july 24th

okay, so i’ve decided to make a new category called field notes because basically sometimes i just write to write to remember to put it all down. i’m not even trying to tell a story. i’m just trying to tell. if you don’t want to read field notes i understand, don’t, that’s fine.

when i have more time for reflection i will write for art and beauty and message.

so last night.

this club is small. its rules are stricter than the other clubs. but for whatever reason this place does good for me. it always does. the girls don’t hustle hard and so just by giving it a shot i usually get high returns. i walked with $463. this significantly raises my average after having made $99 at the crappy club from a few days ago.

a black man from texas fell in love with me and my ass. particularly my ass though he claimed it was my eyes. he spent a good deal of time yelling “put it in my face, put it in my face”. he bought a lot of dances and i would bonk his face with my ass cheeks. by the end of the night, i was feeling feverish from too little sleep and too many strip club germs. i’d broken $400 and was less enthusiastic about his relationship to my ass and i think i probably missed out on squeezing a last dance or two out of him. nonetheless, i still found humor from our final conversation where he was begging me to let him kiss my ass. could he kiss my pussy? no. what about my ass crack? no. i pecked the back of my hand in demonstration and said “you can do this, here” and i pointed to my ass cheek. show me again, he asks. so i do. oh girl, i want to kiss your ass, come on can i kiss your crack. no. why not. because i’m not in the mood for mouth in my ass crack. he smiles, “okay, girl, i can feel that”.

as i was booty bumping in his lap a man came in whose profile was shockingly similar to my dad’s. i was flooded in sadness. he had the same hair cut and facial hair and was tubby, white, wearing glasses and a little non descript just like my dad. i almost started crying shaking my hips back and forth.

in the dressing room, i decided i couldn’t hustle him. i decided i probably couldn’t dance with him. but as i walked by he called out to me, and i said yes and he said hello like he wanted something and i said do you want a lap dance and he said no, he wanted to be in the private expensive room. so i went. and he was wonderful and well behaved and i was sad for only some of the time that i looked at him and wished he was my dad and i was just small and curled up in his arms. i didn’t really expect this. so i just pretended he was my dad in another time and i was another me in another time dancing for a great and wonderful man.

he apologized that his dick couldn’t get hard. it hadn’t in 6 years. he showed me with his finger how viagra made it go up for a couple seconds and then wilt back down and then he said, he would suffer from a headache, indigestion and shame. well you have a shining personality, i said. i still enjoy my life he said. i bet you had great sex in your time, too. oh i did.

another guy got another private expensive room and tipped me $25 just because. use it for your school he said.

a young trucker, whispered into my ear could he steal me away for a song.

i trusted a guy with gigantic hands to go get the money he owed me from his truck and he ducked out and i lost a dance worth of money but i didn’t care.

on stage i looked up and saw one of the most beautiful man faces i’ve seen in a long time. i told him he had beautiful eyes as i took his dollar and he looked bashful. i told him i wanted to talk to him. he tipped me well on stage and i danced for a whole song right in front of him while other men waited. had he stayed and not left quietly while i dressed, i would have danced for him for free. i really would have. i wanted to be naked in his lap looking into his sparkly face that much. he was a fat trucker with dark curls.

the girls were kind. i saw them give each other support. one said to the other, “people think that you have to be a prostitute to be a stripper but always remember that to succeed you have to be a strong and independent woman. so don’t ever let someone else make you feel less than that.”

i sat with a short, fat, white trucker with a mean face. he thought everything was funny but not in the appreciative way. in the way that everything should be laughed at. “all those blacks thought obama was going to save them but now they’re all worse off” and then he laughed and laughed and laughed in this maniacal way that made me sit frozen faced and just stare at the wall and wait until it was over. do you want a dance? let me think about it, he said. and then he started ridiculing the strong, independent woman on stage “look at those ribs. you could play the piano on them” and then laugh, laugh, laugh. again i just sat tight lipped. i don’t think i’ve ever been so totally unresponsive to a customer. do you want a dance. not now, he says. i am up with the next beat of my heart. okay, bye then.

a boy and a girl invited me home with them.

i drank water and sucked on ginger and when i touched myself i told my little cells not to get sick. for all the dirty money and men slobber and sick strippers and rolling around on the floor my health is quite a miracle.

i come back to the home i’m staying in and counted my money in the car. i’m tithing these days so that 10% always goes into my Do-Good envelope. the friend i’m staying with works for an organization that feeds children in africa. i asked her to send me money making vibes as i headed to work and she said she would shift her money making vibes from her fundraising to me. i decided that they shouldn’t be mutually exclusive and since i’m staying with her, i’ve told her that i’ll give her my 10% for bags of flour for the kids she works with. i tried telling this to a customer but he didn’t believe me that his lap dance would help support starving children in africa. i guess it was too cliche. anyways, we have a little envelope going and i think i’m up to about 10 bags of flour now.

i’ve given up on being a secret here and the room mates know and i don’t care because i get to cook breakfast in the morning in a real kitchen and bring kale and rice stir fry to work and have a bed and friend to come home to.

i sucked down herbs and vitamins and fell asleep and dreamed dreams of my lover back home and getting naked upside down on the pole and doing the splits and then i woke up and went to church. at church people talked about what they were thankful for which is why i go to church. that and the silence. one woman spoke about hope and this little baby duck that made her feel hopeful. what made me feel hopeful? i thought.

oh yeah, that guy who still loves his life even though his dick hasn’t gotten hard in six years. that makes me feel hopeful.