up north.

i kept working all week. tuesday, wednesday, thursday. but it was like one or two clients per day. it was so insanely slow. i ended up leaving town with FAR LESS money than i had hoped, but thems the breaks.

now i'm waaaaaay up north. i'm gonna get a job this week, either stripping or working at that lady's spot that i told you about. i'm sure i'll have some stories soon.

xo andi

not-so-manic monday

the apartment was a madhouse today, a million girls working. i had one appointment at 1:30pm with my chef guy. i've written about him. he's one of my favorite clients. i just have to try and ignore the extreme onion smell baked into his hands. apart from that, though, he's ideal. cute. well-groomed. interesting. doesn't talk too much, is able to just relax and enjoy being touched.

after that, though, i didn't even try getting any more appointments because both rooms were booked solid all day long. grrrr. i have to try not to stress about the fact that i'm not meeting my money goal yet by a long shot. i'm just going to really try and get a bunch of appts in the next three days. i'll let you know how it goes.

since i couldn't work, i went downtown and got a scarf and hat, something i've been meaning to do. and a new sweater. and i had cookies that were so amazingly delicious i could barely even deal.

now i'm at sky's. gonna watch dexter and pass out.

i'm trying to avoid beginning each entry with "yesterday..." this is proving difficult, however, because i like to wake up and drink coffee while writing about the events of the day before, i.e. "yesterday."

but i shall try.

hmm...

i'm drinking coffee in sky's kitchen. i just posted my ad, am hoping to work a lot today. i had hoped to work every single day that i was here at home so that when i go back up north on friday, i can bring a big sack of money with me. my goal was to make around $2500. so far, i'm not even halfway there! i've only made $1150. and i had charged a few things on my credit card, so i paid that off and now i only have $600. gotta work work work these next few days!

now can i say "yesterday?"

yesterday both of my clients were kinda icky. the first one was really nice, but had the worst, most unavoidable breath i've smelled in a really long time. it was practically gagging me, actually. he'd eaten a chicken sandwich presumably with garlic aoli. and had several glasses of white wine. add halitosis and you've got a gaggingly horrifying cocktail. and he kept trying to kiss me. it was his birthday, and he had tipped me $50 upfront, so then he apparently felt entitled to birthday kisses. i don't kiss my clients on the mouth EVER. it's just not my jam. and particularly not when they smell terrible. dodging his repeated open-mouthed kiss attempts was exhausting, and meant that there was a lot of his putrid breath in the air at all times. UN-IDEAL.

the next one was THE hairiest man i've ever seen. shocks and shocks of silver and white hair all over his entire body. i couldn't help feeling like i was massaging a wolverine-man. a really chubby one. i got him oiled up real good, and somehow, even though i didn't think the hour would ever be over, the minutes did still roll on by, slowly, even though i had felt certain they'd stand still.

then i hung out for a bit with my co-workers. they are all going to new york next week to work and it sounds like so much fun, i totally wish i was going!

i met up with sky and we went to a queer poetry thing and were held hostage for a couple of hours by Bad Poetry. there was a drag queen who performed the same lengthy boring piece that she did LAST month. i felt insulted, like "HELLO! we already saw this!" and then there was a poem about trees and rape. an annoying combo.

today, i wanna make a whole lotta money. money is so attracted to me this week, it can barely keep its paws off of me. money just wants to snuggle up in my purse and take a warm little nap in my makeup bag. money wants to have a rendezvous in my secret hiding spot. it wants nothing but the best, which is what i can provide.

p.s. i wrote to my grandma asking her why she hasn't called me back and telling her it hurt my feelings when she picked on me on thanksgiving. she said she hadn't meant to hurt my feelings, she was just being funny. but she said she was sorry and that she'll call me next week. i'm so relieved. it was terrible feeling like i had just become some sort of caricature to make fun of at holiday gatherings. i'm excited about spending the day with my granny next week.

expensive hugs.

hi again!

yesterday was a nice day. i woke up and posted my ad, then went to my favorite thrift store. i found two great jackets, some peach mesh fabric, and some japanese socks for wearing with flip-flops. those are for my friend pippa who wears platform flops every day of her life. they would look terrible on anyone else, but for some reason they look really really cute on her.

i also went to the discount fabric store, and the luckiest thing happened to me: they charged me for the zippers i was buying, but forgot to charge me for my fabric! i love that store and it's family-owned so i normally would've pointed out their error. but it just so happens that they OWED me a few yards of fabric because a few years ago i bought some defective fabric and they refused to take it back. it was black stretch fabric and i laid it out on my floor to cut a bunch of leggings out of it. after i made TWO pairs of leggings, i noticed that my hands were black. and that my floor was black. and that my legs were black from trying on the leggings. it took a GIANT amount of scrubbing to get the stains out of my skin, and my floor bore a grayish hue forever after that. i couldn't believe they wouldn't do a return. i was tempted to never shop there again, but it's my favorite fabric store and it's so good and cheap. well, now i've been vindicated and it feels great!

then kat called, remember that girl i used to work with? the hot blonde one who may or may not have ratted me out to the crazy pimps? and who stole my flat-iron and kept it forEVER? well i've been calling and harassing her about the iron and i think she's sick of dealing with me. so she called me yesterday and said she had gotten it out of storage and that i could have it back. so i went on this long uphill trek to retrieve it. and then she was so nice when i saw her that i wondered if maybe she hadn't been lying when she said she thought she was doing me a favor by "saving" the flat iron for me. hmmm... either way, she looked really cute.

i went to the gym after that. i wanted to leave after ten minutes, but i made myself push through and actually did a decent workout. i got a call when i was getting dressed so i walked up to the apartment and saw a client.

he was THE TALLEST man i have ever met. 6'6'' !!! that is REALLY FUCKING TALL. he was good looking, too, and almost eerily polite. i gave him a massage and he talked the whole time about this and that, asking me tons of questions. i don't like answering a lot of questions, so i tried to get him talking instead. he talked about his ex-girlfriend, who was tiny like me and had long dark hair. like me. he didn't want to be jerked off at all, that's so strange. he just wanted some hugs. expensive hugs. then he wanted to see whether i'd go out for a cocktail with him but i told him i needed to meet some friends.

which i did need to do! i went back to sky's house and they were having a dinner party. everyone had eaten already, we just hung out drinking wine. it was really nice.

now i'm mildly hungover but drinking coffee and feeling chipper.

forget about yesterday.

yesterday i had the grouchiest day EVER. i had a 1pm appointment. nice indonesian guy. he was fine. took a LONG time to come, but that happens sometimes.

then i sat around hoping to get an appointment for a while. got a 3:30 which canceled, right before 3:30. i got a 7pm and i still had a 9pm on the books, so i thought i'd just go work out in the little gym and hope for a 5:30.

i worked out in the little basement gym for about ten minutes, and then there was this creepy guy watching me through the window. he had his hand up under his shirt and was rubbing his belly. it was so gross and creepy, with long scraggly greasy hair and psycho eyes. after a few minutes he went away. but then he came back. and came into the gym. he wasn't even wearing sneakers. he was only there to be a creep. he stood around for a minute, then lifted some weights while grunting and looking at me in the mirrors. SICK!

i just got off the ellyptical and hurried back upstairs to the apartment. i was so mad that this guy's creepiness prevented me from working out. i hate that guy.

then it was about 4pm. since i had a 7 o'clock, it seemed pointless to walk all the way back to sky's and then all the way back to the apartment, so i just laid down on the couch with my book for a while hoping to get a 5:30.

i read a bit and started to get antsy. i wanted to go out for food but my co-worker had just entered an appointment so there wouldn't be anybody to buzz me back in. we girls have keys to the apartment, but not to the front door of the building. annoying. so i ate a bunch of cookies and then laid back down on the couch, somewhat disgusted with myself for lunching on so many cookies instead of real food.

at 6pm, my 7pm canceled. FUCK! so annoying! then it was like, "do i walk all the way to sky's and then come back in two hours?" which is what i should've done, but it seemed annoying at the time. so i waited around for another hour and a half. and then my co-worker's 9pm canceled so she was leaving. and i don't like doing appointments with new clients alone in the apartment when it's so late. plus i was SO grouchy and restless by that point. so i texted my client to cancel and walked back to sky's, feeling super defeated and like i just wasted a whole day when i could have been doing any number of better things.

when i got back to sky's, i couldn't shake the super annoyed feeling at all. i just could not start feeling normal. we went and met up with a friend of mine from portland. had some wine and talked a lot, and that helped. but what i really needed was to go to bed and start fresh. which is what i did.

today: fresh!

