dear diary

i'm down south. i'm supposed to be working, but my phone just IS NOT ringing. i keep checking it to make sure it's on. yep: it's on.

since i've not been working, i've just been lolling around, pleasantly. i went and got a pedicure yesterday with a friend and then walked around thrifting. i found a suicidal journal at the thrift store, and could not help reading it. poor lady was super depressed about her daughter graduating from high school, because she'd miss her and also because she knew her husband was gonna leave her as soon as the daughter moved out.

totally sad. i don't know why i couldn't stop reading it. at the end she starts talking in the past tense, which is never a good sign. "i kept waiting for my ship to come in," she says, "but somebody forgot to tell me there aren't any ships for the nobody's."

then a cryptic poem, then nothing. maybe she won the lottery and moved to fiji. but i dunno...

well after thrifting i got a call and went to see one of my regular clients. it was fine. i'm only saying it was fine because i have this terrible feeling he's been internet stalking me so i don't want to make it worse by writing about him... actually you know what? fuck it. i've told you about him before, the guy with the really messy apartment who always has delicious wine and chocolates? sometimes he's been totally pleasant, fun even. but then other times he gossips a lot about all the other massage girls i know and it really bothers me. i try to steer the conversation to other topics, but it always comes back to these girls and what trainwrecks they are and how fat everybody is getting. i also always had this weird feeling he was videotaping our sessions. i looked all over the ceiling and walls and shelves for a camera, but he just had so much random electronic equipment that it was impossible for me to tell. i had totally written him off the last time i saw him because the gossiping and the possible videotaping just really put me on edge. but then he called yesterday and agreed to come to my place instead of me going to his, and i thought it might be okay since he definitely wouldn't be able to videotape me. but he gossiped just as much as always, and then to top it off he instilled total paranoia in me by referencing a picture of me and my sister on facebook, when i've specifically not told him i even have a sister and also my pics are private on there. just weird. totally weird. also he said several other things that creeped me out and made me think he just knows too much about me. so i'm definitely DEFINITELY not seeing him again. i don't need that kind of weird energy in my life.

then i went and snuggled in bed with my friend and told stories. that was nice.

today i planned to work all day, but again the phone just did not want to ring, so i only saw one client. he is an older regular who likes to be sissy-fied. he begs you to put a pair of tiny pink panties on him, and then when you wrangle them onto his giant frame, he immediately explodes. i've asked him before if i should refuse to do what he wants, in the interest of drawing things out a bit instead of letting him cum after only half an hour. he said he's really busy and usually short on time, and the way we do things suits him just fine. he's really quite an ideal client.

after that i dined alone at my favorite vegetarian restaurant. it's run by a guru and his cult of followers. strange place, but really soothing and pretty inside. also, the workers are kind of robotic and pay fastidious attention to details, so you know you're not going to find a hair in your food or a pebble in your salad. unlike SOME places, which shall remain nameless.

well. now i'm home and i'm gonna drink some wine and read my new book. "1Q84," by haruki murakami. i love his books so much. love love love.

sunday

last night there were a lot of solo businessmen who wanted dances: my kind of night. i love when i can make the same amount of money just kind of lolling around lazily on stage and doing a lot of mellow lapdances as i'd make busting my ass putting on a show and dealing with drunk crowds.

at the end of the night the place had pretty much emptied out when two college-aged dude-bro's came in dressed in head-to-to abercrombie & fitch. one was tall, the other short. they were horsing around, hugging on each other, and the short one kept picking up the tall one, then dropping him. they sat down at the rack and were basically canoodling and out-tipping each other. one would tip a dollar and say to me, "wow you're really hot!" and then the other one would go, "yeah! totally!" and put down a 5. it escalated from there. i couldn't tell whether they were gay, or just deep in the throes of an epic bromance. either way, i really liked them.

black friday

yesterday there was a crazy old dude sitting at the rack almost all day who was brain-damaged from LSD. he was really nice, but suuuuuper fried. he bought me a spanish coffee and then i was just cracked out enough to really enjoy his bizarre musings. he told me about the time his sister gave him a handful of advil for a bad headache and it turned out to be LSD. he took 17 hits all at once. deciding to ignore the story-hole where anybody thinks it a good idea to take 17 advil at once for any reason, i said, "wow i didn't know they had advil back in the 70's." he said, "what are you talking about? this happened 2 months ago." i think i assumed it happend a long time ago because it seems like something that would happen back then, and also seemed like something that would happen to someone way younger. plus, imagining him tooling around on a sunny brady bunch day in a lemon yellow VW bug all tripped out on way too much acid was such a prettier picture than the actual scenario of a 60 year-old homeless aging hippy wandering around out of his head, looking for shelter from the rain.

