One of those unexpected days. The kind you aren’t ready for, or won’t think you’ll have. The kind where you drive a road you used
to drive all the time and knew like handbacks and simple addition and now it seems so different, more open, more things built
along its boundaries. A day with family, familiar faces, and remembering who I am and where I come from–a reminder that I can
go anywhere I want to go from here, that I am loved and hopeful. That I can still handle driving in the snow, and certain paths will always be simple to trace with eyes closed.

Going back to where I came from in a few days. I prepare to go with a project in mind–I’ll steal a few moments alone here
and there to make use of the rental and drive around my old town. Documentation for research purposes is one way to say it. Feelings
range from place to place–affection for some and a throat-full of bile for others. The visual is just a map back to how things
felt, cul de sac pockets in the brain, the hard-to-reach curved corner of the hippocampus. Then I will print them out, clothesline them over the writing desk and get to work.

Ink idea is the works for Jessica, my exquisite first roommate. I feel compelled to do something for her, in thought of her.
Ever since I found out about her murder, I haven’t been quite thesame. I think about her often. I’ve been in touch with our other roommate,
as she found out about Jess just as recently.We’ve taken to trading our stories back and forth, reminding each other of things forgotten which is the most precious & strange
thing–for someone to tell you so clearly about something you never remembered. Then, there. It’s back as if never gone. There
connection is key for me in dealing with Jessica’s death. It’s also pretty brilliant to have an old friend give you a lengthy
run down on their life and what they’ve been through over the past 8 years. That is exactly what we did for one another–the
summations are asymmetric, as significance is weighed differently in retrospect. In a way, we are talking about another lifetime,
or multiple ones with clumsy progressions. Anyway, it’s been nice to talk with someone who was there. It’s kind of like saying
“this happened and we lived through it.”

More thoughts, always more thoughts, but sleep summons me. Work was long and busy, and my therapy session cracked the
head and heart open. And some things are best when they are stirred up then reabsorbed into the body.

December 17th(today) is the international day to end violence against sex workers.

To check out gatherings today in/near your city, click here

Stopping the Terror: A Day to End Violence Against Prostitutes
by Annie Sprinkle

In 2003 “Green River Killer” Gary Ridgeway confessed to having strangled ninety women to death and having “sex” with
their dead bodies.

He stated, “I picked prostitutes as victims because they were easy to pick up without being noticed. I knew they would
not be reported missing right away and might never be reported missing. I picked prostitutes because I thought
I could kill as many of them as I wanted without getting caught.”

Sadly, some Seattle area prostitutes, their boyfriends or pimps, knew the Green River Killer was Gary Ridgeway for years.
But they were either afraid to come forward for fear of being arrested themselves, or when they did come forward the
police didn’t believe them over the “upstanding family man” Gary Ridageway. It seemed as though the police weren’t
working very hard to find the Green River Killer. If the victims had been teachers, nurses or secretaries or other
women, I suspect–as Ridgeway did– that the killer would have been caught much sooner. Ridgeway remained at
large for twenty years.

From working as a prostitute myself for two decades I know that violent crimes against sex workers often go unreported,
unaddressed and unpunished. There are people who really don’t care when prostitutes are victims of hate crimes, beaten,
raped and murdered. They will say:

“They got what they deserved.”
“They were trash.”
“They asked for it”
“What do they expect?”
“The world is better off without those whores.”

No matter how people feel about sex workers and the politics surrounding them, sex workers are a part of our
neighborhoods, communities and our families and always will be. Sex workers are women, trans people and men of all shapes,
sizes, colors, ages, classes and backgrounds who are working in the sex industry for a wide range of reasons.
Many of us are out and proud, and spend a lot of time trying to explain to the public that we freely choose our
work and we are not “victims.” But the truth is, some of us have been, or will become, real victims of rape, robbery and horrendous crimes.

When Ridgeway got a plea bargain in 2003, he received a life sentence in exchange for revealing where his victims’
bodies were thrown or buried. As the names of the (mostly 17- to 19-year old) victims, were disclosed, I felt a need to
remember and honor them. I cared, and I knew other people cared, too.

So I contacted Robyn Few, the founder of the Sex Worker Outreach Project (SWOP) based in San Francisco and we
made December 17th as the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers. We invited people everywhere to
conduct memorials and vigils in their countries and cities. Robyn co-produced an open-mike vigil on the lawn of San Francisco’s City Hall.

