Hurricanes can really bring out the stupid in newsanchors. Did you see Paula Zahn this afternoon, saying it had damaged the Superdome, "which was built to be impregnable"?

Yes, built to be as sturdy a fortress as the Saints' defense.

We just saw The Aristocrats, and although I had my doubts about hearing it over and over, it was truly hilarious. Needs more 9/11 humor, though, because it's the worst.

Ooh, it's so cold outside. Oregon is lovely and crisp in the mornings. I like it, and yes, I know it rains up here. However, Cincinnati gets a lot of rain too.

We're out in a cabin in the woods with a view of a little river and may head out to the local Huckleberry Festival later.

We walked past Mary's Club yesterday in town. I think I want to go to Union Jack's, Lush, and the Acropolis later this week when we are back in Portland.

I'll be back in Austin on the 1st and will stay there a little bit longer before returning to Ohio. Schedule updates will be more regular at that point.

I am so thrilled—the new DJ at XTC was able to get new music into the computer for me! All of the software for ripping CDs into the computer is messed up, so he took my CD, burned it onto his hard drive, and copied it into my file on the computer in the booth. Oh, man, I had no idea how much it improved my attitude towards going on stage to have new fun music. Working at Concepts for two months it was nothing but what they had on the jukebox, and here I wasn't able to get anything new into the computer either, but yay Steve! You will always get a good tip from me.

This guy, by the way, came to us from a club in Waco where the dancers were not allowed to tip the DJ. I have never heard of anything like this in my life. While I don't think DJs are entitled to 10% of our earnings or anything like that, I do like to be able to take care of them for playing the music I request, doing the lights the way I like them, or moving me within the rotation. I think a no-tipping policy is a good way to ensure that you'll never be able to hang on to a decent DJ.

I had a lot of fun dancing for an old customer I hadn't seen in ages, probably since I was down here in March, and he was so happy to see me he bought double the amount of dances he usually does. I felt so appreciated, hah. It's nice to know you're missed.

There was one older man in earlier in the day who wanted to have some dances in VIP, but wanted to chat first. He said, "I like to get to know the dancers first, to get an idea of who you are as a person. I don't just like to get dances." Fine, sure. Then I danced for him. He was really handsy and did something that in all my years dancing I have never experienced before: I leaned in with my boobs in his face, and he leaned forward and blew a raspberry in between them. This 65-year-old guy blew a raspberry in my cleavage. I laughed in disbelief, and said, "How on earth did it enter your mind to do that?" I lasted for a couple more songs. He was nice enough, just too handsy for my tastes. My general approach to this with a customer who is spending money (rather than one who I am certain will only buy one dance) is to dance defensively rather than tell them "Quit it!" But that gets tiring quickly.

Oh, on Saturday afternoon I showed up to work but the club couldn't open due to serious septic tank problems (insert "shitty" joke here). They couldn't open until 7 p.m. apparently. Just another reminder that XTC is out in the sticks, which also means it will be the only strip club where people can smoke after September 1.

This may come as a surprise to some of you, but strippers have to fill out job applications. It's not too involved; they just want a real name and phone number on file, and to see your ID and SS card. It doesn't pose a big challenge.

Except we all wound up in the office laughing at one today. This perfectly attractive blonde filled one out and left it with the doorguy while she went inside with her boyfriend to check out the club. The manager comes up, looks at it, looks up at us, and says, "Is this a joke?" We look down and see just the most gigantic chicken scratch covering the entire sheet. He points at the bottom, where it asks "Have you ever been arrested?" She's checked yes. On the line where you're supposed to explain yourself, she's written "I WAS HOGTIED." Arrested for that? Or did she resist with such force that the officer literally hogtied her? Or was she taking revenge on someone who'd hogtied her?

Under "Reason for leaving" for her last job, she wrote, "He sucked ass!"

Where it asked "Where did you hear about XTC?" she wrote, "My ears"

In case of emergency contact "Your mom."

It was hilarious.

By the way, her previous place of employment was the Yellow Rose. I can't imagine why they would have this gem get away.

