a modest proposal

So this was a new one on me. DJ calls me over and asks if he can send me on stage because a guy just tipped him $10 to play "Sweet Child of Mine" and no one else will dance to rock and roll, and I say I will. This is how a lot of my stories start. I've noticed that too.

I'm on stage in a very newly acquired polka-dotted skirt/top set of which the top is clearly intended for a lady of more generous endowments so that it keeps sliding off. I would have known this if I had tried the set on at StripperMart, but I was racing the clock to get to the club early and avoid the hefty weekend house fees. Then I got stuck in traffic for thirty minutes and it didn't matter anyway. I digress.

So this gentleman comes up to tip me and thanks me for playing the song and I put boobies in his face and he rains dollar bills down on me like snow, which I hear is commonplace up in them Yankee clubs up north, but in Texas is a relative rarity, so I take notice. He invites me back to VIP to sit with him, and three and a half days later, when I finish rotating through all three stages, I go.

He is sitting with a lady, a tall blonde woman of a Certain Age with Nordic cheekbones, sad eyes, and pretty teeth. I am little more than seated when he asks me if I know the difference between dominance and submission, and as a matter of fact I do. They tell me that they have a 24/7 lifestyle relationship, of which is the master, but she herself is dominant to two female subs, one of whom lives with them, and has born her husband's child. And if I need proof, people keep sending them text messages asking their permission to do things. They ask if I am 'freaked out' and I tell them I think it's all perfectly charming. So I do a few dances for the lady, and a few for the gentleman -- your average tubby Texan with a handlebar moustache -- and a couple for both of them and then a few more for the gentleman and then for the lady again. All in all I am in VIP with them for a couple of hours and they are all but injecting champagne into my eyeballs.

So then they are telling me that they have a current opening for a full-time live-in slavegirl to take care of their cooking and cleaning and look after their six-month-old son -- both of them have high-powered and demanding careers -- and fuck the hell out of them at a moment's notice. They ask me about my hobbies and whether I have any pets or children or drug problems and it becomes evident that I am being interviewed for the position, at which point I convulse in giggles. I ask if I will be provided with a uniform. They smile indulgently but are quite serious. I can picture myself getting sloppy with Mrs., but Mr. doesn't do it for me, and I don't deal well with male authority figures in the real world though I can fake it for an hour or two in the club if the money is good enough. I politely decline on the pretext that I have a loving and committed relationship and I get the speech I have been getting all week about how I will eventually realize that he is not good enough for me and then I will come running back.

If I were a little older or younger or dumber or smarter, this would actually be a great offer, assuming it's for real, and who the hell knows. Did I mention that the slavegirl will be provided with room and board, a car, and a living allowance? And Madame will take you shopping as much as you want. Seriously, anybody want to give it a shot? Pidge? Pam? Anybody? They left me their number and I'd be happy to pass it on...

chicken strip

My friend Scarlett started dancing about four months ago at a club on the east side of town affectionately known as Budget Strip, or sometimes Chicken Strip. I tried to get her a job with me up north, but the managers gave her the elaborate call-back-later-and-leave-a-message-with-someone-else-which-no-one-will-ever-return run-around that they give girls they don't want to hire. Why strip club managers are so famously devious about this stuff is beyond me. They are dealing with girls who get rejected five, ten, twenty times a night, for a living. But anyway.

So, out to EconoStrip for Scarlett, and I was worried about her. I've never been there, but it's one of the rougher joints in town by reputation, a tough place for a newbie to be thrown in. I'm proud of her, though; she took it on the chin. When she started she was broke as beans and more or less homeless, surfing from couch to couch, losing job after short-term, dead-end job. I've known Scarlett since we were waitresses at the same 24-hour greasy-spoon diner when we were respectively 19 and 25, and it's been grieving me to watch her drift downhill since. But in the last couple of months she's really been pulling it together. She's lost weight, sublet an apartment, and for the first time since I've known her she has plans for a future more than two weeks ahead. Call it Better Living Through Stripping.

Last week she made a big jump up from Budget Strip to the Yellow Rose, a large and relatively upscale club of mixed but venerable reputation. She seems happy there, and I went in and worked a dayshift with her yesterday to check the place out for myself. I found the place fair to middling in atmosphere -- nice cush leather booths, a fun run-way like second stage with three poles -- and largely dead. Dayshifts are about regulars, and hard to break into. I did a dance here and a dance there for gents whose main ladies had not arrived, and then spent a large portion of the afternoon with a hefty gentlemen who told jokes as a sort of neurotic tic. He was the kind of joke-teller who claims the jokes happened to him -- "So my friend asked me if I'd ever eaten out a Jewish woman and I said" -- and even when he told you something about his life it had the rhythm and pacing of a joke, so that only when he got to the end did you realize that he was talking about his divorce and it really wasn't funny at all.

Scarlett spent a large part of the day sitting at the bar sipping whiskey with a cowboy who bought her drinks and didn't buy any dances. She had to borrow $20 to make her house fee in the afternoon, but then made it back up in the last hour or two and paid me back. At the end of the day, she and I made about the same ammount of money, which wasn't all that much. In monetary terms it was a disappointing day. To make it there, I'd have to get back into the dayshift swing of keeping a regular schedule and cultivating regulars and staring at the clock. Blech. One of the these I love about nightshifts up north is how fast they go. You can't beat it.

fate, huh?

I thought astrology was crap until I'd had a customer service job and it became obvious that, by the pull of the stars or by some other mysterious universal force, everybody has the same stupid ideas at the same exact time. Some days the stars tell everyone to go to a strip club and try to finger the dancer's asshole, or to claim retrospectively that they thought lapdances were free. This week the stars seem to be telling everyone that a snarky redheaded stripper is their ideal woman and destined life partner and that if they wait long enough she will leave her boyfriend and come to them. Or at any rate, the stars are telling people that telling me this will get them laid. The stars are wrong, incidentally. Nice try, though.

Usually telling customers that I love my boyfriend will put them off the scent. When Joe told me the other night that he would wait -- years if necessary -- for me to figure out that he and he alone was the man for me, it was a new one on me. Since then, I've heard nothing but. Seriously, do strip club customers have, like, an annual convention or something where they get together and trade strategies? If so, please tell your brethren they can dump this one. It's not working.

meeting people is easy

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drama, mama

It was an OK night, right up until the end. Not spectacular, by any means. I've never liked the weekend crowd much: the party people who come in to gawk and make the scene, the bargain hunters, the gropers, the weirdos. But I've learned to pan the gold out and find the few friendly souls who want to have a good time with a pretty girl, who have a little money and want to spend it.

It was slow. Girls were changing outfits two or three times or four times, which is never a good sign. Finally, an hour or so before closing, people started dribbling in. The DJ called me to the booth and asked if he could put me on stage, because I'm one of the few who will dance to Ozzy and Judas Priest, and he wanted to break up the solid hour of techno and hip-hop that had gone before. I said yes, which put me on stage right after the World's Hottest Asian Chick -- perfect slim body, waist-length brunette hair, style so sharp it could cut you -- a hard act to follow. Even better, the DJ starts hyping the crowd up, "everbody yell if you love rock n'roll", etc.

Now, I am, at best, an average stage dancer. I am not the swing-around-the pole-flip-upside-down-get-crazy dancer who really should have followed a build-up like this. But I scrunch my hair up all bushy and wild and get out there. I figure I will make up in enthusiasm what I lack in all other respects. I swing around the pole and kind of slip, but I take it in stride and feel like things are OK. Nobody is tipping yet, but the hell with them. Crazy Train is playing and I dance like no one but Ozzy is watching.

Then there's somebody at the tip rail. Another dancer, a hatchet-faced blonde I've seen before but barely noticed except to note to myself in passing that if one's eyes are average-to-small and deep-set, one should not ring them heavily with black mascara. She holds out a dollar and I am already smiling and bending over before I realize that it is bait. When I am on eye level with her she snarls and makes a throat-slashing gesture. "Just stop," she says. "Just stop. You look awful."

It takes a second to register, then it does. "Go to hell," is all I can come up with on such short notice. Her lips curl back and she shoves me hard in the chest. I sprawl over. The crowd is staring the way people stare at a car wreck, hungry for the sight of other people's misfortunes. Blank faces, like wads of dough with raisins stuck in for eyes. My first song of three is not even half over.

Oh, I get up. I get up. I finish. No one tips me. It is terribly lonely up there, and it lasts for a long time.

I'm not angry often, and when I am I don't know what to do with it, where to put it. I am tall and, to an extent, strong. The only fight I was ever in, I dropped my adversary like a sack of potatoes with one instinctively perfect punch to the nose. It felt great, and this girl had a face made for punching. Unfortunately, my impulse control is cast iron. I am always thinking five years ahead. As fun as a lusty brawl on table surrounded by gaping bachelor party attendees might be in the short-term, I'd get fired and I like my job. Is this the same thing as being weak? The high school guidance counselor in my brain says no, but I suspect she is hedging.

Anyway, I didn't kick the bitch's ass. I lodged a complaint with a manager and then I tipped the staff generously, got my things and went home. In the dressing-room I cried a little bit and my friend the World's Hottest Black Chick petted me and told me I was beautiful. I recounted my adventure and she knew who I was talking about before I could even describe her, said she was the club bully, that she regularly does and says ungly things to girls who are young or new.

My friend told me she loved me. So did the manager. So did the DJ, who saw everything, when I gave him his tip. Weird how this heavy phrase gets passed around in the strip club world. It should be meaningless, coming from people who don't know your real name or hair color, or anything else about you, but it isn't quite. It gives you the same tiny jolt of seratonin as a mild drug, a very small ammount of coke, maybe. The brain is soothed by the idea of love, even in the absence of love itself. We know that. That's why we say it. To jolt a little more money out of you. To change to mood. To soothe a crying friend.

