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P.S. – You are Loved!

P.S. You Are Loved Project Tag Cloud

This took me a few days to write, but it’s finally done.  If you haven’t seen it yet, please check out the P.S. You Are Loved Project on Facebook – veve.me/PSYouAreLoved (and forward the link to anyone you think might be interested in helping counter messages of hate to trans*folk that are coming out and getting hate mail)?

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Dear Friend,

I can’t imagine how hard it must have been for you to receive all those messages of hate, after finally having the courage to reveal yourself as you have known yourself to be for so long.  I doubt I ever will.

I, myself, have struggled since childhood with the knowledge that the sex and gender I was assigned at birth don’t fit with the sense of who I am, internally.  But because neither of the binary options available to me in societal roles of sex and gender fit my own private identity, because even if there were an option that fit me that I could outwardly transition into, I still wouldn’t come even close to fitting anyone else’s idea of a societal norm, I’ve chosen to simply accept the cis-assigned roles allowed me by the normie majority’s sense of acceptable “morality.”  I still don’t “fit in,” but at least this way I don’t stick out *quite* so much.

I’m not telling you all this to try to draw attention to myself – I’m mainly hoping to convey a sense of empathy for the difficulty of your position.  I know a little about feeling like my outside doesn’t match my inside identity.  I know about being a target for hate.  I’ve been beaten up badly more times than I can count, and I’ve lived with daily verbal violence, bullying, and severe public humiliation on a daily basis from my so-called “peers” for years before I managed to escape to the city and the more accepting communities here.  I know, and hopefully you do too, that no matter how “different” we may seem to be to bigoted individuals, there is no excuse for hateful words and actions.  No attribute or aspect of our expressions of identity caused either of us to deserve that kind of treatment.

The thing is, the more that I see hate in the world, towards myself or towards others, the more that I realize that hateful actions say nothing about the target and everything about the hateful person’s fears, insecurities, and guilty anger towards themselves.  It isn’t really *us* that they hate, even though we are the ones they direct it at (because they can’t face who they are and how they feel inside).

So now that I’ve given you a ton of bullshit background explaining why I think I might understand an iota of what you’ve been through with the deluge of recent hate – which, really, I can’t, no more than anyone can be sure they understand anyone else’s experiences but their own – now that I’ve said all that stuff, what is it I’m really trying to communicate?

I guess what I’m trying to say is just my own projections on your situation – not hurtful in intent, but probably almost as misguided.  In the end, the best I can really expect, I imagine, is to learn my own lessons and hope upon hope that this message to myself will have some value to you (or to anyone else besides myself).

The main lesson I’ve learned in life so far (mainly from a serious suicide attempt and from a long bout with severe hard drug addiction in which I wounded everyone who loved me deeply and drove away even my oldest and closest friends, ending up a homeless crack/meth whore for way too long) is this:

I have a responsibility – to myself, to those who love me (past, present, and future), and to all living beings to live life to the fullest – to do my best to change the world and history for the better, to leave a positive legacy, to to be a force for good in every moment that I can.  I have a duty to live.

No matter what I believe about any divine force or a life before or after this one, the only thing I can be sure is that I am alive now.  My only purpose is to live – *truly* live.  I have a mind designed to learn new things constantly, a consciousness to experience and reflect on events, a “heart” – to feel for myself and others, and a conscience (when I don’t try to silence it with denial or addictive behaviors) to help me find my way and live in harmony with the world around me.

It seems this letter may have degenerated into what is beginning to sound like a bunch of self-righteous navel-gazing, but what I really mean is this:

– I don’t know who you are, but I consider you a friend.

– I haven’t met you, but I admire your courage.

– We may never speak, but I urge you: continue being yourself, continue to seek out the fulfillment of your true will in this life, continue pursuing your purpose for existing.

Your sister in spirit,

V.A. Velatura

(P.S. – you are loved!)

Lasting Impressions

When I was fourteen, and just beginning to show the worst symptoms of bipolar depression, I experienced the death of someone close to me for the first time.