She asked me to come dance for her later in the afternoon but somehow I never made it over to her table . . . I was, however, dancing for another customer, and there was a waitress cleaning the stage (they have to do this once or twice a shift; there's oil from the fog machine that can slick up the stage). Her guy says, "Yeah they have to clean that pole! There's snail trails all over the place." My customer said, "They're a classy pair."

Hee hee hee.

I was also treated to hearing the manager go off about the dayshift dancers who don't tip him--whilst making money dirty. It's really stupid not to tip your manager if you want to get away with something, since eventually he will make it hard for you to get away with anything and you're left trying to make money clean, which you haven't learned to do . . . anyhow, it was wildly entertaining to hear him go off on one of the dancers. Now, I don't bear any ill will towards a dancer who's willing to work harder for her money than I am; I just don't like it when it endangers my ability to make money the way I like to. I also think it's profoundly stupid not to take care of the employees who can make things supremely hard on you should they choose to do so.

Other than all that, it was pretty quiet this afternoon, though I was happy to see a couple of familiar faces stop by. I think back-to-school really quieted things down for the club this week.

I'm quoted in this article from Men's Fitness about the 10 best strip clubs in the U.S. I am so happy Mary's Club in Portland made the list; it rocks. I've only worked at one of the clubs on the list, the Clubhouse in Dallas, but I would love to snag a shift or two at Mary's when I'm up there.

On Sunday night I was at a friend's house. We get together and complain about our jobs. She works with special needs students as a high school teacher. I know I complain about dealing with customers, but there is no way I could do her job, especially at Texas teacher salaries. She also used to be an actress, and endured asssaults on her self-esteem and body image far worse than those you encounter in stripping. It's interesting; when you strip, you realize that strippers can be, physically, almost any type. And in a club full of customers, there is always someone who's buying what you're selling, regardless of your body type/hair color/ethnicity. But when you're an actor, especially a young female one, the standards and the pressure to conform are much, much higher.

Wednesday began just deathly slow. By 3 p.m. I had cleared, after fees, about $40 and was thinking, "You know, I might go ahead and call it a day." I was standing at the front counter pondering my next move when an old customer came in, a guy I've danced for since the Show Palace days. I was elated. This guy is so sweet. He comes in, buys a lot of dances, and continually asks me what he has to do to see me outside the club. That last part isn't what I would term "sweet," but he's not really creepy about it, and it doesn't stop him from spending money in the club. He's just great to hang out with, and having him come in is one of those things I fantasize about when the club is dead. Ahhh, it's so nice when work turns out like that.

Yesterday also saw the return of AssMan, the guy who was in a couple of weeks ago and wanted me to keep my bottoms on and do all of his dances facing away from him. Again, I love those customers who know what they want. Easy to please.


It's astonishing how quickly my day can turn around at work like that, from suck to rock in the space of two hours, but it happens all the time to all of us, which I suppose is a lesson to me not to leave early when it's quiet . . .

I got a 92 on my Spanish final. School. Is. Over. What are you going to do now? Well, I'm going to be a stripper with a B.A. in English.


See, even the people who are from freaking Cincinnati feel the same way I do.

Today was quite slow as well, but I was fortunate enough to spend a couple of hours with one good customer, so it wasn't too bad. Shortly after he left, some guy grabbed my hand and said, "What's your name?"
"Susan."
"That's not your name!"
". . . "
"Amanda?"
"No, I'm Susan."
"I think I know you!"
I'm pretty confident that if I've ever seen this yahoo before it was here or at the fillin' station.
He asks for a dance and we sit down. I'm not liking this guy to start with. Anyone who says "That's not your name" is an asshole, whether he's saying because he thinks I'm someone he knows or because he assumes it's a fake stage name. Nice way to start a conversation, by telling us we don't know our own names, be they real or stage (and by the way, the name someone tells you is, for your purposes, their name. I've met plenty of Burning Man-types who tell me their names are Treasure or Sir Pantsfree or Kishi, and I would never think to be so rude as to say, "That's not your name." It's what they want to be called, and what they'll answer to, and that, people, is someone's name).

