And so life goes on at some ridiculous pace, barely leaving me time to take a breath (or, to be more accurate, to take a drag on a fag) (or, to be even more accurate, it has left me time to take a drag on a fag but only because I can type and smoke at the same time. Oh, I'm going to miss it when I finally manage to give up - something I'm attempting again once the Christmas party season is over. No, really.) But I digress. In the last few weeks I've:
a) Had an internal vagina cast made for a feature. Yes, having the external vaginal cast last year just wasn't enough. Well, it was, in fact probably too much in many people' opinion, but hell, it's not something everyone can say they've had done (in fact, I'm only the eighth person in the UK to have it done as far as I know) And more to the point, it provided more than enough material to write a fun feature (for Forum magazine, Dec issue. Scarlet already had my feature on the external casting last year and writing two features for the same mag on genital casting seemed overkill. I won't pre-empt the feature too much. All I will say is that I didn't expect to have to use a vibrator to 'warm myself up' before the casting - in front of my photographer and the vagina caster [it was the least sexy wank of my life] - and that I really could have done without getting scratched thanks to a design error in the equipment - whether mine or the caster's I'm not sure but apparently no-one else has been hurt before - that resulted in me being unable to walk properly for a week, let alone do anything else.)
b) Gone to Folkestone Festival of Literature and broken my literary festival virginity (in terms of speaking at one) It was ace, even though I'm pretty sure that most people where there to see Mil who I was on the same bill with. Still, I sold as many books as he did which just goes to show that sympathy is a powerful emotion.
c) Gone to a couple of fantastic burlesque events: Kittie Klaw's new Ministry of Burlesque night at the Hanbury Club and Immodesty Blaize's incredible show at the Bloomsbury Ballroom.In both cases I took people who'd never seen burlesque before. In both cases, they were blown away and have subsequently been raving about burlesque to everyone they know. If you see either Immodesty or Kittie are performing anywhere near you, I totally recommend going to see them.
d) Been to a brilliant female domme event, Pedestal for a feature for Scarlet. I was expecting to hate it but it's amazing how quickly you settle into men being on their knees giving you roses, lighting your cigarette without being asked, buying you drinks, giving you foot massages and, err, begging to be trampled on/have their bollocks crushed. The whole Scarlet team went (well, almost all the women) and we all had a top laugh. Again, I'd *so* recommend it to women at least. It's so worth being utterly adored and treated like a princess at least once.
e) Been on a press day trip to Paris. I was invited at the last minute - the day before the trip - which made it seem all the more exciting (yes, I know that means I was last on the list but it's very cool when you think you have a dull week at work lined up then get invited to Paris the next day) It involved alcohol, more alcohol, even more alcohol, many lovely journalists (and a hot - sadly married - photographer) much talking shite and getting a free designer dress at the end of the day. All in all, a pretty good Tuesday.
f) Writing lots of words for the two books I'm working on
g) Recording diry stories for Audible
h) Writing lots of features
Sadly (well, happily, given that I always wanted to be a writer) there are many, many more words that need writing before I get to take a break. But I do have a pro-domme mate (and possibly a porn star) coming over for mulled wine tomorrow so at least I'm managing to combine seasonal goodwill with handy work contacts. Who thought networking could be so much fun?
PS: If anyone's after a gorgeous frock for Christmas, check out my mum's website. She makes stunning dresses - she was designing for Harrods when she was 21 so I'm not just being a proud daughter - and they're a lot less expensive than they look (or indeed should be - so get in there before I convince her to put her prices up.)
Posted by emilyd at December 01, 2006 01:21 AM