he also said, "do you ever see something but it's something else?" "like what?" i said. "well, like i used to be in the pizza shop all the time, and i'd see paula abdul dancing on top of my pizza." i said, "wow! i love paula abdul!" he said, "well, if you look real close, you can see her right now," he held up a cigarette. "see? she's dancing." i wanted to see a tiny paula abdul, dancing, but the cigarette appeared to me to be a cigarette, which was doing nothing but holding still.

i WISH i could remember the other things he was saying. he was truly entertaining. a glimpse into the mind of a person whose brain is full of pop culture images, all scrambled up. Your Brain On Drugs.

other than that guy, it was just a lot of other random guys with girls and shopping bags. snooze.

craptastic.

last night was one of the crappiest shifts i've ever had. the first thing that happened was that a guy wanted a dance, and after the first dance he wanted a couple more so i asked that he pay first so we could just relax. he said he'd have to visit the atm. i was like, "okay. no problem." he was well dressed and totally seemed like he'd have at least $60 measly dollars in the bank, i didn't even think twice about it. so then after the dances, he went to the atm and was there forEVER. i glanced over his shoulder and saw the dreaded words "insufficient funds." oh great. then instead of explaining anything to me, he just sat back down in his seat and ordered a beer. i went over to him, "so?" he said his card wasn't working in the atm. i told him he could charge the dances on his card at the bar. he tried that, same story. then he just sat back down and drank a beer. then just sat there FOREVER. he claims he'll come back tomorrow and leave the money for me. FAT CHANCE. it filled me with rage that he just sat in the club for another two hours after he had ripped me off. it's always the super grabby assholes who will stiff you. he should have been thrown out. what are you doing in a strip club without any money? this isn't the YMCA or some kind of community center for the broke and horny.

later there was a customer who tipped me three twenties on stage, and then when i turned around to put my panties back on at the end of my set, he took them back and high-tailed it out the door. i had been careful to kind of nudge them off the rail and onto the actual stage with my shoe, so he had to lean over and really REACH to retrieve them. ASSHOLES.

then there were hardly any other customers all night. it was torrentially raining with high howling winds. maybe people just didn't want to get wet? anyway crappy night.

sat and sun.

on saturday i saw my regular massage client, the bodybuilder. he might be the world's easiest client: polite, clean, relaxed, gets really turned on and cums easily, tips, says thank you, leaves.

then i went to work and it was the slowest saturday night i think i've ever worked. plus there were just a lot of jerks. there was a big group of foxy black guys and their haggard white girlfriends. they took up ten chairs for HOURS and didn't tip even one dollar. in fact, the girls were so wildly bitchy they scared customers off. the biggest and toughest-seeming of the girls mad-dogged me the entire time she was there. she was about six feet tall, wearing a chintzy charlotte russe dress that barely covered her ass, no stockings or tights though it was cold, and severely scuffed gold pumps. her yellow-blonde hair had two inches of brown roots, and had never been introduced to a bottle of toner. she had doused her spiral perm with so much gel it looked like top ramen. her makeup: HARSH. black eyeliner applied with a heavy and unsteady hand. no blush, frosty lips. i would usually have felt some compassion for any girl who was trying so hard to look like a pretty woman and was, yet, so clueless and inept. but she was SO RUDE that i didn't feel even one ounce of tenderness.

she had her giant feet out in the walkway, where the cocktail waitress needs to walk and serve drinks. the waitress goes, "excuse me honey, can you move your chair back?" the girl goes, "bitch i will bust your HEAD with this chair. don't you TELL me what to DO." the waitress is so hard of hearing she's practically deaf, and since she wasn't looking directly at the girl, she didn't seem to hear what she said. "mmm hmm," she murmured.

later the girl started mouthing things to me. i tried not to look at her, because she was so bizarrely and openly hostile and it was freaking me out. so then instead of mouthing things, she said them aloud, to her friend. "oh i will snap that skinny little ass in two, don't think you can give ME attitude. thinking she's so sexy.. etc etc."

alright. first of all, why bother calling someone a skinny white bitch when you, too, are white? it's kind of a weird thing to say. usually when a person talks about someone's race hatefully, it's a race that's different than their own. second of all, my ass isn't skinny. i am a thin person, but my actual ass is quite round for my size. AND YES I DO think i'm hella sexy. and even when i don't feel hella sexy, i at least pretend i am because i'm doing a job that is ABOUT ACTING HELLA SEXY. go get your GED and then come back and hurl insults.

so. that was saturday night. it was mostly just that group of people and hardly anyone else all night. bummer.

