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Archive for the ‘values’ Category

I know this is probably a bizarre thing to post on my site, but I just found this short NPR interview with my psychiatrist:

* Psychiatrist explains why he speaks on behalf of drug makers

As you can tell by the review I posted here on RateMDs on 8/21/11, I think my doc is truly top notch so it’s weird to hear him portrayed in this sort of nefarious way. I admire that he stepped up and spoke openly about working for drug companies. He knows a fuck of a lot about drugs AND BRAINS – it’s truly amazing. I wish I could see him regularly.

Anyway, thought it would be bizarre and interesting for you to get to hear the voice of my psychiatrist.

I’ve also often wanted to share the website of my awesome in-town doc/general practitioner because he’s also super interesting and awesome, but I don’t want people in town to google his name and wind up here or for him and everyone at the office to see our porn sites (not a huge issue, but not the greatest idea, either). He has very specific, passionate, well-thought-out (and sometimes unusual) ideas about and approaches to health care, the pharmaceutical industry, being a doctor, etc. that are fascinating and informative, and make me feel really lucky to be his patient.

Professional ethics and ways people approach their work are interesting to me, and I like measuring customer appreciation, suspicion and criticism of other professionals against customer appreciation, suspicion, and criticism of sex workers.

I’m inspired by how much love and continued study my doctors put into their work and how much they are compelled to share insights and information with their patients and other people.

I dreamt of a crowded seniors-only trailer park vacation spot where we went to get away from it all but then we were in my grandma and grandpa’s trailer or something (note: in real life my grandpa is dead and they never lived in a trailer park). I had to pee but every bathroom I went to was full of specialty handicapped nursing home toilets with heightened elevator-seats made of yellowed plastic, and equipment like stainless steel rails, hoses, sprayers, etc. I didn’t want to sit on any of them and a frustrated old black man (I think he was sort of like my dad, who was a deeply tanned Irish in real life but not black) was chasing me (slowly, with a hobble) out of his bathroom(s) that were for him to use, not me.

I came into a bedroom with a hospital bed. My grandma was in it, sort of gyno-exam style, with two female assistants handing her implements on a tray. My old old grandma had a pair of tongs or forceps, a long piece of sinew or thick brown dental floss or something and different needles to thread it through, and a scary circle of metal she was fashioning into a clamp (diameter: between a nickel and quarter). She was in pain but focused on the task at hand which was customizing the thin metal circle to act as a cinch on her cervix to keep everything inside. One of the women held a mirror between her legs and I was horrified by how painful this procedure was going to be for my grandma who apparently had to do it every night before bed and try to sleep with a sharp metal clip digging into the tender flesh of her insides.

A cat jumped up on the bed and its tail swished against the implements. I expressed concern over this, worrying that the implements weren’t sterile and Grandma would get an infection. She brushed me off and prepared to reach into her vagina and pinch off her loosely-gaping cervix. I saw hair and blood on gauze. I protested to one of the nurses “what about rubber or silicone or something softer . . .” as the nurse just shook her head, letting me know that YES, there were alternatives to all of this daily torture but the medical community didn’t care about my grandma. They had bigger fish to fry.

Then an overweight trailer-parky lady won an opportunity to confront the HEAD of the doctors. We walked into his operating theatre where she started yelling at him about what my grandma had to endure and that he had the power to help her and stop withholding the special silicone rings.

He looked at me with utter disdain as he snapped on latex gloves and reminded me that we need to think about the soldiers on the front lines and THAT was what he cared about and how dare I be so selfish when there is a war going on. The men, the heroes, the stupid stupid women crying about their soft trivial cunts, lying in cozy beds. I couldn’t get the words out about how she couldn’t possibly sleep, the agony she was in. I wondered how he could treat us this way when she’d won the contest; how could he humiliate the winner on national television and not even LISTEN? Did this happen to all of the winners in their confrontations? Maybe it was my fault for being there with her. Maybe my presence made it null and void.

We were loud and fat and the other doctors in scrubs didn’t even look at us. I felt ashamed. Our place in the world and the futility of struggling against it was very very clear to me then. We were the cats contaminating the sterile atmosphere, endangering the lives of the heroes and progress in the war just by distracting them with our voices, needs and complaints. Stupid and selfish.

*****

Not a dream: my cousin died of cancer at the end of April and I never cared much one way or the other whether we were to kill Osama or not. But I do seem to care how and that even though I see people talking about it, I haven’t randomly seen anybody worrying about us killing his “human-shield”/wife or killing three of Qaddafi’s grandCHILDREN-under-twelve. I know this is nothing unusual, “good” guys killing kids and other civilians and apparently only the stupidest of idealistic bleeding heart peacenik liberals would question whether or not its worth it to the point where I had to google it to see whether or not I dreamed that, too, since it seems to be a matter of so little concern that I haven’t seen any mention of these murders in my social network though I HAVE seen plenty of OBL talk. It seems pretty obvious that we (as a general population) don’t consider those kids human or valuable or much of anyone to mourn. WE’RE FUCKING HEROES BLAAAAAHHHH! Do you feel safer now? I don’t. Not at all. I don’t believe anybody is safer anywhere; there is no army or bomb we can trust not to kill kids and the other people we pretend we’re helping. BUT OH MY GOD WOMEN WHO HAVE ABORTIONS SHOULD GO TO JAIL (if you google the Qaddafi grandchildren story get a load of how few stories even MENTION these kids were under twelve – not that if they were thirteen or over it would be a-okay, it’s just hilarious when the pro-”life”rs don’t seem to mind these things, but sucking out a blob of cells is MURDER)!! Fuck the world.

So I’m kind of depressed and just want to watch Star Trek, that much-ridiculed series of shows that actually has a fucking moral compass. What would Jean Luc Picard do? None of this bullshit, that’s for sure. Though the whole Robin Hood redistribution of Qaddafi’s wealth plan sounds sort of cool. Definitely a Captain Janeway kind of move.

Note: I am not writing this to change people’s minds or get in arguments or anything, I’m simply sharing my feelings with those who are curious. Because this is my blog. I understand why some people have different feelings and perspectives on this/these issues.

Also, I feel much better after sitting on this post for a day. I’ll try to post something more jolly soon, I just wanted to make a record of this nightmare.

I just used some of my webcam money to subscribe to one of my favorite radio programs ever, Hearts of Space. Nevermind the ill-advised acronym (so typical of nerds to make a hilarious mistake like that, god love ‘em).

