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.