Since 2003, each year hundreds of people in dozens of cities around the world have participated in this day to end
violence– from Montreal where people marched with red umbrellas, to protests against police brutaility in Hong Kong,
a candlelight vigil in Vancouver, a memorial ritual in Sydney, a dance to overcome pain and traum in East Godavery,
India. More events are planned for 2008, the sixth year of the event.

The concept for the International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers is simple. Anyone can choose a place and
time to gather, invite others to gather and share their stories, writings, thoughts, poems, and memories of victims,
related news and performances. Or people can do something personal, alone at home, such as lighting a candle or
taking a ritual memorial bath. We encourage discussions among friends, by email, on blogs. People are encouraged to
list their events at the SWOP website so others can attend them, and to share the power of their actions. People can
also participate by making a donation to a group that helps sex workers by teaching them about dangers and how to best
survive. Two such non-profits are St. James Infirmary and AIM Healthcare.

Had another roller coaster dream last night. It happens every now and then, more often than I realize–a dream about
waiting in line, pointing out their curves and loops to others, getting in, and riding one, hanging on. Always hanging on,
warning my passenger as we ascend that I almost always fall out. I put both elbow bends up under the bar and push
against the pull, and that’s how I woke up this morning–arms in two L-shapes, fists clenched up, laughing. I woke up
in the middle of a drop and I was still laughing about it.

Officially, the semester is over. I had a stressful ending–the stomach flu found me on the very last day(Monday), when
both of my final projects were due. I spent the day puking and worrying about getting my work in on time. Everything
turned out okay and the sickness backed off by evening. The queasiness is sticking around but it’ll pass. br>

The migraines have been a bit better–I do believe this medication is working to a degree. I’m going to pick up some
magnesium supplements and riboflavin(Vitamin B2) as well–both appear to help with head pain. I’m working on an
apppointment with the headache clinic here at Pitt–neurologist, more tests, more trying things. I’m also applying for intermittent
FMLA to protect my job, since the migraines put me in a position to always be running out of sick time. FMLA will give me
the extra day or two per month just in case. It isn’t something I want to do, but my options aren’t exactly limitless.

Next week, I head to Ohio to spend the holiday with the family. I’m looking forward to the drive–I’ve been traveling so
little lately and I’m really getting antsy about it. Starting to daydream about exit ramps, road signs, beaches, bodies
of water. Part of me feels ridiculously bored with my routine, and a bit burned out by the semester. I have a lot of reading,
cleaning, writing, creating to catch up on. A lot of life to catch up on…that feels most appropriate to say.

Bends of my lip ripped and broken, I think of you. The smooshed together word parts of you, the poetry and pacing–box fan
hollers of a room living. Ships in the middle of sinking, as if waves are parenthesis. I pause here. I read the ones I remember,
follow their entrails along the ocean floor. Most of it rotting away, pecked at by curious gill-keepers and less affectionate
outcasts with drag-drop arms. Sharks find your kind poison(or maybe one of their own) and stay a distance worth noting.
Bathing beauties smoke cigarettes around midnight when the moon is up and lantern-like–all wet headed young-20’s stare drunk
and start confessing(one gazes long and empty at the other, “Are you even inhaling?”).

You are this. Or a crate lost in the woods. A film left on in the abandoned blue, a dead body before you–anything dead or
dying. Veins that smell and act like trashcans, their pinpricked mouths work out the needlepoint. A jar, some bottles, a squat,
a dream–traveling failure. A neighborhood in darkness. Bruised father(barely), hugging funk to your middle and losing limbs
every time you turn around.

Access to Life is a collaboration between the Global Fund and Magnum Photos–eight photographers shoot 30 people in 9
different countries before & after antiretroviral treatment for AIDS.

Massaman Keïta, 31 and Fatoumata Camara, 20 (Farmers)
Read more about their story here

Igor Tereshenko, 24 (construction worker), St. Petersburg, Russia

Like many among the “lost generation” of young Russians cast adrift into an insecure future after the collapse
of the Soviet Union, Igor, former construction worker, was a heroin addict. He knew he had been infected by a dirty needle,
but wasn’t sure when, and found out that he was HIV-positive in 2003, while in prison serving a three-year term for
stabbing one of two men who had attacked his wife on the street. (In a sad postscript, his wife was murdered the day
before Igor was released from prison.) Igor remained healthy for years after his diagnosis but contracted pneumonia
in early 2007. Then, in the summer of 2007, he became paralyzed from the waist down after injecting heroin. At the St.
Petersburg Municipal AIDS Center, doctors told him he had suffered a spinal injury of some sort (Igor claimed the ambulance
team had beaten him up). The condition forced him to lie motionless, leading to the development of massive bed sores.
In fact, doctors discovered he was suffering from a cancerous tumor. Igor’s parents were both strongly supportive. His
mother became a cleaner at the hospital, which enabled her to sleep in his room at night and provide constant care.