yesterday was a good day, though. i lounged around all morning. made a fancy brunch for myself, went downtown and did a bit of shopping, then went to see a client who was in from down south. i met him at his hotel bar. we had manhattans with weird awesome super fancy vermouth, then went to his room and hung out for a while. he's an attractive guy and in great shape, i usually have a really nice time with him. he tipped super generously so after the massage when he asked if i'd go have something to eat with him, i was like, why not? i was meeting a friend later, so i didn't want to go somewhere that would take forever. it was his first time in portland, so i took him to the club where i work because i feel like it's pretty quintessentially portland. we ate, and tipped the girls, had a drink. i've been seeing him for several years now, so it was cool to have a little hang-out time outside of whatever hotel he's staying in. just out in the regular world, i guess.

so. that was the weekend. xo andi

thursday.

i'm going to tell you something, but first, allow me to provide a bit of backstory. i have a little book swap going on with one of my co-workers, and last month she loaned me "the graveyard book," by neil gaiman. i loved it and remembered how much i like him as an author. i had read "anansi boys" and "neverwhere," and OF COURSE "stardust," but hadn't read "american gods," so i picked it up at the airport last week, on the sale table at powell's. well then i fell asleep reading it the other night and had a dream that i met neil gaiman and became BFF's with him. in the dream i was super giddy about knowing him, and had to keep reminding myself not to name-drop or brag. when i woke up i kept laughing about it all day. how someone like neil gaiman is a total rock star to me, but when i meet actual rock stars i don't care that much.

so. today i went to work and my co-worker texted me that neil gaiman had been at the club the other night, and that we had missed it! i was so bummed. i asked around and nobody knew anything about it, but then i remembered the the girl at the restaurant next door likes sci-fi/fantasy and so i asked if she knew anything about it. she was like, "yeah! he was rad!" my heart sank with that terrible feeling of having super missed out.

it reminded me of the time it was my friend brande's birthday and we woke up super early to go down to macy's and meet sarah jessica parker, who was there signing bottles of her new perfume. we got drunk on mimosas first and then got in the line. when we met her she seemed quite taken with us, she loved our outfits and weird hair, and when brande gave her an invitation to her birthday party that night, she looked almost like she might come. we got excited. well then i was all woozy and tired from lack of sleep and too much champagne, so i went home to nap before the party. i ended up accidentally sleeping straight through it! i woke up at 5am to ten missed calls and several frantic texts, all saying that SJP was there and where the fuck was i?! the voicemails were so convincing, i really believed she had shown up. i pictured her stepping out of her limo and having one polite cocktail with the glamorous cast of weirdos i call "friends," and then leaving. this was before everyone had camera-phones with which to document every tidbit of their inane lives for immediate facebook posting. this was back when i had just recently heard of "friendster," and was reluctant and dubious at the lack of privacy such a thing would inspire. my point is that there wasn't an internet trail to disprove the story. i believed it for YEARS. FOR YEARS i believed i had missed out on "the night that SJP showed up at brande's birthday party." and then kind of recently my friends revealed they had made it up, and that they never thought i would actually believe the story in the first place, and that when i did they just kind of forgot to ever tell me the truth. i was pissed.

well this time the story was real. one of my fave authors had come into the club and i had missed it. i could've had him sign my book, it's in my purse. and the graveyard book is still in my locker so he could've signed that for my co-worker. ARG. plus, i just would've really liked to have given him a lapdance.

other than that, today was a great day. a guy came in who was rad and crazy and then he won a bunch of money on the poker machine. instead of plugging it all back in to those stupid fucking machines, he quit while he was ahead. he bought me and my co-worker champagne, a long island ice tea for himself, and took the rest out in ones. MY KINDA GUY. he delighted in having us girls sit at the rack with him and tip the girl on stage. he only wanted one lapdance, and during the dance he said, "this is the kind of thing that used to make me fall in love. now it just makes me hard." eww. that was kind of the only gross thing he said all day. mostly he was hilarious.

one time he wanted to go to the bathroom, but his wad of ones was too big to fit in his pocket. he goes, "hey will you hold these for me?" i put my hand out. he started handing them to me, then goes, "psych!" and split them in two, stuffing half into each pocket. not laughing, i said, "ha. that was a funny joke." he goes, "i'm full of 'em." i said, "you're full of something." "AHAHAHAHA YEP!" he yelled.

when he came back from the bathroom, the guy goes, "hey, where's desiree?" i said, "who?" he insisted that he had been at this very bar the day before and that there had been a girl named desiree working. i said, "nobody called desiree works here." he looked at me like i was pulling his leg. he asked the girl on stage and the bartender, both said No Desiree Here. he insisted that he was right, and that these three women shaking their heads at him were wrong-a-dong. "i'll just ask patty when she comes in," he said. i told him he was probably thinking about magic gardens, where the bartender/owner is named patty. he was like, "no! it was here! you guys are pulling a twilight zone on me! but ok, ok, i'll play along," and then he stopped asking about it. imagine getting so drunk every day that you just wander around not knowing where you are or who anybody is. well, i guess i used to get that drunk every year for the entire week of gay pride. i'd pass out on the sidewalk, wake up slung over some foxy bulldagger's shoulder. "i couldn't just leave you there," she'd say.

