New essay on bingo, debt, finances, freelancing and anxiety

I'm very happy that my essay on why spending $2,000 playing bingo was totally worth it is up now at The Goods in their Best Money I Ever Spent series. It covers my pretty much nonstop anxiety, debt, personal finance, freelance and how bingo plays a role in all of those.



Firstly, I love The Goods and read it every day. Their reporting is super smart and interesting. Secondly, this series has been wonderful, whether it's about a US work visa, the TSA or a rose gold trash can or a vibrator. It's a delight because we all spend money, but we do so differently. I also wrote for The Goods earlier this year about bookstore crawls and Independent Bookstore Day.

I'm also honored that my essay got a custom illustration! Click here to see it. I think that's a career first. Yes, I know: Anyone who plays bingo will easily see that the numbers allocated under B-I-N-G-O are not all accurate to the game. But that's okay. If it gets people to read it, I'm all for it (I didn't see the illustration until the article when live this morning).

Sexy Nerds and Dad readings tonight in NYC

I'm sure there's also some crossover between those two groups!

Barring my ability to be in two places at once, I think my nerd/bingo loving side will win out over my baby fever side tonight, but I strongly endorse both these events. I also recommend the new novel Fathermucker by Greg Olear to celebrity gossip fans, those who want to read about suburban affairs and snarky parenting tidbits. Greg is an editor at The Nervous Breakdown, which I write for, even though I don't always take my own advice), and awesome guy. More on Dirty! Dirty! Dirty! once I've read it (soon!), but check out the 3D book trailer Mike Edison cooked up for it!

* SEXY NERDS & DIRTY WORDS *

You're invited to this one-time-only comedy-variety show where erotica meets neurotica, where the obscene meets the obscure, it's comedy for geeks, by geeks, it's.... Sexy Nerds and Dirty Words.

Host KEVIN MAHER (from the long-running series Kevin Geeks Out) presents a line-up of performers guaranteed to delight nerds of all ages.

Burlesque Performer IRIS EXPLOSION performs a racy dance designed especially for video-game fans.

Internet super-star MARK DOUGLAS (The Key of Awesome) delivers some R-rated geeky comedy.

Author MIKE EDISON reads from his new book, Dirty! Dirty! Dirty!, chronicling the history of America's greatest girlie magazines.

M. SWEENEY LAWLESS uncovers a secret conspiracy in comic book covers.

Performance Poet JARED SINGER shares some "Spoken Nerd" poetry.

Plus a game of GEEK BINGO will help determine who's the biggest geek in the audience.

Plus: Dramatic reading of fan fiction, un-censored tweets and a special video-taping for a segment that will be screened at New York Comic Con.



Sunday, October 9: New York

The famed KGB Sunday Night Reading Series, curated by the great Suzanne Dottino, presents “Dad’s Night Out: An Evening of Readings by Literary Fathers.”

We get to chill in one of my old haunts—and still one of my favorite bars in all the world—with my fellow dad-scribes Matthew Norman (Domestic Violets), James P. Othmer (The Futurist and Holy Water) and Darin Strauss (More Than It Hurts You, Chang & Eng, The Real McCoy, Half a Life). I’m psyched to share the stage with three of my faves.

KGB Bar, 85 E 4th St, New York, NY, 7pm

Porno bingo cohosting

I loved getting to crank the bingo machine, fondle the balls and call out bingo numbers at Porno Bingo at Pieces on Wednesday. I didn't love barely having a voice and being sick (still don't love it).

Here's me with host Will Clark, who read at In The Flesh last night from his gay stripper diaries and wore a "Team Fire Crotch" t-shirt, and porn star Bryan Slater. Porno bingo is every Wednesday from 8-10 and lots of fun. This was to benefit Metro Wrestlers and there were lots of scantily clad men around.

Cupcake bingo ruled

In case you were wondering, cupcake bingo was awesome! For $6, you got 5 mini cupcakes and a bingo card, and we played various permutations of bingo. You had the option of using your mini cupcakes on the board, or the little circles of paper it came with. A bunch of the Sex 2.0-ers won, we were typing and Twittering and eating our crazy delicious cupcakes from Sweet Poclets. It's an ingenius idea and I'm so glad we went. Plus, it's in this little market with all women-run businesses, so I also had red velvet cake ice ceam (yes, as good as it sounds) and peach lip gloss.

Photo by Jewel:



Some other shots by Viviane of The Sex Carnival

Car closeup:



With Twanna at Waffle House:



Viviane's hash browns, smothered, covered, chunked, diced, peppered and capped (thanks to jbrotherlove for those yummy potoato details):

Nina Hartley's French Toast and other links

Nina Hartley shares her recipe for French Toast! (via fabulous Chicago sex toy shop Early to Bed))



Amazon's showing that Carol Queen's latest anthology, More Five Minute Erotica, is finally out! This collection of ultra-short stories features my stories "Nurse Feelgood" and "Our Little Secret" (hint: the "secret" is a butt plug).



Two more men freed in the Genarlow Wilson case: (AP)

Two more young men have been freed after serving time in jail for a case involving a 17-year-old who had consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old girl.

Ryan D. Barnwell and Cortez Robinson, both 22, were released from prison Friday morning after spending 3 1/2 years behind bars. The two pleaded guilty to child molestation after attending a 2003 New Year's Eve party with Genarlow Wilson, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for having oral sex with the girl.

Wilson, now 21, was freed Oct. 26 after the Georgia Supreme Court ruled that that his sentence was "cruel and unusual punishment." Georgia law at the time of his trial required a minimum of a decade in prison.

Slightly old (December 6th), but..."French erotica...at the library:"

Ribald and X-rated, a new exhibit at France’s national library is banned to anyone under 16.

The exhibit that opened this week offers a peek at France’s long-secret library of libido, where, starting in the 1830s, librarians hid books and other documents from the national collection that they deemed dangerous for public morality. They called it L’Enfer, or Hell, and kept it under lock and key.

In 1849, library director Joseph Naudet described L’Enfer as “a hiding place … in which we lock up certain books that are very bad but which are sometimes very precious for book-lovers and have a great monetary value.

There's been much ado about drag queen bingo in Tampa, Florida:

The drag queens were reined in and very nearly ladylike.

Succumbing to pressure from City Hall, prizeless drag queen bingo debuted at the Canvas Cafe on Monday night, to a capacity crowd of about 100 who came out to see the suddenly famous show.

But the bullhorns were gone after neighbors complained about the volume and the profanity of the trio of drag queen entertainers.


Photo of XuXu Fontana by Rod Millington

If there's a GLBT teen in your life (or you want to keep up on issues of relevance to them), check out my friend Ellen Friedrichs's About.com page on GLBT Teens, answering questions such as How Do Gay Teens Lose Their Virginity? and interviewing Muray Hill. You may also know Ellen from her webiste Sexedvice.com (also see my Gothamist interview with her)

And Happy Holidays to everyone! Here's another shot of me in my friend's Santa hat, taken by the fabulous Stacie Joy, who will be shooting me in January. I can't wait! My dream is to do a naked shoot in the snow, but that will require snow and extra courage. We'll see what happens...