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lost boys

Erasing My Fault Lines

April 11, 2017

Um, all of them Rob
ALL. OF. THEM.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
Now is an excellent time to FREE YOUR MEMORIES. What comes to mind when I suggest that? Here are my thoughts on the subject. To FREE YOUR MEMORIES, you could change the way you talk and feel about your past. Re-examine your assumptions about your old stories, and dream up fresh interpretations to explain how and why they happened. Here’s another way to FREE YOUR MEMORIES: If you’re holding on to an insult someone hurled at you once upon a time, let it go. In fact, declare a general amnesty for everyone who ever did you wrong. By the way, the coming weeks will also be a favorable phase to FREE YOURSELF OF MEMORIES that hold you back. Are there any tales you tell yourself about the past that undermine your dreams about the future? Stop telling yourself those tales.

https://www.facebook.com/Rob-Brezsnys-Free-Will-Astrology-133041234078/

But that is what I do. Isn’t it? Post-game analysis, see where I went wrong…

I was wrong…right?

Rob says stop, so stop I must.

This is the end, my only friend the end. The Doors

I haven’t been that emotionally down in a long time.

How about ‘every new beginning comes from some other beginnings end’ (Semi Sonic)

That works.

I never write about endings on here, or very rarely I guess.
Sometimes it’s because…’and then he never called me again and I have no idea why’ doesn’t really make for a gripping story.
Sometimes it’s because things just faded into a friendship, or with the ones wherein I had the revelation that I was 7 of 9 and not ‘his girl’ like they had promised.

Why would I want to archive that? I pick up the pieces and move on, sometimes slowly… then all at once.

I’ve been left and I have been hurt and I refuse to visit pain on others.

I am rarely the one to leave. End of story.

In the interest of clean breaks and tidy endings…

On a long enough timeline the truth always comes out. Still waiting on a couple but I know they’ll come.

My first foray into dating ended after 3 months of happy when I asked if we could be boyfriend/girlfriend, him saying he ‘wasn’t ready for a relationship’ and me waking from a midsummer night’s dream with a very loud voice echoing in my ear stating “her name is Kayla and she has cotton candy hair.”

It was actually K___ and her hair has been baby blue, baby pink and lilac respectively in the months and years that have passed since then.

18 months later, when she was mean to him, I consoled him. Not like that, just said nice things.

The next one fell into a deep chasm of depression and had to move away atop a mountain.
No great mystery there.
He is as happy on his side of the country as I am on mine.

There was a patented Fuckboi in there, again nothing to be solved, he just was what he was. Well, is what he is. He still pops into my inboxes from time to time. I say hello and deliberately leave it up to him to plan something, knowing he won’t. He never calls back until the amnesia wears off again and he wonders what I am doing or runs out of other girls to fuck. He has abandonment issues the reasons for and the likes of which I have never seen so I refuse to be cruel. Ain’t waiting around neither.

Thai Fighter was engaged the whole time.

Black 19 was incarcerated, again.

The mystery of Lumberjack may well remain unsolved. He blocked me from everything ever and it’s not like I ever saw him. The only thing I was good at was living without him, so that’s a freebie.

Gelfling…well that is a whole other tale along the riverbank. I met his new girl recently and everything suddenly made sense, twice actually, once for him and once for another. A two-fer if you will. A perfect balance of me being too much and them feeling not enough. Can’t be helped I supposed. I refuse to shed my muchyness and they have yet to grow up. The hazards of young un’s I suppose. No great loss in retrospect. Like setting down the Holy Grail and deciding on a sippy cup instead. Better call not-Becky with the red hair.

There is a footnote here.

I am hard to explain to people. I am older and strange. By vocation I am a writer of truths and porn, plus the stripper thing. I am not not-Becky, red headed or otherwise.

To be with me, to claim me in public you have to be pretty brave. You have to give fewer fucks than most about what other people think.

Am I worth it?

I think so.

