Writing a bio for the blog

There are no questions I am asked very frequently, hence I don't feel the need for a FAQ here. But I would like to write a short blog bio, so now would be the time to ask me your questions, either via comments or email at susan*AT*rivercitykitty.com.

A FAQ would be useful in the club as I'm asked many of the same questions every night, but that's another thing entirely. I'll try to collect some of those questions.

I'm housesitting in Austin for friends who have three cats. As Mr. W said, "You know what's cool about having three cats? There's three times as many cats!" The house is gorgeous with many windows which allow this strange illumination to come through during the day. I have these glasses, they're like regular glasses but instead of correcting my myopia when I don't have in contacts, they have darker tinted lenses. Sunglasses! That's it! I forgot what they were for up in Oregon. But I use 'em here in December.

I hope everyone had the lovely holiday of their choice. Mine was overall very pleasant with a few twinges at some family drama, which, if no one minds, I may purge myself of here in the future. Strippers have families, really, we do, and I am blessed with many wonderful people in mine who have remained loving and understanding while I make my way in the world in a sometimes unorthodox way. They have been all around me this week and I feel the warm, satisfied glow of it all. For that I count my blessings, knowing that the glow many of my friends (stripper and non) feel at this point is that of red hot rage after confinement with family.

I do go out

Last night a group of Austin strippers gathered for a night out. There was Hot Retired Stripper, Baby Stripper, Swinger Stripper accompanied by her cute, funny, employed boyfriend, Studious Stripper, Redheaded Stripper, and then a few others we picked up over the course of the evening. And me, Wayward Stripper.

The night began at HRS's place, marked with this instantly recognizable totem:


No mistaking the place. We spent a couple of hours talking about girl sex, man sex, torturing the cats with loud noises, listening to Gogol Bordello, eating candy and drinking (me drinking my water, natch). Then off to Perfect 10, where I finally got to see a girl once described to me thusly: "You could be torso twins! You have the same boobs, tummy, and ass! I thought she was you before I looked at her face!" Being, as all strippers are, afflicted with a bit of narcissism, I had to get a lapdance. It was awesome. We didn't get approached by too many dancers so I had to say yes to this brilliant sales pitch: "Would any of y'all like a table dance?" That's a lot easier to say yes to when other people at your table have kept her so busy she's sweating a little. It was super hot; when she touched her forehead to mine I could feel the heat and moisture, and each time she turned around I could see the glow from the heat on her. She was literally hot. This is only the second time I've been there, but yeah, P10 has the hottest strippers in Austin. Good variety, too.

But we wanted to continue with our night so it was on to Sugar's, where I ran into an old Show Palace employee, one of my favorites ever. I wish I'd had more of a chance to catch up with him, but he's a manager or VIP host or something there now, so was busy. We didn't have nearly as much fun there as absolutely no dancers approached us, and the crowd was way, way young and fake-thuggy. Superloud music and an overload of strobe lights kicked my ass. Sugar's used to be the classiest ass joint in town, full of your more coveted older and tech-industry demo, but no more. Hell, the first time I went there, when I received my first ever lap dance as a customer, the dancers had to ask management for permission to dance for a woman. This time a stripper tried to unleash my boobs when I tipped her, and I stopped her hand, saying, "That's all right, honey, you're the show," and thinking "Don't show them my boobs! I'm not at work! These breasts are on vacation until Sunday!"

Didn't stay there for long. Lost some of the group from P10, picked up another. Headed to the Yellow Rose and I fell in love with a gorgeous African American former ballerina who moved as beautifully as any dancer I've ever seen. Oh, she was so graceful! She even clapped her ass elegantly. Sigh. I had a couple of dances from her, and it was close to closing, so I sent her over to Mr. W. While she danced for him I talked with Studious Stripper, and after his dance he said, "It's funny, I was watching every move when she was dancing with you, and you, it's like, old hat and you talk to your friend!"
"Oh, god, I'm so sorry! Did you want me to watch? I didn't want to interfere with your enjoyment!"
"No, that's fine, you're just a lot more acculturated than I am."

Oh, hey, look! Now one of us is on stage! Swinger Stripper, who fortunately worked at the club we were visting, talked the DJ into letting her hop up for a guest set, where we threw our money at her and enjoyed her drunken, barefoot antics and polework.

"This is what guys think being married to a stripper is like all the time."
"What, we hang out with a bunch of hot women and sometimes spontaneously get naked?"
"Yeah, all the time."

