yuck.

i always have weird dreams about work, but the one i had the other night was epic. in the dream i was with a friend of mine who isn't a ho, but in the dream she was giving it a try. she had a client she needed to go meet and he'd requested that she bring an extra girl because he had a bro visiting.

here i must note that in real life, it has happened that a guy has come to see a co-worker at the massage parlour and treated their friend a session too. it feels strange when somebody buys you for someone else. i'm not complaining, i mean it doesn't feel terrible or anything, just a little odd. when it's one on one, the exchange feels totally natural. but when it's a coupla bros, it feels different. i have no idea how to describe what i mean, so i'm just going to stop trying and get on with the story.

so have you ever entered into business with someone even briefly and you realize right away that they do everything differently than you do? like the time i did a bachelor party with this girl and she was sitting on the bachelor's face with her bare vagina and then acted all put out that i wouldn't also do it, like i'm the hugest prude in the world because i didn't want a stranger's saliva all up in me in front of a room full of college dudes. "man! loosen up, andi!"

well in the dream i could tell that my friend, we'll call her T, was really on a different page than i was. first of all, i thought we were just giving the guys massages. but T insisted that with a massage you always include a compimentary blowjob. then, we had to meet the guys for dinner first and that wasn't included in out paid time at all. T was like, "why would they pay us for this time when they're buying us dinner?" there wasn't anything gluten free on the menu, not one thing. so i felt even more jilted about having to dine for free.

the guy that i was supposed to do whipped out his dick at dinner and it was the pastiest thing i'd ever seen. and uncut. and he was a redhead. EEK. i thought, "no fucking way is that thing going in my mouth," and after dinner i planned to duck out. i told T, "i don't need the money that bad," but she insisted she'd just tell him i didn't plan to blow him, and it would be fine. and also she was like, "this is going to be a TON of cash. these guys are LOADED." and also she said this was her favorite and best regular client, and if i flaked she'd lose him.

so. i went. the guys went to their hotel first and we were supposed to meet them there a few minutes later. we entered the lobby and T goes right up to the reception desk. "what is she doing?!" i thought. the clerk gave her the room key, which was wrapped in a wad of money. he goes, "oh man. are you guys prostitutes? well. make it quick or i'm gonna call the cops." GREAT. so then the dream was not only totally weird and annoying, there was now a sense of race-against-the-clock urgency to it.

T stashed the cash in her boot and we went up to the room. there were suddenly tons of guys instead of just two, and we had to give the massages in front of everyone. i tried to leave but wasn't allowed to. i ended up having to blow that redhead and it was terrible. i don't remember what all happened but it was, after all, a nightmare, so it wasn't that fun. and finally we escaped by the skin of our teeth. i was super bummed and also pissed off at T. "some client YOU have," i said to her, thinking that if that was her favorite regular, what must her lesser-favorite clients be like?

i wanted to get away from T, who was acting like i was a big baby for being upset about the fiasco. i asked for my half of the money. it was $80!!! i was FURIOUS. "i thought you said it was gonna be A LOT of money!" i screamed. "that IS a lot of money," T said. i started crying and ran away.

man. a dream like that can just fuck right off.

boo hoo.

this weekend was kind of stressful. on friday i drove out to seaside with another dancer, we'll call her "R," to do a bachelor party. the actual party was okay, we made a lot of money, but the drive was terrible. R wasn't feeling good so she wanted me to drive, which was fine but i have only been driving less than a year, and have only ever driven three different cars. so i had to get used to her car for a minute. i was a little jerky at first, i stalled at a stop sign, etc, and R kept getting grouchy with me. we bickered a bit and then she passed out. suddenly i realized we were pretty far from portland but really far from the beach, too, and we were almost out of gas. i felt kind of mad that R hadn't thought to put some gas in before a late-night drive to the coast. but then i realized i couldn't be mad since i hadn't exactly thought of it either.

