Ernestine Pastorello
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Tigress in a Corner.
🕑 Added 2020-04-24 19:26:58 +0000 UTC23 April 2020
My bed in Neukölln
I am so, so angry.
The system has failed me, on almost every level.
I am definitely not the only one; but perhaps I am one of the few with a platform from which to speak, so speak (or type) I shall.
I was filling in a form today--trying to get a bit of silver lining from this, actually, in applying for public health insurance to get off my predatory private Cigna plan (that's right, Cigna, international hardship profiteer)--and I had a moment of genuine cognitive confusion. The form read:
Options:
A. Artist
B. Unemployed.
I stare at this for several long moments until finally e-mailing my expat healthcare advisor, writing, "What am I?"
WHAT AM I?
Thanks to your generosity, I am actually not unemployed; I feel very employed, running my small but ferocious ballet empire, kicking ass and baring my soul every day for the princely monthly sum of $174.
"I'm not unemployed. I can't be unemployed. That's crazy. I went to college. I'm white. I had fucking violin lessons, for pete's sake."
To add insult to injury: today, the news that Berlin has extended its sex work ban until May 10th (a completely arbitrary date, like all the dates, to try to keep us in compliance with a light at the end of a telescopically elongating tunnel.)
"Fuck."
I don't know what pipe dream I had that individual private clients would become re-legalized on April 17th, as the website said for so many weeks. At the very least, I thought, maybe they won't update it because of the bureaucratic chaos so I'll have plausible deniability when I really do have to work or get a call from a cop posing as a client (yes, this is happening, daily, in Germany). But--again--Germany. Their pandemic lag time is a couple of days.
Safety net level #1: The U.S. government (I know, I know.)
No bailout payment. My family in California is freaking out because I haven't gotten my $1200 and they all have theirs. Charlie Baker is a cad and a knave and a big GOP so-and-so. Fuck that dude.
Safety net level #2: The German government.
For this one, I had to not only translate piles and piles of forms, but also impose upon my housemate to be my translator for a phone conversation. Piles of forms, hand-delivered to save time. Still waiting. Piles more forms still need to be filled out, but some are not available on the website. I will be informed by postal mail.
Safety net level #3: The Berlin government.
A huge pool of money was made available with almost no restrictions on what type of business (medium, small, tiny, sole proprietorship, self-employed individual) could receive aid. A super sophisticated website handling about 100,000 requests a day. The only requirement: A tax number. To be delivered. By postal mail. I registered as a resident of Berlin 5 weeks ago. This particular letter usually takes 4 weeks to arrive, but can take up to 10. The number cannot be relayed by phone or in any other matter, due to confidentiality. So it is, I trust, printed on a piece of paper, somewhere in the city. And so I wait, and hope that the Berlin bailout fund doesn't run out before I get it.
Safety net level #4: The amazing, sparkling, well-financed, state-funded, welcoming sex worker aid infrastructure.
I thought they were well-heeled. Usually, they absolutely are.
No one thought to divert a sufficient pool of funds to these organizations as a first line of defense for already marginalized people at their wit's end and likely to continue to put themselves in legal and physical jeopardy if relief is not provided, harming not just themselves, but endangering the pandemic containment efforts: including me. They have a bare-bones fund for desperate cases only. I may qualify.
Safety net level #5: Friends and family.
Utterly tapped out. Tapped out since I moved, and before. They gave until it hurt. Heroically.
Safety net level #6: The Wohngemeinshaft.
The "WG" (why make such long words if you're just going to abbreviate them?)--i.e., my flatmates--have taken it upon themselves, unasked, to undertake supplying our kitchen with everything I need to be a healthy human. My expressions of gratitude are met with extreme discomfort; It confuses them when I cry about it. Sie haben unternehmen um mich zu füttern. (I'm trying.)
Safety net level #7: The kindness of strangers (that includes YOU, patrons!!!)
I survived March relatively untarnished and in good spirits because, via the magic of Paypal and Patreon, money kept arriving, unsolicited, in my account. This was resplendent and magical.
Then Paypal decreed me some sort of existential danger, and now I am banned for life. (Vemo: @ernestinepastorello ;-) This was absolutely a lifeline. I have lost clients because they can't pay me easily and gave up. I have lost, doubtless, several random contributions. I am stunned by this development. All these years, illicit purposes, and they choose...now?
Safety net level #8: Other work.
I am extremely excited for the impending arrival--someday--of my 30 boxes containing the entirety of my worldly belongings, which include--among many beautiful things--everything I need to re-start my costuming business AND to make about a thousand face masks. I am already dreaming up beautifully designed face-masks incorporating all of my fancy lingerie supplies. But my boxes are still in Rotterdam, for some reason. Am I eschewed by the Netherlands as well?
I am also weeks into the production of sexy film clips. At first, this was undertaken with a good deal of internal resistance (see "Ernestine Under Quarantine, Week 5 Chat"), but I'm now fully bought in. And yet, the international, logistical, financial, and stigma-related obstacles are totally cunt-blocking my ability to flood the internet with my magnificence. For now. Quite convinced I'll get there.
In fact, I'm quite convinced I will receive aid through several of these channels--but I am almost certain that it will happen all at once, months late and a dollar (or euro) short, and just when I have figured out how to do without.
At this particular moment in time, the blow is particularly severe, because today I tried to mail the sweater I knit for my cat in Massachusetts. There is a corona tax on shipments to the US because the bottleneck is so extreme. It's far beyond what I can afford. Understand that every minute of the 100 or so hours I spent knitting this sweater, I was comforted, because I could imagine it next to her fur, which curbed homesickness with the efficacy of Methadone.
Safety net level #9: This project.
Short of having money, what can I do to maintain whatever granules I can, like sand slipping through one's fingers, of the former richness of my life, and the interconnectedness of our collective heart?
Dance.
So, dance I shall.
However, lest anyone forget: When the system fails sex workers to this extent in such a place, it has failed everyone. We are the canaries in the coal mine. We must not be left behind.
Ever grateful for your enduring support,
Ernestine
