*tap tap* Is this thing on?

Hello my lovelies! How have the last few months been treating you? Let me tell you, I am so glad to see this year come to a close, I can just focus on the future and hopefully there are bright skies and clear horizons for all of us!

I won’t bore anyone with the details, but let’s just say that since we’ve last spoken a lot has happened over there in My Real Life (MRL). I confess, sometimes I hate MRL, I wish I could just laze about entertaining, pursuing knowledge, meeting wonderful people and drinking just a touch too much red wine. I know that “out there” is where I have to live and work and be, but wouldn’t it be lovely if all of us in the Willow World could just step back for a week or so at a time and luxuriate in all kinds of pleasures and interests without fear of discovery or scorn?

Anyhow, what all of my blasé poetic streaming is getting to is that my new schedule is limited, I’ll be putting a lot more miles on my long-suffering car, and come the New Year the dreaded rate hike is coming. (Luckily, anyone who’s had the pleasure in the past 12 months is exempted!) The hike is sadly neccessary, my situation over here has changed and we all must do what we must.

I have new photos to share with you all! I’m being sort of mean right now, mentioning them, since I technically don’t have access to them, yet. BUT I wanted my lovely readers to be the first to see them and give me some feedback. A lovely photog friend of mine wanted to play with natural lighting and chose me as his subject (such a doll, really) so they are on the tame side. I’m hoping that some intrepid sailor can point me in the direction of some more steamy, flirty photographs. If any of you lovelies have connections let’s have a chat!

Now! The bottom is where the real info is! My new schedule is thus (and I know, it is damned tight)

Monday OFF, Tuesday 5pm-9pm, Wednesday 10am-9pm, Thursday 3pm-9pm, Friday 3pm-9pm, Saturday 10am-9pm, Sunday 10am-9pm

I’m limiting myself to two trysts a week, and sadly pre-scheduling is now a 100% must. This lack of freedom is so jarring to me, since for the past 6 years I’ve done everything my way, in my own time, by the seat of my delicate panties. But, I do suppose this is par for the course. I’ll need to get used to it anyway, because I begin my Bachelor’s Program next year.

OK, so that’s it for my first update. I promise I’ll be back soon with proper pictures and maybe a sexy story.

Magdalene’s Disappearing, Re-appearing Magic Trick

(editor’s note: This is a long ramble, but at the end is an amazing cupcake recipe, so I promise you’ll be rewarded)

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s been a trying couple of months. I know some of you have been trying to get a hold of me and I apologize profusely for the lack of communication. On top of two of the most trying months I’ve ever had, I came back from a family trip to an email that had been hijacked by persons unknown. All of my contact lists and archives had been tampered with (read, none of my labels/address books are there, and many emails have been deleted) After dealing with the lovely help desk of google I was able to verify my identity and regain access to my account. Let me say right now that Google’s double authentication app is WORTH ITS DIGITAL WEIGHT IN BITCOIN and I have now locked up every account I can with it.

So, even though this blog is supposed to be fun and lighthearted with just a side of education, I’m going to get personal. I don’t have the wherewithal to explain this a hundred times, so if you’ll indulge a bit of venting by your’s truly I’ll explain where I’ve been.

It started it March when I received the news of the sudden death of my grandfather. This man was a pillar of his community, as well as father or step father to a grand total of 12 children (of which there are 12 grandchildren and 8 great grandchildren only on our side) there was going to have to be a grand spectacle. Without going into the nitty gritty, the last half of March was a scramble. For my part, I was supposed to be the AV gal, running projectors, microphones, fix staticky speakers and coordinate the use of the giant hall we had to commandeer for the occasion. This was also used as an excuse for a family reunion of sorts, and I’ll let you argue the merits of that on your own.

This was all happening 3 hours away from me, which necessitated oh so much travel. The recoup time after the event was about a week, and we were finally settling in to deal with lofty issues like probate, wills, and the inevitable consequences of what happens when wills are outdated by decades. (spoiler alert: one greedy part of the family can drag out contests and inquiries for quite some time, at great expense and exasperation. I am so happy I come from humble beginnings and won’t ever have to deal with that special kind of Hell)