Since our porn business operates on a subscription basis, it’s interesting to research other subscription-based internet products, their price points, and comparing the offerings. I loved reading the HOS: WHY PAY? page. Like porn, music is something you can get free online in a million places. Even when people don’t ask you to justify charging for it, many of us feel we MUST explain it (I’ve been criticized by adult webmasters for the times when I’ve disclosed similar information and confronted those questions when maybe I should leave them alone). It’s inspiring to read the way Hearts of Space explains some of their business approach (and costs outsiders don’t comprehend without being taught) because it’s so firmly rooted in a clear vision, one that I know DELIVERS an experience I’ve never gotten from any other radio programming. There is a certain personality, there are seductive, hypnotic voices I’m attached to, and there is a well-planned journey offered by HOS.

HEARTS of SPACE PRODUCER STEPHEN HILL’s CAREER seemed to take a sharp detour in the early 70’s when he abandoned his architectural career and opened a recording studio. . . . In retrospect, Hill realizes he never really left architecture. He simply became a sound architect who learned to build his castles on the air. “Architects create environments with physical materials.
I do it with sound.” - Stephen Hill

It’s also interesting to observe my own thought process in deciding what kind of subscription to get: I chose the $13 a month all-access plan because I don’t feel like I can shell out the money for a year even though I know it would save me money in the long run. Also, The internet radio channel only (no archives or playlists) probably would’ve been good enough for me, but if it wasn’t, I didn’t want to try to figure out how to upgrade mid-month. Out of laziness/a desire to be efficient with my time and not necessarily need or probable usage, I chose the more comprehensive membership. I know people go through similar though processes when deciding which membership plan to get for our sites.

Hearts of Space is an inspiring model of how to create and sustain and love a “product” that’s not personalized for each individual listener but still manages to feel intimate even though it’s mass-delivered and not even live (except maybe one hour a week, I think).  It speaks of a void and manages to fill it –inside of me and outside of me — at the same time. I’m fascinated by people and groups who design and deliver stimuli producing what appears to be a relatively mundane experience (compared to, say, a roller coaster ride in a theme park or a provocative theatre piece, etc.) that manages to infiltrate people’s lives by being constantly accessible in private, demanding little of them but providing addictive stimulation. A little like a favorite diner or coffee shop. Something offering sustenance you could get elsewhere, but elsewhere just wouldn’t be QUITE right. I believe there’s something about the earnestness of the proprietors to deliver an actual EXPERIENCE they’ve envisioned in rich detail and feel in their own bones that makes Hearts of Space , some bookstores, a couple of Indian and Thai restaurants in Tacoma, and some porn sites exceptional.

I love music and I love feeling distant connections to people, but it’s impossible for me to listen to voices or most music and WORK at the same time. “Space music” offers me the kind of escape and transcendence I long for. It’s a spiritual salve for me that allows me to imagine journeying into a meaningful peaceful nothingness of wind and colors and stars and the smell of ozone. It gives me a lot of the feeling I get from imagining my ideal forms of church or prayer or sanctuary or space travel. It’s like having a lucid flying dream. That’s totally worth $13 a month to me. “Greetings, space fans . . . “

There’s a vibe on Hearts of Space that I’d like to infuse my own site with – that I’ve always wanted to be there and have maybe succeeded in transmitting some of the time (not the SAME vibe, but a quality or peculiarity of vibe). I think it will be helpful to listen to HOS on a daily basis to remind myself of the possibilities and how personality and vision and voices (even in very limited doses, more often without words) can combine in powerful, seductive, and soothing ways. How to make transportation out of your aesthetics and values to take people to a place they recognize as one where their belief systems make perfect sense. Or freewheeling careless nonsense. Where you look around and feel yourself and even though nothing has changed, you’re like, “THIS is it, what I was trying to remember that was bothering the tip of my tongue.”

Like, fucking psychic alignment, man!

Click here for an older post about new age music, porn and more.

*****

I know, you’re all like . . . post some porn, woman!! Are you losing your mind?

I can only answer in a predictably crazy way by insisting that no, I’m totally on the verge of genuine SANITY, motherfuckers!! Seriously, like, all is about to be REVEALED!!

I’ll try to post something porny and down-to-earth for you soon, mkay? I’ll TRY.

I am always trying. I don’t know if that’s apparent or not, but it’s true.

Ahhhhh . . . it’s webwhore drama time!! I’ve been waiting for someone to call out Alexa:

Reality and Faux Ho Bloggers on Carnal Nation

Kat’s response to that piece

Now that people are publicly airing their suspicions that AlexaRPD is a fraud, I’ll tell you why I started (and continued) linking to her and how/why my irritation with her escalated:

*I’ll pretty much link to any sexy-type blog provided one or more of these conditions are met:

• I’m hit up at the right time (when I have time to check them out & add them)
• they’re already sending me traffic (& I notice it on one of those rare days I check my stats)
• their blogs are told from a personal perspective
• they look like someone my readers/traffic would be interested in

Alexa’s blog qualified on all of those counts. I think the only post I read all the way through was her pet bunny post, which moved me. It also did something very few bloggers have the time or ability to do: it told a whole, coherent story. So . . . sex blog, nicely presented, obviously HAS traffic (and will continue to attract traffic) equals good link exchange for me. BECAUSE PART OF WHY I BLOG IS TO MAKE MONEY/attract members to my site.

At first I tried reading parts of a few more posts — the sexy ones — and while they do not do it for me and struck me as exaggerated and full of shit, I didn’t feel outraged even though I sensed the person writing the posts was manufacturing most, if not all, of the content in her imagination. I have HATED reading mean-spirited accusations about bloggers I’ve loved: that they must actually be men, that they couldn’t really possibly be for REAL, blah blah blah. I didn’t want to be one of those people and frankly I didn’t have the time or interest to read enough of her blog to gather “evidence” on her. I exchanged links with her to get traffic to my site and recognized that her blog is the kind that will have many loyal followers. While I may privately harumph at someone who just can’t ever get enough of throat-fucking (her specialty, if I remember correctly), obviously there are many wankers who eat that up.

I actually experienced what now sounds like a disproportionately higher level of irritation over how much she sounded a lot like another(?) Alexa who had a blog called A New York Escorts Confessions (also charged with being fake). I exchanged links with her once upon a time, too, even though that missing apostrophe right in her title DROVE ME FUCKING BATSHIT. I was way more aghast at her idiotic unwillingness to acknowledge and CORRECT her mistake (claiming instead that she did it on purpose for aesthetic reasons) than I was at her concocting or sexing up posts, but again — TRAFFIC. Those of you who blog purely for fun and attention and sparkling conversations in comments (GAG) may not get it (and be sputtering, “but . . . but . . . *I* deserve those sparkling comments more than FAKEY ALEXA does!!” which is probably true), but if I were to not accept traffic (and even PAY for it with reciprocal links and/or affiliate payouts) from sources I didn’t totally love and/or respect we wouldn’t be able to make a living on our sites. Seriously, whatever wrongs AlexaRPD has committed are incredibly small fries compared to the really foul and depressing shit I’ve dealt with from other “colleagues” so it wasn’t particularly troubling to me or something I felt like I needed to get to the bottom of.

