​For all the essence of me that I love, I also vilely hate myself. Hate is such a strong word. I don’t even like using it. But how else can I explain the part of me that views itself through the lens of the disease that causes such disorder in my life. 

That part of me is LOUD. 
And it never shuts up.

Take this morning as I was at the gym, for example. 

Full disclosure, I LOVE being active. I but I do NOT love gyms. (#twotruthscoexisting) I’m constantly asked about the hours I spend at the gym, or my so-called workout routine that I religiously adhere to. Only I don’t do those things. 

I’ve never claimed to be a gym rat and I rarely lift above 20lbs of weight IF I even use the weights at all! 

No shade to those who do; I just don’t believe repetitive motion exercises are helpful to my sense of well-being. I like functional training, and activities that are related to my lifestyle. In fact, I only use the gym facilities due to weather. 

My preference is to be outside. 

I love taking long walks through cities or countrysides - doesn’t matter which. I’ll put on headphones and dance down by the edges of oceans or lakes, or in parks, or even in parking lots. 

Yes, I am that crazy girl you’ve seen dancing on the rooftop of a parking structure in the middle of a rainstorm - simply because it felt good.

But I just came from the land of winter, in which I had managed to hurt my foot by falling on ice and snow. For months it had been cold and dreary; unlike the previous two winters I had experienced in upstate New York. In which I could remain happily outside for long walks as long as I bundled up. But this one was brutal.

Then, as my time in New York drew to a close, I went from that chilly reality, directly into the heat of the desert and +100ºF sunshine beating down on me. I love warmth, but this is a bit much for this little summer-born baby.

Furthermore, where I am now on an extended work trip, is NOT a walkable city. 

Sure there is hiking. But temperatures are already excessive by 9am. I don’t want to be the next statistically inevitable headline on the 6 o’clock news - “female hiker rescued after wandering off trail by accident”. The desert, as beautiful as it is, all looks the same to me on the attempts to hike that I made while out here in the past.

So for this trip, I joined a private gym where I could use the treadmill, TRX, and some light weights in peace without broskis secretly filming me on their phones while I move around generally oblivious, but not always, to their intrusive and violating behaviors. 

(Yes, I have been covertly filmed more than once. And when I have confronted the offenders upon discovery, they couldn’t understand why I wasn’t flattered by the attention. “You’re so cute’, one told me when I asked him to delete the video. “I had to text my friends about the girl working out in front of me.” Apparently he had already sent it in a group chat…which he proudly showed me…sigh…)

Gyms really are my least favorite places. 

But I find them to be necessary evils to help expend some of the hyperactivity that keeps my body in a perpetual state of motion. As someone who also believes in functional training and the importance of good form, I unhappily find myself looking in the mirror while at gyms…a lot.

And it sucks. 
Like this morning. 

The evidence of my normal eyes sees a girl with a semi fit body, toned abs, and strong legs, going through a steady routine of movements designed to train my balance and fluidity of motion.

But that vision of myself quickly morphs in front of my eyes. Within seconds I no longer see the reality of that girl in the mirror. Instead the anorexic brain kicks in, and the mirror magically mutates into something you might see in a not-so-funny “fun house” at a carnival. 

I’m fat. 
So very very fat. 

I can pinch my skin anywhere on my body and repulse myself with the amount of flesh between my fingers. Those legs of mine that men seem to drool over at the club, suddenly appear to be barrels holding up a squat ugly troll.

On stage, I feel strong and powerful. 
A being designed to dance through life. 

In real life, my brain is recreating the image of me into something grotesque. Unlovable. Unworthy. And certainly not deserving of food.

Two truths. 

Truth number 1: I’m actually not overweight at all. 

Truth number 2: I am currently at a weight higher than I’m comfortable being, but well within the range of normal - according to all guidelines that I obsessively research online. Nowhere near the high end of the range.

But truths do not matter when it comes to the disorder that lives within my body.

“You’ve gained 15lbs this winter.” It’s interesting how the anorexic brain speaks to me as though I am separate from it. As though it cannot even stand to claim me as part of itself.

As I said, it’s true. 
I did gain some weight this winter.

And, it’s also true, that now that I’ve resumed my usual activities, it’s already rapidly coming off. 

The weight gain itself wasn’t due to anything harmful. It was a combination of trying to eat “normal” portions of food, because eating at all is a chore that I try to avoid, AND being much less active than usual due to my injury and the weather. 

Yet my doctors would probably be thrilled to see me at this weight. Last year I had been discussing with my therapist whether I would need to find a way to fund an outpatient program for the disease that has plagued me since I was a kid. 

But this wasn’t me gaining weight as a result of conquering the disorder. This was against my will. Due to injury. And thus a failure of sorts.

At least that’s what the angry voice in my head likes to say. 

“Clumsy girl who can’t even go for a walk without hurting herself.” Never mind the ice and snow and the un-shoveled sidewalks. No, I must have willed myself to get hurt, and therefore used the injury as an excuse to “let myself go”.

Let’s pause here for a moment. 

Something you may not know about me is that I find my fellow humans incredibly beautiful. Not just a certain type of person, not just one who fits whatever is the acceptable conventions society subscribes to today, but ALL peoples. In all shapes, sizes, colors, abilities. I see them as stunning in their beauty.

I just can’t seem to apply that outlook to myself. 

So when I talk about myself as being “obese”, I’m not fat-shaming. I’m Tink-shaming. Because it doesn’t matter what the scale says, even at my most dangerously skinny…

I’m…
TOO…
Big…

And taking up space has always been a dangerous concept. 

Because existing leads to being noticed. 
Being noticed leads to expectations that I never agreed to. 

Which inevitably leads to failures in living up to these expectations. And consequently, punishment. Verbal. Physical. Psychological. It doesn’t matter. It all hurts.

The pattern has become so ingrained in me, written into my DNA perhaps, that I no longer need an outsider initiating the cycle. I now do it to myself. 

That’s right, I no longer need my abusers to tell me how I’ve disappointed them. I can recite the speeches by heart. They don’t have to inflict the pain anymore. I’ve become so accustomed to it, I’m not sure how to exist without it.

Once upon a time, in the past couple years, there was a point where I thought I was healing. 

And so I gave myself permission to enter into a romantic partnership again. With a “nice guy”. He praised me for who I am, thrived on the attention I always seem to attract (not intentionally, just by existing with a smile). He told me he loved me, and asked to be involved in all aspects of my life. 

Including my public one. 

I don’t usually present my private life, in my public spaces. Being as open as I am about the untraditional life I lead as an adult entertainer, a gypsy nomad, and a free spirit, leads to me attracting a lot of attention online AND in person.

So keeping my romantic life private, was one area that felt sacred to me. A part of me in the chaos of life that I could keep just for myself. 

In hindsight, I should have realized that he pushed for us to be publicly recognized because HE desired the limelight. Instead I (naively) thought he was proud and excited to be with me. 

Big mistake.

