The road to getting to Shibaricon had a variety of bumps. There were good and bad things happening in my life and with others I care for. The days right before Shibaricon were especially intense.
On the Road
It was good to finally have the car packed. In a way, I could step forward from the fact that one of my friends wasn't coming with us and that I didn't need to deal with the logistics of driving with a trailer behind me. Raven a nd I got in the car, stopped by the local convenience store for gas, drinks and small eats and started driving.The trip went pretty well. We got into Chicago via the Skyway construction which weaved right and left. I enjoyed technical driving so I was pushing the lane shifts pretty quickly. It woke me up but made my sexy playmate sitting next to me queasy.
When we arrived at the hotel entrance, it was very busy. No obvious place to park to check in or obvious entrance to the parking garage. This is when using a bell hop is beneficial but also added to the confusion. He kept mentioning "second floor" and I kept thinking "what second floor?".
It turns out this is a convention style hotel and the hotel services such as front desk, bar, restaurant and access to other wings is on the second floor. I was given directions to the hotel parking lot. I dutifully followed those directions out onto the street and down and around to the parking garage. Parked on the floor with the entrance to the hotel and walked down to find my playmate, Raven, near the front desk.
I was pleasantly surprised with the front desk. I had two reservations and didn't want to change rooms near the end of the stay. I thought the hotel was sold out but that got fixed up quickly. They also moved our room to the executive wing where I discovered they have suites that aren't advertised on the web. Maybe next year?
We showed up a day early so we could get into the right mindset and enjoy Chicago. It was a very good move. The extra time helped relax us, get adjusted and do a small amount of socializing.
First Day of Shibaricon
The day before things started, we went to a Japanese garden, went to the "Weavers" dinner for a mini-munch meet up and got into a good state. We popped into the meet and greet but went off to the hotel room to settle in. Later, another guest we were expecting arrived and she settled in.In the morning, we got up and went to classes. The first class I attended was Cherrie Jubalie's "Bondage for Boys" class. It was great and fitted in with my needs. I am not sure how well I did with the rest of the classes, it was hard to pick from so many rope classes and some got full quickly.
I think I skipped the last class. Don't really remember. I was still struggling with my own mental state.
That night was the first play party. I tried connecting someone up with a rigger I knew and respected to help good things happened. It is unclear why it didn't work out, I think that was the first and last time I will initiate introductions. Playing match maker, isn't my thing.
Play time was wonderful but intimidated me. I think when my jaw wasn't dropping, I was saying in my head "oh my" over and over. There were rooms filled with rope play. Not just a little here and there but overflowing.
The rope work being done was amazing in many places. Yep, I was intimidated and feeling like I couldn't tie a knot. My playmate and I settled down to watch MataLeao and WickedBlueGlow have a scene. Little did I know, the adjoining rig would also have a hot scene done by Mark_DV8House. If I had any doubts about seeing hot rope work, it was happening in stereo in front of my eyes. "Oh my!"
Between the stuff happening in my head and my intimidation level, I went from thinking "maybe" to "no way" would I do any rigging. I watched, walked around, talked and enjoyed the diversity of play and rope work.
Saturday
Ugh. We stayed and watched until some late night hour and then had to get up for classes at 9:30. We hustled through breakfast and made it to Midori's rope dance class. She is a fantastic presenter and rope dancing fits well with part of my play.The day was sort of a blur with classes. I think we snuck off and took a nap at some point.
The key class for me which really helped with my head space was the one with Boss Bondage. It was titled "Suspension on the Larger Form". In my head, I had already figured out what he told me months ago. The rope bottoms you need to worry about are the ones that are too thin, too skinny and don't have enough fat in their joints to be stressed. He didn't say that but focused on the overuse of rope on the larger form.
To hear his words as he tied, to hear him comment on the rope size and to talk about rope suspension isn't suppose to be pleasant helped to reinforce in my heart what I already knew in my head. It was a big emotional help and significantly reduced my doubt.
That night, I went off to find a woman who I had met at the Leather Leadership Conference and have some play time. She was working as a dungeon monitor until midnight. Until then I went around socializing and watching rope work, my mind was getting used to the continuous presentation of rope work being done.
Negotiation 101 Part 2
The woman and I met up and spent some time finding a rig. I enjoyed tying her up into a partial suspension. I made a mistake and redid some rope work quickly but it was still fun. I got into my toppy rope space and was being wicked when I whispered her a question "do you like floggers?".Ummm her answer taught me my negotiation skills are far from perfect. I work negotiations like I work an job interview. I ask open ended questions, watch the body language, listen to the answer and watch the eyes. I then refine the questions as I comprehend what I need to dig into further. I had missed a big opened ended question.
She said "I am allergic to horse and rabbit floggers." I blinked. My friends had encouraged me to buy the floggers and I am a total dork when it comes to medium to advanced impact play. I had no idea what my floggers were made out of. I recovered and moved forward. It was fun.
