Louisville! It's... Kinda shitty. Right now.

It has been three months and some days since my last confession.

I am in Louisville.
My apartment has roaches.
The downstairs neighbor, and cause of the roaches, is a mentally ill, opportunist, dick bag shut in who has a slightly less mentally ill "roommate" who scream at one another at least 2-5 times daily and that likes to yell nigger at him when he doesn't come to supper fast enough. To wit, neither of these men are black.
They both chain smoke, and it comes straight up into my apartment. So bad, sometimes, that the smoke actually makes my bathroom hazy (where the worst of it infiltrates). I have to close the bathroom door at night to actually sleep, turn on the ceiling fan in my bedroom, and sometimes the fan on the air conditioner near my bed that is inexplicably caulked into the window it rests in.
Thankfully, it is not cold enough that any of those helpful things matter.
Thankfully, those two mirthful residents of apartment #1 have been evicted as of Tuesday, and will be forcibly removed from the property this coming Tuesday, if they do not go willingly. Thus far, there has been no packing.
I do not expect Tuesday to be anything less than a parade of expletives and screaming 'til they are both hoarse.

Typing hoarse, I realize I have rarely, if ever, typed the word. It feels quite clumsy to my fingers.

My relationship with Joey, as a result of a lot of this, is, to put it mildly, strained. He broke up with me on Halloween night, in the parking lot of the ValuMarket where we get our groceries, where we'd parked intending to walk down the block to trivia with some of his friends. I was looking forward to it, I greatly enjoy those friends of his. They are my kind of nerds. Warm, friendly, attractive in the way that those kinds of nerds are. They remind me of many of my male friends back home, of the Dan who is not my ex, and of Steve, my Guardian Gnome. The nerds I also played trivia with in Minneapolis.

Joey had shown up an hour late, and didn't notify me that he was running late. I had been in the middle of something, work, that I'd had to stop to get ready to be picked up by him. I sat for almost an hour, in my coat and scarf. I could have been working. I could have made anywhere from $10-$100. Who knows. Such is the way of my work.

And right now every penny counts, counts to a dramatic, borderline operatic level. And he knows this.

I wouldn't say he was spoiling for a fight, but he'd been keeping several things to himself that had been bothering him, and there are certain things we do, as fallible creatures, to piss other people off when things boil too long under the surface. Whether we realize it or not. I don't think he was late, an hour late, knowing I could have been working, on purpose. I think he did what I've done a million times, and that's to occupy myself with other things that stretch into the time I'm supposed to be somewhere else, because I am mired in thoughts and feelings I can't quite make sense of. It is sabotage. Self-sabotage, relationship sabotage. So I told him plainly that not informing me was not okay. He responded tensely, and with sarcasm, that he'd been busy. Too busy, apparently, to say, "Oh hey, I'm busy over here, I'll be there closer to 7 and we can go to Target after trivia."

It came out pretty quickly that my work bothers him. A lot.

I work in the sex industry. I have, in some form or another, for years. I was a SuicideGirl (still am, as they own my "persona" on there in perpetuity due to the ugly contract hundreds of us signed because we were so thrilled for the "honor" of being named an SG), and that started ten years ago. I worked as an erotic masseuse for a year and a half before I moved here. Since July, I have been working as a cam girl.

I am neither proud nor ashamed of this as a job. I do nothing I don't want to do. I am free to choose my own hours, to deal with the people in my channel in any way I choose. If I don't like what someone says to me, I can block them. If I want to give someone a stern talking to for their disrespect, I can. And I do. In about four hours of work per day, I usually make around $100. I am hoping to increase that amount to two or three times that, and to be online more often than I have been.

But, I just started going full bore on this about two weeks ago, once I started being able to be in my place more, once I was able to unpack (the fumigations and roach issues have been enormously stressful on me and on the four cats I've had to move several times to live with strangers since they can't stay with Joey). Once I was no longer almost entirely living at Joey's (which is just about the worst thing that can happen to a new relationship, no matter how much you care about one another. These things have to breathe).