Because when the spotlight of my life, didn’t give him the outcome of attention he wanted, he became verbally cruel. But only when drunk. Which in his small town routine that he had created, was multiple times a week. 

At first I gaslit myself and made excuses. He was just drunk. People don’t mean what they say when drunk.

Only they do. 
They always do.

I finally confronted him about it. He claimed to not remember what he said. But when he realized that his denial could cause him to lose his hold on me, he promised to change his behavior. 

Promises are only helpful when they remain unbroken. He quickly started drinking again. And so did his cruelty. Which he once again claimed not to remember.

But I did. 

And since his words echoed all the horrible things I had been told in the past, it only reinforced my long held belief that I shouldn’t take up space. So I became smaller. In the hopes that people would notice HIM more, and not me, when we were out. 

It didn’t work.
It never does.

The smaller I got, the more I was noticed. And praised. For my beauty. My sexiness. My fit body. 

I was literally trying not to exist, and the irony was that, for society, I was more visible than ever. 

The good news is that I am no longer in that relationship. And for the past 10 months, I’ve done a lot of hard work to heal from that experience. I’m confident that I won’t repeat the errors in judgment I made when I agreed to be his partner.

But the roots of the disorder are far more entrenched than that experience from a year ago. They started as a child, and I’ve been told, will possibly keep their clutches in me for my entire life.

An exhausting thought.

Truly, it’s a daily battle that most don’t know exist behind the genuine smile with which I greet the world. There IS hope however. 

Take today for instance. 

I looked at the fun house version of myself in that gym mirror, and knew it wasn’t real. It was a mirage caused by the disease, distorting my image. I closed my eyes. Took a few deep breaths. Opened my eyes.

The fake image STILL remained, but it’s hold on my sense of self-worth didn’t. So I completed my workout. Went back to where I was staying. Made myself a beautiful meal of oranges and couscous. 

I’d love to tell you that was the end of it for today. 
That I had won the victory over the disorder for a few hours. 

But life doesn’t wrap up as simply as a movie. And the disorder continued it’s attack on my existence by telling me I didn’t deserve the simple healthy meal I had eaten. 

So I fought back. Showered. Took myself to the library, where I find myself now, to write out about the war that may forever rage within me. 

I can almost feel your confusion at this point. “But where’s the hope?”, you might ask. “You just said there was hope.”

It’s here.
In these very words you’re reading now.

Because by sharing with you, my dear community, the truth of the disease that I deal with daily, I am giving validity to the parts of me it hasn’t ravaged yet. 

Anorexia’s power lies in the fact that it wants to destroy the part of me that the world sees, but I haven’t let it eat away the part of me the world doesn’t see.

And by letting that not-so-pretty part of me be seen by you, I’m giving you my word that I’ll never stop fighting the disease.

Two truths:

Truth no. 1: Living with anorexia is truly ugly - a constant battle of wills.
Truth no. 2: I am worth fighting for.

Sending out love and light, for all who are battling wars we don’t see. 

Xoxo
Tink

​I knew this was a dream after all, and perhaps my brain was simply trying to substitute something more attractive than what my real memories knew to be fact. That my own dad was a decent enough man, who I witnessed many times being wildly angry - though hardly ever at me. 

He didn’t have to be. Plenty of others directed their anger at me instead. But I digress. 

In the dream, we walked into a tiny diner. 
A rectangle counter ran the length of it. 

The man behind the counter was tall, blonde, wore glasses. He had a fairly ordinary face, and a long dirty apron that he wiped his large hands on. He reminded me of those men who grace the billboards of political parties - extremely photogenic, yet unremarkable in features, and lacking substance behind the eyes.

He leaned across the counter. 
Too far across.
Further than should have been possible. 

His smile was more of a sneer as he looked me up and down. He licked his lips before asking “What can I get you little lady? What is it you want?” And then he winked at me.

The shop seemed cold - despite the fact that the dream was taking place in the heat of summer. I shivered and tried to step behind the man playing the part of my father. But he didn’t allow me to hide safely behind his presence. 

Instead he pushed me in front of him. “She’s shy,” he said to the man. (I’m not.) To me he said, “Answer him hunny. The man asked you a question. You’re being rude.”

I stumbled into the counter, my hands splaying across the top. The shopkeeper leaned over, grabbed a hand, and said “Aren’t you ready to order dear?”

I quickly ordered the two hot dogs - one for my bogus dad with the works, the second one for me just plain. Dog and bun. No sauce. I was flustered by the fact that the man behind the counter still had a grip on my hand. But I spoke very clearly on the next part. 

“I can’t have mayo. It makes me physically sick. I think I’m allergic to it.”

My faux father patted me on the shoulder, and chuckled. “See that wasn’t so hard.” The shopkeeper also laughed and finally released my hand. His unwanted touch left a clammy sheen on my palm. I searched for a napkin to wipe it off.

“What a good little obedient girl you have there! And so delicate!” He winked at me again. I felt queasy.

Quickly, in the blink of an eye, he passed a fully loaded hot dog across the counter for my fictitious father. 

And then…

He carefully and deliberately took a new paper plate, put a sad little hot dog onto the bun, and tuned a bottle of mayonnaise upside down, pouring it on. He then passed the oozing mess straight across the counter to me.

The bile rose in my throat. 

“This isn’t what I ordered. I said I can’t have mayo.” My words came fast, and my face felt hot. 

The shopkeeper tilted his head. “I’m sure what you said was that you wanted only mayo, and extra at that.”

My heart started pounding in my chest. Something was very wrong. A small part of me kept thinking, “just wake up, just wake up, this is a stupid dream, so just wake up.” Yet I couldn’t. And so I turned to the man playing the role of a father figure.

“Daddy? This isn’t what I ordered? Tell him?” Sentences which should be statements were said like questions. Embarrassment flooded my face with shame. 

“I don’t know hunny. Are you sure it’s what you ordered? Maybe you said it wrong.” He patted me on the head.

“What? You were right here!” I was angry, annoyed, and flabbergasted. Suddenly though, pseudo-dad seemed to grow, tower over me.

“You don’t speak to your father like that!” His words were directed to me, but his eyes cut back to the man behind the counter. Like this was some kind of show for his benefit. The shopkeeper nodded at him. 

“If you don’t like what you asked for, then you’ll just have to ask him to remake it for you. And he doesn’t have to do it, if you don’t speak sweetly enough. I’m going outside to eat. Hurry up.”

He turned and left. “Dad, wait…” 

More people came in, pushing between me and my fraudulent father who stalked out of the shop. I was stuck now. The smell of sweaty people was overwhelming in the tiny space. A hand grabbed my shoulder, and the shopkeeper’s voice spoke impossibly close to my ear considering the countertop between us.

“Ask nicely, and I’ll remake it for you.”

My head hurt. I knew what I had ordered. I just wanted to leave. “No, it’s okay, I’m not hungry.” I tried to shrug off his hand, but he clawed on tighter. 