the only other person i danced for was this guy who comes in and is super rich, but seems to be gambling away his fortune on those stupid poker machines. anyway once in a while you can get him to buy dances. he's very awkward and kind of condescending. when he says rude, awkward things to me, i try to cut him a break because i think maybe he has aspergers. also, i'm not sure why but i kind of like him. i spend a lot of time alone, and i think i'm sometimes kindredly drawn to loners. not like i want to hang out with them, but just like i understand them a bit or something.

working tonight. gimme gimme $$$

halloweener etc.

hi! i've been working a lot. it's been good after the south dakota fail. it hasn't been super interesting, or maybe i've just been breezing through without paying a lot of attention to the interesting parts. i'll pay closer attention this week and write you something good. in the meantime, here are a few tidbits:

--i worked halloween. i had several costumes (the best one was a "hippy chick," which involved a black bikini with a hot pink pot leaf design, hot pink peace-sign medallion, headband, lots of pink hair feathers, and pink john lennon glasses). my co-workers didn't dress up at all, so it was basically like any customer with even a little bit of holiday spirit just got handed to me on a silver platter. $$$$$$$

--i did a bachelor party the other night and the wife-to-be was there, which at first seemed like it would SUCK, but ended up being awesome. she was a super hot polish girl with huge tits and was just all happy and frisky. no complaints.

--today i saw my bodybuilder massage client. he keeps asking me to find him a girlfriend. he's really sweet and handsome, good job, big dick, so i'd like to oblige. but i just really don't know how to accomplish this task. i asked him what his type was and he said, "well, someone like YOU, andi." awwww.

wow, is that really all i can come up with? maybe i'll bring a little tiny notebook with me to work for a while so i can remember interesting things.

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.

/\---------------------------------------------

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

back from vaycay.

hi there. i went away to NYC for a week, and it was so good to remember there's a whole big world out there that has nothing to do with portland or my heartbreak. so good to get some perspective, ya know? i hung out with friends, and with my sister. i went out dancing. i took a lot of super-long late-night walks. one night i walked 3 miles home from a club, in high-heeled doc martens, all the way from the tip-top of chelsea to the bottom of the lower east side, right near the brooklyn bridge. i could've taken a cab, but the night air felt so warm and balmy, so romantic. at first i really wished my ex-sweetheart was with me, but then i had a moment of "well, this is how things are right now: you're alone," and it felt okay and sort of lovely to have a romantic walk with myself.

(i mean, i have had YEARS of being alone, and lots of that time was ecstatic singlehood, but then you meet the person you think you're supposed to be with etc etc blah blah blah, and then you wind up alone again and it feels different and tragic.)

so now i'm back. i worked last night. it was busy-ish. i only got pissed off two times all night, both times it was girls. what is it with girls and their shitty strip club etiquette? anyway, the first girl came up to me with a dollar and said, "i will give you this if you'll play lady gaga." i told her she should be tipping anyway, since she had been there for hours and not yet parted with even one dollar. she goes, "okay, well i'm tipping now but only if you'll dance to lady gaga." i said she should to keep her buck.

another (non-tipping) girl kept telling me to "work that pole," and yelling that she wanted to see me upside down. i told her to shut up. you know i'm drinking tequila when i just yell "SHUT UP" at someone while i'm in the middle of dancing all sexy. ha.

other than that it was a good night until the very end when for whatever dumb reason i entered a heart-wrenching text-off with my ex. i was doing so great not texting or calling him, but being back in town and missing him and then getting a little drunk was just a recipe for a few moments of desperation. never again, it just makes me feel too sad. i hereby proclaim that i'm not texting him ever, ever again. it feels good to decide that. let's hope i can keep feeling this resolved about it.

i'm working again tonight. my hope for tonight: instead of doing a zillion dances for a zillion different people, one or two super great customers come in and keep me busy all night. i'd like to BANK tonight. yep. okay. more later. xo andi

tear$

i worked tonight after crying all day, and i fucking BANKED. i got on stage for my first set, all puffy-faced and bedraggled, and every person in the club crowded to my tip rail. i didn't have even one minute all night to go downstairs and wallow in my heartache, i was busy giving a million dances all night. it's so weird how guys can, like, smell the vulnerability on you. i'm not 100% sure what's attractive about it, other than maybe they think you will give a generous dance. or maybe they just see you open, and want to shimmy in for a minute.

so. bummed as hell. but $$$ always makes me feel at least a little bit better.

sex nerd hot wings bodybuilder times

i worked this weekend, but not a lot.

