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Saturday, March 24, 2012

Los Angeles GRUE & GRUEness

In January I went off to the LA GRUE. This blog post has been sitting waiting to be finished for a while.

The LA GRUE rocked in so many ways for me. It is hard to keep perspective.

So what is a GRUE? Well it is Graydancer's kinky unconference with the G in GRUE being for Graydancer and the U being unconference. You can about the rest in "What is a GRUE?" link.

I am not sure how many GRUEs I have gone to. The short list of cities that I can remember are LA, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Boston, Hartford CT (twice), San Diego and Washington DC. I may have missed one or two.

I have wanted to go to GRUEs in Hawaii, Europe, Detroit and elsewhere. I can't have it all. I like them for a variety of reasons.

This GRUE I knew about months in advance since I know the organizer. My problem as the dates got solidified was that airline prices had shot up and were no longer the $200 I had hoped for. It looked pretty bad for me attending. I was going to say that I couldn't attend.

I really wanted to attend. I wanted to see old friends. I wanted to meet new people. I wanted to check out the LA scene. I wanted to experience the GRUE again.

What happens at a GRUE?

The basic format is the same and pretty simple. There is a meet and greet which is good to attend for many reasons. There is the unconference part with a closing circle. The night of the GRUE there is a play party somewhere and then the next day is the helpful and for me secondary closing of saying good bye of attending Graydancer's cheap ass pancakes.

For me, the magi is to meet people at the meet and greet to start connections that a set of kinky people will be getting together the next day and then having an open and comfortable set of discussions about anything kinky. The people that show up as Graydancer often comments "is the right people".

The morning of the GRUE after the cobwebs fade from my brain is always amazing. I don't see how this sort of kinky unconference can work without someone like Graydancer facilitating. The key word is just that "facilitating". My instincts are to control, delegate and direct in a group setting not to encourage and spark. This is part of the magic.

There is always sort of this hushed shocked I sense from the other participants when Gray points to an empty wall and says something like "this is our session list". There is nothing there.

You have to experience a GRUE to understand what happens next. It is pretty cool. The people with passion to understand, share or both in a short amount of time put up a session list. There is some help to align things and tweak the initial schedule which changes through the day.

The LA GRUE initial session list created by the "right people".
And voila, in 30 minutes or so, there is a list of sessions and a tentative schedule! 

It is always a wonderful and valuable surprise to find sessions I want to attend. Sometimes to my disappointment, I miss out since I cant' be in two or more sessions at the same time. It isn't the same thing as normal events since you can help re-schedule things if you really want to attend two different sessions that happen to be scheduled at the same time.

Looking back at the GRUE

I discovered I could use frequent flyer miles (the ones that hadn't evaporated) to get my plane ticket. With that problem solved, I got the address for where the GRUE would be and looked around for a hotel. I found one and commented about it on a thread. It was cool to see everyone else do the same. Maybe we will have an entire kinky floor? We almost did.

I have gone to several GRUEs without playmates. I don't really think about playdates. My focus is on the GRUE experience not the play party. I have attended many play parties just to have a sense of being normal and not played since I was in a bad mood, messed up in some way or just exhausted. This GRUE would be a first for me since I would be meeting up with a playmate who I adore instead of traveling with my other playmate.

I landed in the LAX airport. The plan was simple. I would connect up with my playmate who would be traveling on a different flight and we would both go over to the rental car place. It was a shame to find out after collecting my bags and walking to the other terminal to wait that security was between me and the places I could sit down and wait for her at. I found a nice spot near a wall at the security exit point and waited.

Hybrid Car and Hotel

Hertz gave me one of those Toyota Prius hybrid electric cars. It drove me crazy with the dashboard which didn't explain the fuel level well compared to the rest of dashboards. It also beeped constantly when I was in reverse. I was teased by the exit gate security about fuel options when I then knew I wouldn't need it.

It was funny to see my GPS be confused and worthless while in the rental car lot. We eventually navigated out of the lot and got away from the prevalent high frequency antennae I saw so my GPS could start working.

We got to the hotel and basically crashed. We both had gotten a few hours of sleep, grabbed our stuff in the middle of the night and arrived at each of our airports in the middle of night to catch early morning flights. Yep, travel to across the country can be brutal.

Meet and Greet

We got ourselves all dressed up eventually and headed off to the meet and greet. We were like the first to arrive. The table arrangement was in the form of a "U" and had like 10 feet from the right side to the left side. It would be an interesting format for meeting and greeting. We picked places in the middle section that connected both right and left. People slowly arrived including the organizers, we were doing pretty good.

