I’m in Vermont. All of the mountains have been green thus far, but for some reason these are officially dubbed the Green Mountains.

The air is beginning to get colder at night. Yesterday I picked a maple leaf off the ground, it looked like it fell off the tree as it was trying to change. I asked someone if that was the beginning of fall and he said yes.

Fall is my favorite season. Growing up in South Florida, it sounds odd to say that since we don’t have the changing leaves and all that jazz (we did have a rockin’ Harvest Moon). But my favorite part about Fall isn’t so much the visual (though thats spectacular as well) its the air. The air starts to get that crisp, smoky smell. It just feels like somethings happening.

Well something is happening up here finally. The days are pretty much still heavy and humid but the nights are getting chilly. I’m excited for the colder weather, I have to admit at first I hated it because it was hard to fall asleep at night but having a warm body now helps with that.

In a lot of ways this trip feels like its been ripping me apart, things are coming undone and new realizations are surfacing about people and work and life in general. Its therapeutic in a way. Like exfoliating. I’m having realizations mostly about trust. Its funny when you get to a place after sharing so much of yourself with someone that they feel like apart of you, they are apart of you, they know everything about you. But its really funny when that same person tries hurting you with all of the things they learned about you and therefore know what will hurt you most. Well not really funny but ironic.

Haters gonna hate.

But I’m walking it all out. Kind of like that song.

The hardest part about the trail is self doubt.

You can always climb that mountain, you can always walk over that next ridge. What really prevents you from doing so is all in your head.

One foot in front of the other. Inhale. Exhale. Step step step.

Housatonic River, Connecticut.

So internet, last time we spoke I was making a spontaneous trip to Vegas for the Desiree Alliance Conference. It was fucking awesome! The best spontaneous decision ever! Here is a list of the presentations I attended:

Incorporating Kink into your Work – Sarah Sloane
Safety For Sex Workers Through Personal Privacy – Belle De Jour, Amanda Brooks, Furry Girl, Alex Soritov
Smart Sex Work: Business Success in Under an Hour
Keeping it Real: Coming Out to Your Loved Ones About Sex Work – Mariko Passion and Kimberlee Cline
Personal Finance for Adult Industry Professionals
Solo Girl: An Introduction to Operating Your Own Porn Site – Furry Girl
Phone and Cam Sex for Profit – Danielle dv8
The U.S. Sex Workers’ Rights Movement: Past, Present, Future – Vegan Vixen
Building Membership of Local Organizations through Community – Penny Saunders
Working it Down Under – Lusty Day
Developing a Screening Policy
Energetic Protection and Cleansing for Sex Workers – Jean Grey

Check out the Desiree Alliancewebsite for more info on the conference and presenters.

 There were tons of interesting presentations to go to and I had a hard time deciding which ones to attend. In addition to all of that amazing-ness, there were some kickass key note speakers: Dr. Jocelyn Elders, Deon Haywood and Women with a Vision, Kirk Read, Norma Jean Almodovar, Tim Barnett, Nina Hartley, Robyn Few…(I’ll add some links to videos and probably more names later).

If you read this blog, you’re probably not stupid and most likely support sex worker rights.

 Some of the stories that I heard that week were insanely aggravating, inspiring and motivating.

Charlene is my age. She lives in New Orleans. In New Orleans they have this law that if a woman is arrested as a prostitute she has to register as a sex offender. Charlene is a registered sex offender due to a prostitution arrest. She is trying to put her life back together and all she wants to do is go to school or get a job. But sex offenders are not allowed to do either. What the fuck is she supposed to do? Charlene has been on the streets since she was 13 due to a heroin addiction and used sex work to support her habit. She is clean now and cannot get a job or go to school. What other choices are they trying to give her?

Condoms are allowed to be used as evidence if you are arrested as a prostitute. They’ve even used VASELINE as evidence.

NHI = No Humans Involved. That is the police code for when a prostitute is murdered. Because we’re subhumans…?

So, if you ever need a reason to support us, just think about that and think about me.

Other Sex Workers and Sex Work Activists: I am interested in organizing and being active around these issues somewhere locally, wherever I end up after the trail. If you’re interested too drop me a line. Possible locations include: Australia, the Midwest, South Florida, San Francisco…anywhere really I guess?