ALARM

yesterday i woke up on sky's floor with grouchy tailbone pain. i had been sleeping in her twin bed with her, but she started snoring in the middle of the night so i moved to the little pallet bed she'd created for me on the floor. i love sleeping on floors, my back usually feels great when i get up. but this bruised tailbone is still giving me trouble. so i was a teensy bit grouchy when i got up.

i had an 11:30 appointment. it was with a guy who looked just like that guy "ben" on LOST. kinda weasel-ish with glasses and slightly sloping shoulders. he complained incessantly about his wife's lack of interest in sex. boring. annoying. i hate when guys complain about their wives. he sounded like he kind of couldn't stand her. when, at long last, he came, he made such gross grunty pooping sounds that i could TOTALLY see why his wife wouldn't want to have sex with him. plus, there's nothing sexy about someone nagging you for sex.

my next client sounded really nice on the phone and even though i've been really good about checking references, i didn't bother to get one from him. i kind of forgot till i got off the phone and then he was coming in 20 minutes and i didn't want to call him back and deal with it. so, irresponsibly, i didn't get any kind of reference on him. and when he showed up he had this intensely clean-cut look about him that made me wonder whether he was a cop. he was super well-dressed. perfect hair, gleamingly white teeth. i told myself to relax, that i was just being paranoid. he undressed and i put him in the shower. he hadn't placed the money on the little table so when he got out of the shower i asked that he take care of the business before the pleasure. he said, "what do you mean?"

i said, "well, you know how there's business, and then there's pleasure?"

he goes, "oh. you mean the MONEY?"

i said, "yes, the donation."

he said, "oh. of course. the money! how much is it, again? i think your ad said 150?"

the way he said it was in this intensely clear voice. it made me super nervous. i said, "the way you're talking about money and being so explicitly clear is making me very nervous. do i need to be nervous?"

he said, "no! no way. i'm sorry!"

he placed the money on the table. i took it out of the room. you're not supposed to give a massage with the money in the room.

i decided that i'd just give him a regular massage and not the erotic portion unless he stopped freaking me out. at least then if he was a cop i could only get charged with massage without a license. he relaxed considerably throughout the massage and was churning around on the table all sexy so i gave him his "release," and then put him back in the shower.

when he got out of the shower, all of a sudden this super loud alarm went off. not like a smoke alarm, more like an ALARM alarm. i looked at him, expecting him to be breaking out some handcuffs or flashing a badge. he looked as surprised as i was to hear such a loud alarm. i went out into the hallway, and saw that the alarm was coming from the intercom speaker in the ceiling. my co-worker was in the middle of a massage and she popped out into the hallway too. we were both panicked to the extreme, we didn't know what to do or what the alarm was. we stood there for a minute, frozen. then we both went back into our rooms. my client was busting ass to get dressed in a rush, pulling on a sock and trying to buckle his belt at the same time. i saw him out and then the alarm stopped. i was shaking, i was so nervous i could barely stand up. i put some clothes on quick, cleaned up the room, and went out for some air.

destinationless, i walked to walgreens. i bought some eye make up remover. some sparkling water. i walked back up the hill and stood in front of the apartment building. i still had over an hour before my next appointment and i wasn't ready to go back inside, so i ducked in to the deli downstairs. i was still feeling super shaky and i realized that in addition to being in the throes of panic, i was also suffering from low blood-sugar. i knew i should eat but everything sounded gross. i ordered an egg sandwich. i've tried this before but the guy usually tells me it's too late. i must've looked desperate because he made it for me even though it was the middle of the afternoon.

as i sat at the grubby lunch counter eating my scrambled egg sandwich, i got two calls. the first was a low, breathy-voiced man who said, "hi mandy, i'm rod. i'm tall. blonde hair. blue eyes. from your ad i see that you're just the girl i'm looking for. tiny. brunette. i'd like to pleasure you. are you into that?" i wanted to say, "ew gross, i HATE pleasure!" but it's best to be neutral with these weirdos so they give up on you right away instead of calling over and over for attention, so i just said, "no thank you."

no sooner had i hung up with that guy and taken one bite of my eggs, than another guy called. this one talked really fast and wanted to know if i could see him right away for a half-hour session, for which he was willing to pay $80. what a cheapskate. i told him that i don't do half-hour sessions, particularly not for $80.

so then i munched the rest of my eggs and went back upstairs to the apartment. i still had 45 minutes before my 4:30 appointment and i was feeling drowsy as hell so i laid down on the couch. as soon as i closed my eyes, here comes my co-worker with the steam cleaner. she gets a discount on her house fees for doing a bit of cleaning. anyway: it was SO LOUD. i felt like, "really? you have to steam clean the carpet right this minute while i'm trying to have a cat-nap?" so annoying!

my 4:30 was a guy i've seen before. a tall dutch man. i like his accent. he's a favorite of mine. the last time i saw him we were talking a lot and it was fine but kind of exhausting. i said, "the next time i see you, we're not going to talk. we're just going to enjoy each other's company." so this was our "silent session." it was SO much better. he seemed to like it too.

and then i hung around for a bit. worked out half-heartedly in the little gym. and went to meet up with sky for dinner. we had burmese food. it was delicious. not mind-blowingly tasty, but it was at least a change of pace from our usual 3 or 4 spots.

nice and stuffed, we walked downtown to see the movie "precious." it was good. i thought the acting was great. i wished there were more fantasty/dream sequences, though. sky has been needing a good cry but the floodgates are rusted shut. she thought "precious" might do the trick, but no dice. maybe i'll just have to chop some onions while telling him a sad story.

(and now for an extremely random side-note: i had this super bitchy drama teacher when i was in high school, and of course even though i hated her i was also obsessed with her. she was really kind of pathetic, unmarried and way too involved in petty high school politics. well once in class she was trying to teach us to be able to cry on stage. she said, "you have to think of the saddest thing ever. you have to have that thing ready so all you have to do is start to think of it and you'll cry." someone asked her what HER thing was that she thought about. everyone thought she was going to say being stood up at the altar, being single and friendless in our crappy hick-town, something like that. but she said, "we had this little runt piglet on the farm when i was a kid. and i just loved that little guy. one day i found him dead, though, he got trampled on by another pig." and we were all like, "that's IT?" it was such an epic anticlimax.)

home sweet home

yesterday i flew home and went directly to work. i was reading a haruki murakami book on the plane and then as soon as the plane landed i grabbed my luggage and scrambled on to the train and then up the hill to the apartment where i work. i felt so happy to be back. to have money entering my life once more.

my first client was a baby-faced japanese man. he had big cute cheeks that went all the way up when he smiled, obscuring his eyes so that you could barely even see them. they still shined out just a bit. in a cartoon they would have been shown with those little glinty marks they put on teeth or the edge of a new car to show that it's brilliantly shiny. this guy was really nice. a bit serious.

sometimes i kind of picture my clients like characters from books or movies. i can't help it. like this guy reminded me of the main character in "the wind-up bird chronicle."

my next client REALLY reminds me of a tv character. i think i've written about him before. he's this super tall guy who's covered in tattoos who kind of scared me at first till he told me how he rescued a tiny little dog. the image of this giant toughguy walking a runty chihuahua down the street really endeared me to him. i'm so glad i didn't write him off just because he has an odd manner and semi-scary tattoos (like a mean sun that has a super maniacal smile and crazy, jagged rays), because he's turned out to be one of my favorite clients. anyway this guy reminds me SO MUCH of the tall older brother on "everybody loves raymond." it's so weird--he even has the same extremely low voice. whenever he calls to book an appointment, i can barely even conjure up my clients face, i just picture ray's brother.

i guess it's a little hard to remember certain faces, since mostly they are down in the face cradle during your time together, and then when they turn over you're not so much looking at their face if you know what i mean.

i'm going to be in town for 8 more days. i'd really like to make about 2 grand while i'm here. i hope this isn't an outlandish goal. i'm going to really try!

with grannies like this, who needs enemies?

yesterday i went to thanksgiving dinner at my aunt's house. i have a really big family, there were 28 people there and there would have been more but my mom was out of town and also one of my brothers and his wife and kids were sick.

it was a nice day. except that at the end my grandma totally started picking on me! it was bizarre. i was dressed kind of conservatively, for me: fitted flannel top (the kind for ladies, not a mens shirt), dark denim skirt, black tights and black high-heeled lace-up ankle booties. i barely even had any accessories or makeup on. just a little eye makeup and earrings.

when i first arrived at my aunt's, i was giving people hugs and saying hi to everyone and my grandma goes, "don't bend over!" i mean, my skirt was pretty short. but i always wear skirts that short and i've gotten quite good at not flashing people. plus, the skirt was super tight so it was staying in place just fine. i let that comment go as if it was a joke. even though i know my grandma has this way of saying mean things that she 100% means, but shrouding them in flimsy joke costumes. so what she was saying was, "your skirt's too short for thanksgiving." but whatever. moving on.

i love thanksgiving. i made a pumpkin pie and used coconut milk instead of evaporated milk. it was delicious! some people in my family tried polite bites, but pronounced it "not sweet enough." i hadn't put any sugar in it, just a bit of maple syrup, but i thought it was plenty sweet and super tasty. i wish it wasn't tacky to bring home the rest of your pie after going to someone's house for dinner. i mean, nobody will eat that pie. it's all natural and didn't come from safeway: how gross!

i didn't talk to my grandma much at thanksgiving, not because i don't like her but because there were so many other people there who are sweet to me, that i ran out of time for bullshit. it's guaranteed that given the chance, she'll start out normal, and then somehow work in complaints about how skinny i am when the rest of the family is fat. like i won some dirty lottery or something. it's actually just that the women on my father's side are like tiny little bird women and my sister and i happen to take after them. and also i don't eat like the people in my family. and i work out A LOT. the way she brings it up all the time is embarassing, and it's hard to enjoy my food when she's scrutinizing my plate and telling everyone i'm not eating enough. she says things in a way that makes it seem like i'm smugly looking down on my whole big chubby family. it's just not true, and it makes me mad and hurts my feelings.

