Posted on by Miss Brook$

some things are universal

Drafted when I lived in Singapore, so sometime in 2009/10.

Children act like children, though the children in Singapore are generally better-behaved than children elsewhere (and Asian babies are so cute!).

Saw an ad for a local children’s daycare. All these cute little Singaporean kids and the one token white girl.

Gyms still pressure-sell and everyone gets suckered in, then regrets it—as evidenced by some discussion forums I’ve looked at.

Cabbies add unexplained charges to the meter, pretend to not understand you or just act lost.

Women, no matter naturally tiny they are, still want to lose weight. As evidenced by all the weight-loss products and advertisements here. Or maybe all this stuff really works and that’s why they’re all so skinny. Or maybe not.

Women with straight hair want curls, women with curly hair wish for straight. Take this one to the bank.

Asians flock to stores to buy branded goods, the more expensive the better. Westerners flock to markets looking for knock-offs, haggling for the best bargain.

Nobody likes illegal immigrants working in their country. And yes, the browner-skinned people are always the “immigrants.”

Technology is imperfect around the world.

Hotel maids move my stuff around too much for my liking no matter where I am.

Regardless of where I am in the world, when I travel alone, I invariably end up in the next room to a fighting couple. She always starts crying. Then he either leaves or starts hitting her. Eventually, it stops. In case you’re thinking this leads to hot make up sex, it doesn’t. Sex never follows these hotel-room abuses. Fortunately. I’m not sure I’d want to hear the sex that follows abuse.

non-universal opinions

I’m still not used to the metric system. It’s utterly meaningless. What is 100g of something? An ounce? A pint? A teaspoon? It’s just a number divisible by 10. Okay, so I’m very Imperial. I’ve been told Australia successfully switched to metric in recent history and I don’t believe anyone died. I still like Imperial. It means something. It was created to measure real-life scenarios. It’s not sterile.

The only metric measurement I know is the weight of my checked bag. I can guess it to within a kilo, though I still can’t guess its weight in pounds. My goal was 10-12kg, but it regularly clocked in at 12-15kg. No getting around it no matter how I tried to skim the weight down. Even now in the US, I’ll check my bag’s weight and ask them to change the scale to kilos for me. But I can’t weigh anything else in kilos, if it’s not my bag, then I have no idea how much it is in kilos (and really, not a very clear idea in pounds either).

I still love US greenbacks. They feel like money. They smell like money. They sound like money. I think we have the sexiest currency in the world, but maybe it’s just what I’m used to.

Australia and Singapore and other countries have plastic money. It’s slick but not papery. No smell. Singapore’s currency is graduated by size, each denomination is radically different in color, it has a clear plastic window on the bills (which is cool) and a Braille system so the blind can easily handle it. It’s as progressive as currency can get. But it’s not sexy.

Posted on by Miss Brook$

happiness in the time of 1984

This is a very old draft, obviously. I had a lot more to say that’s lost to time and TBIs. Sadly, it’s all still relevant.

Often, the worse things are, the more vehemently people are encouraged to be sunny.

The most recent findings, for example, are that wealth makes you happy but children do not. [By recent, this was published in 2009; and by findings, of course I mean what is obvious to all.]

The most inspiring people are those least obsessed with their own happiness, especially those who stride confidently across the globe to create, evoke change, or wrest from life what they will.

Eleanor Roosevelt believed happiness “is not a goal, it’s a byproduct.” I think she might be right.

Posted on by Miss Brook$ · 2 Comments

welp

I’ve been meaning to tinker with this blog and do something with it. Twitter has permanently suspended my account for violating their rules on promoting illegal behaviors. That was the determination on appeal, so…

Been wanting to get off Twitter for many years now, as it’s a time-suck for me. Fun, and I enjoy meeting people (most of them, anyway), but a time-suck. I’ve toyed with re-starting this blog as a way to make affiliate income promoting products and services I use and like. I’m still going to do that at some point because why not?

For now, I’ve got to blow the dust off here. I haven’t found anything I want to port this to that I really, really like so I’m staying on WordPress. Going to update the theme, fix all the broken stuff in here, that sort of thing.

Will upload the HTML archive of my Tweets over the years because there were some bangers in there. My likes and bookmarks were a personal resource list that’s now gone (I failed to download my bookmarks in time). The Internet is forever when you don’t want it to be; otherwise, the Internet is never permanent. If you don’t know this by now, well, now you do.