Perhaps I’d have felt differently if she were claiming to be a camgirl, though, rather than an escort and former stripper. On the other hand, probably not. There are lots of sites I link to for money even though I don’t LIKE the people who run them or their work is not my cup of tea or who disseminate wrong/stupid information or whatever. I know some of you may find this appalling, but I only feel the slightest twinges of guilt over that. Like, that guilt is miniscule compared to the irritation, say, of a wayward hair in my sock pulling down on the skin between two of my toes. It’s not a whore sellout thing, either: today I saw that some of our very liberal friends took money from the government to provide training to the US Border Patrol to do some very UNprogressive freedom-eroding shit. When I think of all the civilians/non-sex workers who compromise their ethics for money (sometimes without a second thought) I really have a hard time feeling like I need to be a bigger boycotter and censor and ethical tightrope walker. I do not need to be up on the high horse other people insist on riding, instead I’ll stay down here with the common folk, shoveling shit and making money.

AlexaRPD follows me on Twitter (perhaps will be amended after this post to followED) and I have followed her back not just for the traffic exchange, but because she is constantly reading online and posts lots of pertinent sex worker-y news links before anyone else does. Is that one of the many red flags that she has way too much time on her hands to really be doing all the work and school and travel she claims? Totally. Does it make me want to unfollow her? No. I want to read the links she posts and I want the traffic. Didn’t much give a fuck.

But I *started* to give a fuck. The first time I started giving a fuck was when she posted a “Sex Ed” entry attempting to school  people on transgender and made some really glaring mistakes like writing as though all transsexuals are MTF (male to female) and just take estrogen for hormone therapy. When a transman got pissed about this in the comments, Alexa’s response wasn’t “OMG — thanks for pointing out to me that my information is completely wrong as applies to FTM transsexuals!” Instead it was hostile. Like the no-apostrophe defense, but much worse. I started writing comments but didn’t post them, realizing as the debate raged on in the comments and Alexa deleted sensible feedback without ONCE apologizing or hastening to correct her mistakes that THIS IS A PERSON WHO NEVER ADMITS TO BEING WRONG even when she should be totally fucking embarrassed to pretend that she’s right. And there is absolutely no point in trying to communicate with her. It irritated me so much, though, that I kept the comments I wrote (but didn’t post) in a draft in my mailbox. Here they are:

I don’t know if anyone else pointed it out as far as factual errors go (and I could be wrong too) but I *think* it actually IS uncommon — extremely — for people to be born with “well-defined sets of both genitals present”. I’m not an expert and I don’t think anyone could be, particularly when all of this stuff  (terms, expectations, scientific research) is still evolving BUT I can totally understand why people would get defensive, pissed and call you out on things. Like mostly-defaulting to talking about MTF transpeople and then not getting it when someone pointed out that FTM people obviously have a whole different HRT (hormone replacement therapy) plan. So as far as specific things to correct? The line “This might include surgical alteration, but may also include the commencement of hormonal treatments (estrogen, largely).” I don’t know if you meant to and didn’t get to it, or what. There’s no way to leave that as is and make it sound inclusive of FTM people and that definitely is a pet peeve of mine, that transwomen are fetishized and sensationalized and much more visible in the media like they are THE ONLY transpeople, while transmen are this invisible population — again where the people born with pussies are secondary to the people born with penises whose trials and tribulations and experiences are what all our discussions are built around with the biological cunt-owners being footnotes and exceptions to the rule instead of rulemakers themselves.

Being more specific about HRT *is* really important, I think, and it wouldn’t take that much space to add “usually estrogen & testosterone blockers for MTF and testosterone and progestin for FTM”. It’s really important for people to understand you’re not just ADDING hormones, but trying to counteract the ones you’ve already got.

So let’s call that Strike One for Alexa, the whole “never admits when she’s wrong” problem. With a cherry on top of “pretends she’s a ’sex educator’ when she is not”.

Strike Two was/is that she’s a shameless content thief and on top of that brags about all of the traffic she gets. I wouldn’t resent this if she got all of that traffic from her bullshit stories because writing those does take time and they ARE valuable to her readers regardless of whether or not they are true. Okay, I would still resent that a wee bit. But what REALLY pisses me off? That she gets and retains a lot of traffic from posting stolen  content on her erotic buttholes erotic facials erotic this and that picpost blogs. All of those shiny, pretty tumblers she’s so proud of are built entirely on her “collection” of photos she’s not in and didn’t take AND DOESN’T EVEN CREDIT to the real sites, photographers, or models except every so often on accident when the URL stamp hasn’t been cut off.

My ears are burning up just typing this, it makes me so mad. I remember seeing one of my friend’s faces smiling pretty with a load of cum on it in one of the pics Alexa posted with absolutely no mention of my friend’s name or her site and it just brought it home even harder to me that this person who pretends to be a sex worker, who pretends to be a sex worker advocate, is one of those people who thinks she has a right to capitalize on our bodies and our work for her own gain, to just TAKE our work like it’s free and redistribute. She’s like the guys on Craigslist who post that they have hard drives for sale with 437 gigs of porn on them that they’ve spent five years “collecting” or this one guy who wrote to me asking for a free membership to my site in exchange for the “collection” of menstrual porn he’d taken painstakingly snagged from here and there, by hook and by crook. When I angrily said no, he was like, “but I spent all of this time LABELING everything and putting them into folders! MY COLLECTION IS REALLY VALUABLE!”

Listen, I know most everybody’s been there before, very excited about the world wide treasure trove of free porn and bulletin boards and we want to show it off to people, our great taste in porn (or “erotic art”) and our amazing discoveries, but most of us had someone take us and shake us and remind us of a little thing called fucking COPYRIGHT. I am still a lot looser than other people when it comes to blogging on that — I don’t think you need to ask everybody for permission and think it’s fine to post stuff that’s out there for free already as long as it’s just a couple of samples AND YOU PROVIDE CREDIT to the original artist or a link back to where you found it or even just say “I wish I knew where this came from so I could credit the creators and models”. A blog-sized photo or three is like a quote from a book and seems to me fair use. But when your entire blog is comprised solely of uncredited porn? You’re just a thief. I’m apt to be forgiving when it’s someone who doesn’t know any better, but this Alexa person DOES know better, I’m sure of it, if she knows how to parse the language of 2257 laws while deliberately ignoring copyright infringement.