Part of me thinks that I owe South Florida another chance. I know, I know. But seriously, I’ve been there a long time so I’m familiar with the area and we have a major sex industry scene that (in my experience) lacked community. Lake Worth had a pretty cool activist scene going on and I just think that if I could convince those anarchist bastards that sex work is really subversive and cool then they could apply they’re already awesome knowledge in organizing to those issues and yanno…make magick happen?

 However, I have also considered volunteering in another place with a more developed sex worker activism scene in order to learn about organizing and community building.

Um…and here’s another quesrtion: if I was coming to your school to speak, what would you want to know?

Since the aqua blaze, I hiked through the unofficial halfway point, got staph infection and have been off from hiking for almost two weeks. I was stuck in the little town of Duncannon, PA for the majority of the time. If you ever happen to be passing through, please stay at the Doyle Hotel and ask for the honeymoon suite. 

I came out here for a lot of reasons. Mostly I was sick of my focus on work, since I was solely supporting the household on a recession cam girls income, it caused a lot of stress about financial stuff. I was sick of being at home all the time. Sick of being 20 something and not feeling like I was having any adventures. I was sick of trying to make a lot of money to maintain a household that didn’t feel like a home.

I wanted to write. I wanted to get back into shape. I wanted to connect with the mountains. I wanted to test myself. I had this idea that if I could just do the trail, from start to finish, wake up almost everyday in the woods, hike through the mountains of Appalachia, drink spring water and make fires that maybe it could fix me. Maybe I would figure out what I want to do next. Maybe I would be more disciplined, maybe I would be more daring. Maybe I could write some amazing shit. Or maybe I’m just full of shit.

But, just like normal life, I find myself trying to avoid work, trying to find the easy way out. There are festivals, town vortexes, and other hikers that serve as perfect distractions to get off or slow down.

So, after not having hiked for two weeks, I’m flying out to Vegas for yet another distraction, but this one is a good one. I’m going to the Desiree Alliance Conference for five days to meet up with other sex workers, listen to smart ladies speak and educate myself about the issues facing our industry. I’m super excited to meet some of the amazing ladies that will be attending.

After that, its back to the mountains. I’m going to try to cam as much as I can while I’m around wi-fi because honestly I’m about flat broke, medical expenses, plus hotel stays to be near the doctor have made my bank account go into the negative. Also I need to save up some cash for a new pack and a few other things, I want to make sure I have everything worked out becase  I’ll be starting back on the trail in NY but starting in Vermont there are supposed to be some serious sections coming up (like the Whites).

AQUA BLAZE!
 

 So instead of hiking throght the Shenandoahs, I decided to canoe along the river instead. I had heard that the trail crosses over the road every other mile and that a lot of people just walk along the Skyline Drive, which used to be the old trail but I guess they decided to pave it instead.

We canoed for almost 100 miles along the river. Yes, that is a camo flag with a deer skull. Rocking mascot.

Canoeing was a refreshing change of pace. Its a lot more sensual than hiking, the way the boat glides over the water, the sound of the paddle dipping in and out of the river and the movement of your body to pull you along. I really enjoyed it and would love to make plans to canoe and camp in the future.

The first night was a little scary. We took a break towards dusk and I went swimming with another hiker named Yeti. We were swimming for a while and it got dark and we ended up in a faster moving part of the river. I stood in the middle with him and all of a sudden lost my balance and got swept down stream. Yeti kept yelling at me to put my feet down, but I couldn’t, I was moving too fast. I was really scared about hitting my head on a rock or something, so I grabbed at a branch of a tree that was sticking out over the water. As I was holding on, the water was rushing by so fast it pulled one of my crocks off, then the other and finally my shorts. There I was, shoeless and pantless, holding onto this branch for dear life and while the water was rushing really hard against my pussy I actually wondered for about two seconds if I would be able to get off. But then I got a hold of myself and grabbed onto a closer branch and finally pulled myself onto shore.

The views on the river were beautiful. I saw one of the prettiest sunsets over the mountain and right when everything already seemed absolutely perfect, this bald eagle swoops out from a rock face and flies into the sunset.