In a brief moment, I learned a good lesson.
Sunday
I think this was the day I had to be up and down in the class room to help as a volunteer. I managed to find coffee or something and help with setting up the class rooms.Yet again a wonderful blur of excellent classes. I had stopped filling out the evaluation cards since the presenters I went to rocked. My old strategy of selecting classes was failing me and my newly adopted one failed me too. In most events, rope classes are few and far between. Shibaricon, is *all* rope classes.
I had picked two classes that were either too advance or too beginner for me. Next Shibaricon, the course descriptions are read closely to see if they fit me.
I walked by one of the class rooms during break and it was like a 1/4 filled. I wondered why and then realized that with fixed class sizes and popular presenters like the Two Knotty Boys, one may need to show up early. I got my stuff, talked to my playmate and got two seats. By 10 minutes of class start, they were shutting the doors and my jaw dropped saying "Wow".
The Two Knotty Boys class was fun and it was my first one. They do "Fusion" rope work with synthetic rope. They do more work with their rope so it looks prettier and because it is less "bitey" then hemp or jute. It isn't quite my style at the moment, I want fast fun rope that has a different bite. He he.
Last Play Night
During the afternoon, I walked by and was pleasantly surprised that my playmate was talking to Boss Bondage. I didn't interrupt and kept walking. Alas they were still talking when I needed something, I interrupted as politely as possible and got what I needed and left.My playmate later commented about seeming subby when I had interrupted, I never thought of it that way. Being civil doesn't establish a pecking order in any way or define a D/s relationship, it is just being polite. Establishing dominance or pecking order is something I choose to engage in or ignore. It is simple.
She also commented that the talk she had with Boss Bondage addressed her trust issues with me. I have done many practice runs with my playmate and she has seen my ropes unravel or had to endure boredom as I tied and retied. Outside of rope, our relationship was pretty clear but inside of rope, it was very murky.
I had tried to suspend her many times before but she stopped it. I don't care if it is private play or public, calling stop or a safe word that is not part of play means stop. We had talked each time about why it had stopped and doubt had been creeping into my play. I wasn't sure what was wrong.
That was a wonderful night, the music rocked, the rope worked. I fully suspended her and enjoyed it immensely. Even putting away the rope was enjoyable. I felt totally dopey from the top space I had.
Monday Day
We went to more classes, enjoyed the evening activities and snuck in drinks and dinner somewhere. It was good to meet people at the end of the conference that I had been trying to catch up with.During one of the classes, I wasn't in any mood to tie but Raven was. She had purchased some synthetic rope and went to work on tying me up in a class. I think this was the same class where scenes were combined and at that point I was using her rope on her and co-topping with 2 other tops. It made me laugh and was good fun.
The closing ceremony was fun. It felt good and helped transition from the rope world back to the normal world. Our guest caught a flight out and we packed up in the morning and headed back to Pittsburgh.
Boston GRUE Meet & Greet
Wednesday and Thursday I went to work and dealt with a blizzard of stuff. It was stressful.My smile returned to my face when I picked up my other playmate, Batty Janice, early Friday morning and drove to Boston. We made good time until we hit Hartford Connecticut. The rush hour traffic was a killer with many minutes per agonizingly slow mile. Ugh.
We dropped off our stuff at the hotel and headed to the Meet and Greet. We showed up about an hour or so late. It was very noisy and hard to hear but we connected up with people. The kinky folks were mixed in with the vanilla folks so there was some hit and miss.
Boston GRUE
In the morning, things worked out well. We found the place and had fun. I was bit exhausted so I didn't do a class and faded away a few times to a quiet place. It was great to meet people.There were many highlights. My other playmate had been struggling with some major bad energy and she got a reprieve from it. The GRUE format that Graydancer does work wells and I am thankful for it, his work, the organizers and the other tirelessly souls that do things in the GRUE. My playmate got some serious good energy and said so in the closing circle. Thank you.
One of my favorite presentations was done by RopeBoi on flagging. I had some big holes in my understanding and they were filled in. This is one of the reasons, I enjoy GRUEs.
GRUE Playnight
It was a fun playspace they had. I enjoyed it.Apparently I got into greedy demanding rope top space pretty quickly. I didn't notice but I listened later to descriptions of my behavior. By suspending and playing with my playmate early, I apparently precluded her ability to play with another person. Maybe if I had held back, things would have been even better for her? I don't know.
I then had funny teasing, tormenting and tying GirlMouse. Oh that was fun. I felt so good.
GRUE End
After that fun, I think both myself and my playmate decided it was time to crash. We got back to the hotel room, curled up and went to sleep. We took our time checking out in the morning and heading back. It was a good time.Little did I know that a shit storm was heading my way in the weeks to follow. I must have sensed it since I agreed early on to cancel going to the Detroit GRUE. These two sets of memories helped me in the weeks to follow.
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