It's been one whole year! Happy Anniversary!

Music: 00:00

Music.

Parker: 00:07

Welcome to A Sex Worker's Guide to the Galaxy where the answer to life, the universe and everything is sex workers. I'm your host, Parker Westwood, and I am coming at you from under a blanket today. I don't have my acoustic foam and stuff set up, and this is the first time I have done an under the blanket podcast episode, and I don't think it'll be my last. This is, this is an experience. I'm also really excited, because this is the one year anniversary episode, and I'm not bringing an interview today. I'm just going to be talking at you from under this blanket. And yeah, so happy anniversary. We did it! One full year! Granted, I took some time off, but we'll just forget about that for a second, because we've been doing it for a full year! Um, I wasn't sure how well this podcast would stick in in the outside world, and also for me, and I'm really happy to be able to say that I've done this podcast for a year, and that we're here and we're kicking it. And we're doing-- we're still doing it. Yeah, we, over the course of 2021, there were 22 other sex workers interviewed, not including myself, because I did not interview myself. Although that could make an interesting episode at some point. Yeah. 22 marvelous human beings that I was able to have on the show. I'm so grateful to have gotten to know them and made those connections, and like this podcast gave me the gumption and confidence to do so. So I'm just so grateful. I'm just, I think I say in every episode that I'm so grateful, but I am. This has just been such a really cool experience, and I love talking to other sex workers. So a huge thank you to each and every one of my 22 guests that I had over the course of 2021 and a huge thank you to the listenership, we had over 33,000 downloads over the course of this year, and it's just still, still growing, still kicking. So I've said this before. I think in my six month reflection episode that captivate.fm is where I host my podcast, and they have this analytics feature where you can utilize these analytics if you're monetizing your podcast and tracking it and all of that. I don't have the attention span to use these things in that way, but I love looking at them. I find them fascinating and exciting, and I love the map feature. So you can see how many people are listening to your podcast in which countries. And it's just fun! And so I looked at it kind of over the course of last year to see what my top five countries were as far as listenership goes. And then I picked a few other ones that I just wanted to shout out. So the top five countries where A Sex Worker's Guide to the Galaxy is listened to are the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and India. So thank you to each and every one of you tuning in from where you are. I appreciate you so much. And yeah, thank you for being part of this experience. We're going to call it an experience. And then I just wanted to shout out to a few other ones, like picked at random, except for one. And you'll know why in just a moment, we had 27 downloads in Finland, 23 in South Korea, 14 in Malaysia, 18 downloads in Guatemala. And I think I know who the one person who did all 18 of those downloads is. And I just want to say, I love you so much, and thank you for listening. You're wonderful. And then we had nine downloads in Zimbabwe. So thank you all. It's just really cool. Maybe I'll post a picture on Twitter of the map, because it's just it's cool to see where everyone's tuning in from. I decided that this episode was just going to be a bunch of thank yous and some announcements, and then just see where it takes me. So let's start with some more thank yous we've already covered guests and listeners. I think you're all great. I wanted to thank the Detroit Podcast festival and specifically Erin Allen, who put, who helped put it on for like, the last two years. I. Um, it was formative in me starting this podcast I attended, and it was inspirational to hear other people's development process and just understand what a podcast is and how to make it happen. This podcast wouldn't have happened without the Detroit Podcast Festival, and Erin Allen, specifically, who asked me some really important questions in the development of the podcast, and just was incredibly supportive. So thank you, Erin. I want to again thank Skyler Mills for the name. It's just perfect. It has done me so well throughout this year, and will continue to do so so well throughout 2022 Skylar, you're a creative genius, and I love you. And then, of course, the intro outro track, it's perfect, and Kori Davenport is who I have to thank for that. I was like, do something sexy and funky and just put a twist on it, and you do you. And it was perfect. It feels like a funky porn in space, and I just can't get enough of it. I was wondering if I was going to switch up the music once I hit a year. And I'm not, I love it. I love it too much. Sorry, not sorry, and thank you. Kori Davenport, and I'll, I'll be linking all of these people in the show notes so you can go check out whatever