on saturday i did a bachelor party. it was pretty run of the mill. there was a bachelor, and a bunch of his friends. and a lot of sticky money. there was this one really cute guy there, though. it's not often that i think a random guy is hot, but i have been thinking about doing it with a dude so maybe that's why i've been noticing when guys are hot. anyway. the only other things that were interesting about this party is that it took place in the fully loaded basement dungeon of an otherwise totally normal house. it had a medieval theme, stone walls, shields, swords, etc. but then there was actual functional s&m dungeon stuff. it looked just like the medieval room of the dungeon i worked at for a hot minute in new york. (i wasn't a very good domina-in-training. i got squeamish hitting people and torturing their cocks and balls, plus during the part where they get to meet each girl who's working, i was very rarely able to come up with a compelling reason for them to choose me instead of any of the other girls. i did like learning some rope bondage, though. it's so pretty.) someday i will have a house with a sex nerd room, with a swing and all that.

the other thing i thought was interesting actually isn't very interesting now that i'm writing about it, and that is the hot wings buffet. the party was right around dinnertime, but my partner had both neglected to eat beforehand so we were very hungry. when we went to use the bathroom and all the guys were still downstairs in the dungeon, we helped ourselves to some of their hot-wings, and they were THE HOTTEST hot wings i've ever eaten. we were both choking and gagging, they were so stupidly spicy. our eyes were watering so bad we both had mascara running all down our faces. after we stopped freaking out, we had a strangely cathartic giggle fit, which felt nice since i've been so fucking depressed.

then on sunday i saw the bodybuilder massage client i've been seeing lately. he's really really nice. but i have to tell you: it feels weird when you're not getting laid in your regular life, and your only sexual interactions are with clients. i'm still working out my feelings on that, more later.

xo andi

booo hooooo

oh man. today was a long-ass day. i worked the dayshift, which was fine since it was sushi friday. i didn't make very much money, though, and near the end of my shift someone called wanting me to cover her mid-shift. i agreed to do it, since i was already there and i wanted to make more money. as soon as i got off the phone, though, i had this weird wave of intense nausea and dizziness. i went downstairs and got my period in a big way. great.

so then i tried to give the shift back but it was too late so i just worked.

it continued to be slow all day. i will admit that i moped a little bit. my co-workers are sick of my broken-hearted listlessness. i know i need to just pretend to have gotten over it already. i couldn't do it today, but i will on my next shift.

hmm did anyone interesting come in... well, not really. i barely did any dances during the 10 hours i worked. the first few were in the morning for a guy who was nice, but then just stayed all day and into the night, getting drunker and more annoying with each passing hour. he asked me no fewer than 15 times whether i'd be his date tonight to bob log III. i said no. he didn't want to hear that, so he just kept on asking. he was tipping okay so i felt the need to stay polite, but it bugged me.

another guy i danced for was developmentally delayed. i felt kinda bad taking his money, but don't dd people have just as much right as anybody else to spend their money on strippers? it's not like i was swindling him, pushing him down and taking his lunch money on the playground. he was nice, but smelled TERRIBLE like he'd peed his pants earlier. suffice to say it was an "air dance." i didn't want any residual pee on me. he told me he was very sad because the bus from where he lives to downtown is changing its route so he won't be able to come downtown ever again. so sad! when the dance was done, he said, "i gotta go. you made me very horny."

i don't remember who else i danced for. i don't care. i got off work and went next door for tacos. i wasn't even hungry, i just wasn't ready to go home and couldn't think of anywhere else to go or anybody to call. i was so exhausted and lonesome, i just wanted to be around someone who loves me but right now there isn't anyone so i just sat in the taqueria for an hour or so looking at pictures of my ex on my phone until i started to feel totally nuts. then i biked home and even the fresh air on my face didn't make me feel any better.

i need to find a new girlfriend, but i don't want to. i only want the old one. boo hoo.

sushi friday

on friday afternoons my co-worker and i order sushi from across the street. i was sitting at the bar today enjoying "sushi friday" when a customer walked in and announced to me and the bartender, "i'm visiting portland!" it's so funny when people are a totally obvious tourist with their little guidebook and khaki shorts, and yet tell you like you didn't already know. like someone with their bus pass in a lanyard around their neck telling you they don't have a car. or a little kid saying, "i'm a kid!"

he sat down next to me at the bar. "where you visiting from?" i asked with a mouth full of seaweed salad.

"boston."

"cool," chomp chomp chomp. "i've been there."

"i'm visiting my facebook friend," he said.

"oh yeah?"

"it's a weird story. i mean, i want to tell you but i'm worried you'll think i'm a weirdo."

"ha! i already think that," i said. "so you don't have to worry! ...just kidding?"

"ok. well. i met her because she saw me on tv, and wrote to me on facebook."

