TALES FROM THE BROTHEL: TURN ON YOUR (RED) PORCH LIGHT

Garden view from the kitchen, decidedly non-brothel like. Right?

Great title for a blog, no? For now we’ll keep it as a post title.

I have been looking for a new place to live for some time now. Months in fact. In the town in which I live, housing is RIDICULOUS. Other than Manhattan it is one of the most expensive places to live in the universe. Great. It’s a really long story as to why I am looking for a place at this stage of life (and not to buy, mind you) that I will not go into as it’s not very fun or funny. Sooooo. Back to my point.

After MONTHS of searching and not settling for what I didn’t want (namely a one bedroom box of an apartment with shag carpeting and cottage cheese ceilings, oh and the bedroom that is really a closet and all for only one TRILLION dollars a month and a kitten sacrifice as a deposit), I came upon a listing at 8am, Tuesday on Craigslist. It sounded perfect, I sent an email, received a phone call, went to check it out (bedroom is actually a bedroom and no kittens will be harmed and if I want to I can actually HAVE a live kitten in the house), wrote a check (yep, a big one, because saving kittens’ lives isn’t cheap) and by 1:30 it was MINE. The lovely manager lady said YOU ARE IT, took my money, shook my hand and we were done.

The apartment is more like a house at the back of a property in the downtown area. I can park my car off the street and WALK to work. Two blocks. Nice. It is an old historic complex of two main houses and a couple of smaller outbuildings. My new manager/friend told me that the property is on the local historic walking tour. How quaint!

I asked her WHY, other than being obviously old by California standards, it was historically significant?

Well, she explained, apparently it was A BROTHEL for many years. Not initially, but that’s what it became.

It seemed she was sightly hesistant to tell me this news. She just didn’t know who she was dealing with.

Let’s flashback to quite some time ago when I went to see a psychic, aura reader lady who told me,

I don’t usually talk about people’s past lives, as I prefer to stay in the present and look ahead, but one of your past lives in particular is one I’ve never seen before.

Oh really? I ask, all smiles, while I’m thinking I was  Cleopatra or someone GREAT and historically important who might warrant her own walking tour.

Yes. She continued. It seems as though you were a prostitute or a courtesan in London in the 1700s.

Um.

BUT you were “working” to earn money. To support you and your child and to better yourself. Get a good education. Raise your social status!

There was a necessary pause on my part.

What you’re saying is I was a hooker with a heart of gold like JULIA ROBERTS in Pretty Woman?

Well, not exactly like that, but you were working to better yourself. Working REALLY HARD (What the…???!!!). And also, I see you as an important man’s wife. It looks like, well, I think it was Mussolini.

 

Now, he just looks like one mean Mother...

 

Let’s just take a moment to acknowledge that this was decidedly NOT the best past life recalling that I could have gotten, or anyone could have gotten for that matter. It’s like you show up hoping for words of hope for your flowery future only to be told you were a whore and married to the king-pin of the FASCIST mob. Nice.

So you can probably see where I’m going with this (and if you can’t I don’t blame you); the 18th century hooker comes home to the brothel. And NO, I will not be entertaining any “clients” or fascists for that matter. I did wonder, however, how I should commemorate this collision of past and present; should I get a red porch-light bulb just for kicks?

Should I get that leg lamp from the movie  A CHRISTMAS STORY to put in my front window?

"The soft glow of electric sex gleaming in the window".

Maybe I’ll just keep a log of who or what shows up on my front porch and we’ll leave it at that.

So there you have it; new digs with a history. I move in on Friday, and I couldn’t be happier. I’m sure there are many tales to come as I sit dreaming by the original fireplace or soaking in the claw-foot tub where many may have dreamed before.

Yours without the Fascism or whore-ishness,

Miss MoL

PS: For craps sake, this is the umpteenth time I’ve written about or at least mentioned Julia Roberts on this blog. What is that ABOUT I ask you??? She should be paying me.

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