Anyway, I'm home now, in my beloved house, with my cats snoring all around me and the love of my life sleeping in the next room. My life is so good. Hers -- what ever her name is -- probably isn't. I doubt that she has love like my love, friends like my friends, peace like my peace. She probably cries herself to sleep a lot more than I do. Maybe when I wake up tomorrow I'll ponder that and feel compassion, but right now I think that's pretty fucking sweet.

ka-ching

Last night was my favorite kind of night. The kind of night where I sit down at the bar for a second to catch my breath and hustle the cute bartender for a drink, and the guy next to me makes a comment about my hair -- yes, it's red. No, I'm not Irish. Well, not unless you want me to be -- and I make a crack back. He tells me I look like Scarlett Johansen which is a lie and next thing I know we are back in the Champagne Room and he's doing all the work selling himself on me -- my beauty, my charm, my razor-sharp wit, my psychic powers -- and handing me fistfuls of dead presidents. Aw, did you pick these yourself? They smell wonderful!

Added bonus, this trick is of reasonable good looks (for a 47-year-old with some ancient acne scarring), much education, and considerable charm. Time passes like swiftly flowing water, and at the end of the night I am considerably richer and he is promising to come and see me again and bring me his own copy of Memoirs of a Geisha, which I have not read.

hi honey, i'm home

Yesterday I woke up in Texas for the first time in many weeks. Goddamn. It is hot. The climbing plants that were winding so green and delicate up my very own homemade trellis by the side door are yellow and flaccid. The neighbor entrusted with their care apologetically assured me that he had watered them every day, and I beleive him. Photosynthesis stops around 100 degrees and according to all reports the temperature didn't drop below that for the entire time we were gone.

Last week I was waking up in Big Sur and fighting with my boyfriend over blankets. Now I won't even let him hold my hand in bed -- not because he tried to squeeze a zit on my neck without permission, but because I'm afraid we'll wake up cemented together by sweat. It's gross. It's foul. I'm SO moving to San Freakingcisco.

Except C. is non-relocatable, at least for now. School, but more than that, band stuff. Dating a musician is like dating someone who is already married to several other people and raising a monstrous, expensive, very precious child. The only way C. and I can move is if his guitar player, drummer, bassist, producer, distirbutor, and promoter all agree to move with us. I'm working on it.

Speaking of which, C. went to the recording studio this morning and probably won't be back, in any meaningful sense, until school starts next week. Bit of a drag for me, but it gives me plenty of time to do all the stuff I wasn't doing while I was on vacation -- write, do yoga, and dance like a motherfucker to replenish the pillaged household coffers.

I'll be back at the club tonight, so time for one of those magic stripper-make-overs. Coconut oil to tame the frizz and split ends. Glue-on plastic nails. Fake eyelashes. All that should do the trick just fine but oh, my poor skin. I am sun-phobic and did my best to ward the old bastard off with floppy hats, long-sleeves, and SPF 45, but I have the kind of olive-toned skin that LOVES to darken. I have a retarded arms-and-legs farmer's tan that highlights my soft white underbelly. Blech. I've been doing my damndest with fake-bake for the last 24 hours, to very little effect. Now you know why strippers are so fond of stockings and those fishnet arm-warmer-type things.

So here I go. Wish me a million dollars. I need it. C.'s art school tuition is due next week.

P.S. For those curious about our experience in the SF brothel, details here.

message in a bottle

Help. Please help. I'm still here. Still hanging out in C's high school best friend's room-mate's bedroom, watching the Discovery Channel which during the day is the Gruesome, Tragic and Completely True! Channel. Right now it's a show about children with skin diseases.

Get me out of here. Not that everybody isn't being lovely. Treating us like freaking royalty, in fact. Stoner royalty. Anything we want -- sausage biscuits from McDonald's, an air bed, Vicodin.

C. is their Local Boy Made Good, see. The one who is actually living in the city, actually going to art school, actually in a band that plays actual shows at actual clubs, actually dating a stripper. Back home, guys fitting this description are a dime a dozen, but out here, that is Something.

C. and I went out today looking for something to do. There are abandoned fluorite mines in the mountains around here, where local kids get drunk every summer and fall down the shafts and die. I've been clamoring to go there for the last several visits, but the van has been acting funny again, and C.'s too wise a desert kid to head off into the bone-dry mountains in the middle of the day in August. We drove around town and got shuffled out of a couple of antique shops by fuzzy-haired ladies, had a really awful lunch, got iced coffee drinks at the coffee shop, and now we're back here again. Tonight we're going to see a theatrical production of modernized fairytales which will feature a former boyhood acquaintance of C's friend's room-mate as the Baker's Wife.

The scariest part is that the feeling that I am living in an alternate universe. One where I did not move to Austin, go to college, meet a lot of people very different from me, and, basically, grow up. This is what happens to people with large ideas who stay in small towns. Every day they wake up, rediscover that there is nothing to do, and just go home to crank up the air condioner and get high.

Forty-eight hours and counting. Tomorrow there are plans to go to Mexico and see a museum. Maybe. Tonight we might go out to White Sands to see the Perseid shower. If everyone feels like it. Or whatever. I feel like it could take a stick of dynamite to get us out of here. If you never here from me again, I'm at

what i did on my summer vacation

How was my trip, you ask? So. Freaking. Awesome. We're on the home stretch now, laid up for a day or two in C.'s home town of Las Cruces, NM, getting high and watching a special on poisoning on the History Channel with his boyhood friends. After 19 days of hiking, driving, and camping, it's a pleasant lull. I was planning to bring my laptop with me and update you periodically, but my harddrive failed again about fifteen minute prior to departure, so I guess it was not to be. But no fear -- here for your edification, Grace's Pocketbook Guide to the Great American West.


Compared to most of the rest of Texas, the Hill Country is pretty, especially when you are driving through it at 75 mph in an '85 VW Westphalia bus with a cute guy and a chocolate-dipped cone from Dairy Queen.


Colorado's San Isabel National Forest is a green and pretty place to spend an afternoon. The Rifle State Park just outside Rifle, CO has gorgeous canyons along the Rifle River, and some neato rock-climbing paths which we didn't take because we don't know how, but plan to learn. There is also something call the Ice Cave which is drippy and mossy in early August but probably looks badass in winter.

The Travelodge in Lander, Wyoming has renovated it's hot-tub room. When we stayed there two years ago, the room was pine-paneled and shag carpeted, but now it's all respectable white plaster and gray paint. Oh, well. We'll always have the memories.

Thermopolis, WY is not for lovers. C. and I were lured there by promises of the world's largest hot springs, which turn out to be housed in a sort of weird retro family waterpark. The Blue Thunder, the park's three-story waterslide, is satisfyingly scary and the Vapor Cave does not admit minors for good reason. C. and I received official reprimand for rubbing noses in the mineral pool in front of children. They don't stand for that stuff in Thermpolis.

Yellowstone National Park is mind-bogglingly gorgeous, and, on the main roads, very crowded. There is a tiny traffic jam every time an elk wanders in sight of the road and a sign next to every natural feature that you're supposed to take a picture of, but the smaller hiking trails are pretty much empty. Thank you, America, for being a bunch of lazy pussies. My boyfriend and I really appreciate having all the coolest stuff to ourselves. Like the Roosevelt Tower Falls, and the little cabin by the beach on the Colorado River, and the alpine meadows with the glassy little lakes and the wild rasberry bushes.

Ontario, Oregon is right on the border between Wyoming and Oregon. According to my frantic scribblings on the atlas, we must have spent a night here, but I don't remember anything about it.

Southeast Oregon is way flatter and drier than my mental picture of Oregon. At one point you are driving through a scrubby desert and then there's a vast, inexplicable, sky-blue lake and flocks of seagulls. Weird.

Jacksonville, OR and surroundings used to be all wierdos and survivalists but has suddenly become she-she wine country. We camped in a state park that felt like somebody's orchard -- wild blackberries everywhere.

Word up to Crescent City, California. This is where our AAA-approved tow-truck driver took us when our van died in the parking lot of the Redwoods National Park Visitor Information Center. He also took us to a convenience store to buy beer and firewood, and dropped us off at the campground where we had reservations. Thanks, Mike. Thanks also to Doni and Jenny, the lovely couple at the campsite next to ours who lent us the cushions from their RV so we didn't have to sleep on the ground while the van was in the shop. My highest recommendations on Ken's Auto, where they found our starter did not need to be replaced, but only taken apart, blown on, and put back together. They charged us $15. Also, the Good Harvest Cafe where they take breakfast as seriously as I do.

The Redwoods are one of my favorite places on earth. You'd think there'd be a point where that wide-eyed Damn-That's-A-Big-Tree feeling would wear off, but I never seem to get there. If you do, you can always hike down to the coast, which is breath-taking.

At Buckley's Thrift Store in Laytonville, CA C. bought a pair of shiny patent leather shoes and I got a sweet vintage garterbelt for amazingly cheap prices.

San Fransisco is the only place we stopped where I was not amazed by the general obesity of the resident population. C. and I had some awesome curry at the Thai Stick and went to a strip club that turned out to be a brothel.

Coastal Highway One is a great drive. Big Sur is the name that everybody knows, but the view is amazing pretty much all the way down. The road is winding, though, so Yours Truly was carsick as a Labrador Retreiver for most of it.


Los Angeles. Blah. C. has a remarkable fondness for this place, but I tend to feel it looks best from the freeway. Except when the freeway is shut down for the filming of an ambulance chase scene, or when the traffic is back up for forty minutes because EVERYONE must slow down for second and third looks at the flaming Jeep pulled over on the shoulder.

When we were there, Eastern California was in the grip of a dust-and-thunderstorm that resulted in a spectacular sunset. Arizona has Saguaros, which are the cactuses that look like cartoon cactuses. It also has The Thing, which is advertized by billboards for 150 miles in either direction. C. was sucked in years ago and says it isn't worth it.