"oh yeah?" hard to talk a lot while you're eating. easier to ask open-ended questions and just listen, and then when the person's done talking you'll probably be done eating and can suggest they buy a lapdance.

"yeah. well i have this friend, you may have heard of her. the college professor from alabama who shot six colleagues, killing three of them?"

"i did. something about her not getting tenure?"

"something like that. anyway we've been friends for 20 years. i was on CNN talking about her, saying she was a loving amazing person for whom this was totally out of character. well annie, my new facebook friend, saw the story and was really moved that there was someone like me in the world who would stand by my good friend, even after they had committed such an atrocity. she wanted to get to know me."

"whoa. wow." (i wanted to ask, aren't you worried she only wants to be friends with you because she's planning out her own workplace massacre and wants to know she'll have someone who'll visit her in prison?)

"so we began a very deep facebook friendship and a year later, here i am visiting portland for a week!"

[very deep facebook friendship.]

"wow you never met her in person till now, and you're staying with her for a week?"

"oh i'm not staying with her. she's in AA and i'm a heavy drinker. i'm staying at the ___ hotel, down the street. it's really funny. annie hates strip clubs, she was telling me yesterday how there are more strip clubs here than anywhere else in the country, and how terrible it is. she said, 'why, there's even one right down the street from your hotel!' so of course, i had to come check it out."

i was done eating. "wow. that's some story! well, i guess you should really experience the club by getting a few lapdances."

"ok."

a little while later the club was dead again, except for this one guy who was playing the video poker. i saw him getting super stoked, and then cashing out at the bar. he'd won 500 dollars off of just ten. it's kind of hard sometimes to be nice to someone when they've just won a bunch of money and you want some of it, but at the same time act like you're not just being nice because they've just had a windfall. it's a fine line. i didn't get any of that guy's money.

slow slow slow, then a regular came in and saved the day right before i got off work, so that was nice.

and then i ate dinner and went to an art & performance thing that is part of the TBA (time-based art) festival here in portland. i was standing around with a few people, and this guy told a story about the time he and his boyfriend were laying in bed stoned, watching a movie and eating flaming hot cheetos. he got horny and his boyfriend started blowing him but after a little while his dick was ON FIRE. he had to wash his boner in cold water for 20 minutes. pretty sick. then this girl said how one time she masturbated after eating a burrito and didn't realize she had habanero hot sauce on her hands. another lengthy genital rinsing. and the other girl who was standing there told a story of having a bruise around her wrist from fisting someone who was not her girlfriend, and her girlfriend asked her, what's that bruise? and i guess she figured it out and they broke up. so i, being the fourth person standing around in a little crowd of 4, piped up and told them how one time i was at the movies after doing an outcall and i kept getting really strong whiffs of cum all through the movie till i finally realized there was a dried cumwad in my hair, dangling quite near my face. as soon as i said it, i wished i had thought of something else or just stayed quiet, because the wrist bruise girl looked so grossed out, and the other two people were awkwardly silent. oh well.

don't dutch me.

well. i got dumped. again. by the same person. and would you believe me when i tell you that i totally didn't see it coming? what a dummy!

the day after i got dumped, my friend came to visit and she flopped down on my bed, on my sweetie's side. she put her head down on his pillow. it happened in slow motion, like "noooooo," but also too quick to stop. so now his pillow smells like hippy hair oil, instead of like him. it's terrible.

then, of course, i worked a million days in a row. nobody will ever have the courtesy to dump me on my day off, when i don't actually have to go get naked in front of strangers all night. each day something fucked up happened, and i don't even want to think about it right now but i will share one of the more annoying examples. an indian guy came in and wanted a lapdance. as soon as i got him back in the lapdance nook, he started rubbing me all over. i moved his hands off of me. "can i dutch you?" he said, only he asked it three times really fast: "canidutchyoucanidutchyoucanidutchyou?"

"can you dutch me? oh, TOUCH me. no."

"please?"

"no. " (i actually do allow a fair amount of touching in my lapdances, but this guy was being a creep so i didn't want his hands on me at all.)

"please?"

PLEASE. NO. x 10.

and just when i was feeling sorry for him since he obviously has a verbal tic, he reached around my leg and jammed two fingers UP MY PUSSY. knuckle and all. it felt all gross and rapey.

"FUCK OFF! your dance is over. give me $40!"

"but you said a dance is only 20."