I am somebody who thinks copyright and trademark laws go a bit too far to the point where they constitute culture theft; I don’t want it to sound like I think every Joe Schmoe who posts a handful of pics on his rinky dink blog of his fave porn star should be prosecuted and fined thousands of dollars, but when someone has the audacity to brag about all of her traffic that’s built on stolen uncredited content, then she’s just a Big Asshole. And on top of that to have posted a portfolio that she claimed was of herself but was really photos of Princess Blue Eyez? That takes the theft to a whole other level and proves she’s a fraud (unless she is/was the model for that site).

Strike Three: it’s a petty one. But it was the day she told me I didn’t “get” what Twitter is for because I defended those of us who don’t feel the need/don’t have time to respond to questions tweeted to us. She is one of those “you owe a response to people” types who clearly doesn’t HAVE A REAL FUCKING JOB consuming all of her time the way we real sex workers do, those of us who realize it’s not our obligation to interact with and respond to people for free. Those of us who actually DO set a price on our time. And just goes back to Strike Number One of never admitting she’s wrong, which in this version is “there’s only one right way to do things (in this case use Twitter) and that is MY way”.

It all added up to me developing a blistering rage whenever I saw her saying similar things to other people, lecturing and chastising people who actually DO know what they’re talking about, who actually DO work their asses off and do jobs where we’ve sacrificed our privacy and taken real risks to do our work, all from this person who refuses to admit she’s wrong when it matters, even about little things. This person who doesn’t have the first clue or morsel of respect for our work, co-opting our work for his or herself thinking she can leverage her bullshit and ill-won popularity into a book deal or maybe just doing it because it greases his or her borderline personality disorder.

I’ve been wanting to say all of this for awhile now, but honestly didn’t want to be the one to step up and call her out on it because a person who has this much time on her hands could be the kind of person who will fuck with you indefinitely. And she certainly won’t learn anything from it or admit she’s wrong about anything so I just figured . . . WHY BOTHER?

Because who really cares if she’s a fake? Not her readers, apparently, who love an invisible woman with stolen pictures who never has a tired, stinky, or headachy story to tell about sex and ALWAYS sleeps naked and might invite YOU to a gang bang! And at first I was content to not care, either, until it wasn’t just about amusing herself with hypersexed tales to make ad sales to escort sites.

But I do care now. WE care. Those of us who pour our guts out for real, who HAVE our faces plastered with cum and other substances all over the internet, who are trying to make ends meet, who insist our time and our sex work is valuable and we should be compensated for it and our time in general, who HAVE gone to the schools we say we have, who are in some cases real educators . . . we care when you steal from us and then have the balls to teach people “sex ed” and gender ed and sex work 101 and scold us.

We care when you insinuate yourself into our virtual midst, insert yourself into our conversations and you can see US and take from US and pretend to be one of US . . . while you hide behind your charade. It’s fucking gross to those of us who are bonafide and verified. Those of us who have real work to do, posing for and/or shooting the pictures you steal, being real advocates for sex workers, actually TEACHING (as opposed to claiming we’re educators in interviews where your credentials are never verified), talking to real clients and customers (as opposed to simply amusing ourselves engaging in hot chat with freeloaders and teenagers who like our blogs). Yes, there are other anonymous sex worker bloggers some of whom I *adore* without question. But the thing is THEY NEVER DID THIS BULLSHIT ALEXA IS DOING. The content theft (to the EXTENT she does it), the hypocritical hand-slapping, and the offensive posturing.

To paraphrase a friend’s complaint, it’s creepy that this person knows who we are, but we don’t know who s/he is . . . and that person KNOWS he has an advantage over us when he talks to us . . . knows that he’s tricking us into treating him like the person he isn’t, like he’s one of us (and by “us” I don’t mean all of us are the same or do the same jobs or have the same identities). Alexa is basically someone who has succeeded in manipulating people into giving him free dances/handjobs/shows/phone sex.

*****

Well then . . . that about does it.

I feel a little ass-y about posting this, but kind of justified because I really wanted to emphasize the thing that matters more, I think, than creating a fake cum-hungry fantasy persona: it’s the hypocrisy of claiming to be a sex worker advocate WHILE YOU STEAL FROM THEM. The hypocrisy of “educating” people on transgender while you delete educational comments and corrections FROM PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY ARE. You know . . . stuff like that is bigger and more fucked-up than playing virtual dress-up. And I did want to provide an explanation for deleting my link to her and turning off all that ill-gotten traffic, so there you have it.

Note: I will not think less of you if you’re one of my readers or members and you continue to enjoy her blog (with a grain of salt please?) and I’m not saying that EVERYTHING on her blog is wrong, stupid or patently false; I’ve agreed with many things she’s said, and there WAS that awesome pet rabbit, Hansel. I definitely want to remind you, though, that all those pictures she posts? There are real people in them and real photographers who made them, so stop thanking Alexa for providing you with them, instead insist that she credits those in the images she shares so you can support (I hope) the people who ACTUALLY MAKE visual art/porn/erotica, not just steal it.

Oh man! I almost forgot that one time she told me I really *must* start waxing my twat, that my lovers would thank me for it. If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time you probably know that I don’t take kindly to advice on pubic hair removal, even when coaxed with a wink and the promise of someone else appreciating it. Nothing against waxing, which I’m open to, just not so open to being patronized by someone who crows about her eversmooth grooming but has never shown a photo of her biscuit, if she actually has one.

Edited to add: just noticed a midnight post from Mistress Matisse on the subject.

Once upon a time in the eighties I read a story in Cosmo about a woman who got stuck on a plane sitting next to a guy who whipped out a porn magazine in flight, putting her in a Very Uncomfortable Position.

There was a pretty good piece in The Washington Post about the same thing happening with porn on mobile devices (stupid WP makes you have a login to read, sorry). Normally most coverage of publicly-consumed porn is really biased and weird, but they did an okay job of it: TECHNOLOGY INCREASES CHANCES TO SEE PORN IN PUBLIC.

Listen. I will defend every adult’s right to buy porn, to make porn, and to think whatever taboo sexual thoughts they want, but when you shove it into someone else’s face, you’re sexually assaulting them. You are forcing them to engage in a sexual encounter with you and your fucking porn without their consent. Is it to the same degree as actually jacking off on them on a plane or frottaging(sp?) them on a train or taking your own dick out and shaking it at them? Of course not (and I totally understand FANTASIZING about doing all of those things or FANTASIZING about those things happening to you), but I personally would press charges against someone who did that next to me. It’s unacceptable.

