Amazingly enough I haven't shut this place down yet. I seem to have had blogging block; go figure. I have been so enamored of my friend Tasha's new blog, Hobo Stripper that I had to at least come in here and change up the links.

Tasha is the friend who got me to go to Alaska for the first time, for which I'll always be grateful. I'm in North Dakota right now, and thought I'd be seeing her next week in Montana, but she's already on her way north. I'll be up there at the end of June.

North Dakota is indeed very flat. The town where I worked this past week has a population of about 17,000 but has some thriving local industry that makes it a pleasant and lucrative place to strip. It's a seriously time-consuming booking, though, and I didn't do much else but buy groceries and catch up on television this week.

Here's a new, weird rule/law I've never heard of before that exists here: nipples, just nipples themselves, the pointy bits and not aereola, must be covered by an opaque covering. I have no conceivable idea what that's all about. Considering transparent liquid latex to make breasts legal is silly enough, but making only a portion of a part of the breast "illegal" is very, very strange.

So at the beginning of each shift I painted pale pink nail polish onto my nipples, and just my nipples. I wish I'd had some liquid latex or something but didn't plan for that eventuality before leaving on this trip.

Coming out to these tiny places I frequently get questions along the line of "What on earth are you doing out here?" I don't think the guys out here realize that bigger cities don't necessarily equal better stripper money. I mean, sometimes they do, but honestly, I would be hard pressed to make the same amount of money I made this week back in Portland (and that's after $300 in fuel).

Let me break it down: In Portland, OR, there are 50 strip clubs and hundreds of strippers competing for the strip club dollar every night. There are also numerous nightclubs, restaurants, and other entertainment options to compete for the general going-out dollar. There are women to hit on downtown and lots of them.

In Williston, ND, there's one strip club and three strippers in the whole entire town. They change each week so everyone comes to see who's there. There's an Applebees and three bars that have music on the weekends. There sure as hell aren't a lot of women in general, and there are a lot of dudes.

And of course, I would never ever work 40 hours in a week at home. That helps, too.

Any single ladies reading who wonder where to find men, by the way, there are some excellent prospects out here. Nice-looking, sturdily built young men with good jobs abound. I would send single gals (or enterprising, discreet call girls) here in a heartbeat. But you know, then you have to be here, and I don't know about that.

I did, of course, see three guys I'd seen at the club when I went to do laundry today, one of whom stopped and came in because he saw the Oregon license plates on my truck and I of course am the only thing from Oregon in this town. It really wasn't that creepy, I promise, but I'm kind of like, "Dude, I'm doing my laundry, and I spent 40 hours this week entertaining you all. Leave me in peace to read the New Yorker."

Sadly, I'm too tired to go see Blades of Glory at the drive-in (they have a functioning drive-in and two cool-looking old movie theatres downtown). I will certainly go there next month when I'm back. For now I'm resting up for the drive through Montana.