And that, in a nutshell, is that. Tomorrow we're going to Juarez, Mexico with some friends of C.'s, and I'm going to try to buy a velvet painting of a naked lady. A day or two after that, we should be leaving for Austin, a nine or ten hour drive from here. But now C. is doing the leg-jiggling thing he does when I am boring him by hanging out on the computer too long, and somebody has just popped a beer for me. Hasta la vista.

update

Hey. It's been a while. If you're still reading, thanks. I finally liberated my laptop from the repair shop. They took entirely too long a time with it, but the guy also surreptitiously replaced my disk drive and downloaded some anti-spyware software for me and didn't bill me for it, so all is forgiven. In the meantime, all kinds of things happened which normally would merit full reportage. Only it was all so long ago that none of it seems that remarkable anymore, and also the computer is in the un-air-conditioned part of the decaying Victorian manse where I live, and it is 105 degrees in the shade today and C. is entertaining himself by reading me a list of fines off the traffic ticket I got on the way to work last weekend, and all in all, for my sanity, I'm going to keep this brief.

1. A close friend of mine came back into town for a few days a week or so ago, and she had just dumped her boyfriend, so C. and I got her stoned and then took her out and got her drunk and then came home and made out with her til all hours of the a.m. I had a good time, tempered with a certain apprehension of emotional consequences, but so far there have been none. She went back to graduate school, C. and I settled back into the normal routine, and peace is upon the land.

2. Last week I worked six days back to back, in a final burst of effort designed to fund the summer road trip C. and I take every year. I made good money, especially considering this is the slow time of year hereabouts, and nearly met the unrealistically high goal I had set for myself, but then had a panic attack on the sixth night, a Saturday, the first attack I've ever had at work. It wasn't dramatic. I got anxious, and then I got short of breath, and then I got claustrophobic, and then I started to feel my grip on events slipping away from, and began to be haunted with the feeling that I was powerless to prevent myself from doing something socially inappropriate -- say, lying down on the floor and howling like a baby wolf. Crowds have this effect on me occasionally, as do flashing lights and loud music. As a matter of fact, it's sort of minor miracle that nothing like this has happened at work before. Lucky for me, managers were very understanding and let me go home early. I held it together pretty well in the car, and then back at my house my teeth started to chatter uncontrollably. C. rubbed my back with a new lotions the smell of which reminded me of my grandmother's house, and I had to go and take a shower and spend an hour rehearsing unfortunate childhood memories, the time my grandmother slapped me for going outside in underpants and an oversized t-shirt (I was four), the time she made me get down on my hands and knees and pick up potato chip crumbs, one by one, the time she locked me in a shed for being loud. I went to sleep finally around 3 a.m. and then was awake with the sunrise. I got up and took a bong hit, hoping it would calm me down, but it had the opposite effect, and I ended up curled up at the end of the bed, hungry and weeping. Fortunately, my boyfriend is a perfect human-being and knows me very well. He took me out for coffee and breakfast tacos and we talked about Dream Theater until I felt OK. I've been fine since.

3. That was my last day of dancing for the near future. This week I have once again traded in heels and thong for sweatshorts and "Coach" T-shirt, and am teaching 3-10-year-olds to cultivate a peaceful mind while walking around on their hands. It doesn't pay nearly as well as dancing, but is a hell of a lot less stressful. Except when I'm making a nine-year-old boy go sit in the Peace Circle or something. I wish we had a Peace Circle at the club. I can think of some people who really need to go there.

4. This Saturday, more or less at daybreak, C. and I are taking off for parts only vaguely known. We will head north and get out of this blasted hellmouth weather, and west, hoping to hit the Redwoods, which is about my favorite place on earth. Nothing like 1,000-year-old trees to restore some perspective.

5. The telephone domination service hired me as an "erotic consultant." I start August 21. C. got into art school and starts August 19th. Grand things on the horizon.

Hope everyone out there is also doing well. Peace.

i give up

I don't think my computer is ever going to be fixed and I'm sad. Not for that reason alone.

The upscale phone domination woman hired me last week, after we did a little bit of roleplay on the phone in which she pretended to be a businessman with a small-penis humiliation fetish and I was a bitchy secretary. It was fun. She told me I did a great job and wants me to start this week. I'm really excited, with the small, anxious caveat that I promised my parents weeks ago that we would get together this weekend, as I will be out of town for my birthday later on this month. So the clan and I have reservations at a lakeside cabin halfway between their stomping grounds and mine, and I will not be available to yell at businessmen with small penises Friday - Sunday. I e-mailed her this info, and got back a terse response: "Fine. I'll be in touch in a few days." And now I'm horribly half-certain that she's going to fire me before ever giving me a chance. I don't know. I'm in one of the shrinking-doubt phases I go through periodically. I worked last night for the first time in two weeks, and BOMBED. I let way too many assholes take up way too much of my time for free. And yes, that's my fault, no one else's. But I love it when you anonymous commentators point that stuff out. Really. I love it.

Anyways. I'll take my meds and hope for the best, and more than likely be fine in a day or two.

giving phone

So I keep telling you that I'm not going to be writing anymore, and then I keep going to Kinko's and letting their computer chew on my credit card while I madly tap out little messages to you. Well, I also have to check my e-mail once a day, because if I don't people like my Mom and various editors and potential employers get all panicky and huffy and threaten to fire me/disown me/not mail me my checks.

But anyway, I just couldn't wait to tell you that the lady from the chi-chi phone domination company called me yesterday and we had a lovely talk and she sent me an application (by e-mail -- see what I mean?) and I filled it out and sent it back and wheeeeeeeeee! I'm totally terrified, actually. I'm sure I wouldn't actually be able to tell a stranger on the phone that he should be so priviledged as to lick my boots, even if it's true. But you never CAN really do anything before you HAVE done it, or such is my own experience. I never really rise to the occasion until the occasion is upon me, so I'm sure I'll be fine, when and if.

Oh, also, Writing Project #1 is published and creating a tiny but gratifying stir. I'm supposed to talk to some guy on the radio some time tomorrow.

Today I almost told my class of nine-year-olds that they were badasses, cause they were standing on their heads and it was totally impressive. The "bad" part slipped out before I could think, and then there was a long pause and then I said "monkeys." Because it was all I could think of. They were confused, but at least they didn't go home and teach a new word to Mom and Dad.

Love you. This is the last one til the computer is fixed. Really. Bye.

holla

Just checking in, lovers. My computer is still at the garage, where the handsome tech geek told me he could rebuild my hard-drive for under $200. Nice.

So you have not and will not be hearing much from me for a week or so, but on the other hand you aren't missing too much, as I've taken last week and this week off from titty dancing to teach yoga at a summer day camp. While I have many adorable stories of the things 3-to-10-year-olds say and do when asked to assume the Pose of the Downward-Facing Dog, I doubt they would give you to same sort of voyeuristic thrills to which you have become accustomed.

Peace.

silent so long

I forgot to mention, but my laptop died an ignoble death on Tuesday, and so I will not be posting with the regularity you have hitherto enjoyed until I have wrung and conned enough cashola out of the titty bar-going public to purchase a replacement. I just want you to know that it's not your fault and your father and I still love you.

Out.

the song of the bard

You know when you get so pissed off that you're actually amused by your own pissed-offness? Get this. Your buddy Grace got played last night -- played my honies. Twanged like a little banjo and by none other than the Bard. Remember him?

So he was there again last night, sitting by fourth stage like last time. I noticed him halfway through the set, staring at the wares, which is fine, but then he did the whole thing where he looked away and pretended he didn't see me and then spent the rest of the set sort of staring carefull into space just over my shoulder. Please. Is this middle school? Because if it is, I forgot my lunch.

I didn't particularly want to reacquaint myself with the Bard and his ancient lore after I got off stage, but it the club was S L O W and other prospects were dim. In fact, every other customer in the place was surrounded by one or two or three other girls, like breadcrumbs in a pond of hungry trout. It was sit with the Bard or go back the dressing room and read that old copy of People magazine from right after Brad dumped Jen. (God, it seems so long ago, doesn't it?)

You may recall that on our last encounter the Bard wasted a good twenty minutes of my life telling tales of his awesomeness. I quite literally could not get a word in to ask for a dance, and finally just had to get up and walk away. I guess I had some idea that if I could sell him a dance or two this time, I could recover those losses. In retrospect, I would have better off with Brad and Jen. Because get this. The Bard has brought in a notebook of his poetry and writings, and he wants to read it to me. I let him read on to me out loud. I cannot begin to describe the badness of it. It was a close contender for worst poetry I have ever read, and I have read poetry by adolescent girls. It was Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings bad, and if you get that reference, please marry me. I wish I could remember even one line of it to quote for you, but it was such drivel that it doesn't seem to have stuck in my head. It was all about himself, of course. Apparently, others see him as a Warrior and a Man of Honor but inside he is tormented by demons and whatnot.

So I take Brad K's advice, and pretend to be a very busy librarian. I decide what a very busy librarian would do under these circumstances is pretend to be fascinated with the author while resting her arm casually across the pages of the notebook, so that it is impossible to turn the page. Then I ask if he would like to dance. "Dear Lady," sez he, "I could never refuse you." Alrighty then. So I dance. He's a hands-off dance recipient, which is a perk, but then on the downside he goes ON and ON about how huge his penis is, and how it is probably the biggest penis in the club, but please don't tell anyone that, please, because he would hate for word to get around that he has the biggest penis in the club because then all the girls would want to go home with him and he just can't handle that because he wants to be loved for who he really is, not feared and adored for his enormous penis. Three songs is all I can do of this, so I ask him if he'd like to take a break. He says yes, and I put all my clothes back on and perch on the edge of the chair, waiting for him to reach for his wallet. He doesn't. "You know, I don't normally pay for dances," he says.

Uh huh. And? But? I wait for him to go on, but that seems to be all he has to say.

I blink. "So, uh, you'd rather pay me for my time, then?"

"Dear Lady," says the Bard, only he probably would spell it Ladye. "To pay for what has passed between us would be demean what is to me..."

I can't imagine what my face looks like, but it must be scary, because he stops right there. "I don't pay for dances. I didn't even bring any money with me," he says. "Why should I pay a woman for what she enjoys?"

There have to literally thousands of great come-backs to a line like this. I know, because they've been coming to me all morning. But at that moment, I was rendered absolutely speechless. I just stared at him for a little while, praying that my eyeballs would turn into lasers. A waitress wandered by and I broke contact to grab her by the arm. "This man needs to charge three dances to his credit card."