Well, nah. And I have known nonstrippers to exhibit this kind of behavior, too (see your local Burning Man community for more). I just have to get it out of my system once or twice a year, preferably between Christmas and New Year's. This was year two and I am all about making T-shirts for year three. It's a hell of a lot more relaxing than intergenerational holiday parties where I get to tell people what I do for a living, heh.

When I was in Alaska for a month this summer, some friends of Hobo Stripper opened their home to me and let me a room. They were a married couple and the husband was a kind, burly, missing-a-few-teeth, hardy, hardworking Alaskan. He was a fixture at the bar where I worked and in the town where I stayed. We didn't have too many in-depth conversations, but he was the kind of guy you knew could fix just about anything and would do just about anything in his capability to help you out without being real obvious about it, just because that's how people are up there. Lots of actions, not so many words.

Tara just passed along the news that he died this past week, in unclear circumstances, found by his wife when she returned from working out of town. She lost her previous husband (once when she was giving me a ride she let me know he was in the truck with us. His ashes were, rather, as she figured out what to do with them). Now she's lost another husband and will probably spend a lot of time dealing with his children and hers in unpleasant circumstances. My sympathy and love to you, T; I am so, so sorry to hear about D.

Today I believe I'll sit around the house and knit some panties. Maybe I'll post some of my crafty photos, as well—I've been meaning to put up pictures of outfits I've made, for my amusement and yours. If the customers like them they must be hot.

I have no desire to think about last night, though Miss J who returned had such a sunny attitude at the end of a crap night that I felt ashamed of myself for being so cranky. "I got fed, had some drinks, made a little money; hey, that isn't so bad." Meanwhile I'm muttering to myself "grrrrr motherfucking party crowd with the weekend starting on Thursday grrrrr." Yeah, conducive to moneymaking it's not.

The other side of the customer stealing drama was in last night. "I don't even know this bitch and she's going around saying I stole her customer? Please! I was with another dude for an hour and then he came and got me. If she can't get him in an hour she should give it up. I don't know how it is where she's from—"
Her friend pipes in with "She's from Detroit, and, it's like, a bunch of black people there, and there all ghetto and hardcore, like, 'Bitch, get away from my man!' and shit."
There you go. She didn't steal a customer and there's a racist explanation for the other gal's attitude! Woo.

So time off for me today. Some shopping, maybe a really late breakfast, and household chores.

One of the great things about the D2 is the low level of dressing room nonsense there; most really bad cokeheads and crazy girls get run out of there quickly enough, either because they flip out (get busted with coke on the face, attack someone) or can't make any money off of the generally more subdued crowd there. It's nice. I like having coworkers that aren't excessively fucked up or violent. That's not a given in this business by any means, you know, and even though I can do an excellent job of ignoring other dancers, it still makes for an unpleasant environment.

There's a new girl from back East; she was in the back furious at another dancer for customer theft (this is a crime that doesn't actually exist, by the way. You can't steal a customer or have a customer stolen from you. You can be undercut or lose a sale, but the customer is not property. The customer is a guy to whom you sell time, company, and dances. He is not a purse, or, more appropriately, a wallet). Was she ever going off -- "Oh my GAWWWD you GUYYYYS! I'm so PISSED. I need a cigarette. I need a drink. She just grabbed him by the belt buckle and dragged him into the back!"

The concept of customer ownership is so foreign to me; I mean, I have customers who come in to see me and may turn away other dancers, but that's because they've chosen to spend their time and money with me. Should another dancer sell them dances, that's another dancer making another sale. It's not theft from me.

I'm curious about how this plays out on, say, the car lot, or in real estate. Like, client theft -- I'm sure that's a term, and that there are tactics that are used that are underhanded, and people in other sales professions talk about how some unscrupulous coworker "stole" a client. But, assuming that they aren't offering anything illegal or unethical to the client, is it theft or is it just having better game to run? My suspicion is, in our case and in theirs, that it's usually the latter.

------

They're sweeping the streets tomorrow, which means I have to park, like, ten blocks away tonight. I considered checking into a hotel just to have a place to park. I love this historic building, but they didn't build too much underground parking in the early 1900s. I'm glad they're cleaning the streets. When the leaves fell a couple of weeks ago it was so pretty and scenic, all of them in big, fluffy, golden-brown piles along the sidewalks. Then it started raining. And raining. And raining more. And now the leaves are a pulpy mess that make walking hazardous. Really! It's like sludgy bran cereal from the bottom of the bowl dumped all over the gutters and sidewalks.

