The following is a thread of tiny stories from each day of my September 2024 tour of the Eastern Seaboard.
9/17/24
I almost turn around in the Uber. I’m not sure I can leave my dog – I haven’t been away from him since he had an emergency splenectomy in December 2023. Instead, I call my aunt and take half a Xanax. When I get off the phone, I play “Feel It, Still” until takeoff. I read The Third Gilmore Girl once we’re in the air. Soon, I arrive in Boston. It feels so good to be the hottest person in the baggage claim. The first thing I do is bum a cigarette from an Irish guy. It’s fucking Boston, right? The street I’m staying on looks like a movie set. There’s even a packy next door.
9/18/24
I order Dunkin’ Donuts before I roll out of bed. The delivery person leaves it outside the apartment, ignoring instructions, which feels so perfectly New England it’s like a hug. I walk to the Museum of Fine Art, passing the college I nearly attended. This sends me into a weird reverie, considering all my unlived lives.
There’s a motherfucking Dali exhibit at the museum. I love Dali. I spend most of the day there. They have an immense impressionist collection, including Mary Cassatt, whom I love. Mary Cassatt was a Boston daughter of privilege who went to Paris to learn to paint and never returned. What strikes me the most when I view art is how much we all have in common.
I take myself out for a late dinner. I walk through cobblestones on heels without finishing my first drink in the first place because I sent my food back, and now I’m mildly embarrassed. I don’t think pumpkin ravioli should taste like dessert, and I’ve been in LA too long. I settle on a dive bar and stay till close. I talk with a gentleman on my right for hours. I meet him as Aviva. I’ve never freestyled; maybe this is the night. When the lights come on, he asks if I want to walk. I look down at my shoes and say, “My feet hurt.” When I realize what he’s asking, he’s gone in the dark. I would have understood if it was about drugs. I always forget I am also a drug.
9/19/2024
Salem for the day to meet my cousin and her family. We wander about a farmer’s market, eat cheeseburgers, and climb on rocks at Dead Horse Beach. The terrible name ensures it’s never crowded. Just as they are getting ready to drive home, I meet up with one of my closest friends from the West Coast, who is now working part-time in Salem. We head up to a rooftop bar for pumpkin beer and nachos as dusk settles slowly over the old town. Her mom, who is also my tarot reader, joins us. I buy the bow in the photo and take the train back, feeling so seen, loved, and valued that I start wondering if I should move home.
9/20/2024
I am off to the tiny city in Eastern CT that still holds my heart and a few Horcruxes. I walk straight to the coffee shop where the weird community gathers. My old best friend picked me up, took me grocery shopping, and took me to my Airbnb. A guy friend comes over later in the evening with ideas for making a Scream-themed OF shoot, but I am too tired. It’s enough to see his face. I’m not staying in the best part of town, but it feels fine since it’s familiar seediness.
9/21/2024
Shoot day! I am still swollen from the procedure I had in August and also from drinking in Boston, but I always like to underpromise and over-deliver. I’ve known the photographer for over a decade. We shoot in a basement dive bar downtown. This is where I hosted my first open mic and produced my last CT show before moving to LA. There were years in between, and the owner didn’t want any comedy shows there. So much happened in comedy; the gatekeeping and social climbing aspect forever eluded me. Before leaving for this trip, I was browsing PeerSpace for a different shoot and came across a backyard comedy venue with the backdrop of “The Last Laugh.” I thought about how much more fulfilling this career is than comedy and decided to theme the shoot that. These photos are spread across my Tryst ad, website, blog, and Onlyfans. When you move from a small town to LA, visiting makes you feel like a celebrity. I am out and proud of my job as a visitor. It would be weird to be the whore in town, though. I arrive in town thinking, “Who says you can’t go home again!” and leave realizing that you can’t. That’s why they say that.
9/22/2024
Brunch, the dog park with one of my oldest friends, and then my aunt arrives. I haven’t seen her in over a year. My aunt and I agree on absolutely nothing politically, and she is the absolute adult of my life: my chosen mother. She is the person I came out to as a sex worker last spring, which was such a watershed moment for me in dismantling the internalized stigma about sex work.
We head off to Mystic Village, where there is some sort of fall festival. I run into a girl I am kinda sorta friends with. She invited me to stay with her the last time I visited, saying she had no girlfriends. I tried to keep in touch afterward, but she wasn’t available. I didn’t tell her I was staying– the whole thing was vaguely confusing and hard not to take personally. It was so lovely to hug her, though. When she turned around, I saw that she had a new puppy in a backpack. I nearly laughed. She found the girlfriend she wanted. Later that evening, my aunt and I ate pasta in a tiny restaurant on the water and watched Emily in Paris. It felt so comforting to have her in the same house. Before we went to bed, I showed her the surgical incision under my armpit that was taking forever to heal. In the night? It healed.
9/23/2024
Leaving this town always makes me sad. There’s construction on the street outside my place, and my Uber driver is furious; when I get to the coffee shop, it’s closed for renovations. This town has never not fucked me on the way out, which I find oddly comforting. I run into an old yoga friend outside the shop and talk to him until it’s nearly time for the train. I don’t think I’ll ever move back.
Every time I visit, I love trying on the fantasy. Every moment I spent with everyone was the best time I have ever had with them. My old friends, the ones I still keep in touch with, have grown in parallel ways; we have accidentally grown into people we would be close with again. Now, off to New York City, the scene of some of my lowest highs and highest lows.
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