She trots off and we sit in silence. He looks uncomfortable. Good.I'm glad. Waitress comes back with his card, which has been denied. "How embarrassing," he says, but he can't hide the little moment of triumph.

"Wait there," I say. I go to look for a manager, because if I can't get my money, I want to see this man's ass get kicked. But the manager is elusive. When I finally track him down at the poker table, he's sympathetic, but the Bard is gone, of course.

I'm pissed, at least as much at myself as anything. I could have done so many things. I should have taken his credit card from the waitress and held it ransom. I should have taken his wallet and rifled through it. I should have SHAKEN THAT ASSHOLE DOWN. I got rolled, and I am ashamed. I'm never really prepared for people to be that shitty, you know?

I almost called it a day after that, but I stuck it out to til closing, and I'm glad I did. In the end, I made pretty decent money. A large chunk of it from some high-rolling white guy who was there to see another girl, but tipped me multiple bennies "just for looking good." Another large chunk from the Gambler, a tiny man with a fierce mustache who, if he were one foot shorter, I would pick up and toss in the air. The rest here and there -- diesel mechanics, insurance salesmen, dudes in Hawaiian shirts. You know, the usual.

wasted

Taking a break from the festivities last night, I wander into the mostly quiet VIP and get a glass of water from Rocky, the back bartender. I am tucked into the far corner of a plushy couch when a patron spies me from the bar and hulloos over. "What are you doing over there in the dark?" sez he.

"Hiding," sez me.

He thinks this is pretty cute, and ambles over to bother me. Within minutes we are up in Ultra VIP settling into a cozy lapdance preamble, and the DJ calls me for stage. I tell whatsisname I'll be back in a few, and he sez OK, but warns me he's been sowing $5 tips all over the place and may be up to his neck in beaver when I get back. I tell him this is an acceptable risk.

I am on the second stage of my rotation when he wanders by, his bevy of eager lovelies not having thus far materialized. (It was a slow night, and there had been a steady attrition of angry strippers with wheely suitcases headed out the door with his tips more than likely tucked in their socks.) He divides the next several songs between tipping me and tipping the girl in rotation after me, a lovely and very young brunette with a beautiful horse's mouth and big, dazed eyes. When this girl comes to take over my stage from me, her face is weirdly rigid and she doesn't take my hand when I reach down to help her on stage. I wonder if she's really angry at something then realize hellno, she's drunk off her fucking ass. Customer-dude comes to collect me as I'm getting off stage, and we tip Miss Thing a coupla bucks and ask her to join us in the Champagne Room.

He and I hightail it back there and commence the dance-dance. He's the type who can't shut up during dances, like he feels some obligation to keep up his end of a theoretical conversation, but whatever. A slight edge of meanness to him, not unlike my boyfriend's boss, the cunt-hating gay pornograher, but I've met worse. A few songs more and the drunk girl arrives, wailing that she's been looking for us all over and where the hell were we? Customer explains that we're in CR, like we said. Girl looks confused. Girl demands a drink. Customer assures her the waitress will be right over. Girl sits down and lolls back on the couch like a beached fish while custy tells her how adorable she is. She asks for a drink again, now getting agitated. Customer leaves to fetch the waitress, demonstrating yet again that amazing power of brattiness.

"Hey, let's do like this," sez Drunk Girl, and launches herself at me. I scissor my legs obligingly with hers and pet her soft hair. She really is cuter than a speckled pup under a red wagon. Custy returns and shoos us apart to get back in the action. Waitress arrives with shot, and Drunk Girl shoots. Her eyes immediately roll back in her head and she slumps back onto my shoulder. Custy politely asks me to leave them alone.

Hell. I can't very well refuse to go, and both the girl and the custy will think my motives are avaricious if I do. On the other hand, the protective instincts honed during years of co-ed kegger parties are telling me that you don't leave a passed-out girl alone with a strange dude. On the other other hand, I could be making money somewhere else. I compromise by hunting down a waitress and telling her that Princess Sparklepony over there could use an eye on her. Waitress gives me a blank look like what the hell business is it of mine, and I feel, not for the first time, like a schoolmar'm at an orgy. Fine. I return to an earlier customer and ring up another several dances. Every time I lean over his chair, though, I can see back into the Champagne Room where Drunk Girl's legs are sticking out from behind a potted palm, strangely still.

It's only a few songs that I notice Customer Guy is back on the floor, cruising for fresh meat. Thing are winding down with my buddy right about then, and so I wander over. "How's old whatsername?" sez I.

"We didn't hit it off," he sez. I follow his stare across the room and there's our girl slumped back on a chair with some guy apparently giving her a lapdance that involves a lot of licking. Her eyes are closed, and not in an Oh-I'm-In-Ecstacy way.

"Too bad," sez I, and "Yeah, too bad," sez he, and we part, in search of other victims better suited to our tastes.

shut up, please

If I could have any super-power, it would be the power to exit gracefully from boring conversations. This would be useful not only at the bus-stop, where I regularly get cornered by homeless gentlemen and lunatics, but also at work. Take Sunday night f'rinstance. Twice I allowed myself to be mired in conversations, tar-baby style; every polite verbal wiggle away seems to suck me deeper in, despite my best effort. Getting away is harder than gift-wrapping a live octupus. Some are worse than others, of course. The roughneck biker who wanted to shoot a grizzly bear so we could make love on it's pelt was kind of a hoot. The fortyish Renaissance Fair dude going on about his magickal bardic powers and his descent from the kings of Sco'land was just basically boring the shit out of me -- a fact which his self-proclaimed powers of empathic precognition apparently did not pick up. I finally just stood up, smiled, and started to walk away in the middle of a sentence. "That's right, child," sez the Bard. "You must be careful lest you find my words too intoxicating."

I don't make this shit up, homies. I don't have to.

transformation

Do you remember that part in the Matrix where Keanue Reeves wakes up in the vat of slime and wires? Yeah, I think the movie's over-rated, too, but that scene described my present state pretty well. I hit 'send' yesterday afternoon and Freelance Project #1 went winging away to the mothership. I pushed my chair back from my desk and stood up for what seemed like the first time in four or five days, turn around and saw myself in the hallway mirror. The real me, with the messy hair and the bitten fingernails, farmer's tan, unshaved legs, dark streaks under eyes, hangdog face of misery. I've got 24 hours to turn myself back into a stripper. Let the games begin!

strippers 1, bikers 0

Gnarly Tattooed Biker Guy at strip club bar, when politely asked if Our Heroine might join him for a beer: "Whatever. If you want to. I don't care."

11:15 pm: "I don't have a girlfriend" -- no, I didn't ask -- "Women can't accept my priorities. I tell them my son comes first, my bike comes second, my job comes third. If they're lucky, they might come in ahead of my truck. I like that truck, though."

11:17 pm: "I don't need women. If I wanted to listen to bullshit, I'd turn on the TV."

Seconds later: "You can dance now, if you want to."

11:45 pm: "I bet you're a hot fuck. Keep dancing"

11:46 pm: "Have you ever been on a bike?"

11:48 pm: "What I need is someone I can travel with. Someone I can just call up and say, 'Hey, we're going to Mexico.' Someone who wouldn't ask me how long we're gonna be gone, cause I'm like that, you know. I don't live by a schedule. I go where I wanna go, when I wanna go. God, you're beautiful. What nights did you say you work again?"

Game. Set. Match. Score one for the strippers, and g'night.

hot

I am an immature retard who spends too much time online.
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Look what I found!



Hint: Read the reviews section. It makes it all more real, somehow.

hack

My fetish boots came today. They are beautiful, but too small. I must have accidentally ordered in kids' sizes. Fortunately, I got them wicked cheap, so I can turn right around and sell them at the club, no loss.

If I ever get back to the club, that is. And I would really like to, not least because I have something like $500 of uncashed funny money that I would like to turn into actual green with which to do fun things like fill my Prozac prescription and buy my lover a supernice birthday present. Only I haven't been back to the club since my fun-filled evening with the footlicker, as I almost immediately came down with my annual spring-time nasty respiratory infection.

At first, I thought it was a smoker's hack -- a cough as dry and airy as antique lace. I complained far and wide that I'd only been smoking again for a couple of weeks and that the Nicotine Fairies should cut me some slack, already. Then the cough turned hollow and thick, and my throat swelled until I couldn't swallow my own spittle. I spent the weekend taking off and putting on a single pair of pajama pants and calling my boyfriend at work to plead for sympathy. On Monday I caved and saw my doctor. He told me the back of my throat was full of white pustules and that if I had waited another day to be seen, I would have had to have my tonsils out. He gave my a course of antibiotics and a prescription of synthetic heroin and told me to eat a lot of pudding and ice cream. Is it any wonder if I have a crush on such a man?

The next couple of days are kind of a blur. In fact, right now is kind of a blur, if you want to know, although the pain in my throat has died down to the point that I skipped my breakfast-time pain pill, hoping that would clear my head to the point I could resume normal daily functions, and even work on the articles whose deadlines squat on the horizon like those things that the Titanic hit, you know, with the ice? But my head's not any clearer, and I think I'll spend the rest of the day with the cats.

Anyway, I don't know if you're the kind of person who likes to go to the strip club and pay for a lap dance and then try to lick the stripper, but if you are, I'd like you to take this occasion to consider for a second what a perfect vector of disease a stripper is -- particularly one who allows herself to be licked by people like you. Are you thinking about it? Good. Now put reel your tongue back into your mouth, where it belongs.

patrolling the love perimeter

Or: A Stripper's Guide to Shaving Her Twat

When I tell people I'm a stripper, one of the first things they want to know -- especially if they are women -- is how I get the hair off my mons. It's not the first thing most people want to know, of course. The first thing they want to know is "Are you serious?" ("yes") and the second thing is "What is it like?" -- a question in its essence unanswerable, to which the response, depending on when and how you ask, might be "Great!" or "It's a job" or "Bite me, gringo."

Fortunately, the third question many people ask is altogether concrete, the answer simple, straight-forward and useful: "How do you shave your pubes?" they want to know. Good question.

