welcome.

I haven't been writing much lately, even though I'll swear up and down that I love to. Because I belong to both the generation and class of people for whom navel-gazing is considered a hard day's work, I've been thinking a lot about why I don't write, even though in those mental exercises when you're supposed to picture what you want to be doing in ten years, it's one of the only things that is certain. I guess I've been waiting for it to "roar out of (me)," Bukowski style, and it hasn't, so I haven't.

Which is, of course, because I've been scared to. There is no simpler, more truthful way to say it. But I've realized in recent days that the kind of paralysis that stops me from doing something that I love, and that isn't necessary in the world, is an utter privilege. The kind of dismay that many people I know (myself included, at times) feel over their stagnant lives is, rightfully, laughable to anyone who operates in survival-mode, who loses sleep over tangible things like food and housing and adequate medical care and staying safe from violence.

I know a woman who works in the indoor sex trade by choice who recently participated in a fundraiser at her workplace to benefit outdoor survival sex workers. She had recently learned about some budget cuts at the organization I work for, a support agency for sex workers, and that the cuts had affected outreach services so severely that all that was available to hand out to the folks working the stroll at night were peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. The woman told me, although the fundraiser at her workplace involved participation and performance in things that made her feel sick, that "peanut butter and jelly sandwiches aren't acceptable to me, and they shouldn't be to anyone else. I had no idea how bad it was out there." Her indignance at the injustice of the working conditions of street sex workers was strong enough to propel her through her perfectly rational fear of taking a lead role in an event that involved a live sex show, toy demonstration and a raffle whose prizes were half-hour "rentals" of herself and her coworkers; "you know that means blow jobs, right?" my office-mate told me earnestly.

As she talked, I swallowed loudly and tried not to distract from her storytelling by breaking down like a blubbering fool. Here in front of me was a woman with a set of personal challenges that I have a sneaking suspicion would make it hard for me to get out of bed in the morning telling me that she faced her fear of participating in an event that she herself described repeatedly as the very last thing on earth she'd want to do, in support of a bunch of strangers because she found it "unacceptable" that they not have something more nourishing to eat. She somehow managed to get past the sickness and perform not only the work that was required of her by the agency, but a piece of radical political activism as well. She engaged the male clients of indoor sex workers in the support of outdoor survival sex workers by both educating them about the survival workers' often violent work and life experiences and enabling them to act on their concern by donating money. As my coworker pointed out, for most of the history of sex worker support organizations, the (mostly male) clients have been missing from the equation of how to make things more safe.

Since hearing this woman talk about her fear which was so intense that she felt sick, while at the same time detailing the hundreds of dollars she and her coworkers raised that night, i've started thinking about all the things I don't do, every day, because I'm afraid, and how not one of them quite stacks up to this woman's defiance of her own fear in support of someone else whose poverty was "unacceptable" to her. So I'm going to write, and hopefully you, invisible readers, will have something to say about it; it has become ridiculous to me that there's anything that I don't do because of fear.

The name of this page comes from bell hooks; she says that "It's in the act of having to do things that you don't want to that you learn something about moving past the self. Past the ego." I'm really into that idea, moving past our narcisism and navel-gazing (my own, as much as anything) into conversation and acts that move things forward and make tangible change.

thanks for reading.