Nevertheless she persisted.

I cook, I clean, I fuck and I love. I clean up nice and can carry a conversation.

I don’t bitch, steal or lie.

I am already way ahead of most.

I know this now.

Took me a while.

I was mired down in the idea that I had to take some responsibility. But it isn’t mine. I did my part. I showed up and I cared. I contributed to their happiness and well-being. I asked for very little in return.

I’ve long held the belief that I as the common denominator must be part of the problem, even if it was so basic as ‘I felt bad about myself and thereby made bad decisions’. At least I made a god damned decision.

That scene in Good Will Hunting at the end. Robin Williams looks through Matt Damon’s file, sees the abuse and says “It’s not your fault” until Matt Damon breaks down and sobs from his core.

It’s not my fault, these things that have been done to me. It’s truly not on me that they left. I did what I was supposed to, I came all the way forward and stayed.

It’s not my fault at all.

regular lust

Hard to Swallow

March 31, 2017

I have come to realize my sin is pride. It was not I who drove the wolves away, it was God.
(Mother Abigail, The Stand by Stephen King)

Massive paraphrasing but you get the idea.

We all partake in the seven deadlies, my favorite being lust, least favorite being a tossup between gluttony and envy. Although with anything but food, I do indulge in some things to excess, especially lusty things.
Envy ain’t my thing. I have attained a state of being that is truly happy when others are happy. I make my own green pastures and lie down in them, I shall not want.

I did allow myself to be proud, or maybe I was rejoicing in the pride someone else felt about me a little too much.

And it was definitely not I who kept the wolves at bay, I know this now.
It was god…and I swung the door wide open and let them come a runnin’ back in.

Maybe not wolves…hyenas maybe? Wolves I have been known to love and howl with. These are something else. Carrion eaters mayhap.

I stopped taking scissors to the parts of me that others don’t like.
I am what I am.
Take it or leave it.

Sidenote: I am also not an asshole and can glean when a few of those things need trimming or amending especially when making the transition from single to taken.

What I’ve found myself doing instead is wiggling. Trying to shimmy and squish myself into spaces made for me by others. See how well that worked out for James Franco in 127 Hours, he had to cut off his arm for being somewhere he didn’t fit.

Second verse same as the first.

Sleeping limbs from hands being tied.

Pins and needles.

Those are traditionally used for sewing things together. So why am I feeling torn apart.

Well you see Dear Reader, I forgot how bad I am on paper.

So bad, all ink stains and scribbles. Parables and prose and porn, lots and lots of porn.

This is why the men who leave me find cardboard cut-out versions of me that cook hamburger helper and can’t fuck right.
It’s easier than trying to explain me.

But what happens when someone stays, appreciates the little things, takes my tantrums in stride, sits with me after a stage show and says he’s proud of me and scours the blog so he can learn me better. Even with all of the sharp bits and risks of paper cuts…

Suddenly and by proxy, I am kinda proud of me too.

It’s funny, I always wondered what I looked like through the eyes of others.

Some think I am awful, dangerous even. I know this, its fine.

The ones who know me know I am clumsy and kind.

He thinks I am beautiful.

I think I am all of those things. I wear different faces in different places…but with him I get to take my masks off and just feel at home.

I have strived to be this loving accepting creature. Creative and unafraid. Naked and okay with it in a society where we are told to cover up, calm down, fit in and bleat like the rest of the sheep.

They say the things we despise in others are the things we despise about ourselves and it’s true. But I think it can go the other way too, when we find ourselves reflected in others.

He looks at me and I can see the good things about myself.

I am not wrong, I am just rare, and so is he.

unable to even

Pussy, Liquor and Boy Strippers

August 22, 2016

I bet you think strippers like you too. (Forgetting Sarah Marshall)

Last night was the night to pop my girls ‘never been to male strippers before’ cherry.

She’s just been through a break-up and is coming out the other side.
I had to be the one to take her.
Strippers do like me.
Way back in the day I may have dated one or two.