Of course, I say these things having been resentful at times when I wanted to pull up a NSFW blog or my own site when we’ve been on the road and in internet cafes and had to limit myself or do a lot of alt+tabbing, but that’s a far cry from the guy in the story who started watching hardcore, audible porn with not only the woman right next to him, but HER KIDS, too. The thought of it honestly makes my blood boil and my imagination to immediately go to a place in my head where I’m kicking this man’s teeth in and beating him about the head with his fucking laptop.

The shocking part to me is how many people (let’s face it, mostly MEN) think they’re entitled to publicly entertain their dicks wherever and whenever they want. How can you POSSIBLY think that’s okay? AND WHY ARE THEY GETTING AWAY WITH IT? Frankly I think we’re all obligated to publicly humiliate (to an extent that goes beyond what some of them are probably after in the first place) and legally dog these idiots.

Is there a grey area where I’d be more forgiving? Yeah. I know sometimes when you’re rowdy with another person at dinner or something you might flash some pictures on your cell phone at your buddy and someone might see it from a distance, but when your bubble is touching a stranger’s bubble either physically or audibly, you just do NOT insert sex into said stranger’s bubble. If you’re many seats away from anybody and nobody can HEAR your porn, I think that’s less of a big deal. If you make a valiant effort to hide it when someone approaches, I think that’s okay. And personally I wouldn’t care if someone masturbated next to me on a plane as long as they didn’t expose themselves or touch me or make eye contact with me and they did their best to hide it.

I think that I’ve masturbated under a blanket on a plane just to relax so I don’t know . . . maybe I’m drawing my lines in very subjective ways. I know I’ve had conversations in restaurants that were really graphic, loud, and could easily have made people uncomfortable but I think I’ve never done that with kids around. I hope not, anyway. Plus, I *love* listening to other people have conversations like that. UNLESS it’s guys talking trash about women or anybody calling people names. I have been known to ream people out for that. But it’s still different to talk about a sexual encounter and have people overhear you than start HAVING a sexual encounter with your porn and force people near you to have it with you, whether you intend to or not. And when your loud conversation disparages and insults people it’s kind of the same thing; you’ve drawn total strangers into your bullshit in a hurtful way.

I’ve also been known to have very noisy sex in apartments and not been modest at all about closing curtains when I’m naked or fucking in my own home to the point where I’ve been chastised by property managers and I don’t think people should have to be quiet in the summer when they’re fucking with the windows open to let in cool air at night (god, I love that sound). But I still think that’s different — there are walls, even though they’re penetrable and rendered mostly symbolic, that symbolism is something every civilized person should be able to recognize that establishes distance and literally marks the boundaries of what’s inside and private and what’s out. It’s an entirely different thing, however, if you stand in your window or  your yard making eye contact with schoolgirls as you’re masturbating. That is ENGAGING people and forcing them to participate in your scene. NOT OKAY. Same with listening to loud extreme porn where a neighbor or passerby could hear the sounds of people in pain or engaging in kinky roleplays (I wish I could find the link to a story about someone calling the police on his neighbor because it sounded like he was raping/killing a woman when in actuality he was “just” watching violent porn for hours at high volume). On the other hand, I think it’s perfectly allright for people to masturbate in their cars on their lunch breaks or whatever, with or without porn, as long as they’re not standing up through their sunroof and ejaculating on their windshield or making whatever they’re doing and/or watching visible to people close by.

Then of course I have to admit I’ve exposed myself in public places, mostly for pictures but sometimes just for the pure fun of it. Again, I’m worried that I have a double standard even though I’m 99% *convinced* that when I’ve done it it was DIFFERENT . . . safe and wholesome even when sexually suggestive. Somehow I just don’t believe a nude Trixie is threatening or dangerous or harmful, and I especially don’t think anything is “assault” if you are in a park or something but attempting to be discreet and someone stumbles upon you. If you’re lurking in some bushes, though, waiting for an unsuspecting victim to come along so you can expose yourself to them, then THAT is fucked up. I have masturbated in a library, but I didn’t *want* to be caught, so that makes it okay, right? I mean, I would have been mortified if I’d gotten caught! But for some reason I feel perfectly content telling everyone about it, even my friends only an hour after the fact.

So what about the way I have explicit nudity and sometimes sex acts on the front page of some of my sites (like this blog) without a warning page? Is that just as bad? Of course, I still think that’s different. Is it just because it’s ME and what I want to do? I don’t think so. People who don’t want to see porn can block my sites and I have also added metatags to make it easy for my pages to be identified as adult. Also, I’m not SITTING DOWN next to strangers in public places and making them watch and listen to movies of me masturbating and fucking. Anyone who sees me online still has the control to close their browser.

Then again, I’ve taken my top off on a hot day when driving in heavy traffic. I still had my bra on, but I *so* wanted to take it off and felt very irritated that I could get in trouble for that. I still do. I don’t know how anyone could have a problem with rush hour boobs. Or rush hour masturbating. Just don’t LEER at people, you know?

*****

The whole time I’ve been writing this, comparing these different scenarios, I’ve been torn. I want to be honest with myself and challenge myself to think critically about whether or not my boundaries and judgments are consistent, correct and safe BUT I wonder if by doing that publicly, I’m letting everyone off the hook and confusing issues that are actually very clear.

I could mull this over all night, about how it’s different to shove sex in someone’s unwilling face in a confined space versus being off-trail in a state park giving a pal a handjob when someone stumbles upon you and you quickly try to cover up and the other people are easily able to turn around and go the other way. I could sit here and list all of the reasons why it’s BEYOND inconsiderate to make other people watch/listen to porn (and why it’s especially wrong, I’m afraid to admit [and simultaneously uncomfortable with my hesitation to boldly say], when a MAN does this to a WOMAN and/or kids).

*****

Confession: some of the phone sex calls I’ve taken and gotten off to hardest were from guys with this “problem”, or who at least fantasized about acting on those urges. Guys jerking off in their apartments watching the girls walk home from school in short skirts. Guys jacking off in the parking lot and exposing themselves to their coworkers and other ladies just trying to drive away. Guys sitting in internet cafes with hardons.  I mean, pretty much all of the stuff I get off to hardest is taboo stuff I’d never want to happen in real life.

