2/24/2011 - how to use a makeup sponge. . .

Thanks to a Facebook friend, I discovered Alex, the Reluctant Escort, a blog written by a woman in Georgia chronicling her (mis)adventures in the world of prostitution.  Months ago, on the first day I found it, I read every available entry from beginning to end, and then spent an hour raving about it to Sam later that evening. 

The blog describes the oldest profession in details that Julia Roberts did not have to portray in her Cinderella'd version of the life and times.  Alex has yet to meet her Edward Lewis, but she seems to have had her fill of clients with varying degrees of neuroses.  She may not have a benefactor with a bazillion-dollar bank account, but her clients do pay her well enough to support a self-professed shopping habit.  Alex gently discloses that behind the woman men pay to sleep with, there is another woman who simultaneously feels empowered, ambivalent, and downright disgusted by it, all while whimsically chronicling it in lurid, extremely well-written, first-hand detail.

I am super envious of her, not necessarily because of the prostitution itself, but the angle.  Her 'career' is a self-replenishing field of fodder for her blog; each new client, each new appointment is rich fertilizer for her considerable writing talent.  My angle, as helpful as gratitude has been in giving me a platform on which to write, does not yield nearly the same material.  Let's face it: learning how to use a makeup sponge in order to work all month long (if you know what I mean) is infinitely more exciting than seeing random pictures of a random person's new puppy.

One of Alex's goals is to get published, make a career out of abilities that don't require a hot shower afterwards, and slowly, this goal is coming true for her.  I also had a goal for this blog, which was solely to keep up the consistent quantity of one entry a day.  Well, I originally had the goal to be a more grateful person, to learn something about myself, but that seemed like such an elusive concept that I had to come up with something a little more concrete.

But now, I think I actually have learned something, especially when I consider my blog in relation to Alex's: I can write whenever I want, even when I don't know what I want to write about, when I don't have a client's son walk in on me in the middle of a 'session' with his father, when my life is boring and uneventful.  I have never been more dedicated to writing than I am now.  Even in grad school when I had but this one priority, I would often shirk the responsibility by saying that I was not inspired at the moment, writer's block and the like.  I adopted this romantic notion that writing should happen organically, and if I lacked the inspiration, then my hands were tied--no writing. 

It was a convenient way to not have to struggle with writing, to do it as a flight of fancy.  And I do struggle.  I have days when I wish I had not set such an ambitious (i.e., daily) goal for myself, but day after day, I have managed to come up with something, even if those somethings are as inane as describing a shower, a trip to the circus, a book.  I've learned to flesh even the most minute detail into something more (for better or worse).  This lesson I've learned is my makeup sponge, allowing me to work all month, and hopefully all year, long.

And while I find the prospect of a blank piece of paper as daunting as ever, I think I have shown myself that beginnings are not insurmountable.  If anything, the moments before I write a single word are the most fertile in opportunity, even if I don't have stories of fake orgasms and crying clients to recount.

(With the disclaimer that it has some decidedly mature content, I highly, highly recommend checking out Alex's blog, linked above, and starting from the beginning.)

(On a completely different note, I just read on EW.com that Lady Gaga will be releasing an acoustic version of "Born This Way."  I've said it here before that I hope Lady Gaga one day reinvents herself as an acoustic artist; hopefully this will be the first step!)