuff out, why not just stay in-character the whole time and move around a club, coffee shop, or warehouse rather than sitting around a table with a bunch of pizza-chowing freaks?
That said, I don't LARP much anymore. It's not as cool as online gaming. That, and I'm kinda over Vampire.
But, hey, when I do, it's an excuse to drag out the corset again.
Ah, the wonders of free association.
LARPing is kinda odd, as a longtime gamer-girl (taken since 19, so you're right on that score too) who tried it out but once. Right group, right GMs might ahve made it worth more time, but in my lone experience the average of almost-dangerous-nutters per capita was high. Personal space and all that.
Even marginally attractive women, on any level (emotional, physical, intellectual) are going to find themselves at the center of a white hot blaze of male attention at any geek social event, I grant you. And since most of us geeks are... hmmm... nice fellows, yes, but socially challenged to say the least, that can be uncomfortable. Still, most male geeks I know are on their absolute best behavior when there's a new girl in the room, at least, until she's been around long enough for them to get used to her.
My RPG can't be seen as successful, since I've always had trouble attracting and keeping players -- I'm an excellent GM, so I'm picky about wanting excellent gamers who can actually roleplay, not just roll dice. I also do scenarios with a lot of intrigue and politics (read that as yammer yammer yammer) and most gamers roll their eyes and go comatose about five minutes into such.
However, the LARPing I did was disappointing; I'm a fatboy and have been most of my adult life, and this walking around in the great outdoors imagining shit I could just as easily imagine on my ass with a Pepsi in hand makes no sense to me... especially when my gf at the time was reveling in the attention of all the other male geeks, and glaring at me when any of the good looking female LARPers so much as smiled at me.
The other thing I DEEPLY resent about LARPing, as it happens in real life and as it's been described in the Dream Park books, is that in order to be good at physical stuff in those games, you have to, you know, BE GOOD AT PHYSICAL STUFF. Hey, this is supposed to be roleplaying! The guys with the jock gene have already humiliated me enough in my childhood; I don't need them beating on me with padded sticks in my fantasy recreation, nor do I need to hear their little sneers about what a 'tuber' I am. If they get to actually hit me with real weapons, I should get to actually fry them with a real fireball, and until some LARP comes up with a way for this portly lazy-ass wannabe wizard to do that, I'll stay home and roll dice, thanks. And imagine myself with the big shoulders, flat tummy, trim buttocks, and instantaneous gunfighter reflexes I'll never have in real life.
Darren, I know and appreciate geekdom for exactly what is is, as longtime denizen thereof. I know about well-meaning social awkwardness -- it's quite familiar territory, and when it's actually being practiced *on* me as opposed the *by* me, I even think it charming in its way.
But the kind of personal-space issues that drove me off the one LARP I tried out involved being physically cornered, touched, and threatened by a complete stranger. "In context of game," of course, but clearly someone was getting off on it, and it wasn't me.
Not fair to judge a whole phenom by one bad experience, though, and I shouldn't have phrased my earlier post in such universal language.
Oh, my, Garr. Please don't think I was defending LARPers. As I say, my experiences there, while not as bad as yours, weren't anything that made me want to repeat them. (I will say, though, that LARPers struck me as being much the same as most other geeks, and the guy who fondled you 'in character' was probably just an asshole, and would be if he was a stamp collector... he just found a hobby that let him get his jollies a little more directly.)
At the two LARPs I attended, with my then-gf, there was NO touching allowed between genders AT ALL unless it was specifically okayed by both parties (and, presumably, attendant S.O.s). I got the feeling without being actually told that this policy was relatively new and due to exactly the sort of thing you relate.
I'll note, dryly, there was no such ban on physical contact between pudgy wizards armed with bean bags (that couldn't be tossed until you recited the right cantrip) and big glowering jock types with padded sticks. They were more than happy to run right up and beat all hell outta lil me.
As a general rule, I've usually advised the more attractive women I've known who were wailing to me about how they 'just couldn't meet any nice guys' to date geeks, because most of my fellow male geeks, including myself, would worship them as goddesses. But women want powerful guys, just as guys want great looking women, and in a lot of ways, women get the short end of that stick, because the equation is a simple one: in this world, a powerful, dominant guy tends to be a jerk, often an abusive one.
Anyway, back to roleplaying vs. LARPing -- my thing has been, if you have to use your imagination most of the time anyway, you may as well be comfortable while you do it. I've DMed my game often while wearing the nice black cape an ex gf made for me, but that's as far as I go on the costume front (and where else am I going to get to wear a nice black cape?)
