I've been stuck at home sick all week. As well as feeling completely dreadful, this means I've earned exactly zero moneys from my sex work job, and also that I'm down one week of time at the Whoreganisation. That's going to set me back quite some way in the things that need to be done this month, and I'm not happy about it.
Still, I managed to spend more time out of bed today than I'd managed on previous days, and I've been eating things that aren't considered pharmaceuticals. The wonderful comments left on my interview at Renee's have me smiling, so I feel a bit encouraged to blog.
A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I was trying to write a "day in the life" type of entry. Of course, it being MY life, the days are wildly different, so it was more "four days in the life". It was originally intended to be a look at the differences between my work days, but coincidentally lined up with a week I was suffering some really crippling depression, and got some bad news I was unable to deal with. Oddly enough, this makes it a more accurate peep into a week in the life of hexy.
I've wrestled with the idea of posting it, honestly. It makes me feel a little vulnerable to post something like this, rather than a post that is me ranting about something, on an open blog. But hey, sharing is friendly.
I think this was three weeks ago, maybe four. I didn't actually write down the dates as I thought I'd be posting at the end of the week I took notes for.
MONDAY
12:22AM Get home from Sunday nightshift at SW job. Bitch at R about shitty night in which I only earned $25. Begin note-taking for this entry.
12:32AM Take off makeup. R is attempting to fix my laptop, with minimal success. Attempt to help, even though "hardware" is a language I do not speak.
12:43AM Drag frustrated R away from computer. Feed bunny. Take meds. Sleep.
8:30AM Woken up by R leaving the house, try to get back to sleep.
11:00AM Wake up again. Am now late for work. Shower, throw on clothes, feed bunny, chew on a piece of toast as I run out the door, throw my clothes into the laundromat and run for the bus. Just make it onto bus.
11:55AM Arrive at work. Chat, make tea, apply make up (hereafter referred to semi-affectionatly as "whore paint")
12:20PM Check email: one booking, then a cancellation of the same booking. Sigh.
12:40PM Client comes in. Dress, meet client. Client walks out without seeing anyone. Remove corset, boots, etc.
1:15PM One of my co-workers does a lunch run.
1:50PM Eat lunch. Read things on the internet to kill time.
2:30PM Finally some work, although not much. Dress, head upstairs to do a brief cameo on someone else's session. When I come downstairs, I realise it's raining. Not likely to help business. Remove corset, boots, etc.
2:45PM Client arrives. Dress, meet. He doesn't see me. Remove corset, boots, etc.
3:32PM Read the Sydney Morning Herald.
4:15PM Disturbing group conversation with co-workers about enema art. Engage in some light gossip.
4:30PM Look at pictures of a co-worker's kids. Boss shows up to discuss some new equipment, new softer vibes requested by some of the workers who use them in session.
4:47PM Take booking for 6:30
4:55PM Client arrives. Dress, meet. He doesn't see me. Remove corset, boots, etc.
5:10PM Hungry. Don street clothes, go to the shop for a small, cheap snack.
6:30PM Booking arrives. Dress, meet client to discuss session, go into booking.
7:40PM Emerge from booking. Remove corset, boots, etc. Clean room. Watch So You Think You Can Dance Australia verdict show.
7:45PM Receive an SMS about an article for the Whoreganisation magazine.
8:10PM Realise I've hurt my back during the session I did. Swear loudly, hope it isn't too bad.
8:30PM Watch Good News Week, half packing up in preparation for hometime.
9:00PM Surprise booking! Dress, meet client, go into booking.
9:30PM Emerge from booking, clean room, head home.
9:50PM Eat grapes, take off whore paint, jump on internet.
11:06PM Take painkillers and muscle relaxant for now quite painful back. Cross fingers for less pain in morning.
11:30PM Feed bunny, take meds, get into bed.
Yes, I put my boots and corset on and take them off many times in a day.
All that free time reading, watching telly, and killing time online sounds lovely, doesn't it? Such a shame I only get paid for time actually doing sessions.
TUESDAY:
9:00AM Wake up, shower, dress, grab toast, feed bunny, realise my back is still seizing, leave house.
10:06AM Catch bus. Slightly less running than yesterday, still a close thing. I really need to work on my punctuality.
10:20AM Arrive at work. Apply whorepaint. Make a cup of tea and grab the work laptop. Check mail, no bookings.
11:45AM Client arrives. Not for me. Take painkillers.
12:01PM Phone session. Spend twenty minutes on phone to client.
12:21PM Back on laptop.
1:10PM Client arrives, seeking a submissive. Dress, meet client. He doesn't see me. Undress, back on laptop.