"give me 40! NOW! AND THEN GET THE FUCK OUT!"

he did. charging an extra 20 really didn't help me feel any better. i just felt really grossed out and angry. and then of course there was the weird self-blame/shame spiral, like why do i have the kind of job where getting sexually assaulted is an occupational hazard that's just gonna keep on happening over and over and over? but eventually i just drank some champagne and kept working. i mean, what else was i going to do?

i'm still a little mad about it, though. and i feel like the universe should be watching out for me a little better while i'm all tender and broken-hearted.

get a light.

i saw two clients yesterday. the first one was a bodybuilder. it was like rubbing a bunch of smooth large rocks. he had a giant dick: HUGE. kind of a lot of work. but he was nice. the second one seemed REALLY GAY. like, extreeeeeeeeemely gay. i couldn't understand what he was doing there. he was sweet and gentle. when he came, he cried. it felt a touch too intimate. i don't think i'll see him again.

then i biked home and realized i didn't have my bike light. it was dark. scary. i should have left my bike and taken a cab. silly girl. this super butch lady passed me in the bike lane and dished out some tough love: "are you TRYING to DIE?!" she screamed. "because i'll tell ya, CUPCAKE: you don't GLOW in the DARK!" i was like, "i know. thanks. uhh..." and she yelled over her shoulder, "GET A LIGHT!!!"

i will. get a light. or, better yet: A CAR.

haiku for a sexy chiropractor

hugging adjustment

so good. my back: crack crack crack.

stomach: butterflies

free money, and MEAT house.

i'm in NYC for a little bit, hanging out with friends and going to museums (mainly i came to see the alexander mcqueen exhibit at the met before it closes next week). also i'm working a bit.

this morning i woke up super late and put up an ad. i was out for coffee with a friend and i got a lot of calls, but it was all out-calls to faraway places and i just didn't feel like taking the train all day. i'm staying on the lower east side, and i decided if anybody called that wanted me to come over and they were nearby, or a few train stops away, i'd go see them but otherwise i'd just sunbathe on my friend's roof. no sooner had i announced my lazy plan to my friend, than i got a call from a guy who was only two blocks away.

so i took a shower and went over. when i got there, a model-looking guy was pulling up on a vespa. i climbed the stairs of the stoop, and the guy did, too. he said, "are you here for 4c?" i said yes. he looked at me really strangely, then said, "i have to go to the bank." but didn't move. i said okay, i'll wait here. i sat down on his stoop and watched him as he walked back down the stairs very, very slowly. he crossed the street, and then ambled down the sidewalk at a superhumanly slow pace and disappeared around the corner. and i felt like maybe i should just leave, that maybe these were my last moments before something bad happened. there had been something Not Right about this guy. i wondered whether i'd look back on this moment and wish i had listened to my gut and left. i decided to leave, but right when i was bent down to gather up my purse, the guy reappeared.

he said, "can you come in here with me?" and pointed to the door. i still felt like: LEAVE, DUMMY. but my feet followed the guy into his building's landing area. he goes, "i thought you'd be asian. in your pictures, that's how you looked...so...um...can i just give you $100 for coming all the way out here, and then you can go?"

STOKED! free money.

i was happy he didn't know i had only walked two blocks. i said, "sure. thanks."

hahahahahahaha!!!!!! i think this might be what they mean when they talk about "WINNING."

so then i just meandered about for a while. lunched at whole foods. worked out. got a bunch more calls from people who wanted a discount, or wanted me to send a bunch of pics, etc. then a call from a guy who sounded really really nice. he was in park slope, which sounded far until i looked up how to get there and realized it would only take me 17 minutes. so went to see him.

you really never do know what someone's going to look like AT ALL from how they sound on the phone. i mean, you can make guesses and sometimes you're right, but really you just don't know. a good example of this would be my friend libby, whose high pitched voice sounds like a blonde valley girl, but who is actually a chubby brunette bulldagger. another example would be my client today, who sounded kind of small and 80's movie nerdy, but was actually about 6 feet tall and very very large. bigger than my client last week, even.

the guy was super nice. he had his own playlist on his ipod and it was a lot of cheesy starbucks chick music. like natasha beddingfield, sara bareilles, regina spector. and then halfway through the massage, "the language or the kiss" came on by the indigo girls. then some more stuff, natalie merchant, etc. then as i was finishing the massage and he was coming, fucking "both hands" by ani difranco came on. it was rather bizarre. sweet, endearing, and bizarre to jack a guy off at the lilith fair.

his house smelled very meaty, by the way. the olfactory soundtrack: meat. when i was leaving, i really had to know what was up with that and i said, "are you cooking something?"

