just another manic monday

yesterday i worked with a new girl. she was INTENSE. i was first on the schedule, meaning i started at 11:30 and then the other girl starts at 11:45. i got to work only 10 mins early, went downstairs and put on some lipstick and was up on stage on time. i still needed to straighten my hair, do my eye makeup, etc, but i figured i'd just do it at 11:45 when the other girl started. well at 11:42 the girl shows up dragging this big clunky tool-chest thing and tells me she's running late so i'll just have to cover for her for a little while and then she'll be right up. i was like, "i actually don't have to cover for you. please just get on stage at the right time and then do your makeup on your break." she was like, "oh well i'll just be a few minutes," and clunked the tool chest down the stairs. CLONK! CLONK! CLONKCLONKCLONKCLONK! CLONK! finally a little after NOON i went downstairs. "you need to get on stage. it's empty. your shift started 20 minutes ago. you don't get to decide to make me keep dancing for you while you get ready." annoying.

so i did my hair and makeup and then went up and danced again. a couple hours went by without incident. she basically started talking the moment she arrived and then just never stopped for the whole rest of the day. i responded politely for a while, but then just tuned her out. she seemed speedy to me. i wondered whether i was that clueless and grating when i did speed. i don't remember how i was then because i was out of my head. but people tell me i talked a lot.

then a regular of mine came in, the italian guy with the short little lap. he bought a bunch of dances. the girl kept playing songs and then leaving long gaps between them, which is annoying because all that time is just time you have to hang out naked with a customer, not dancing, just hanging out. it can be awkward. often i'll just keep dancing, sans music, because i don't want to hear anymore about the guy's frigid wife or whatever and would rather keep him blissed out and quiet.

annnnnnyway, my guy was about to leave but i got him to stay for one more set of dances. the girl played two songs and then just stopped. after several minutes i stuck my head out, "hey hon, you need some money for the jukebox?"

"nah. i'm done," she said. i noticed she was fully clothed. as in, she had jeans on and everything.

"no, honey, you have one more."

"nope! that was three!" she demanded.

my customer was like, "that was definitely two. i'm 100% positive that that was two." so i gave him $20 back, but he gentlemanly let me keep it, although i could tell he was a little bummed to miss out on his last pre-paid dance of the day. "merry christmas," he said.

it was clear that the girl was not going to dance anymore, that she was chomping at the bit to go out for a smoke. i went up to dance. she goes, "yeah, that was totally three, girl! you must've been having so much fun in there you just lost count."

"actually. it was two. i am 100% positive about it, as was my customer. but since you're dressed and my customer's gone let's just forget about it."

"well, i'll dance another song if you NEED ME TO, but that would make FOUR IN A ROW, and you're NOT supposed to do that here, i already got yelled at for that!" she started undoing her jeans, the unlit cigarette in her mouth dangling precariously as she wobbled on one stiletto.

there were finally customers in the club, and they were all staring at the drama unfolding. "i'm going on stage now and i'll dance. i'm done talking about this now," i said, quietly.

then she just exploded, "i've NEVER been treated so rudely as here! the girls in this club are SO RUDE!" she rifled through her purse for her lighter. "i don't know why everybody always has to pick on me! i've only been stripping for three months, give me a break! SO RUDE. just MEAN!!!" she was still exclaiming as she made for the door.

of course my boss was in the back this entire time, putting away the liquor order. plus she's a bit hard of hearing. i wish she'd seen this hubbub. she frowns upon temper tantrums and yelling at other dancers in front of customers.

the girl's attitude with me oscillated between injured and bullying for the rest of the day, but at least she stopped talking to me. she continued to talk to the customers a lot, though. her voice is really loud. every time a new customer would come in, she'd go, "and for those of you just getting here, i'm ___ _____." i won't tell you her name, but i will say that it seems a short-sighted name to choose. oh that doesn't even make sense unless i tell you what it is! but i can't! arg.

hmm. what else. well, i didn't make even a dollar till 1pm, but then between 1 and 4 i made $400. pretty great for a rainy monday afternoon, if i do say so.

a guy came in who seemed super normal. an accountant and medical biller at a clinic downtown. he knocked off work early and took "three E's," which is a lot of ecstacy. that would've been too much for me. although i don't really know how much that is since i've only ever snorted it. anyway he appeared to be high, and then just got higher and higher as the day wore on. he bought several dances from me. i asked him why he had so heavily drugged himself in the middle of the workday. he told me he was reporting to jail on wednesday morning for speeding three times and then failing to do the community service in time, and that he wanted to have as much fun as possible before then. i think reporting to jail all cracked out and coming down off drugs is a prescription for a week-long inescapable panic attack. but we all do things differently.

he said something that was both sad and funny. he told me he was bummed and terrified about being in jail for 90 days, but that on the bright side maybe the little girl ghost who had been haunting him will have moved on by the time he gets out. "i just picked her up randomly a week ago, i think at this wild solstice party i was at, and she's been making my life hell." he showed me a deep scratch on his shoulder. "i woke up yesterday morning and she was sitting on my chest, making it hard for me to breathe. then she just reached down and scratched me with her little nails, and she laughed and laughed." he shuddered. "and she's not even in old-timey clothes. she's wearing, like, a carebears sweatsuit from the 80's."

"well, she's not here right now, at least," i said. "otherwise i would be able to feel her and probably see her." (which is true, btw.)

"yeah. she really likes it inside my apartment, for some reason. she's been staying there all the time. i just hope she gets bored and leaves while i'm in jail. it would be nice to get out and have her gone."

i thought for a minute, "oh no! what if she follows you to jail?!" but then i thought, "little girls don't want to hang out in jail."

when i was getting off work, there was a note from the new girl on my makeup bag. "i'm sorry about before," it read. "i'm new at all this and i take things too personal sometimes."

a prime real-life example of a joke of pretend that my mom likes to call "I'M NEW HERE." it's where she does something annoying or says something totally rude, or fails to follow through on a promise or whatever, and then makes this vacant doe-eyed expression and goes, "oh? i'm not supposed to do that/i did that wrong/i was supposed to fix that/i hurt your feelings? i'm sorry, I'M NEW HERE!" and then nobody's mad anymore about whatever it was and we're all laughing instead. because haven't we all worked with some obnoxious asshole who does stupid shit and then feigns innocent ignorance and wants you to keep doing their work/cutting them breaks under the guise of being NEW HERE? i'm not sure why it always works as a joke for my mom getting off the hook, it just one of those mysterious things that always keeps being too funny NOT to work.

well i guess that's it. gonna go to the movies and out for sushi. rainy day times.

ho ho ho

well. i haven't written in a while because to tell you the truth, i'm fucking bored as hell. people are seeming less and less interesting to me. "annoyance" has taken up residence in the space usually marked "amusement." maybe it's the rain. and the short gray days and long, dark, glamourless nights. but i'm experiencing a level of discontent that is, frankly, frightening.

even my writing is boring. look, i just said, "to tell you the truth," and "frankly." oh jeez.

well. yesterday was christmas. i was going to go out to my family's party in beaverton, but my car was emitting some mysterious, strong smelling smoke. there seemed to be enough coolant and oil. i don't know what the problem is. my uncle's going to fix it on tuesday but as far as xmas was concerned, i was stuck in portland. i was going to catch a ride with my mom but my little brother woke up with the stomach flu so they weren't going. and my grandma would've come to get me but she can't drive in the dark so i would've had to spend the night. except i was working last night. and so.

i lit a fire in the fireplace and just hung around all day in my pj's reading. i bickered with my housemate for a minute and then things in the house felt really tense so i went out for a walk. i thought i was bundled up, but the icy wind cut right through my layers and then i was cold. also i was hungry. i wanted turkey! i got super bummed about missing the party and i had a nice long cry as i walked thru the quiet streets toward my house. laughter and yummy food smells wafted out from some houses and that only made me cry more. i have food scarcity issues from growing up so poor and when other people are eating and there's none for me, i'll always burst into tears. what a baby.

when i got home it was almost time to leave for work. my stomach was rumbling but i felt really stubborn about eating. like if i didn't get to have turkey, then i didn't want anything. i couldn't go to work with nothing in there, so i finally choked down a toaster waffle slathered in peanut butter, a treat i usually enjoy but yesterday it may as well have been cardboard.

i got to work and it was super dead. and i looked at next week's schedule, i'm only working monday MORNING and new year's day. not even one night shift. and there are a bunch of new girls scheduled for all the night shifts. pretty annoying. so then i was even MORE CRABBY.

but i went upstairs. danced a while and then this guy was motioning me over so i went to sit with him. he was a little developmentally delayed, he reminded me of corky on "life goes on." he was really sweet and seemed hell-bent on getting wasted. i don't mean to discriminate, but i just didn't feel right about hustling him for dances. i felt totally fine letting him buy me drinks, though. i had two drinks, one right after the other, and then i was drunk and i felt so much better.

there was a kid sitting on the other side of me at the bar who was doing a lot of bummed-out texting. turns out it was his 21st birthday and a bunch of his friends were supposed to be meeting him but not even one of them showed up! he'd already been at the club for FIVE HOURS. his phone died and he kept watching the door, everytime someone walked in he'd look up with hopeful little eyes. finally about an hour later, his MOM showed up. i was sitting with the kid when his mom walked in and the look on his face, of total relief at someone who loves him showing up to celebrate, brought a tear to my eye.