We were talking on the drive about working, clubs, stripper boys, she didn’t know what to expect and I wasn’t sure either.
I had a moment of Zen in NOLA in April with the sweetest stripper, we still check in from time to time. He is doing well and this pleases me. He is a good story. But the rules down there are different.
The boys I dated danced for men and I rarely went to see them at work and that was a decade ago or even longer.

Things change.

And they stay the same.

We were also talking about drinking. I’d stood in my dining room before we got in her truck and vowed to only have a drink or two.
“I don’t want to get drunk.” I said, and I meant it. I never want to get drunk. I like drunky better. Just that happy, bubbly, tipsy before you shed all reason and self-control. Half naked, half in the bag.

The best laid plans of mice and white girls.

I didn’t get white girl wasted.

In the sea of little black dresses on little white girls there were varying levels of ‘oh honey you shouldn’t be in public right now’.

I confessed to being a geographical alcoholic. I am.

I have 8 bottles of booze less than 8 feet away, half a bottle of wine in the fridge and a few beers brought home from work, untouched since Wednesday.

I’ll probably go another month or 3 and have a dozen drinks, maybe.

Unless I go back to a strip club.

I ended up getting drunk last night and am writing this with a righteous hangover. As I was saying ‘I don’t want to get drunk’ , I said “I can’t not drink at strip clubs”. I had a moment of clarity wherein my inner voice said ‘who do you think you’re fooling?’

Something about those places ignites my inner booze hound.

Every strip club I have ever worked at or walked into, I drank at. Sometimes to the point of blacking out.

Even when I was really just a waitress in said clubs I was adored by my co-workers for somehow being able to cajole multiple shots from customers for after work. 16-20 stacked shots waiting at 2:45 am wasn’t rare. Enough for me to get lit and share.
And even when I was really a waitress and drinking responsibly, there were a couple nights where I really should have been fired or videotaped or both.

The story of one night in particular came out.

Years ago I’d had beef with my bartender for a week. We were not playing nicely. It hadn’t come to blows but we were slamming things down on the bar and shit was ready to break. He brought a bottle of tequila and slammed that down on the bar after work one night, looked at me and said “we’re going to drink this and work it out.”

Half a bottle later I was on stage with 2 new strippers dancing away in my street clothes, doing the splits like I had never quit and making out with the tiny girl whose name I cannot recall. The bottle of really good tequila migrated over to the stage with us and the shots kept coming. It got a little heated and I ended up making her squirt on stage in front of half the staff and a few leftover dancers. There was more to the night but we’ll just leave it there.

The end of the story is I threw up outside my building, staggered up the stairs and collapsed, clothed, in bed next to my boyfriend at the time. I had ejaculate from my chin to my belly button and up to my elbow, I reeked of sex, puke and alcohol and I was a disheveled mess. He got out of bed an hour later, kissed my forehead and went off to work. Didn’t notice a thing or never mentioned it if he did.

Never underestimate the power of denial. (American Beauty)

Now before all y’all go thinking I am the worst girlfriend ever, there is a little more to the story. He had gotten black out drunk a few weeks prior and smashed me in the mouth for not fucking him.

I had mentally checked out of the relationship, my body had yet to follow.

I didn’t fuck her for revenge, but I got drunk to deal*.

I made it into work the next night and there were no consequences there either except a raging hangover and they had all placed bets on what time I would try to bail. I didn’t, I stayed. I am stubborn like that.

Took me a year and another beating to leave that boyfriend too.

Same club, different time, I got drunk with the man who would become my farm husband. He was on a date of sorts, with a large group of cool kids, they got me smashed and I kissed him as he walked out the door, I didn’t know one of the girls was his not quite girlfriend. She became the mistress, our sisterwife and is now his common-law wife.

That time there were consequences.

But whatevs.

*It’s never a good idea for me to get drunk when I have something to deal with.

