TTTour 4, 2010
July 15

Catch up time!
Well overdue catch up time too, as I've been advised by some friends...lol

A week has gone by since my last entry. Squeezed a lot into this last week. That's my excuse and I hope that the following backs it up...lol

Wow...where to start?
Chronologically is as good a place as any I spose. The last entry was July 8, sooo...

July 9
Getting darned tired of the rain! It has followed me from the time I left Portland! Right down through Idaho, Utah, New Mexico and most of Texas. Once in a while I stayed just ahead of it, only to have it catch up again by nightfall. And of course Portland has been sunny and warm since I left. Thanks again Murphy.

A couple cool things have come from it though. Unlike the rain in the heavily forested PacNW, you can see the rain coming from a long ways away in Texas and other plains states. A couple rare times when it was sunny right over me, I could look way out ahead and watch this wall of storm moving towards me. Or was I moving towards it? Hard to tell sometimes. But it looked cool! From the ground right up to the clouds a gray and sometimes even black wall dominated a huge piece of the horizon. As I got closer to it, it became kind of 3 dimensional and showed shades of gray depending on how close each set of rain clouds was to me. And the rain comes down differently there too than where I'm from. Differently as in HARD! At times even the truckers pulled over to the side of the freeway. I would turn my wipers up to high and they resembled a fan on high speed and gave me a view out my windshield a little like and old time black n white over exposed movie, with flashes of scenery, freeway, cars taillights on the side of the road. The world looked like a giant strobe light was flashing and I knew I should be pulling over too but I was a bit mesmerized by it, so I just slowed down enough that I was sure I wouldn't run into anyone and kept going. Several minutes of free n clear freeway, between swipes of my high speed wipers showed people pulled over everywhere while I cruised along at 35 miles and hour on a freeway designated at 75...lol Yes, a bit surreal.

Once the storms slowed down and I drove through most of them that day, I saw a pretty cool rainbow and even got a few pics of it. I think I know how to add pics into these blogs now, so once I d/l the pics I'll try to come back and add one or two.

Finally made it to Dallas today!! Friends putting me up there. New friends. GOOD new friends as it turns out. Very comfy house, great atmosphere, terrific food, TRUE southern hospitality like I haven't experienced in a long while. It's always scary when you agree to let strangers put you up. Yes, I'm a beggar right now and shouldn't be choosy but I've been stuck staying in some nasty places in the past, so you just never know and I was worried. Worried for nothing it turned out.
More on that once I get my hosts permission to put them in my blog.

Once settled in, I took a nap, then cleaned up and prepared to meet someone I'd been waiting to meet for months. More on THAT once I get permission from her. lol

I was told I should write this blog in a "stream of consciousness" kind of style so thinking of getting permissions first didn't occur to me...lol

Sooooo....after that late night meeting in my trailer in a dark corner of a Dallas Walmart parking lot.....
I went back to my hosts place and slept like a a log! One of my favorite parts of the TTTour is I'm wearing myself out completely every day and have had some of the best nights sleeps ever. I may look happy most of the time and smile a lot but I have my demons...as we all do...and they manifest themselves in a strong way when I try to sleep. The first time I went in years ago for a sleep study test the doc came back with his clipboard after the test, lifting up pages, putting them back down and let out a deep sigh, as if he didn't know where to start. Not a good sign right?

Anyway, I've been sleeping well lately and that's a very good thing in my world.

July 10
Woke up refreshed! Ready to go! Today is the first big teaching gig on the tour. The Dallas group has graciously allowed me to come teach and they asked for the most popular class I do: Bondage For Sex! In the late afternoon we headed for the Sanctuary. I had no idea what to expect. Even though it sounded like the bdsm community here was good sized, you never know what kind of space a group will support. So often it comes down to community leadership as to how well things work out locally. Well let me tell you...leadership here is STRONG!

The space is HUGE and well decorated, well equipped, well established and well run. This is a TOTALLY volunteer driven space and it's one of the best around. Great toys, play spaces, a beautiful social area...all in all terrific.

So I set up my gear while the normal pre-class butterflies bounced around off the insides of my stomach. Yes, I still get butterflies before EVERY class or demo. Nearly 10 years of this and it still never changes. I can appear like I'm cool calm and collected but still my introvert side hates being up in front of people.

Ha! Just now got permission to mention Honey Ryder! She is the one I waited to meet and met last night and she has also agreed to be my demo model for tonight's class. And since she was there with me then, you must assume our meeting last night went well right?
More about last night later.
Right now I'm rolling with the butterflies on class night.
Honey, who is kinda new to the bdsm scene, looks like she has the butterflies even worse than I do. I do what I can to try to make her feel comfy but once in a while she looks a little pale. A sure sign of BIG butterflies for her.
To make matters worse people started filing in. And filing in....and filing in! The organizers said it might be a big class but I had no idea how right they were. Nearly 90 people showed up!!
Most classes like this are 30 or 40. My classes are mostly hands on and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to control such a large class.
And the butterflies grew...
Honey and I were in the social area...well..socializing...lol And while talking with people realized that it was getting very close to class time. There were still a few people milling around the social area, so I told Honey we should go back and start getting ready.
We walked back to the class area and found out that when they say they are going to start at a certain time they START at that time! Over 80 people circled the teaching stage and my introvert side took the stage! Wide-eyed, gulping, sweat broke out, the whole works.
That moment. The one right before I get started. When everyone sees me come in. When they are all siting there with this..."entertain me" look on their faces (I know they aren't really but to my damned introvert self it sure looks that way!), THAT is the scariest moment. And it's a loooooooonnnngggggggg.....moment. Maybe 40 to 50 seconds that seems to take hours. Outwardly, I'm smiling confidently, striding in like I own the place, charming charismatic... Inwardly? I'm walking the last mile. Inwardly, my shoulders are hunched, my head down, I'm resolved to the death sentence handed down by the evil event organizers...consigned to the fate that awaits me at the top of the gallows stairs.
Ok, I'm embellishing a little. But not by as much as you might think.

Well dam. Totally lost my rhythm, my momentum. That happens sometimes when the coffee wears off. I'm not leaving you all totally hanging in suspense just because I'm sadistic. I won't write unless I feel like it. And I have to feel good about it too. Not going force myself to write.
I'll post this for now and try to come back soon.

Lew