Igor has begun antiretroviral therapy four months before his death on March 18, 2008, from cancer. Although he had made
excellent progress with relatively high CD4 count (his immune system had strengthened) and an undetectable viral load, his
doctors decided to discontinue his ARV treatment when they realized that he would soon die from his inoperable spinal tumor.

View more photos from the collection and read individual stories here.
Select individual countries to watch a narrated photo essay for every location. Extremely powerful stuff.

Eating an apple a day, the green ones if I have the choice. I have to spin it around in my palm a couple times before diving
in. I gnaw my way to the carpels while considering the term “apple rootstock.” I quickly decide that I like it.

After I make it through another bad migraine, I tend to declare myself as being “back among the living,” as that is exactly
what it feels like. Weak like a newborn but thankful just to be sitting upright and out of that ridiculous limbo-like fog that
hovers between pain and relief, awake and asleep. Last night I thought about how little I make this pain thing a subject/source
of my writing–I do this barely, if at all, yet it’s the big blindspot in my existence that I carry around day in and day out. As
much as I do not want this to define me, it plays a big part in the kind of person I am, the one I’ve had to grow into being(a little
more cautious, observant, sober–somebody who no longer apologizes for having to leave the party early).

In terms of writing about it: avoidance on purpose? Hardly. Well, I take that back. Here, in the realm of “blogging,” yes–I
avoid it on purpose because(as I’ve expressed to a close friend), I feel like I talk about it too much already, and nobody wants
to hear it. The last thing I want is a “pity me, please” type of misunderstanding. Quite the contrary. When I talk about it,
I want those I know to perhaps understand it a little better. Also, I want someone to relate to this(certainly, most certainly,
I do). Chronic pain sucks in a very specific way–I think it changes how you greet the world and the world greets you. So,
again: why am I not writing about this?

Truth? I don’t know. I have no idea. Perhaps it is because I deal with it on the daily and the last thing I want to do is get
creative about the hardest thing I’ve ever had to (consistently) deal with. Which is the most absurd reasoning because
I do believe the best way I can cope with this currently is by getting creative. I also think that I see it as my weakness,
my downfall, and I struggle with exposing that to others. I guess it’s twofold. 1: Creatively, I tend not to think about it
because I deal with it so much already and 2: I’m a big scaredycat wimp. The best news is that I’m willing to change this,
that I want to change this–at the very least it will provide me with another way to cope, to survive.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what I do not write about these days, mainly because my extracurricular writings have
squealed nearly to a halt. I write for class and that’s been my story for the past month or two. Sending work out for publication
consideration? Yes. Scribbling down new lines & such? Not really. I feel like the autumn involved a lot of internal things–
work and thoughts, maintenance and questions–I find it impossible to write in the thick of it.

I’m still feeling quite a bit disturbed by the news of Jessica’s murder, too. Thoughts of her make me crave writing again, and
writing for the right reason/the only reason: because it is what I do and what I love, and there is no need to question
it or feel isolated or abandoned by it. May it never leave. May I always think of those nights at the apartment with Jess,
when she listened to me read new poems, when she offered feedback and support and her own work in return. The
next book will be formed soon, and the next book will be for her.

Other odds & ends: I’m three months sober. If it’s gonna be a long haul I pregame with the french press and sip on shirley
temples at the bar. I spent my first Thanksgiving alone ever. Just me and the cat, which was strange. The air had that specific
stillness to it that happens on holidays because your mind thinks that stillness into existence–the air is air like any other
non-holiday but we turn it into something significant. I certainly did; sitting on my back porch in the chilly air, staring at the
busted up clouds above me. I had cold spaghetti and brussel sprouts that day, enjoyed the thickness of solitude and stayed
in my long johns until it was time to go to bed again. I go back to the doctor in just under two weeks, and begin seeing
another one soon. More waiting rooms on lunch breaks but that’s okay. The medication seems to be working, though there is always more work to be done.