So how do I feel (almost) completely comfortable saying that if I caught somebody doing these things in real life I’d kick in their teeth, BUT when someone confesses it to me on the phone I just coyly call them naughty, FEIGN shock and disgust, and furiously masturbate myself to orgasm?

I don’t think I’m (a big) part of the problem, but I know a lot of people would beg to differ.

*****

The Washington Post article kind of blows off this behavior as just “too much information” or “socially inappropriate” or shaped by our mobile device culture making people self-absorbed, inconsiderate shitholes (TRUE), but I still think it’s much more sinister and criminal than that in ways that the men MIGHT not get (or totally DO get and that’s part of the thrill). And fuck if I have the patience to explain it right now. Let me know if you want me to, though, and/or if you have some links to people who already have and/or if you want to take a stab at it yourself.

It boggles my mind how I can peck out this many words and still leave so many dangerous gaps.

Fantasy list of what I might do if I had a month free with no distractions or obligations, and enough money to do it/them:

• *rent a cheap studio apartment in Portland (OR) and do nothing but live nights, anonymously wandering around listening to live music and frequenting titty bars.
• *make music. Maybe learn the software and stuff to record pornolicious soundtracks using my keyboard (and figure out what extra electronics and stuff I need to make it better). Maybe take drum lessons. Maybe learn to play that harmonica CBM sent me. Maybe go to open mic nights. Maybe sing a lot.
• *go to all kinds of different churches, try out different modes of worship, read and journal/think about spirituality.
• *walk to the library every day, read papers and magazines and books and books and books and books and books and books and books and books.
• *go to every single museum, attraction, or whatever possible in Washington state. Study maps. Drive all over hell.
• *take care of my body every single day in as many different ways possible EXCEPT sexual excess: cooking and eating right, taking long walks, breathing deeply, stretching, dancing, and taking all kinds of classes: tai chi, hooping, belly dance, boxing . . . whatever’s available
• *completely immerse myself in learning about one particular issue or cause, blogging/talking about it, and volunteering my time to it.
• *write for 30 days. Whatever I want. Without showing anybody on a daily basis.
• *watch/”consume” porn, fuck and masturbate a lot and get the review portion of Trixie.com off the ground.
• *do phone sex again, but for many hours a day without trying to do anything else (no worrying about looking cute on cam, no doing camshows, no public blogging, no trying to figure out if the person is a member or not . . . just anonymous phone sex).
• *Do some creative work (maybe just making one or three full length pornos that we could sell on DVD and actually be proud of) that takes a long time without WORRYING about the outcome or whether we’ll have enough money to do it right or having to do any of the other daily/weekly repetitive grind stuff we do that interrupts the flow of things that could take 2 to 30 days.

******

Two things to note: when I fantasize about taking time off it never involves regular socializing. It’s always stuff I want to do in a reclusive fashion, without phone calls or parties or meeting up with people in a chatty way. Also, when I dream about time away, it rarely means time away from work or being productive, it usually just means time away from the way I’m *currently* working so I can try a different kind of work or more focused productivity. I fantasize about having routines and ritualizing work but not to the extent where I lose the freedom to pursue it with the kind of continuity that doesn’t exist when you promise yourself to wake up at a certain time each day. I fantasize about not having to “check in”, about being isolated in a way that doesn’t allow anyone to look over my shoulder or judge my progress. I fantasize about full immersion in an experience devoid of distractions and mundane concerns. I fantasize about thinking and feeling and realizing ideas and absorbing/fondling new ones. I do not fantasize about interacting with people even when realizing my fantasies would necessarily involve SOME interaction. In my fantasies I assume these interactions will be limited, structured, and not come within a mile of overwhelming the real experience which is something I have with myself (and Delia in some of the fantasies, who I think of now as a part of myself, not someone I “socialize” with).

Yeah. Pretty much all of my fantasies about taking time off of work or having more of something good lead right back to fantasizing about doing MORE work, in a different and/or better and/or as-yet-experienced way. On the other hand, my idea of what “work” is, particularly what my job(s) in life are, are extremely broad. I have a certain level of faith that everything I desire to do will ultimately be productive in a life’s-work way.

Normally I love fall, but it took so long for winter to go away this year that I’ve actually been apprehensive about letting go of the summer. Fortunately, we’ve had an extended Indian summer. Last week I *thought* it was over one night when I found myself craving heat, but this week it’s back. Sunny yesterday, sunny today . . . and clear for viewing the full moon last night and crone moon tonight.

It’s also been spider season with one lady in residence in our line of vision from bed in the corner of our sliding glass door:

Spider Lady & Half Moon

She’s been there every day and I know we should get rid of her big egg sac or we’ll have shitloads of spiders in our bedroom, but I haven’t been able to do that to her. I love seeing her there at least once a day and/or night. It doesn’t seem like the best place to have a web with us sliding the door open and closed and some of her anchors being attached to it. But I guess there’s no spot to weave a web that is completely invulnerable.

Lamp-lit spider on web.

Our dog’s much better after her trip to the vet’s. The x-rays didn’t show any arthritis but part of her spine had some degeneration, probably from aging in an area of past trauma which Delia thinks must have been from a time when she was a young dog and made a quick break out of the door of their house straight into the side of a moving car on a busy road, bounced off said car, then ran back inside never appearing any worse for the wear.

There have been times in the past nine months where Nico has seemed so old and uncomfortable and tired — and she IS old. Fourteen, I think. Everyone thinks she’s a puppy because she’s a runt of a husky and looks so young, up until recently when you see her walk, especially watching her from behind and her whole hind end just takes so much awkward effort to move. SOMETIMES. But if she’s excited? She’ll still bound and bounce and run around the house like crazy, even though, to me, her yips of excitement sound tinged with pain. I don’t think anything but the most debilitating pain can stop a husky from doing her husky things, so when we started noticing her having real problems has been at night when she can barely lie down and whimpers/cries like a squeaky wheel, circling around and around before painfully lowering herself down.

Anyway, the vet put her on prednisone, a steroid, which seems to be helping quite a bit. We took her on walks in the woods the past couple of days, which she loved even if she’s slowed down a lot since I met her and Delia seven years ago. Now her pace is really pleasant and companionable. She still runs ahead a little bit, but there are times when she actually walks right beside us, or takes breaks so she’s always close by.

Watching her yesterday on the trail looking so much better than she has in a couple of months I thought about how long it took for my dad to die and how unprepared I was for that. How there were so many times where I was impatient for it to happen already, for all of us to be put out of our misery of waiting, and then having days where he was present and I was so happy he was still around and it didn’t seem possible he was anywhere NEAR ready. At least, not nearly as ready as I recently had been. I feel that way a lot with Nico where I can’t help contemplating the convenience of her death one day when she seems uncomfortable, lethargic, and droopy-faced, then feeling overjoyed the next with how well she’s doing — how alert and happy she is, how it’s so not time yet — how YOUNG (for her age) she looks.