well then later after all the food and dessert and more food, i was getting ready to leave and i put on my sweater poncho thing, it's really cute. my cousin was freaking out about how cute it was, and my grandma goes, "oh so i suppose THAT'S what you're going to wear tonight, to your gig. just that and nothing else." (i had a gig of sorts in town, don't want to mention what it was since i'm private here.)

i said, "what? no. i'm going to keep my clothes on."

and she kept joking about it for SUCH a long time. it was really really weird. she just WOULD NOT LET IT GO. she kept referencing different outfits i'm wearing in my facebook pictures, like i am just some big skanky ho. "and that yellow dress, i mean can you even call that a DRESS? haha" i tried to laugh along a bit, thinking she'd cut it out so i could give her a hug before leaving. but i ended up just ignoring her and saying goodbye to everyone. even as i was leaving she was just laughing up a storm. it was fucking bizarre. it kind of made me wonder whether my mom had told her something about my job. (my mom knows what i do, which might sound weird but isn't.) or maybe she's just getting weirder and weirder the older she gets. she's certainly not old enough to excuse such crazy behavior: she's only 73!

i'll try it here.

well, i'm still up in my cutsie little hometown. it's not really a town, though, it's a pretty sizable city. but its sleepiness and friendliness make it feel pretty townish.

i spent all the money i brought and i'm not due to go back to the city for a whole 'nother week. so i scanned craigslist a bit looking for massage girls who might want to share their studio with me. i found a few and emailed them, and the only one who got back to me was a lady we'll call lisbet. (her real name is SO GOOD. man i wish i could use it here! it's SO. GOOD. the kind of name that just drips of danielle steele sex, the kind of name someone would choose in order to sound sophisticated and irresistible, worldly).

lisbet invited me to come over and see her space so i paid my housemate five bux to drop me off there. we got a little lost on the way. my housemate, let's call her maya, used that opportunity to ask me tons of questions about my work. as a staunch lesbian who is also chronically broke, she was intrigued that i could touch a bunch of guy's bodies and thereby make quick cash. she seemed to think it was something gross and terrible that needed to be gotten through with as quickly as possible in order for me to come home with my sack of cash. i told her a little bit about how it's usually not very gross, etc., but i didn't feel like going into tons of details with her about it. i felt a bit barraged.

finally we found the place. i loved that lisbet had put a placard on her door that said, "kustom kupcakes." it just felt like such a hilarious and classic diversion. "well, we thought we heard the moans of prostitution taking place in there, but we can clearly see that this is the base of operations for a bakery. so, put your badges away, boys, our work here is done!"

lisbet opened the door and she looked exactly as i had pictured her on the phone. earthy. goddessy. supple. she actually looks A LOT like tony's sister on the sopranos, "janice." like: a lot. and she has the same slightly hippie/dreamy vibe. and also the intense edge.

she gave me a tour of the place and i noticed that there wasn't a shower. BUMMMMMER.

but other than that the place was nice. she has a fancy heated massage table. plenty of organic oil and lotion. towels, etc. the place is in a business complex, so it doesn't look that homey but she's done what she can with the place.

she seemed to like me okay and said i could start working right away. i want to wait till after thanksgiving, though, because i have been feeling under the weather and i don't want to expose myself to a bunch of germs from rubbing my body on strangers.

i'll let you know how it goes.

nice calf mucles = nice ass?

this morning as i was walking home from the grocery store, a lumberjack type guy in a huge truck slowed down to tell me i had "really nice calf muscles." the way he said it, though, lasciviously and with a toothpick dangling from his lip, made it feel more like, "nice ass." i have learned that when guys say this kind of thing to you that's innocuous on the surface but greasy with innuendo, it's best to just say thank you and keep walking. ignoring guys like this just does not work. they will usually just keep repeating themselves louder and louder till you finally give in and say something back.

so. i yelled a quick "thanks" over my shoulder and kept on walking. he kept on following me.

"you must run a lot," he said.

"haha, only when guys like you are following me," i said, half-joking.

"that's funny," he said, without laughing. "do you need a ride?"

"nah, i'm good. thanks, tho!" i said. i was all hopped up on coffee and so my mind was a little wild and he was looking at me so intensely that for a split second it seemed to me that he knew i was a hooker of sorts. like i was marked, somehow. i immediately recognized the ridiculousness of such a line of thought. but weird that i would even think that for a second, right? of course i don't look like a hooker. i mean, i don't think i do. it's not like i was wearing a juicy couture tracksuit and big hoop earrings.

the guy followed me a bit longer to see if maybe i'd change my mind, and then sped off.

lesbian winter. still.

well, it's still winter. and i'm still up north. it's only been a few days but i feel super over it already. i keep having this dreadful feeling of WHAT AM I DOING HERE and HOW MUCH LONGER TILL I GET TO GO HOME?

tomorrow i'm going to really try and have a good time. i'm going to write and sew all day and also i'm going to yoga. i have to at least give it a chance here. complaining and shivering dramatically don't count as honest attempts to make the best of it. i can do better.

lesbian winter

the last week of working is sort of a blur. i just worked pretty much every day because i was leaving to come up here to the town where i'm from. i saw lots of my regular clients and that was nice. but mostly the week was just a blur of constant working. the things i remember:

-one of my regulars came to see me and i decided it would be our last time together. in fact, last time he came to see i decided it was the last time, but then he called the other day and sounded excited to see me, and i thought "maybe he won't be such a bummer this time." but then he was SUCH a bummer. his wife just had a baby and is suffering from post-partum depression, she never wants to put out, etc etc. the way he was complaining about her and talking about her like she was the world's most annoying person made it hard to like him. at all. even when i don't like guys, i try to find something about them that's nice. but this guy just seemed totally bankrupt in terms of likability which, as you can imagine, just made it a total gross bummer to jerk him off.

-i worked one night with rudy. that was cute. she is just such an intensely adorable little tiny wide-eyed person. whenever i talk with her i have to be careful not to use euphamisms or ironical exaggerations because she takes everything VERY literally, and then you have to explain to her what you meant. and it's just kind of confusing and painstaking. but as long as you only say exactly what you mean she's just very delightful. i liked her from the moment i met her, but what really endeared me to her was when i accidentally walked in on her in the bathroom at the exact moment that she held up her pregnancy test wand to find a negative reading. the look of pure elation on her face was so priceless and sweet. i just felt like, "I LIKE YOU!"

what else...

well anyway now i'm up north in my hometown. i went to a party last night, it was a bunch of lesbian separatists. this girl was telling me about a book she'd found, it was all lesbian separatist anthems. she started singing some of the songs and everyone got excited. one of the lyrics i remember was "and let no peeee-nis come betweeeeeen-us." i am, myself, a lesbian. but i was finding it hard to relate. i didn't want to talk to anyone too in-depth or tell them details about what i've been up to. i'm certainly not ashamed of my work, but i find that when i talk to lezzies sometimes there's this implicit manhate that lurks in the corners of our conversations. like they don't ask, but instead kind of assume that i am able to do this work because i hate men so much and love taking their money. the fact is that i don't hate men. i don't want to date them, but i do genuinely like some of the men i see.

oh whatever. it's not like men need me to defend them, or like i even want to. but i am having a hard time relating up here so far. it's only been a day. i'll give it time. i'm gonna be up here all winter. LESBIAN WINTER.

money hungry: everyone.

i'm pretty annoyed with the girl who runs the apartment. it's been SO crowded and SO crazy, and she just hired ANOTHER girl yesterday! there are already TOO DAMN MANY girls working. yesterday i could've booked 5 or 6 appts, but there was only space for me to do ONE! what the fuck, gia? quit getting so greedy.

well, luckily, i'm going out of town for a month starting in one week. i had hoped to work every minute of every day this week so i could bring a bunch of money with me. i'm still going to try and work, but i'm also trying to chill out about it. i don't need to be a stress case. just relax. however much money i bring with me is however much money i bring.

i really need to get my teeth fixed, though!

the good news is that as of this moment, i only owe five hundred more dollars on my credit card, and then i am DONE!!!

nothing interesting happened yesterday at work. well except that i'm beginning to notice that my co-worker stacy is reallllly an alcoholic. i was thinking before that she just drank a lot but was probably ok. but now i think she might be in serious TRUBS. (troubles, duh.)

getting my hair cut today, finally, then gonna park my ass up at the apt and just hope to get TONZ of appts.

boo

i love working saturdays because most of the girls at the house take that day off so it's nice and quiet and i can book my appointments in a tidy little row without working around anyone else's schedule. yesterday i saw 3 clients. the first one was a construction guy i've seen before. he's a little pushy but a nice guy. while massaging him, i did something weird to my neck and shoulder, though. i was on top of him, 69-style, and i had all my weight on one arm because the other arm was busy jerking him off. i think i was holding my head too straight because i didn't want my little cat ears to fall off (it was halloween, after all). when i got down off of him, i had this ouchy pain in my neck. i tried to crack it out a bit, but i dunno... it's still not quite right. 