the mom was pretty young. at one point she told a story about being on a school trip to NYC for new year's eve 1980, and she was 15 at the time. which would make her... oh i guess she's 45. not as young as i thought. i did the math wrong last night and thought she was 35. haha. well, she looked really good. she had on a fancy red dress with good-looking cleavage, naturally blonde hair that would've looked great had it not been so frizzy, super pretty face, and a little patricia arquette tooth, which is always TOPS in my book. the mom and son were so sweet together. eventually the son was so drunk he really couldn't drink another drop so she took him home.

nobody else interesting. oh except for a couple who wasn't at all gross. they were in their late 40's, i'd say, and were extra ordinary looking but something about them was super charming and when i did a few dances for them i actually got a little turned on. if they made an xtube video, i'd totally watch it. i wish i could say the same for most of my couples customers but it's just not the case.

i liked the girls i was working with. we had a nice night together. i hardly did ANY dances, but still managed to make $300. i had thought it would be more, that people would be extra generous on christmas. i was wrong, but it could've been a lot worse.

diamond in the rough.

hi. i haven't written in a while. i'll catch up a bit:

last wednesday i had a really good night at work. i got another one of those guys who want you to "run away" with them. because surely, since you're a stripper, you're deeply troubled and have a lot to run away from. all you need is a rich guy to find you, to see that through your excessive layers of grime, you're actually a diamond in the rough. i'm pretty good at playing into this dumb game and seeming as if i do, in fact, need a bit of saving.

several hundred dollars later, the guy got way too drunk, left, and was quickly replaced by another good customer who wanted a petite brunette in his lap for a good long time.

then i worked on friday and it was extraordinarily slow. (i don't even know why i say "extraordinarily" anymore, since it's actually NOT very out of the ordinary to have a shift so slow that you barely break a bill.) as i was leaving work, though, this big guy i like a lot was coming in. i felt immediately bummed since i would've been leaving $100 richer if our paths had crossed half an hour earlier. but he goes "hey andi! you leaving? well here's 20 bux for ya."

"thanks," i said.

"no strings attached!" he yelled. "i hate it when people attach strings to their christmas presents!"

i wondered what kind of strings he could've attached to $20, had he been the type to attach strings. pre-paid lapdance? what? hmm. anyway it was nice to get $2o for doing absolutely nothing. especially since i was leaving with a paltry $92, and at least now my evening's total was over a hundred, which just seems so much more civilized.

sunday was our club's christmas party. it was really sweet and fun. i like all the girls a lot. i brought my sweetie with me and he dressed up SO CUTE. i got tipsy on white wine and bbq ribs. a lovely affair. really. a lush peach tree on my otherwise barren social landscape of late.

after the party i took a quick nap to sober up a bit and let some of the meat settle and then i went to work. the club was very dead at first. i was doing like $5 sets for the first hour or so. i spent a lot of time sitting with this guy named doug. he seemed like a good investment, but turned out not to be. he said something early on that endeared me to him. he told me his wife had left him after 21 years, and he couldn't believe it. he goes, "every morning i looked at myself in the mirror and said, it's not about YOU! and then i went to work. and did whatever i could do to make my wife happy. but it didn't work."

i sat with him for way too long but i didn't have anything else to do and he kept ordering us drinks. plus, his stories were WILD. he talked really fast and included TONS of details of partying with the Stones and what they ate and drank and what the hookers looked like, but then he'd gloss over kind of important things, like "oh yeah well that was the year i got shot so my foot wasn't working too good..." so, you're gonna tell me that bonnie raitt likes shrimp cocktail, the baby shrimp kind not the jumbo, but then you're not going to say how you got shot, or who did it or why. strange. he bought one dance after i hassled him a bit and then it was time for me to bid him farewell and go find my money.

i danced for some random guys.

then a really cute dyke came in and sat at the rack for an hour or so. just happy and content in her little samantha ronson outfit. super flirty. i thought it might be fun to dance for her but i had this regular who came in and kept wanting dances between my sets. then eventually he left and i was gonna hustle the dyke for a dance but right then her girlfriend showed up looking exasperated. she sat down and tried to appear to have fun for a while, but it wasn't very convincing. it's pretty rare that someone who loves strip clubs has a girlfriend who also loves strip clubs. i mean, it totally happens. but more often it's a bit contentious.

then i had ANOTHER guy who wanted a million dances and wanted me to run off with him. these guys happen a lot around the holidays. keep 'em coming!

finally i was off work and i was pretty surprised when i counted my money. there was a lot of it! yay!

why you invite strippers to the bachelor party, not the wedding

sat & sun

hi. i worked on saturday and sunday nights. saturday was fine. it was semi-busy and i made a good amount of money. oddly, i don't remember much of anything about that night. i do know that i was super grouchy when i got off, something extraordinarily annoying happened but i can't remember what it was. i went to my sweetie's house after work and was basically useless. just grouchy and terrible. i was filthy from work, but there was a problem with his shower, where you can't adjust the temperature knobs once you're in the water or you'll get an electric shock. i thought i had the water just right, but once i got in, it ended up being ice-cold. and then i transcended my grouchiness and entered a semi-catatonic state. i felt guilty about my inability to be sweet. we went to sleep.

sunday was super slow but i was in a much better mood. i danced for this gross guy i'll only dance for if it's totally dead and there isn't anyone else. he has halitosis and is extremely grabby, a terrible combo. plus you can't put your tits in his face AT ALL or he'll open-mouth kiss them, and having that foul smelling mouth on my tits makes me feel both sad and murderous. i hadn't danced for this guy in a while, so i had forgotten that he also does this snapping turtle thing with his mouth, kind of an "i'm gonna bit your nipples" threat. it's sick. anyway i decided i'm not going to dance for him ever again, no matter how slow it is. it's just not worth it.

since there weren't any good customers, i mostly hung out in the dressing room reading patti smith's book, "just kids," between stage sets. i ended up making barely more than $100 all night. but at least i didn't have to work too hard for it. and i worked with two girls i like a lot.

hi.

i'm down south for thanksgiving and also to work a bit. yesterday a friend of mine texted me to see if i'd do a double with her. it was an old client of mine that i'd referred to her last year because he wanted a lot of domination and i wasn't feeling it, and she's a dominatrix. anyway, he wanted two girls yesterday and happened to ask if i was still around. funny how that worked out since i'm hardly EVER around. so i went over to her place and did that. my friend is just about the best talker i've ever worked with. i mean, seriously, she's just really smart and quick. she talked a blue streak about him being our little pussy man, i did some cbt (cock n ball torture) with a bit of string, we jerked him off and sent him on his way. i love when an hour flies by and the client leaves happy.

after that i went to the apartment for an appointment with a regular. he arrived early and instead of waiting for me to buzz him in, he slipped in with some random tenant and just showed up at the door. this is ANNOYING. there's a specific way we do things, and everybody knows it, so to take it upon yourself to step outside of that and just show up early, knock on the door, and freak everyone out thinking there's a cop or nosy neighbor is just rude and disrespectful. i couldn't just let my client stand out in the hall, though, and i was tempted to send him away but he's been a good client thus far, and he always tips $50. so i let him in. the candles weren't lit. i was wearing a bra and no panties. there was a naked girl in the hallway, and another client in the shower. i dislike this kind of chaos. i wanted to scold him, but i knew he'd have a hard time getting off if he felt shamed so i said, "i'm really glad to see you, but you know how important it is to come at the specific time we've agreed upon. i like to be ready for you. so just wait till i buzz you next time, okay honey?"

other than that the session went fine. he wanted me to pee on him so i put him in the bathtub and he drank a bunch of my pee. he ended up tipping $100 for this pleasure, which was nice.

after that i sat around in the living room catching up with the girls. i really adore them. they are so fucking sweet and cute and tough and smart. and HOT.

then i had an outcall with the guy i write about sometimes who has the fancy chocolates. last night he had this bottle of wine that was the best wine i've ever tasted. it was a "cotes du rhone." whatever that means. delicious. anyway this guy is usually cool except that he talks about other girls i know, A LOT. and last night he was bragging about having slept with this girl i LOVE, who i used to dance with when i first started 8 years ago. she's one of only 2 girls i've kept up with from those days. a total carebear sweetheart. it grossed me out to hear him brag about banging her, mostly because he kept mentioning that her stomach had gotten fat. "wait till you see it," he said, i just felt like, "WHO CARES. look at YOUR stomach, dude!" i don't remember how i changed the subject, but finally he quit talking about her.

after that i went out with my good friend. we had wine and meatballs. i should've just gone home after that but i had all these friends waiting for me at a club so i went and danced and drank more and late-nite snacked and now i feel TERRIBLE.

