Leaving for BRXX today

So for what it's worth, we're off to Black Rose XX this evening. The packing is MOSTLY under control. I was up far too late last night trying to decide what of all the tools I didn't need to pack. Yes, we've reached the odd point of not what to pack, but of what not to pack.

Personally, I'm convinced that once we're at the hotel and settled in I'll somehow have an absolute need for something I left, that usual ONE THING I didn't know I needed, until I did. Maybe someday I'll get this down to some form of exact science, in the mean time, I'm just trying to figure out the best way to keep everything together, organized, and safe.

Oh, and how to keep crinoline from wrinkling to death. These are the life skills they never taught us in home ec, how to keep fetishwear looking fresh in an overstuffed suitcase... .

We're still at home, but already I've seen a few things that really have me wondering as to how much of this we're actually going to be able to enjoy. At this moment, I'd say we're tottering on some edge between 'deeply conflicted' and 'tell me again why we're doing this?'

But that was part of the point, to see what it looks like over there, complete with all BR's history, underlying assumptions, and 'inside the beltway-ness'. But then, me? I've never really gotten my head around the primarily 'het' end of this. Not that BR specifically is, it just seems to so often end up primarily that way.

Not in that the people themselves always identify as het, but in that history and visibility-wise that's the impression left. While there will be leather and Queers, it's not Leather, for lack of a better way of putting it (with the history and social protocols that entails,) and BR 'queerness' sometimes seems to come down to 'bi-sexual when my owner wants'- almost universally on womyn's profiles. Bi as activity not as identity.

Worse, people tend to mistake Sir and I for a 'het' couple, which annoys me. We're always more complicated than first glance impressions, but many people never get beyond such. Then again, those (who dismiss at first glance based on assumptions) may be the very people I would ultimately find myself least interested in spending time with, as well.

So it's an 'adventure'. BR is its own thing, and part of the reason we decided to go in the first place was to see exactly that.

To the extent I can I'm trying to maintain both an openness to the experience itself and willingness to take fun where I find it. Who knows, I may find myself in the midst of a better time than I anticipate. It is always possible that we'll run across some really interesting people and have a lot to talk about.

I'm actually trying to be somewhat social (despite my hide under a rock tendencies.) I'm interested in meeting other womyn at the event. Naturally, they appear to have only set one night for the womyn's only dungeon, and of course, it's relatively early on in the event, and the womyn's meet-up of sorts is the following day. Completely backwards. That would be an event scheduling pet peeve of mine, it's a structural problem. In any case, some folks will be around at the meet and mingle tonight, so we're aiming to be in for that.

Some of it will no doubt annoy the hell out of me, but if nothing else, the National Gallery of Art is nearby, there are plenty of good restaurants, and there's nothing stopping us from going up to our room, closing the door and enjoying some 'us' time.