(a word about 69. it's sort of the best thing ever. it's an especially good escape if you've got one of those clients who likes to make intense eye-contact. putting my pussy in someone's face feels far less intimate than maintaining a lot of eye-contact. you hop up on the table and put your ass in their face, bend down a lot to give them a good view of your lady parts, get that hand a-pumpin, and they come pretty quickly. the trick is positioning yourself near enough to their face that they can see and smell everything, but far enough away that their tongue can't reach you. i've had guys sneak a few licks when i was still getting the kinks worked out, but now i've got this position down. well, i thought i did... but now i've got this ouchy shoulder/neck. i really do think it was the added element of the cat ears that disrupted the delicate balance of this pose, though.)

when my construction guy got out of the shower, i asked him to rub my neck for a minute. he said sure and gave me the roughest, most un-soothing, manhandly massage ever. after like one minute i said, "oh that was great! thanks!" and hopped off the table.

i think my co-worker stacy thinks i'm a total hoe-bag now. when i went in the living room after that i was rubbing my neck a lot and i told her how i had tweaked it doing 69. she was like, "WHAT?" hmmm...

my next client was an older gentleman i see who likes to tell me i make him "feel like a man." interesting how some guys only feel like a man when juxtaposed with a woman. that whole yin yang thing, i guess. lots of girls are like that, too. shania twain, "man! i feel like a woman!" i, personally, feel like a woman ALL the time. it doesn't take the sexy touch of a man or even another woman to make me feel like a woman. and if i could ever forget my gender for even one second, there's always some guy on the street reminding me with his lascivious stare or grabbing hand or menacing swagger. or there's blood gushing out of my vag. or my bank account is empty. when this guy tells me i make him feel like a man, i know he means it as a compliment and also just as a general statement about himself. but it kind of annoys me. the rivers of male entitlement runneth deep. but in spite of it all, i like this guy just fine. i wish he would exfoliate his back, though.

my last client was a hip young british guy. he was really good looking and nice and seemed to thoroughly enjoy himself. "i've been needing this," he kept moaning. nice to get kudos for a job well done in a british accent. (jeez how would YOU structure that sentence? i want the british accent to describe the kudos, not the job well done.)

there's this girl, rudy, who is best friends with gia, the girl who runs the place. she's really young, probably about 23 or 24. she works at a shop downtown and hangs out at the apartment a lot before and after her shifts. sometimes she'll just be laying on the couch all day long listening to her ipod, waiting for the girls to finish working so they can go out. she'll watch us counting our big wads of cash and i can see her wheels turning. i knew it was only a matter of time before she got turned out. anyway, last night after i put my british guy in the shower, i went into the living room and  here's rudy getting all tarted up. i was like, "are you about see a client?" she said, "yeah, it's my second one!" she seemed a little nervous. it was just her and me in the house and it was dark out. i was getting my things together to leave, but i know how nerve-wracking it can be to see a brand new client in a quiet house so i said, "want me to wait till he gets here and you put him in the shower?" she liked that idea. so i let my client out and then showered and painted my nails as slowly as possible while we waited for her client.

then he came and seemed fine so i left and came home. i had planned to go out, but once i got in my apartment there was NO WAY i was going back out into the drunken masses of masked crazies. halloween is almost as bad as new years eve in terms of giant throngs of suburban people with bad outfits and even worse manners crowding into the city to "party." the use of that word as a verb has always annoyed me, by the way. so i stayed home and had a snack attack while watching "interview with the vampire," a movie i hadn't seen since it came out 15 years ago. kind of a perfect halloween movie.

today i'm not working. i'm cleaning and writing and working out. yay!

happy WHOROWEEN

i know i keep saying this, but i really really love the new place where i'm work. the only thing i miss about the old place was that being required to sit around ALL DAY in that dank old dump was really good for my blogging. i'd just sit and write all day between clients. now i'm free to come and go as i please and it's great but i need to make time for writing, too. kind of like in middle school how i'd have all my best ideas for drawings during math class, but then in art i'd sit in front of a blank page and stare off into space. time and time management are such bizarre things.

this week i didn't work much because i got another freelance job doing styling and sewing for a clothing commercial. it was grueling work and the woman i was working for was kind of a bitch, but it was nice to make money using a different skill set than the one i have been employing. the thing that's good and bad about these freelance jobs is that you get a day rate, so in the best case scenario you get $350 per day and end up getting your work done in a couple hours and then sitting around reading magazines with the hairstylist. the worst case scenario is that you get $350 and end up working your fingers to the bone for ten or eleven hours. (oh and they need you at 7am tomorrow!) but overall, it's pretty great. there aren't many jobs where you make $350 per day, especially ones where you aren't naked.

i was back at work yesterday and i was so busy it was like a dick-yank-athon. i saw a new guy who was really rad. and then i ended up seeing that little grouch i wrote about before!!! i forgot to save any pertinent information about him in my phone besides his name. so when he called, he came up as someone i'd seen before but that's it. he has a very non-memorable name, too. anyway my bad. but the thing is, he was super nice this time around. i am thinking i may have mis-interpreted his general social ineptitude as rudeness. he's very stilted and awkward, but did seem to enjoy my company. hmm... anyway this happens sometimes where i decide someone sucks, forget to save them in my phone that way, and then they surprise me by coming back and being really nice.

my favorite co-worker was working yesterday too. i know i've talked about her before, but i don't think i've given her a name. let's call her... stacy. i like that one!!! yes, stacy. she kinda looks like a stacy. maybe more like a staci. no, let's keep the Y. STACY. she's tiny and tan with long blonde hair and big fake tits. we have very similar bodies besides the tits. and my ass is much bigger. :) but like, small frames, tiny waists. etc. i really really like this girl, she's so sweet.

anyway stacy was working yesterday and we always love it when we have the house to ourselves. when the house is busy with girls, stacy gets overwhelmed and goes to sit in the stairwell. i'll find her there sometimes, eating a sandwich or smoking weed. yesterday stacy went to get us some food. she brought back eggrolls and coconut soup. she was coughing a little and eating the coconut soup so i didn't have any, but i did have a couple of greasy eggrolls which were QUITE tasty. well a little bit later stacy got sick. she says the soup hadn't tasted quite right, but that she thought it was okay. i'm really glad i didn't eat any.

hmm... what other boring details can i share...

i'm working today but just for a little bit. it's halloween so i'm going to wear some cat ears. i wonder if a little black cat-nose will be too much? i mean, people's boners can be kind of touch-n-go.

papercuts are the worst.

oh jeez i worked SO MUCH on saturday. i can't even remember who i saw. the one thing i DO remember about is that i got CUM in my PAPERCUT, which caused me to FREAK OUT!!! i didn't even know i HAD a papercut till i felt the sting of cum in it. blech. kind of scary. but most likely totally fine.

well yesterday the papercut go to heal up and so i'm going back to work today. i'm going to lay by the pool if i get a chance, too. gotta work on my tan!

TGIF

i'm back from vacation. it was pretty mellow.

i went in to work yesterday and it was such a crowded madhouse. like five girls and makeup everywhere and just TOO MUCH. i could have had a million appointments but the schedule was booked solid. i did get to squeeze two in, though, so that's good.

my first client was a regular who i haven't seen in a while. i've written about him before, he's super tall and our conversations almost always end up being about his wild trips to vegas. i like him a lot. he brought me a bottle of wine, i thought that was a sweet thing to do. i'm such a lightweight that by the end of our session i had drank ONE glass of wine and felt drunk. maybe it's because i ran yesterday?

my next client was also a regular. he's really good-looking and has cute style. i'm always surprised when he shows up in these understated but superb outfits. i don't know why i'm so surprised, maybe i just expect most straight dudes to have boring fashion? i like his attention to detail, his clean lines, and his tiny bit of flair. plus he's really polite which goes a long way in my book.

then it was late and the house had quieted down. it was just me an other girl whose teeth are always purple from drinking so much wine. i feel like wine is the drink of choice among massage girls or something? remember lily? (she'd drink AT LEAST a bottle of wine per shift.)

so. i hung out with this girl for a bit, while i cleaned up. i had another glass of wine, myself, and then i really felt sleepy. i went home and tried to work on the quilt i'm making but then i remembered it was friday so i watched my favorite show online--"medium." it's not a very good show, i totally know this, but i thoroughly enjoy it anyway. mostly because i have such a crush on patricia arquette. WHAT A BABE. she's one of those people who just gets hotter and hotter as the years go by. MEOW!

today it's super sunny out and i'm going to work for just an hour then to a fun thing in the park. xo

tiny grouchy loser.

the other day i saw a guy who was such a jerk. a little asian guy with a big attitude. he was super condescending and annoying from the moment he walked in the door. i gave him an ice-breaking hug and he was stiff as a board. i led him into the massage room and he said, "you look a lot different from your pictures." 

i said, "really? they were taken just over a month ago."

"yes," he said, his voice dripping with disgruntlement. "you look MUCH different in person."

not wanting to encourage this line of conversation, i said, "oh. well okay honey. so if you just want to take care of the business, i'll get your shower running."

"you really looked a lot tanner in your pictures," he called after me as i went into the bathroom.

"well, it was sunnier then i guess," i said. "but i'm the same cute girl from the pictures and we're going to have a good time. sound good?"

"oh well yeah, i mean i was just saying..." he fished out some bills and went to shower.

i went into the living room where a couple of my co-workers were hanging out. i said, "i look MUCH DIFFERENT than my pictures, you guys. i photograph well but am clearly a total dog." my co-workers all rolled their eyes and laughed. we're each others' fan clubs which feels nice.

i took my time getting back to the room, hoping my client would just have his face in the cradle when i returned so i could give him his massage with as little talking as possible.