MEATY ASS

i worked saturday evening. it was dead as a doornail. i think everyone was watching football and maybe at the blazers game. i don't know. i made like $125. sorta not worth my time, you know?

a guy came in with two other guys. his friends didn't want to hang out, but he kept trying to get them to stay. he said, "ooh look at this one. she has a nice meaty ass." then he kept saying it different ways but never changing the word meaty. "look at the meaty ass on that one." "this girl's ass is nice and MEATY!" finally i was like, "hey you're being kinda gross. knock it off." he was offended, claimed he had been paying me a compliment. i said, "well how about you pay me some tips instead of compliments." he goes, "you're rude," and then they left. good riddance.

other annoying customers included a husband/wife duo who sat at the rack loudly dirty-talking each other and including me in their wild plans. as in, "yeah and then i'd lick her clit till she was screaming for your cock." NO THANKS.

also a blonde sorority-lookin girl who came in CARRYING HER SHOES a la prom nite 1997 and never tipped even one dollar but screamed "woooooo! i love you!!! you're so cute!!!" what that really means is, "woooo everyone look at me! i have a vagina too!"

i had a stomachache so everybody seemed even more annoying than they probably were. you know how that goes. arrrg.

now i'm down south. just got here this afternoon. i'm hoping to make some $$$ while i'm here. cross your fingers for me!

GFE

work's been super boring lately. so instead, i'm gonna write a movie review.

i watched "the girlfriend experience" tonight, starring smoking hot real life pornstar sasha grey, who plays an upscale hooker named chelsea. her hair was so long and silky in the movie, i was truly inspired to just keep growing mine. and she had tons of super cute lingerie. she has a boyfriend who's a personal trainer. their relationship isn't that exciting to watch.

i remember hearing some girls talking about this movie when it first came out and saying that sasha grey wasn't a very good actress, that she was kind of flat. i can see how you could think that, but i think she was great in the movie. she is pretty subdued and maybe a bit flat, but i think it works for her character. she reminded me SO MUCH of a girl i used to work with, the girl who used to make SO MUCH MONEY. i mean, she was booked with back-to-back appointments and was charging $225/hr, in the worst part of the recession, when all the rest of us girls were running $160 specials. i remember doing the math and realizing that she was making like $900 per day, 4 days a week, so probably around ten grand per month. anyway, it was as if "chelsea" was totally based on this girl. same mannerisms, same style, same charming monotone.

there were a few parts of the movie that I LOVED because they were so relatable and believable. first off, the scenes with her and her clients were totally great. the guys would just talk and talk and she'd agree and be on their side, say whatever they wanted to hear, and then they'd talk some more. appear smart, but not too smart. they'd be talking, and then chelsea would do what my friend morgan calls, "flipping into vamp mode." this is when you start getting sexy, apropos of nothing that's occurring situationally, besides the fact that you are on the job. because sure, he wants to talk, but he also expects to receive the service that he's paying you for and it's your responsibility to move things along in that direction. i've started the sexy times while a guy's talking about the most mundane, LEAST SEXY things you could ever think of, and often they'll just keep talking about whatever random thing until they cum. this incongruity baffled me at first, but i must've gotten used to it because it stopped even striking me as strange for someone to be complaining about their boss while they were shooting into my hand.

another thing was when she has this client who seems to like her a lot and then for whatever reason stops booking appointments with her, and then she sees him out with another girl who she knows to be her competition, and her feelings are hurt. this has happened to every ho, i bet. i used to have this client i liked a lot, and then one day he canceled an appointment with me, only to show up at that same time slot at the apartment where i worked, to see a co-worker of mine. i felt embarassed and kind of tossed aside or something. although when i thought about it, i had to abandon those feelings because i mean, really? do i REALLY care about losing his esteem? no. do i care about losing his money? OF COURSE.

OH! and then she meets up with this guy who runs a message board with reviews and whatnot. and he gets her to let him test the goods for free, saying he'll write her a good review and it'll boost her business. WELL, then he writes her this terrible review. and it bums her out. that scene really hit home. one of the grossest guys i've ever seen, who was such a cheap scumbag, and who actually took the cost of parking OUT OF MY FEE because i'd told him it was easy to park near my incall and then he couldn't find a spot and had to park in a pay-lot. SO TACKY to nickel and dime this person who is servicing you sexually. anyway he smelled terrible and refused a shower, and was entitled and grouchy and hell-bent on complaining. he ended up writing a terrible review about me. and it totally affected my business. i still wish i hadn't read it. someone's dissatisfied play-by-play of their paid session with you is something i'd advise anyone against reading. it feels pretty gross to read disdainful descriptions of your body parts, voice, hair, written by someone who rented them for an hour. not to mention the demoralizing realization that this one unkempt disgruntled fucking loser knows he has the power to write something that will end up costing you thousands of dollars in lost business, and then does it. these guys take the reviews so seriously, it's insane. (OH, and p.s. this guy wrote to me later, offering me a "second chance" with him, saying he'd to write a new review if i wanted to give him a free session and try and do things "his way." i politely declined.)

the movie ended abruptly, kind of a "life goes on" ending. i wasn't super into it, it seemed like they ran out of money in production so just decided that scene would work as the movie's end.

"the girlfriend experience" is probably a totally sub-par movie with a dumb plot and mediocre acting, but i liked it a lot. i wish there were LOTS MORE movies about whores. i want to see movies where they're just regular people doing a job, not totally uncouth and tragically strung out, or a dead body lying anonymously in a ditch ("who's the killer?"), or basically flashy live scenery in an urban street scene.

11.11.10

OMG i'm so tired but it's hard for me to sleep sometimes right when i get home from work. so i will say hello to you, dear blog reader, and write a bit.

tonight was okay. the club was sort of dead but one of my regulars came in (the really short italian guy) and wanted 20 dances, so i ended up doing okay. it's kind of a lot of time to spend with one guy, especially someone with such a short little lap area, but he's really nice and i do like not having to trawl around for dances while he's there. after he already bought 15 dances, i was on stage and i saw him in the corner, eating a burrito. i hoped he would still be eating it when i got off stage so i could just duck in the dressing room and avoid having to dance for him post-burrito. but he polished it off just in time and then wanted a few more dances before calling it a night. i dislike dancing for people who have recently eaten mexican food. his breath was intense, plus he burped twice and i thought i might throw up. somehow i got through it, though, and then i was $100 richer. so.

there's this guy who comes in and asks for me right when he steps in the club. he'll just come in and holler at the bartender, "is andi here?" i'm told if he asks for me and i'm not there, he'll just turn right around and leave. he's never bought a dance from me, but likes to sit at the rack at the very end of the night and throw handfuls of ones onstage while saying, "you're so beautiful andi! i love you andi!" he has a hilarious voice. kind of nasal and comedian-like. and loud. i assumed that he had suffered a head injury, but according to my co-worker, he's just a character. anyway he came in tonight and yelled his adoration. he gets on everybody's nerves but i like him a lot.

a trio of hot butch girls came in. i hadn't ever seen them before. they turned out to be from new york. i always want hot people to be great tippers, but they almost never are. these girls were no exception. they sat at the rack and tipped a dollar each per song, and that's totally fine. just unimpressive. it's the short, the round, the dorky loners who make the best customers. well, and the foxy businessmen. but young dyke hipsters? terrible.

hmm. what else. nothing really. i'm getting drowsy, i might be able to fall asleep! goodnight.

monday day shift, why you gotta treat me so bad?

today was totally dumb. i got to work and the other girl wasn't there so i was the only girl for a few hours. ideal if there were any customers. but there weren't. i took breaks, but mostly i just sat around on the stage, chatting with the bartender.

finally another girl came in to cover the shift and i went downstairs for a while. there was a terrible smell downstairs. i can't even try to describe it to you because i will gag.

i did some dances with a cute young hipster guy. that was fine.

also i danced for a guy who was having a nervous tic jaw problem. he kept opening his mouth REALLY WIDE like macauley caulkin in "home alone," only WIDER than that, and with a terrible OCD grimace. it stressed me out. he wanted me to keep dancing for him but i simply could not.

another guy wanted a dance, but as soon as we got into the little private dance nook, he started groping at my crotch and tits. i didn't have it in me to deal with him. i gave him his $20 back and told him to fuck off.

when i got off work i had a cocktail across the street with my friend and then we gorged ourselves on discount sushi. just a coupla girls out on the town! after that it was super dark. it felt so late, i was ready for bed. i looked at the clock and it was only 5:55pm. it's gonna be a long-ass winter! thank god i've got me a hot little snuggle bear.

maybe mondays aren't so bad.

i did NOT want to work last night.i was in the wild throes of PMS. bloated little tummy and grouchy personage. i texted a bunch of girls from the club, but nobody would take the shift. so it was with great reluctance and self pity that i dragged myself downtown to prance around naked for strangers.

the club was pretty quiet when i got there and i thought it would stay that way since it was super rainy and windy outside. but eventually there was a decent crowd.

i felt lazy about hustling, but i worked on friday night and barely made any money so i had to try and get it together.

i sat with a super tall business man for a while. he seemed disinterested at first but then started telling me all about his wife, who hasn't had sex with him in THREE YEARS. he was thinking he'd need to start cheating on her soon, but wanted to give her just a few more chances to put out first. i found his loyal restraint to be charming. not charming, however, was the mouth on this guy once he got drunk. he bought 6 dances and started telling me all about his wild sex fantasies, etc. i could kind of see how his wife didn't wanna open up that can of worms.

i did dances for a few random other guys. and then this kid came in who looked a little disheveled but cute. he didn't look like he was there to spend any money, but i went and sat with him anyway because you never know. he just got back from serving in afghanistan, and he ended up wanting ten dances. he was fun to dance for, mellow and polite.

