Episode 62 – Keeping the LS organized

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. Wherever you are I hope you have blue skies. Welcome to That Other Lifestyle podcast. I am your host Jayson, leave Vanilla behind as we talk about organization.

This podcast is for adults only. We’ll be diving into adult and sexual topics with plenty of colorful language, so it’s not safe for work. If you’re under 18, this isn’t the place for you. This show is all about exploring the lifestyle and ethical non-monogamy, and it’s open to everyone no matter your background, gender identity, expression, or personal truth. While I do my best to use inclusive language, you might hear terms like husband, wife, or partner for simplicity’s sake. This show is for everyone, lifestyle, vanilla, or the curious.

Want to connect? Send me an email to host@thatotherlifestyle.com, visit my website at thatotherlifestyle.com, and check out my favorite lifestyle product recommendations at benable.com/thatotherlifestyle. Everyone is welcome here because the lifestyle is about so much more than you think.

Not the sexiest topic in the world, packing, organizing, getting your shit together. But hear me out: nothing kills the mood faster than playing Indiana Jones and the Condom of Destiny while a naked, horny goddess is sprawled across the bed like a gift from the universe.

I’ve been there. She’s moaning. You’re groaning. But not in the good way, because you’re crawling on the floor digging through your luggage like a raccoon in heat whispering, “Babe, where’d you last see the condoms?” And then you got to leave the room. Momentum? Dead. Vibe? Buried. Erection? On a timer.

Here’s the fix: take 30 seconds. That’s it. Put the damn condoms on the nightstand before the date starts. Be the sexy Boy Scout you were meant to be, always prepared. “But what about spontaneous hookups?” Please. There’s no such thing as too spontaneous to plan. You pack a toothbrush for a sleepover but not lube and latex? Get your priorities together.

A little prep equals a lot more pleasure. Don’t let disorganization cockblock your cock.

This episode comes from two places. The first is we have a Risque party this weekend. If you are interested go to Risquelifestyleparties.com. It’s a hotel takeover so we have to pack and travel over there. This weekend the themes are Area 69, space, aliens and the second night is Glow night.

Being a middle aged man who completely missed the raves of the 1990s, I admit I had no idea what a glow party is. And I bring people to Risque who ask me what a glow party is, so no worries if you don’t already know. A glow party is akin to a rave. Better organized rave with air conditioning and lighting. The whole party space is decked out in black lights and neon decorations.

This time around, there is a production company coming in with mind blowing visuals. They have holograms and lasers. It will be wild. Dressing for a glow party, you want neon. Bright neon everything. So, you glow under the blacklights. See makes sense. The other night is Area 69 themed. So, space aliens, sci-fi, sexy green skinned aliens ready to make out with adventurous star fleet officers.

We go hard on our costumes. It’s a reason to dress up as an adult outside of Halloween. Embrace it.  For the Friday night Area 69 themed party, my wife is going as Barberella from the 1960s movie, Barberella. She has been planning and wanting to wear this costume for a year. If you are curious, go look up the green outfit from Barberella. She found the bodysuit and the boots and the jewelry. Plus, a big puffy wig. Don’t sleep on wigs they can be sexy as hell and take a costume to the next level.

For me, I am going as Zapp Branigan from Futurama. Cause why not. We got a red tunic enhanced with gold appliques. I got a blond wig and boots and gloves. For the vanilla world when they think swinger party, they think lingerie, I guess. No, we dress up like a movie star and a cartoon character.

The second night for the actual glow party, we found a company that can do custom neon outfits which I appreciate as most clothes off the rack don’t fit me well. They were able to make the shoulders broader and the length longer for me. My wife got a costume from them as well. It’s a bodysuit with huge flowing sleeves. And her boots are fantastic. Thigh high latex six-inch boots.

If you are counting, that’s four outfits with shoes and hair pieces. Wigs. Yeah. We have to take three suitcases. And a duffel bag. We have a whole suitcase just for costumes. And this is not unusual among our friends. This is our chance to dress up and we enjoy it. Plus, we are driving so it doesn’t matter how much we bring.

Got that party this weekend and the other inspiration for the episode is hanging out with the most lifestyle organized dude I have ever met. He fully admits he has a touch of the ADHD, and all this organization helps him keep his life straight.

We need to talk about packing. Again, not a sexy subject but necessary. I can tell people who come to their first Risque or any hotel takeover, versus the veterans. The new crowd either bring one suitcase or they bring way too much stuff they don’t need. I think the best analogy and credit to my wife; hotel takeovers are like summer camp for adults.