"wow you have a good nose," he said. "yeah, i'm cooking a pot roast."

i stifled a giggle. i mean, really the smell was VERY intense. you didn't need to have a good nose, it was heavy and savory and hanging in the air so thick you could taste it, and my hair actually still smells like meat.

then i got on the subway and met up with my sweetie and had BOMB-ASS thai food and now we're going to go have a fancy cocktail. more later! xo andi

breathy.

besides dancing and massage, i have another job that keeps me busy sometimes so i've been traveling a bit doing that. i'm down south right now working on that stuff, and today i was off so i decided to work at the massage parlour. i had two clients. the first one was the biggest, largest client i've ever seen. 6'4'' and just, like, GIANT. if i had to guess, i'd say he weighed around 350lbs. he was really nice, but pushy. he insisted that i climb up on the massage table, on top of him. he was fine on the table by himself, they hold up to 400lbs, but when we were both on it, i worried a little that it might break. he offered me an extra $300 to eat my pussy. i said no. he said, "how about just 10 licks of it for $500?" that's a lot of money for ten licks of your pussy, and i may have said yes if his breath hadn't been bad. i'm just not interested in that.

my next client was a repeat client who is really nice, but who always smokes pot halfway through the session and then has a hard time coming. it's like carpal tunnel time, man. he also had bad breath. i must have pms because i'm really feeling sensitive to smells right now! other than that, though, he's an ideal client. clean. polite. good-looking.

then i took a shower and scrubbed my hands with toothpaste so they wouldn't smell like cum. i went and had a sushi feast. super delish!

xo andi

hamburgersssss!

fireworks.

wow hi. i haven't written in a really long time!

i went down south. i didn't work. i just didn't feel like it. well, actually, i DID feel like it but when it was difficult to procure time in the massage parlour, i threw in the cum-covered towel right away and just said, "fuck it." instead, i tooled around town on my red bike. i lunched with friends. i ran out of money.

then i came back up to portland and got right to work but it's not been that interesting so i haven't written. allow me to share some highlights of the last week or so:

friday night. usual antics. decent cash.

saturday night. bachelor party all the way down in bend, four hours south of portland. this was a doozy for many reasons, but i don't want to write too much about it because it would involve a lot of complaining. but here's one thing: we had to go there AND BACK all in one night for reasons that were totally infuriating to me. the party itself was rad, though. the guys could not have been nicer.

let's see, then i worked the 4th of july. which SUCKED. BAD. it was beyond dead. just totally BEYOND. and the girls weren't fun to work with. it was the most random girls working. if i had at least had a buddy working i could have salvaged a bit of fun from the night, but as it was i had a bit of a dark night of the soul. that whole, "what am i doing with my life that i'm sitting around in a strip club WITH AN EMPTY PURSE on the 4th of july while all my friends are shooting off fireworks?" thing. i was so happy to finally get off work and come home, but i'm STILL experiencing a bit of FOMO all these days later. today, for example, i was stalking my girlfriend on facebook and saw that someone had proclaimed him "THE KING OF FIREWORKS."

xo andi

(p.s. i know my lover's gender pronouns are inconsistent in this blog, so you don't need to write comments telling me about it. i'm dating someone who's genderqueer and i don't like the sound of "boyfriend," but i also don't call him "she." we all get to do and say whatever we want in our blogs and our lives: what a lovely thing!)

googling

last night i got to work and a co-worker of mine was in the dressing room, getting off-shift as i was coming on. she's nice, but talks about herself and the people in her life as if they're characters on a tv show that i'm super interested and invested in, when in actuality i am living out my own drama and care very little about hers. anyway she goes, "my ex was in here, the one who's dating that fat chick, and he was totally GOOGLING me for like 3 hours." i knew she meant ogling, but of course i didn't say so, i just stared at her with my mouth open. "yeah," she continued. "just totally GOOGLING all over me. and i don't mean the kind you do on the computer." at this she made a kind of wink-nudge gesture, as though she was being clever with homonyms. the only problem is that it's not clever when it's actually two totally different words that don't sound alike at all.

wow. the horror! (and i don't mean the kind who walks the street.)

annnyway. last night ended up being good. i didn't sell a ton of dances, but my stage sets were quite lucrative all night. it was one of those nights when people are feeling you.

i have been a lazy hustler lately. but often i'll make money off of the most random people. like i was sitting at the bar and this grubby skater dude was chatting with me. he was cute and i liked talking to him, but at a certain point i felt like it was time to go round up my money, so i said, "hey you're cute and i like talking to you but i've gotta go make some dough. bye." he said, "oh! i have money. want me to buy a dance?" and then he bought six.

a little while later i was sitting near the door and this other young guy came in. he didn't get a drink or anything, just came up to me and said, "you guys do lap-dances here?" i said yes, and he paid upfront for three, but after one he goes, "you keep the money. i gotta go jerk off," and then he left.

and then an assortment of bachelor lapdances and birthday boys. i prefer a guy who will get a bunch in a row, but the one here/one there kind of nickle and diming thing actually does add up as well over the course of a night.

hmm. what else? some funny things happened, but i really can't remember them now.

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

p.s.

will someone please make me these shoes? i need them. i'm not good at making shoes. i wear size 8 in stripper shoes, size 6 in converse. if you make me these shoes, i will give you 3 lapdances and a pair of panties if you so desire. or i will just say thank you. either way.