i liked the girls i worked with and i made a good amount of money. it's funny how that can happen even when you feel extremely uncute. or, as TLC says, "unpretty."

hmm what else. oh, right before closing this homeless woman wandered in, disorientedly. she swayed around to the music for a moment with her eyes shut and then when she opened her eyes it was like she was waking up. she looked around and saw that she was in a strip club, so she hurried into the corner, dug around in her purse a bit, and then threw a wadded up dollar bill onstage. when i went downstairs and unfolded that dollar bill, two little pot nuggets fell out of it. good sized little buds, bra. i don't smoke, so i brought them home for my housemate.

today i still feel grouchy. but i don't have to work. and i'm not so broke.

i don't like working mondays.

last night it was stormy and rainy as hell. i did okay in terms of money (only okay--by no means great) but it's only because i made a bunch right when i got there. after that, though, it was SLIM.

it was hard to even get anyone to pony up for a cocktail, let alone any dances. after one of my stage sets, i saw that there were some new guys sitting at the bar so i plopped down at an empty stool. "wow i'm so thirsty," i announced. 99% of the time that's when somebody will say, "oh! can i buy you a cocktail?" but this time, the three guys averted their eyes. i said, "anybody wanna buy me a cocktail? i'm so thirsty." the guy to my immediate left goes, "not particularly," but then the guy next to him goes, "oh! ok! let ME buy you a drink!" summoning the bartender, he said in a heroic, self-pleased tone, "anything the lady wants!"

i decided to just accept that this was not gonna be a big money night and take pleasure in the little things, like only having two more hours of work, and playing tetris on my iphone. i sipped on my vanilla vodka and OJ contentedly as the cocktail guy told me how he has developed software that allows him to log into the company network from his phone, but it will show that he's on premises and not that he's logging on from a mobile device. very clever, actually, and totally perfect for the kind of person who likes to swing by the strip club for a long lunch. he went on to say that his job is rad, he got them to pay for his monthly bus pass since he doesn't use the free parking space they provide for employees.

"that's rad," i said, "but why don't you drive? i mean, you have a good job so you could probably afford a decent car."

"i just never learned," he said. his parents died when he was 15 and he became a ward of the state, and none of his foster parents felt like teaching him. plus he was bereaved.

i told him how i just learned to drive two months ago and so if he wanted to learn it's not too late. i almost offered to teach him, but realized that would just be the cocktail talking so i kept my mouth shut.

"i don't mind taking the bus," he said. his cheerful tone was very convincing.

"that's great. i hated taking the bus, especially at night. but i guess it would be a lot easier if you were a dude."

the rude cheapskate guy piped up, "what?! how would it be easier? what a crazy thing to say!"

i really didn't feel like launching into a women's studies lecture with this guy. "girls get harassed ALL THE TIME on the bus, HELLO DUDE," i said.

"well what kind of neighborhoods were you going to?"

"it doesn't MATTER," i said. "guys will try and talk to you no matter where you are. and they will follow you. and they will say gross things. it's annoying and sometimes scary."

"well, what were you usually WEARING when you rode the bus," he demanded, looking me up and down accusingly.

"i didn't ride the bus in stripper outfits, you moron!"

"well, duh," he said. "but, i mean, what were you wearing?"

"JUST FUCK OFF," i said, angry that he was thwarting my money-less plan of enjoying the simple pleasures. and i didn't feel like it was my job to educate this asshole on how a girl could be riding the bus in a snuggie and a ski mask and she'd still be hit on mercilessly (i'm speaking from the place of a slender girl with long hair, but i'm pretty sure that girls of all shapes and sizes and hair lengths face the same ordeal on a constant basis), and how even if you ARE wearing a slutty outfit, you have just as much right as anybody else to utilize public transportation without feeling bothered or unsafe.

i polished off my cocktail and got back on stage. danced a few lackluster sets and then it was FINALLY time to make my escape.

ZZZZZZZ

i worked on monday and it was insanely slow but i brought a book so it was fine. i think i made $100 ALL DAY, but at least it was better than last monday's $10 (after parking).

last night i worked and it was busy. really nothing to report, though. a regular came in and bought ten dances. he's really short so there's not much lap to sit on. really a quadricep workout, like doing squats for ten songs straight. well, actually it was five at once and then a five more a little later. but STILL. whew.

i think i'm going down south tomorrow. gonna see some massage clients and make some $$$. i'll let you know how it goes.

maps, porn, etc.

work on thursday night was unremarkable except that i met an aquatic cartographer who was 6' 5'' and was super muscley like an action figure. he was in town for a mapmakers convention. i liked hearing about how they survey underwater planes. he says that thanks to the many satellites of google earth, cartography is a dying profession that doesn't even require aerial photography or anything like that anymore, but since he surveys underwaterscapes his job's still important. he went into a lot of technical, jargoney descriptions and i don't know how much of this i understood or even cared about, but it was definitely a nice departure from the usual strip club doldrum of frigid wives, meglomaniacal bosses, etc.

also he talked a lot about karate. he has a black belt. he just sat at the bar all night waiting for me to come sit with him between customers. it was kind of cute.

the sad part was that when i was getting off work, i could tell this guy was waiting for me thinking maybe i'd wanna hang out. and then when the doorguy walked me to my car, he looked a bit crestfallen when i gave him a little wave and just kept walking. i had to drive around the block to get going the right way and i passed him walking slumpedly back to his hotel. he looked lonesome. not my problem, but i still felt a little sad for him.

it's been RAD having three days off in a row. i'm dreading that monday morning shift tomorrow. i keep working it even though i rarely make any money because whenever i do my boss also gives me a couple really good shifts. so.

i've done some thrift store shopping, had some family time, and have been watching a lot of porn for whatever reason. i found my ideal clip yesterday on xtube. starts out with this girl on the floor getting banged from behind. she's got her ass in the air and her head and arms on a pillow, so her big natural tits are banging against the carpet in this bouncy motion that i found to be dreamy. apparently the person shooting the video also thought it was awesome so they focused in just on her tits, bouncing like that amazingly. i loved jerking off to that video. i'm gonna look for it again right now, in fact. SO GOOD. do you ever watch something and feel like it was made just for you?

cherries n dopplegangers

guys like this cherries outfit for some reason. i find it to be cheesy, i never thought i would wear something with cherries on it, to me they say, "femme dyke sex nerd circa 2001." but i was outfit shopping one day and this little number called out to me. it said, "i'm the lowest common denominator! buy me, guys like this shit!" so i did and i'm telling you, whenever i put it on it's like instant $$$. i don't want to wreck its mojo by wearing it when it's totally dead and i'm not going to make money anyway. it's not the kind of outfit that will bring people in off the street. it's for when there are already customers and there are other cute girls working, but i want them to get dances from ME.

last night was a good night. i made all my money in the first two hours and then it was pretty slow but i felt relaxed. i worked with the hot over-accessorized russian girl and this other girl who has lots of tattoos. she always wears tiny flowered white underpants and they look kind of AMAZING. like, all those metal tattoos might suggest "bad girl," but then she's wearing little girl panties. somehow it doesn't read as pedophilic at all, just totally hot.

a guy came in who looked like the 60 year-old version of my sweet buddy sky. i couldn't deal. i stared at him too much. i think he liked the attention because he came up and tipped me a couple twenties on stage. he had almost the same glasses as my friend, and also the odd flowy faggy clothes, which on sky look smartly fashionable, but on this guy were just a little dumpy. he had a super glittery eagle earring in one ear and it was glinting at me from across the room. i went over to sit with him and noticed that, close up, he had similar eyelids to sky! germanically hooded! and rosebud lips. INSANE. it was his birthday, he was 57. i was sure he was gay, i mean his voice and everything about his countenance suggested it. but when i told his friends to buy him a birthday dance from me, they did and they guy got a giant boner that was clearly evident through his loose woven pants, so maybe not gay? the experience was surreal.

there was a lot of other random customers. i kind of don't remember them or care very much right now, actually. oh and i tried to hustle my boss's boyfriend. that's always rad. luckily he told me right away before i said anything possibly embarrassing. (the best lines are always the most embarrassing.)

it's my day off. i'm having anger and sadness about some things. i keep thinking it will pass, but the more i think about it, the madder and sadder i get! i'm going to go for a super long run and just pound it out!! GRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!

the broke and the geriatric.

omg yesterday was the world's slowest shift. EVER. i mean: ever in my life. i made $19. can you believe that? and when you minus the $9 i spent on parking, i made TEN DOLLARS. at least i didn't really have to dance very much, though, just sat around having Life Discussions with my co-worker and my boss. we're all having the same problem: two loves, and you only get to keep one. do you pick security and sweetness or hot sex? go!

a woman came in to audition. well, two did actually. monday's the day for it. anyway one was a tiny lil speedy thing, tried out in flip flops and a swimsuit. NEXT.

the other one was the kind of older woman who "looks good for her age." she had totally ripped abdominals and not a wrinkle on her whole body. and a very good boob job, although they were too big for her frame. she had a total grandma hairstyle, though--short and permed. dyed red. she danced to the beach boys "california dreamin." it was strange to watch, like do sexy moves go out of style? were her stiff gestures sexy a lot of years ago when she was a younger stripper? and how many years ago was that?

when she left my boss goes, "try and guess how old that woman was."

"51!" i said.

