More Tales From SF

When I was in San Francisco, I had lunch with Violet Blue and Thomas Roche. I haven’t seen Violet and just hung out with her in a long, long time. She’s just amazing. I am floored that she can be so relaxed about all the insane comments her San Francisco Chronicle column gets—those people are crazy. But, the non-insane among us know she’s doing so much to change people’s attitudes about sexuality through all her impressive work. What also impresses me is she is like a technology genius. She has all these fancy gadgets for her flickr, podcast, qik live streaming video, etc. I am just blown away with how tech savvy she is and totally intimidated!

After lunch, Thomas (an old friend and fantastic erotic writer), who heads up PR for Kink.com, took Colten and I on a tour of Kink.com’s new world headquarters at the San Francisco Armory. Damn! It is such an unbelievable space! Everywhere I turned I thought, “This is a kinky perv’s wet dream!!” It’s just awesome. I got to see various sets, the big props closet, the river that runs through the Armory (!), and a supply closet with more douches and enemas than a Rite Aid warehouse. It turned out that Adrianna Nicole was shooting for Ultimate Surrender during my visit—but we didn’t see each other, I just found out after the fact. Apparently, she won her match against Annie Cruz by like 600 points. Superstar!

Chicago is Hot!

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The book tour landed in a hot and muggy Chicago this week! I hit the ground running and first up was a podcast interview with Cunning Minx, who does the incredibly popular Polyamory Weekly show. It was great to finally get to meet this smart, sassy, and fearless poly podcaster! We squeezed into her home recording studio with a camera guy who is doing a documentary about her show. The room heated up quickly, but I wasn’t going to complain about being a little sweaty in close quarters with Minx!

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After grabbing lunch with her and Phantom, I headed over to the see Marc and Fausto, the brilliant hosts of the Feast of Fools podcast. True to their iTunes ratings, they were indeed hilarious. They were also warm, generous with the swag, and we had lots of fun talking about open relationships. They played a wonderful song as the intro to our interview, and when I commented that I liked it, they gave me the CD! How awesome is that? It’s Shine by Sarah Bettens, and I love it. I will post links to both podcast interviews when they go live.

Then I headed to my reading at Women and Children First. W&CF is one of the largest feminist bookstores in the country and it was an honor to be able to do a reading there. I arrived about 10 minutes early and got to visit with a few friends before things kicked off. People continued to trickle in and I was amazed to be in front of a standing room only crowd! Thanks to everyone who came out for the reading, participated in the dialogue, and hung around afterwards to keep the discussion going. The store actually SOLD OUT of my book, so not everyone who wanted to buy it could. I actually sold my copy of the book which I read from and marked with all sorts of tags. That’s never happened to me, ever! Wow. Afterwards, I went to sushi with Jessica, Jet, Amber, and Ray, then we headed out for ice cream and cupcakes at Sweet Occasions. Yum!

I am doing a workshop this afternoon in Chicago, then we head to Milwaukee in the morning for a reading at A Woman’s Touch. I cannot wait to go get some fresh cheese!!!

Vist with the Vixens of Vixen Creations

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As some of you may already know, I have a butt plug named for me. Well, actually two. I helped design the Tristan and the Tristan 2 which are made by Vixen Creations, a women-owned and run, independent, kick-ass sex toy manufacturer. I haven’t stopped by Vixen World Headquarters for quite a while, so I was excited to visit while I was in San Francisco. I caught up with Marilyn, Gina, and Denise, and met all the people I haven’t yet! We talked about some ideas for the future (sorry I can’t tell you any more yet) as well as an exciting future for the Tristan! I just feel so honored to work with a sex toy company that has values, integrity and really cares about making quality products and creating great working conditions. I was thrilled to see some of the newest products, including Soft Serve and Off With Your Head, the new silicone replacement head for the Hitachi Magic Wand! I can’t wait to use it in my new movies! Plus, Mistress now comes with a vibe. It’s the best first strap-on dildo and a great anal dildo, one I recommend a lot. More tales of the Bay Area trip to come.