working. working.

i'm really happy to be back in portland, but coming home isn't the same when your sweetie isn't waiting for you. seeing him was always the best part of coming home. but things are different now! get used to it!

i worked on sunday night and it was terribly slow, but totally ok. i didn't make very much money, but i was still feeling so happy to be home that i didn't mind too much. of course i would have really liked to be making money, but since i wasn't i just read a book in the dressing room. "outliers," by malcolm gladwell. a book about successful people, what makes a successful person, how some people are born successful, etc. i like narrative non-fiction.

i also just sat at the bar chatting and drinking with customers. one guy is a regular who i've never bothered getting to know because he never ever buys dances. but he struck up a conversation with me and he was actually quite sweet. he mentioned that he hadn't had sex since february. 8 MONTHS!!! he's not an unattractive guy, well-groomed. a little dorky, but nothing extreme. i tried to suggest some places he could meet girls. he said he can't talk to them, he just gets to nervous. i said, "well you're talking to ME and you don't seem nervous." he goes, "yes, but you're..." he trailed off. i said, "a stripper?" his silence made me think that wasn't it. hmmm. anyway i felt bad for the guy. i think he'd be a great boyfriend for some random slightly dorky girl. i suggested he try match.com. i hear people have a lot of luck on there.

there was a new girl working. she was a terrible dancer, lots of wild pelvic thrusts, which did nothing for her tiny pancake butt. she had a lot of children's bikini's she was using as costumes. she fit into them just fine, as she was so skinny you could see every one of her bones. i was listening to a "savage love" podcast and dan had a guest on, some guy who'd just completed the biggest sex study since the kinsey report. one of their findings was that when given the option porn or sex with a woman who was a little overweight or a little underweight, 90% of men will pick the chubby one when the test is anonymous. but when there's an administrator asking the questions directly and it's not anonymous, that number shrinks to something like 50%. very interesting. so i was doing my own little test. i wanted to see who would be super interested in watching an extremely emaciated girl dancing on stage at a strip club. would it be single guys out alone, guys in groups, old guys, young guys? turned out it was nobody. whenever the girl got up on stage, the tip rack totally cleared. i felt bad for her, and it's sad to see someone starving themselves till they're a skeleton. but i also don't want to watch the girl dance naked.

when i was getting off work, i offered my co-worker ten bucks to drive me, and she totally did. that was a treat, not having to wait for a cab. as we drove over the fremont bridge i really just hugely missed my car. i used to love to get off work and just zip over the bridge, look out over the water at the city all sleepy and twinkly. i need to figure out whether i'm staying here or going, because if i'm staying i have to buy a car immediately, if not sooner.

cute girls of south dakota

oh! i remembered that i wanted to write about the cute girls i met in south dakota. there were two of them. the first one was named tyanna. she was super sweet and totally GORGEOUS. she looked like the disney princess version of pocahantas. huge eyes, button nose, perfect pouty lips, high cheekbones. long, crazy thick black hair. petite on top, tiny waist, and then THE MOST AMAZING ASS i've ever seen in person. EVER. in my entire life. giant and perfectly round. like kim kardashian's but bigger and REAL. i told her she should go work someplace where she could be a superstar, like king of diamonds in miami. in fact, speaking of king of diamonds, the person whose ass this girl's most closely resembles would be BlacChyna.

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the other girl i really liked there was named bentley. she lives in town there and seems really burnt out on living there. she hides in the dressing room a lot. i, too, was hiding in the dressing room so we started chatting one night. she mentioned she was sick of it in sioux falls and really wanted to move. i asked her what was keeping her there, a boyfriend? she said, "no. i'm celibate." !!! she is super hot. i asked why and she said there just wasn't anybody she wanted to have sex with, and that meaningless sex depressed her so she decided to just stop doing it till she meets a truly special guy. "i have a feeling it's not gonna happen here, though," she said, and looked around the grubby dressing room. she asked whether i had a boyfriend. i told her i didn't, that i got dumped, and am queer. "oh. i'm sorry to hear that," she said, then after a pause added, "i've been with women." the way she said it made me think she'd BEEN with women, not just had drunken party times with them to get some guy excited. but who knows. i liked to picture her with women! she was hot.