So, April comes trucking along, and we have just caught our collective breath when another bombshell hits: my grandmother (from the same side of the family) has been hiding her cancer diagnosis from everyone for upwards of five years, and now it’s progressed to a point that she can no longer function on her own. She has not treated it (I don’t count homeopathic remedies that have no basis in science) and now that the cat is out of the bag, so to speak, she still refuses any kind of medical intervention. She lives in Phoenix, so end of April I’m called upon to travel to her, spend a few weeks down there and see about transferring her person and her cat up here for possible treatment and most likely end of life care. Seattle has better climate, better doctors, and most of her family is here anyway. That was one of the longest drives I’ve ever taken (also, I recommend traveling with a cat. She was the best part of that craziness and it was great to have something warm and fluffy to snuggle) The entire stay in Phoenix felt like, to me, an act of futility (as nice as it was to reconnect with my grandmother and show her how I grew up, as we hadn’t spent very much time together since I was 19) I was useless in jumping on the bandwagon of snake oil, secret miracle cures, and “cancer busting” diets. My offers to help research these claims for any sort of scientific backing were slapped down with scary buzz words like “big Pharma” and “Medical death Care” and conspiracy theories of people silenced and grass roots research destroyed in the name of profits and keeping people sick. The one thing I felt like I was doing better than anyone was treating my grandmother with the dignity and respect she has always shown me. Her children (with all the best intents) were quick to infantilize her, talking about her treatment as if she wasn’t there, and allowing her to lay and wallow without a thought to muscle wasting or the concept of movement helping move along blood and oxygen that she needs. I was able to sneak her out for a smoothie and pedicure, which she really seemed to appreciate.

Two weeks later we were planning her eventual journey up here. She arrived at the end of May. As one of the only people in my family who is mobile, sets her own schedule, and has no children to take care of, I have been helping with her palliative care while she seeks out whatever treatment she feels comfortable with. It’s been a lesson in patience and love that I can engage with her on an adult level without blasting about the damage she is potentially doing by drinking glorified bleach water and slow cyanide poisoning to help cure her cancer. Granted, chemo isn’t a walk in the daisies, but at least it comes with a side order of doctor supervision.

So that’s been May. June is now half over, and I am just burned out. I developed a sinus infection on top of my worse-than-usual allergies, and I’m fairly certain that the stress of the past few months have done a little number on my immune system. The shiny cherry atop this glorious sundae is the new drama in my life: root canals. I’ve finally found a dentist, and like a good girl I went in for a cleaning and x-rays, as it’s been a few years. Over the next few months, as finances allow for it, I will be undergoing at least three, maybe four root canals (and their subsequent crowns will be needed) an extraction of one tooth, which will need a bone graft for a later implant, and if I’m extra special lucky after all of these surgeries are done, I’m hoping to be a candidate for Invisaline braces (the little clear fitted thingies that go over your teeth and slowly straighten them without wires or “real” braces)

I guess the tooth that needs extracting has been infected for who knows how long, but since it never caused me pain until recently, I didn’t get it looked at until it was so bad that I’m on a pretty good dose of antibiotics and looking at a lot of time in that dentist chair. Luckily, I found a very nice dentist not far from me, who takes cash payments on a discount, and is willing to work with me stretching out the treatments so I’m not laid up for months on end.

I feel like ending this now would be way too much of a bummer, so here’s some good stuff in my life recently.

Pride is coming!!!! The last sunday in June is the Pride Parade in Seattle, and as I do every year I’m walking in it. I’ll be supporting SWOP, which is again walking with the Center for Sex Positive Culture. I’m still always so grateful to the help the CSPC offers for sex-positive programs and clubs. If you are curious, the route is posted on the Seattle City website, but it follows 4th street and ends down on 1st/Denny area and spills into the Seattle Science Center. There will be floats, music, nearly-naked EVERYONE and it’s a grand old time. If you are in the crowd, feel free to run out and find me for a hug, or even walk with us if you are able. I am also happy to pose for pictures, time allowing.

I got a FitBit! I know I’ve spoken to some of you about all kinds of fitness trackers, so I went and got myself a FitBit Charge HR. The accompanying app is what sold it for me, it’s seamless and fun. With my colicky car looking like it’s on it’s last legs (wheels?) anyway, I’ve been walking a lot of places and figured it was time for some data collection! I’m averaging 10,000 steps and/or 3 miles a day, and I look forward to increasing those numbers. Walking is good for my hips and my knees, lets me enjoy the weather, and I won’t even deny it, it’ll make my butt look amazing(er) 🙂

I’m baking again! I recently made Earl Grey Tea cupcakes with bergamot icing, and they were fabulous. The following is a quick and dirty recipe, feel free to modify:

1 1/2 C flour
1/2 C butter (softened)
1C sugar
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
1/2 C milk

Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Add each egg in individually, blending well before adding the second. Combine dry ingredients together in a separate bowl, and add 1/2 the mix to the wet. Blend until combined, then add the milk and other half of the dry mix. Blend until just combined.

Pre-heat the oven to 350degrees. If making regular cupcakes, bake for 20ish minutes. If making mini cupcakes, bake for 12ish minutes.

For the icing:

1/2 C butter (softened)
1 1/2 C powdered sugar (estimated)
10-20 drops of FOOD GRADE bergamot oil

Blend butter and sugar together, adding the sugar a little at a time, until fluffy and peaking. Taste test now and again, and when it’s sweet enough stop adding sugar. Add in the bergamot oil a few drops at a time, blending and tasting throughout. I found that I needed 24 drops to get a nice but not overpowering flavor. This is entirely optional, but I added food coloring to make it a light purple.

