back in the game

So I’ve been laid up with a horrible cold and completely fuzzy-headed since the weekend. And the whole time, my little brain was feebly twitching and straining at me to get to the keyboard and write, even though I was barely able to form a coherent sentence like, say, “Please make me a cup of tea,” or “Yes, I want a hot water bottle.” It took me almost all day Monday to write a single 750-word article, and it was an easy one too – based on a very enjoyable interview with the super-sexy and beautifully articulate Lazlo Pearlman, FTM performance artist and cunning linguist extraordinaire. (I’ll post a link when it’s up on Thursday.) Yah. Not my most brilliant hours.

Fortunately I’m in much better health today, all the better since this afternoon I had a meeting with S, the big cheese at Inside/Out, Toronto’s queer film festival, and landed meself a most exciting contract to write a bunch of film synopses for their upcoming program. Woohoo! Any day that results in me coming home with a stack of fresh queer films I’m getting paid to watch and write about, as well as a new and highly drool-worthy pair of Fluevogs, is a good day indeed.

I’m looking at my list of blog post topics and… well, there are more than a dozen awaiting my focus and time. I’ll get there real soon, like maybe even later tonight. A bunch of book reviews, some musings on queer family and Ontario’s new Family Day, some new ideas about D/s and M/s, and most intriguingly the super-strange and mixed-emotion-inducing experience I had last Friday night of attending a queer and trans take on the concept of the freak show. It was… well, freaky, but perhaps not in the ways someone might expect, myself included.

But for now, I just wanted to post a quick hello, and provide a little update on some of my upcoming speaking engagements.

First of all, or perhaps just most excitingly, I’ve got a confirmed date and time for my presentation at the inaugural U of T Sexual Diversity Studies Student Union conference, called “Fetish: Working Out the Kinks.” The keynote speaker is none other than Carol Queen – it’s been a bit of a dream of mine to be on the same presenter roster as her one day, so needless to say I’m pretty stoked about this. Anyway, my talk is called “(Un)Common Ground: Poly, Kinky, Queer” and it’s based on a paper I’m in the process of co-authoring with the lovely Pepper Mint, your favourite San Francisco freaksexual. The presentation takes place on Saturday, March 15 at 2:15 p.m. Also presenting at the conference is Jacqueline St-Urbain, my fantabulous Unholy Harvest co-organizer, on concepts of leatherdyke beauty… I’m looking forward to it already. Rumour has it she may be showing pictures. Heh. Sign up if you’re in town!

The week before that, on March 5, I’m teaching a vaginal fisting workshop at Good For Her, where I will have the pure pleasure of using the most gorgeous non-human teaching aid one could possibly hope for – a big, beautiful silk and velvet cunt, who currently makes her home perched on my bedpost right near a rather lascivious-looking stuffed snake. (Not the taxidermist kind, the plush kind. Still, it’s rather enjoyably Christian-themed – snakes, forbidden fruits, and so on.) Hee hee! Really, she’s beeooooteeeful. Come and meet her! (The cunt, not the snake. Though I suppose I could bring both.) And get the lowdown on fitting your hand up someone’s frontal pink parts. Yummy stuff, that.

That same day, I’m giving a BDSM 101 talk at U of T Scarborough for their International Women’s Week celebrations. Much fun! I’ve posted the full info about both of these talks on my Workshops page, so click on the tab and check ’em out if you’re interested.

And speaking of workshops, Come As You Are is offering a ton of awesome ones in the next little while. I’m really glad I’ve moved here, ‘cuz if I hadn’t, I’d be very grumpy about needing to miss so many cool classes. Erotic photography, erotic writing (with Carol Queen, whee!), tantric BDSM (I may just have to revisit the topic here after that), and a bunch more.

All righty, I’ve gotta sign off, but I promise a meaty post or six real soon. In the meantime, think happy pervy thoughts!