OF COURSE he was one of those guys who "can't breathe" in the face cradle. so he kept his grouchy little mug out and eyeballed me in the mirror the whole time i was massaging him. he didn't talk much, though, and i appreciated that.

he really seemed to dislike me from the start, so i wondered whether he'd be able to get it up for the jerk off portion of the massage. 

he did get a boner. one that WOULD NOT QUIT. he just refused to come for such a long time! i started to hate him. and he kept trying to manhandle me. i'm usually totally okay with guys touching me, grabbing my ass, etc. but that's because they are nice guys who are happy to be interacting. i didn't want this jerk touching me at all. which, of course, made it take longer for him to come. YUCK.

finally i said, "i'm ready for you to come now." so he did and i put him back in the shower. i went back out to the living room. "what a jerk," i said. "i'm so glad that's done."

when i went back to let the guy out, he had his iphone in his hand. he has an app on it that tells him what anybody's real name is, even if they've taken their name off of their account (as i have done). he said, "so your REAL name is ---, huh? i like that name a lot." 

i said, "wow aren't you clever. time to go. goodbye," and ushered him out the door.

he seemed surprised that i wasn't super rattled by his creepy stalker move. fucking fuck him.

now i'm on vacation!

busy busy businesswoman

well. let's see. i haven't written in quite some time, i'll try to catch up here and then be better about writing.

last week after i wrote on tuesday, i didn't work at all for the rest of the week except to drop in for one client, a super nice persian man who looked A LOT like my brother's dad. (i come from a huge family where everyone has a different deadbeat dad. we all grew up together, a big pack of ragamuffins raised by our exhausted, frazzled mom.) anyway this guy looked SO MUCH like my the dad of one of my brothers. it was an uncanny resemblance, actually. he even had the same accent. whoa.

then i worked on getting my house in order for a couple days. and i had a friend/ex-girlfriend come into town to visit. she's still here, actually. it's been stressful, to say the least. going to work has felt like my only escape from the tension and negativity that we are cultivating in the place of our love. so i've worked a lot this week.

on sunday i saw a few clients, none of them particularly noteworthy. and if they were noteworthy i just totally don't remember. this is what happens when you don't write!

then on monday i worked again. i saw only two clients but hung out at the house all day. i wanted time to myself to read and chill out. even when things were going really well between me and this ex-girlfriend, there were always a few problems, and one of them was my reading addiction. it feels REALLY IMPORTANT to me to keep up on my reading. there are so many books in the world that even if i read all day, every day i still wouldn't get through all the good ones. and i find reading to be relaxing and exciting. it keeps my mind sharp and my vocabulary playful. i love to sip a glass of wine or tea and just park my ass in one spot and read all day or night.

the problem is that girlfriends like you to be more interactive. i've never had a girlfriend who would just let me read. it's always, "let watch a movie," or "can't we talk?" i love talking and i love hanging out and being close, but i also love spending quiet time without feeling like i'm neglecting somebody.

so. anyway. i wanted to read for a bit and the house was quiet (it RARELY is, now that the girls are back from their vacation) so i stayed for a couple extra hours and stretched out on the couch with my book.

then i didn't work on tuesday.

yesterday was wednesday and i was SUPER busy. i talked with the girl who runs the new place where i work (let's call her taylor) and asked whether i could run a special. she suggested i run a $150 special, of which the house keeps $50. i felt like that was pretty generous and totally rad. i've never run such a cheap special before and it totally got my phone ringing.

my first client was a man i've seen before. he knows i like to read and we share one of the same favorite authors (haruki murakami) so he brought me his favorite book by him, "norwegian wood." it's one of the few murakami books i have yet to read so i was stoked. i'm going on a short vacation next week to my hometown and i plan to sit all day in a cozy cafe and eat that book whole.

then i saw what i like to call a "Busy Businessman." one of my favorite types of client, the Busy Businessman wants a massage, sure, but mostly they want to be turned on quickly, ejaculate hugely, and then speed right on outta there. i used to get a little annoyed with their brusque manner, but then i realized that they view this session just like a haircut: necessary maintenance that should be good, but quick. (part of what led me to connect those dots is that guy after guy would mention that they were scheduling me after their haircut, or they wouldn't say anything but would show up with tiny little cut hairs on their necks.) so with these guys i'm sexy and time-efficient, and they hardly ever talk very much and neither do it. it's actually ideal.

my next client was also a BB. but he wasn't in finance like the first guy. he was a lawyer, and so inherently more talkative. but he was nice. he was black and had a truly GIGANTIC cock. the things you hear are true: black guys do indeed (mostly) have giant cocks. i have seen literally THOUSANDS of cocks and so i can tell you this with authority. this guy was nice, and i really liked his shirt.

then my regular, the chef guy. remember last time i said his hands didn't smell oniony? well this time the reallllllllly did again. it's kind of a gross combo with the cum smell. it's like... i don't even want to draw a comparison to anything, i'll just tell you it's a yucky combo and you can take my word for it. this guy's really nice, though. i like him a lot. i asked him to bring me something to eat next time.

i'm not working today. just gonna make some autumn outfits. i went shopping between clients yesterday but came home empty handed. i hardly saw anything i liked, and when i did see things i liked i felt oddly cheap. it's terrible! as a result of this excessive picky frugalness, i don't have any clothes right now.

more another day. xo andi

p.s. i'm almost debt-free. when i started this job, i held almost $6000 in credit card debt, but now it's only $1500. woohoo!!!

they say i'm a sweaty beast.

yesterday i worked. my first client was this guy named greg. he was a young rich guy, i didn't like him at all. he was conventionally attractive and knew it in that arrogant sort of way. he came in, stripped off his diesel jeans, and wanted to hop right up on the table, even though he had just come from getting his hair cut. i suggested a shower. he was like, "i'm really clean." i told him the massage would be a lot more fun if i didn't get a lot of little hair bits on me. he reluctantly rinsed off.

when he laid down on the table, he didn't want to put his face in the cradle. instead he stared at me lasciviously the whole time in the mirror, like a wolf who wanted to eat me for a snack. like a candy bar he had bought and was just about to unwrap and bite into. i did not like this guy! but even though he was entitled and handsy and particular, the thing i DID like about him was that he didn't really want a massage. he just wanted to be touched for a minute and then jerked off. he was in and out in 25 minutes, something that never ever happens. usually when someone comes too fast they are bummed so i take care not to get guys off too quickly. this guy had places to be and $180 wasn't anything to him. so it was quick and then i got rid of him.

the next guy was someone i've written about before, who i saved in my phone as NO MICKEY NO! but the problem is that i saved his work number, not his real number. oops. so when i got his call yesterday it didn't come up as no mickey no. and i thought he was saying his name was NICKY. when i answered the door, i thought NO! MICKEY! NO!!! but what could i do?

he showered and i gave him a washcloth, hoping he'd scrub the hell out of his excessive body hair and stinky bum. miracle of miracles: when he laid down on the table, he didn't stink up the whole room. in fact, he barely smelled bad at all. and his backne had cleared up considerably. he was hardly gross at all. i think when i saved him before it was when i was still pretty new in this business and didn't yet realize that A LOT of guys are just as yucky as or even yuckier than no mickey no.

the session went fine. mickey talked a lot, like: nonstop. his voice is a hilarious stereotypical "nerd" voice. kind of stuffed up with excessive pronunciation. it often sounds like he ate a thesaurus for lunch. he uses the most random and archaic words sometimes, like someone who reads more than they converse. he's also very fond of the word "actually." i like this guy. his grooming isn't great but he's really nice. and so super-weird that it's fun to talk to him.

then i sat around with my co-worker for a while. she made me a cocktail. that was nice. a mid-day ketel and cranberry.

during that down-time, i checked my email. this is what was waiting for me:

hi andi! i saw you quite a while ago and you were nice, but seemed a little uptight. your armpits just started sweating and the entire session was not worth 180. are you able to give me a discount and make it up to me?

thanks and talk soon. tony

...dude. are you kidding me? i wanted to tell him to FUCK RIGHT OFF. but it's kind of best not to go around pissing people off. i don't want him to get crazy on me, and i don't want a lot of calls/emails from him. so i just said:

Hi tony. No, I don't feel I have anything to make up to you. I'm a tiny person, I give a strenuous massage so of course I'm going to sweat. I hope you find what you're looking for, but I'm clearly not the right provider for you.
Best, andi

oh, brother.

then i saw this yoga/rock-climbing guy who i see every now and then. he's nice, doesn't talk much but seems to enjoy himself.

and then i was done working and i met up with sky for a sushi feast. it was YUMMY.

i love this new place.

today i had an appointment with the older man i wrote about before, the one who has more body hair than i've ever seen on anyone, ever. he's really really nice, though, so when he called i picked up and we set up an appointment for 11am. this guy is kind of classy. he owns a luxury car dealership. he dresses simply, but his clothes are well-chosen and scream of quality. today he was wearing a pale yellow shirt that i guessed was from thomas pink. a quick label check when he was in the shower confirmed this hunch. i love thomas pink. it always reminds me of this girl i used to adore who had shirts from there.

i think i should call this guy something, we'll call him paul.