So, I guess it's bothering him now. It's a reality, and not an abstract thing. I am actively getting attention of men who pay me to see my body without clothing. I am very comfortable with this, and I am good at it. It's not as lewd as one would think. A lot of the time, it is fun, and I spend a lot of time laughing with these people. For every 68 year old war veteran who is offering me $100,000 to impregnate me (good lord), there are a dozen men who are between 21 and 37 who tell me I'm beautiful, treat me with respect, and tip me with kind words, often not even expecting a flash of flesh in return. There are a lot of lonely people in this world, and I have always been good with lonely men.

In massage, I formed much more serious bonds. It was physical work, first of all, I was actually touching them. Sensually. I have enough of a compartmentalization capability that it didn't matter that much to me most days. It was work. But some men were gross, entitled jackasses who believed they were going to enjoy a handy despite the repeated, clear language in all of my emails that that is not what would take place.

But yet, I did become friends with some of these men, and even this morning, I thought, "I should write to Jeff and Chris and see how they're doing." Jeff has a marriage that doesn't involve much affection, with a wife who is depressed, chronically. He loves her, but he goes to women like me because it is a grey area. It's not "technically" cheating, in most of their minds. They enjoy physical bonds, snuggling, I would kiss their faces and necks, their backs, rub my breasts on them. And in the end, we would masturbate together. It is a strange thing to feel like good friends to these men who had such sensual encounters with me that I got no real pleasure out of. Yes, I orgasmed, I could probably get off looking at a bowl of maggots. Mind over matter. And I'm not saying these encounters were anything even approaching a bowl of maggots. Anyway. It wasn't an intimate bond. It was work. But still, they became friends.

A couple of my former clients are Facebook friends. A couple have come to see my band play. They are respectful of the boundaries I put in place. That's the world I cultivated in that work for myself.

And now, with cam, it's a similar, but far, far more removed situation. I have never been a prude, I have never had any real sexual hangups. Sex and sexuality are a many splendored thing.

Would I be jealous if the tables were turned? Absofuckinglutely. In fact, I honestly don't know that I would do much better with it than Joey is. But I wouldn't break up with him over it, and all I can do is reassure him that while yes, men are ogling me and getting off while doing it and paying me for the pleasure, I am doing a job, and that's all it is to me. I am forming less of a bond with these men than I did with the majority of my massage clients. And good lord, if I can get this to work for me financially, maybe, finally, I'll have some money sacked away and I'll be okay.

This move has been absolutely fraught since the moment I got here. I suppose I have come to a level of comfort with the baseline of stress, but fucking hell, that I've been working on cam and making the money I need to pull ahead and no longer rely on Joey to keep me fed (I couldn't cam while living at his house, where his sister and best friend live for obvious reasons, nor at my place, given it was too roachy and utterly unpacked until about three weeks ago). I'd had my bills paid through October from my grandma's estate money. But him feeding me, and footing the bill to drive us to Minneapolis over my birthday weekend for my band's last show, and fronting the money to board my cats during fumigations, well, that's taken its toll on us, on him. So coming into my own again financially has eased so much. Until he said he couldn't deal with the work I'm doing.

Which, is kind of an ultimatum. My other option, as a 35 year old woman with no real education is to be a waitress, work 16 hour days, get sexually harassed daily and have no recourse for fear of losing my job. I did that shit for 18 years, off and on. I know where that leads. It leads nowhere. It leads to frustration, feeling small, and depression. Not to mention illness from working long hours around tons of people and consistently not getting enough sleep.

Fuck that noise.

And I am bored with writing this. The other deeper issue is that he is worried, because he is 26 (nearly 27) and not interested in marriage and kids, that I will feel I have wasted my time and will resent him if I stay with him. Fuck that noise too.

It's on the same line as "You're moving in two months, let's break up now to spare the heartache later." It's fear, and it's a cop out. And it's silly.

To end a mostly happy relationship because you're afraid it'll be harder later is just about the most ass-backwards love-related self-sabotagey thing I can think of.

Pffffft.

I haven't slept next to Joey since Sunday night. We're talking on Wednesday. No point in being pessimistic about it, but shit snacks.

I want a bagel.

Oh Good, Grief.