I am not a fan of Italian restaurants in the US since everything is covered with some sort of cheese, cream or butter that I am allergic to. I can navigate Mexican restaurants pretty well but it is a struggle. Ordering drinks was easy. I got myself a margarita but ordering the food was sort of a challenge. I got some help but I was close to not ordering anything.

About an hour later, the meet and greet was going well. The conversations were lively. The table format wasn't helpful. I hit my head I think once on the air conditioning sticking out of the wall trying to walk around to say hello to someone. It was good to see old friends and I met some new folks.

The Un-Conference

We showed up early to the unconference site which is being held at the "Bordello of Decadence". It is a lovely space with an outside fire pit, multiple rooms and comfortable seating distributed all through out. One of the advantages of LA is you don't need the huge expense of keeping a building warm in freezing cold temperatures so you have a bigger space. Lucky dogs!

The unconference started. I had an idea for a session and would put it up if needed to get the ball rolling. There is always this little bit of nervousness from people when they see the empty wall and someone needs to make it not empty. Before I even got close to the wall with the sessions listing, it was starting to fill up.

I went and attended a session by the owner of "Toys by OSK" who was teaching a "Mount Fuji" chest harness tie. I was being a goof ball by tying to the point of where we should be, doing more and then undoing back to the point where we should be. I apologized a couple of times but I was enjoying myself and my playmate who was in ropes.

The rest of the day I found myself doing mistakes with picking which sessions to go to. I am very happy with the law of two feet where you can leave one class and go to another. I should have been more active doing that but wasn't. I caught the tail end of a "blow jobs" class and a caning class that I really wish I had seen the entire session. I had attended other presentations on this class so I hadn't expected much -- I was so wrong.

I also helped with a violent wand class. I am a 'service top' for violent wand -- It doesn't make me hot. In general electric play outside of predicament bondage is something I am pretty immune too. I understand it too well and have been shocked repeatedly by things I have built all over. I could explain well the principles, show how a bottom can enjoy it and talk about safety.

I also got to spend time talking with a friend I hadn't seen in a long time and his companions. He is a very experienced rope top and good photographer. We chatted and he shared some rope knowledge which I always appreciate.

The GRUE ended with the closing circle. It is always good to do the circle for me. It helps me look back, smile and reinforce by expressing the goodness. I think it helps with the con drop and the parting of ways.

Diner
We went off to find diner, get changed and ready for the play party. I knew I had to reorganize my rope bag.

It was a fantastic surprise to be invited to a take out sushi diner with Graydancer because the lucky dog got the Japanese themed hotel room and I hadn't had sushi for a long time given some family life style changes. It was even better given who attended.

This was good food, good company and good drink sitting on the floor in a great atmosphere. It is something I always enjoy when this combination comes together. My thanks to Gray for that.

I wish I had been smart enough to take pictures. At one point, some old memories from child hood came pouring in. My mom had a good friend in New York who was Japanese who we visited when I was a child. It was fun to have these memories sparked.

The Play Party

We went back to the play party navigating around my GPS's insistence that I drive down a closed road. When we arrive, the fire pit outside was ablaze and people were chatting. I paid the entrance fee and went back outside and chatted.

It was great to socialize. Some friends that didn't go to the GRUE showed up, it was great to chat since last time I saw them was in New York City. I love when this happens.

I had an idea for doing a rope suspension and had checked out the hard point. We ended up doing other rope fun which I enjoyed immensely.

I think the jet lag was starting to hit. I left a spigot to a water container open and overflowed the cup I was filling. I cleaned it up and then checked myself. Yep I was overcooked and was making mistakes. I couldn't play any more.

We left I think about an hour later to go back to the hotel, sleep, pack and checkout.

Leaving
We went back to the Bordello and attended the "Graydancer's cheap ass pancakes" session. It was fun to see everyone that could make it again. We chatted and watched our time since we didn't want to miss our flight.

Eventually we got on the road, drop the car off at Hertz, dealt with the shuttle busses. My playmate's flight was at a different terminal. We said our good byes since we both had to deal with TSA security lines.

This trip I had because of weight limits on checked in bags put rope and toys in my carry on. Guess what? TSA pulled me to the side.

It was pretty funny for me to see the rope, pussy hook, ass hook and other things pulled out on a table. The TSA person asked me what it was for and I said "adult fun". She eventually put things back in the bag and let me continue.

I am so glad I always allocate time for security checkin issues like this. I had time to spare to get water for the flight.


















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