I still remember when my mother came into my room to tell me Nana (my mother’s mother) had died, from pneumonia she had contracted because the steroids she needed to be on to keep her autoimmune disorders (including lupus, among other things) in remission, had destroyed her immune system.  It was also the first time I truly understood the meaning of the phrase, “damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” as ultimately, it was the medications that kept her alive that killed her.

My memory of that event is different than most of the memories before that, in that I remember seeing myself from the door to my room, as my mom came in and told me the news, that Nana had died, and watching myself shrink away from my mother and curl up around the scruffy and worn long-eared rabbit that Nana had given me a decade before then.  It was then I began to understand grief (for someone else, I had dealt with a different kind of grief secretly on an ongoing basis for the last few years at that point following several severe sexual brutalizations), this grief seemed more acute than any feeling I’d ever experienced before.  The grief was so strong, that I feel it now still, in my eyes welling up with tears as I recall, in the feeling like a ball of iron is weighing down my gut, pulling on the bottom of my rib cage…

I started a photography class at a local college a few weeks ago, and instead of checking out a camera from the school a few days at a time, I remembered a recent offer from my mom for her to give me a 35mm camera.  I thought she was referring to the Canon that mom had used in college herself and that, when I was deemed responsible enough with the almost-disposable cheap snapshot camera I’d been given around age 5 when I showed interest in shooting pictures, I was allowed to borrow mom’s hallowed Canon.

The idea excited me.  This whole class excites me, really.  It had been so long since I worked with film, I’d forgotten how thrilling it used to be to me to hoard each exposure for *just* the right moment, because each roll of film and each print had to be begged for following endless hours of chores, and every exposure was priceless.   But I digress.

I was wrong.  I went out to mom’s for dinner after talking to her, she was tickled pink that I came to visit.  As I was getting ready to go, she brought out the camera.  It wasn’t the Canon.

The camera she brought out was a mid-80’s Minolta, a nice 35mm SLR that is IDEAL for the work I’m doing for the next three quarters for the film portions of my photography classes.  As she opened the case to show me, she said the camera had been Nana’s, that Nana bought it right before she started to get really sick, and had used it on her travels to see states she’d not visited before now that she was permanently retired from the hospital where she’d been an RN for close to four decades.  Mom said that it had been sitting in storage since Nana had started getting sick in ’88, that other than two or three times mom and the other kids had taken it out to check on it, it hadn’t been handled, and that it hadn’t been used.

I’ve been using it the last couple weeks.  Ineptly, because it’s been a little over two decades since I last shot film, but I’m anxiously awaiting my shot at checking out a canister and developing this first roll tomorrow.  Digressing again…

Tonight, just a short while ago, I went to clean off the dust that has been on the lens this whole time with a few cotton swabs and some rubbing alcohol, since I’d accidentally touched the surface today and left a fingerprint.  I swabbed the surface gently, switching swabs as soon as they started to leave lint behind.  When it seemed as clean as it would get, and it dried, I held it to the light to check the job I’d done.  Despite my work, a fingerprint still clearly reflected.

What the fuck?! was my first thought – how can that be?  Until I realized, the fingerprint is on the *other side*.  It wasn’t a lens surface I’d cleaned, but only a filter left screwed on the lens to protect it.  I unscrewed the filter to clean it, and then it struck me, hard.

This was the last remaining fingerprint that Nana left behind.

I almost looked for a box to save the filter, but I’m trying to work hard on not hoarding shit anymore (and keeping this would be a step backward on a moderately serious problem I have in that direction).  I would have taken a picture, if I had the right lights necessary to show its reflection on the filter’s glass, but I don’t, and so I didn’t.  And really, it seems to me that the purpose of death for me, as someone left behind, and of grief, is to learn to let go.

And so I let go, and gently swabbed the last traces of my maternal grandmother from the only thing of hers that I still own.  I wonder who will miss me when I go, like I miss Nana now — even though she’s been gone for most of my life.

I spend a lot of time reflecting on ideas for what legacy I hope to leave behind, especially since I have no children and plan to keep it that way (for many very good reasons – a discussion for later).  What fingerprint will I leave behind for decades after my death?  And who will be there to find it?