paul's getting kinda old, as i mentioned before. while i was on vacation in austin, he called me one day, and i didn't pick up. so he called back. i figured he was just going to keep calling over and over, some people hate leaving messages, so i picked up. i told him i was on vacation. he said, "oh, well good for you honey. that's nice. sorry to bother you." i told him it was no bother and that i 'd give him a call when i got back. and then a few minutes later he called again. i didn't pick up, but then he called AGAIN so i picked up. "well hello andi," he said. "i was wondering whether you might be taking appointments today." i was kind of surprised. he hadn't seemed senile when i'd seen him. anyway, i said, "oh hi paul. i'm still on vacation. we just spoke, do you remember?" he seemed embarassed, then, and i figured he probably be too sheepish to call me for an appointment again.

but then today he called. so that's good.

our session was fine, i just had to coach myself through not minding his excessive amounts of hair. paul's so nice and i don't find him to be gross, so his hair became a lot less gross to me today than it was last time. plus, he smells good and when i asked him what his cologne was he said, "chanel. for men." i thought that was cute.

paul tipped $60 again. sweet.

then i didn't have any appointments for a while. at the old place, i would've been stuck in that dingy grody apartment, doing laundry all day and dealing with the two terrible troll pimps. but this place where i work now is SO MUCH NICER!!! i went down to the basement and worked out in the gym. and then my co-worker and i laid by the pool for a couple of hours. it didn't feel terrible and annoying not to be working, it felt GREAT! it was sunny and hot and we just relaxed and chatted and sunned ourselves.

then she had a 3:30 and i was supposed to have a 4 o'clock but mine cancelled. and since at this new place i'm free to leave whenever i choose, i got on my bike and came home. ate an early dinner, had a short nap. and then i got a call for an hour and a half session at 6:30. i was into being home, but another thing that's cool about this new place is that if you have a 1.5 hour session, you still only have to pay $70. so it would've been stupid not to take this guy.

i biked back up to the spot, and got there a little early. my co-worker rachel (the one i hung out with at the pool) had found this huge picture of me in the weekly newspaper and hung it up on the wall. so cute.

i saw my client. he was a really good looking young guy, probably about 35. cute fashion, nice hair, great manners. the only bad thing about him was that it took him ten million years to come. but at least he knows that about himself and books an hour and a half instead of an hour. after i massaged him ETC, he took a shower and i changed the sheets because he wanted to give me a massage. his hands were big and very strong and he had good massage intuition. what a treat. i briefly entertained the idea of having him give me an "ending." but i had already faked an orgasm earlier when i let him rub my clit, and then i didn't want to have a real one with him. plus, i don't really want to get into all that with clients. it was a brief, passing thought.

and now, i'm home. i'm supposed to meet a friend for a cocktail but i'm getting super drowsy.

goodnight, readers. if you exist.

i just woke up from the worst dream!

okay first i want to mention that i HATE listening to people tell me about their dreams. i usually JUST DON'T CARE. the swirling details of them drive me nuts! in fact, could you please shut up? unless you're my girlfriend, don't count on me wanting to hear any but most the general summary of your dream.

and yet... this is my blog. so i'ma go ahead with it.

last night i fell asleep watching desperate housewives online, and the girl who plays susan's daughter, julie, looks JUST LIKE this girl i used to dance with. kind of chin-less and not that cute, but a nice smile, pretty hair, and a smokin hot body, complete with perfect tits that look fake but are real.

in my dream, this girl, we'll call her july, got a job working at my old job with the pimpy trolls (how funny is it that the words "dream" and "job" ended up together in that sentence, separated by just 8 other words?), and she mentioned to me that on this one certain day the pimps wouldn't be there so i could come in and look for my flat-iron. 

have i mentioned that in real life my flat iron is missing and that i KNOW that one of the girls must've taken it? i tried to get this girl i know to look for it the day after i got fired, but she was too frazzled because gigi was there controlling her every move. it was a time sensitive matter, i knew that if she didn't find it for me a certain person--KAT--would take it for herself because she always admired it's magic way of smoothing the hair with just one swipe as opposed to cheap ones that take many swipes. plus i had made the mistake of telling her it cost $200.

in the dream, i went to go look for my flat-iron, and while i was there, i decided i may as well take a client or two, which in my dreamland amounted to bringing them into the massage room, taking their money, giving them a hug, and sending them on their way. oh, if only! 

after that i looked around for the flat-iron and miraculously, a certain person had returned it to the place where i had left it. but it was broken. i thought, "maybe i can fix this," and i put it in my purse, which was already spilling over with other things of mine i had found around the house.

i felt happy as i got ready to leave the house. my pockets were full of money and my purse was filled with forgotten treasures and my beloved, probably fix-able, flat-iron. i was thinking, "now i have all my things! i don't EVER have to come back here!"

suddenly, the dream took a turn for the worse.

what's worse than a nanny-cam? a ceiling rafter system for the trolls to hide in. 

i was suddenly aware that they were up there, in the ceiling. i felt terrified and panicked and so i opened the door to make a run for it. they jumped out of the ceiling, and since gigi has health problems, it was up to jane to chase me. she's in pretty terrible shape too, and her legs are VERY short, so even though i was caught off guard by their sneak attack, i was pretty sure i could outrun her. i scrambled out the door and she was right on my heels, but i managed to gain some distance on her when she stopped and bent over to look at something. i peeked over my shoulder, and realized that she had stopped to un-tether a big dog!

"GET 'ER!" she yelled at the dog, and her voice wasn't her usual incongrous baby doll voice, it was thick and deep and scary as hell.

the dog came after me, leaping through the air and snarling. i turned the corner and thought i'd just duck into starbucks but when i looked, starbucks was gone. in its place: a smoking ruin. oh, apocalypse, not today!

i just ran and ran with that dog nipping at my heels. i lost a shoe and my purse was spilling out all over the place but i couldn't stop. it looked like i might get away. and then i woke up.

comfy couches, cute girls, a chef, and a saxophonist.

i started working at a new spot today. i like it a lot so far. first of all, they have REAL COUCHES. which may seem like a small thing, but is actually a huge thing. as i sunk into the big soft couch, waiting for my client, i had the overwhelmingly amazing feeling of never having to sit on those lumpy trolls' couches ever again. i felt so happy and free.

second of all, the girl who runs this new spot, gia, is really nice. she allows you come and go as you please, you just have to check in and see if a room is available when you need it. kind of great. and the place is clean. and there's a giant wall of movies you can watch. i'm gonna bring my computer and headphones tomorrow and just kick it between clients.

all these things are rad, but the truly great thing is that gia has this SUPER HOT butchdyke bff who helps her run the place. OMG this girl is fine.

today i had an appointment at 4 and one at 6:30. at the old spot, i would've had to get there at 10:30am and just fucking sit there for four and a half hours till my first appointment, and then leave around 8. being there for 9.5 hours would just be miserable and exhausting and fill my life with dread. but instead, i hung out in my house doing things and enjoying my day until 3, then i left. got up to the place at 3:30, put on makeup and whatnot. i ended up leaving a little before 8, for a total of a little over 4 hours. so much better!!!!!!!

my first client was my regular who is a chef. he's so nice! i like him a lot. he didn't smell like onions today. or garlic. or any kind of food, actually. he just smelled like some kind of pleasant cologne.

and then i just sat around reading for an hour until my next guy. remember i wrote about that guy who was a saxophonist? i think i said i didn't ever want to see him again. but i forgot to save him as a "no" in my phone, and when he called me today i couldn't remember anything about him. so i ended up seeing him this evening by accident. but now i'm glad i did. he was really vocal and crazy, but i think i like him anyway. he's just really really bizarre. he's easy to please, though, and it's kind of nice for someone to truly enjoy themselves on your massage table, even if they are a total and complete freak about it. he brought his own music again, which was weird but nice: mystical persian jazz. both times this guy has come dressed the same way: light beige-ish khaki pants, off-white t-shirt, and dark blazer. dorky but tidy. today he was wearing THE BEST t-shirt: it was a caterpillar in the shape of a question mark, and then on the back was a giant butterfly. charming and cute. i really wish this guy wouldn't make so many tiger noises, though.

i'm working again tomorrow. i gotta catch up on my finances. one of the girls came in to work today with a couple big shopping bags of new clothes. it was inspiring. this is the kind of job where you should be able to afford to go shopping sometimes. it's gonna get that way for me soon. oh, yes.

my "sweet lemonade."

i'm on vacation. it's so nice. yesterday i swam with my sister and sky in barton springs in austin, texas. it was refreshing and dreamy.

i'm drinking coffee right now, my favorite part of the day. quiet coffee time, checking email, writing down ideas, making lists. anyway i figured a good way to keep my clients might be to check my work email once in a while on vacation and actually read them and write back.

here's the kind of emails i get. just to give you an idea:

--- On Sat, 9/19/09, MIKE SO-AND-SO wrote:

From: ---- <----@yahoo.com>
Subject: I Miss You!
To: andi----@yahoo.com
Date: Saturday, September 19, 2009, 8:12 AM

Hi andi, How are you? Do you remember me, I had nice massage and shower session with you! I miss you! I am sorry to be very busy lately, but should return shortly. I really need to see you...of any girl I have been with, you have the sweetest and best tasting pee...oooh, I need your pee, really turns me on, hot and kinky! Only request next time is that you squat, spray your sweet pee directly in my mouth...don't want to miss a drop of your sweet lemonade! PS - Nice new photos, you are nice and pretty girl...wish I had a GF like you, get my sweet pee daily...oooh, very hot and kinky! Take care and have a nice weekend, Mike

to which i responded:

hi mike, of course i remember you! are you still traveling in asia? i loved peeing in your mouth, i coudn't believe how much pee you were able to drink. HOT! i'm on vacation seeing family and friends for another week but i will be back in SF next monday (sept 28). i'd love to squat in your face and spray my honey juice directly down your throat. hope to see you soon, naughty sweetheart! xoxoxox andi

i wrote about this guy before, the one who looked un-dead, but ended up being really nice. but kind of gross as he bragged about all the chicks he attracted in china.