i have been having a lot of anxiety lately, and as a result i have been feeling like i'm constantly talking myself down off the ledge of a panic attack. as in, all day every day right now. also when i have anxiety i am prone to "catastrophic thinking," a term i learned from R when i woke her up to say i was having a panic attack and was sure that we were going to run out of gas in the middle of the woods in the gigantic no-cell-reception zone between portland and the coast and there wouldn't be any way to call AAA so we'd have to flag down a stranger and there aren't any other cars on the road and we'll probably just have to spend the night in the car on the side of the road, except there aren't any turn offs so we'll be basically sitting ducks for a wide load or drunk driver to smash to smithereens. she said, "oh god, we'll be fine. you're having catastrophic thinking." and went right back to sleep.

i drove the rest of the way, 45 miles, with the needle hovering just below Empty and the gas light on. i felt the car truly running out of gas right as we pulled into a gas station in seaside. i don't know how we made it, but R and i were both pretty relieved.

we got to the party and it was at this beautiful cabin that the bachelor's family owns and visits about 4 weekends a year. i was like, "is it just empty the rest of the time? do you rent it out?" he was like, "no we lock it up." that made me sad. if i had a beach house i'd go there all the fucking time. also i felt sad because i had been trying to get my special guy to go to the beach with me but there was always some reason we couldn't go, and then he dumped me last week. it's like OF COURSE the only time i get to go to the beach is to work. aaaack. (i'm feeling kind of "poor me," right this minute, so bear with me, will ya.)

so. then we did the party and drove back to portland and i went to bed.

i worked last night at the club. i was feeling bummy and sad from being dumped. and also from shitty social interactions earlier in the day. i tried to buck up a little, put on a happy face to make my money. but there really wasn't any money in the club, at least none that i could see with my grouch goggles on. i had decided not to drink, so i was all sober and irritable and people seemed waaaaay drunker and more obnoxious than usual.

my coworker gave me a coconut water, an out of the blue gesture that was so sweet it cheered me up a lot and i was able to pretend to be at least somewhat charming and normal for the rest of the night.

i didn't meet anybody very interesting. a lot of people were rude. a guy and his girlfriend kept throwing wadded up dollars at me and laughing. assholes. i left them on the stage, i didn't even feel like uncrinkling them, and i didn't want them in my purse or in my life. sometimes not collecting dollars that are thrown at you like a circus peanuts can make you feel better. and also it's nice to see the next girl pick them up and have no negative feelings about them.

a guy stole a few dollars off my rack. i said, "hey that's rude, can you put those back?" he got very self-righteous and offended, saying he was just helping me pick them up. these two bike-geek hipsters in head-to-toe american apparel who were sitting next to him at the rack were like, "yeah, chill out. you don't have to be so racist." uhhhh... OKAY. because i see a man, who happens to be black, blatantly pocketing my hard earned tips, and call him out on it, i'm racist? i told them to shut the fuck up, and asked the man to give me back my dollars. he did give them back, while grumbling about how i'm very racist.

not working for a few days, which is a really good thing.

last night blew. i couldn't stop coughing, i was really tired, and there weren't any good customers. i did have a guy ask me whether my tits were real, though, which was pretty funny. if you've ever seen me without a push-up bra you know that my tits are tiny. as in A cup. i said to him, "who would pay for tits this small?!" he responded that they were just so perfectly shaped, it was hard to believe they were real. well, now, that's true.

i was telling the story to a co-worker in the dressing room. she has really good looking fake tits. she goes, "hahaha! if i woke up with your tits i'd sue my doctor for malpractice!" you know how sometimes someone is *technically* agreeing with/adding to whatever you've just said, and yet at the same time they're taking it to a whole 'nother level? she was dying laughing at the wild hilarity of it all. finally i was like, "ok ok. it wasn't THAT funny."

later on that same customer said, "your body looks very young."

um. you mean in spite of my witchy old face? what a bizarre thing to say. i mean, a compliment about your body isn't really a compliment when it's to the exclusion of your face.