2014 in review (site stats)

I’m really enjoying using WordPress.com to host my blog, for many reasons. One new reason is that, apparently, at the end of the year, they send us bloggers here a simple but colorful personalized “End of the Year” letter with information and interesting facts on what happened on my blog during the last year. Probably not too horribly interesting, unless you are considering switching to WordPress.com for its free blog hosting. Posted her for posterity.

Happy New Year, everyone!

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,600 times in 2014. If it were a cable car, it would take about 27 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

The Quality Of Mercy Is Not Strained

Since I stopped using at the beginning of this year for (I hope!) the last time, I also stopped giving any cash to people begging for money.  I mean, I’ll occasionally give (up to) one dollar and some loose change, but nothing more than that.  I know that (in my area, at least) more than 99% of the people I see begging for money are begging for drug money.  If I am no longer buying illegal drugs, to me that means that I no longer buy those drugs for ANYONE, not even indirectly.

I’ll admit that I have no problem buying a cheap beer for someone who is really dopesick or in alcohol withdrawal… I know from repeated observation of “close friends” (regular using buddies and “patna’s” I teamed up with) just how hellish and life-threatening opiate/alcohol withdrawals can be… and alcohol is legal and socially acceptable (at least for those who are “productive members of society”).  I never have a problem (if I have the means) with giving a person in need food, hydrating beverages, blankets, warm clean clothing, hygiene items, bus tickets, dog food, time spent looking up resources for them, etc.

But if I have any resources other than monetary ones, I don’t give street folk money.  If I give out money, I never give more than two dollars.  Period.  I no longer am willing to accumulate more guilt about helping anyone (including myself) destroy themselves (and everyone around them) by committing suicide by the most painful route possible.

Also, I don’t get involved.  I spend as little time as possible near them, because I know all-too-well the risk I take by getting too friendly, too comfortable, around the people with whom I used to beg and live and get high and commit crimes, day in, day out, year after year.

That being said, I made an exception.  I let myself become moderately involved with a man for the better part of an hour tonight.  On the way home from picking up arthritis supplements for my four elderly cats, I stopped at 7-Eleven to get a soft drink.  I had just lit up a cigarette, and didn’t want to put it out in the soggy excuse for an ashtray out front and waste a perfectly good super-snipe that someone not too proud to smoke someone else’s lit cancer stick, especially a near-whole one (and a Camel at that).

There were two guys out front.  The one farther away was clearly “out there” double-fisting Four-Loko’s (the current-day usually-available corner-store equivalent of Mad Dog 20/20 – 12% alcohol) and seemed likely to misunderstand my intent and either manhandle me uninvited, and/or to turn violent unexpectedly (or, rather, fairly predictably).  The closer one was clearly in severe pain – I couldn’t see his face, but even so his fetal posture and shaking-bordering-on-convulsions broadcasted pure suffering.

I thought he was dopesick, so I walked over to where he was crouched on the ground, sitting on some of his gear, hunched over his knees, shaking and quietly keening.  He had a cigarette long-ago burnt down to the butt in one hand, and an unlit rollie (hand-rolled tobacco cigarette) in the other hand.  I tried to get his attention. “Hi… Excuse me? … Sir?…” I finally touched his shoulder just firmly enough that he could feel my touch through the thick, dingy, Carhartt-knockoff he was wearing.  I couldn’t see his face, but I could see dirty blonde and gray long dreadlocks (pretty well cared for ones, now that I recall… the dreads were all the same thickness and tightly locked… that takes a fair bit of effort to maintain, especially on the street) hanging down under an oversized, lightly-stained, yellow-tan “crown” (very large rasta-style beret-like knit hat).  After the second touch, he looked up a bit.  He was gritting his teeth and tear tracks had dried in lines down his cheeks.  He was surprisingly clean-shaven, and not one of the locals I knew… I still know most everyone who lives outdoors in my neighborhood.