I posted once to Facebook “For the next few hours all statuses will be brought to you by whiskey, lots and lots of whiskey”. 100 likes. Seriously guys? Someone switch off the Wi-Fi and hold my hair back.

We need to introduce breathalyzers for phones. Blow over and you can only call for pizza, cab or 911.

I almost died one night fairly early in my marriage when I was waitressing at a strip club, did a day shift on a Friday and proceeded to slam 6 Jack’s in 20 minutes before leaving work followed by half a mickey at home. I hadn’t eaten since Monday. I did however break into his Facebook account and I wish I was drunk enough to forget what I found there…but that would have meant alcohol poisoning and possible death.

I stayed in the marriage a year for every shot of Jack I took to erase that one fight we had.

Stubborn and drunk on what I thought was love.

Uncategorized

Firewalking

August 7, 2016

The neighbors are fighting again.

At least she is fighting back this time. She sounds like a different woman when she sticks up for herself.

It’s not going to last long, she is going to crumble, I give it 15 minutes.

I have heard their soundtrack before, played it too.

I relocated to a bigger apartment in the same building and now I have front row, balcony seats.

It hurts me.

Mostly it’s him calling her names and smashing shit and then this shrill wail, like a banshee comes out of her mouth.

It is echoes of my own.

I used to be her.

I dated a him.

And another him with another face, and probably a few more.

I want to reach out and down from my balcony and pull her up to mine. Show her what it looks like when women make it on their own. How nice it can be, how clean and quiet. How we laugh. How we swap stories saying ‘yes honey, I’ve been there too’ over coffee.

One of my best girlfriends is in the shit right now.

She said “I know you are getting sick of me.”

I replied “I got 9+ years of being in those relationships, my patience for you is nowhere near ending. However, please don’t take that long.”

It seems to be some rite of passage. Like some phoenix from the ash bullshit but the fire has fists and a drinking problem.
And what happens if you don’t rise? You have to pack so much ice around you, you freeze to death.

Mental abuse is still abuse and she has suffered with the rest of us.
And she is in it again.

Different man, different face, different way of cheating on her.

He is an addict and his mistress is drugs.

“But he has demons”

Honey we all do, he just chooses to feed his.

He would rather risk another psychotic break than stay clean.

The core 4 friends I have are all strippers, or were until recently. Myself included. We’ve all seen drugs change people we knew and loved into strangers and we have all watched as years have gone by and somehow some of them stay intact.

There is a spectrum. On one end is the unfortunate kid that smokes one crack rock and dies of a heart attack at age 16 and there is Keith Richards. Everyone else falls somewhere in between.

I have watched people succumb to cocaine psychosis and it made me quit. I didn’t love myself but I didn’t want to give myself a chemical lobotomy either.

I have watched girls end up on the street from bad boyfriends and bad drugs. Took a few into my house and gave them a shot at getting clean. They took it.

I wish we had some kind of hive mind collective we could tap into, project our experiences into the minds of our friends. So they could feel what we felt, the fear, the knuckle that left me with a scar on my lip. The warm arms of those who loved me taking care of me and now…the men who defend me, protect me, love me, take up arms against those who even look at me the wrong way.

The ones that love to watch me belly laugh and squeal, not scream. The ones I can melt into because I trust them.

They are what is waiting on the other side of that firewalk.

This is the “warmth that can only come from a burning”. (SK)

I know you are tired, but come, this is the way. Rumi

The neighbors got evicted, too many noise complaints. I hear him blaming her for it and my eyes roll so bad they get stuck and my blood boils. But that is the way it is, I can see it from one floor up and across the way, she is in it and can’t see what he is. I wish she would just realize he ain’t nothing but a wet paper bag and fight her way out.

I don’t know how old the neighbor is 25-30 if I had to guess, the years haven’t been too hard or too kind, she wears her sadness like a mask that only the rest of us who have shed one just like it can see. The fake smile that never reaches her eyes that dart in fear lest she get caught talking to me.