"no way," my co-worker said. "47!"

my boss goes, "she was FIFTY-NINE!"

stunned silence. followed by incredulity and depression. these are TOUGH TIMES when strippers are coming out of retirement mere DAYS before their 60th birthdays.

we're all gonna be that old one day if we're lucky. i've got to put some of my eggs in a different basket. or buy some chickens? or something. STAT!

10/9/10

i had this regular for a few months but then he totally disappeared and i hadn't seen him for a long time till yesterday. i'm really glad he came in during my mid-shift because it was sloooooow. it really only takes one good customer to make your shift good, though. and by "good," i mean "$$$." duh.

i worked with the messy-haired puritanical ballerina. (i've written about her before.) she's nice or whatever, but she really gets on my nerves. i can't figure out whether her loud optimism is genuine and fueled by a really great life filled with naivete and support from loved ones, or whether it's the front for something darker. either way, it is Too Much. plus she does this thing where whenever she gets done dancing and is collecting her tips she goes, "thank you! thank you everybody!" in the overly gracious tone of someone winning a Tony award. it's a little depressing.

i got off work and wanted to drink but i had my car so i drove home and went to this whiskey bar close to my house with the intention of getting very drunk and stumbling home to pass out. i haven't been drunk like that in a while and it felt like the right time for it. but i still had a lot of makeup on, not the right get-up for sitting alone at a bar on a saturday night because guys see you're by yourself and that you went to all the effort of making your hair and makeup pretty so you must be wanting to meet someone, so they keep coming over and talking to you. this is perfect when you're broke and want drinks. but i had a lot of money on me, and i didn't feel like talking to anyone. this one really cute guy came over and was chatting with me and if i was straight it would've been the perfect opportunity for stranger sex. he had pretty eyes, wasn't too hairy, cute outfit, nice lips. tempting almost but, alas, i don't want anybody's dick in my mouth so i went home after only one drink.

my housemates were all going to a party around the corner from our house so i popped by and lasted for precisely 5 minutes. sometimes i feel suuuuuuper antisocial, like i just have absolutely nothing to say to anyone unless they're paying me. so i went back home and started watching SNL in the basement, but fell asleep after the opening monologue. i woke up down there totally freezing and disoriented and went upstairs and crawled into my freshly washed sheets, which felt really good.

today's going to be a good day. i have nothing on the docket at all besides reading, writing, eating, and maybe going to the movies. also i'm going to make a pumpkin pie.

hello. it's me again.

i've worked a bunch lately but nothing too interesting has happened. last night was good. a guy came in and bought a lot of dances with me. and then his friends were like, "we gotta go, dude, come on or we're gonna leave you here." they were up from salem and he had no other way home. so, desperate for a momento, he bought my thong for $20. AND my hot shorts for $60. i really liked those shorts, though, so i told him i needed to go put something else on real quick because i couldn't just run around the club naked. i grabbed these other shorts that looked a lot like the original shorts and did a switcheroo. he totally didn't notice, just put the shorts on his head like a crown and scrambled outside to meet his friends.

i danced for a lot of random guys, i can't remember anything pertinent about any of them.

a pair of mountain dykes came in. the less butch of the two (i hesitate to say "femme," but you never know, i mean she was wearing lipstick) was really bossy. she kept saying, "come on, put your pussy in my face!" i didn't like her at all.

then some bartenders came in who thought they were really famous. i know this because they were super coked out and kept telling me how famous they were. "#1 mixologist" this, and "hot list" that. AS IF I CARE. one of them was in from new york, but the less annoying of the two works right down the street from my club. i got him to promise me free cocktails on friday. so. that's nice.

then the black keys came in. that's a band. i've never listened to them, but my co-worker is a big fan and had been at their show the night before. she was FREAKING OUT. it was fun to watch her try and act normal. they were really fun to hang out with and dance for. they brought a bunch of really good looking people with them, too.

hmmm what else. i want to go on a trip somewhere. where's a good place to strip?

picnic basket case

1. sunday was the club picnic. it was at my boss's daughter's house and it was SO sweet. i loved seeing all the girls' kids and partners. i felt sad that i was there stag, but a few other girls were, too, so at least i didn't stand out.

[haha i can't believe i just used the word "stag." my mom used to use that word all the time and it drove me NUTS!!!

she'd go, "there's a dance at your school on friday night, are you going to go?"

"no."

"why NOT? you're supposed to be doing these kinds of things. you're in high school. why can'tcha be NORMAL?!"

"i don't have anyone to go with."

"just go STAG!" she'd say, exasperated. i could tell she thought i meant i didn't have a date to go with, not that i really didn't have even one friend to go with.]

anyway, the picnic: the food was really good. burgers and all that. the people who own the mexican restaurant next door to the club brought over the biggest container of guacamole i've ever seen. i over-ate. i'm not used to having that kind of access to guacamole.

my co-workers are truly rad. i felt kind of choked up looking around and feeling a part of things. like "these girls all like me and i'm not crashing this party, i was invited and people are glad i'm here." i don't feel that way ever lately.

there was a doughnut eating contest, where doughnuts were hung on a string from a clothesline. i thought that powdered doughnuts were an interesting choice for this, kind of an inhalation choking hazard, but still it was fun to watch the kids all trying to munch their doughnuts the fastest without using their hands. when it was the adults' turn, the creepy janitor/handyman was the first one to get in line. he always looks at me so lasciviously while i'm naked in the dressing room, i dunno i just didn't want to see him mouthing a doughnut so i went inside and picked the bacon off the top of a voodoo doughnut.

2. work yesterday was pretty good for a monday morning/afternoon. these two guys came in who were wild and fun. they seemed to have just been released from prison. they didn't say that, but they did say things like,

"i haven't been to a titty bar in 20 years!"

"i've been looking forward to this day for a long time."

"we got off the train, stopped at the bank, and came directly here!"

"he's shy around women."

also they were muscly, in the way that soldiers and convicts usually are from having lots of women-less hours to fill with bodybuilding endeavors.

the ex-cons were the only customers for the early part of the day. they got up and danced for us whenever we played a song they liked. they were clearly high out of their heads. there was an older one who was the boss, and a younger one who was the son type. the older one kept saying, "what do you need, son? to DRINK?" and the son would say, "uh..um... see if they got rootbeer schnapps!" "they don't got rootbeer schnapps." "oh, okay then uh... um... huh. ima need to think about it then." and then the older one would just bring him a long island iced tea. this happened a couple of times and by the time they left, the little one couldn't even sit up straight. i got a little sad to think of him waking up wherever he was going to wake up and starting his free life with a barfy hangover. but i can't think too much about these things. on their way out they gave us each $20, and said "thank you ladies. this was just what we needed!"

after that some girls came in and wanted to audition so i had a nice long break. i sat at the bar and a business guy came in and sat with me. the girls were wild. they were 40 if they were a day, and they looked and acted very speedy. it kind of stressed me out to watch them, all fast and toothless and jerky, so i turned my attention to the customer and got him to buy a couple of dances. and then when he left and the girls left, it was time for me to dance my last set of the day. whew.

i had plans to have sushi with my two friends who are in from out of town. but of course they flaked. they can't just flake outright, though, they have to barrage me with texts and change the plan a million times and ask me to do things they know i can't do, like go with them to a movie at 4:15 when i don't get off work till 4:30. it's the same thing every time. if you're going to flake just do it, don't try to disguise it with a giant amount of extreme annoyance.

so i took myself to sushi. and then came home. and was at a loss. NOW WHAT, you know? i have a million projects and books. but when i'm feeling lonesome it's hard to motivate. i feel like, "i don't want projects and books, i want hugs and kisses."

cry me a river. waaaa waaaaa. i'm just in a tunnel right now. it's not going to last forever. the thing that worries me, though, is that whenever i go into a lonesome tunnel, i end up coming back out more independent than before, and my heart gets a little less permeable each time too. i don't like to think of myself as a hard-hearted old spinster. on the bright side, if that happens i'll surely be well-read and have a lot of finished projects.

stripper coven

last night i was feeling lonesome and tragic before work but then i got there and chatted with some of my favorite co-workers in the dressing room and i felt immediately better. all three of them complained at length about the boyfriends they are breaking up with, and while i'm not happy that they are all in the middle of break-ups, there is a certain comfort in knowing i'm not the only one with frayed and broken heartstrings. we all kind of decided that we'd try and forget about everything for the moment and have a fun night. and then it was as if we'd cast a spell because it WAS a fun night.

i was thinking about it and i realized that over the past ten years, whenever i've gone through a break-up or had drama with dates, it's been girls at work who've helped me through it. i tend to do this thing where i end up spending a lot of time with whoever i'm dating, and then when we break up i'm isolated and sad and i don't feel like i can call my friends because i've been neglecting them. (add to this the fact that i haven't even really gotten around to MAKING friends in portland yet. i'm friendly with a lot of people, but in terms of good friends who i can call for hang-outs, i'm Shit Out of Luck and it's totally my own fault.) but luckily i have co-workers who i like, and who talk my head off about their own shit so i feel comfortable talking about mine a little bit too.