they have to check out in at your leisure. In preparation for this episode, I went back and I listened to my trailer, and oh, it was, it was such a sweet thing to listen to, because it's such a like a time capsule of who I was then. And it was really, it was really sweet. It made me laugh. It made me cry. And there was something I said that was like, what's more human than watching someone learn something? And I think that's still entirely true. The learning process is so clumsy and beautiful and like, you have to fail at some point in order to really learn something. And I also like, I want to add that, like, vulnerability. There's vulnerability in that, and vulnerability is where we find human connection. A lot of the time. It's seen as a weakness in our culture. And I think that's such bullshit, because there's so much strength in authentic vulnerability with each other, and so I I'm going to be vulnerable with you for a moment and let you know that I'm I'm struggling with my mental health right now, the the the panorama, the pandemic, the everything we're calling it these days, and everything that has come along with these times has finally taken its toll on my cat is trying to enter my fort right now because she can tell I'm being vulnerable. I'm certain. But yeah, so these times, the last two years of all of this has taken its toll, and I am feeling it. So, like many people during this time, I'm struggling with anxiety and depression. And it is a it's a wild time. It's really incredible, how how difficult they can make life to manage. And there's a lot I have to be grateful for. There's a lot that I'm genuinely excited about in my life, but I'm having a hard time behaving as though I'm excited. I'm having a hard time truly registering that sort of stuff. I'm having a hard time being accountable, and I am experimenting with boundaries in that so that I can show up and feel good about how I show up. And the hard part, the vulnerable part, the clumsy part, is that I don't know what those boundaries need to look like. And so this experimentation process is something that I have to be open about with you all and with everyone else in my life and And so basically, what I'm saying is I am I'm going to continue to do this podcast, but I may not be posting at that every once, every two weeks timeline. I'm going to try to but I the that pressure right now is something that's not helpful for me, and it's made me shy. Away from actually doing what I need to do to keep this podcast going. So I'm hoping that by taking off the pressure and the deadline that I will that that will help, and if it doesn't, I can just change it up again. But I just wanted to let you all know that things are like the way I'm going to be posting, the frequency at which I'm posting is going to be changing and as I experiment with these things. So don't be surprised by that. And it doesn't mean I don't love you, because I do. It just means that I am finding the right ways to love myself whilst loving you and this podcast. So there's that, and thank you for holding space for that. I also think it's important for me to say here that I have a therapist and I have trusted confidants and friends who I can talk to, and have been talking to about this. So I'm not alone. I think taking care of your mental health is really, really important. I hate that in the United States that it is a thing of privilege, like you have to have money in order to be able to take care of these things. So my heart goes out to all of you who are struggling right now. I know I'm not alone, and I am utilizing the tools that I have, and I hope that you also have people you can turn to. I will be linking some resources for people in the show notes, because this is apparently turned into a mental health PSA, so it's the least I can do. It's important. I care about it a lot, and it's not the first time I've struggled with this in my life, but it's definitely one of the most intense. So take care of yourself, take your medication, stay hydrated and talk to someone you can trust. Okay, I love you. Let's continue. So now that that is out of the way, I have some exciting news. We have we have merch now, I have been talking about merch. I've been dreaming about merch. I've been thinking about it. And when I say merch, I mean, we have t shirts, and I would like to make other merch, like beanies and stuff like that. But right now, I am taking having T shirts as a win, and my good friend Katie at Ka to art was so helpful in the process. And these are screen printed T shirts, and the neon glow shows up, which is something I thought was impossible with a screen print. And it's just they're beautiful. So you can check out our merch store at sexy Galaxy pod.bigcartel.com and you can also check out Katie's work at D, O, O, W, A, R, R T.bigcartel.com, they have some really fantastic items, and I highly encourage you to check out their work. It's like, like, playful and a little dark and just all around fun. And they're really good people, so check them out and get your sex workers Guide to the Galaxy t-shirt while they last. Okay, so now that