“I said ask nicely, and I’ll give you want you want.” I started flailing trying to get away. But a sea of customers now blocked me from the door. Angry faces. Hungry faces. 

“Would you just ask him already?” A man yelled. “You’re holding up the rest of us.” 

“No, it’s okay, I don’t want anything.” But the shopkeeper didn’t release his grip and now the crowd began to mutter. 

“Hurry up.” 
“Bossy bitch probably made some special request and then didn’t like what she got.” 
“Just do it already.”

I felt the bruise forming on my shoulder where the shopkeeper wouldn’t relinquish his grasp. But it lightened when he felt me start to turn around. I kept my eyes lowered. 

The conscious part of me started to stir again, but I still didn’t wake up. 

Softly I asked, “Please may I have a plain hot dog. No sauce. No mayo.” 

The shopkeeper laughed. Tucked a sly finger under my chin. “Maybe if you give me a smile, I will. Such a pretty girl should be smiling.”

He walked away to re-make my order. At least, that’s what I thought he was doing. But instead he began slinging out other orders. More helpers walked in. And in all the confusion, I tried to slip out. 

It was impossible to move. The mob kept pressing me against the counter. So I asked the other workers for my order, thinking if I got it, the crowd would see that and let me leave. But the staff yelled at me “wait” or “he’s getting it for you, I have to help others”, and “why are you being so pushy”. They turned and left me there, feeling alone in a crowd of customers.

I attempted to leave again, but was crushed by the swell of people. My ribcage jammed into the front of the counter. It’s sharp edges sliced through my shirt.

A small part of me thought that surely my phony parent would come in to save me. He wouldn’t just leave me to deal with this scary situation on my own! He was my dad! It was his duty to protect me! Wasn’t it?

But the conscious part of me sighed. “Did he ever?”

Time passed in the dream. And with a start I realized I had been there for so long, people were now handing me their trash and telling me to take their remains and be grateful. Yet still no one would let me leave. 

I saw the shopkeeper watching me with a grin from the back of the shop. “Should have taken what I gave you happily, and you wouldn’t have been stuck here.” He winked, pus oozing from his eyes, and his teeth now yellowed and sharp like fangs. “Guess you’re stuck now.” 

He picked up a backpack and left.

My false father appeared at my side. “I’ve been waiting for you this whole time. Can’t you even handle something so simple like an order? Let’s go.” 

Miraculously, the crowd parted for him. 
We left. 

I felt ashamed as we walked out. I felt dirty from the grease in the shop, and the shopkeeper’s hands touching me. My dad looked at me disgusted. 

“Worthless girl”. He pushed me to the ground. “Hungry? It’s your own fault you never ate. You should have behaved better.” He turned and walked away, quickly, before I could even pick myself up from the ground.

Something inside me broke. I screamed.
And then, I finally woke up.

The dream ended.
Reality though, was still here to be faced.

Now I’m sure all my armchair psychologists out there will have a field day with this dream. “Freudian much?”, they’ll laugh at the imagery of the hot dog. 

But the dream was never about the hot dog. 

In fact, the only reason I think the hot dog appeared was because of a conversation I just had with a dear friend who likes to try hot dogs every place she travels. So that particular food was on my mind last night before bed, when I made up my mind to try one in the state I just arrived in the day before.

So no, the dream wasn’t some sexual longing for an appendage I wasn’t born with. 

The hot dog was exactly was it is. 
A silly rather innocent food. 

The kind of food that often brings out a child-like delight. It’s messy and fun, and can be made a million different ways. It’s acceptable to have a favorite topping method. Or to have no topping at all.

The hot dog really was just a hot dog. 
But the dream WAS a nightmare. 
And a rather sinister one at that.

Have you figured it out?
If not, stay with me.

In the bluntest and simplest of analyses, the dream was about how we women have been bred and raised to be second class citizens subservient to men. 

And yet it was so much more.
It’s about every contradiction we have dealt with our whole lives.

We are told it’s okay to be empowered. To ask for what we want. But the moment we do we are ridiculed (“You’re being silly. Why would you like it like that?”), ignored (“You are just going to have to wait. I have other customers.”), gaslighted (“How can you not like mayo? Of course you do. Everyone likes it.”), or insulted (“Such a bitch. So demanding.”)

We are taught from a young age that we are to be nurturing, caring, loving, and kind. But we aren’t taught to expect those same things from others. 

In fact, we are lectured that these very qualities are adjectives for women’s roles, not men’s, and therefore we shouldn’t expect those same courtesies from them. Instead we are to excuse bad behavior, swallow our pride, and move on. 

Don’t believe me?
Look at the world we live in right here in the good ole U.S. of A.

The past ten years feel like an old VCR tape on rewind in which women’s rights are unraveled before our eyes. Yet we are told it’s no big deal, and to dismiss the evidence of what is happening. 

“You are fine,” they say. “Men are here to protect you. That’s our role. You are not in danger.” Yet in the dream my father figure left me alone with the “nice” man. Who had disrespected me right in front of him.

In real life, the men saying they are our protectors smile sweetly for cameras. Then, in the same breath, they claim that women being denied lifesaving procedures - and thus dying outside of ERs - isn’t happening. It’s fake news. 

Only it’s not. 
We women are being “disappeared” from history, and “un-alived” from reality. 

It’s no longer acceptable to even used the words “murdered”, “killed”, “raped”, “denied basic health care so we bleed out until we die” on social media. Supposedly its to promote decency and uphold community guidelines. But the truth is if we soften the words in doublespeak, it’s easier to refute the actuality of what is being done to us.

In fact, in 2026, women are no longer talked about as “people”. We are objectified and dehumanized. 

We have been reduced to a commodity. Our sole value bound to our bodies. Not even our whole bodies, just certain parts. Which apparently only exist to serve as pleasure toys for men, and incubators for future “citizens”. 

Social media is overrun with men who harangue us publicly, while saying that it’s our womanly duty to submit to men. Woman, they jeer, exist solely for their benefit. And then they rape us, abuse us, make decisions that harm us, and tell us their actions are “all for the future of posterity”. 

It sounds bad. 
Horrifying really. 
And yet the reality is even worse than we can imagine. 

We women aren’t just human incubators, we are farm animals turning out the next generation of mindless soldiers, and ignorant masses. Who will in turn grow up to be worker ants for a society that cares as little for them, as the women who first popped them out, and then bled out on the operating table.

It won’t be long until doctors are taught that legally it is their duty to save the baby, not it’s “host”. We are on the path to this ideology now.

To say that I woke up scared would be an understatement. 

I knew I was dreaming. And yet I couldn’t get myself to wake up. Even as more people came into the shop and pressed me so hard into the counter that I saw blood seep through my shirt from the counter’s hard edges cutting into me.

It wasn’t just men in this nightmare. 

As women came into the shop, they asked why I was still at the front counter. Why I hadn’t been served yet. And when I told them, they rolled their eyes and said that I must have been rude to the man to get such treatment. Because he was obviously such a “nice man”, and it was such a popular shop. 