My ninth grade (and seventh grade) English teacher did something pretty fucking progressive and unheard-of for kids as young as we were in a public school: she taught us a section on Death and Dying. Practical planning stuff about funerals and wills, the Kubler Ross stages of grief, and of course literature like some story about a brave young man  with a brain tumor (title escapes me, but not the memory of how much I disliked that book) and one I’m forever grateful for being exposed to and having TAUGHT to me (not just read on my own), The Plague.

I remember all of us talking about what we wanted to happen to our bodies after we died and everyone laughing when I said I wanted to be dressed up like the Chiquita Banana Lady and thrown into the woods to rot and be scavenged by animals. Since then I’ve changed my mind, partly because I loved my dad’s funeral including seeing him all dressed up in his coffin that we picked out with special things tucked in to go with him, including stuffed animals that were ours, but that he kept after we outgrew them. I was shocked by how much I did not want his eyes to be plucked out for harvesting; I’d assumed he was ineligible for donating because of his glaucoma (which he was, but they weren’t aware of it so the question was posed to me anyway) and I was just totally unprepared by the topic even coming up even though of course we are all listed as organ donors, but MORE unprepared by how viscerally opposed I was to having his body — especially his eyes — taken out of him when I’d been looking into them MINUTES before that.

So. Aside from it being illegal to throw costumed dead women into the woods, I realize people have emotional, albeit irrational, attachments to the bodies of loved ones and I’ve even become attached the IDEA of my own dead body and perhaps want a more traditional type of ritual to accompany me to my final resting spot. Plus I’m extremely fond of coffins.

I asked Delia if she knows if people can come to our house to put Nico to sleep when the time comes so she can be at home and we can bury her. Delia said she’d prefer to take her to the vet’s. When I heard that I experienced another one of those irrational, emotional reactions (especially since Nico is really DELIA’S dog, not mine) of not being able to bear the thought of taking her to a place she’s afraid of and have to die there. I know it’s over fast, but having done that (thankfully only once and with a kitten we’d hardly had for any time at all) the drive there is just too fucking sad and crying your heart out in a clinic standing around in that sterile setting is just not the ideal to me. I am so glad my dad died in hospice where we got to hang out with his dead body for a few hours afterward (I probably wouldn’t have understood it before, but that is incredibly comforting and helpful, not to have to be seperated physically from each other right away), but obviously a seventy year old parent is pretty different from a fourteen year old pet.

We’re all smart enough to know that television and movies are inaccurate and unrealistic, but I personally never realized how much until my dad took years to die, and then again especially during the days and hours surrounding his actual death. I felt and still feel very unprepared for the process of death by aging and protracted illness. My mind is still boggled by the concept that all of us, if we are lucky, have to watch our parents die. I don’t feel like I was taught to expect that or how to process that even though I’ve probably been given more tools and experiences to deal with that than most post-baby-boom American kids have. I’d had friends who lost parents way too young and I knew it was devastating to them and in some cases they even talked about it a little, but not nearly enough to ever intimate exactly how huge that loss was. I and my dad were not too young, it wasn’t a tragedy, and it’s still hard and has taken SO LONG. I mean, it’s still not over for me. I’m still shocked by the revelation that death is never over or never not coming and that it’s VISIBLE and active for So. Many. Years. I’m trying to accept that with Nico . . . even to use her as practice and I am flummoxed at how ill-prepared I still am . . . how disbelieving, impatient, sad, and scared I am in spite of feeling that’s not really in my nature. I feel like I’m the kind of person who should be able to embrace aging-towards-death gracefully, with serenity instead of blubbering.

I don’t even know how my mom has handled the past thirteen years, seeing her own dad’s decline and death, living with and taking care of my dad/her ex-husband (they continued to have a fond and extremely helpful dysfunctional relationship even after his death), packing up the house she grew up in and moving her mom out of it and into first one home, then another, and now a third offering an even higher level of care. I really do not fucking know. I don’t think she really knows either, but I know it’s a lot harder for her than she’s gotten help for, and my distance from her doesn’t help. What I still idiotically fail to GRASP is how this is THIS LARGE a part of life. Because tv never taught me that and even though my family has always talked openly about these things and plans for when we die, I still can’t remember exactly what I’m supposed to do with my mom’s ashes and I still can’t believe that IF I AM *LUCKY*, I will live through many more loved ones’ deaths. I read so many young adult books about death — GOOD books about a girl whose dad was shot about a kid with Lou Gehrig’s disease about drug addicted kids . . . about pretty much every kind of unanticipated death you or someone you know could have but not so much about the deaths we all aspire to without any proper planning.

What is the life span of a spider? I have no clue. I am still trying to brace myself for the day this season when I look out the window and in the cracks around the sides and she’s not there and doesn’t come back.

Today we went to a protest against civil rights abuses and I realized THAT’S THE FIRST ORGANIZED PROTEST I’VE EVER ATTENDED! Which seems nuts, that as a thirty-six year old woman who is opposed to SO many things and has lived near Seattle my whole life, I have never been out in the streets with my floppy tits wrapped loosely in a shredded flag, armpit hair fluttering in the breeze as I pump my fist shouting a determined message even as I’m hoisted over the bulky shoulder of an armed man in riot gear.

Sorry to disappoint, but today was nothing like that.

Still, it was important and I’m glad we went. I’d love to be more specific and share the details with most everyone but as my webwhoring years have added up I’ve realized that sometimes I need to withhold some information for the sake of privacy and safety. What I will say, though, is it isn’t connected to porn or sex work which in a way is sad because I’d like to be a better activist when it comes to civil rights issues related to the sex industry. This, though, is more local and I feel like I can more safely make a difference by being involved in it which is not something I can do locally (meeting up with people face-to-face) as a webwhore.

Delia actually sat this one out in the car because she has a soul-patch-like burn on her chin from her first overzealous laser hair removal treatment (she’s been going through the process for years now and this is the first time she’s gotten burned like that) and she didn’t want to be out in the sun. This left me open to being approached by a cute ewok-looking fellow with a jaunty chipped front tooth who appeared to be about seven to ten years my junior. I almost told him I have a girlfriend, but then decided if he really was “interested” maybe it would lure him into getting involved. See, deep freckled cleavage can really win support for a cause. And I like bearded little roly poly guys.