Blaze is a term of travel on the AT after the “white blazes” they paint on the trees and rocks to mark the trail. Blue blazing is when you take short cut trails instead of sticking to the AT, yellow blazing is when you drive or hitch up the AT, and pink blazing is when you’re chasing tail on the trail. There’s also brown blazing but I don’t think you need a definition for that.

Lanthir, a super cool lady, met up with me for the aqua blaze and it was awesome! She’s also on I Shot Myself.

By shooting myself I am doing my part to take back the feminist movement from the exclusionist sex-hating, porn-hating feminazis. To demolish the ridiculous notion that all erotic imagery is inherently exploitative. To prove that you don’t have to fit the stereotype of what a woman “ought” to look like to be beautiful, or sexy. To show that scars don’t have to be a source of shame. Nudity can be casual, and fun and beautiful! Our bodies shouldn’t be something we should have to hide. I’m a nudist. I’m a 5.5 or so on the Kinsey Scale. I’m gender-queer. I’m otherkin. I am not what society tells me to be, and I am not hiding.
- Lanthir’s Artist Statement on IShotMyself

We have tentative plans to make some pretty photos on the trail, I’m excited!

They call it the Virginia Blues, the feeling of hopelessness that you’re never going to get out of Virginia. Its the biggest state on the trail, over 500 miles long. Virginia was supposed to be the promise land, it was going to be flat, easy hiking, switchbacks. I guess they forgot about the Rollercoaster, a section right at the end of the trail in Virginia that is a 13 mile stretch of 10 500 ft +/- ascents and descents. Lots of fun.

Virginia began for me at Trail Days, I hitch hiked up from North Carolina and spent four days in tent city drinking beer and partying with other hikers. It was pretty cool to meet a bunch of other folks that started before me or were behind me.

The Grayson Highlands was cool. Wild ponies and hills that look like they’re out of the Sound of Music or something. 

Then there was the school bus.

I was really suprised about how many people did not stop to check out the bus! A lot of the hikers seem real wrapped up in their daily mileage, which is kind of sad in a way because in my mind, why are you out here if you’re not going to look around? Just get on a treadmill.

So now I’m sitting here in a cheap hotel room in Harper’s Ferry, having officially escaped the Virginia Vortex, trying to force the words out. There’s so much that happens and I think of the perfect things to write when I’m hiking and high but forget everything when I go to type. Ugh. 

The section of the trail through the Great Smoky Mountains has been my favorite so far. Although there have been many beautiful parts of the trail, I loved the Smokies. The smell of the evergreens and the amazing views from some of the ridge walks were fantastic. The air was just different there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEKXcZ6ssTk

Still hiking. Wish I had awesome philisophical epiphanies to share but I don’t. I’m mostly mentally tied up in the day to day events, planning has become secondary almost pointless activity because things change all the time and then there’s the weather.

I got a call the other day that some people found my site and that its all over the trail. I don’t really care, I knew it was going to happen. Some people are worried for me but honestly I night hiked for four hours without a headlamp, just some shitty dim ass piece of shit light, in an area thats covered with reward ($60,000) signs for any information about a double homicide. I’m not saying I’m hardcore by any means, but climbing mountains every day for almost two months does have its  moments. Its both terribly humbling and exciting. I am never bored out here, ever.

I think most hikers share the “hike yer own hike” attitude out here and its refreshing to see that same concept applied towards my work. Although its terribly risky in someways I do feel like I’m at the forefront of affecting cultural change. This is where its at. Slut stigma is a cultural epidemic, lets figure out how we can change that, m’kay?

Six months ago two other women and myself that work as escorts were targeted in a stalking/smear campaign because we spoke out against a fake escort blogger. Our photos and any available information about us was posted on the internet along with a ransom for our personal information including real names, home addresses, employer’s information, etc.  This asshole wanted to out escorts on the internet on the premise that because we were somehow involved in calling out a fake blogger we were hypocrites because we were “hiding” under fake aliases as well. This person even threatened to show up at our homes and places of work with video cameras to ask people if they knew we were sex workers. This fucktard targeted sex workers in an attempt to scare us and cause damage to our personal safety, well being and peace of mind. This asshole was able to do so because sex workers have no rights in this society and because we are working in an industry that is not completely legal, he had full power to put our personal information out there and endanger us.