He didn’t make eye contact directly.  I offered him a cigarette, then noticed he wasn’t smoking the ones he had.  I asked him if he was dopesick, would he like a beer?  He shifted, hunching back over a bit, and said no, he had been passing kidney stones for he-didn’t-know-how-long, and the hospital (which is about 5 blocks away) had kicked him out, saying they couldn’t help him.  I asked him what I could get him.  It was very difficult for him to talk, he mumbled close to a whisper, his line of thought frequently derailing as his words trailed off.  After a bit I was able to hear what he was asking for – cranberry juice.  I went inside, quickly poured a Slurpee for myself (I am fairly expert, after working 7-Eleven graveyards for more than a year in my late teens), grabbed a few pocket packs of ibuprofen, a few to-go servings of honey-roasted peanuts, a 2-pack of pocket Slim-Jim’s with cheese sticks, a roll of Tums… and a double-serving bottle of Ocean Spray.

(Note: when buying food for the homeless, I buy things that are self-contained in pocket-sized single servings and/or resealable, high in protein and fat, relatively low in salt and preservatives when possible, and unlikely to be crushed when heavy things are packed in tightly and/or on top of them.  Generally, tastes among people living on the street trend toward sweet and meaty things, and things that can be chewed easily with missing and broken teeth, or with no teeth at all.  Usually that precludes crispy granola bars with and any hard or unshelled nuts that can’t be swallowed whole.  If buying anything that upsets the stomach, like aspirin, advil, or aleve, I make sure to include either food or a roll of antacids to keep their stomachs from exploding in pain, since their stomach linings are very likely to already be inflamed.)

I brought him the cranberry juice, and gave him the advil.  I suggested that he make sure he eat whenever he took the advil to help with the pain and inflammation… he started crying when he replied he didn’t have any food.  I handed over the honey peanuts, meat sticks, and Tums.  He wasn’t able to acknowledge the resources, or even to stash them so his hands weren’t full, but that wasn’t the purpose.  I just hoped he would be able to pull it together enough to help him reduce the pain a little… I tried asking him if he would let me help him stash some of it in a pocket or a bag for later, but he wasn’t able to answer, or even understand what I was asking, I think.

I wished I could have helped more, but I knew hubby was worrying about me at home, I knew he wasn’t able to accept or use any other help from me, and I knew I had pushed help on him as far as was prudent at that point.  I’m praying for a swift end to the pain, though, and that what little I was able to make available to him doesn’t end up getting stolen or lost while he’s tortured by those horrible crystallized calcium caltrops passing through his ureters.

While I don’t advocate giving street folk money, I do exhort you to pay attention to each individual you meet.  Whether it’s a simple human meeting-of-the-eyes and acknowledgement of a person’s presence in your sphere of influence, a regretful shrug followed with “good luck!” in response to a request for monetary assistance, or whether you are willing to go farther and give a person food or whatever non-tender supplies you can spare, please consider helping another person out regularly in the future.  Being human to someone, even someone heavily addicted to alcohol or hard drugs, helps them feel like life is still worth living, offers a sliver of hope to many, and (for me) reminded me that I was still human, and that I could act like one again eventually… which, hopefully, I do a better job of manifesting both outward and inward toward others and toward myself.

Thank you for reading.  Sorry I spent so much time navel-gazing instead of writing, or this post would have been much shorter.  I’ll try not to wait so long in between posts.  🙂

–Venus

Featured Photo: An edited picture of the sign I used the last time I went out to “fly a sign” (beg for money standing/sitting in one place holding a sign).  It now resides as part of a large piece of art-in-progress titled, “And No One’s Getting PHAT ‘Cept Mama Cass”.  Image (c) 2014, Venushakti Autumn Velatura. All Rights Reserved.

Whore Goddesses

Concise, but well-researched commentary on the hierodule function of the fertile crescent’s sex goddesses!

The Honest Courtesan

The scientific mind is atrophied, and suffers under inherited cerebral weakness, when it comes in contact with the eternal woman—Astarte, Isis, Demeter, Aphrodite, and the last and greatest deity of all, the Virgin. –  Henry Adams

In ancient Rome today was Larentalia, the festival of an apotheosized courtesan named Acca Larentia; she was referred to as the “most noble whore” and was sometimes associated with Lupa, the she-wolf who nursed Romulus and Remus.  As I discussed in my column of November 3^rd there were a number of Roman goddesses who were associated with prostitution; Bona Dea’s rituals included what we would now call “two-girl shows”, Flora’s involved public orgies, Fortuna Virilis was worshipped by dedicated acts of low-class prostitution in public baths, and Ceres and Isis allowed streetwalkers to entertain their clients in the temples.  But the most important Roman whore-goddess was of course Venus, goddess of love and…

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To All The Ho’s I Loved Before

Dedicated to Maryjane and NéNé

Non-existent in your memory will I forever remain, though
— Unless I return to the life that brought me so low —
Because you still live partway in the life of a ho,
I must learn to let you go.