Packing for a hotel takeover, make your life easier and get travel bags. They come in all shapes and sizes, make sure they have a zipper. I will post a new list on benable.com/thatotherlifestyle of examples.

These travel bags are a life saver. You can have a separate bag for each costumes and it’s accessories. That makes repacking the costumes easier. Another benefit of the travel bags, you can keep your vanilla clothes and your underwear separate from the sexy clothes. Which means, if you have visitors in your room, easier to clean up before the fun begins. Don’t be the person with a messy room when you invite people in.

 You can have a separate bag for all the sexy items you want to bring like an extended hoe bag. Do I need to tell you about hoe bags? Also called your swinger bag or go bag. The standard hoe bag should have a lot of condoms, at least 20, a small container of lube and besides that whatever fits in there. Breath mints, bullet vibrator, everything you think you need for a fun encounter with another couple. The extended hoe bag, well we have a bigger bag and more room. Sex toys, make sure to bring their chargers.

I recommend investing in a bunch of travel bags. If you go to enough parties, it is easier to keep your travel bags packed at all times. Something we have added and learned from cosplayers. A travel sewing kit. This has been surprisingly useful both for us and our friends. At least twice every party, someone will stop by needing help with their costumes.

Back to the other inspiration for this episode. Hanging out with my buddy, he rolled out one of the best, most amazing ideas. I stood in awe. Let me share the problem this solution is addressing. We show up to takeovers with multiple suitcases and bags and stuff. Just fucking stuff that we have to carry into the hotel, then carry it all back out. Maybe a couple of trips to get it all into our room.

This is all the stuff we need. Clothing, toiletries, room decorations, sex supplies. We were talking about hauling our stuff into a hotel for another party this summer and he jumps up happy as hell. He goes into his garage and comes back out with a stackable rolling work cart. You have probably seen this. Stackable organizer has little cubby holes of various sizes. He has three. One for sexy time. One for room decorations. The third for snacks and big stuff. I was stunned.

Like a kid showing off his toys, he opens everything up, walks me through the logic for each piece. I see the value in this. You can transport everything from the car to the rolling, with fucking wheels. Then you get to the room and don’t need to unpack it. Unsnap the containers and open each one up. Fucking brilliant. And shoutout to him. I told him I would do a whole episode about this because it’s a great idea.

When we started going to takeovers, we were disorganized as hell. We had multiple tote bags. We brought too much. Or didn’t bring something. Then you get home and have to unpack all this. Nope. With this stackable work tray method, no unpacking and it’s all organized.

If you attend at least two takeovers a month, or travel for sexy time, staying packed is the way to go. And I know you may have small roommates that don’t pay bills like children. This is great because you can stash it in the garage, and no one notices.

Speaking of roommates, I don’t have kids, but I understand from friends who do that they will root around and dig like ferrets. The solution is lockable boxes. Preferably with a combination lock. Get a big box so you can place the whole container you are taking to the takeover into the box at once instead of emptying it out and then repacking it.

What should you take? I did an episode on hotel takeovers and maybe my recommendations have changed. I know ascribe to a two-trip rule. If I take something with us to a party twice and I don’t use it. I leave it at home in the future. Plus, for these takeovers, most of them are in cities with stores. Not like you are traveling to the fucking moon, you can go pick up something if you forget it.

A new item we now bring is an over the door hanging organizer. It rolls up compactly and then we can hang it up in the hotel to hold big stuff, shampoo bottles, flip flops.

Flip flops and sandals. Having a second outfit that is comfortable to slip on later in the night is a big upgrade for us. We learned the hard way not to stay in your sexy outfit all night, especially if you have on uncomfortable shoes. Now we get dressed up, go to the party, get in our pictures and usually around midnight we head back to our room to change into our comfy clothes. That outfit switch also gives us time to debrief and talk away from the crowd and noise.

One more unsexy item that has proven very useful. A label maker. We can label our outfits, we can label our travel supplies. Labels everywhere. Can’t find it. Label it.

Lanyards are good to bring too. Depending on your outfit, carrying a credit card, ID, cash, and your ticket. All that without pockets is hard. Get a pack of lanyards.

Going through my random list of ideas here. Vacuum packing clothes. If you are going on a long multi-day trip this could help out. The only problem is you can’t vacuum and seal the clothes back up into the bag unless you bring the machine with you. I know there are bag with vacuum spouts on them. Never found them to work well.

Sexy time. Business time. Bang time. Lickety split. Horizontal cardio. Whatever you call it, when the ride starts, you don’t want to have to jump off to grab anything. You want to be present, not shuffling around the house, half dressed, looking for condoms or that one vibrator your wife really likes. Or batteries for that vibrator.