Now, around here, there is a lot of vampire LARPing, and I understand there's quite a lot of erotic subtext (take 'sub' anyway you like there) and if I didn't find that whole notion so damned scary, I'd probably be a lot more interested. But women with a mouthful of razorsharp fangs and an obsession with entirely the wrong bodily fluid just aren't my idea of a fun date, in fantasy or otherwise. Sorry, VA. Everyone else's mileage may vary, as always.
Heather, I'm not sure what you mean by the phrase "standard erotica reading." Don't think I've ever come across those words in that particular order before.
Besides, did you see that one woman, about three apples tall, dressed all in black with red hair in. . . wait, bad example.
VASpider, definitely Green Tara.
Aaron, you just haven't been hanging around with the right people. "Standard erotica reading" is hardly incomprehensible... more like just another day on the job, for some of us.
Now, the erotica readings that end up with people taking their clothes off and asking me to autograph parts of their nekkid anatomies, or the erotica readings which include interpretive dance in between stories, or the one I read at (part of a benefit) during which sushi and desserts were being served on the saran-wrapped nude bodies of several Gorgeous Young Things (TM) who were spread out on wheeled tables and ferried around so that attendees could pick and choose what they wanted to snack on...
...now those would be nonstandard erotica readings.
Not that the standard ones can't be just as much fun. They're just less dramatic.
As for geeks and geek boys and the grrls who love them: ya know, I hear the "girls don't want nice guys" rhetoric a lot from men who're having a hard time finding a partner. But honestly, I don't really buy it. I'm one of many, many women I know who are quite happily partnered with geeks (making me a geek by association). It happens. And as an observer of the phenom for quite a long time, I have noticed that it tends to happen more often when people don't assume that no one will be interested in them. (Cf. my first book, Big Big Love, if you care to read it. It's nominally about fat folks, but a lot of the info applies quite nicely to people in other marginalized demographics, too. Or so I am told.)
Aside from that, I just wanted to say that I rather like geek boys. They tend to be smart and funny. Perhaps other women select mates based on bicep size or ability to drink huge quantities of beer while still correctly making the "Hook 'em Horns" gesture at the U of Texas game on TV. Me, I like brains and a sense of humor. Pretty eyes, nice hands, and a yummy speaking voice don't hurt, either.
So many geekboys, so little time.
Well, Hanne, I respect and appreciate that you like geek boys, but like all women who have told me this over the years, you fall into one of two major categories: (a) Taken, or (b) Way Over There. In my PRACTICAL experience, the vast majority of women I find desirable, while bemoaning the fact that all they want in the world is to meet a nice guy, will then take their heads off my tear soaked shoulder, kiss my cheek in a sisterly fashion, and traipse back home to the jerk they're banging, and have just been crying about all over me.
I apologize if that sounds bitter. Sincerely, I don't mean it to. And my experiences aren't universal, I have dated some quite lovely women who were perfectly willing to look past the pudgy exterior and regard my inner beauty. However, in general, my experience has been, MOST desirable women who end up dating a male geek usually, on some level, consider that they have 'settled'. And to my mind, the notion that one has 'settled' for a guy who is sweet, nice, kind, considerate, attentive, and who would usually rather rub your shoulders than watch a damn basketball game, is both silly and patronizing... but common, for our culture.
Anyway, I'm also aware that in my male fashion, I'm guilty of this as well; I insist on only dating women I am actually physically attracted to, rather than 'settling' for someone sweet and kind and attentive who doesn't really turn me on. And I entirely take responsibility for it, and am fully aware that the older (and wider) I get, the more unlikely it is that I will ever again get to go on a date with a woman I am remotely attracted to. And as for meeting and coupling up with a woman who is emotionally, physically, and intellectually desirable to a geek guy like me... fergeddaboutit! Those chicks are scarfed up in their mid teens and held onto like grim death by the lucky fellows who got there first. (Don't tell me I should be about trying to get a mid-teen geek girl myself; the law takes a dim view of it.)
You know, I'm really enjoying this blog, and all you other folks who post. Thanks.
Hanne, it's hard enough acting being shocked and appalled about the standard erotica reading without you providing definitions. And I was, you know. Shocked.
And appalled.
So there.
I cannot stay ahead of the curve, here. ;)
Ah, yes. I keep forgetting that you often grin like that when you're shocked and appalled. My apologies.
Can I get you a little something to help ease your moral anguish? A nice copy of some of that talented Sen. Orrin Hatch's stirring spiritual anthems, perhaps? I know that'll make you feel better.
Please excuse my incomprehensible grammar. I clearly need more caffeine and some professional help, probably not in that order.
