Sunday, August 5, 2018

Tanya J: Sexing, Scoring and Away from Home

My typical day...is a 30 -48 hour day and then a big 15 hour sleep.  Sometimes it starts at 7-8pm sometimes it starts at 3am...it really depends on so many things- where I am, who I'm with, how im working at that time (ie from the street or online), if I wanna go score, or if I have any specific plans. So even if i do very different activities or stick to wildly different times from day to day- I'm usually trying to take care of myself and people around me while working towards my own goals (making money, learning new things and trying to change some of the fucked up things in the world)  I use heroin basically every day..or at least I have done for the last 4 or So years... And I travel a fair bit - for work and to visit friends and family ...even when I don't plan on it I still end up moving around a lot.  A lot of the time its almost like there's this feeling that I'm being moved on or I'm about to be moved on. On the street in Narrm [Melbourne] police will issue sex workers and our clients "move on notices " if they think we are loitering with intent to solicit...and even if I dodge them, I see a regular client get told to move on & if he's seen in the area again its a 24 hour ban. And even if I rent an apartment there is this feeling of "how long will we last here" - places where sex workers and drug users have hung out for years keep getting gentrified so fast- and now im in Europe I similar things happening everywhere I go- in Amsterdam, in Oslo, in London...
Most days I spend a few hours texting/talking to potential clients and filtering through time wasters, and other people I get a bad vibe from.. And maybe on average I do one job a day.. Sometimes I might do three quickies (10-15 minute car jobs) in an afternoon,  other times I might do 3 bookings all week (and hopefully they are 1 hour or longer or otherwise I end up with no drugs and real sick hanging out)
But when work is really quiet it goes from good to double bad coz I'm not only broke but also going thru withdrawals for heroin and often also coming down off uppers ...but I'd rather have good times and some shit than just the same boring  same thing again and again. I enjoy being outside my comfort zone or challenging myself in different ways.
How do you travel over borders so much with a habit?
I have info and things on my devices but I just be vague and send heapsa texts but in trying to avoid extra risks .  I don't carry shit on me, they drug test everything I have twice for residue, question me for 3 hours as it is. It's like its better to be sick for 24 hrs than risk like everything when people are making fairly active watch. But anyway, finding shit, i dunno I think its easy in street based work ..either I find people somehow or I know enough people or place to go to then ask then to ask people  for things .. Like these days I just travel back and forth from Stockholm to Australia. I can get OST sometimes like methadone but I try avoid that now its easier being sick 24 hours than getting off and on methadone
I like to read a lot about history, take notes and share stuff with friends or my partner. If I don't make music or write poetry or spend time reading/listening to oral histories ...then I kinda sink down into a depressive hole... I need to do things like this to keep some hope in future or to distract myself from tendencies to be overly pessimistic & cynical
A big part of me taking drugs ( injecting heroin and smoking ice) is to find time and create the kind of mental state I want to be in to focus or relax or enjoy doing those kinds of things to the max... And also to treat myself and enjoy the money I earn from sex work- as a kind of investment in myself and how I feel.



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