“Pretty Woman” was our foe:
Those cruel Richard-Gere-savior illusions don’t exist on the street.
Me, I was just a tourist taking an idiotic leap,
Putting on your shoes in hopes of understanding your feet.
In my delusions, your hugs, your caresses were so sweet –
When we shared a bed, I’d pretend my ear could hear your heartbeat –
Instead, I satisfied myself with you painting my eyes, my lips, my cheeks –
Following behind in your path, sharing the dream that we would riches meet.
None of that would ever become real, though,
And all of that was long ago –
Because your present is still that of a ho,
I must learn to let you go.

I didn’t want us to fuck, just hoped we could make some trouble –
Share how we got into the Life, maybe pull some doubles –
If we found a rich trick I thought we could strip, make him pay to watch us cuddle –
Mostly what I hoped for was to be on your team in the pre-game huddle.
When I see you now from time to time, your face says you still endlessly struggle –
And even though I know when you read this it will likely make you mad –
When I remember how much the Life sucked, the only way I can feel for you is sad –
Despite me getting clean and leaving, I thought it wouldn’t be so bad –
To send you this message saying I will always hold a little hope that –
Someday you’ll find your way out of being the selfish men’s doormat.
Sorry if this embarrasses you, I just needed you to know –
That I miss us being friends, and that if I could I would show you that –
But for now I’ll just pretend that the street won’t kill you and that sometime soon you’ll grow –
Wings and fly out of the life that tore holes in each of our souls –
Each moment you stay, away any happiness flows.
There’s nothing I can do for you but send you these words from a distance though,
Because as long as you remain in the life of a ho,
I have only memories, I must let you go.

The Death of my Porn Star Dreams

Shortly after I hooked up with my now-husband, I became aware that there is a fairly large market for adult films starring women of my shape and size (and larger).  As highly sexual and exhibitionistic as I was, I immediately became enamored of the plan to become an adult performer and take at least a few film jobs, maybe start a “personality site” (a site about my film persona with regular postings of new erotic media starring me for paid members), and do phone sex, web cam chats, and sell my used panties for money, things like that.  Hubby (then boyfriend) was excited by this idea, and encouraged me to pursue it.

I had a friend with connections to a few well-known people from the early days of modern adult film (late 70’s – early 80’s) – a director who directed John Holmes more times than any other director, and a former adult performer who had starred in more than a hundred well-known (now vintage) adult films.  Both people enjoyed helping new performers navigate the adult film community and avoid potentially problematic situations.

Before I could make any serious plans, I started snorting coke as a habit, and while this addiction increased my desire to perform sexually for others’ entertainment, it severely curtailed my ability to follow through on specific goals.  Additionally, hubby began to worry about my increasingly poor decision-making, so the few opportunities I did have to go down to L.A. to find work, he was adamant that I not pursue those opportunities without taking him with me which, for various reasons, was not possible.

So I started taking erotic pictures of myself and making my own short adult videos with my webcam and smartphone camera, and at the same time, I started hooking up with guys on online dating sites and on Craigslist to share those pictures and videos and to “cyber” (dirty chatting over IM services while each person masturbates) with… at least at first.  Soon, I started breaking the rules of hubby’s and my open marriage by sneaking out when he was asleep or at work without his permission or knowledge to fuck other guys.  I’d borrow his car, supposedly to run errands, but instead would use up all his gas driving to far suburbs to go fuck strangers.  While I was doing this, I was interspersing these anonymous hookups with visits to fuck my dealers to get more drugs.  Everything about me and my life became a lie to everyone I loved, yet I was brutally honest and clear about everything I was doing to the strangers I hooked up with, to my dealers, and to a few other fellow writers that I knew exclusively online.