Some people call it playing, I prefer to call it fuckery. And when you are lucky enough to engage in fuckery with other people, organization helps. I talked about hoe bags. If you can, put a hoe bag in the nightstands, on the dresser, multiple hoe bags. We have a hoe bag in each room because you never know when the mood will strike.

Hoe bags do not need to be fancy, a simple zipper bag works. But what if you have a couple at your house and they don’t recognize your hoe bog as the container of joy. Go online or go to a restaurant supply store and get ramekins or little bowls. Again, I learned this from my super organized friend. He had little ramekins out on the nightstands and on the dresser, with condoms. Multiple brands. Yes, different brands fit differently. We always carry my preferred brand, Lelo Hex but Trojans, Durex they all fit differently.

Some are tighter than others, some of them have a death grip and you can’t get the damn thing off your pecker. I appreciate the forethought of stocking different brands.

Going a step further, have everything you need in reach or next to the bed. Having to disengage to go get a condom is not as hot as reaching over, grabbing it off the nightstand and slipping it on.

Hydration. Water bottles next to the bed. That’s a big one for me. If we are in the bedroom with a couple, to be good hosts, I don’t want them to have to wander around my house naked to go get water. So, I will bring in water for everyone before the fun begins. Little things that can elevate your hosting game.

If you anticipate sexy time getting messy, two things I recommend. Towels and sheets. You probably already have towels and sheets. Put the towels next to the bed. And sheets. Have a separate set of sheets for fuckery with other people. Makes cleanup so much easier, strip the bed, wash the dirty sheets and put your sleeping sheets on the bed. Ain’t nothing worse than a woman squirts all over the bed and then you can’t go to sleep until you wash them. Or you could sleep in the wet spot, which would be cold and unpleasant.

This will sound so stupid and corporate, but I don’t care. Do a lessons learned after encounters or parties. We do this. When we host house parties, afterward we talk about what worked, what didn’t work. What do we need to get for the next party? Any ideas we want to try for the next party? And I solicit feedback from our guests. I want their honest opinion on how we can make our parties better. I take constructive feedback well. Sometimes the feedback you get is completely useless or the person is just a jackass who will never be happy with anything. It happens.

Lessons learned, in the corporate world they might be pages and pages of things that need to improve. Lessons learned, you may have encountered these. And because it is the corporate world, there are entire workshops, weekend conventions people can go to and learn how to make better Lessons Learned documents. That sounds like the most boring way to spend a Saturday. Sitting around learning more corporate bullshit with a bunch of people that actually enjoy that shit.

I worked at one company a few years ago that required lessons learned documentation after every webinar we hosted. We hosted two a week and anytime someone says create documentation I cringe. My team had this down to a science and we were good at it. And we had to find five things to improve every time. Every fucking time. Which is bullshit. Bullshit corporate mentality when you work for a company that has a CEO with imposter syndrome and daddy issues.

Lessons learned after dates or parties, nothing formal. Walk through the encounter, think about what you would have done differently. Please don’t write anything down, no one needs that stress. But giving it thought. Thinking through the encounter on what you wish you had at hand, placement of items, what did you need or not need.

You can do this after a takeover as well. As you unpack, ask why did I bring this? Did I use it? Am I going to use it? Better to leave it at home?

You can do this with dates. Did you like the location? Did dinner then a bar work out well? Did you like the people? There is a value in doing lessons learned within the Lifestyle. You may already do this and not even realize it. My wife and I do this after encounters and parties, and one day it slapped me in the face, we were doing Lessons Learned. Son of a bitch corporate bullshit invading my personal life. Can’t believe I am sharing and recommending this to people.

It's not a bad thing. Not a bad idea. But if anyone tells you they want to do a team building exercise, tell them to get fucked.

Another item that has proven surprisingly useful are binders. All kinds of binders. Granted we don’t have kids so we can leave these around the house but binders. You can get zipper pouches that go into binders, then store them on shelves. I shouldn’t have to explain binders. They are useful though for organizing.

Bikinis or lingerie work well in a binder. You can also have a binder dedicated to all the couples cards you may collect. Get another one for important papers like test results and tickets to events. Surprisingly handy. And you can put labels on them. Woo Hoo labeling.

