Thanks to everyone for all your wishes of support and encouragement! They meant a lot to me, truly. Knowing I had a contingent of well wishers who matched my enthusiasm for spreading the word about pegging was heartwarming.

BIL rocked...and I rocked BIL, too. My presentation went well. Basically I made a compelling case for people who knew nothing about strap-on sex to check it out. Pleasure, prostate health and intimacy being the rewards. I wasn't sure of the demographics of my audience, so I toned down the language, dressed fairly conservatively and presented professionally. Once I met the BILdrs I realized I could have loosened the reins more than I did. And I will. Next year.

The audio visual guys for the main stage were charming, encouraging, helpful and on it. One of them sat with me for the few minutes before I went on, alerted me to lipstick on my tooth and then asked me what advice I would have for a guy (himself) who is pretty shy about anal and has a girlfriend who is eager for anal play!

There was a pretty wild and crazy party that night where the true eclectic, bohemian nature of the BILdrs was revealed. During the course of the evening I had quite a number of people come up to me and ask me questions about my presentation. Everything from - I want to try it but my girlfriend is pretty conservative to the lovely woman with the brilliant orange hair who simply said - I have a harness problem! A personable German man found me and proposed the idea that collected data about such a profound experience as pegging could be very valuable. It could be used for marketing or other things. His passion and expertise was data collection and analysis and it blew me away that he was trying and succeeding to find the Venn Diagram between our fields of interest!

I spent a good amount of time talking with a handsome man in a well-fitting suit who was stationed by the back door to direct party entrants around to the front. I really enjoyed his company and the conversation. I walked up and said hello because of his suit; I do love a man in a suit. He'd given a talk earlier in the day something about the interconnectedness of communication and he talked to me about ants and bees and people, patterns of communication and how resulting actions are affected. (And if he reads this, I'm sorry if I butchered that description.) I was impressed with his intelligence, his ability to explain his passion (which was highly specialized) to a layperson in terms that were pretty understandable despite the 2 margaritas I'd had. For his part, he seemed both charmed and blown away at my ability to discuss my particular passion with ease. He was drinking scotch so I think he understood about as much of my topic as I understood about his! We had great fun.

The commonality at BIL; Passion. Everyone there seemed to have such passion about their chosen field or their discovery. Or they were inspired by hearing about the passions of the presenters. I encountered remarkable communication skills everywhere - heaven for me. There were so many presenters at BIL that the odds that you would encounter one in a conversation were actually pretty good. So it transformed the usual party experience into something extraordinary. Walking up to a stranger and asking, "What brings you here?" could easily involve a half-hour conversation that would twist your mind in really good ways. The sheer brain power of the people there was in and of itself quite a thrill for me.

Thanks to BIL and all of the people who volunteered their time to make it possible. It was an amazing experience. I am happy to be a BILdr. I'm hooked. Next year I'll be there with bells on. Or wait...maybe I'll wear my strap-on.