Before I stripped, my pussy was never depilated. In fact, I had a low-level grudge against women who did this recreationally. It's not for me to say how much foliage another person needs, but I always thought the fetish for a clinically manicured snatch was a little weird, especially when it was men demanding it. At best, it seemed childishly squeamish -- yeah, hair holds in the scent. But if you don't like the smell of pussy, you don't need to have your head between my thighs in the first place. Awww, did you get a hair in your teeth? I just swallowed a good four tablespoons of your cum, you sissy. At worst, the desire for a vulva as smooth and hairless as an unripe fruit seemed to hint darkly at a pedophilic urge.

Now, some girls are blessed with a wild bush and shave for fashion's sake, to accomodate a pair of lowriders or a bathing suit. That's a rather different thing. As it happens, my hair has always been natively rather neat -- short, straight, and contained in a neat delta around the vital area itself. So until I became a stripper, I had never needed or wanted to give my pubes even a trim. I shaved my twat for the first time a half hour before I drove to my first titty bar audition.

I didn't mean the act to have ritual significance -- it was just something I'd been told I needed to do -- but it took on certain heavy overtones, nonetheless. I remember being in the shower with one of those pink-handled disposables in one hand and my vagina in the other, wishing I knew what to do. Struggling to remember anything my more fashion conscious and sexually adventurous friends had ever told me about shaving the delicates, I was pretty sure I didn't even have the right equipment. I'd been told good things about various expensive "women-only" brands of razor. I'd been told that I should pay someone to do something called a Brazilian wax. But at this time in my life I barely had the quarter tank of gas to drive myself across town to the titty bar. If I'd had the money for a $16 razor -- let alone $50 to have a Swedish woman cover my labia in gum-soaked rags and rip them off -- I wouldn't have been here in the shower with my vagina and my razor in the first place. I would have bought myself a sandwich and called it a day.

I remember looking down at my poon pleadingly, as though it might offer me advice. I remember thinking it was pretty weird that I, of all people -- the girl who couldn't shave her poon -- was going to be a stripper. I remember speculating about what I might buy with the money I made. Maybe a razor. No, fuck it. A hamburger and new pair of shoes. I remember feeling about ten years old. And then I just reared back went for it.

I lathered up with Ivory soap and proceeded to scrape and chammy and buff that razor around every which way, trying to make it shape to the contours of an area that contains very few flat planes or straight lines, and all too many shy and delicate folds of flesh. I cut myself again and again. Little trickles of blood meandered through snowy white suds. When I was done, my poon was covered with little dabs of toilet paper like my dad's face on one of his hangover mornings, and I was running my fingers over the rest, fascinated with the silky, slippery smoothness of it.

That wasn't the worst, of course, as anyone who has shaved their pubes knows. The worst was two days later when the ingrown hairs grew in -- sharp, angry little corksccrews of hair drilling their way to the surface, raising red welts and bubbly pus-filled whiteheads. During my first stint at stripping, bikini bumps were a fact of life for me, like crying and brushing out my wig.

C. changed all this for me. Yup. It took a boy to show me how to shave my poon. Not that C. habitually shaves his own or anyone else's pubes. But the boy has a face like a vagina -- the same unlikely combination of gnarly Irishman bristles and baby-soft skin. Guess who else commonly has this problem? Black guys. What do black guys, my boyfriend, and my vagina have in common? Many things, probably. But for my puroses, special shaving needs. Fortunately, while they do not make special razors for my boyfriend or my vagina, they do make them for black guys. They are called Bumpfighter, and they are awesome. When I started dating C. and shaving in his shower, the fortunes of my quim changed forever. In the past few years, I have shaved my naughty bits hundreds if not thousands of times, and I have learned a thing or two. The days of ingrown hairs and vaginal shaving accidents have thankfully passed, and I now pass on my hard-won knowledge. Without further ado:

1. Trim the excess. If your pubes are more than an inch long, shaving them as-is will be like hacking through the jungle with a machete: doable, but sweaty and exhausting. Basically, if there is enough hair there that you CAN grasp it firmly, pull it away from the body, and trim close to the hairline, then do it.

2. This will leave your tang with an adorable little burr cut. Enjoy this part. It's cute. Rub it for good luck. Make your significant other come and take pictures of it. Pretend it's your only son and he's been in a lot of trouble his whole life but you think that under the circumstances joining the Marines may be the best thing he could have done, so while you have a lot of conflict personally about seeing him plunge into the moral abyss of war, plus of course you are scared stiff for the physical and mental safety of the baby you carried in your body for nine months, you are still bravely hoping for the best.

3. Dry your tears and start softening up the remaining hair. If you have time, soak in a hot bubby bath for at least ten minutes. The hair will soak up water and become easier to cut. If time is an issue, take a shower and put conditioner on the fuzz. Do something else for a few minutes while the conditioner soaks in. Make putting conditioner on your poon the first thing you do in the shower, and shaving the last.

4. When you are ready to shave, assume the position. A second-position plie works well for former (or current) ballerinas. One foot up on edge of the tub in a Victorious Hunter pose is good, too.

5. Grasp the vagina firmly. This is a dominance move. It is all very well to play and have good times, but your vagina needs to know when you mean business.

6. Pull the inner edge of the right labia over to the left, creating a smooth, taut plane of flesh across which the razor can easily navigate. Shave inward, towards the inner sanctum. This is the direction the hair grows, all the way around the vagina. To prevent ingrown hairs, you will always shave in the direction of the hair, so the razor will always be moving from the outside toward the cream-filled center.

7. Shave slowly and keep firm pressure on the razor. You don't want to have to go back over the area more than twice. Don't be too ginger. If this thing can squeeze out a baby, it can handle being shorn. As long as you pull the flesh taut, you will not cut yourself. And if you do, put some toilet paper on it and don't be a baby about it.

8. On your first attempt, you might not want to shave the full monty. You may elect to leave a little landing strip along the sides and/or a Hitler mustache across the top. Hearts, initials, and other fancy shapes are probably also best left for a later attempt.

9. Consider some hedge-trimming around the back door, as well. It's easier and not as scary as it sounds. Just bend over, squat a little, pull one rosy cheek to the side and shave along the inner margin. Repeat to other side. It seems tricky because you can't see what you're doing -- well you can try to use a mirror, but trust me, it only makes it more confusing -- but you'll get the hang of it.

10. DO NOT NEGLECT AFTERCARE. This is where you really determine whether or not you get ingrown hairs. There are products on the market that claim they will prevent or get rid of bikini bumps, but I have never found one that was worth a damn next to Bumpfighter razors and simple hygiene. Wash the area gently but thoroughly, preferably with a light exfoliant scrub, a few times a day for the first couple of days, and allow to air-dry before putting on panties. An astringent like witch hazel or men's aftershave will cause the skin to pull back around the hair, giving the hair a better chance of growing out without nasty complications. If you do get an ingrown hair, Neosporin will kill the infection, and a combination of witch hazel and mashed up aspirins will fight the inflamation.

And there you have it. If I can save just one person from a bad case of razor burn in a vulnerable area, it will all have been worthwhile. Feel free to comment if you have your own poon-shaving tips, want to comment on my technique, or have any other questions you feel I may be uniquely qualified to answer.

Out.

office politics

I got fired from the club today. An hour ago I was wearing white fishnets and a satin corset and applying dark red lipstick in a dressing room with five seperate leaks in the ceiling and no buckets to catch them, dancers just dodging in and out shuffling out of sandals and into platform heels. Now I'm at home playing with the cats in comfy linen pants and a T-shirt. Doesn't seem like such an awful trade-off, does it? After I left the club I sat under a tree and screamed at life for a little bit, but that's all over now.

When I got to work today the place was busy for once, DJ scrambling because there weren't yet enough girls dressed to start a stage rotation. I've been in the dressing room just long enough to get my thong and stockings on and am lacing up my corset when the day manager comes in asks me where I've been. "I haven't seen you in weeks," he says.

Huh? I worked Saturday. I remind him of this.

"OK," he says. "But Jim saw you come in and he doesn't know why you're here. You know you can't work Fridays if you didn't work all week. He hasn't seen you in weeks."

Yeah. But I worked Saturday. Jim hasn't seen me because, as general manager, he takes Saturdays off. I remind him of this again. My tits are hanging out. I make a gesture that says, mind if I keep getting dressed?

He leaves.

I finish stashing my boobs and pull my stockings on. Nice way to start a shift. Dark clouds are gathering.

He comes back again. "Jim wants to see you in the office."

OK. I start to put on my shoes. Then I think: Shit. This is going to be one of those conversations. One of those things where a dude in the ugly sunset of his middle years is going to rake me over the coals and I'm going to want to respond as to a peer -- because who is this tool anyway, the president? -- except that this is my manager, who will likely view anything but total submission as an act of impudence, and do I really want to do this today in a corset and high heels?

I de-costume and put my pants and shirt back on. I go back to the office where Jim is holding court. "Long time, no see," he says. I don't say anything. I'm bad at this. I smile politely.

"So, tell me," says Jim. "What are your plans?"

I have no response to this. What are my plans? Like, for my life? I smile again.

"How often do you work with us, Grace?"

Every Saturday, I say.

"For how long?"

"Six months."

"It's not enough. We need you to work more days."

I remind him that he and I have had several conversations about this. I can't work during the days because I have another job. Would he like to offer me some night shifts?

"That's not up to me," he says. "That's up to the night manager. But we need you to work more days. Apparently you have enough time to work at the sister club."

He spits this last part out like he's unveiling a secret so dark that I will have no choice but to crumble and confess. Come on, guy. The clubs are owned by the same people. Of course you know I work up there. I haven't made a secret of it. Are you a super-sleuth in your own mind?

"Up there they let me work at night. I'd like to work more shifts here. I just can't work days."

"Well, we need you to work more down here. What days can you come in?"

We are going nowhere. This conversation can only end with my teeth in his throat. I start to explain myself again, and he starts talking over me. Hell no, you don't. I keep talking; I ask again if he'd like me to work at night.

"It's fine for you," he says. "You come in here and you make your little bit of money," -- he rubs fingers and thumb together contemptuously in the universal sign for cash, makes the gesture of stuffing it into a garter -- "You make your little bit of money and you walk around but it doesn't pay our bills. We're getting rid of all the girls like you. You're not part of things."