1:25PM Email a SW friend who is writing some text content for my website with the briefs of the content I need.
1:45PM Go on lunch run.
2:23PM Break a nail. Swear loudly. Having had a slow week, I was hoping to put off getting my nails done until next week, but clearly they have other plans.
2:36PM Settle in with a trashy magazine.
2:55PM Client arrives. Dress, meet, wants to see me. Has specific wardrobe request, I get changed and meet him in room.
4:00PM Out of session. Wait til client leaves, clean room. Return to trashy mag.
4:20PM Eat a piece of toast a co-worker makes me.
5:00PM Leave work. Am intending to go to the gym, but my mood is too flat and my back is too sore. I don't want to risk making my back worse and putting myself out of work for two weeks.
6:30PM Veg at home. I take more painkillers, then watch the episode of Heroes I downloaded the previous night.
7:45PM Make arrangements via email for an upcoming photoshoot, post on Facebook asking if anyone wants to model for the Life Drawing class R runs on Thursday night to fundraise for the local queer space.
11:00PM Secure model. Make facebook event for Life Drawing. Feed bunny, take meds, go to bed.
That's two of my three days at the Dungeon that week. It was a slow week, but at least I got some work done. My back and my brain both decided to pick on me at once, which is never fun.
The next two days are my Whoreganisation days for that week.
WEDNESDAY:
9:30AM Wake up late after shitty night's sleep. Shower, dress, run out door.
10:30AM Get to work late. Eat cereal grumpily.
10:47AM Check work email, set agenda for the day.
10:55AM Take delivery of our allotment of magazines from a SW organisation.
11:35AM Finally finish wading through work email. Start working on the three-monthly three-page slot in the Whoreganisation contributes to the magazines of the SW orgs that make up our membership.
12:12PM Have a snack of dumplings as the male sex work teleconference starts. Look after the phones while that's going on. Get back to the pages I was working on.
12:25PM Finish draft of pages. Print and hand over to boss. Move on to working on one of the mailouts I'm responsible for.
12:36PM Field call from a Qld woman trying to get in touch with her local SW org. Provide her with the number.
12:47PM Back is in agony. Take more painkillers. Lie on floor for five minutes. Answer confused query from co-worker about being on the floor.
1:10PM Send mailout to coworker to give a quick edit.
1:21PM Compose and email out to lists content call for our magazine.
1:50PM Send mailout to relevant lists. Message people on the Whoreganisation's Facebook group encouraging them to join said relevant mailing list.
2:14PM Begin work on magazine layout.
3:00PM Break for lunch.
3:35PM Scan the letter mentioned in this post from gay street press and send to mailing list. Admin tasks for the mailing list I'm responsible for.
3:51PM Return to work on magazine.
5:09PM Pages returned from boss with recommended changes. Make adjustments.
5:21PM Arrange a meeting with an outreach worker from the Hunter region for two weeks from now. Send pages back to boss with changes made for final approval.
5:30PM Leave work half an hour early due to doctor's appointment. Fortunately have time in lieu accrued from working late in previous weeks.
6:10PM Arrive at doctors. This is a doctor I haven't seen before. He's a fucking idiot. He fills my scripts in wrong, but I don't notice until later.
7:15PM Arrive at cafe where I am meeting some friends who have a standing Wednesday night coffee arrangement. Am not feeling OK. Have a snack, chat for a little while, mostly listen to other people talk and try to feel social.
9:30PM Arrive home. Check intertubes, complete write ups for my sex work journal.
11:00PM Conversation with a friend who is going through a rough patch. Makes me feel a little better to help.
11:45PM Feed bunny, take meds, get into bed. Cry for a while. Sleep.
There's beginning to be a sense that things aren't OK, isn't there?
THURSDAY:
Thursday would ordinarily have been a fairly similar day to Wednesday, except with different deadlines to try and meet. Alas, it was not to be. I overslept (I always do so when my depression is kicking my ass) and arrived late, feeling horribly glum. I got as far as finishing the epic work email check, when I got some bad news.
It wasn't anything truly catastrophic, but I just had no spoons left to deal. I broke down, crying, and after spending a good forty-five minutes shaking, crying and trying desperately to get back in control, I decided I had to go home. Fortunately for me, the Whoreganisation is understanding about such things, and my boss was sympathetic.
As I said at the beginning, this all happened a few weeks ago. I'm doing a bit better now. In the brain sense, there have been tears and gloom and scary moments and psychiatrist visits and medication adjustments and talks that are helpful. There's also been that horrible flu thing I had for the last week, which if nothing else distracted me by making me feel a very different kind of not-OK.