Comments will reopen on new posts only. There are a lot of commenters who have scattered over the years and I hope to welcome them back. Reading over old posts made me realize I had a few really nice friends who got lost along the way. If you’re still subscribed to updates, well, hopefully you get this. If not, that’s yet another thing I need to fix around here.

This is an old house, but it’s still standing and it’s still mine.

@amanda_brooks: 2008-2025 (Oct-Dec)

Twitter
Posted on by Miss Brook$

After “after hours”

I’ve been wanting to change up this blog for years. Getting more personal online is uncomfortable. Having more privacy yet retaining the audience I’ve built is the goal. Getting paid is ideal.

I’ve looked at Patreon and discarded it so many times in the last few years. There’s Substack, which almost persuaded me. But, in the end, it’s still a digital blog, same form and format, just with a little money thrown in. There’s nothing substantially different between it and my free Tweeting, or my free-to-read posts here. I am stuck with my working-class mindset: value must be given to the paying customer. It’s an honest mindset, even if somewhat limiting.

Then a side project I was developing took shape and I realized it would suit Amanda perfectly, instead. What am I if not a writer? Do I not claim I’m an artist, too? I should write, and create with writing.

In the spirit of contrariness, which has inspired most life choices, I have gone headlong the opposite direction from current, popular wisdom.

When people throw everyone online for “transparency,” that is the time to go private. When all communication is moved online, it’s time to move off.

Instead of a TinyLetter, an Actual Letter.

This comes from my stated desire to make money from my blogging, the rediscovered need to be creative without staring at a screen all day, and the pleasure of intimacy within certain boundaries, familiar to many sex workers. I earn a steady income from my blogging, which my creditors also enjoy — with more-inspired, regular writing to a smaller, appreciative audience.

Yes, someone whose normal handwriting really does look like shorthand has taken up the dip pen, found some nibs that work, and is developing something legible (and I aspire to real beauty, with enough practice). It’s creative. It’s what I’ve been dying for for years.

This is art, and approaching it as art is the way my handwriting becomes something more. As does my writing. I compose very differently when the ink literally flows from my pen than when typing on a keyboard. Key clicks are cheaper than dirt. Ink and 100% cotton paper? Very expensive and exquisitely thoughtful. There is no waste, I make few mistakes. Strange how not having a Delete key does that. (Pay no mind to my blotchy practice sheets, you know, those times when the ink really did flow from my pen.)

There won’t be 20K-word letters, my hands can’t take it. Expect a medium-length letter, 500-1K words, maybe all the way up to 2K if I really have the spare time.

The essays I’ve planned are all things I’ve wanted to discuss for a long time, but hesitate to make them public and Googleable. Pen to paper is not that.

I plan on producing some handwritten and updated editions of existing blog posts, perhaps quotes from my books or Tweets, things that aren’t personalized, serialized or brand-new. These pieces will be more affordable than the letters, and not in such limited quantities. My hope is some of these pieces are framed, perhaps put in a scrapbook, or something of that nature. Sex workers do love their physical, personal libraries.

The blog here will be much more surface, and less personal than it has been. If you want to read what I have to say, the real thought-pieces, the substantial and personal things I sometimes share, you must purchase a letter. If you want to be my pen-pal, for real, now you can.

Not going to do the letters indefinitely. A year, perhaps two. And then I’ll probably have said everything I want to say as Amanda. The letters are as close to a memoir as I’ll ever get. I really don’t have the ego required for a full-blown autobiography.

Private pen-pals will last as long as they last. Mostly I’ll let those relationships fizzle out on their own, likely after I’ve thoroughly offended all my pals.

Letters will never be repeated, or reposted on the blog or anywhere else. They’re real-world communication. Made once, consumed only in one manner by the person who receives them, not accurately reproducible by any means. My imperfect hand means nothing will be the same twice. Low effort wabi sabi.

Letters are folded properly, sealed with wax and a custom stamp, created for my personal theme of 2021. The letter will be inside the mailing envelope. So basically, you get a plain, addressed envelope, open it to reveal another plain, protective envelope, and inside there is your letter.

I have gold and purple wax, and various colors of satin ribbon. You can even choose your basic paper types: opaque or transparent. You get to choose wax color, ribbon color, and paper-type because I’m feeling generous and want you to enjoy the way your letter is presented.

Quantities are limited; both the current topical issue and number of pen-pals I’ll allow. I expect to produce a new issue every 4-6 weeks and I’m already behind in rolling this out, the February issue will go on sale starting the 9th.