a couple of college girls came in. were shrieking and yelling the way girls will do when they come in and realize they're not the center of attention. one of them tipped a dollar and goes, "show us your boobies!" i just looked at her and walked the other way. then she waved me over and goes, "don't you cater to women? if they're tipping?" i said, "when they're yelling and being obnoxious and tipping ONE DOLLAR? no. i do not cater to them." she went and complained to the bartender, who could not have given a smaller shit, and then left. i was really surprised she didn't scoop her dollar up on her way out.

many weirdos. all night long. i was very happy to rush home to bed.

stripper-gram/strip-o-gram?

last night i did a stripper-gram or strip-o-gram or whatEVER you want to call it. (i can't decide which it is, and the agency i work for goes back and forth using both all the time, so they're of no help.)

anyway i went to a bar way out in beaverton where some bar employees wanted to surprise their boss at his birthday party. i got there and they couldn't locate the boss so they kept stalling me. i sat at the bar and a customer, who was in on the secret, offered to buy me a cocktail. i said i'd have a margarita. i felt weird specifying that i don't drink well liquor, so the bartender made it with don pancho or whatever the world's cheapest tequila is. i had one polite sip and immediately had a headache. i'm just too delicate a flower for cheap booze.

finally they found the boss. i danced to rihanna's "S&M," tied the guy up, rode him like a pony, etc. and then left with the easiest couple hundred bux i've ever made, probably.

i realized i was right down the street from my aunt's house, where my brother is staying this week while he's in town from san diego. i knew they'd all be up playing video games and whatnot, they never go to bed over there till at least 2am, and i wanted to stop by but i really couldn't think of any reason to say as to why i just happened in the neighborhood. so i just drove back into town, and on my way home a friend called and wanted to meet for a drink. i felt really happy about that, like i should be out drinking with my peers on a friday night, you know? so i did that. then went to bed. the end.

sunday

i worked on sunday night, too. it's been a long while since i worked that many days/nights in a row. i still feel tired from it!

so. i went to work grouchy. i had had a frustrating/depressing/annoying conversation with a family member that day and couldn't seem to shake the bad way it left me feeling. then when i got to work it was totally dead and after only five minutes i felt like, "get me outta here!"

but then a little while later a bulldagger bought me a margarita and i felt a lot better. or was that on saturday? well, SOMEBODY bought me a margarita.

i was too lazy to hustle even a little tiny bit, but this lucky thing happened where people kept coming up to me at the bar and asking for dances. i felt like, "what planet am i on?" i went with it. i kind of hated to actually get out of my chair, but $20 for 3.5 minutes of work is hard to pass up.

one guy was really cute and he wanted like 10 dances. so after that i really relaxed, because my money goal for a sunday night is pretty low and i had just met it.

another guy was having his bachelor party. his friends bought him a few dances from me, but once we got back in the dance area he didn't want me touching him at all. he's promised his fiance he'd be a "good boy," so instead he taught me an intricate pattycake game. i caught on right away, as i was a tap dancer and have a natural aptitude for percussiony games, it was HE who kept drunkenly fucking up the game. that was the first time i've played a hand-clap game in lieu of dances, and it was a fun departure from the norm, for sure.

then my favorite bar regular came in and i sat with him for a long while. he's funny.

after that i was off work. i love when the night passes quickly. i went home and scrubbed the club off, then indulged in my sunday post-work ritual which is dorky but comfy: big snack and watching the new episode of desperate housewives on my computer, followed by zzzzzzz.

friday n saturday

on friday, i worked again down south. on my way up to the studio, i saw two male footwear disasters. first, there was an otherwise attractive young fag waiting in the lobby wearing a totally normal outfit with UGGS. bizarre. truly.

then in the elevator there was a man wearing socks with sandals. now this, to most people, is a faux pas. but i happen to think it's brilliant for men since they seem to be lax when it comes to foot maintenance and beautification. their toenails are often thick and gross, too long, crooked, yellowish, and it's like their cuticles have never even seen a clipper. plus their actual feet aren't pretty like women's . and their toes are hairy: yuck! so, in my opinion, go ahead and keep that shit covered. socks with sandals look great on you dude, keep it up.

anyway. after i got done with my male footwear critique, i went upstairs to work. i saw a regular, who is usually really cool. but that day he was so grabby. i always take off my panties for the sexytimes portion of the massage, but he had been grabbing at me so aggressively that i declined to do so. at one point he asked if he could give me a massage. i had somehow forgotten about the last "massage" he gave me, wherein he pinched at my shoulders a few times and then rubbed his dick all over my back, so i was like, "okay."