I even went so far as to develop a list of all the ways I had thought of to keep from getting caught in lies or cheating.  I called this list, “Detection Considerations” and frequently updated it with methods for manipulating situations to continue my reprehensible behavior so that my husband would not have any tangible clues or proof of my betrayals.

I progressively cared less and less about what I was doing to myself and those in my life.  My apathy toward my husband’s, my family’s, and my friends’ feelings became (I’m certain) more and more apparent to them, and everyone pulled away from me emotionally.  When I did get lonely and reach out for help on occasion, there wasn’t anyone left willing to help anymore.  This encouraged me to sink deeper into the darkness that drug-related activities had cast over my soul, so I used more, and cared less about keeping the promises that I’d made to myself before the start of my use of hard drugs – not to steal or “skim off the top,” not to use needles, not to use heroin, not to use meth, and not to prostitute myself on the street.  Instead, I revelled in my descent into the depths of filth — I saw my involvement in “street life” as an adventure.  In a way, I viewed myself as an amateur anthropologist or sociologist developing case studies on the “aboriginal tribes” of the local street cultures I encountered.

I justified, in part, these adventures with the goal of writing a book instructing aspiring prostitutes on how to do the job, how to navigate the streets, how to stay as healthy as possible (e.g. how to keep from losing teeth, how to minimize blackheads), and how not to get hurt or caught.  Over and over, I made glossaries of the local lingo, lists of methods for common drug or tricking procedures such as how to cook crack or how to make a guy cum as quickly as possible while giving him head, lists of what supplies were essential to carry around (such as disposable wipes, condoms, paper napkins, and lube packets, etc), different ways to shoplift, how to clean meth pipes (bubbles) without breaking them, the lists were endless.  But everytime I’d get about halfway through a journal with my notes and ideas, I’d lose it or the purse containing it to forgetfulness or theft, and I’d have to start a new journal all over again.

One of my writer friends, the only one who knew everything, who I also knew in person, and who was a lover of mine that I had permission from hubby to play with, he pointed out that most of the the information I wanted to present in my free book (a la the Anarchist’s Handbook, I called it “The Crack-Ho’s Cookbook”) went against the *responsible* drug users’ code of never being the person to encourage or help another person take a hard drug for the first time.  He mentioned what I had not thought of, with my drug-addled brain, that there was no way to keep the information out of the hands of minors who might become underage sex workers (something I abhorred the concept of).  I dropped the idea as a serious goal, but still fantasized about a world in which I could publish something like that and give it away for free.

All during my time of using hard drugs, I consistently managed to brainwash myself into associating sexual activity with drug use.  That association, coupled with my shame over everything I did in betraying my husband and other loved ones, has left me with no discernible sex drive since I stopped using drugs this time.  All my adolescent and adult life, I’ve had a higher libido than even the horniest guys I’d ever met.  So the current state of near-complete asexuality is extremely strange for me.  Likewise, as I clear our the e-mail and computer file remnants of all those crazy sexual behaviors, I’m amazed, disgusted, fascinated, and repelled by everything I wrote and did.  I remember those events almost remotely, like watching a documentary about someone else, yet I remember being in those situations physically as well.  I no longer know who the person was who did those things, nor do I know who I am now, either.

Anyway, I no longer have the slightest desire to fuck strangers or to fuck for money, so I can say ‘good riddance’ to my former porn-star dreams.

My Prostitution Past

I haven’t really talked much about it, mainly because right now it’s all tangled up with many memories that bring a lot of conflicted feelings to the forefront right now.  I think about it several times a day lately, though, always with a sense of regret and not a little bit of sorrow.  I had a constructive conversation last night about that part of my past, quite a few reminders of how things went down at that time.  Here’s some of how (and why) it happened:

When I started smoking crack, after a few years of snorting cocaine, I quickly discovered that my methods up until that point of obtaining my highs would not suffice to satisfy my new level of craving.  Crack burns through money a lot faster — smoking cocaine creates a much higher level of euphoria, mostly because it delivers a greater amount of the drug into the bloodstream much more quickly.  Unfortunately, it also leaves the system more quickly as well.