If you’ve never piped frosting onto a cake before, you must try this. Put a ziploc back inside of a tall, wide mouthed glass or jar, and fill it full of frosting, squeezing out excess air. Squeeze the frosting down into one corner, and carefully snip of the TINIEST of corners, to create a small hole (you can always cut more, but you can’t ever cut less) Using even pressure, squeeze the line of icing out of the bag, and swirl it onto the cake in a pleasing tornado fashion. I’ll tell you now, you have to create a flat disc of frosting first before you build up your peaky-swirl, or else it’ll cave in.

Consider dusting each cake with a little bit of lemon zest or granulated sugar for an interesting look.

Thank you for sticking with me, and this is a really long way of me saying “I’m back, give me time to see about finding my emails, but if you haven’t heard back from me consider re-sending as someone decided to be mean to my inbox.”

Kiss, kiss lovers!

You Might Have Been a Hooker* Too Long….

So, does anyone remember those “You might be a [blank] if…” jokes where the punch line is some funny and/or awful stereotype? Like “You might be a redneck if your mother is also your sister”, or “You might be a dumb blonde if you can’t tell if it’s chicken or fish.” Well, you know where this is going! (and please, feel free to add on to this, but only in the fun way. Punch UP never DOWN, as my comedian friends always say)

This whole thing came about because after a sweaty roll in the hay with one of my social sex partners (yes, Virginia, I have a bit of a carrousel of people for what I call ‘sport sex’. Not professional by any means, but not that lovey-dovey romantic love making. Sport sex is much easier to move around) and instead of just laying back and enjoying the after glow, silly auto-pilot me pops up, gets a tissue and a hot cloth, and begins to do the pampered clean up/wipe down that all of my clients get to enjoy (I have a hot towel warmer, and I MUST use it). This was a little absurd to him, as he’d never had his… um… clean up needs taken care of for him before. Half way through I realize what I’m doing, and get a terrible case of the giggles.

“Well, you know you’ve been a hooker too long when you start doing the clean up directly after a sport sex session,” I laugh. After that, I started to think about it a bit more, and came up with a few things. Some aren’t original at all, but some I thought were a little more personal. So, here are my (probably terrible) You Might Be a Hooker jokes:

*(I want to get this out of the way: though I prefer to use the term ‘hooker’ in reference to MYSELF as a sex worker, it isn’t always considered a positive term to other sex workers. As always, this blog strives to speak for ME, and MY experiences without stepping over or silencing others’ voices or making others feel uncomfortable. In place of “hooker” one could put sex worker, provider, escort, Companion, or any number of other words if my use of ‘hooker’ offends. Thank you this has been a PSA by the CYA SW edition)

You might be a hooker if you buy your condoms (all three sizes) in bulk.

You might be a hooker if you calculate bills in sessions, rather than in real money. (ie. the rent is 4 sessions, the utilities are 1 session, those amazing pair of come-fuck-me boots is 2 sessions)

You might be a hooker if your litmus test for make up isn’t if it’s expensive, but if it’s water proof and smear-proof (I still can’t find blow-job proof lipstick, but I’m getting close!)

You might be a hooker if your amazon account seems to always recommend these three things: condoms, hand towels, lubricant. Bonus if there is stockings and fitted sheets.

You might have been a hooker too long when you roll your eyes at a friend who is complaining of having to fold her one load of laundry… because you just got done folding 15 fitted sheets, 4 flat sheets, 12 pillow cases, and 10 body towels.

You might have been a hooker too long when your fridge is full of champagne, bottled water, and strawberries, and nothing else. Likewise, your pantry has 12 different kinds of teas, cocoas, ciders, and about 20 bars of different kinds of chocolate, but no salt, pepper, or spices.

You might have been a hooker too long if you never have to look for an envelope to mail a letter/give a holiday card.

You might have been a hooker too long if your underwear drawer is looking spartan but your stockings drawer is literally overflowing onto the ground.

You might have been a hooker too long if you can go from just out of bed to polished and pretty in under 20 minutes (let’s face it, sometimes last minute appointments fall into our laps)

The Social Media Experiment, Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Just Hit Send

It’s been months, my loves! Months of family stress (we have a new baby in the family, the lead up and delivery of said baby took over almost everyone’s reason and analytical minds), months of haunted household appliances, (in order, a ghostly knocking refrigerator, a churning, noxious dishwasher, and a demon-possessed, plastic smoke-spewing washing machine), months of hellos and goodbyes, (the roster on my studio share has flipped about a bit, and I’ve welcomed new ladies and said goodbye to a few, too), and months of Ms. Magdalene Hart turning herself in Ms. June Cleaver-Crocker, with the baking and the roasting and the broiling and the rest (I created an entire Thanksgiving dinner with trimmings, roasted two turkeys, baked four kinds of pie, and now is the mad dash for Christmas cookies to be sent out to loved ones near and far, as well as the new tradition I’m starting of sending twelve dozen cookies overseas to the soldiers, airmen, Marines and seamen who can’t be here for the holidays). My adorable Winter Yuletide bush is up and decorated with lights and wreaths of origami stars, Christmas carols are on my lips and my studio smells absolutely intoxicating with clove, cinnamon, lemon and apples for cider.