well, gonna go swimming again and have breakfast tacos and pillage the thrift stores.

just keep working.

it felt great not to go to work today at that grubby whack shack. i didn't set an alarm, just woke up when my body felt like waking up. 9:30 today. drank coffee and whatnot, and then my co-worker angie (i mean ex-co-worker, i keep forgetting that we both got fired yesterday!) called to say that she and lily had booked a hotel in a nice part of downtown for the day and that if i wanted to go in on it with them i could use it too. so i put my ad up and booked two appointments, one at 5:15 and one at 7. i love when they are back to back like that with just a tiny bit of time in between to freshen up.

i went about my day, went to the gym, cleaned my house, read, made lunch. and then took the train downtown. i'm going to a wedding this weekend and i don't have anything to wear, so i looked for a dress for a few minutes. but i had gotten downtown too late to really look so i felt rushed and didn't find anything.

i got to the hotel about twenty minutes before my first appointment was to arrive. the room was nice. simple, but classy. i talked with angie for a bit. she was leaving to take an appointment at the hot tubs. 

right before my first guy came, i realized i had forgotten my ipod. this room, like a lot of hotel rooms nowadays, had a clock radio with a cable sticking out of them that you can plug an ipod into. but you need an ipod. duh. i texted my guy to see if he had an ipod.

he arrived. he didn't have an ipod, but he did have an iphone so we used that instead. i let him choose the music and he chose chris isaak. enjoyable for a few minutes, but then a little.... something. a little grating, maybe?

anyway my guy was nice, but hard of hearing so once he took out his hearing aids it was a little boring. i tried talking to him a bit but you really had to yell in order for him to hear anything, and dirty talk-yelling just feels crazy. plus i didn't want hallway passersby to hear. so it was mostly just quiet. the guy's skin was bad. super pimply. excessive backne. i didn't like touching it. but he was so nice and seemed to be having a good time so i tried to put it out of my mind. when i turned him over, he wanted a lot of body-on-body massage, but he had drizzled pre-cum all over himself and i didn't want to slip-n-slide in it. blech. so i just put my pussy in his face and gave him a really enthusiastic jack-off and he came and we were done with it.

oh! do you wanna know a funny thing about this guy? when i told him where the hotel was he seemed really put out and complained that it would be hard to find parking. i didn't want him to cancel so i told him i'd give him a discount for parking money. then when he got there, he told me that he'd had to pay ten dollars, so he took it out of my donation. he was already getting the "new client" special (which is $20 off). what a cheapskate. to nickel and dime a working girl. jeez.

my other client was a very good-looking asian guy with a wild asymmetrical haircut that would've looked choady on most guys, but worked on him because his hair was just thick enough and coarse enough and black enough to pull it off. of course, he was wearing an ed hardy t-shirt, which sort of cancelled out the good hair.

this guy also had an iphone. he chose thievery corporation for us to listen to. i hadn't heard much of them before, but i really liked it. i made a mental note to download their album for massage purposes only.

after he got the music sorted, i asked that we take care of the business before the pleasure. as the guy was handing me a money envelope, he confessed that this was his first time doing this sort of thing. i didn't really believe him, but then again maybe i did. i'm still not sure, but i ultimately don't really care one way or the other.

he took a shower and then i massaged him. as if to make up for the first guy, this guy's skin was probably the smoothest skin i've ever felt on a guy. it felt nice to the touch. when it was time for the sexy part, he was super receptive and it was easy to make him happy. his dick had looked very small when he undressed, almost pediatric in its flaccid state. but it was a grower, not a shower. it became totally average, even on the big side of average, when he was excited.

we finished up and i put him back in the shower. when he left i realized that i hadn't looked in the envelope he'd handed me. i panicked a little, i never forget to count the money. but inside were two crisp $100 bills. rad! i was so happy that he didn't take me up on the new client special and, instead, tipped $20.

after the guy left, i tidied up the room, tried to make it look like no monkey business had taken place there. and i texted angie to tell her i was leaving. she was down the hill, at sephora. i stopped in on my way out of downtown. she was trying on makeup and seemed really at peace being surrounded by the things that she loves. she said that she was experiencing inner turmoil, though. she said at first her reaction to being fired was "fuck you guys anyway!" but that now that the reality of it set in, she was hurt and bummed. "i liked the consistency of it," she said. i told her i could relate.  "it was predictable," she continued. "not how many clients you'd get or how much money you'd make, but just the environment of it. it was your job and you went to it, you know? and you had your little spot where you kept your makeup bag. and around the corner was where you got your lunch after you made some money."

"i know," i said. "i feel a little bummed about that, too. but i also feel so relieved. do you?"

"yeah," she said. "those was some CRAZY BITCHES!"

we hugged goodbye and then sky came to pick me up and we went to a friend's birthday party. on our way i was telling him how i made some money and i was so relieved that i wouldn't have to be penniless on our trip. he said, "it's funny how you got fired and just kept working."

i guess it is kind of funny, but i mean what else do you do? i woke up broke and now i have a bit of money. you just keep working.

FIRED.

welp, i got fired today. and you know what, the funny thing is that even though i am totally broke, i am also experiencing a sense of relief. i hated that dump. and i hated those lumpy couches. moreover, i hated my crazy pimp bosses.

here's what happened. today was my day off. i slept in till 9:30 and it felt amazing. i love a day where i'm on my own schedule. i putzed around my house till noon, thoroughly enjoying the feeling of absolute leisure. i drank a lot of coffee, ate some almond butter and jelly waffles, and rode my bike to the gym. i was feeling happy and relaxed. and then when i was locking up my bike i got a call from gigi.

first, she warned me that this was going to be an uncomfortable conversation. and then she said, "do you know what a nanny cam is?"

fuck. fuuuuuuuuck.

"yes," i said. "i know what a nanny cam is."

she launched into the meat of it. she claimed to have installed a nanny cam several months back, but it didn't record visual, only audio. she had months and months of tape and recently has been feeling like "something was rotten in denmark," in regards to the envelopes (that we put in the freezer at the end of our shift with the house cut in them). so she listened to the tapes, seven hours of them all in one day (yesterday), and she realized that everyone was stealing from her. she went on and on about how she had to loan jane $12k so she wouldn't lose her house (which explains a lot about their dynamic, btw, wherein jane is totally gigi's bitch). and how they've been losing so much money on this business venture and have grown suspicious. etc. and it's like: hello we're in a recession, of course it's slow. but anyway on and on and on.

i knew it was over for me, then. i didn't feel like there was any point in even denying it, but i also didn't want to super fess up. a vague blanket statement was in order so i was like, "yeah. it's terrible."

quiet again for a long time. she said, "yeah. there's not a lot to say is there?"

i felt like: fire me. just say the words and get it over with. but she was quiet. so i said, "okay. well. i'm sorry. i guess i should make arrangements to come and collect my things?"

she seemed surprised. she said, "oh. well do you think this relationship is salvageable? do you think you're worth taking a second chance on?"

i'm really in a bad way right now in terms of money, it's been so slow the last couple of weeks. and i knew i should make a case to try and keep my job. but i've really been unhappy the last month or so and i feel like it can be directly attributed to working for crazy people who harass me all day long. and i've not been making money lately anyway. so it just seemed pointless. i said, "what do you mean?"

she said, "well do you think if i were to keep you on you could play by the rules?"

i said, "um. well yes."

and then she wanted to know who else would be worth not firing. i said, "i don't know. i kind of like everyone who works there. i don't think anyone's been under-reporting a lot more than anyone else." (which isn't true. some people never write ANYTHING down.)

she started pumping me for details, then, wanting to tell me who were the worst offenders and who did it hardly ever. i told her i didn't want to discuss anyone but me. and i was so stressed out i can't really remember how we got off the phone. but my feeling was that i didn't give her the information she wanted, so i was still fired and i felt kind of relieved.

i went into the gym and worked out. then went to whole foods. and when i was eating, jane called and un-fired me. at first she only wanted to un-fire me if i would agree to be her "eyes and ears," around the house--i.e. her snitch. no way, i said, not my style and totally not worth it. but then she un-fired me anyway as long as i would agree not to steal ever again.

so then i went home and was filled with dread about having to go back there in the morning, and not wanting to, but knowing that i HAD TO since i'm so broke.

an hour later, though, i was at the laundromat and gigi called and re-fired me. she said, "i just don't think i can work with you any longer." i breathed a sigh of relief and said, "i feel the exact same way about you."

i tried to work out a time with her to get my bag and then she randomly put kat on the phone, who agreed to bring it over to my house if i gave her some gas money.

somehow kat managed to evade being fired. even though she's one of the worst offenders. but i don't care, i wouldn't want her to not have money. when she came over she looked so cute. she had on a white top and tight chubby girl jeans. she's really just such a pretty girl. a total fox. she brought my big bag and had also gone to the weird trouble to grab my diet cokes out of the fridge. i thought that was really sweet.