(how did i forget that, btw? i guess i blocked it out?)

anyway so he gave me a rough, unskilled massage for a couple minutes, and then i kept feeling his dick on my back so i told him it was time to switch back. ew.

the next guy i saw was really nice. uncut, which is not my favorite thing by ANY stretch of the imagination. but he was pretty clean and was just a pleasant person, plus he left a generous tip.

after that i felt tired. i had a bunch of calls and emails to answer, but instead of working into the night i turned off my phone. feels good sometimes to make that executive decision. to just decide your own desires (to eat and go to bed) are more important than making any more money that night.

then i came back to portland on saturday (yesterday). i worked at the club, it was okay except our pole was broken. loose, and leaning a little bit against the mirrored ceiling... hard to describe but let's just say it was out of commission. so boring to dance without use of the pole. i'm not an acrobat, but i do enjoy a few little crowd-pleasing tricks. and also it just breaks up the monotony of sexily pacing back and forth on the stage. i hardly ever get bored dancing when there's a pole. last night, without one, i became despondently bored, and i got all tired and cranky. somehow people still wanted dances so i ended up doing fine in terms of money. i can't believe i have to go back tonight, though. i'm feeling POOPED!

more working.

just been working a bunch. i saw a few regulars and two more new guys. did an outcall to a fancy hotel, always fun to see the kinds of overpriced rooms people get on the company dime. i, personally, can't really tell the difference in quality when it comes to a $200 room vs. a $400 room. nice big tempurpedic bed, cushy robe. seems the same. anyway. so that was nice.

also do you remember the guy who came and saw me last month but then got dizzy and left and paid me anyway? well i was bummed because he was such a good client and i figured i'd never see him again after that because you know how men are when they get embarrassed. but he came to see me, and was as sweet as ever.

my tiny little chef came to see me, too. i like him a lot but i think he gets high before coming to see me because he talks SO MUCH, and there's a kinda frantic edge to his musings.. he doesn't have the telltale coke dick, though, so who knows.

hmm what else. i've just been having a really great trip. working a bunch, but also just eating fancy food, drinking good wine, riding my bike, seeing friends, busy busy but awesome.

workin my fingers to the bone(r)

well, i'm down south. i got here monday and went straight from the airport to the massage studio. i had booked an appointment a couple hours after i was supposed to land, but then my flight was delayed so i had to scramble. i got there just in time, though, and my first client was this sweet guy i used to see when i first started working. he's nice. i'm trying to think of some interesting way to describe him, but he's just really really regular. a college bro type who now works in finance. youngish in a fancy suit, a little goofy, sweet.

then i saw a new guy. he was also a business type. very polite. quiet. you know how i like 'em quiet.

my last client was an old regular who i hadn't seen in a while. he is really nice, but extra hairy. i don't mind body hair, but this would definitely classify as "excessive." and even that would be cool if he'd just trim his pubic region. his hair there is, like, SO LONG, i almost can't deal, but he's just so nice otherwise. he's a zenned out new age type. often these guys can seem annoying out in the world, but they make great customers. so respectful. so present in their bodies. i always feel really calm after seeing this guy.

after that i chatted with my girlfriends who were finishing up work too. they recently bought a car, and just when i was dreading dragging my suitcase down and hailing a cab, they offered me a ride home. sweet!

