I'm in lovely Portland, Oregon, playing hooky for a day (and my summer class takes attendance, dammit). It's so nice up here, it was in the high 60s last night and during the day it's been beautiful too. But what I'm going to tell you about is our visit to Mary's Club on Saturday night. Portland has a huge number of strip clubs, most of which I gather are small affairs. This one is well known as a home for hipsters. It's like the Hole in the Wall with naked women, a fantastic idea! It's been family owned and operated for decades and has been a strip club since the '60s. There's a tiny stage with a jukebox next to it, and periodically the dancers will ask for donations to keep the music coming. While we were there we heard the Queens of the Stone Age and the White Stripes (stuff you'll hear at XTC on any given night, so I felt right at home). There were three dancers working, and each one would do three songs on the little stage - clothed, topless and nude. Guys would lay down tips on the stage and the girls swept them up after each song. It was absolutely adorable.

The stage itself didn't give a lot of room to work with - it was maybe 9 feet wide and 6 feet deep, with a ceiling 8 feet overhead- no crazy pole tricks here, since once you jump up on that pole, you're not going up very high. It didn't have the usual mirrors surrounding the stage, instead the wall was - tee hee - padded, covered with some kind of vinyl material giving it the appearance of a very large diner booth. There were a few seats immediately in front of the stage and then the main seating area consisted of a bunch of little tables and chairs, some of which were dangerously close to the pool table.

There's a sign at the side of the stage that says "Ask about 'table' dances!" so of course I did, corralling our waitress who was about seven months pregnant and heavily tatooed on the arms. "Could you send us the girl that was just on stage?" Jason said that she and I could be "breast sisters" since we resembled each other significantly in the boob department. She was really pretty, ahem, she kind of looked like me, so there's some narcissism at work there I suppose. Her name was Melissa and she took us over to their table dance area, which was a single booth couch towards the front of the room. It was a lovely dance, somewhat tame according to Texas standards, but I really love to look, so that was absolutely fine with me. It was well worth it.

I just couldn't get over the neighborhood feel of this place and think it would be a fantastic place to work. I'm sure the money isn't as good as working in a high volume hustle club, but what a blast. I certainly hope to check it out for myself sometime.

Would the lovely Ruby McBoobeh please email me? I have received your thoughtful gift but unfortunately have no email address for you. Thanks for the present, and please get in touch!

Man, I got so mad and lost it at work on Sunday. I was on main stage when some yahoo slapped my ass and when I looked around the club, there was not a floorguy or manager in sight. I stalked over to the office and started yelling at the manager, who got pissed off at me and said that maybe I should go home, seeing as how my attitude was so pissy. Not the way to deal with an angry woman! I finished up my side stages and found James, apologized for yelling, and told him I was heading home since I really wasn't into it after that episode - not so much the ass slapping as the exchange with the GM. I do feel bad about losing my shit like I did, and I was more angry at the incident than at the manager, but I still wish there was more visibility of the floorguys on the floor. Despite all that, I really enjoy working at XTC and didn't want to give the impression of being an incident-starting drama queen.

Saturday night Heidi and I had a party set up. We went out to Carlos and Charlie's, where we were supposed to meet out point guy. We waited and waited at the entrance to the restaurant, no guy. I called the number I had written down in my book, and it was some woman's voice mail. I was starting to get worried, and we had my sister go to my house and check my emails for any other numbers since I figured I'd made a mistake writing this one down. We had given up after waiting for a half hour and were in the car driving back when she called us with another number. I tried it, and praise be, the guys were still there looking for us - except they were out on a dock instead of at the restaurant. We turned around and met Chris, and loaded our things into the boat to head out for the houseboat they'd chartered for the party.

This boat was pretty damn huge, but really hot inside so we opted to do the show upstairs on the top deck. They had asked for us to dress as sexy showgirls, so we had stockings, gloves and gowns to get into - really bad humid, hot-weather clothing. Thankfully it wasn't going to stay on for long. We made the precarious climb up the tiny spiral staircase to the top of the boat and realized we'd be dancing on a slick, hard plastic surface that was already covered with a thin film of water and beer. If I ever do one of these boat parties again (and I hope I do, it was a lot of fun), I am bringing some sort of tarp made out of the stuff they make yoga mats with - sticky and good for traction.

The party proceeded pretty smoothly. We were there for two hours and so had plenty of time for all of our party games and dances for almost all of the guests. There was one problem guest, this guy who kept trying to slap our asses all night, and generally getting into the middle of things, messing up our routines and stuff. Nobody would own up to him, and when I asked the organizer who he was, he said, "I don't know, but I think he's about to get his ass kicked." The rest of the guys were pretty great, lots of fun. They really liked the show. And I have to say that performing on a boat was a new and very enjoyable experience for both of us. Heidi's on the way to being retired from the club scene now, owing to new responsibilities in her life, but she will continue to do parties with me, thankfully. I love being able to work with someone that's so fun and professional and never stands me up.