Twice now out of nowhere, I've found myself sobbing in my bed, clutching my grandmother's ashes. Once about three weeks ago, and again last night. I'm having trouble with my mother, it seems that her way of channeling her grief may be to grill me and lash out at me about my life choices. By all visible accounts, I am as happy and stable in every way as I've ever been, which isn't saying there's not room for improvement (note opening sentence), but her supportiveness and open-mindedness of a few months ago appears to have reverted back to the judgement and lack of support I've received my whole life.

I'm moving to Louisville, now, in just a month. Friends were looking for a place for September first, and they love my home and were here last night to fill out paperwork. Assuming my landlords find no issue with their rental history or employment confirmation, they're in here in just over a month. Money from grandma's estate comes in, supposedly, around the same time. My mother doesn't seem to know any more details, and I don't want to grill my uncle who is the executor, since I know he's being bombarded by similar questions from other members of the family.

What this means is that I may still be living here when my friends move in. They hardly have any furniture, so I'll have moved most of my stuff out to be stored using these fun pod things we've got these days that come with a month of free storage, and then they'll ship said pods to wherever they need to go. My friends also want to possibly keep a lot of my furniture. In short, it's been made clear that I am welcome to stay here a week or two until I can get things sorted financially to make the move.

But, I am hoping it doesn't come to that. I am going to Louisville next week, and I am going to ask Joey if it wouldn't make him uncomfortable to loan me the money so that I can have everything settled and get there asap. He wants me there asap, he's offered to help me financially several times lately, and he's got the money to do it, plus I know that I can pay him back in a matter of just a couple of weeks.

Back to the sobbing, though. This week, my mom decided to text me, insinuating I'd sell off all my grandmother's antiques and other things I've got that are of some value, stating that "the past" dictates she ask this. I have never once sold off a single thing from my grandmother, or things that friends and family have given me over the years. If anything, it could be said that I hold onto things well past their value because of their sentimental worth. There is no way in hell I will get rid of any of these things. What I may part with are a fair number of mid-century pieces of furniture that are worth something and have almost no sentimental value to me. That's it. I have collected these things over the years as giveaways from various places or pulled off of boulevards. I don't know where she gets these ideas, and she's ALWAYS had these ideas about me.

She also grills me about my work. Though it's more complicated than the pat answer of, "I freelance, mom," she also has no reason to assume I'm not getting by better than ever. I haven't asked for money but once in probably two years. That doesn't appear to count for anything. She is hardwired in the belief that "work" means going to another place, punching a clock, and getting a single paycheck from one employer. When I tell her that that is just not how things are for a lot of people these days, that what I'm doing is what a dozen of my friends and acquaintances do, it goes right over her head. When I tell her that the money is erratic and yes, sometimes I'm really, really broke and struggle, but that I am happier and healthier and more stable in every way than I've ever been and set my own schedule and don't answer to anyone but myself, that all sounds like laziness and frivolity to her.

It was so nice, for the few months after Chris and I broke up, to have the mother I've always wanted. It's not easy to adjust to the idea that that was just her knowing her mother was dying and softening for a while. Apparently, we are back to the same damn thing that's broken my heart for the past 30+ years.

I prayed to my grandmother that if she could, if she could hear me, that she would let her daughter know that this is not helping me. That this behavior, which she believes is "support," and "love," only serves to drive me from her. My grandmother never approved of the way my mother treated me. None of my grandparents did. They saw the way she treated my sister as indulgent and over-protective, and her treatment of me unsupportive, often mean, and sometimes abusive. My sister has had her problems (conflict avoidance to a fault, a sniping brattiness here and there), but she has mostly outgrown that, and as a result, we've gotten closer (I, too, have obviously overcome several things as well), and she's less close to my mom.

In any case, one of my grandparents heard me. I had a nightmare, a dream I was in a car, something old, a sedan with a bench seat. My family may have been in the back, I can't recall. But I know my dad's father was driving. A country road, and the way the sky goes green just before a tornado. I used to dream about tornadoes all the time. In every one of these dreams, no one saved me, and I had to save everyone else. It was just my responsibility. Dreams about nuclear bombs, too, where I was the only one who seemed to know how to take care of everyone and save them from themselves. I used to have these nightmares two or three times a month. In the last few years, I almost never have them. I can't remember the last time.