...anyway back to last night... i had some really good customers. my campbell soup kid came in and bought a few dances, and when he left a super cute dyke couple came in and were really fun. they didn't want dances, but they sat at the rack for a long time and threw handfuls of ones for even the laziest of pole tricks. it was a butch/femme couple and as they got drunker and drunker, the butch got more and more rowdy and generous. good times.

also there was a cute frat-looking boy who just seemed totally regular until i danced to the xx song, "islands." then he got a super wistful look on his face and sang along with the song, tipped a twenty, and then left.

also there was carrie underwood's band. they had the best tennessee accents and they all bought dances.

and then lots of randoms.

it was a good night, but after work i couldn't sleep. i just laid awake for a long time until finally i turned on my laptop and watched 30 rock on netflix. i watched 3 or 4 episodes and then was even more awake. finally, when it was getting light outside, i went downstairs and glugged down a giant shot of brandy, straight from the bottle. that did the trick and i got back into bed, tied a scarf around my eyes, fell right to sleep, and didn't get up till NOON!

now what.

choose your own non-adventure.

yesterday i worked. it was excrutiatingly slow and i barely made a hundred dollars all evening. i was feeling bored so i took the ritalin i had hidden from myself in the secret pouch of my makeup bag. that sure did make my shift fly by, and then before i knew it i was getting off work. i felt all cracked out and bummy. i couldn't understand why i had taken the speed since i had nothing to do AT ALL. nowhere to go dance after work, no fun to find.

i was reminded of the time i took the greyhound bus cross-country, from san francisco to NYC. every time the bus stopped at a travel plaza, everyone would pile off the bus and come back with these large coffees. i found it baffling that instead of trying to sleep the trip away, people would choose to be MORE AWAKE in order to sit on the bus for hours and hours and days on end doing NOTHING. were they punishing themselves? were they just bored and wanting to vary their experience slightly? (or could they, perhaps, merely have been seeking comfort in their favorite flavor of international delights non-dairy creamer?)

anyway, yesterday i was that pathetic ass-backwards budget traveler. and i'm not sure what my motivation was but i'm pretty sure it was either boredom, punishment, or adventure.

crazy, crazy on you.

last night i got one of those customers who wants to "take you away from all of this." you know, that guy who drunkenly thinks he has found his diamond in the rough, at long last. like you're his miniature julia roberts (a la pretty woman) just waiting for your prince charming-moneybags. his name was tom. he looked like a campbell soup kid with his big saucer eyes, chubby cheeks, and curly blonde hair. he bought ten dances from me, that was nice but it started to feel a bit too intimate after a while. halfway through the fifth or sixth dance, my mind started to wander to my personal life, which is at present rife with bummy times. then all of a sudden i thought, "uh oh i'm about to fart in this guy's face." i took a bathroom break and before i could even dread it, i puked and had explosive diarrhea. it lasted for about two minutes, less than a whole song, and afterwards i was totally fine. a bit shaky, but otherwise not sick at all. so strange! maybe it was the new two-minute stomach flu.

i brushed my teeth and all that and went back up to keep dancing for tom. he kept saying things like, "i've been looking for you, waiting." "you're perfect. your hair and your smile. and your butt: perfect." and then it progressed to the only half-joking "will you marry me? we could have a nice little house." "i want to spoil you rotten." it was kind of condescending. i'm not waiting to be found. but it was easy for me to see how girls date customers, i mean who doesn't want to be spoiled rotten? it's probably really good that i'm a lesbian or i would have a revolving cast of customers performing the role of "temporary boyfriend." i'd probably also have a lot of fancy purses and shoes, which would be nice but likely not worth the hassle.

i had to get back up on stage for my last set of the night. tom sat at the rack with a wild grin on his face. it was kind of odd. he mouthed something to me, and i couldn't tell what he'd said, so i said, "what?"

"i'm CRAZY about you," he said, still grinning maniacally. on the one hand: eeek. on the other hand, will he turn out to be the obsessive regular customer of my dreams? only time will tell.

rainy day internetting

MDMA / T.C.B. / xoxo

today i drove to work for the very first time. i just got my drivers license a few weeks ago, for the first time in my life, and i bought a car from my uncle. when we talked about him selling it to me, it was at a family party. he made a big show of saying i was like a daughter to him so he was going to basically GIVE me the car for the cost of new tires and some paint. so i figured $300 or maybe $400 max. but then when i went to pick it up, he wanted $1200. i thought that being generous in front of everyone, and then changing the deal when it was just the two of us was kind of shitty. but i didn't know what to say, and i was already thinking of the car as MINE so i bought it anyway. it's annoying to me that everyone in the family is still gonna think that he did me this big favor, though, when actually $1200 for a 1990 honda civic with 290,000 miles on it isn't exactly a huge favor.

i do like the car, though. and i loved not taking the bus today.

work was fine. i made a little over $200, not amazing but totally decent especially given how slow it's been lately. i still owe my uncle $500 for the car, so i was hoping to make at least some of that tonight.

when i was getting off work, one of the girls from the next shift was in the dressing room putting on makeup. she was going on and on about how she'd just quit this other club because all the dancers and the bouncers would go to the owner's house and have big coked-out orgies at the end of the night. she's really young and kind of a goody-goody, and didn't like working somewhere where people treated her weirdly because she wasn't into the same shit as they were. fine, okay, but the funny part was that to end her story, she put one hand on her hip, and waved a hairbrush at me with her other hand and goes, "i mean, EXCUSE ME if i don't dabble in drugs and prostitution!"

then she went up on stage and another girl came in and started doing her makeup. she started telling me this long story about her boyfriend and how his friends don't like her blah blah, and how one of her boyfriend's friends came in the other night when he knew she'd be working, which is weird, and then tried to get her and this other dancer to go home with him and "party." she refused, and the other dancer went, and the friend offered the dancer MDMA and coke. my co-worker (the one telling the story) goes, "i mean, can you BELIEVE THAT?!" i go, "i wish I had been working that night, i would've loved some free MDMA. haha!" she didn't think that was very funny.

where did these puritanical strippers come from, anyway?

well this whole time that the girls were talking at me i was putting on my makeup, too, because i was going to the scissor sisters show across the street. i felt sad that i was going alone, i had bought two tickets thinking i'd bring someone cute but then i didn't. they were kind of expensive, too--$27. anyway i went to the show and i didn't realize it started so early, so i missed both opening acts and got there in time to see the second half of the scissor sisters set.

i'm feeling fragile and emotional lately and i ended up feeling super bummed out after a few songs. it was terrible to be friendless in such a huge crowd, watching a band i have seen with good friends. it's hard to be somewhere new after living somewhere else for ten years. i used to go out by myself all the time and i'd always run into people i liked. it's different here for me. going out alone really is going out and then being alone.

i used to gogo dance with ana matronic (the girl in scissor sisters) at a gay club a million years ago, and it felt a little pathetic to get off work at my little dive club and then cross the street and see her on a giant stage, really living her dream. i mean, good for her--absolutely--but i felt put in my place in this weird way. like, "get it together, girl!" dancing is fun, but i am really good at so many other things and i'm just being lazy.

i'm on a mission to stop being lazy. starting now. i'm going to finally make some friends in this town. and i'm going to make a whole bunch of new things. i'm going to write a lot. i'm going to get an additional job so i'm not broke. i'm going to TCB.

pep club

yesterday i was feeling soooo and run-down tired before work. and then i remembered that my friend had slipped a couple ritalin into my pill bottle. so i decided to try one, just for kicks. i had that moment i always have before trying a new drug where i look at it in my hand, and scrutinize it, like "hmm, should i take this? what will it do/how will i feel?" and then i say "fuck it," and before i know it, it's down the hatch.

i used to take drugs that were way speedier than a lil' old ritalin, so i didn't expect much, if anything. but let me tell you: once it kicked in, i was downright PEPPY. chatty. optimistic. it was a great way to spend a thursday evening. toward the end of my shift, however, i started feeling extremely tired. like, so tired i could barely stand up. interesting.

overall, however, i give ritalin a B+ for spicing up a slow mid-shift.

the yellow rose

i have been out of town for forever and a day. right now i'm in austin. i thought i'd work while i was here. i went to a club my first night here and after the lengthy rigamarole of paperwork and all that crap, i got out on the floor. i trawled around for an hour or so, but wasn't able to sell even one dance. it can be hard to sell dances in an empty club, especially when you haven't been up on stage even one time yet to hawk your wares. so i went and asked the dj if i was coming up in rotation anytime soon. he said, "i'll have you up in 45 minutes, darlin."

there were about 25 girls working. the club was big, but not THAT big. tons of girls everywhere, lolling around in the dressing room, making slow rounds of the club, leaning on the bar looking dejectedly around the empty chairs. i zoned out for a while and watched a girl on one of the stages doing clunky pole tricks and scrutinizing herself in the mirror like she knew she was clunky and wasn't sure how to fix it. i felt like saying, "try pointing your toes." her hair was in a bun! i can't even imagine. i would never wear my hair in a bun to work. also she wasn't wearing makeup. interesting. anyway she finished her set and then i looked around and, seeing more girls than customers, felt like it might be a lost cause.

the smoke in the club was bothering me, as was the club's decor. plus my hustle was on strike. i decided i would leave. i spoke with the manager, told him i didn't feel well, and that i hadn't made even one dollar and so couldn't pay my stage fee. he was surprisingly nice and didn't try to bully me into staying the way normal managers do.