i dropped off my stuff, then went out walking because it was so nice out and also i was starving. it was late so hardly anything was open. i ended up going to this taqueria that's been one of my top 3 favorites for ten years. i love the way it feels to sit by myself and enjoy comfort food with a big wad of cash in my pocket.

no porky piggin! NO FEATHER BOAS!

i'm a little bit tired of working saturday nights. the good thing is that you can make a lot of money on stage. but the bad thing is that you can often ONLY make money on stage, since people are in groups and don't end up getting very many lapdances. it's hard to hustle when every single chair is filled. and i don't like to just go sit on a guy's lap when his girlfriend is sitting right there. tuesdays or thursdays are so much better. lots of solo businessmen. i've gotta start working more during the week.

last night the girl i write about sometimes, the super uncouth one, was getting off-shift as i was coming on. i passed her on my way to the dressing room as she was sitting on some guy's lap wearing a red tank top, red feather boa, chunky platform boots, and no bottoms of any sort! not even a thong. i figured i was just seeing things. surely she wasn't actually splayed out all porky pig style (you know how he wears a shirt but no pants? eww) across some customer's lap.

a little while later she came into the dressing room to get her stuff. i was doing my makeup and looked over expecting to see that i had been mistaken and that she was, in fact, wearing bottoms. NOPE. i knew if i said anything she'd pull her innocent "i'm new here" crap, though it's been at least 6 months which actually makes her NOT NEW AT ALL. so i just kept my mouth shut.

then this other dancer who has been working at the club for a zillion years stormed into the dressing room and let her have it. "you are so lucky i didn't yell at you on the floor!" she yelled. "don't you EVER walk around like that while i'm on stage again!" etc etc. and the best part was when the girl was like, "i'm new, i didn't know," and the older dancer goes, "YOU ARE NOT NEW! GET WITH IT!!!"

hmm. so. the night was okay. mostly decent customers. hardly any lapdances. but two things really got me down: first, my whole body was ravaged on and off all night by the worst hiccups EVER. the kind that start way down in your diaphragm and just, like, take over. oddly, i will get these sometimes after indulging in even small amounts of anal sex. is there a correlation? sounds like a question for dan savage.

secondly, all night i was peeling little red feathers off of my sweaty ass. the next time i see UNCOUTH (which is how i shall hithertoforth refer to the not-new girl) i'm gonna go all joan crawford/mommie dearest on her ass and scream "NO! FEATHER! BOAS!" while beating her about the head and shoulders with the most scraggliest boa i can find. which is to say, her own feather boa.

oh saturday.

what IS IT with the wildly rude dykes lately? last night i had the worst one EVER. i think she must've been in a blackout. nobody could be that rude if they were actually inhabiting their body and mind in real-time. this lady was about 45, she came in with a couple of guy friends of mine from waaaaay back. they didn't know i was working, it was a nice surprise to see them until their bratty friend piped up. she was sitting at the rack, running her fingers through her silver hair instead of tipping, and going "I'M BORED! WHY ARE THESE GIRLS ALL SO BORING?!" she was being so loud and so disgruntled and my friends weren't ushering her away or anything. it was very obnoxious all around. i said to her, "what a bummer that you're shackled to that chair. it must suck to be terribly bored and yet UNABLE TO LEAVE." it seemed to occur to her, then, that she could leave. so she did. with some parting words for the whole club, "THIS IS ALL SO BORING! YOU ARE ALLLLL BOOOORING!"

it really sucks how when my boss is working, you can't tell people to fuck off.

there were lots of other assorted girls last night. most were rad, but i dislike when gaggles of girls from pole-dancing classes come in and critique your moves amongst themselves. i'm like, "go home and give your husband a lapdance."

this guy i have been playing "words with friends" (iphone scrabble) with came in and got some dances. he has kicked my ass 5x in a row, so it was a little hard to be sweet to him. i just pretended he was a random customer, instead of a random customer who keeps beating me at scrabble. to his credit, he didn't act smug at all, just happy to see me.

well. it's sunny out! for once! i'm going to lay in the park all day and do nothing. xo