As they trapped me in a sea of people to the point I could no longer see the door, women pointed out that it was my fault for hating mayo. (It makes me vomit IRL.) So I should have just taken what I was given and swallowed it down with a smile. I should have been grateful he served me at all. 

It didn’t matter that I had been clear in my order for the food. I must not have said it sweetly enough they insisted. Perhaps I made a mistake in how I ordered. Maybe I didn’t speak loudly enough. 

But it doesn’t matter anyway, because he was the one IN CHARGE, and gave me what I really wanted, they said. After all, why would he have intentionally done something to make me sick? 

No, it wasn’t possible for this good man to have done that. 
So it must have been me. 

And surely I would stop saying such lies, because if I didn’t, I would ruin the reputation of this man’s shop. I didn’t want the responsibility for that, did I?

It’s funny how such a nonsense dream can be so connected to real life. 

The first time I was assaulted, I went to a woman to report it. I was young. Really young. Scared. She was a trusted authority figure. And she was not helpful.

Her initial response? She told that I must have done something wrong to have provoked the behavior. I vehemently denied that I had done anything to the man. 

So then she told me that I must have secretly wanted it. So I acted in a way to provoke him.

What a confusing moment for me. I was so little that I didn’t have an understanding of human sexuality and desires. How could I have wanted something that was years from even being on my radar? 

My body hurt.
What child ever wants someone to hurt her? 

I felt embarrassed and ashamed.
He had done things to my “private places”.
Places on my body I hadn’t been taught words for yet.
Places I was told must stay hidden from sight under my clothes.

She could see her logic didn’t convince me. So she said I must have been making it up because he was a "nice guy” and he would never do anything like that. 

Which was wild, because she also told me I was a nice girl. 
So why would I have made it up?

Finally, when that gaslighting tactic didn’t work, she declared that if I reported the man to authorities, I would ruin his future. And of course, I didn’t want to be responsible for that, right?

I was a little girl at the time. 
So I didn’t truly understand all that was being said to me. 

But I did comprehend that I was being told by a woman, that a man harming me was somehow my fault, and that if I told, I would ruin his life.

No one seemed to care that this incident might severely and negatively affect mine.

Years later when I was assaulted again, I kept quiet. When I finally did confide in someone, the same arguments were presented. Except this time, I was vilified for also not speaking up sooner. After all, if it had really happened, wouldn’t I have immediately reported it?

Damned if we do report it, damned if we don’t.
I’m an adult now, and the twisted logic hurts my head.

Make it stop.
Make the insanity stop.
For fuck’s sake, make it fucking stop.

Every day, women are assaulted. And every day, women are presented with this same runaround of “logic” damning us for our response to someone else choosing to violate our bodies. 

If we actually survive the assault that is.

It’s a calculated breakdown in our natural self-preservation instincts. Like a war tactic in which mind control is the endgame, we are first told we are here to serve. 

Then they teach us that it’s virtuous to be submissive and good. 

And finally we are instructed that the evidence of our memories, and the marks on our bodies, are not to be trusted. As if that isn’t enough, we are hit with the whammy of guilt to hold us down. Because if we speak up, we have ruined the lives of the people we are meant to serve. And we wouldn’t want that.

Only we do. 
We want justice.
We want safety.

We want to not feel frightened of strangers, let alone our partners and parents and siblings and friends and teachers and role models and the "nice guy” behind the counter who can’t fucking stop licking his lips and looking you up and down as he mumbles under his breath what he would do to you if only…

Victim shaming and blaming has gone on for far too long. 
So we try to speak up. 

We tell our stories.
We march in protest.
We fight to get laws changed.
We work harder than everyone else to prove we are worth standing up for.

We are not asking for men to protect us.
We are asking for men to stop hurting us.
We are literally demanding men to stop killing us.

And you hear us. 
You hear us, and you have the audacity to respond with this gag-worthy line:

“But it’s not ALL men.”

It’s an undeniable truth.
I literally cannot dispute the veracity of this claim. 

It is NOT all men. 
But it is ALWAYS men.

It is men making laws about bodies they know nothing about, which now leads to more women dying unnecessarily. We have politicians saying absurdities such as that no woman could ever be raped because her body shuts down when assaulted. (NOT true.)

They’ve martyred a man who told college students that if the woman had too much to drink, assault was her fault. His face smirks at me from billboards now.

It’s men shouting at us women on the internet about how we are all “whores” and "ungrateful bitches”. That to be independent humans is “unwomanly”. 

It’s men teaching their daughters to be submissive. To dress for whatever version of us the male gaze desires in this moment. To sit down and shut up and be waiting at the door with a beer in our hand and an adoring look on our face, even as he backhands us across the mouth.

And now, after years of all this screaming by men, we have women yelling at us too. Women who don’t understand that the only reason they are even ALLOWED to be on the internet is because of all the women who came before. The women who protested and got laws changed so we women could have a voice.

I cringe whenever women use that fought-for hard-earned voice to tell me that I need to know my place in society. To be a better “partner to my man”. To be happy in my womanly role.

And to breed. 
As though my sole purpose in life is to pop out babies.

I have nothing against the role of motherhood.
I wish I had been blessed with one who was as loving and kind to me, as I have seen my friends who are mothers be to their own children.

But the scope of my existence is not centered around this one aspect of my biology.
I am more than a pussy pocket for men to use and abuse.
And I am certainly more than a petri dish to grow a human in.

I have a choice in how I live my life.

At least, I had a choice. Every day though, I am watching the choices available to me, disappear.

Take the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, for example.

Federal protections for abortions are gone, wiped out in 2022 in a reversal so unexpected that I couldn’t comprehend the news at first. 

As of today, 13 states have already rushed to make it not only illegal. And some want it to be an action punishable by death. No matter what the circumstance. Other states are making it more restrictive and difficult to get an abortion, even though they haven’t made it completely illegal yet.

But the reality is that in some states, we may eventually get condemned to die if we get an abortion. 

And in many cases, we are doomed to die if we don’t.

Years ago I walked into my OBGYN’s office to ask intelligent questions related to MY body. What were my options to prevent the possibility of having children? And when I asked about a more permanent medical procedure, I was denied the right to even DISCUSS it. 

The doctor’s mind-blowing logic? My “future husband” might want me to have children.

Yes, you heard me correctly. The doctor was more concerned with the desires of a mythological possibility, than the health and wellness of the person sitting in front of them.

I’ve yet to hear of a single man be presented with this logic when inquiring about a vasectomy. 

Never mind that a few years later, I ended up having an emergency procedure to deal with female issues which were causing me to bleed excessive amounts of blood daily. Leaving me in pain, anemic, and wondering whether I simply wouldn’t wake up one morning because my body had bled me dry in my sleep.

I wasn’t pregnant. 

But two years later, when Roe vs Wade was overturned, I wondered if, had I been pregnant at the time, would the doctors have even been willing to address the bleeding out issue I was having? 