Carnal Nation, a well known sex blog, published an article in defense of the asshole who started the ransom site, under the idea that if you believe in freedom of speech, this douche bag  is allowed to say/do whatever he wants to a marginalized group of society. Although Carnal Nation has profited and benefited deeply from the work and writing of many sex workers, they fully supported some random douche bag that wanted to endanger sex workers by publishing their personal information online. L-A-M-E.

Whats even more lame is that Sex 2.0 (which I attened last year in D.C.) is allowing Carnal Nation to attend the event even though they’re supportive of endagering sex workers. I would like to know where the solidarity is in the sex positive crowd and sex workers when it comes to an issue like this? How can a sex positive event be ok with hosting a media company that had no problem linking to and supporting a random asshole that was looking to endanger the same people that have contributed to their site so much? How can an event whose main ideas are Sex, Feminism and Social Media be allowed to ignore such a poignant issue and act in such an overtly misogynistic manner?

If you are truly sex positive then you’re supportive of sex proffesionals (i.e. sex workers) period. 

I’m absolutely disgusted that an event I attended last year is perfectly OK with supporting a media group that was directly involved in endangering my personal safety.

I wake up in the morning to birdcalls and the many stages of the sunrise. Have you noticed that there are more stages to the sunrises and sunsets when you’re in the forest versus when you’re in the city? The sun takes a long time to come up and go down, dusk and dawn become layers of light and sound and the in between time is its own world.

I can smell laundry detergent on the weekend hikers. I can smell the way their house smells when they walk by, the smell of commercialized comfort. What you’re home is supposed to smell like.

I’m not sure what I think about all of this yet. Most of the time I’m too exhausted to think or analyze. Life has been simplified to four basic concepts: food, water, shelter, sex.

Food. I have to carry all of my food at least a week at a time on my back. I’m not really excited about food anymore.

Water. I have to find water sources in my guidebook and get enough to get me to the next place I’m walking. Too much water and I’ll be pissing every five minutes. Too little and I’m sick. I love collecting my water from the land and natural sources.

Shelter. I’m not super good at setting up my tent yet and this week we’ve had four days of rain, my tent flooded and everything I own was wet.

Sex. Its out here but I’m still rusty on normal interractions and find myself still the target of whore stigma. Not much changes.

Being around normal boys, I’m making a half-assed attempt to be a normal girl and wondering all the time if I have things right by doing sex work or if I’ve just found a way to justify my social anxiety through a business/marketing campaign. I’m very aware that out here, in these interractions, I don’t have as much control as I’m used to having.

I saw wild ponies the other day. I saw a bear. I saw the face of a man who had just lost his brother that morning. I saw the full moon rise over the mountains in North Carolina. I smelled the evergreeens in the Smokies and I saw all the fallen trees due to air pollution. And I’ve walked over mountains everyday for almost a month. But what does any of that actually mean? None of it is quantifiable.

I’ve been asked if I can feel myself changing out here. The answer is not so simple. I’ve lost weight, I’ve watched my calf muscles grow and my thighs firm. I can feel myself getting stronger mentally as everyday I force myself to keep moving forward. But all this seems like petty melodrama when I write it out.

The other day I was laying underneath a tree next to a pond while the sun set, I had just finished smoking a joint with some dudes, I watched the reflections of the water dance in shadows on the leaves of the tree. I listened to the birds, crickets and frogs and I realized that even though the day had not panned out exactly as it was planned that I was right where I was supposed to be. Thats really the cool part about the forest, about nature in general, these little moments of perfection that you find yourself unbelievably lucky enough to witness.

Hello hello. I am alive and well. Its been about a week and I”ve spent every single day tired, sweaty, hot and dirty but for some reason its fun. Yesterday I hiked 17 miles and I haven’t felt better. Here are some photos, I wish I had more well formed thoughts to share but all I can say for now is that its beautiful out here and I’m so grateful for every moment of it.

I’m sorry about the lack of photos, but I”m at a library right now and I had to get the lady to unlock the computer so that I could even access my blog and I’m mad tired and need to eat.