Exxxotica Miami – getting there and night 1

Thursday, April 17

Today is the day I get to fly to Miami for the Exxxotica Miami convention! I did everything I could to make sure that today wouldn't be stressful. I can take care of 8 girls at a convention, but getting myself somewhere on time is a totally different story.  :/

The last few weeks, I made sure that I had merchandise like t-shirts, apparel and keychains to ship down and sell at the tradeshow. I coordinated repeatedly with Belladonna to make sure that we had her hours straight. I had a cool new background banner made that's 9 feet tall with a picture of Bella, and Evil Angel and Belladonna logos on it.  I shipped down the merchandise, approximately 1000 DVDs to sell, 3000 sampler trailer discs to give away, posters and boxes of Belladonna 8x10s and lanyards for her to give away.

Last week, Mike Moz called me to see if Bella wanted to host a party at an Opium Group club called Prive. When I asked her, she said she hadn't done that before, and it sounded exciting.  So there was a rush with getting promo pics to the club so they would be able to properly advertise the party.

This morning, my daughter decided that it would be a day where she was going to take a long time to get ready. So John drove her to school in the Valley while I finished packing. I realized that I wasn't going to be able to drive to the office to pick up that cool new banner which got delivered this morning (thanks Matt!). So I called my most awesome assistant Sarah, who said she'd drive it down to the airport and meet me at the check-in counter.  Well, traffic being what it was, her drive from the Valley was shorter than mine from Malibu, and she got there at the same time as me, so she came in with me and helped me get all checked in.  Again... I can take care of other people no problem. But when I get overwhelmed, I really like having someone with me for support.  And with the obscenity case kinda front and center in my head, having Sarah at the airport with me was just what I needed.

At the ticket area, I saw Lexi Lamour and Ethan Cage, who reminded me about my track record with flights to Florida. Last April, I missed the flight to Miami because I was waiting for the girl who was gonna be signing for Evil Angel to make it to the airport, and I refused to check in for the flight without her.  It happened to be spring break, and there were cancelled flights, and after a day and a half at the airport, we never made it onto a plane headed towards Florida. The October before, about 15 people including me all missed our scheduled flight for Tampa and had to fly standby on later flights during the day.

At the boarding gate, I found Belladonna and Aiden who were on the same flight as me. Bella was wearing the cutest sweatpants, a tshirt and hoodie, and of course the obligatory big sunglasses.  We chitchatted for a few minutes about the schedule that night and the next morning, and about the current phases our daughters are going through. Bella's such an awesome mom, and her face lights up a whole room whenever she is talking about her daughter.

At the Miami airport, there were a couple of shuttle vans to bring us to our hotels. Nautica Thorn and Robert were also in our group for the ride. After dumping my bags in my room (rather nice for being one of the more economical hotels on Miami Beach), I headed straight down to the pool restaurant. It was already 9pm, and aside from finding out organizational details for the weekend, I had some socializing and drinking to do.  :) 

Down at the restaurant was the group organizer Dan Davis from Genesis, Moxxie Maddron, Katy the publicist for Adam & Eve, Lexi Love and Nautica. The organizer of the tradeshow, J. also showed up and made sure everyone was cool. I hadn't met Moxxie in person before, but she gave me a super awesome welcome, and of course we immediately started talking about our oversized boobs, and sampled feeling each other's boobs. She has an awesome edgy look and really great curves.

Next to arrive was Monstar, followed by Mike Moz and Stormy Daniels who had driven up from Tampa. Everyone kept giving me a hard time for being on my laptop. I laughed at them and asked them what would be worse... me doing the work I HAD to do up in my room alone, or plugging my laptop in downstairs and hanging out with everyone while working. (I had to write and email out the press release for the press conference following John's obscenity arraignment hearing in Washington DC on Monday.) They agreed to let me work as long as I drank with them.  No problems there.  :)

Around 1am, after a trip to Walgreens for water with Monstar and Moz, I went upstairs with Lexi Love. Of everything that happened in Miami, I think getting to spend time with Lexi was my favorite. Last year, on my birthday, John and I were drinking at the Player's Ball, and he started flirting with Lexi. She was having fun, and was sticking her ass out for him to grab. Being the insecure drunk for the night, I got upset and told John it was MY birthday, dammit. He didn't pay me the attention I thought I should be getting on my birthday, and so I got upset. Lexi thought I was mad at her. I wasn't. But I never had a chance afterwards to tell her. So tonight, I apologized for being insecure and getting weird about stuff. We talked for about 3 hours.  And it was about everything from cooking to the business, to shopping, to how to deal with a relationship in the business. At the end of the night, I felt like I had a new really good friend.  Awwww.  ;)