When cocaine is snorted, it leaves a layer of powder over every surface of the sinuses, which then proceeds to seep into the bloodstream slowly, and continues to transfer as moisture from the sinuses slowly seeps into the dry powder layer (and any subsequent layers that are piled onto the first by continued snorting).  The drug-into-bloodstream-into-brain transfer continues taking place for an hour or more after one stops snorting coke.

When coke is smoked (freebased, either with ether or in rock form), almost all of the drug enters the bloodstream all at once, hitting the brain pretty damn near instantaneously.  It is processed out of the brain very quickly also, so the euphoria lasts anywhere from about 3 to 15 minutes (at the most, for most users).  The stimulation (awakeness) lasts somewhat longer, maybe 30 minutes or so, but once the euphoria wears off, cravings and irritability are pretty universal.  For me, after a couple of years of smoking crack, I stopped getting euphoria almost entirely, my “high” consisted only of just more cravings, followed by misery.  But I get ahead of myself, and have digressed for too long.

When I got tricked into smoking crack for the first time (I didn’t want to ever try it, I knew it would get a lot worse if I did, but I underestimated the power of a crack fiend’s desire to get me hooked so he can mooch drugs and sex from me) I quickly switched from sleeping with my dealers for drugs to walking the street to get money to feed my habit.  Back then, it seemed like “an adventure.”  I knew a few prostitutes, I had helped watch for police for them in exchange for information about how they identified customers, how they identified and avoided the “vice” and “jump-out boys” (police rolling down the Blade, four or more of them in each single large tint-windowed SUV, waiting for a vice officer to confirm having positively identified a target — a prostitute, pimp, dealer, or someone with an outstanding warrant or who was banned by the courts from the area for previous prostitution or drug activity — or, after seeing such activity taking place as they go by, they roll up to the target(s), quickly stop and all jump out to arrest everyone involved), how to keep from getting jacked (mugged), how to keep from getting killed/raped, how to negotiate the terms with the john, how much to charge for which activities, and so on.

After about six months of this, getting tired of subsisting on the money I got from “flying a sign” and “spanging” (panhandling by holding a sign next to a busy corner where cars had to stop or by begging people for money, like people going into a corner store or at a gas station), I hooked up with a guy who had had a prostitute as his last girlfriend.  It was the first time I was able to come by information on how prostitutes could work without a pimp.  He offered to help me by watching out for me as my “driver” (a very different dynamic than the pimp-ho situation I had studied before, which is what had turned me off about actually working the streets myself before then — the driver-prostitute dynamic was one where the prostitute shares a percentage or a set fee with the driver for each job she takes instead of giving all the money to a pimp and then begging the pimp to provide for her basic needs) with no fee required, only an agreement that after I did a job we would go back to our motel room and talk about it while we fucked.  That day I turned my first trick, and made a hundred bucks (which is not really all that typical for girls that work the street instead of Internet or local paper ads).  The sex was hot, but the date ended badly (for me).  But that’s a story for another day.

I had figured out how to work the Blade as a “renegade,” (also called an “outlaw” — as opposed to “in-law” – hos of the same pimp call each other “sister-in-law” and the group of them together “in-laws”).  The others on the street I came to know almost universally resented/hated me (unless I was buying from them, selling to them, sharing the cost of a room, or getting them high so I could stay in their room while we used) because I wasn’t “in pocket” for a pimp.  I didn’t meet any other prostitutes who worked alone for more than the hour or two it took to hop from one pimp to another.  That happened a lot for most girls out there.

I still live near the track I worked most often, it’s not far from the house I own with my husband.  I frequently have to drive down it to get somewhere, as it is one of the three main thoroughfares through the north end of the city.  Almost every time I do, I pass by at least a few people I know, people I used with, bought drugs from, sold stolen goods to, got cheated out of money by, or other prostitutes I knew from walking past each other or sharing a mirror to put makeup on in fast food restaurants or from turning tricks with on “doubles.”  Many of them look progressively more run down every time I see them.  A few of them always look about the same, mostly the ones who are able to maintain a pretty consistent standard of living (through mostly working off Internet ads and only rarely turning car dates when things get dry).  But none of them ever look better.