What an interesting weekend, in ways both good and bad. Friday night I had an absolute blast, thanks in part to Becky. She recruited me for a double dance for a bachelor, and we were such a hit they kept us going. She was a delight to dance with - she's naughty and very pretty, and fun. We returned to a customer I'd been sitting with for a repeat performance. It was some of the easiest and most fun money I've made in a while. My night started off pretty well as Corrine took Kristy and me to a table - I was trying to decide which of the two I wanted to talk to and was fortunate in my choice as he had me dance for him and his friend until they left. They were in town to talk to the state student council association and said they'd seen XTC on an episode of Sexcetera on the Playboy Channel. Anyone want to scare me up a tape?
Later on one of the floorguys told me his roommate and his friends were hanging out in VIP and to go take care of them. His roommate was a trip, constantly talking BS - "I know you strippers. You're all smart and you all lie. I'll tell you, I just went through a divorce and I hate women. I'm an asshole, I'll tell you straight up." One of the friends got taken home by a girl - she just forthrightly asked him if he'd take her home! I have not seen this in all of my dancing days and was very amused. He will have a great story to tell - I hope. Before he left, he asked one of his buddies, "Can I trust her?" He was worried she might have some other motive for taking him home with her, I guess. One of the boys I danced for asked me if he could dance for me. He was very, very serious in asking this and really wanted to give me a lapdance. He also asked me out and asked about Kristy's availability. There's a definite limit to the amount of that talk that I can take so I headed back out on the floor. By this point it was really close to closing time and I was called over by a couple of guys for a dance. One of them's working on a doctorate in economics at UT - my former field of study. I finally got to have a conversation at work about stripping in a Marxist context of the worker having control over her work. That pretty much made my night right there.
Last night wasn't as much fun though I did have an OK time. There were also new costume ladies in the club - they've taken over the store Striptease, that was across from the Yellow Rose. I bought a beautiful long, sheer pink strapless dress that I love and I am going out to pursue a pair of baby pink thigh highs to wear with it. They must be former dancers, they certainly were hot enough.
A really big bachelor party settled into the back room around 10 pm and I went by them a couple of times and got an earful of the worst racist crap I've ever heard in Austin - "There's a bunch of wetbacks in here tonight, ain't there?" and "Is there a really ugly black girl we can get for the bachelor? I mean, they're all ugly." Just fucking horrible. I gave those peckerwods a wide berth. People like that give rednecks a bad name. I've talked to and danced for tons of good ol' boys and I have never heard anything as bad as what was coming out of the mouths of those fucks.
I needed to have some fun after that, so I danced to some Coldplay - "Politik" being my new favorite song to dance to because it's bombastic and loud. Plus I can shake my breasts to the line "Give me real, don't give me fake." Not their intent, but still.

After Madisin and I worked that last party together, she told me to please keep her in mind for future bookings. "If you have any more parties coming up, totally tell me. I really need the money." So sure enough, one comes up at the last minute for Thursday night and I get ahold of her. We were to meet at the Omni that night. Ezra and I met in the lobby and waited, but no Madisin, leaving me to explain to the guys that their two strippers were going to be just one. "But I'll put in twice the effort!" I smiled, told them of course I would cut the rate, and thought about damn unreliable strippers. Any Austin dancers reading this, please feel free to get in touch if you are ever interested in working with me and are reliable! I need to expand my available talent pool.

The party was in one of the executive suites in the Omni, which used to be apartments you could lease by the month. They are great, huge and lush with fantastic views of downtown Austin. At one point I thought of offering them another discount if they'd let me spend the night and order room service. The guys (and one girl) were a wonderful crowd, young and really nice. The bachelor was a real treat - he played along with all of the games, was funny and cute, and just let me humiliate him however I wished. I was really pleased that the one female guest got involved, too, she came over to help bodypaint me. I felt just awful that Madisin hadn't shown up and swore to find more strippers to work with.

I went back to the club this week after a bit of a sabbatical due to school - lots of studying and an exam every week in summer school. One of my regulars brought me back a treat from his trip to Vegas, a long bet on the Longhorns to win the national championship! It was a very cool birthday present. Of course, the best birthday present I got was the complete bound edition of every issue of Cook's Illustrated. And if anyone wants to get me a belated gift (hint, hint), there's my wish list link, right up there on the page.