This is sort of a momentous time for me. It’s my hundredth post! That means I’ve actually been posting more or less once a day since I started Mixtapes For Hookers in September! And it means I’m not a total failure or slacker for once! Even though what started out as a porn blog barely has any porn on it these days! Yay!

Speaking of yay, I finished The Trick Is To Keep Breathing the other day. It’s a really interesting novel about female depression in Scotland in the late eighties. It’s also about institutions and women’s magazines and a bunch of other stuff. (And it inspired a Garbage song.) I highly recommend it, even though I feel like I wasn’t paying as much attention some of the time as I should have been.

Luckily, the copy of Working Sex that I ordered was waiting on my desk when I came in today, so now I have something new to read. I just checked out Annie Oakley’s introduction, but I’m going to wait until I get home for the rest of the book because otherwise I wouldn’t get any work done today. I’ll keep you updated on how it goes.

I’m especially interested in the Michelle Tea essay, especially since yesterday we went to Kowloon for my friend’s birthday. I don’t know if any of you have read Rose Of No Man’s Land (you should!) but part of it takes place in a giant tacky Polynesian restaurant on a strip of Route 1 somewhere in Massachusetts, and it’s totally Kowloon. I’d never been there before and it was kind of overwhelming in a Disney way, but the tofu curry was actually pretty good. Plus they have autographs all over the place of celebrities that have eaten there. (Don King! Lou Ferrigno! Pauly Shore!) Plus a fake boat built into the place that has a stage and a dance floor.

Unrelatedly to Kowloon but relatedly to the sex work book, last week somebody interviewed me for a documentary she’s making about college-aged hookers. I’ve never been interviewed on film before, so that was fun. Unfortunately the interview coincided with the weird 24-hour bug thing I had, so I feel like everything I said in the interview will be overwhelmed by the horrible noises my stomach was making.

And speaking of unpleasantries, I looked at my checking account this morning and saw that I got charged $20 the other day from PlanetOut. Apparently my gay.com subscription has been renewing monthly and I never noticed because I’m an idiot that never looks at his checking account statements. And premium gay.com memberships are a really huge waste of time, especially if you live in a small city and have a boyfriend already. I had signed up for it last year when I was looking for models for a photo project that never fully materialized. So that’s about $240 I’ve wasted without even noticing. Go, me.

Speaking of wasting money, I think I spent about $800 last year in checking account overdraft fees. Part of my New Year’s Resolution to be Fabulous in 2008 includes fabulously giving money to charities and not stupidly giving it to banks. 20 days into January I’m doing okay with the overdraft part, although not so much the charities part. And, annoyingly, I’ve already racked up (I think) $75 in overnight parking tickets. Which will surely double and then triple as I continue to forget to pay them.

Because in stupid Providence you’re not allowed under any circumstances to ever park on the street overnight. As if that makes sense in a city.

_uacct = “UA-3402508-2″;
urchinTracker();

The Sex Workers’ Art Show kicks off on the 17th in Portland and then sweeps across the country through the end of February. Check their website for the full schedule. Note how is arrives in New England the same week the Magnetic Fields tour starts. OMG Best Week Ever Alert! Here’s the full schedule. There’s still some openings, so if you’re in, like, Vermont and own a venue and have nothing to do on February 16th, say, then get in touch with them by writing to annie at sexworkersartshow dot com.

Also, tour founder Annie Oakley just came out with a really neat-looking anthology called Working Sex: Sex Workers Write About A Changing Industry. I’ll let you know how it is as soon as I read it, but, knowing me, that’ll be in about 2014, so you might want to grab a copy yourself.

_uacct = “UA-3402508-2″;
urchinTracker();

December 17th is International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. This event was created to call attention to hate crimes committed against sex workers all over the globe. The laws against prostitution are harmful to society. They perpetuate the abuse of otherwise law-abiding citizens, particularly women. They allow people like the Green River killer in Seattle, Washington to rationalize violent and murderous behavior toward prostitutes, especially women. “I wanted to kill as many … as I possibly could. I knew they would not be reported missing right away, and might never be reported. I picked prostitutes because I thought I could kill as many of them as I wanted without getting caught.” (Superior Ct. of WA for King Co.; State of Washington vs. Gary Leon Ridgway, Statement of Defendant on Plea of Guilty). Gary Leon Ridway was sentenced to 48 life terms and was fined $10,000 for each victim on December 18, 2003.

Consensual sexual activity between or among adults, whether or not for money or other consideration should be legal, and no adult in this state should be punished, or denied any right or privilege, for engaging in such activity.
This event has been published in books, and has grown to over 100 locations worldwide. It has been officially sanctioned by the cities of San Francisco and Berkeley, also by the State of California.

There’s stuff going on to commemorate the day in a bunch of cities, including New York, Montreal, San Francisco and Atlanta, as well as smaller places like Burlington, Vermont and Lansing, Michigan.  There’s also an online vigil at the SWOP East website.

As far as I can tell there are no events planned in New England except that one Vermont one.