Finally went back to work last night; it's been ages, between my busy schedule and the virus I can't seem to shake. But I had a couple of parties booked last night, so I didn't have the choice of blowing off work yet again. Still not feeling 100%, I headed out to the first one, down at one of my favorite hotels. The host was a hottie; I was taken aback when he came down to get us. My taste in men is more towards your Yankees or your Europeans, so I don't find a lot of the guys I encounter in my line of work really attractive, but this one was very attractive. It put me in a better mood immediately.

The CD player they had kept skipping on my CD (which was fine; I used it at the next party without incident) and a couple of theirs, so one of them joked about putting on NPR. "You can dance to that, right?" "Oh, sure. I can take it off to Terry Gross." Actually, what would have been on KUT at that time of night probably would have been fine. But they had some cool music, some Parliament and Stevie Wonder, so I was happy.

I would have liked to stay at this party for a while longer, but I was running late to the second one, so we booked out of there--only to get trapped in the damn traffic due to greater-than-usual street closures in downtown. Thank god the next party wasn't out in Cedar Park or anything. But I felt bad for keeping them (and Divine, who was working with me) waiting. This was the complete opposite of the terrific hotel suite; it was a total bachelor pad, and when Divine and I were dancing for the bachelor and doing floorwork, we kept having to brush debris off ourselves. I need to start recommending vacuuming before the strippers arrive.

Some of the guests at this party had been at previous parties I'd done before. One of them was a former bachelor I'd danced for, and at one point his wife called. He said, "Hey, say hi to my wife," and held the phone up to me. I heard her say, "I love you, honey. Have fun with the strippers!" When I did this guy's party about a year ago, he came into XTC to meet me with one of his friends, and he had put me on the phone with his (then) fiancee--she'd helped with the stripper search at that time.

We didn't get around to any of the party games or anything; the guys just wanted dances, so we danced for them for about 80 minutes, and then got out of there. Divine had been working at XTC last night and was planning to go back in for a couple of hours. I was definitely done for the night, which is too bad, since a friend of mine was celebrating his birthday at the Yellow Rose and I wish I'd been energetic enough to attend.

Well, it looks like Cincinnati rather than Portland is going to be the next stop for the Wayward household due to a job offer for one of the members of the household. I am moving to a city with one strip club--I will be exploring the surrounding areas and their bachelor party agencies, to be sure, as that one club is a Deja Vu and I would have to make a lot of money to make me cool with handing over a third of my earnings right off the bat. Ohio readers are encouraged to contact me with their recommendations. Ah, from a city with 50 clubs (Portland) to one. A very different work environment, to be sure. I will also be pursuing some more traditional work, of course, since I'll have my degree and some other professional qualifications, but I still want to dance at least part-time for the time being. I'm not quite ready to quit.