Sir, you are insane. You are a stupid man. I pay this club every time I work for God's sake. My tips pay your salary and the salary of your shift managers, your DJ's, your doorgirls and waitresses. The customers who come in to see me pay your utility bills with their drink prices. I cost you literally nothing; every dollar you make off me is pure profit.

I know the club is going downhill. I know the place is infested all day with young, broke gansta wannabees who scare away the white collar clientele you crave. I know you have to let the girls give blow jobs in the back booths to keep anyone coming in at all, and I know that paying the law off can't be cheap. I bet the owner is riding your ass like a little French pony to get the attendance up and restore even an iota of the class that this joint once had. I'm sure it's very tough. But, unfortunately for you, firing me won't make it better. I am not your problem.

I don't say any of this, of course. After these sorts of things I always kick myself for not just going postal on these assholes. What do I have to lose, after all? Shouldn't somebody lay some truth on this weird being, this man who, nearing the close of his time on this planet, is the general manager of a formerly first-class titty bar? Am I not the right hand of karma here?

Well, probably I am not. I continue to be polite, although I am no longer smiling. I ask again if we could solve the problem by giving me some shifts at night. It's not like they haven't been running a huge, desperate ad in the paper for weeks seeking daytime/night-time entertainers. ("Have Fun! Make Money!") But by this time he is all worked up, and I am not placating him. It occurs to me that placating stupid, angry men wouldn't be a bad talent to call my own, but sadly my skill set is lacking or maybe I just don't want to.

He's still talking about how great it is for me to work one day a week, and about his bills, and how I'm not paying them. We've reached a point of no return and the only logical outcome of this conversation is heaving into sight. He's got to get rid of me and maybe when he does all his devils will go with me.

"Work Sundays, then," he says.

"I can't."

"You can work at the sister club, though. Why don't you just go work up there, then? Why don't you? Just go."

Then there's a silence. And then I just go.

summer

Summer is here in Texas -- the itchy season. The season of insect bites, heat rash, poison ivy, and sweaty hair. In Texas, summer begins before Easter and lasts through Halloween. Although this year, in point of fact, summer never really seemed to end. I watch TV, so I know there's no such thing as global warming, but what gives? This shit is ridiculous. I guess there was that one night of frozen rain back in December, which also happened to be the night that the fuse box blew and C. and I had to go with a candle in the middle of the ice storm and tinker with it until it came back on. The joys of living in an old house.

Another joy of old houses, of course, is that there is no air conditioning. If you draw the curtains and turn the ceiling fans on, the dim light and the sweat evaporating off your body will create a minor and temporary illusion of coolness. Failing that, you can dress up in a petticoat and pretend to be a sweltering southern belle waiting for gentlemen callers in an age before climate control.

I am working at the new club tonight and tomorrow night. The good thing about dancing at night rather than in the daytime is that I can get some work done on the freelance projects whose deadlines are now hideously looming. The bad thing is that going in at night gives me all day long to freak myself out, which, beleive it or not, I still do. Each time I pass a mirror, all day long, I'll look at my face and body -- which, remember, are drained and sagging, pale and sweaty in the heat -- and think, would I pay $20 for this shit? It's an odd question to have in one's mind. Most people wonder about their worth, from time to time, but I wonder if strippers, whores, and actors are unique in being able to put quite such a concrete figure to the question.

Anyhow, the only thing that keeps my mind off it is work, and plenty of it, but unfortunately, no one will return my calls and answer my importunate questions today. I will need to make travel arrangements for early May. Oh hideous, hideous.

the ballad of the plumber

So, the oddness. I promised I would tell you.

You know about the plumber. Slender, curly-haired, pushing fifty, with mustache and an eight-mile stare. Is there an acronym for the male equivalent of a MILF? Probably not. Probably the idea of young doxies lusting after older men is too mainstream a fantasy to need its own name and aisle in the porn store. But really, it doesn't work too well for me. Maybe becausee my dad was not your standard paternal authority figure. He and I were always wary equals. We engaged in yelling matches, not spankings. When I didn't win, I retired to my closet where, instead of crying, I plotted eventual revenge. If the word Oedipal is flitting through your mind somewhere, don't think I don't know.

I've never found the other extreme of age-fetishism particularly inviting, either. Young boys, small and effiminate boys, I find myself absently picking off me, like burrs. I like men my age, my size, as smart as me or smarter. In our sock feet, C. and I look straight into each other's eyes and that, to me, is perfect.

But the plumber. I like the plumber, and yet he never made me nervous, the way I have been the one or two times I've danced for someone I might, in other circumstances, have fucked. That was weird, feeling myself wavering back and forth between personalities -- the person of Grace flickering like a faulty bulb. Uncomfortable.

Dancing for the plumber, on the other hand, was very comfortable. More so over time, til I could sit on his lap without a consant sitting-on-lap meter running in my head, and ask questions and then care about the answers. And he could hug me hello and goodbye and I could feel an inner quickening of feeling, as when you touch a friend.

Do dancers ever fall for regulars, most regulars sooner or later want to know, even if they don't want to know that they want to know. The answer is sometimes. In a way. Probably not in the way that you want. Once in a while, after a long time has gone by and a substantial ammount of trust has accumulated, a dancer might actually be happy to see you, as opposed to being happy to see the dollar ammount written over your head in her brain. She might sit with you instead of with someone else who's dollar sign (yes, the radar is still on, albeit temporarily over-ridden) is bigger than yours. Although probably not for long, and if that dollar sign is a whole lot bigger, you can forget it. But the odds you will ever get to this point -- depending as they do on whether you can restrain yourself from doing the many, many things customer almost universally do and dancers almost universally hate -- are astronomically small. Like, quantum mechanics probabilities small.

The plumber and I were there. At least, for me we were. Maybe because at his age, and having already made for himself a prosperous life, he was going back to school to study political science, for fun, and that tickled me. Maybe because he never asked me anything about myself, but got to know me slowly, genuinely, and over time, the way friends do. Maybe because he never bothered to tell me how much he respected me, because he did actually respect me, and I already knew that. Maybe because he had a real person's smile. Where were we in his mind? What sort of long hurdles of past experience had I made it over in his brain, and where did that leave me? I can't guess.

And all this brings us to Saturday two weeks ago, when I spot the plumber's familiar silhouette from the stage, through the stage-light glare and across the big cave of the club's main room. I'd been in the middle of a solid block of lap-dances with somebody who's face I no longer remember, and was due to return at the end of my stage set. So it was a little while before I made it over to the plumber, and he had finished his drink, of which he never has more than one, and was about to leave. He told me this while I was hugging his neck from behind, and then he turned around, getting up. When he saw me he did an actual actual double-take, said, "Damn! You look amazing," and plopped back into his chair. We danced the next song. and the next one, and -- which is rare for us -- the next. And the next.

After about song five, I started to tire, as one does after twenty minutes of quad crunches and back bends, to slow down, and to gradually rest more and more of my weight against him. (What's the point in getting hundreds of dollars of lap dances? As wise regulars know, it's not to buy your favorite dancers affection, but to exhaust her until her mileage needle creeps up like an engine over-heating from a too-fast grinding of the gears.)

As I rested against him more and more -- my arms against his shoulders, my forehead against his, my thighs on his thighs -- I felt his body through his clothes. This was the oddness. Because customers, to me, are scarecrows. Sorry, fellas. You feel to me like stuffed suits of clothes. As to you I am always naked, to me you are forever dressed. This is one of the charms that protects me, and it wasn't working.

It didn't feel bad. It didn't -- really. And every dancer and customer and feminist and women's studies major and womyn-friendly, eco-dreaded college boy who needs to believe that this can never happen, that the stripper/customer relationship is always and only "fantasy" draws a collective gasp and hisses: slut.

I didn't do anything differently. Nothing got sucked or licked or fondled or jiggled. It did feel -- sharply -- the way it felt the second before you kissed someone, back in junior high, when kissing was a heady new frontier. That feeling of suspension, of your guts being sucked out of you, as you fall, before you actually begin to fall. Afterward, like teenagers, we couldn't look at each other. He put the money on the table, said he'd see me again, threw back the last of his drink, and was gone. By the time I'd settled the bills into my garter, my guts were back in place and everything was gone. leaving only a weird impression of the kind that, after avoiding a wreck, makes you pat yourself down for injuries anyway.

Hi. No. I'm not in love. My apologies to the romantics, if I've led you on. I'm non-plussed, with the non-plussedness you have after you accidentally make out with a friend, and aren't sure how long to wait before you call and leave a message on their machine. Last Saturday, I was up on stage and looked out past the lights and saw him again. But I was in the middle of a solid block of dances with the little perv in the VIP, and by the time I'd made my money and wriggled free, he was gone. Yesterday was Saturday again, and he didn't come in at all.

if all else fails...

of course, there's always this

nightshift at the grind factory

Oh, where to begin. I roll into the club around 7pm -- valet parks my car, as mandated by management and I tip him a few bucks. In the dressing room, I shuck and start lacing myself into my corset before I realize my thong is still on the bathroom doorknob, where I left it to dry last night. No problem, because the club has a fancy schmancy in-house boutique. I'll just put my pants back on, throw a T-shirt over the corset, and go buy a thong. It'll be ridiculously over-priced, probably, but fine. Only it turns out the boutique is closed tonight. Why? Because.

I'm about to go home empty-handed when another dancer -- pretty Eastern European girl -- tells my there's a Target across the highway, and why don't I just go buy something there? So I head out, still wearing my corset. Valet unparks my car, for which I tip another dollar or two. I zoom down the access road some distance before I find a turn-around. By now it's 7:30. At 8pm, the house fees go up something like $15. At Target, I speedwalk through Sportswear, Maternity, Juniors, and Hosiery and hit Lingerie. All I need is a pair of white thong underpants. It doesn't seem like a tall order, but I am coming up empty-handed. Then, bingo. There they are. Perfect. But they only come in M, S, and XS, no L. Drat! Er, M then. I'm right on the borderline between medium and large in most things, anyway. I track down a sales associate and ask if I can try the panties on. She say no, and gives me an odd look. That's when I realize my T-shirt has ridden up and exposed an inch or two of laced black vinyl. Fine. Fine, fine. I buy the panties. All set. Back to work. Miss my exit on the way back and have to go several miles before I can turn around, but whatever. Valet parks my car again, and I give him another coupla bucks. This is getting expensive.