This guy bitches about the music, squeezes my hip like it's a fucking orange, and then, as I'm balancing myself on the chair opposite him to contort into one of those crazy nude-dancer chair tricks, yanks the chair towards himself. I say, "You're not endearing yourself to me right now," and stand up. He comes back with, "You're not better than me, you know."
Huh? Honey, I'm a stripper, 98% of the planet thinks they're better than me. And what the hell does that have to do with it?
"That doesn't have anything to do with anything," I say. "But I am the one dancing naked and you don't want to do things I ask you not to."
"We're done here," he says. Yes, yes we were.

Then the guy has to break a $100 and of course won't entrust me to do this simple task (which I'd done twice earlier for the spendy customer only to get them back eventually) and I have to follow him up to the front where he can break it. "You're mean," he keeps saying. Yeah, yeah, I'm mean and you're drunk. It works out.

The day manager is at the front counter when we get there, and I explain what the guy'd done while he's saying, "She's fucking mean!" Manager comes back with, "You need to use some better judgment and not disrupt her while she's dancing." Hah. Then he tells me to wait, sure the guy will do something really stupid, and we can have the fun of seeing him kicked out.

Sadly, he left right after that.

And now I have a vision of him in my head at some country bar, saying to someone bigger than him, "You're not better than me!" Hee hee.

The good customer was funny; he bought one of my thongs in addition to many dances, and I got to practice my Spanish. He was from right across the border from my hometown.

But I was pissed after the "You're mean!" guy and took off. Now I have a Saturday night in an apartment all by myself. While I've been in Austin, I've been staying in a house with four other people; my sister, her fiancé, his sister, and their roommate. It's a large house, and my room is on the opposite side of everyone else's, but still. From the ages of 19-28 I lived alone except for a total of about 10 months. So I like the aloneness. That's why me and my guy get along so well; we both consider being with each other about as good as being alone.

I'm considering a movie though I'll probably call it an early night. I have my final final on Monday. Aced the oral Spanish final, feeling good about the English exam.

I went to Florida last weekend for an extremely brief trip, where fortunately it didn't rain until just as we were driving to the airport. It was nice to get a little bit of beach time in.

Then yesterday, I had my final in my English/Linguistics class and my oral final in Spanish, which, astonishingly, I aced. I can only pray to do so well on the written Monday morning. Almost there.

Though when I was sharing this with a customer yesterday, he asked, "Do you ever have that dream where you have a final exam and you can't find the building?"
"Oh, yeah, I have. I'm anxious, I guess."
"Well, I graduated in 1970 and I still have that dream."

I do not want to have that dream 35 years from now. I'd prefer to have that dream where you're trying to get to the hall where a dinner's being given in your honor but you can't find a parking space. Or where you're trying to get into your beach house in Kauai but can't find the keys. In other words, hopefully there will be other accomplishments to distract me. But I guess there's really no stress like school stress, and it holds on to some of us forever. Possibly because at work you can get fired, but people probably aren't going to say, "You failed."

Work was pretty slow for a Friday yesterday; there just wasn't much of a crowd in. I did have myself some fun dancing for a guy who bears a passing resemblence to my husband. Guys who look like my dad creep me out, guys who look like my man turn me on (oh, thank god it's not the other way around).

I have heard just awful stripper names the past few days. There's a Poison at the club now. She actually has just a banging body, curvy, tall, tight and busty, and seems like a really sweet girl, but I can't get past the name! There is also someone going by either Silica or Celica, I can't tell which. Either are horribe, but maybe I'm mishearing some traditional Mexican name? On the good name front there's a Mariposa, a lovely name.

So since class is over, and I will no longer need to be at school at 8:30 a.m. each day, I guess I can work at night next week. Though I'm wondering if I should do so; I've done better during the day here than I did at night in Indiana and I hate to mess with a good thing. But if it's this good during the day for me, mightn't it be even better at night? I'll give it a shot and see how it goes. I don't have a lot longer in town as I'll be heading out to Portland for a week, then returning for a wedding on the 3rd, then driving back up to Ohio in time to get to Columbus by September 10th.

I still have to go eat at El Chile again.