Out of nowhere, a huge bank of black clouds turned into FOUR huge tornadoes in the fields just to the left of this gravel road. My grandfather just looked at me and smiled, and I smiled too, turning to the back seat to tell everyone it was going to be okay. Grandpa took a sharp right and drove right into the field on the other side of the road, toward blue skies. We both grinned the whole while. Once we were clear of the storm, I laughed and told him he could stop driving, that we could wait it out and go back. But he just kept smiling, and told me something to the effect of, "I am going to get you as far away from those storms as I can."

Putain de pluie. Putain de pluie. Putain de pluie. Fucking rain.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Sock It To me.

I'm getting older. This becomes apparent not very much in my form--thankfully, I'm sporting a hotter body than ever (albeit slightly squishified in the midsection compared to last summer, but once I get the punching bag up in the garage it'll only take a few sessions to be bikini-ready again) and I am always assumed to be about 24 years of age. These things are highly agreeable in the aging department. No, how I feel mildly offended by men I don't know speaking coarsely or just using overtly blue language with me before they know a single thing about me. Specifically, this comes working at a bar; approaching a table full of half-drunk men in their 20s who are dropping f-bombs more than any other word, I want to admonish them soundly for their language in front of a lady before I ask them what sort of domestic swill they'd like to ingest. But would it make any sense to them? I'm feeling that the understanding of this is rapidly slipping in those currently younger than 25.

Who would have ever thought that once a gal reached a certain age, she'd want respect. The curious thing is, outside of those brash f-bomb dropping men, I'm getting it. This may be the most telltale sign of all regarding my aging. It's not that anyone calls me ma'am now, but that a certain level of courteousness has crept into my social interactions. And maybe it is just as much me, my personality, as it is my age; I feel now I no longer need to apologise for my actions, I do what I wish, and I will not be repentant (this comes also with an inherent lack of doing things I should need to feel apologetic for, of course). My tolerance for putting up with other people's day-to-day bullshit is at a low. It all feels a little chicken or the egg. I am still the brassy, mostly unfiltered woman those who know me (hopefully) love, but somehow, in the growing pains of the last two years, a distillation process has also occured which finds me getting what I want from people with minimal fuss (and also finds me offering compromises with minimal fuss).

And these last two years, well, that is perhaps another thing. It's only become clear to me the past three or four months what it's been about. A chain of events put me into a chaos spiral which was ultimately incredibly beneficial, but lost in the whorl of it, it was hard to see a way out. A failed relationship, loving, tender, flawed, came to a necessary end spring of 2008. Hindsight shows me that up until approximately five months into my current loving, tender, flawed relationship, I was battling with the fallout of that failure two years ago. A two year bender came in its wake, both Liquor and Dick. Couldn't really get enough of either, and neither (or none) of it was right. I met Andy and still none of it was right, despite Little Brain Voice telling me it was. I was ready to be done with the bender, but a little more chaos was in store. I think once I reached the point of complete financial ruin, it all became clear: This Is Not What I Want. Of course, I'm a long way off from realising anything I do want, but it feels like I am making strides toward where those things exist. I'm making enough money right now to have myself almost debt free by 2012 (just in time for the apocalypse, wherein debt will not matter, hee haw). The student loans will remain, to the tune of about $5,000, hopefully down from their current standing of nearly $15,000. I'll have paid off my credit cards, my car, all outstanding small debts owed friends and the like. Once the student loans are paid, that frees up almost $700/month which can go toward a downpayment on a house. Or a lengthy move to Tennessee. Or both. Things with Andy continue to be difficult, but I know he's the one for me. It's odd to be in a relationship that's toeing it's strongest period more than 10 months in.

All things are always in flux, but it does feel that a future I want is on the horizon.

Get A Land Line.

Something is slipping in me. Slipping rapidly. I am depressed. I am unhappy. But it is more than that. I feel it's the foundation I stand on. It is the use of a cell phone. It is the internet. It is living without feeling the sunshine daily. It's money. It's the boyfriend and the understanding that we are likely not long for this world as a union (but we are trying, my god, are we trying).

This panic is bestial.

I (we, everyone) are not meant to live this way.

I've ended internet on my phone. I've stopped getting Twitters via my phone. I will end text messaging on my phone next week. Then I will get a land line. One step at a time, folks.

And somehow I need to get money rolling in. Fast.