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.