HB
Well, I was going to write to all the nice posting people whose work I've enjoyed and say 'thank you', but most of them don't have email addresses listed where I could find them. (Of course, I'm an idiot, maybe I just missed them.) So, to VA Spider and Heather, thanks for a fun afternoon so far. Hannes and Garrity, I think I did find email addresses on you, which should teach you to post them, shouldn't it? ;)
Darren, most of the people posting here have their own blogs, with addresses listed on 'em.
Which reminds me: Heather, any preference on a nickname?
Hanne, you could learn a lot about modesty and decorum from Heather.
You just made me snort tea out my nose, dammit.
Aaron, just for the record, I think you really need to take Heather up on her offer of dinner.
I checked out Heather's site (hubba hubba) and VASpider's (um... nice arachnoid) and for all I looked, could find no email addresses, which is fine, I'm sure they don't need email from the Uber-geek. But as I said, maybe there were email addresses and I just missed them. I lost my supervision after Crisis, during the really bad Byrne helmed reboot. Or I've been hit by Gold Kryptonite, I'm not sure which.
Okay, that was WAY too geeky, but I'm going to post it anyway, because who am I kidding?
I do have an email. It's on the link that says "email Heather" in my saidebar. But it ain't just you, for whatever reason, no one seems to be able to find it.
And for the record, Aaron, PVC pants are actually rather cozy and easy to breathe in. I have an extra boys pair here somewhere if you....no? Well, I did offer. :) Hannne, did you see what he said? Hee hee hee. Aaron, I like you even better now.
Do I need a nickname? I'd no idea. Nick as need be. I answer to most things without much offense. And dinner indeed. I cook up a much better vegan meal than the Mud Pie does, if I do say so myself. Besides, I neither have a car nor drive anymore, and I don't tend to wear PVC at home. I'm safe.
I'm jealous of your non-standards, Hanne. The best I've hit is having some man decide I was the Smut Messiah and that he had to unload his suicidal thoughts on me because no one, oh no one, could possibly have understood him but me. If I hadn't already been a pro-euthenasia sort of person already, I would have been within mere minutes, I tell ya.
Hubba to you, Darren. :) Time to go dig out the "Geeks Heart Me" t-shirt, methinks.
Mine is in the sidebar, under the tag 'spidermail.' ^_^
And thank you, I like my Jumping Spider. You actually have to dig through the site for pictures of me in my corset.
Or ask.
Otherwise, you chill with the habronnatus that one of the girls on my gaming board called 'Mr. Chumley' in order to make him less threatening.
Y'know, what with the mustache-looking pedipalps and all.
More coffee!
Wow, lookie lookie. I got so excited over Aaaron teasing Hanne, I typographically stuttered.
Oy. Apparently, the coffee bell tolls for me, as well.
Heather, we need "Smut Messiah" uniforms. Jerseys with a "Smut Messiah" logo on the chest, a la Superman, and flowing capes festooned with suitable insigniae, perhaps?
And yes, I saw what Aaron said. That's why I said he needs to take you up on the dinner invite. He'll learn. What's more, he'll like it.
Mmmm. Pedipalps. I like pedipalps.
Heather [or insert nom de guerre] you're giving away PVC? Can I get in line?
There are times when the conversation here just goes over my head. Times like these...when free PVC is discussed. I've led a sheltered life and obviously I need to step away from here for a bit to make sure it stays that way.
Hey, hey there! You keep your sticky fingers away from my duds, buster. I said he could TRY it to see that it was, in fact, rather flexible when it came to diaphragm acrobatics.
I actually have a pretty puny collection of fetishy sctuff when it comes down to it, only on hand for shoots and "appearances" Like Saturday's excursion. Really, I'm a NICE girl, I am.
I can do the t-shirts, Hanne, if you can take care of the caps. I think Sofi will need one too, though.
mucho apologies. Mea cupola and all that. I had to be smacked over the head with explicit directions, but I did find VA and Heather's email addresses, and now won't they be sorry?
By the way, I post mine on all these things because I like getting email, and if that isn't fanboy desperation coming through like the summer sun, I just don't know what else could be.
Email this day! (from me, anyway, that's not an order)
(unless you WANT it to be)
;)
. . .
. . .
. . .
No. First Buffy, then several drinks, and then I might, possibly, start responding to all this.
It depends on how strong the drinks are mixed.
What, you don't watch SMALLVILE or NYPD BLUE? Good Lord, man, what's WRONG with you? ;)
Heather, I'm willing to take your word on the comfort level of the pants. After all, you seem trustworthy, and you've said you're a nice girl, and. . . why is Hanne making those weird noises?
Michelle, as I've mentioned, if you leave, I'm going with you. Unless you're headed to Vermont. If I wanted cold and too damn many white folks, I'd just move to Minneso-- wait, that's right.