The street never brings people up, it only brings everyone down eventually.  I don’t ever see people I ran with coming into recovery rooms, at least not yet.  I wish I would, it would strengthen my hope and tenuous faith that I’m not fighting a losing battle.  Well, my faith isn’t so tenuous.  I know several other women (and some men) in the rooms that also spent time doing “corner work” like myself — just that they have been around a lot longer, so the street doesn’t show on their faces anymore, like it’s starting to leave mine.

I hope someday that street and the guilt I feel over my steps along its sidewalks will leave my heart, just enough to hold my head high again in my own neighborhood.  I’ll be glad when hubby and I can sell the house to buy in a suburb where street life isn’t so prevalent.  All I can do, though, is live for (and through) today… and know that (overall) things will only get better.

The “Please Forgive Me” Letter, early 2012

I found this letter among some of my husband’s things a few weeks ago.  It gives insight into how I was feeling just before I went into the detox unit of a local psychiatric hospital back in late January or early February of 2012.  I’m not sure whether or not to be grateful that my husband never throws away any piece of paper he has, ever — the reminder is a hard one, of how needy and desperate I had become.

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Dear Hunny Bunny Love Monkey

Somewhere deep inside me is left a shadow of the woman you fell in love with, and she very much still loves you.  But she hasn’t been in control of me for a very long time, and I have no idea how to get back to being her again.  I’m so lost – you’ve known that as well as I have for a long time.  And I have done so many things wrong, and I can’t seem to find the strength to do the right things at all any more.  I feel so empty and worthless that I often think that hurting you and my family more [with suicide] would be kinder than going on being the evil pathetic excuse for a human that I have been.

But figuring out how, and where, and when to end my life makes me realize that as selfish as I am now, killing myself would be the ultimate, absolutely most painful thing I could do to you (and my family), more painful than the stealing, and the lying, and the cheating (breaking the rules & sneaking around).  I just don’t know how to start doing better, working toward making things right, how to stop breaking your heart, stop killing what little tiny bit of love you have left for the wife I used to be for you.

I’ve been killing myself slowly for at least the last 4 years.  Once cocaine came into my life, all my happiness, strength, follow-through, ability to focus, kindness, consideration for you and others, health, centeredness, balance, intelligence, creativity and more… and most of all my love for myself and for the people who were important to me and so much the center of my world then – all of those things have been destroyed, disappearing slowly but steadily, in such a way that I didn’t notice until it was too late & I was too weak against the power of that powdered concentrated psychopathic self-disintegration – like the barrels of oil or blood diamonds to a wealthy right-wing republican – I simply had to keep collecting more and more at everyone’s expense, especially yours & mine.

So I’ve taken risks.  The part of me that does still love you can’t stand to keep stabbing you in the back & so I’ve put myself in danger over & over again, hoping someone or something else will end your & my suffering, so that it won’t be my fault that my death will cause you even worse pain.  In a way, I’m glad I failed to bring about that end, because as much as I can’t bear the thought of the price I’ll pay for my weaknesses and pathetic evils that I can’t stop repeating – the price of losing you for good – I do want you to be happy again, and I know if I went so far as to put you through being a widower it would take you so much longer to be happy again than if I were to just lock myself up & let you get on with your life without me.

Why can’t I just give you as much love as you’ve given me?  Why can’t I just STOP this fucking shit and save our life together, and the house, and our love for each other? Why can’t I be the me I used to be before cocaine & the hippy crack coke nitrous substitute that devastated my brain?  Why can’t I stand on my own anymore?

As much as I have treated you worse than an enemy, I hope you will one day feel that our life together was worth the pain, and that you will stop hurting enough to feel at least a small amount of the love from me that you really do deserve but that I haven’t been able to give you like I should for so long.

Please forgive me, please please please let me try again after I get help like I’ve needed for so long.  I really do love you, Hunny Bunny!

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A very short while after writing this letter, I went in for detox, horribly sick with bronchitis.  After 9 days, they discharged me, and the day I got out I went right back out to get and do more drugs.  I started going out to my Dad’s place out near the coast to get clean, staying there a month or two at a time, getting 30 and then later 60 days at a time, only to return home and, soon after, to relapse again.  Hubby started locking me out of the house when I refused to go back to my dad’s, and that’s when I started living in the shed, on the lead-up toward the final bottom that I reached when I started to get serious about recovery.