SIOUX FALLS CAN KISS MY ASS

last night was a doozy. there were 15 girls working in the little tiny one-stage club. the shift is 9 hours, so with that many girls, each girl only does 3 stage sets all night. fine by me, as you're lucky to make any money on stage at all, and each dollar entails rubbing your tits directly onto a customer's face and then holding your g-string out for them to tuck a dollar. sometimes even when you do that, the customer declines to tip. infuriating. the girl who made the most stage tips, a voluptuous curly-haired brunette from england, actually made out with each customer, literally rubbed her face all over theirs and open-mouthed kissed them.

the club was super dead all night long. girls were moping around looking for a place to sit, as at many points in the night there were more girls than customers. whenever a girl would get up from sitting with a cheap-ass customer (i.e. give up on getting any dances out of him), another girl would immediately plop down in the still-warm seat and turn on the desperate charm. it felt like a fucked up game of musical chairs.

most of the girls seemed to be having a really hard time making money. from what i could tell, the club's top earner was a 45 year-old MILF from fargo. she was really nice, and pretty too. classic bone structure, big doe eyes. she has the same birthday as me, so of course we liked each other right away. she was pretty old for a stripper, i mean i think you can still be super sexual and hot at 45, but it's a little surprising to still be stripping. when i first met her, it never occurred to me that she'd be raking in the bucks. she just seemed so totally drunk and train-wrecky. but she had a lot of regulars and was in the VIP literally all night long, every night. mostly old guys whose laps her ass had probably been gracing since about 1985. at least one half of the guys i approached on any of the nights i was there told me, "oh honey you're cute as a button but i'm waiting to spend time with barb."

barb had a real take-charge attitude about her. lots of vague unsolicited advice like "keep your chin up," as though keeping one's chin up was going to make any customers materialize. one afternoon when we were all putting on our makeup, barb said, "whose flat iron is smoking?" i hadn't smelled smoke, but right then i began to. it was a burning plastic smell. we couldn't find where it was coming from, but then it just started billowing from the ceiling in huge toxic clouds. barb said, "okay everybody: stop what you're doing. put your coats on, we are going to evacuate. i'll call the fire department." so we did. i mean, there was suddenly just SO MUCH SMOKE.

so. we went outside. a bunch of fire trucks came. firemen tramped around the building and onto the roof, looking for the fire. turns out it was something to do with the club's brand new heating unit. eventually we went back inside, but while we were out, i had the opportunity to see many of my new co-workers in daylight. there was a pair of english girls in for the week. they were both very intense looking inside the dark club, and they were 10x MORE INTENSE in daylight. the brunette looked okay. orange face, but okay. the blonde, however, looked downright NUTS. like a caricature of an ugly girl in a hollywood romantic comedy high-school flashback scene before she later becomes all hot. super awkward, chubby 35 year-old in full pre-teen barbie makeup. orange foundation and robin's egg blue eyeshadow. tiny close-set eyes totally obscured by fake lashes on top and bottom, bulbous nose, tiny thin down-turned lips totally over-drawn with neon pink lipstick. wild. just WILD. you want to know something, though? she seemed to be the club's #2 top earner. she'd sit with a guy for a minute, whisper in his ear a bunch, and then whisk him off to the VIP. lord only knows what her sell was. i don't mean to be a bitch, she seemed nice and all, but it was just surprising to see someone so conventionally unattractive having so much good luck in the club.

i, personally, was having terrible luck. so many lascivious time-wasters. one guy seemed promising but then he started talking about how much he disliked that the club had two black girls working. only he didn't say "black girls," he another word that i don't even want to write. he said they were just too pushy and they should go somewhere where their own people were. i said, "well isn't this the only strip club in town?" he said, "well maybe they shouldn't be IN this town at all." ...next.

then i danced for a guy for a while who seemed a little creepy, but polite. until he said, "you know, i'm very very wealthy." i said, "haha then maybe you should start tipping for these lapdances." he said, "well. i didn't become this wealthy by giving my money away to every little money-grubbing whore i meet." LOVELY. ...next.

the next guy was okay. until he told me he, too, was super wealthy, and that his personal fortune came from being one of the pioneering masterminds of genetically engineered chickens. GROSS.