Or would they left me to die, so that they didn’t “intentionally” harm an unconscious globular group of cells that had more rights than I now do?

I live in a country where I am told I am free. 
But I am not free. 

Because a free human has the right to get health care, to expect that doctors are going to do their best to save HER if I am dying.

A free human has the ability to ask questions about her own body without being told that she can’t have the answers in case a MAN - who isn’t even in existence in my life - doesn’t like decisions that I make to keep me safe, healthy, and happy.

We are sliding backward, but not into a previous reality. 

No, we are creating one which is darker and more insidious then that. A world in which all the dystopian novels I’ve ever read, can’t even begin to imagine.

So why does it sometimes feel like no one else is SCREAMING inside, like I am?
When will we all WAKE UP to the truth?

If things continue to progress at the rate we are going, it soon won’t matter that I am a human first, and a woman second. Because my basic rights are being systemically eliminated. 

And like the pigs sent to slaughter for the imaginary hot dog in my dream, I’ll soon be branded “WOMAN” across my forehead, and hooked up to machines for men to breed and use as they wish. Until my very life force bleeds out, or a fetus I never wanted and my body isn’t equipped to carry, murders me.

After all, the main man in power has already branded us as “piggies” and told us to “shut up”. And our “protectors” stayed quiet, and laughed to themselves as they nodded in glee.

I have so much more to say on that issue. 
And I will, at another time. 

But I want to stay focused on THIS atrocity. 
The one in which my dreams are reflections of the things that scare me when I’m awake.

It’s hard to stay focused though.

Because even as I wrap up this piece, I know that some man out there will read this post and all he will get out of it is a snarky thought of “haha, she dreamed of hot dogs, she must have penis envy” or “she dreamed of men and hot dogs, the bitch wants our dicks inside her”.

It’s a disturbing reality to consider. Yet EVERY time I speak up about my rights as a PERSON, some idiot slides into my DMs to call me a “whore” or to tell me to “shut up” or to “kill myself” or just be the “slut you were meant to be you worthless cunt” - all comments I’ve received over the past decade.

However unlike in my dream, I will no longer be silenced. 
And as my “protectors” continue to fail me, I’ll simply save myself.

This little piggy went to market. 
This little piggy stayed home. 
This little piggy bought groceries. 
And this little piggy had none.

But this last little piggy? She calmly looked the wolves in the eyes and said “I’m not a piggy you dumb fucks. I’m a woman, I’m pissed. And you have no rights to me or my body.”

And then she went home and slept a dreamless rest, before awaking refreshed to fight off the wolves again.

Because doing nothing is no longer an option for me. 

Thanks for reading. Stay safe out there peeps. I love you all so much.

Xoxo,
Tink

To my right, is another couple and then another woman - who happens to be the mother of the woman sitting next to me. The mother is a longtime friend of the hosts. A lovely woman I’ve enjoyed a few casual conversations with when I’ve run into her around town.

Her daughter, seated next to me, was one of the first friends I made after I moved to town on a whim. She’s a vivacious businesswoman whose integrity and authenticity in how she lives her professional life, and personal life, has been a source of inspiration to me. Plus she’s just fun to hangout with. We’ve bonded over a love of dance, life outlooks, and an appreciation for learning from our experiences. ​

Her partner, seated between her and her mother, is another creative arts businessperson. Smart and funny, he is also someone I count as a friend. He and I have shared many conversations on the most varied and random of topics.

I’m thankful to be seated here at this table with this fabulous crew of people. I’ve had such marvelous moments with each of them over the past two and half years.

​Cute puppies roam around the room, being so good and surprisingly not begging for food. At most they would love a quick scratch on their heads as they settle in near the festivities on a large puppy pillow. 

An orange kitty is perched in the living room on the edge of a cozy chair, staring out the window. Happy jazz music plays in the background. Candles lit, and soft lighting, cast a warm glow on the faces of my friends.

It’s a diverse group in ages ranging from 30s to 80s, ethnic backgrounds and origin nationalities, life paths, and sexual orientations. Our different experiences add flavor and texture to the conversation that hasn’t stopped flowing since we all arrived.

By the time I leave the gathering at nearly 1am, my face is hurting from smiling and laughing. Only moments before putting on my shoes, I wanted to freeze time. To make everything stop. Gather each of these people into a hug, and soak in their kind energy.

This is joy. This is peace. This is the epitome of LIVING.

Halfway through the incredible homemade meal, I had confessed that I would be leaving town. Moving to a place I hadn’t picked yet. Starting on a new adventure. 

Having just made the decision very recently, I almost didn’t want to say anything. Not to these people. Not when we were having such an incredible evening together. I didn’t want to change the mood of the evening. 

More importantly, I didn’t want to make ME the focus of the evening. It was much more fun to listen to everyone’s stories of random life shenanigans. To laugh and exclaim and let the wine (and water for me) keep flowing effortlessly.

But a moment came when the segue was natural, and I realized I couldn’t put it off any longer. I wanted to share what I knew of my next plans with these people that I loved. And I didn’t want to leave the party without them knowing that I wouldn’t be local by next month. 

The couple seated next to me already knew a little as they had seen my social media posts starting to sell off my things. But I think it was unexpected news to my hosts and the others.

For a moment, I saw surprise, and even some sadness, as I looked at the faces around the table. But one of the husbands quickly spoke up. He let me know that they loved me and were happy to see me do what was right for me.

We all spoke a bit more as I explained why I had abruptly come to the decision to leave. And the outpouring of love and support and the reminder that I always had beautiful connections here with them, made my heart feel warm in my chest.

As we meandered on to new topics and shared more funny life stories, I leaned back in my chair and looked around at these beautiful faces. I felt immense love for people who I hadn’t even known three short years ago. But since arriving here in New York, I  had shared wonderful times, and created a bond that made me feel rich in community.

I love my life. 

I love that I get the privilege of exploring places, and meeting fabulous people from all facets of humanity. I adore that the connections I create may be for a season, or for my entire journey. Either way, they add a vividness to my days on this planet, that rivals the textures of the most beautiful oil paintings in richness.

Often as I get ready to leave a city or state or country, people ask if I wish I could take my stuff with me. Generally all that I carry fills a suitcase or two, or in ultra decadence, a carful of things.

And they seem surprised when I laugh and say that letting go of stuff, is easy.

They aren’t asking the right question. 

Because what I wish I could carry with me on each chapter of my life, are the people. People such as these people. Who have added such a wealth of joy, its value couldn’t be calculated even if we tallied up the combined assets of billionaires.

I am blessed. 
I am blessed I am blessed I am blessed.

I am showered in gifts of memories and warm feelings and the knowledge that me, this funny little gypsy girl who flits in and out and about the planet, seems to be loved by such amazing friends. 

I hope they know how much I love them too.

Xoxo, 
Tink

The words are screaming in my head when I apply to job after job in positions I don’t want, that I am infinitely qualified for, but which sound ghastly and boring. 