Themed bags for play styles works too. Maybe a bdsm bag with all the straps and whips and chains. Kinky night or food play. Dildo storage. I need to share about this one. Not body safe silicone will melt body safe silicone toys. Random facts and science right there. I don’t know the exact mechanism. We have joke dildos that are not for insertion I got from an unreputable company. I know they are not safe, so we use them for dildo cornhole outside. I have good body safe dildos that I know are safe for inserting into a human body. Never shall they mix and mingle.

One final item for your bedroom or sex room. A mini fridge. Surprisingly useful. You can get the one that just for drinks. This is super useful, and I admit a little bit of a luxury, but it saves you a trip naked through the house to the kitchen.

The next item we need to organize is our calendars. Its funny, people will ask us to hang out and I honestly have no idea what our plans are. My wife is the calendar expert, and I show up when and where she tells me. Unless I have that calendar in my hand, I ain’t committing because that’s how you get double booked then you have to make some hard decisions on where to go on a Saturday.

Calendars are very useful. The lifestyle is chaos, embodied, liberated, exhilarating chaos. Every weekend and sometimes weeknights, you could be in a different location with a different couple or friends doing the wildest shit.

Two ways to do calendars and they both have pros and cons. I prefer paper, we have a planner book that we keep as a primary schedule. It works for us because it is just us, if we had more to juggle like kid’s activities this may not be the best option. Went to a friend’s house one time and they have a big 4ft by 6ft calendar in their living room to coordinate their vanilla life and their kids lives. It was intense. Respect them for that.

For me, I like paper. I use a paper day planning for That Other Lifestyle business and scheduling. Turns out, super hard to find a day planning that does not give me a stroke looking at it. I just want a simple piece of paper with the date and a couple of lines. I don’t schedule out my day down to 10 minute increments. I have no idea what I am doing in an hour let alone this weekend. I don’t remember what I had for dinner two nights ago.

So yeah, calendars super helpful. Paper. I like paper because I can write it down and erase easily. Now that I write it out, yes that is the one benefit of paper. Well, I guess another benefit of paper calendars is you can hide it. With digital calendars, there is a risk of accidently connecting to another person’s calendar, then your fuckwad of cousin Brenda will find out that instead of going to the family reunion, you are going to a gangbang. It would make family gatherings more interesting.

Paper calendars and planners you can hide easily. But I fully admit it is not always accessible and will require you to follow up with people. Which then requires me to remember to follow up or you do that thing where you forget about it and when you do remember its been six days and you feel bad because you didn’t respond in a timely manner and you don’t know what to do next. Yep, it happens to me.

Digital calendars. Electronic Calendars. Google Calendar, Outlook. Something like that. Pros and cons here. Pro, easy to update but it does require you to interact with a device which may not always be available. Like at a hotel takeover, it is a social faux pas to bust out your phone away from designated areas and sex clubs have a strict no phone policy.

Another pro, you can color code it. Red for couples dates. Green for parties. Purple for dates to get tested. Sync it up with a woman’s cycle. Options for data splicing and manipulation. You can also add notes there.

Whatever platform you use for your electronic calendar, keep it separate from your vanilla life. I can not stress that enough. Cause you know technology loves to make connections and figure out who you know because then they can do targeted advertising to you. I never sync my contacts with any of the messaging apps we use. I don’t want them to know who I know over in the vanilla world. Nope. That’s a bad idea.

A calendar also lets you prioritize your events. You know a big party is coming up that you really want to attend, then you may have to tell a couple, no you can’t hang out because you have a conflict. Which by the way is a perfectly reasonable answer from an adult. We are busy. We have vanilla lives full of commitments and then in the slivers of time we can steal away, wherever you decide to spend that time is your business. Yes, it may take six months for the stars to align with a couple you really want to spend time with, I promise that it is worth it.

Having a well maintained calendar is essential too if you have super busy kids. Between sports and school or maybe graduation season. It’s insane to watch as an outsider. If you are in that boat, with a super busy vanilla life, I as someone who does not have a super busy vanilla life appreciate the organization. Being able to plan out dates weeks in advance because you have your shit together, warms my heart. Cuts down on missed dates and plan changes. And if you are in that boat, don’t stress about it. Your vanilla engagements are more important, and we heathens will be here waiting and ready.

There are couples out there and I find this bizarre. One and done. They offer up one date, one day to hang out and if you can’t make it, they write you off. I at least give people three strikes, and I also understand that people have lives. Never automatically assume that someone who can’t hang out, doesn’t want to hang out. There is a difference there. Understand that people are busy. While the Lifestyle may be my primary social outlet, other people it is not.