The panties are too small, of course. They cut visciously into my gently rounded hips, creating a sharp valley of underpant between two rolling hills of flesh. So attractive. The stockings I bought earlier in the day are also too small, squeezing rings of fat out around my inner thighs. I look ridiculous. I've got a cute little dress to cover up my shame, but the second I start dancing, I'll have to let it all hang out, so to speak. Never mind. It's dark. No one will see.

I hit the floor and almost immediately sell four dances to two guys. It was all worth it. It's going to be a great night. Head back to my locker to dump the money. It's gone. What? I retrace my steps, but the odds of finding lost money in a titty bar are, well, slim. Fine, fine. It's still early, I can make it back.

Next table I sit with is a group of young guys. I sit down with the one with glasses. I introduce myself and learn that his name is Alex, and they're here to celebrate their friend Blake's 21st birthday. Blake at the moment is spread-eagled under a vivacious brunette named Kelly or something. I do have the fleeting thought that most of the guys at this table look several years past 21, but what do I care? Alex forgets my name -- "no, no, don't tell me, I want to guess." Yada yada. I give him many hints. "Grape?" he guesses. "Grope? Kate? Rope? Rape?"

Yeah, man, I named myself Rape. I thought it would be cute. "GiveupOKit'sGrace," I say. Time's a wastin'.

Alex starts to giggle. "I knew that," he says. "I didn't really forget your name. You know what else? His name's not really Blake. And it's not really his birthday, either. Tee hee hee. He's getting married tomorrow. And my name's not really Alex, either. Hee hee. Want to know my real name?"

Bye, dude.

Oooh, then there's Eric -- "I don't buy dances but come sit with me when you're bored." OK. When I feel like working for free you'll be the first to know.

There was another bachelor party up in the VIP. They sent out a runner who came back with me. They were all drunk almost past the point of speech. I sat on somebody's lap for a minute while they all told me how much they loved each other and what great guys each other were. I'm pushing the issue of who I'm supposed to dance for and when, cause I am hating it back here. The one who fetched me pushes me toward the bachelor, "but when you're done with him, come back to me." Next song starts, and I start dancing for the bachelor, who can barely sit up and looks totally unhappy. Ten seconds into the dance, he shoves me off him and throws up. His friends say they won't pay me because I "didn't really do a dance" and "besides, you made him throw up." Fine. I'm gone.

On my way out the bachelor party I am rounded up by a very tiny man of South Asian origin, with a strong accent. He's ready for me to dance right away, so when the next dance starts, I unfasten my dress and let it fall. "You give me good dance, right?" he says. Uh-oh.

"Sure, sweetie."

Ten seconds later: "Put your boobs on my dick."

Yeah. OK. No. I keep dancing. He gets insistant. His nervous little hands are everywhere. I dance evasively, but he's not having it. He's grabbing me and trying to pull me this way and that, but since I probably outweigh him a good 50 lbs, he's getting nowhere. I stop the dance -- something I rarely have to resort to -- and tell him he can pay me now and I leave, or we can finish the dance and then pay. His choice. He chooses to finish, of course, but as soon as I start dancing, he's all over me again. Seriously, this guy is child-sized. I feel like I'm wrestling with a fourth-grader. I stop again and grab his chin so he has to look up at me. His face squinches up like a kid who knows he's in trouble. "I just want a good dance," he says.

"You are not in control," I say. "I am in control. What you're doing is inappropriate and disrespectful. You're going to sit there perfectly still and I'm going to give you the best dance that the law permits." I've never actually lectured a customer before, but I am way past my boiling point.

Weirdly enough, he really likes me after this. I have to go to the bar with him while he puts the dance on his credit card. Pain in the ass. So I have to stand there with him while the bartender carries out the whole multi-step process.. "I'm so sorry,"says the tiny dude. "What I did was wrong. I haven't been with a woman in a long time."

Ah, you sorry bastard. You're in over your head and so am I. I actually give him a pat on the shoulder. He asks me to come back and sit with him, but I'd just as soon hang myself with my own ill-fitting thong.

At long last, 2 am arrives, and I am gone. If I hadn't lost that money, I would have had an average night. As is, blech. The valet brings my car around and I tip him again. At least someone had a good night.

new kid

Last night was my first night dancing at my new club -- my first night-time shift ever, in fact. It was quite different. There were a lot of "holy shit" moments -- like when I realized the three hot girls I saw when I first walked in the dressing room were not the three hottest girls. The whole place was filled to the brim with fine-ass model-quality mamas. I'm hoping three quarters of them are alcoholic bitches who can't string two sentences together, or else I am sunk. These gals can dance, too -- just another factor making me feel like a baby duck surrounded by gazelles.

There were A LOT of dancers, too. At one point there were fifty names on the dance board in the DJ booth. Fortunately, the club actually got crowded, something a dayshift slacker stripper like me has rarely seen before. Also fortunately, the gents seemed pretty set on buying dances, even if they didn't necessarily want to buy them from me; none of that "I'm just here for lunch" crap that you get on the day shift. ("Seriously? Because there's a Wendy's just down the street, bud.") Selling was easy, once you could find that guy who's attention you had caught. Now, catching a guy's attention in a crowd of beautiful, half-naked women, that's another story. I picked the guys sitting alone, and did an abbreviated version of my normal sit-and-talk hustle. Quality of customer is a distinct improvement -- most are respectful and sane, and won't freak out if you happen to use an eigth grade-level word, as long as you follow up with a giggle.

I was flustered, intimidated, and terrified, for the most part. And then sole started to come off one of my shoes and flop around, making balancing a feat of super-human agility. But for all my bitching, it wasn't a bad night for a new girl. I made about what I'd make on a slightly-worse-than-average day shift back at the old club. And don't forget, it was $10 dance night. So I think once I get the hang of things, I could do well here.

I also found the girls quite friendly -- like, they would smile at you after bumping into you, instead of snarl. And they were, uh, quite friendly in other ways as well. I was sitting with a customer early in the night when a girl sitting with someone else a table away crawled over the back of her chair yelling, "Kiss me!" I leaned over to give her a peck but she had her lips open and her tongue out. Like Rain Man said, "wet."

This same girl later came to one of my stage with a fiver and said her customer (different guy this time) would tip me if I'd show her some action. We rubbed out faces on each other's boobs, $5 changed hands, and everyone was smiliing. I figured hitting on other girls and getting the gents all riled up over the promise of girl-girl action is this girl's hustle. And a fine hustle it is. So I was still sorta surprised when she came up to me in the dressing room at the end of the night when we were all changing and started running her hands over the portion of my dress -- "soooooo soooooft" -- that happened to be covering my ass. Meanwhile, two barely-legal types were tongue-kissing by the lockers while everyone giggled. "You know they're watching you on the cameras," someone said.

"They wanna see my pussy?" said the blonde one. "Here's my pussy!" And she bends over, presenting her unpantied posterior to the corner of the room where, presumably, management has installed its secret camera. Everybody starts drunkenly singing Lords of Acid: "I wanna see your pussy, show it to me"...then they all get dressed and drive home. God bless Mama. God bless Papa. And God, please don't let me be rear-ended by a drunken stripper going 95 mph down the highway at 3 am on a Tuesday. Amen.

moving up

I work at a new club now, a bigger one, with more customers and pickier hiring standards. Let's hear it for me. I went by the new place after picking C. up from work. We stopped at Schlotzky's so I could do my stripper make-up in the bathroom under the flickering flourescent lights to the tune of an endlessly skipping muzak trumpet. Made my face into a blank canvas with concealer and base, painted it back on again with blush and eyeliner, eyeshadow and mascara. Walked back out into daylight.

"Jesus," sez C. "You look like you put it on with a roller."

"It's stage make-up," sez I. "I'll be in the dark." But C. spits on a napkin anyway and swipes at my jaw and nose until threatened with direct and immediate reprisal.

We head due east towards the club. C. drives and I flip the passenger's side vanity mirror up and down, frowning at myself. We pull into the club parking lot, and C. asks if he should come in. Mais non. Boyfriends in Strip-Club Land are like anuses in the rest of the world: everybody's got one, and nobody wants to see yours.

"But I want to look at girls," sez C.

"Stay."

I strap on my high heels and strut across the parking lot. It's still light outside, but inside the lobby it's 1 am, as it is in every strip club in the world, every day, all day long. The universal strip club smell of cigarette smoke and Victoria's Secret body spray surrounds me like a familiar ghost. The front desk girl is friendly, hands me an application and phones for the manager. He waits the requisite fifteen minutes that all strip club managers must make aspiring dancers wait, then strolls out and starts talking with the door girl about some sort of paperwork SNAFU. I stand. And stand. Finally, she points me out. "This girl filled out an application," she sez. His eyes wander around the room and finally settle on my face with profound boredom.

"Give her a packet," he sez.

She gives me a packet with a tax form and a list of club rules, which I have to sign, signifying that I've read it, and that I understand I may not straddle a customer's leg, legs, torso, head, or any body part with my legs, knees or ankles. I also agree not to wear a transparent G-string, and to keep one foot on the floor during all dances. This is standard boiler plate of city ordinances governing lap dances, but it's refreshing to actually be asked to read and agree to it. There are plenty of clubs where the rules are, so to speak, more fluid. I sign, and I'm hired. I can't work because I don't have my driver's license, and also because my boyfriend is outside in the car. But whatever. I'm hired.