THEN i sat at the bar for a while with a guy who seemed nice at first till he started telling me what a long time he'd been coming to the club, and how he has nicknames for everyone. he calls the giant black security guard "Big Nig." i gasped a little when he told me that. i said, "you are not serious. do you think he likes you to call him that? that's pretty fucked up." and he said, "oh we go way back. he loves it." sick.

then i just went into the dressing room for a good long time. i counted my money and realized i really had no choice but to get back on the floor. i danced for a couple of rich entitled farmboys. and then trolled around pointlessly for another hour till it was time to go to bed.

it was supposed to be super busy because of pheasant hunting season, but where were the hunters?! i only met 3 or 4. all the rest were rude locals. i just felt more and more like i was wasting my life in that club. 9 and a half hours is such a long shift. and the place was too dark, i hated it there. when we finally got off work and were walking across the street to the hotel, i had the overwhelming feeling like this HAD to be the last time i worked there. i knew it would get busier over the weekend, but i just didn't want to see that club or any of the people in it EVER AGAIN.

so i paid a ridiculous amount of money to change my ticket. and i'm writing this in the denver airport on a stopover on my way back to portland. i miss my town, my friends, my life. i even miss my club! a lot! xo andi.

high hopes: dashed.

i'm away on a stripping trip. i wasn't going to mention where i was because i didn't wanna blow up the spot, i'd heard it was such a special secret gem. but now that i'm here it's all too clear that the spot has been blown, so i'll go ahead and tell ya: i'm in sioux falls, south dakota. i came here with a co-worker who usually makes a shit-ton of money coming out here during pheasant hunting season.

but, that was in years past. of course. THIS year is "freakishly slow," "never seen it slow like this before," etc. etc.

so. i'm stuck out here in south dakota. making hardly any money. working 9-hour shifts in a club with WAY too many girls and a shortage of customers. everyone is telling me it will get lots better as the week goes on. the last two nights have been so dismal, though, that i am already worn down. i tried booking a flight out of here for today but it was obnoxiously expensive. so i'm just going to finish out my booking, then never come back here again ever.

opposites

(the internet is down at my house, so this is from Sunday)

i often see customers all around town, but there are two specific regulars i just see EVERYWHERE.

one is a hipster dyke, diesel jeans, $100 flannel, perfectly coiffed justin beiber hairdo. etc. a little more storebought-polished than the girls i usually go out with, but when i first saw her i did think she was hot, although now i dislike her to intensely that i can't imagine ever thinking she was anything but a skeevy little perv. she's a good customer, a great tipper, usually buys dances, but out of the club she is proving to be a nightmare.

i keep seeing her whenever i go to a queer dance party or event, and she always makes creepy eyes at me and does something inappropriate. like instead of being like, "hi how are you? can i buy you a drink?" or anything you'd say to a regular girl out in the regular world, she treats me like she's a customer and i'm working. i wanna be like, "HELLO. welcome to the idea of strippers as complex people who have a life outside of their job." like if you saw your favorite waitress at a party, would you ask her to go get you some more ketchup?

i don't mind the creepy lecherous staring that much, but the last two times i've seen her she has gotten really jerky. i was performing (music, not sexy stuff) at a party last month, and after i was done i was just milling around and she walked past me and smacked my ass so hard i fell against my ex-date. i was so pissed and offended, but also drunk and embroiled in lesbian drama of my own. i felt like chasing her down and beating the shit out of her, i was so mad. but she disappeared into the crowd. i decided if i saw her again that night i was going to have her thrown out. but i didn't see her again.

i saw her again last night, though, at another party where i was performing. i was having a SUPER great night and i didn't want to give any energy into letting her possibly ruin it so i just totally steered clear of her all night. somehow, though, she found me AGAIN and she went to smack my ass but i yelled, "DO! NOT! DO! IT!" she acted like i was being funny, like we are in on some joke together. but she did go away. if she ever shows up at my club again, i'm going to bitch her out. p.s. i hope she realllly enjoyed the lapdances she's bought from me over the past 2 years, because she is NEVER EVER getting another.