But one needs a job to support a nice apartment and have “stuff” - things I don’t really want, but have enjoyed having, and apparently are important to demonstrating that I am here and part of the community and putting down roots… 

Only I want to be free free free…

Must community only be created by proximity? Or can I not have one defined by aligned values and mutual respect and common interests?

Do I need to stay, to prove I belong?

I am not the droid you’re looking for…

I’m asked about ambition and purpose and when will I “achieve” as though my degrees that I completed for my own satisfaction and joy (and paid for I might add) were not achievement enough. 

No I must collect titles, and employees to lord over, and lines on a piece of paper no one really reads with taggable key words which are as worthless as the sheet the resume is printed on. 

(Ironic considering paper itself was once a luxury and is now discarded as carelessly as the rights of women, and native peoples, and black peoples, and the LGBTQ+ community, are in the land of the “free”…

Free as long as you are an old mediocre white man with so many zeros on a balance sheet that you could actually end the homeless crisis, and solve the hunger challenges so many face, and still swim in your money in a pool filled with dollars instead of water drops.)

I am not the droid you’re looking for
I am not the droid you are
I am not the droid
I am not
I am…

Like the Leo lioness I am, I’ve lived nine lives and more. 

Had the privilege, and joy, of starting over a dozen times in a dozen places. A privilege born of hard work, and harder choices, and the gift of kindness from people who chose to love me, and thoughtful assistance at random times by strangers, too.

Yet, there is a part of me that wants so badly to fit in. 

Since I was a little girl I heard “You can be anything you want to be!” But always with the caveat that I must look a certain way, hit particular milestones:

• I must be smart (but not too obviously smart). 
• I must be accomplished (but only in acceptable womanly ways).
• It’s imperative that I am popular (with men and women and bosses and teachers - but with a deference showing that everyone else’s approval matters more than my own for myself). 

And beautiful. 
I must be beautiful and sexy and cute and bubbly (but only in the way that suits whatever conventional standards society proclaims acceptable at that moment). 

“Be YOU!” They shout loudly! “We love YOU!” 
But always if I was ME in the way THEY (whoever they are) want me to be. 

Is it any wonder at various times in my life, I’ve felt so lost and disconnected?

Sure, I did the “right things”, dressed in “acceptable ways”, smiled always (whether sad or angry or bewildered), and made THEM feel good because I lived up to the expectations of who THEY desired me to be.

So fascinating, I realize now, that their worth was tied into diminishing my own. 

Off and on, I forget who I am. 
Because when the world screams loudly, I retreat away from the noise. 

It’s sometimes so much easier to be the droid they are looking for, than to simply be me. 

Or at least it was.

For the past two and a half years, I’ve had the joy of living in a beautiful small community in New York. 

I landed there by accident. 
Never even heard of the city until I was halfway on my drive across country. 

This whimsical arrival however, proved to be a delight. 

I made friends quickly. Danced in the streets in summers, hiked the local state parks. Had a romance that turned out to be full of small town drama, and rather disappointing in it’s mundaneness. 

(But I suppose everyone should have at least one disappointing romance in their lives. Law of averages and all that jazz.)

Got hugged in the streets by friends. Read my poetry aloud at events. I put down tiny roots, got a lovely space to live in, and thought “perhaps I’ll stay…” After all, good people are here, and I do like the idea of community.

But along the way, and partly during the time of the mediocre romance, I noticed I was shrinking. 

“It’s okay”, I thought, “maybe routines are good for the soul.”

But the more life became a monotony of sameness for me, the less interest I felt in being alive. Showing up somewhere because it’s “Tuesday” makes no sense to me. Shouldn’t I go because it’s interesting? 

I crave adventure. “Ah,” I was told, “but there is an adventure in creating a home! You can change its look for the seasons!”

And at first it WAS fun to decorate with my thrifted and gifted finds. But the more stuff I had, the more suffocated I felt. (True, I have been told my aesthetic is still pretty minimalist. Yet for me, what I have now is “excessive”.) 

“Yes, but you have friends here! And how lovely to see them often!”, out of kindness they still tried to convince me. 

It cannot be disputed that my heart is truly grateful to have the opportunity to live near so many people I’ve grown to adore. 

But we all have the minutia of lives to lead. And so if I am not out and about spending money I don’t have, to go places I’ve already been a million times, it seems I am not seeing those lovely souls all so much…

So many times in the leaving of places, I hear “Oh I wish we had more time together!” But we did, I was here, and time was spent doing other things. Totally natural and okay…still…

None of this life I’ve been living for the past couple years has been bad in any way. A wonderful community, a pretty home, lots of things to do. Only after a while I noticed I was trying to be someone I am not…

I created expectations for myself, based on the expectations I had drilled into me as a little girl. Follow a certain path, and you will be accepted and loved…

Only I am not the droid I thought I was looking for. 

In no way am I saying that any of this wonderful life from the past almost three years has been anything less than another incredible experience on my journey. Truly I’ve learned so many beautiful lessons, and met creative, kind, and loving people.

But when I start to do things by rote, and try to be something other than who I am, I become a shell of a myself and life loses it’s vibrancy.

No one was forcing me to stay, but I so wanted to belong. It’s funny how, when we truly face our sadness/discontent/dissatisfaction, we see the only one capable of limiting ourselves, is ourselves.

I am not the droid…but who am I?​

A much more challenging question to answer. But a delightful one to discover for oneself. 

I am a free-spirit who loves who she loves unapologetically - sometimes for a season or two, or forever, as the case may be. 

I am a gypsy who adores new spaces and places to explore. Appreciates the stories that everyone has to tell. And is grateful for all those who are open to sharing a tale, a meal, their time, energy, space, their bodies, ideas, really anything they are free to share. It’s a gift to simply be in connection.

I am a simple girl. 

You may laugh, but I have no interest in baubles and fancy “luxuries”. I DO love beautiful things, but I don’t need much stuff to thrive. If I want expensive art, I’ll use a library pass to go view it in a museum. If I need clothes, I’ll thrift it or up-cycle it (I’d love a sewing machine actually), or trade with friends.

I’m a creator of art, a dancer in my soul, a weaver of words, a person who views the world with wonder and curiosity. I don’t need to be “good” at the things I do, I only crave the joy of doing them.

Community is my favorite “C” word. But my community is global - a tapestry of connections created through organic meetings, chance encounters, and authentic conversations.

I am these things, and so much more - some I have yet to discover.

There is nothing wrong with living a more traditional existence. I have friends who have created gorgeous lives filled with valued routines, comfortable and stable homes, and cherished ties to their cities and spaces.

A part of me envies them. Because perhaps if I could just live this way too, I might get the acceptance the little girl in me still craves.

Yet there is something about this kind of living, however, which doesn’t fit me. And so when I say “I am not the droid you’re looking for”, the blame for trying to fit into boxes that I don’t belong in, falls squarely on my own shoulders.