we've got all that taken care of, let's do a little of the general podcast housekeeping. You can support this podcast by not only buying a t shirt, but also going on Patreon, at patreon.com/sexygalaxypod, and becoming a patron 50% of the proceeds from patronage, from Patreon, patronage, goes to ANSWER Detroit or A Network of Sex Workers to Excite Revolution, which is a collective of sex workers in Detroit fighting for the decriminalization and destigmatization of sex work everywhere. We got some real cool work coming down the pike in the next couple of years. So it is definitely work you want to support, and you can also donate directly to ANSWER. I'll have a link for that in the show notes. We have a fundraiser rocking right now, so there's a GoFundMe link in the show notes. You can also follow the podcast on Twitter, @SexyGalaxyPod, or if you're into that Instagram thing, the podcast itself does not have an Instagram, but you can follow me and I post podcasty things sometimes at Parker dot Westwood. You can also support the podcast by rating us five stars or leaving a glowing review. It really does help with the analytics of the podcast and getting it to other people's ear balls. So do that. If you feel so inclined, you can also just keep listening. I love it. Suggest it to your friends, whatever you want to do, pick your poison, and I will support you in that. **Cat meows** And apparently so will Felix. Also this podcast is brought to you by companion tax. So if you're a sex worker and you need your taxes done because tis the season, check out companion tax.com. They've been doing my taxes for the last three years, and I have been really happy with their service. They answer all my questions. Things get done in a timely fashion. I cannot thank them enough, so check them out at companion tax.com as I was listening to the trailer, I I sigh. I was struggling with the sign off. I forgot about that, and the fact that Nanu, nanu motherfuckers is the thing that stuck just makes me so incredibly happy. I love it. I love it, and I love Robin Williams. And I'll tell this story because it's my podcast and I can when I was young, Rob meeting Robin Williams was on my bucket list. I never met Robin Williams, so when he passed, it was devastating in the way that it was devastating to lose someone who was like such a light in so many people's lives. But it was this double whammy, and it was a it was an awakening to the fact that people I love and appreciate are mortal, and I need to let them know that I love and appreciate them and that they are valued while they're here. You know, Robin Williams was that like, not family or anything like that, but it definitely woke me up to that. So, so having an homage to Robin Williams is like, also a reminder to me to let people know that I love and care about them. So let it, let it be a reminder to you as well, especially like during these really fucking crazy times y'all. And I was thinking about ending this with a space fact that I just made up that made no sense, but I couldn't think of one, and instead, I wanted to share with you all, kind of an actual space fact, like something that I have been obsessed with since I was a kid. So there are these things, like a space event, I suppose you could call it called Iridium flares. An Iridium flare is when the light from the sun reflects off of a solar panel on a satellite and is beamed back to the earth, to the surface of the earth. So think of like a mirror when you catch the light just right, and you can, like, play with a.on the wall, or something like that. Or when the face of your watch catches the light, and you can do the same thing. It's like that. But I realized that these are going extinct, because that kind of satellite, the kind of satellites we have now that are going into orbit, don't have solar panels like that. They're not going to reflect the light back in the same way. So this phenomenon in the sky is only going to happen for as long as these older satellites are still in orbit. But basically what it looks like, I'm getting excited, so I'm getting ahead of myself. What they look like is a very, very slow shooting star, and it happens because when the sun's light is reflected to this like pinpoint on the surface of the earth, when it when that pinpoint passes over where we're standing on the surface of the Earth, it looks as though this slow Moving star gets slowly brighter and brighter and brighter. And then as we as this pinpoint passes over us and away from us, it gets dimmer and dimmer and dimmer. So it's just this super slow build up and die out, and it just looks like a really slow shooting star. It's nothing too spectacular, but I think they're beautiful. And if you want to look them up and see one for yourself, I will put a link to a website in the show notes where you can look these things up and check them out. Highly recommend it. I hope it makes your inner child as happy as it makes mine. So with that strange, little enthusiastic space fact from my Childhood, I will end this episode, Nanu. Nanu, motherfuckers.

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