i packed up my things in a jiffy. there was a huge storm outside, it was raining cats and dogs. i wanted to take a cab, but i had forgotten my lock and had bought one from the club for ten dollars so no one would steal my makeup or outfits. i only had one dollar left after that, and luckily that's what it costs to ride the bus in austin.

austin buses are a farce. they come very intermittently and don't seem to follow any sort of schedule. i waited in the rain for 45 minutes. i was sooooo happy to finally get to my friend's house and drink some rum with her. we lounged on the living room futon and watched "the proposal," starring sandra bullock. it was a terrible movie, but perfect for passing out to.

holy underwear

last night in my dream, i was walking to work and i happened to pass by my old church. there was a free box on the steps so i stopped to rifle through it. there were a bunch of old dolls that were flat on the back and meant for hanging on the wall. i really wanted to take one home, i love old dolls, but each one was too scary looking in her own special way. i dug a little deeper in the free box and among the old crappy gap sweatshirts and dingy thermal underwear, there was a PERFECT little lingerie set that was pink with black and white polka dots. the bra was a 34A and the undies were small and ruffly with garters attached to them. DREAMY. the set screamed "quality!" i wondered if it was from the elle macpherson collection, but the tags had been removed. anyway it appeared never to have been worn. i crammed it in my purse, and kept walking to work. it tickled me that i was going to be wearing a fancy set from the church free box to roll around on stage at a strip club.

kittenz

yesterday i was having a really good hair/makeup day at work and then when i got off i went downstairs, washed off all my makeup, put my hair in a ponytail, and put my regular clothes back on. i happened to be wearing a purple sweatshirt with big-eyed kittens on it and skin tight acid washed jeans. to get from the dressing room to the front door of the club, you have to emerge at stage right and then parade in front of all the customers. last night i learned that leaving the stage as a foxy sex kitten and then reappearing later as a dorky ponytailed cat-lovin twelve year-old is good for a laugh. the club was completely full and i swear every single person did a collective double-take followed by an eruption into laughter. good thing i have a sense of humor otherwise i may have felt badly.

full moon

things got off to a slow start last night. there were, like, NO customers for the first hour. a girl i work with had come in for a glass of champagne before meeting up with her boyfriend, who works for melissa etheridge, who is in town. we said, "get him to bring her over!!!" then she left after a bit and since there weren't any customers we texted her a lot with our pleas. stranger things happen there all the time, so it wasn't a total stretch to think that melissa etheridge would be comin to my window at any moment over the course of the night. i found myself watching the door for her.

i worked with the foxy ukrainian girl again, and her outfits were even more fancy than ever. she's fun to work with. she's usually in a really good mood. the other girl i worked with was super cute but was in a weird mood where she seemed to feel that everyone had it out for her, cheap bastards. she collects her tips between each song and when there aren't enough of them she says, "thanks for TIPPING," in an pointed tone of indictment. but the weird thing is that she says it in the exact same tone of voice even when people actually ARE tipping. it's confusing.

around 10:30 things started to pick up. i met a guy with super cute chubby cheeks. he was with an insanely drunk bald guy who was acting crazy. the chubby cheek one kept threatening to call a cab for the bald one if he didn't settle down. then the bald one would go, "i'll call your MOM a cab," and then he'd die laughing while the chubby one looked on in disgust.

i got cheeks to buy a few dances and he was fun to dance for because he was clearly having a good time. i told him he was a cute snuggle bear. he said he was really sick of hearing that. i bet chubby guys get that all the time. the look on his face reminded me of when i used to tell my baby brother how cute he was and he'd say, "i'm not CUTE ANYMORE! i'm COOOOOL!" such an adorable exasperated look, which really only made him look cuter.

for the hour of 11 to 12, there was a tough looking dude sitting at the tip rail BARELY TIPPING, and yet with thuggy body language taking up THREE SEATS. this isn't the junior high lunchroom, and this isn't your table. go work out your shit elsewhere.

eventually cheeks and his drunk friend wedged in on either side of that dude. he wasn't pleased and told them to "move along." they laughed at him and he finally went away.

cheeks' drunk friend got way too drunker and he randomly got up from his chair and just stood there at the rack staring off into space. i go, "are you okay?" he didn't respond. then cheeks goes, "ooohkay, we're leaving now," and then the drunk guy goes, "shut up fatty! you're such a retard!" then he tried to sit back down but tripped over his chair and dropped his entire wad of cash on my stage. lots of it dropped on the floor, too, and in an effort to make it look like he'd done all of this on purpose, he bent over and scooped all the fallen money up and threw it onstage too. STOKED. it was probably only about $50, but rad nonetheless. then they left but came back later for a bit, got in a fight, and then left again for good.

i danced for a bunch of other guys, i can't remember much about them. oh except for there was this one guy who won a bunch of money playing video poker. he bought the whole bar a drink, so of course, sensing money, i went and sat with him for a bit at the poker machine. he said, "pick a card." i did and it was a good one i guess because it won him $12, which he printed out and gave to me. then he said, "let's get a drink," so we went and sat at the bar. then he said, "you know, i'm a pervert."

i was like, "oh yeah? what kind of pervert?"

"i like feet."

"really? i just painted my toenails today. want to see if i did a good job? i can't take off my shoes out here, though, come back with me for a dance."

so we had a dance and he rubbed my feet a bit. then he wanted me to slap him in the face, something i don't enjoy doing to strangers. it's hard to get that feeling off your hand, you know? the feeling of someone's whiskers and delicate cheekbones and then if you accidentally hit their cartilagey lil nose? faces aren't that big, in relation to hands. it's hard to ONLY smack someone's cheek. i was like, "no thanks."

he was extraordinarily bummed, acted like i had pulled some switcheroo on him. like he's just supposed to be able to make all these requests for his $20. bitch, please.

and then i danced for a super tall guy who had been really sweet with me on stage all night. very smiley and tippy. he wanted some dances and while i was dancing for him he said, "i really like those hot shorts, they look like they came from bebe."

i said, "well, they didn't, but they DO kind of look like that, huh? i love that store."

"you do?"

"yeah. they make really cute clothes, and their sizes are perfect for petites." (which is totally true. i know it's really hard for fat people to buy clothes in stores, and i'm not saying that i don't have all this skinny privilege in the world. but really to buy clothes at the mall, they just do not fit without alteration if you are smaller than a size 2. FANCY designer clothes fit, but regular mall clothes do not. except for bebe. even forever 21 is stupid if you want anything tight.)

so then i kept dancing for him and when i had to get back on stage, he said, "i have something for you." and he gave me a $100 gift card for bebe!!! i didn't see that coming, i was thinking he was just asking me about it in order to concoct a fantasy in his mind where we fuck in the dressing room or something.

i said, "wow. you seriously just made my night! thanks."

LUCKY!

p.s. melissa etheridge did not, in fact, make an appearance.

saturday

i worked on saturday. i was a bit bedraggled, as i had gone on a camp out and had been around people a lot for a few days straight and then rushed home and had 20 minutes to shower, shave everything, and scramble to work. i felt super tired and grouchy for the first part of my shift, but then i started making money and that always cheers me right up.

i danced for a lot of different guys, but the only one who stands out in my memory was this young kid in an ill-fitting thriftstore business suit, white sneakers, and an oversized red corduroy chef hat. BIZARRE. he was quite taken with me. tipped me a couple $20's on stage, and then bought a bunch of dances. he smelled BAD and was just really really strange in general. he kept wanting to stand up and slow dance with me. i asked him if he was from portland. he said he was from salem. he was in town for a party later that night, to which he had been invited by mail. i couldn't get him to say what kind of party it was. i hope it was good since he rode the train up. i asked him random questions, but the only things i really found out about him is that he was still living at home with his mom and that his favorite band is evanescence. i wonder where he got all the money he was blowing on strippers. a job? SSI? who knows.

i was happy to get off work and then go work elsewhere, and then finally much later that night crawl into bed, pass out immediately, and sleep like a rock.

another night at the office.

work last night was good. i worked with two girls i like a lot. one is a super foxy ukrainian girl who looks like a barbie doll. she wears strange outfits with lots of accessories. like she'll wear a pair of hot pants with a belt and with a glittering thong sticking out of it. and also crotchless fishnets. and little ankle socks. and a mesh crop top with a bra underneath. AND a tie. and then several bracelets and blingy necklaces. on somebody else it would look like they went into the lingerie section of wet seal or charlotte russe and had one minute to just cram whatever they could find into a bag and then run straight to work and put it all on at once. but on her it works, somehow.

the other girl has super long black hair and tons of tattoos. she just got her wisdom teeth out and hasn't been able to eat for several days, which has given her the look of a leggy waif. she seemed pretty hungry and miserable, though, poor thing.

it was moderately busy all night. i forced myself to stay up on the floor and only took a couple short dressing room breaks. i sold a decent amount of dances. one of the guys i danced for was a chubby-cheeked salesman, probably about 48 or 50 years old. he started out acting totally normal, and then all of a sudden out of nowhere he started munching on my belly and going "nom nom nom!" i said, "whoa. hey. no nommin' on my belly please." then he said in a baby voice (that i'm hoping will fade from my memory very soon) "oh. hurmph. i tan't nom nom on yowl bewlly?" and then made a theatrical pouty face. it was fucking weird.