So, my loves, that’s how I’ve spent my last few months! But what I’m sure is more intriguing is the New Business I’m up to. This past weekend was the first Seattle’s Annual Sex Worker Symposium (SASS, because we whores love a good joke) put on with Sex Worker Outreach Project, Seattle (SWOP-NW, an amazing advocacy and information organization that I become more and more enamored with the longer I associate with them), sponsored by The Whore Cast, which is a podcast put on by sex workers and allies based in San Francisco. They are hilarious and really care about the rights of sex workers. Wow that was a long lead in! ANYWAY, part of this Symposium was a couple of panels that was recorded for the Whore Cast.

One was Rights Not Rescue, discussing the anti-trafficking movements around the globe and how they help or hinder sex workers as people. My biggest take away was (obviously) many anti-trafficking groups do not listen to sex workers when they try to ‘help’ them, and they are either forced into slave labor for pennies, jailed, deported, or forced to undergo a ‘program’ to get them out of the life. There was also a great discussion about how prostitution is dealt with, legally, across the US and in other countries, and if there is ever a legal model that can benefit sex workers without creating another class of marginalized people. I confess, I was a fan of legalization until this workshop, but there were some salient points made that decriminalization is the only real model that keeps sex workers safe, keeps clients safe, and allows the government to target the true victims of sex trafficking. I urge anyone curious to check out The Whore Cast podcast when they air this piece.

The second panel was much more light hearted, titled Provider’s Perspectives, it was a semi-open forum for local providers (they were able to get female, male, and one trans provider, though it was duly pointed out in panel that they, as white, educated people, had to acknowledge their privilege that allowed them to be sitting there today and that their opinions were not meant to stand in for all sex workers) and the moderator began by asking each of them in turn questions on personal stigmas, if they have support systems in place, how do they ‘come out’ to loved ones, if they ever do, what does a “typical” client look like, and so on. After about 30 minutes of that they opened it up to the floor to ask questions, which I always find interesting. I’ve noticed that the crowd allows for a certain level of anonymity when asking questions. I myself asked a question that I am always curious about, “What is your opinion, if any, of prostitution and escorting as it is portrayed in the media,” and had I been given a follow up question, I would have asked how their personal perspectives on escorting and prostitution had been shaped by media, and if those perspectives were changed when they became a sex worker. We are such a media-driven society that it is almost impossible to resist it’s influence. One provider offered up what I thought was an astute (and succinct) opinion, and I’m paraphrasing but she basically said, “Well, they used to kill us off in the beginning, and now they don’t kill us as often anymore.” Ain’t that the fucking truth. [editor note: I have planned, in my brain, an article that discusses exactly this, media portrayals of prostitution, and how my personal views had been shaped by it, and how my experiences have changed my perspectives.] What was most interesting to me were the perspectives of the male providers, whom see exclusively women clients (I don’t think that was sought out, just what happened to be). Seeing the other side of the coin, as it were, is fascinating to me. Knowing that there are women out there needing exactly the same things (well, maybe not exactly) as my male clients really speaks to me and speaks to my art, that everyone has a need for touch, love, and the freedom to express who they are.

After that lovely afternoon, I was able to attend a fundraiser for SWOP at the Highway 99 Blues Lounge, selling kisses and spankings to those curious about it. There were multiple burlesque performers donating their dollars to the fundraiser, and two blues bands that really got the crowd up and dancing. It was during this time and I realized how important activism has become to me in the last few years, and I want to continue that. The education is going to be a steep hill to climb (there is some much of it) but hopefully you will all come with me on this journey of knowledge and caring for sex worker rights.

I am very excited to have made so many new and wonderful contacts within the greater sex worker rights community, and I hope that I don’t inundate this blog too much with articles in that vein, but I do look forward to writing a bit more on my own personal perspectives.

So in the next few months I’ll be re-invigorating this blog, making Twitter more a priority, and I’ve done something called a Tumblr, which everyone assures me is the better alternative to Instagram for pictures and small updates like that. I’ve set up the Tumblr at thechastewhore.tumblr.com and my twitter handle has changed to @thechastewhore. The switch is mostly to have a ‘title’ of sorts, rather than just my name everywhere, and I hope its not too off putting. I’m very much looking forward to the new direction I’m moving in, and hopefully it will be all for the good!