i felt sad giving her a hug goodbye. i will miss seeing her. ...naked. haha just kidding. i will just miss seeing her. i really really like her. she was telling me the other day how her boyfriend of 7 years had stopped kissing her, that it started when she had a cold once and then just never started back up again. it really bothers her, she says, so she's been trying to get him to make out with her again. and for the last week or so, he's been giving her kisses. i couldn't imagine. i felt so sad when she told me that. i would make out with her all day every day if she was my girlfriend. DUH.

so. she drove away and i came upstairs and promptly mixed one of the diet cokes with jack daniels. i never have whiskey in the house but my throat was feeling sore last night so i bought some to make a hot toddy with. i didn't have a cinnamon stick so the hot toddy wasn't that good. but this whiskey and diet coke i'm sipping on is treating me real nice.

oh man! what am i gonna do now? i hate looking for a job. and i don't have any money! ARG.

someday, i'll buy my mom a real yorkie.

today was another slow day, but at least jane wasn't there!

yesterday i did a drop in with a regular of mine who is a chef. he's really nice, the only thing i don't like about him is that his hands smell very strongly of onions. other than that, though, he's ideal: polite, clean, receptive, easy to get off. i think i've written about him before, but i don't remember. anyway 

i liked dropping in on a sunday, the house was very quiet. it was just one girl working, luisa, who i like a lot. she's always really busy because she's a tall model, but i guess even her business is down because she only had three appt's yesterday and usually she'd have like 5 or 6. 

it was probably good that she didn't have that many clients because luisa was kind of a mess yesterday. she had a tiny little cut on her hand and was worried about getting cum in it. i told her she should just use her other hand, exclusively. (the more obvious solution, wearing a glove, is also the quickest way to lose a lifelong customer and so was pretty much out of the question.) she asked me whether she could get an STD if she accidentally got cum in her cut. i hated to admit that i really wasn't sure whether that could happen. i'm pretty sure i napped through that whole series of sex ed filmstrips.

in addition to her cut, she was sporting a swollen ankle. when she showed it to me, she prefaced it with "now, you might not be able to tell that it's swollen, but i think it might be." i took one glance and could clearly see that it was almost TWICE as big as the other ankle. i told her she needed to ice that shit and stay off it. she was like, "oh, i'm glad you can tell it's swollen. i knew it. i'm totally not crazy!" she had fallen while hiking with a guy friend the day before and when she complained that her ankle hurt a lot and was swollen, he somehow convinced her that it was fine.

a. what a jerk, and

b. i TOTALLY cannot picture luisa hiking. like: at all. she's just a skinny little twig of a thing. so skinny, in fact, that i don't know how she doesn't constantly faint from low blood sugar. i've worked entire shifts with her where i've not seen her eat even one bite of food. once in a while she'll have a yogurt or a few pre-packaged apple wedges, but that's pretty much the extent of it. i am so obsessed with food that it's hard for me to imagine how she can go all day long without eating. but then i think back to a time when i was, myself, a skinny twig. i'm still slender, but i used to weigh a good 15 lbs less, which is scary for me to even picture now. anyway, when i hardly ever ate anything i just stopped being hungry. but i often felt weak and dizzy, and i don't think i could have massaged big dudes all day long like that.

so. after my drop-in, i chatted with luisa a bit, forced her to ice her ankle, and did some tidying up. when i left, the apartment was totally tidy. it looked as good as that dump can look.

this morning when i came in, however, the place was a disaster! and i know it wasn't luisa who messed it up so much because she's fastidiously tidy. it was either yala or lily for sure. yala comes in at all hours and takes appointments, and just makes a huge mess. but she doesn't cook or eat in the house, really, and this mess was foody, like a dirty pan and some plates. and empty pop cans, and one of my diet cokes that i had put in the fridge with a little note saying "mandy's: please don't drink," so i was totally sure it was lily. who, you might remember, was fired but who still works there when no one's around. 

anyway, the crumbs everywhere, the plates, the neglected g-string on the floor were enough. but here's the thing that was the dead giveaway: a safeway deli bag with some crusty old chicken strips in it. WHAT A CARELESS PIECE OF EVIDENCE TO LEAVE BEHIND! those bags have a LABEL on them, saying the date and time of purchase. this one was sept 13 at 8:55pm. it made me mad to find that because what if jane had found it, instead? she's just finally starting to not come in every single day. this would have sent her and gigi over the edge because it would be proof positive that we come in at night and don't write things down.

so this morning i cleaned up the house a bit. threw the evidence away. recycled the cans, etc.  and then it was quiet. it was just me and milly, and the french girl martinique (marty). 

i sat on the lumpy couch for an hour or so, then since jane wasn't there, i decided to go for a walk to the baby gap to get some baby clothes for my brother and sister-in-law. their baby is due in one month! she's going to be SO CUTE!!! i want to go see her as soon as she's born.

i went up the hill to this bougie neighborhood by the water. too many rich people everywhere. i got a few really cute little things for the baby and then someone called for an appointment so i headed back to the house. on my way i saw this expensively dressed lady about my mom's age (50) walking her adorable little yorkie and i got SAD.

my mom is on facebook (along with my entire family, even my grandma!) and she's into this "yoville" thing lately. i think it's kind of like an easier version of second life or some bullshit. where your actual life isn't what you wanted it to be, so you're creating this virtual world where you can build up the life that you'd like to have. it seems like such a colossal waste of time to build up your life in this online game, when you could be taking that time and energy to better the life you're actually LIVING. but anyway, i digress. the sad part is that my mom has kind of a super depressing life. she's unemployed, disabled, always insanely destitutely broke, lost her apartment and now lives in this total shithole apartment in the very worst part of town with her ex-boyfriend (who is the dad of my youngest brother). it's a bummer over there. dingy, dank, unbearably cluttered, all the neighbors are hos and speed-freaks. not great. you get the idea: her life is a bit dismal. so she's gotten into this yoville thing and this morning her facebook status update read, "hELP ME AS i WANT YO $$ TO BUY A YORKIE." something about that just made me SO. SAD. she's always wanted a yorkie and now she's getting one, but not in real life--just in this internet game. 

and then there's the rich lady right in my face with her actual yorkie. 

lemons! it's all lemons sometimes!

so. i scrambled back over the hill and saw my client. nice guy. he had an unbelievable amount of moles on his back, but at least they were, for the most part, the flat kind. his pores were very clogged on his whole back. i used a lot of oil to avoid tripping out on it. i was glad when the massage was over. the guy grabbed me and gave me this giant bearhug as he was leaving. it felt nice to be totally squished for a minute. i wasn't expecting it but it felt cute.

then i kept waiting for my phone to ring and it didn't. marty was insisting on telling me all about her time at burning man, which took no work at all for me to tune out. her french accent's so thick that tuning IN is the hard part. i was thumbing through vogue and trying to watch "friends." she said, "do you like zis show, friends? some off my friend like it. but i don't get it." i told her it's not so much that i like it, but i'm just familiar with it and for that reason it can be comforting to watch if i'm feeling edgy. which i was, for some reason.

at 6:30 on the dot i jumped up and walked on down the hill toward home. and now here i am in my pretty place. i have tomorrow off, then i work again on wednesday, then i'm going to austin for a week! sky's going too! i'm excited.

saturday

it was miserably slow all day. sally didn't even have one client, kat had one, and i had one.

my client was a regular. he's really sweet except that he's always trying to get me to let him go down on me. i can't deal. i don't want any dude mouths on my pussy. i've been very clear with him that it's just NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. EVER. but still he persists in asking in this whiney way that makes me want to hit him. other than that, i like him okay, though.

jane's got the idea that we're all a bunch of unskilled laborers around here and that's why it's been so slow. she's been sitting around the house giving us lectures on various topics, i tried to think of examples just now but can't because i tune her out so extremely. when she's not in the house, she's calling again and again and again all day long. today i counted and she called the house phone 5x, and then my personal phone 2x. for a total of seven phone calls.

after all of those calls, she came in. she brought in an instructional video on the art of anal massage, which she turned on and made us three girls to watch. parked on the lumpy couch with my two-workers, i felt like i was in some kind of crappy home-school program. in this kind of institutional setting, my inner wise-ass naturally comes out and before i knew it i was heckling the video's actors and making inappropriate jokes, to my co-workers' delight and to jane's annoyance.

i disliked watching the tape. i felt uncomfortable watching disembodied un-manicured hands massaging some guy's white doughy ass. and the sound effects were gross. don't i have to listen to enough male moaning and groaning already? SHUT UP, you know?

last night this old friend of mine was passing through town on a motorcycle trip and she texted me to see if she could stay the night. i've known her for 12 years, what was i gonna say, no? so of course i said she could stay. but i don't have a couch, so when people stay over they have to sleep in my bed with me. i'm very much a solo sleeper. i don't sleep well with people who are not my girlfriend. there are a few exceptions to this, but for the most part i very much dislike sleeping with people because i toss and turn and am constantly aware of this foreign body in the bed with me. plus it was friday night and i live on a loud busy street that's crawling with drunken revelers until all hours. so today i was tired all day and my fuse was a bit short in general. once jane arrived, all i could think about was how much i wanted to leave. finally 6:30 rolled around and i was out of there. and now i'm home. eating chocolate and drinking wine. gonna get drunk and pass out. goodnight!