another guy was an elderly scottish man. his accent was like nothing i've ever heard. i liked it. but i didn't like him very much. he shamed me for having yet to leave this continent even one time. i said, "if you're the kind of people i'm gonna meet abroad, then i'll just stay right here in oregon, thank you." when he seemed offended, i added on a compulsory "just kidding."

i got a bit drunkie and now i don't so much remember who all i danced for. the men, they blend together sometimes.

a friend of mine was in town and she stopped by last night right before i got off. she had never been to a strip club before and got all dressed up in a wild get up that brought to mind jean smart's character in designing women. mixed with a little kate bush. and with pleather pants. mind you, it was a hundred degrees yesterday. HOT. and it was super hot in the club. so the pleather pants seemed an odd choice, but she's really young and is still willing to sacrifice certain comforts in the name of breathtaking avant garde fashion. i, on the other hand, would never wear plastic pants on the hottest night of the year, no matter how good they looked. shit, you can barely get me to wear any kind of pants when it's hot.

anyway she had a lot of fun on her first strip club foray. she wanted to buy a lapdance from me but i didn't feel like selling her one. so then i got off work and we went to the fry cart but they had just closed two minutes prior to our arrival. ho hum.

chasing money

sorry i haven't written in a while. i was feeling like this blog was sort of private and that hardly anybody read it which i still mostly think is the case, but i got an INTENSE text from somebody last week who i didn't think would ever end up reading this blog. but somehow she did. i don't even know how she found it. but anyway. i've been sort of reeling from that. and also i haven't been working very much.

today i was going to see a client but i was having a rather intense case of gas so i cancelled.

no exciting news to report. the only interesting thing that happened to me today was that i went to make a deposit at an ATM on a super busy street and the touch-screen was very scratched up and was taking a long time to work. like you'd punch "yes" ten times before it would register. anyway i put a check in the ATM and i had two $100 bills to deposit as well. i was waiting for the check to be accepted and then suddenly the bills blew out of my hand. i had a moment of trying to decide whether i could just leave my account open for anybody to drain really quickly while i chased the bills, or whether i should just forget about the bills and concentrate on getting my card out of the super slow ATM. i chased the bills, nabbing one of them right away. the other one blew a bit further. i looked over my shoulder real quick to shoo someone away from the ATM and during that split second, i lost track of the second bill. i looked all over the place for it. this fiasco occurred next to a sidewalk fruit stand. i looked under all the crates, just everywhere. and then finally i ducked into the trash area of the stand, kind of a tiny little alleyway. and after a bit of searching i found it floating in a puddle of moldy fruit slime! yes!!!

dre-ee-eee-eee-eeeams

so remember how i hate it when people tell me their dreams? well clearly i think i'm above the law because i keep subjecting you to mine. i've decided that i'm not gonna stop, but just so you know: i know.

last night i had a truly exhausting dream. you know those dreams where you need to pee or poop or masturbate and the whole dream is you trying to find an appropriate place with a little privacy and/or a receptacle? well sometimes i have those dreams but where i'm with a client and we need to find a place where i can jerk him off. i've had this dream about 5 or 6 times, with different clients, and the plot's always the same: i meet up with my client; i forget the keys to my studio; my client has TWO bulges in his pants: one is his dick about ready to blow its top, and the other is a cartoonishly gigantic wad of cash; both of these bulges want to make their way into my hands, if only we can find a private spot.

last night the dream was in a town that looked like puerto vallarta, warm and muggy, and full of alleyways and nooks and crannies. the client in my dream was one of my regulars: steve. we kept walking around and around and finally when we couldn't find anywhere we got a cheap hotel. i laid steve down on the bed and rubbed his back a bit, and then flipped him over and started jerking him off. no matter what i did he wouldn't come. i started dozing off so i went to the bathroom to splash some water on my face. when i came back steve had morphed into this girl i had slept with once, who had the exact same sandy blonde pubic hair, and the same sort of bored yet entitled sexual energy. it's weird when someone just lays back and waits for you to get them off, even when they're not paying you. i mean, there's topping someone, which is among my favorite things to do, but in that case the person is engaging with you, not just kicking back and waiting for you to service them.

so. steve was this girl. just laying there, waiting for whatever was going to happen to happen. i felt trapped. i climbed into bed and got to work. there's a lot more dream where that came from, but i'm going to spare you the details because it wasn't cute. needless to say, i woke up feeling worn out.

bummer dreams, go away!

red rage, then snuggle timez

yesterday i worked and aunt flo had come to visit. she was taking up a lot of space and making me cranky. i don't like bleeding at work. especially when it's so gushy i can barely change my tampon fast enough.

did you know regular tampons are made from polyester and a tiny bit of cotton, and have little shards of fiberglass in them and bleach? i'm not into shoving that kind of stuff up my cooch, so i only use organic cotton tampons, which i usually stock up on from the free basket in the new seasons bathroom. but i didn't have time to visit the one new seasons with free tampons this go around and so i had to buy a box yesterday at whole foods. do you know that it's almost nine dollars for a box of 16 organic tampons? WHAT THE FUCK? if tampons were something dudes needed to sop up the biohazard that gushed out of them each month, you KNOW they'd be free. they'd just come in the mail every month, free of charge, more than you even needed.

annnnnyway work was slow. again. i forgot my book. so i was bored. my hair looked really good, though, and the girl i was working with had the most charming southern accent.

after work i biked to my sweetheart's house. i tried going over the pedestrian platform on the steel bridge but the gate was busted. AGAIN. i flew into a rage, yelling profanities as i lugged my bike up the stairs up to the bridge platform. i don't know who i AM when i get mad like that. like: really? am i really so angry about the city of portland neglecting the gate on their pedestrian bridge that i'm going to curse them out at top volume all the way up three flights of stairs? actually, now that i write it out it seems less crazy that i would get so mad. those stupid assholes should really should fix that fucking motherfucking gate, goddamn it. YOU try getting off your lazy ass and hauling your bike up all these stairs and THEN we'll see who's laughing. huh.

yelling and carrying on all the way across the bridge was pretty cathartic and when i finally got to my sweetie's house, i was a mellow lump who just wanted to be fed a snack and then hugged and kissed to sleep. i'm lucky to know a cute person who will do that sometimes for me. zzzzzzz

nom nom nom

i worked on saturday night. it was fun and lucrative. some friends of mine came in and that was strange but also rad. i had to pretend they weren't there otherwise i felt nervous. i sat down with them for a minute and had a cocktail. they said "why don't we come back when you're getting off so we can go to the fry cart?" i loved having that to look forward to for the rest of the night.

i ended up getting pretty drunk with my co-worker and some loggers. a good time was had by all.

it was so hot at work that i kept having to flat-iron my bangs over and over all night. they'd get sweaty and then scrunch up into unflattering curls. i dislike curly bangs. i also used A LOT of baby wipes over the course of the evening, owing to the fact that i was sweating like a pig.

then my friends came back and we went to the fry cart. i ordered a mini, but the fry guy told me i was too cute for a mini and gave me this giant thing of fries instead. sometimes people think they're doing you a favor when they're not. they were really fucking tasty, though. they have all these different sauces and ketchups you can choose. in line for fries, i ran into a girl i've known for many, many years but never really been too close of friends with. she was also just getting off work stripping. she goes, "hi! i made so much money tonight!" i knew i was supposed to say, "me too," so then she could say "how much?" and i could say, "$450," and then she could claim to have made a lot more than that. but i didn't take the bait. i just said, "that's great. what sauce are you getting?" she seemed annoyed. "poutine." she said.

after that i just came home and went to bed.

if you think of something interesting for me to write about, please do let me know via comment. i don't WANT to be this boring.

survival instincts

yesterday was the slowest, longest day ever. i think i say that a lot, but in this case it's even MORE TRUE than usual. there were very few customers. never more than two or three at a time. somehow, i was in a good mood, though. i think i just didn't care. i was still feeling all blissed out from my camping trip. i did a couple dances for a guy named ahmed, he smelled like fancy cologne and was kinda grabby but not terrible. those were the only dances i did all day, as he was one of the only customers who came in.

i'm not going to work dayshifts anymore. i don't know why i keep making myself available to do so. i'd rather NOT work than work during the day when it's hot out.

since i wasn't busy, i just lolled around onstage to whatever random song i wanted to hear. and i made final revisions on my desert island food list.

on the way back from camping in california, we played car game where you pick the ten food or food items you'd bring if you were going to be stranded on a desert island for the rest of your life. here's what i decided on:

1. an orange tree. i don't want to get scurvy, plus i like orange juice.

2. chickens! i could eat their eggs.

3. oats. i'd have an oat-field? i wanted a grain, and oatmeal is so high in fiber, and i could make granola and oat-milk.

4. onions.

5. honeybees.

6. avocado tree.

7. broccoli. natures colon toothbrush.

8. an almond tree.

9. blueberry patch.

10. lentils! so high in iron. and protein. and also i could dry them out real nice and grind them up, ferment them, and make dosa quickbread/crepes.

and i'd have salt from the sea, also fresh fish. i bet the island would have a mango tree. and probably bananas. and a coconut tree. i could use coconut oil for cooking, drink coconut water, and make things with coconut milk.

you're probably thinking about things i've overlooked. it's okay because i'm not really going to be stuck on an island.