Actual purchasing information and email notification of issues for sale is on my other website1. You pay via Square, my payment processor. The options are all explained on my sales page. I suggest reading it thoroughly. All questions should be answered, and there are helpful photos, as well.

All in all, I think this is pretty simple to understand. I write letters, you buy them.

Click here to go to Sales Page

I’m curious how quickly some idiot manages to screw this all up.

To recap: continuing to read the thought-pieces many enjoy means buying the topical letter. Being my pen-pal means purchasing private correspondence.

I love writing with a dip pen; and making $money$. I’m a brain-damaged hooker with artsy-fartsy flair. An entertainer for 20 years, I’m offering a new form of entertainment for you. Nothing bigger than that.

By next week I expect to see hundreds of escorts offering calligraphy and handwritten letters. I know of only one who currently offers handwritten correspondence. As usual, the unoriginal herd should pay me royalties because money is flattery. Imitation is neither flattering nor money!

1This blog theme, while lovely for blogging, is limited in being able to create unique pages, and I do not wish to waste my time right now redesigning this entire thing, that’s coming later this spring. I’m working on other deadlines at the moment.

Posted on by Miss Brook$

fast girl and slow girl

Came across a hardcover of Fast Girl in the clearance bin at a non-local bookshop and had to have it. Yet another hooker book I haven’t read only now I have the space and time in which I could, so I did.

I remember when the scandal came out, wrote about it, in fact. It wasn’t until I read the book this week that I finally realized Suzy Favor was her really-real name because it sounds like a hooker name if ever there was one.

Her track career I read with deep envy as a sprinter who had the love but never the support or training to make anything of my obvious ability. But then, she also made it clear my love of running would have never survived the brutality of her training, as it barely survived hers, disappearing entirely for the latter half of her career, resurfacing only as a way to heal many years later.

That, I understand; survivor of the photography teacher whose motto was “make them cry in class”. (I never did, I saved it for the bathroom breaks or my dorm room because I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction, but it certainly wasn’t for his lack of trying.)

Her wild escorting career was interesting to read, and laughable in some ways, like her insistence on staying in fancy rooms when she only did outcall. (She was impressed by a $300 Agent Provocateur set, I wondered if it came from the clearance rack. Then I realized I’m a jaded snob and wondered when this happened but that’s a whole different thing.) She never does math: the difference between the cost of her Vegas trips and what she actually made after the agency cut. Her husband does better hooker-math than she does.

Her sense of competition with the TER rankings was so incredibly misguided, even though it was her own sense of self that did the guiding. While that self was supposedly in manic mode during this time, that self was also her drive to win in running–it’s part of her nature no matter what and can’t be blamed on mania. It is what it is; she’s an Olympic-level athlete which makes her a rare person by any standard.

Her fall from grace, which I supported with extensive Googling, even reading the awful, original TheSmokingGun piece on her, had me asking only one question I’m not sure I asked myself when this broke because the scandal brought up so many other questions. The sole question to be asked about all of this is: Why? What did the asshole client and TheSmokingGun think they were doing? What was the purpose behind her outing?

Really? What was the actual reason?

TheSmirkingReporter for TheSmokingGun who talked to the naive Suzy (she should have told him to fuck off and that was it), and the hit-piece written never give any reason as to why outing an athlete and mother as a part-time escort was important news.

She wasn’t selling nuclear secrets, she wasn’t trading insider secrets or helping to rob casinos, she wasn’t even able to help her husband with their realty business without causing more problems than she solved. So why was destroying her two professional lives, and nearly destroying her entire family circle worth it? What was the goal? She was acting in a role millions of women have, and her clients were with her as partners in that role. They were married too. So why was exposing her and not them the big story? What made her a target? What significant social good was accomplished by exposing her?

I’m not hurt or changed in any measurable way by knowing about Suzy’s secret career. No one I know is hurt by her actions. I can’t remember that society was unduly influenced one way or another by her escorting.

As far as I can tell, the only thing the outing accomplished was to was hurt her and everyone associated with her. That’s it. It stopped no crime, exposed no dirty dealings, society is not any better for her exposure. It got clicks for TSG.

That’s it.

Ruin a woman and her entire life for clickbait.

Truly a worthy 21st century misogynist goal.

It’s a question so basic she doesn’t even stop to ask it in her book and I wish she had. She talks of her anger at those in her life who stifled her and yet she apparently doesn’t have enough anger at those who destroyed her and I’m including the website that bothered to give enough credence to the story to actually, physically report it.