the other regular customer who i see whenever i go out lately is a super cute effeminate straight boy who works at new seasons. he's not a big $ customer or anything, but he comes in and tips decently, and whenever he gets paid he buys a few dances. i actually really LIKE seeing him out, because he's just so nice. i saw him last night about five minutes after i saw the douchey girl, and i was like, "WOW. if this isn't a case of opposites, i don't know what is." i mean, usually it would be the dude who would be all skeezy and entitled, and the girl would be the one you'd enjoy running into. sometimes things are switched, i guess.

weekend times.

hi. i am back up in portland. i worked on friday and saturday nights.

friday was great. it was busy, i had a few really great customers. and then when i got done working my friend bob came to get me to take me to an after-party. i loved having something fun to do in the middle of the night after work. she and another friend were waiting for me in front of the club in their station wagon, blaring super loud salsa music. a party on wheels! they dropped me off at the party, and went around the corner to smoke some weed. they were supposed to come right back, but never did. it was ok. i danced for a while by myself. and the person i love was there. it was sad to see him, but i miss him so even just being in the same place feels sorta comforting.

then on saturday i worked again. it was busy. people were fun. except for one guy, who was a total scary creep. he was movie-star handsome, with super light blue eyes that looked almost white/blue. he had a bleached perma-grin. he wanted a lot of lapdances so i danced for him, and he was nice at first, but became increasingly handsy and aggressive. at one point, i had my back to him and he reached up into my hair and wound it all up in his fingers until my head was in his giant palm like a basketball. he pulled my head back and said, "let's have some fun." it was fucking creepy. i panicked, i mean he really had me trapped for a second. i said, "you're hurting me, stop!" he untangled my hair and looked at me disgustedly. i said i didn't want to dance for him anymore and went to give him some of his money back, as he had pre-paid for 10 dances, but had only gotten 7 so far. he waved his hand dismissively, "keep it," he said. then he left. something WAS NOT RIGHT with that guy.

yesterday and today are my days off. woo hoo. just relaxing and making new fall/winter dresses.

rainy day.

yesterday i was going to walk around and shop, etc, but it was raining all day so i decided to work instead. i saw two clients. the first one smelled like he had just rolled around in an ashtray. i put him in the shower, but the smell didn't wash off. it was not just your average "smoker" smell, it was like he had been in the world's smokiest bar and then smoked in his car and then sat for a while in a cigarette smoke sauna. the shower did help a little. but his poofy head of moppy curls really retained a lot of smell. he was a nice guy, though. so.

the next one was a young-ish spanish guy. he was good looking and very polite, and he had a cute lispy spanish accent. he had a hard time coming, saying i was too cute and it made him nervous. i could understand that, as when i think someone is super hot, it's sometimes hard for me to get off because i, too, get a little nervous.

but he just kept not coming, and not coming and not coming. i asked him if he'd like to extend our time together. he said, "oh, ab-tho-lutely."

so he extended for a half hour. and then when that half hour was done, he wanted to extend for another half hour. but by that point i was so bored and my arm was about to fall off, and it would've taken A LOT more than another hundred bucks to keep me on that table with his cock in my hand. so i told him i had another client and wasn't able to extend any longer. he jerked himself off in like two seconds and was on his way. i had a moment of feeling a little guilty for not finishing the job, but it passed quickly.

when i left the studio to go eat sushi with a friend, the air smelled so fresh and perfect. i love the rain smell. especially when it's stopped raining.

manifest your wishes, say them aloud.

wow, sometimes getting specific about what you want and then putting it out into the universe really works! like when i said i didn't want to dance for a million randoms, and preferred one or two good customers to keep me busy all night. that's exactly what happened after i wrote that. i went to work and right away met someone and danced for him till midnight. then at midnight he left and another guy came in and said, "can i monopolize your time for the rest of the night?" it's like he was reading off a script WRITTEN BY ME!

that second guy was really hot, i might add. he looked just like taylor lautner, the werewolf from the "twilight" saga. he groaned when i told him this, i guess he hears it a lot and is sick of it. i pointed out that there are worse things than constantly being compared to a teenage heart-throb. he laughed and told me he was just being gracious, and that he actually loves the comparison. i liked that guy a lot, i hope he comes in again.

now i'm down south again for a few days! maybe i'll work. i'm not sure. xo