I was actually a little concerned about the location of this protest because it’s right next to an ultra-conservative hangout but they didn’t come streaming out to scare us away or even mount a counter-protest. Instead I only saw about three people give us the thumbs-down and everybody else who responded as they drove by seemed happy to see us and honked, waved, hollered, etc. in support. That’s a good feeling, but scary knowing this shit is going on even with so much outspoken criticism.

*****

The past few days have been pretty windy here (I could barely hang onto my sign today) so it wasn’t a big surprise when we lost power for a few seconds tonight. Could throw a monkey wrench into our spycam transmissions and Delia’s update which she’s trying to get uploaded and posted tonight, though. After the protest we had to drive all the way back to suburban hell to have them remove the inky security tag on a pair of jeans Delia bought on Thursday that they forgot to remove. Sometimes living so far from a real city is inconvenient. And sometimes it’s just kind of scary (see above: there is some bullshit that wouldn’t be tolerated in Seattle but in rural and small-town areas it’s commonplace). But of course so is living near or IN a city, just for different reasons.

I love casinos.

It’s pretty rare that we go to them (and we have LOTS of nice ones on reservations in Western Washington where the tribes actually make decent money off of them instead of simply being exploited by outside corporations which is what happens in most states) and the amount of money I spend is trifling, but I still love walking around in them and being absorbed by the noises and orderly rows of tables and machines.

A few nights ago I needed to get out of the house so I went with Delia to her 12-step meeting. Meaning I went along for the ride, dropped her off, and headed to the casino by myself. Delia doesn’t like wandering around aimlessly in casinos the way I do so I really got to enjoy spending an hour there with my free Sprite, completely overwhelmed and unsure what to do with myself (but in a good way). Eventually I made a $7 donation to the tribe via penny and nickel slots after I figured out how to get and use their club card.

I allowed myself to be completely unhurried and take as much time as I needed to make and execute the simplest of decisions, like whether or not I should remove my club card from the lanyard so that it wouldn’t be dangling across the screen or tying me up by the neck to the machine. Seriously. I spent ten minutes trying to figure that out and get the card OFF the clip. I am not very bright or coordinated, especially when there’s a lot of distractions around so it’s a huge relief sometimes to be completely alone with nobody (I know) watching and just allow myself to sink into being massively stupid, completely enveloped in the casino atmosphere where you’re allowed to publicly do nothing but throw money away while you sit on a stool and look at little pictures of monkeys and fruit and BARBARBAR spinning around. For hours. I suppose that’s pathetic, but it relaxes me to feel no pressure. To not have to try to be smart. To be hidden between the slot machines that are all taller than I am.

I love casinos enough that I would throw much more money away in them if I could afford to. Enough that I can envision myself having a serious problem, especially if I ever learned to confidently play cards which is one of those perfect-for-Trixie ways of being around other people, in a completely structured semi-social exchange where the object isn’t to chat, but to play and to win. Everybody has a clearly defined role. There are RULES. I like that.

But I don’t have money to throw away so after I (ever so slowly) spent my seven dollars I wandered around looking at the steakhouse menu and the cafe menu and the people and the machines and the gift shop. And while I looked at the two pound steak special it occurred to me that it would be very convenient if someone offered me money for sexual favors. That I would DO IT without hesitating, return to consume my blowjob-earned steak, and spend the rest of it on slots.

On the Golden Girls, Blanche referred to buying things with her body as “using nature’s credit card”. I wonder: what is the percentage of women who 1) want things and 2) immediately scan the room for men who can provide the means for procuring the things that they want. I imagine it’s pretty high. It seems perfectly natural. And of that number, how many would use “nature’s credit card” to seal the deal?

Of course I wouldn’t do that at the casino. Probably not. Unless I did become addicted to gambling.

When the thought first (naturally) crossed my mind it seemed totally logical and if it would’ve only taken 20 seconds for an opportunity to present itself then YES, I would have done it. But after a minute reality set in and I realized I wouldn’t have time to do that before Delia’s meeting was over. I don’t know enough about the casino to know what the risks are. I have no desire to be publicly humiliated there or never allowed to return. I’m not sure what safety precautions to take. And the whole thing would be so much messier and uncomfortable in real life than in my imagination. Plus the guy would probably offer way less money than would be worth it. Plus I really didn’t feel like talking to anybody.

But I didn’t look “hot” so I’d have probably performed, for example, a low-priced handjob with my tits out for groping if I knew it was safe and the guy didn’t want a big long conversation. Unfortunately, I’m not in a position to ever know for sure that something is safe. And I hate the idea of someone following me around, eyeballing me before they make an approach, or worse, following me around afterward when I’m trying to enjoy the money I earned.

It’s much better to be a lone stranger in the casino that the security guys suspect is autistic rather than a prostitute. I didn’t feel like smiling at anybody or talking. I veered away from a chunky black guy earlier (before my whore light bulb dinged outside the steakhouse) who seemed to be pursuing me; in hindsight he might have been a perfect mark for that handjob exchange. But at the time I just wanted to sit alone on a stool at a slot machine without being hemmed in by people on both sides.

At the printing company where I used to work there was an autistic guy working in the art department. He scanned logos and cleaned up the artwork. I briefly worked there too on the night shift. Sometimes our boss would look at me working, obsessively sharpening the edges of black, shaving off pixels that shouldn’t have been there, and would complain with a laugh that I worked exactly like Bill (the autistic guy). I took it as a compliment even though she didn’t mean it that way. Even though she liked Bill better than she liked me, what she meant is that it had been revealed to her that I wasn’t so fucking smart; I was actually slow and retarded with no clue how normal people do things.

Everybody liked Bill. So did I, and when someone got in his way when he was headed somewhere or tried to stop him and engage him in conversation and he’d pointedly stare straight past them above their heads and try to GET AROUND THEM, to steamroll straight past them, I totally understood what he felt like. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, but very few people respect how we want to go directly from point A to point B without someone interfering with our straight line. GET OUT OF MY WAY.

I think it’s that desire to connect the dots (going from *not* having something I want to procuring it) in a very direct way that makes turning a trick in a casino to get money for a steak and more time at the slots seem perfectly logical and also anathema to me. It’s not a moral or ethical issue to me at all. It’s not natural to me to think about it in those terms. The notion of NOT doing it because it’s “wrong” is complete nonsense to me. There are plenty of reasons not to do it, but that’s not one of them.

Anyway, I had a good time by myself at the casino. I used to hate public smoking, but now that it’s illegal (except on reservations) it’s been so long that I actually sort of welcomed the stench and that whole Vegas smell. I was dizzy by the time I left.