So. That's four examples of what "a work day" can mean in my world, give or take slower or busier work weeks and better or worse mental health. Aside from the ones I already know, like the Whoreganisation being awesomely understanding and flexible as an employer, I'm curious to know how familiar or alien bits of them are to those of you who read this. Although hopefully not in a "You're privileged NO YOU'RE PRIVILEGED" flame war kinda way.
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10 comments:
sorry, I only got to Monday 12:43AM - your bunny lets you get away with feedings given at past midnight???
Eh, no pressure to read the rest.
My little dude gets fed twice a day... pellets and hay in the morning when I wake up, and hay and greens at around midnight when I go to bed. He seems quite happy with that schedule, but then that's been more or less consistent the whole time I've had him. He actually gets indignant if I go into the bedroom or turn off the lights to watch a film at around that time and DON'T give him a snack. :)
my bunny thumps whenever I leave the kitchen WITHOUT food for him and then he binkies when I go back into the kitchen - he can hear me getting his food, the rattle of the pellets and like 4 sultanas, half a dried banana chip, a papaya treat and a pinch of rolled oats all in a quarter cup - his food takes more preparation than mine!
Ah... my bun's "room" is at the opposite end to our apartment to the kitchen. It's between the loungeroom and the bedroom, hence his indignation if I wander into the bedroom without providing snacks.
Weirdly enough, my bun rejects all the little treat foods that other people say their rabbits love. He won't eat papaya chips, doesn't like banana, and tips the strawberries and craisins out of his salads to get at the leaves underneath. Strange health-conscious little fuzzball! The other bun I used to have, his bonded companion Toon, LOVED treat foods.
well actually my bun goes through stages... he's in the "only loves pellets stage" now that's why I have to mix the papaya treat in! Usually he'd go through obstacles and even stands up on his toes to get to it! He went through a "crazy for asian vegies stage" but now vegies share the non-exitement of hay. he considers the livingroom, corridor, kitchen (strangely loves the laundry???) his territory. maybe that's why he seems so outgoing to visitors because they are "invading his territory" and he's just showing them who's boss... by chinning them hehe
My bun's turning six this year, and his favourite foods have remained pretty much constant: basil, spinach, green apples (fuck those red ones off!), celery, and a few other things.
The only noticeable change has been his opinion of mint: would not TOUCH it when it grew en masse in our front yard, but as soon as we moved and I had to pay for it, it became Delicious Snacky. :)
God the spoon ones, know that.
One thing I noted here that I am really glad of is that I have always been making some money per hour, it might have been shit, but I would never walk away with nothing, and that made a big difference to me.
Yes, the experience of showing up to work every night for a week and walking away with nothing (or minus the money you spent on transport and meals) can be incredibly discouraging... not to mention scary.
Hey, Hexy -- I definitely need to remember to read your blog more often. :)
As for what seems familiar and alien -- hmm. Your story about your boss letting you go home because you were crying reminded me of the time a boss of mine let me go home because I was really upset after having received some bad news -- I really appeciated having a boss like that, even though I really didn't like that particular job (retail). The whole taking off and putting on of a costume throughout a shift is alien to me, although I do know about "preparing a face to meet the faces that you meet" for work -- even though, when I worked in retail, it didn't require me to wear makeup and my uniform was pretty generic, there was always this sense of putting on a mask whenever I was talking to a customer -- but it was usually the same mask every time, there wasn't really an expectation for me to adjust my performance in relation to specific customers -- the same blank smile for everyone.
Also, I've never had a job that's focused around appointments, and having to get other work done in between them. That's pretty alien to me.
As for the non-work aspects -- well, I don't have any pets, but yeah, I know the whole constantly-running-late-for-work, relaxing-with-internet-and-tv-shows-after-work, thing -- it's been a while, as I've been a full time student for a few years now (which is still work, but it feels different to something where you work shifts, etc) -- but yeah, I remember that feeling of coming home and being "not-at-work" (at least that's the sense I got from your post).
Beppie: Thanks for chiming in! I thought the whole dress/undress thing would seem a little odd to those who have never had a job where it's required. It did occur to me that there are non-sex work jobs where that's a feature... firefighters, for example... but to most people, you dress for work at the start of the shift and undress at the end!
I do slip happily into "not at work" mode once I get home. Even though it doesn't bother me as much as it used to, I still experience some agoraphobia and feelings of social anxiety. I can feel my stress levels drop the instant I walk into my house and know I don't have to leave again for some time.
Glad you're enjoying reading. With all these new people showing up, I should really remember to post more often!
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