Because when I try to be someone I am not, I become an unnatural version of myself. A robot, going through the motions, and creating an existence that looks shiny, but has no substance behind it.

Isn’t it wonderful though, that we all have choice? 

So today I choose to be thankful for the time I have spent in Troy. 

I still have several weeks remaining to be in close proximity with the lovely friends I have made, and enjoy the life that thrives here. It is a gem of a community. What a gift to have been part of it - even for a brief time on my journey.

And then, cherishing those connections (and hopefully maintaining them), this little wanderer goes off to create another chapter in a new space, and see more of what this wonderful world has to offer. 

For I may not be the droid you’re looking for, nor the one I tried make myself into. But I hope to be someone who shares her light with all she comes in contact with. Just as I am grateful to all who have shared the light of their humanity with me. 

Love you, peeps.

Xoxo,
Tink

​We live in a somewhat magical time when it comes to obtaining information. The internet has brought data to our fingertips at an instants notice. Which can make the job search much easier than years ago, and also much more impossible. 

Because if I can type in a few key words and find dozens of jobs in my local area matching that description, a thousand other people can too. And often have alerts set up to let them know the moment when something relevant to their search, is listed.

Which means that potential employers can be INUNDATED with hundreds and sometimes thousands of applicants, depending on the position. So much so, that many have turned to algorithms and AI to weed through resumes and cover letters. 

As a result, applying for jobs has become a key word competition in which applicants are having to constantly re-tailor their resumes to match language that may not adequately describe past experiences, in the hopes that they make it to a real live human.

Every application system is also completely different to navigate. Most expect an uploaded resume and cover letter. Yet they still require you to fill out an online application as well. Often prepared inaccurately from your resume, if pre-filled at all. 

I’ve given up on bothering with that portion after three different potential employers mentioned they NEVER. EVEN. LOOK. at it. They find the way it is presented to them cumbersome, and often just scan your resume instead. IF, the system even forwards you to them.

And heaven help you if you’ve been self employed as I have been for the better part of a decade. The application program doesn’t know what to do with you when you say you’ve been your own boss. It still wants you to put in the name of a supervisor to contact. And some, when you put in your own name, will not let you continue until you make up a new one to populate the field. 

Even worse, if you do make it to a real human seeing your submission, you have LESS THAN A MINUTE to get their attention. 

You read that correctly. 

The average applicant’s resume is reviewed in less than 60 seconds. Most people cannot read a full page, process it, and make a connection between the applicant and the job in that time. Let alone figure out if someone is a good fit.

But the guy behind the desk in front of me wasn’t just referring to people applying. He was referring to retention of people as well.

​Corporations have expounded the “lazy worker” philosophy for YEARS as though people just don’t want to work. Which is hardly the case. Because no one wakes up and thinks “I’d like to have no money coming in so I can struggle and stress about rent, food, and living necessities.”

However, it IS true that workers are no longer feeling the “good old corporate” loyalty to their jobs. Why should they? 

When many jobs pay barely more than minimum wage, have little to no benefits, and often exploit their employees by trying to combine more than one position into a single job description, workers simply don’t feel any need to stay when a better opportunity comes along.

I get it on a visceral level. It’s disheartening to feel like you’re being taken advantage of by your employer. 

Years ago I worked for a law firm where I genuinely liked my coworkers. I knew that my work, taking on additional drafting responsibilities as well as parts of the client meetings, had been key in the growth of the firm. My extended position allowed the lead attorney to have more time to meet with new clients and secure new revenue. 

I was privy to all the earnings that year, and had a good sense of the expenses due to other office duties I was in charge of. I was frequently commended for my work, and told how valuable and instrumental I had been in the growth of the office. So when the end of the year bonuses came around, I was certain from all the hints I had been given, that I would receive a sizable one.

Instead, I was sat down, looked straight in the face, and earnestly told it had been a “tight year” for the firm. 

I was caught off guard. I knew we had tripled our business, and lowered our expenses considerably.

The attorney, not catching my confused look continued. He stated that because I was "such a team player”, they wanted me to still get a bonus. With a very patronizing expression, he slowly passed an envelope across the table and waited for me to open it. 

Inside was a $100 dollar gift card to a department store I never shopped at because it had cheap poorly made clothing. The lawyer smiled, patted my hand, and said I should get something pretty because I deserved it for my hard work.

I felt sick. Stunned really. I don’t have a poker face, and my expression must have given away the consternation I was feeling. I took a moment to try and compose myself and opened my mouth to speak. However before I could say a word, the attorney quickly muttered something about a meeting (he didn’t have anything on the schedule - I kept his calendar as well) and left the room. 

I would love to tell you this was an isolated incident. 

But this type of mentality played out in multiple corporations, and organizations, I worked for over the years. Which is why I had no hesitation in 2016 of setting out on another journey across the world as my own boss. Not only did adventures await, but I didn’t desire having another employer pat me on the head, tell me how wonderful I was, and then screw me over monetarily.

And despite the challenges of being my own boss, I truly enjoyed it. But the world has changed.

Since I came back to the States, we’ve had a pandemic, a difficult economy, and now an Oompah Loompa in office (again)  who is decimating equality, destroying just practices in the workplace, and dismantling safety policies which protected women and minorities from discrimination and harassment. In short, he is ruining the world (with the explicit and complicit help of his constituents, associates, followers, and party members). 

Sadly for me, the work I usually do in recent years, and love doing, now feels unsafe as patrons seem to think they can get away with bad behavior. Plus being in a luxury industry, while in a downturn economy, is precarious to say the least.

So I find myself craving some kind of stability, the kind that I figured would come with a steady paycheck. Hence here I am interviewing for positions that I know I am highly qualified for. 

Yet despite the huge responsibilities of the role, such positions would still be underpaying the person who they would hire. A fact which the manager across the table interviewing me, doesn’t seem to understand. So he complains that no one wants to work.

But I, and most people I know, DO want to work. Sure we would all love for a windfall to drop in our laps and allow us to spend all our time pursuing our passions. But barring the occasional miracle, for most of us, we are pretty content with having to work as a tradeoff for the fun we have in our free time. 

Which brings me back to my current predicament. 

​In the past month, I’ve applied for over a hundred jobs. All of which I am either highly qualified for, or overqualified for. I’ve applied to retail, corporations, non-profits, public organizations, educational institutions, libraries, and more. 

Lower paying jobs (ie retail) insist that they can schedule you any time they want. However such jobs mean that I would need TWO jobs to make ends meet. An impossibility to organize, if one job refuses to give me a set schedule, thus allowing me to work the second job.

Higher paying jobs are tricky. Half the ones I have applied to, I have later found out didn’t actually exist. They were either still posted and never taken down, or not really open to the public. Instead they promote from within, but due to some arbitrary organizational HR regulation, have to post to ensure some kind of fairness rule. 