This will be the first time I've worked night-shift as a dancer, ever. I wonder how different it will be. I wonder how different the club is -- cleaner, hopefully. If no stranger ever tried to suck on my nipples again, it'd be too soon. Did you know you can get herpes that way? Think about it.

big titty girls are gone

Dawdled on my way to work Saturday and was still only the second girl there at almost noon. No customers, of course. Sat around in the dressing room for a half hour with Kandy, the brand-new 18-year-old black girl, talking about the state of the club. Kandy has only been with us a month, but she works more than I do, and was listing for me all the dancers she hasn't seen in the last few weeks. "The big titty girls are gone," Kandy sez. "The blondes are gone. Just you and me, baby." On Tuesday, she said, one other dancer showed up besides her. The two of them rotated on and off stage all day. Customers see that and bail, sometimes for the day, sometimes permanently.

In the end, the girls showed up, the customers came in, and it was actually a fairly good day. I made bank, in fact. But it's time to find an alternate venue, before the other clubs get crowded with our refugees -- if they aren't already. Those other girls didn't vanish from the face of the earth, I know. I'm half scared that I've already waited too long -- am I the last little rat on the ship, staring at the sky and wondering why my feet are getting wet?

On the other hand, I personally do well at this club most days, because of my regs. Starting at a new club will be like starting from zero, unless I can convince them to follow me up north or down south -- not a sure thing, by any means.

it's the little things...

...that make you smile. Like the homeless guy behind the gas station dumpster, flipping through his salvaged porno magazine. I have rarely seen a happier man.

models wanted

OMG, guys, I totally forgot to tell you -- I'm going to be a model!!! How exciting is that !?!?! This guy came into the club Saturday and he's a fashion designer and photographer and he totally wants me to model for him! I told him my commercial rate is $300 an hour, but he told me he'd "take care of" me, so that's good, right? Then he bought two dances from me and tried to talk me into a retroactive 2-4-1 special. He showed me some pictures of his other models and they were kind of out-of-focus, but maybe that's cuz they were just polaroid??!? Anyway, his other models looked really happy. They had some white powder on their faces, though...WTF...LOL! I can't believe a professional model wouldn't even do a mirror check before a shoot, but whatever! So anyway, he told me has tons of contacts in the industry, so I guess I'm on my way to a whole new career!

Anyway, so some of you are probably wondering right now, "How can I become a professional model, just like Grace?" Answer: It's easy! People will just walk up to you and offer to make you a star! But before you get started, you might want to read my Guide to Totally Becoming a Professional Model.

1. ALWAYS work with professionals. How do you know if people are professionals or not? Just ask them! They will be happy to tell you!

2. NEVER work without a contract that spells out how you will be compensated for your time and who will own the rights to your pictures. You wouldn't those pictures to wind up being passed around in a titty bar by some wrinkly old perv, would you?!? If you can't get a contract, at least make sure your photographer promises to "take care of you" and "make sure you have a really good time."

3. LOOK YOUR BEST!! I know this one seems obvious, but sometimes being alone in a basement with some rabid little prick and his cheap camera can make you tense...remember, nobody likes a Frowny-Face! If you can't relax, be sure to ask for "a little something to pick you up." Any good photographer will know exactly what to give you.

4. You'll be dealing with Business People, so don't stress it if they try to cheat you out of money in the first fifteen minutes of knowing you... That's just good business!! Would you trust your career in the hands of someone who didn't?!?

5. DON'T LIMIT YOURSELF! Today's world of professional modeling is more competetive than ever! To gain an edge and land the big jobs, you're going to have to show you have some "range"... so don't shy away from something like a "dual anal-penetration scene" just because you've never heard of it before.

6. Folks in what I like to call "the industry" look different from you and me. What looks to you like a ratty polo shirt with gross sweat stains under the arms could be haute couture, so don't judge a book by it's cover!!

7. Finally, most importantly: DON'T TAKE YOURSELF TOO SERIOUSLY. In fact, give as little thought to what you're doing as possible. After it's over, bury it deep, deep down in your psyche and just hope those pictures don't surface during something important like a job interview or a custody hearing.

So now you know how to Make It Big and Keep It Real in the exciting, ever-changing world of modeling! Good luck, and DON'T FORGET TO SMILE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

save a horse

The rodeo's in town. Yee-haw. I'd forgotten all about this until I got to work Friday morning and noticed first an unprecedented number of cars in the parking lot, then a full-size chuck wagon pulled up by the front door and a milling crowd of cowboy hats. Everybody had hats -- the waitresses, the bartenders, the fat manager with the Brooklyn accent. Everybody.

I didn't get the memo about dressing for a hoe-down, which I suppose is what happens when you skip out of work for two weeks running. The girls who went overboard with the cowboy thing looked dumb. My favorite was the girl who wore a tight white wife-beater (no bra), a jailable pair of cut-off Daisy Dukes, and clear heels. It would have been better if she's been barefoot, but the club has rules. I wore my regular outfit with a black dress, and got a rake-over from the shift manager (who is moving further and further from the ranks of my favorite people) about how he would normally send home any girl who didn't dress to theme, but OK, just this one time, I could stay.

This is a regular technique of his, and one I find particularly chafing. Always he has to make a big deal out of how he's letting me get away with something, and I owe him a really big favor. (Translation: tip me extra.) I wish he'd just say yes or no, but of course, he has a living to make, too, and a large part of that living is chiseling anything extra he can get out of the dancers. I do give him credit for using guilt and wheedling, rather than straight intimidation and extortion, as some manager do.

Anyway, so the customer base also contained a high proportion of hats. That part was fine with me, though. I like dancing for cowboys. They tend to be loud, emotional, bawdy, and fun. Some have the initial guardedness common to self-identified blue-collar guys (although don't be fooled: the 'humble cowboy' schtick is a lifestyle choice that many go to considerable expense to maintain. Anybody who spends $300-1200 for a hat can afford a dance or two.) Once you're in under a cowboy's guard, though, they warm up fast. I was lucky to stumble early on a dude who looked like Marlboro Man and who was not merely a wearer of expensive hats, but also maker and salesman of a succesful line of custom cowboy boots. Boot Man was looking for a sweet old-fashioned girl to get sentimental about, and Grace the Small-town Homecoming Queen just so happens to be one of my rotating cast of optional personalities, readily availabe for a fee to be negotiated on purchase.

Later, the Plumber stopped by to talk about Sun Tzu's "Art of War."

So a good time was had by all, but sadly it wasn't one of my better weekends moneywise. C. points out that if I am serious about stripping as a career, I have to work more than two days a week. I know that's right, it's just the details that have to be ironed out. Like, when would I get my other two jobs done? Also, definitely need to sample the waters up at the club I visited the other week. I'd like to think that my steadily declining income has something to do with the club I'm at, which, quite honestly, is going to hell in a handbasket, Theme Days and all.

enough already

Dear Grace,
Nobody gives two hoots about your health problems, your romantic troubles, or your relationships with your elderly relatives. When are you going to take your shirt off again?
Love,
The 256 Mysterious People Who Have Viewed Your Blogger Profile But Never Comment on Any of Your Posts

Dear Mysterious People,
Take heart. Unless I am still seeing spots in front of my eyes, I will work this weekend. All the old regulars we know and love will be e-mailed and invited. I may even drop a line to our new best friend, Mr. Red Tie, who has been e-mailing incessantly, but will probably turn out to be more trouble than he's worth. Hilarity will no doubt ensue!!
XOXO,
Grace

bloodless in florida

Did you miss me? I missed you. I thought of you often last week while I was visiting my Grammy down in Gainesville, FL, land of Grammies. A word about Gainesville: in a post-appocolyptic tomorrow, the swamp would swallow this cozy university town in about six weeks. It's a classic little suburban hell of a town, city-planned to death in a grid of subdivision after subdivision, shopping strip after shopping strip. At the same time, the place is over-run with skinks, geckos, ibis, herons, snapping turtles, anhanga, and gators. The spanish moss grows long and gothic on anything that stands still. There is a constant sense of the swamp waiting to close in. And more power to it, as far as I'm concerned.

Grams is a health nut and nature lover, with prodigious energy for an eighty-six year old, so we did a lot of hiking through the swamps, in between little old lady activities like getting our hair done and watching PBS. She's always been about the closest thing I have to an Adult Role Model, even more so now that I'm older and we can talk like grown-ups. This visit she filled in the rough sketch I have of her life, and the more I know the more intriguing it is. Like me, she grew up on a farm, and like me, she couldn't wait to get the hell out.

Only, this being rural Michigan in the 1930s, her way out was to get married and move to town and have four babies. Suburban housewifery is probably not the career path life she would have chosen for herself if she'd had many other options, but she soldiered through the Eisenhower era, got her youngest son into high school, and then ditched the whole scene, drove out to Berkley, and got involved in yoga and meditation, right at the height of the flower power movement. Her kids thought she was abandoning them and her husband thought she was in a cult, but she stayed out there for a year until she "got her mind clear" she sez. She did come home eventually, but she stayed involved and interested in all sorts of arcane material. Over the years, she's studied or practiced ayurveda, paganism, tarot reading, energy healing, magnet therapy, and on and on and on. She's crazy as a shit-house rat, and a class act, to boot.

While I was down there, the symptoms of anemia finally got too loud to ignore any longer. My red blood cell count is, like, four. Dizziness, weakness, bruising, fainting, and my two favorite symptoms: forgetfullness and irritability. It's hard to remember your grocery list, let alone keep your tool cool, when there's no oxygen in your brain. On the plus side, maybe this explains why I've been a grouchy retard for the last two weeks. I'd love to think the problem was mineral imbalance, not deep personal unworthiness. Four tablespoons of molasses in the morning will not cure deep personal unworthiness. Also, on the plus side, lots of babying from Grams -- nasty iron tonic drinks and enforced naps in the afternoons. Used to chap my fanny when she did this stuff to me as a kid, but now it's sort of a luxury.

Speaking of my stupidity and irritability, C. missed me terribly and is overjoyed that I am home, so I guess he loves me again. He didn't even mind that I gave him a flight arrival time five hours too early -- 3's look a lot like 8's when you're suffering from a slow, biochemical asphyxiation. Four or five days of no aerobic excercize (uses up the RBC's -- too much gym time is prob'ly the problem in the first place), eating mad ammounts of spinach and drinking nasty tonic will have my mind back in steel-trap form. Thanks Grams. Thanks C. And thank you, dear Internet. I really did miss you, you know.