The Hookers Downstairs

It's been so long since my last posting. I haven't read any novels recently and I don't feel like blogging about textbooks or journal articles.

I moved downtown last November. I live in a condo and from my den I see high-end hookers strutting their TNA. On rainy nights, they parade under the scaffolding that covers the sidewalk lining an empty parking lot. Only during bitter cold snaps do they wear pants. At 4 A.M. they are still poised to sell. I take a break from my work, peer over my computer and see them in their tall, shiny platform boots. They don't want to be mistaken for anything but hookers so they dress accordingly.

Hookers, prostitutes, ladies of the night - these women are muses to artists. Manet's Olympia, Ingres' harem paintings, Picasso's flat 3 dimensional cuts of madames, and Kirchner's sharp fox-faced street walkers just to name a few.

The young, attractive, glitzy, pampered prostitute that is nice to look at and nice to hold. But what of the older, worn, saggy, diseased, drug addicted, scabby, impoverished hookers working to feed their children?