I’ve had interviewers set up calls and then ghost me by never calling. When I call to follow up, they don’t respond. I’ve had “unofficial” feedback that my nontraditional background (being an adult entertainer - a legal profession I never felt necessary to hide) made me “undesirable” so they looked at more traditional, but less qualified, candidates. 

(“Such a shame,’ one person lamented, ‘because you also have so much experience and a Master’s Degree.” I cringe when I think of all the things I could have said in response. But I stayed silent, because there really isn’t anything I could do at that point. Yes it is illegal to discriminate against me for doing legal work. Doesn’t change the fact that it happens.)

And then of course there are the many jobs where your application and resume go off into cyberspace and you never know if anyone ever saw it. Or if the extremely faulty algorithm gods disqualified you from the next phase due to a glitch in the system.

It’s also interesting to me, a person who has often worked more than 80 hours in a week at various times in my life, how people are quick to act as though the “lazy worker” stereotype is true. 

Since I’ve become public about reentering the more traditional job force, I’ve had dozens of messages insisting that I must not be “trying hard enough”. Or asking why I don’t just take the minimum wage jobs and keep searching while working. As though I’m turning down minimum wage jobs left and right.

But I’ve also had dozens of other messages from friends and followers, quietly informing me of their own job struggles. 

How they were laid off from long time jobs, months ago, and haven’t found anything to replace the one they lost. Or that they still have their jobs, but lost critical benefits due to cutbacks. Or got a new job, started it and were praised for their work, only to be told a few weeks later that they were being let go. With no explanation. And definitely no severance.

Furthermore, almost everyone I know is underpaid. A “living wage” seems to be a myth.

​Personally, my largest expense is my rent (and yes I am trying to find a way to reduce it and still stay in the town I love). Other than my utilities and cell phone, I maintain a $30/month gym membership. Mainly because where I live makes it difficult to be outside in the winter. And I use the equipment 4-5 days a week to stay fit. My clothes are thrifted, as is my furniture (or gifted from things my wonderful friends no longer are using). 

The bulk of my luxury “shopping” comes at a $0 cost - my local library is my source for books, magazines, movies, tv shows, and museum passes. I cook most of my meals at home (when I choose to eat as my anorexic tendencies flair up when stressed). And I don’t indulge in many luxuries. Hell I don’t indulge in the luxury of health insurance. That bill got too expensive to maintain. 

So it is really discouraging when I also get messages suggesting I “cut my expenses” for my “luxurious” lifestyle. You know, the one I am not living. I couldn’t figure out where this idea came from as my friends often joke about the simplicity of my life. But I realized that social media, and people’s assumptions, led to other’s creating a narrative about my life, that simply doesn’t exist.

Yes, I literally was traveling every month for work across country. But it was for WORK, not pleasure. And aside from my travel days, and a built in rest day, I worked double shifts while on these trips. So no, I wasn’t traveling and living out a spa resort life. I traveled for work and worked long hard hours which didn’t end once I was home. Each of those trips, required a lot of planning, marketing, and physical preparation for the long hours. 

All of this to say, that I live a pretty comfortable but minimalist existence. Which I love. But that also means there isn’t much more I can cut out. I don’t have subscriptions to cancel. I don’t have health insurance. My car is paid off. (And I can’t get rid of it because the public transportation in this area sucks.) So what next? Groceries? 

It’s funny. As I read over what I’ve written here, I wonder if employers actually realize their complicity in the creation of the “lazy worker” myth. 

The truth is, internally, I wanted to scream or cry before going on the interviews. They feel demeaning somehow. 

I have no desire to work for people who pay a wage for full time that doesn’t even allow me to meet my basic needs. 

I have no incentive to work for people who are so focused on the bottom line, that they harm the people who enable them to have profits, by cutting their benefits. 

And I certainly have no ambition to work with someone who is already of the attitude that “no one wants to work” anymore. Yet he couldn’t understand how hiring someone at a wage that doesn’t afford them the gas they need to get to the job, in addition to paying basic bills, is detrimental to the employee.

​As I edit this piece, I also think of all the well-intentioned tips people have sent. I’m told to start my own business as though we are characters in Field of Dreams, and if I build it, clients will come. 

But I did have a successful thriving business. It took a ton of work to build, and ended thanks to the pandemic shutting the world down.

Or I’m told it’s “no shame to have to move back home for a bit”. But some of us don’t have a home to move back to. And the assumption that family can take on the extra burden of another person living with them is also presumptuous at best. 

Probably the funniest piece of advice I was given was to “just be positive “and a job will “fall into my lap”. I’ve been given this one SEVERAL times, and with extreme fervor and enthusiasm. By people who actually DON’T work because their partners’ support them. Ah the irony. 

And the way it is explained to me by these positivity zealots is that the difficult job market is a punishment directly to me when the gods and goddesses on high looked down at the world and proclaimed, “That Tink girl has been a bit off her positivity game lately. Let’s punish her and make it ultra challenging for her to get a job to teach her a lesson on faith.” 

(As I say repeatedly, life is so much stranger than fiction. And if we want to find characters beyond the imagination, we just have to allow the world to speak.)

​My lease is up in March. I have big decisions to make as to whether I can continue to make this area my home, or whether I move on to greener pastures. But with the state of the world today, I’m not sure what those would be. Things are pretty barren on all sides of the fence.

A friend of mine told me once that I always end my blogs with a bit of a twist, a high note to balance out any of the realities I don’t mince words on. Tonight though, I have nothing to add to the job conundrum. 

Because until the professional world views their workers as part of a community, instead of as disposable machines, they will continue to make their myth of the “lazy worker” a self-actualizing prophecy. 

And until we workers find a way to make the companies realize that they benefit from treating their employees with respect and paying them what they are worth, they will chew us up and spit us out without any remorse.

A part of me wonders why I am torturing myself by trying to re-enter the traditional work force. However I also recognize that, at least right now for a variety of reasons, I am not entirely comfortable with staying in the adult entertainment industry as a performer. Which does make me sad, because I truly have loved being one.

Yet I can’t help but wish as I go on these interviews that the company would view me as something other than a resource to exploit for the bottom line, and definitely not as a living machine they can drain to get their dollars worth of product from. 

It would be gratifying to be seen as a true colleague, a partner creating something wonderful, which we could all be proud of, and look forward to waking and going to during the work week.

After all, it’s no fun sitting across a table interviewing for a position, by someone who has already made up their mind, that no one wants to work. And for a company who pays so little as to make this a self filling prophecy for the organization. 

But believe it or not, I still have hope. I’ve applied to more jobs. I’m openly vocal to everyone I know about my skills, and the fact that I am looking for work. And I have confidence in my abilities to survive and ultimately thrive. 

And if all else fails, I’ll take all the talents I have at my disposable and create something new to make money at. Something I can be proud of. I just don’t know what that might look like yet. I’m too exhausted from this process to figure it out at the moment.

To all those on the hunt for a job as well…Good luck out there, friends. I’m rooting for you too.

Xoxo,
Tink

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