Work was way slow Tuesday; considerably better last night. Both nights I saw some happy familiar faces, which was fun. One of my favorite guys ever was in last night—I need a blog name for him and am mulling over a few but need to run them by him. Lots of girls, lots of new ones, and the return of someone I haven't worked with since last December! I was so excited to see her back; she's one of the nicest, most upbeat coworkers I've ever had and makes me smile whenever I see her. I love working with her because Hispanic men love her, and they like me, and I speak Spanish, so we have a very good time when there are vaqueros in the club. Hooray for Miss J being back!

I'd love to take tonight off, but since last night picked up so much from Tuesday I feel tonight will be better yet. And I plan on doing a lot of Christmas shopping Sunday, so the cash reserves need to get fat this weekend.

The sun is out!

I-5 is still closed at Centralia, though, meaning that road and rail traffic is essentially closed between Portland and Seattle. There was so much rain this weekend that my mother called from thousands of miles away to make sure we hadn't been washed away. And, of course, I had a friend in from out of town last night who got to see some truly stereotypical Oregon weather. Stripaholic was here for a college friend's wedding, so we enjoyed dinner at Clyde Common and drinks at Mary's Club.

Dinner was good, though there was some kind of mix-up with our order, resulting in something like an hour's wait between appetizers and the main course. Free dessert for us! Great food, though. I have to hit that before 6/after 11 happy hour sometime for the awesome burger.

Mary's had a solid lineup and is warmly decorated for Christmas. I so enjoy taking visitors there, because I always remember how unusual Mary's seemed to me the time I went there. No contact, no table dances on the floor, no DJ, a jukebox on the stage; it is a completely different environment from the big clubs most of us are used to. So every time I take a fellow big city stripper there I can experience the confusion and curiosity all over again.

As she's blogged about lately, Stripaholic is having some foot trouble that's making her consider at least a partial career change. Like myself, the sort of work she's interested in would result in a serious pay cut and curtailment of free time, so we mulled over alternatives. She's got a far wider range of skills than I do, though; in addition to being a great saleswoman, she's also a talented artist, photographer, and writer. Technically, I've been paid for a couple of those things, but like her, I always sigh when I think of the pay cut that would come along with pursuing those paths fulltime. Stripping spoils us considerably what with the freedom and the fast cash. It's a nice problem to have, but it does screw you up for other work. Fortunately it also helps you realize that jobs aren't the only alternative.

Funnily enough, there's other writing I should be working on right now. My compensation will be minimal but definitely worthwhile, so I'd better stop procrastinating soon.

Speaking of procastinating, and changing plans, I was supposed to be in North Dakota this week and next week, but the nasty weather here and on the way there made me chicken out. I truly detest driving in bad weather, something I credit to having been in my one and only car wreck (as a passenger) because of the rain when I was 15. I mean, I just hate it. If the visibility is poor and I'm on any kind of curvy highway, and trucks are passing me and throwing a ton of spray on my windshield, my heart rate goes up and adrenaline floods my bloodstream. Shit, I was on my way home from work on Saturday and a car going in the opposite direction on the highway went through a big puddle and threw a 15-foot-high wall of water onto my car. It was as if I was in the carwash for a second until my wipers cleared it away and it scared the hell out of me. Two days of rain, slush, snow and mountain driving would have driven me crazy and exhausted me. As Miss ND said, 'You're such a wuss!"

Not taking that trip allows me to stay at home, which is a relief on several levels. I'll make less money, but get more done and not stress myself out before Christmas. I don't get to enjoy this town enough. The year I was in Ohio, every time I landed at the CVG airport or drove into town, my heart sank. I was home, but no, that was not where I wanted home to be. It's the opposite here; when I drive into town or land at PDX, I feel so happy to be here. I love my city for misfits. It's a wonderful home.

Since I thought I'd be out of town I didn't put in a schedule for Mary's and will be at the D2 all week; I haven't worked more than two or three shifts there in a week in I don't know how long. I forgot how I missed some of the girls and customers there. Although big, it's still here, so it's a laid back place. This is going to be a good week with the weather clearing up a bit and a lull in activity before Christmas. I think I'm going to go out and get a new outfit in preparation. Wish the stripper stores in Portland didn't suck so much. For a town with so many strip clubs, you'd think we'd have a better selection of places to buy 7" heels and thongs.