It’s what’s known in media circles as a non-story and yet somehow it became a scandal.

This is all rhetorical, I know exactly why a beautiful woman was destroyed as much as possible by men who couldn’t have her.

The other reason I’m writing this is for those sex workers who also suffer mental illness and aren’t being properly treated. Suzy and her doctors would have benefited greatly from having her undergo a Genesight test. I know I’m flogging an expensive medical test. It works, though. That’s worth every penny to those who suffer.

The test results and report, and I have the original copy, show how I process a variety of psyche mediations. It also shows I have two recessive genes that ruin how my mind processes its own chemicals, specifically serotonin. I’m genetically-predisposed to depression due to mal-processing of chemicals and the only solution is the correct medication that balances my brain’s chemical processes by creating a workaround since we don’t have the knowledge to repair such issues.

My issues are indeed all in my head and my parents are to blame. How many can say that? (Anyone who has similar genes, really.) Bad jokes aside, it was a relief I didn’t know I was seeking to discover that my issues are scientifically-provable, that I wasn’t making things up, that I wasn’t making too much of things, I wasn’t crazy, I have an actual medical issue for how I think and feel and have lived. Fortunately, it’s a treatable issue no matter how invisible it has been.

Before I was treated properly, yes, I have suffered deep despair and depression throughout my life. When my situation is horrible, I’m suicidal. When my situation is better, I’m mostly okay (but can fall into a depressive state with little provocation). Adding other problems, like PTSD, into the mix just exacerbates every single issue of these illnesses to a very large degree.

Proper medication allows me space to think clearly. My deepening burnout would have literally killed me if not for being properly medicated for the better part of the last two years. Even then, it was a near miss. I had to realize that burnout was still an issue of my mind pointing out a problem to me, something I needed to fix, and it was screaming as loud as it could to bring my attention to the problem. It took a while, but I listened and have begun fixing the problem.

At any other point in my life, almost all of which was spent free of professional psychological intervention, this would have ended very, very badly. Most likely permanently–the ending I’ve seen for myself since I was very, very young.

Reading Suzy’s account of her attempts at professional help made me wish she could have taken the test. It would have changed so much in her later life. Perhaps she has taken it now, and is being properly medicated based on her actual body chemistry. It’s a much better solution than what her doctors at the time did: prescribe for her based on semi-informed guesswork, with what she claims was disastrous results.

Her story made me realize I was luckier than I thought to have access to a professional who knows of tools like Genesight. It’s just a tool, not God, a tool that takes guessing out of the equation. Guesswork when dealing with psyche meds is a terrible way to try and treat serious problems. (Says the person who was dosing herself for three years without doctor supervision with a psyche med that just made things worse.)

I hope she, and those of her audience who need it, continue to find healing.

The last thing I want to say about this story is the story itself. When I was Googling for information on her, something I don’t remember doing when her story broke, everywhere I went I found tons of pictures of her. There were always running photos and sexy photos. She’s a beautiful woman and was a beautiful college girl. Her daughter will likely be beautiful as well.

The only video I watched was her Nike commercial, which is hilarious. I’m probably going to search for videos of her running, at her peak. Just so I can be jealous of her running form, which has to be efficiently perfect. (Mine’s not great, not terrible.)

The sexy photos, however, were always on the stories deriding her fall from grace; the most sexy photos on the leering TSG article that outed her, of course. Even the Nike commercial exploits her beauty and sex appeal.

I’m not even covering the multiple verbal beatdowns and sexual harassment she received in her life due to her natural build: large breasts on a petite frame; unusual in a high-level runner. Or her disordered eating quickly descending into bulimia because she didn’t fit an idealized body type.

One long-form story on a running website that detailed her running career had an ad for another story on the same website, ranking the country’s “sexiest female athletes”, dead-middle in this story castigating a woman for capitalizing on her sexiness.

The cognitive whiplash actually hurt.

Be a beautiful, sexy woman; don’t be too sexy, don’t personally profit off it, don’t keep it to yourself either but share it freely with everyone who wants a piece of you, but don’t share too much either because that’s also very bad. Don’t take pride in yourself or get a big head but please continue to keep yourself up and be sexy because you owe it to everyone who wants to look at your. And for God’s sake, don’t profit off of it. Especially that.

How does anyone expect a woman to stay sane? It’s impossible.