A big advantage of having a calendar is my ability to block off recovery days or weekends. As I have shared before, my wife and I do a 2 for 1 schedule with LS activities. We will party hard for two weekends in a row and then take a weekend off. For our mental health and sanity.

If you can handle drinking, fucking, socializing, every weekend do it. Go hard. I can’t. My wife can’t. We have different social batteries, and we have found a good balance with 2 for 1. If you are new to the Lifestyle, you have to find your own balance. 1 for 1, 5 for 1. I’m not giving you hard fast rules, a suggestion though, that yeah you need downtime. We also tend to avoid activities on Friday nights, activities like dates with couples. That is usually our personal date night where we go out, just me and her to reconnect and enjoy each other.

If I am talking about electronic calendars, that is an easy pivot over to photo storage. Fact of life in the lifestyle, you will get nudes. You will take nudes. You need to hide those nudes on your phone. Ain’t nothing worse than showing your mother a nice picture of your cat and she decides she needs to swipe left or right on your phone. Why do people do that? You hand them this precious personal device, and they decide they need to swipe around to find more pictures. No, I will show you the pictures I want you to see, don’t go searching for stuff.

Most picture apps on your phone will allow you to store photos in albums that you can password protected. Also, you may need to double check the settings for that album and make sure they are not uploaded to the cloud.

The fucking cloud. The nebulous place where all our information goes. Don’t like it. It’s a good idea to make sure that your filthy shenanigans photos are not being unknowingly sent to the cloud where they can then be added to a nice album of pictures that is accessible by your vanilla family. I have heard horror stories.

Oh, and another thing. If you have an Amazon Alexa or your tv is hooked up to your google photos, you know to play your pictures in the background while the TV is idle, yeah it will pull from all the photo albums they can access. I have heard horror stories.

The last category we have for organizing is mental organization. What the means is who does what in the relationship and how do you keep sane. I asked my wife about this section, I asked her how to keep your mental health organized and her response was “Good luck with that shit.” Love that response. Not useful but funny.

Just like we can compartmentalize, damn that is a huge word to say, our packing we can compartmentalize our involvement in the Lifestyle. No, you cannot make it to every event or party and that’s okay. No, you can’t go on every single date someone offers and that’s okay. You have to figure out your own balance and involvement. You can effectively separate your vanilla life, and your lifestyle based on your own criteria, and no one can tell you shit for it.

The other way to help with mentally organizing the LS is figuring out within a couple who is doing what. One of you may be the extrovert, like me who handles all the communications while the other one, the introvert like my wife, manages the packing and planning and organizing. That separation of duties keeps one partner from doing everything, getting overwhelmed and you now know who manages what part of your LS journey.

You may need to set limits on how much you participate in the LS every day. Now I am going into overthinking territory but that’s what you tune in for, overthinking. You can find reasons to be on the dating sites all day or chatting in groups all day. Or looking for new couples 16 hours a day until your job and your home life suffer because of it. Would I call it obsession, maybe a little, like dancing on the line of too damn much.

Set times everyday when you will do Lifestyle communications. Set aside 15 minutes in the evenings to catch up or maybe an hour on a quiet Saturday afternoon. If you get to the point where you are putting Lifestyle ahead of your life that is a problem that needs reorganization. The Lifestyle will be here. Watching your kid hit a home run or going to a parent’s function or spending time with your vanilla friends, which is more important. Making a conscious effort to organize your life around and incorporate the Lifestyle will enable you to make this a long-term journey versus burning out in six months.

Okay, not the sexiest topic out there but someone on this planet needed this episode to help them out. Next week I will talk about sex. Some form of sex talk. Maybe how to get better at sex. How to connect with people faster and better.

We will be at Risque’s Glow party this weekend in Baton Rouge Louisiana. As I am posting this episode tickets are still available at Risquelifestyleparties.com. If you are there, I will be there. Come say hi and I got swag for you.

Good news. I am now doing videos on YouTube. You can see me on camera ranting about vanilla perceptions of the Lifestyle and debunking myths about what we do. Go watch, subscribe, like and comment.

I always appreciate hearing your feedback and comments on episodes or suggestions for topics, so feel free to reach out to me at host@thatotherlifestyle.com. My website is thatotherlifestyle.com.

My personal disclaimer, I am not a medical professional nor a trained and certified educator of any kind in any way. I am a guy with a microphone, sharing my personal experiences with you. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only and please join us for the next episode. Remember STI testing is important and takes a community to make a difference.  Go to STDHero.com and use my promo code TOL10 for 10% your order.

Whatever you may do today, I hope you have a fantastic time doing it. Know that you are appreciated and loved. Have a great day.