I bet you're all wondering what I'm reading right now. Well, it's Burr and Calming Your Anxious Mind. Yes, I fell prey to a self-help book. When it's pretty obvious what I should do to calm my anxious mind: exercise, meditate, and quit drinking so much coffee. But I'm a reader, not a doer.

The past week at the DII was totally unreliable; I had one day where I left with $17 and another when I couldn't leave because guys were keeping me on the couch for so long. Apparently my quest for a reliable day shift begins and ends in Texas.

Last Saturday was very, very quiet for much of the day, with most of us hanging out in the dressing room stretching and chatting for the first hour and a half while the club couldn't open due to computer problems (no computer online = no cash register). So I meandered up on to the stage for another set in front of five guys. A new customer wandered in, got his drink, and tossed a $5 on the rack for me. "That's cool," I thought. "He'll probably get a dance." Then on my second song, he tosses a $50 up there, and I do a triple take. It's been ages since I've gotten a bill that large on stage; I got a few $20s now and then in Indiana, and one $100 shower in singles, but a $50 bill grabs your attention. Obviously, he turned out to be a charming and witty young man and kept me company until my next round. And of course he had ties to Texas, and talked about how hard it was to spend the same amount of money in Portland that he would run through at a club there, as there wasn't much "salesmanship" on the part of the dancers there. This is very, very true; the dancers don't push private dances as much here. More on that later, I promise.

So I was happy with what I'd made after he left, and was doing my last stage set of the day when a customer at the rack asked for a dance. And then kept going so long, I was there for another hour and had to go back up again.

I only worked on Tuesday and Wednesday of this past week; I had an awful cold Monday and spent Thursday packing and yesterday traveling. I'm in Austin until the 30th and will be working a little and entertaining a lot.