I am the enemy. I am a walking example of what she could be if she left him.

And I called the cops on him one night when I heard the sickening sounds of a well landed punch and the air leaving her body for a minute. Nothing happened, cops came and left, she stayed. I’ll call them again.

I’ll go get my girl again and bring her somewhere safe. My house is safe, we built it that way.

My Sunshine went through some shit too, an addict witnessed the whole thing left her to get beat. So I rolled up with my kid and a baseball bat. Still regret not running that waste of skin down with my car.

I will do it again for anyone in harm’s way.

I escaped death by the kindness of strangers and the patience of friends.

Someone has to help. I am someone.

regular lust

Plastic Pussy

June 30, 2016

Four score and seven years ago, I got laid for the second last time.

[Author’s note: I wrote this article, or half of it, on pizza flyers on my way to work, way back when I was just getting back from vacation. April/May? I got a little lost around then, time got slippery and slid. Also, I lost the third flyer so some of this is now from memory.]

Back before my pilgrimage to New Orleans, Giant was both the second last and the last time I’d had sex, for quite a while. I kept going to ground and I was crying a lot. Not exactly sexy.

There was Football, but that game got rained out. The stripper in NOLA, just enough attention and snuggles to get my mojo rising, made even sweeter by my insistent insisting that it was Friday night and he should be off making money, but every time I turned around, there he was. And then I met Jason at the airport and there were sparks everywhere. I wanted to crawl inside him like a Taun Taun, but there was a table in the way and I had a plane to catch. So no sex.

Truth be told, heart was on lockdown and she took all of me with her.
Sequestered in an oubliette with nothing but my toy box and memories of lightning sex.

It’s no secret that if I am home alone I am probably playing with myself, less when I am sad but still. Less than a-fucking-lot is still some. I write porn, it’s a good gauge. If my princess parts ain’t a-tingling by 3pm, I probably need a rewrite on that chapter. If I get worked up while working on it, it’s good.

I equate masturbating with fast food. Tastes hella good when you are starving, fills you up. But there is no real sustenance there, and leaves a funny aftertaste.

Herein lies the title.

My one toy is a little plasticky. Because it’s plastic. Silicone to be specific. Hella ugly to look at but damn it felt good.

Giant and I had not-a-date planned for a Wednesday afternoon (see also Afternoon Delight).
I missed an opportunity Saturday and had vowed that next time I would walk out the door and knock on his.

Tuesday. I’d been writing all day before work, worked myself right up. Whipped out my toys and went off like a rocket. Jumped in the shower and went to work, just like any other Tuesday.

Now, once upon a time when I was a stripper I felt it polite and part of my job to show up clean.
Sadly, some of the clientele did not feel that way and I avoided them like the plague they smelled like. Eau de Bubonic and B.O. Bleck.
I however, was almost always freshly showered, mostly shaved, with my geisha/game face on.
I like playing dress-up, it worked. Playing the odds, my 4% versus everyone else, I wasn’t about to bet it all on black 19. I had bills to pay.

When it came to my actual sex life, the getting ready process for work and the getting ready process for a date with a boy I like? Two totally different things.

I had work bras and panties and I have sets I wear for the men I’m actually with. Something has to be sacred and different. Everything work-related was disposable, as was work.

The second involved a proper shaving of the legs, less make-up and a little extra prep work on my princess parts. I.e., I cannae be smelling/tasting like coconut oil and plastic. No one at work ever got close enough to notice, I was rather protective of my pussy. It’s MINE, don’t touch it.

Lamia: You shall not see the star, touch it, smell or hear it. You will not perceive her even if she stands before you.
Kinda exactly that.

That’s another thing. When will the makers of Summers Eve and other such French showers (google it I dare ya) realize men don’t go sticking their tongues in bouquets of peonies looking for a taste. They aren’t hummingbirds. Nor do they wrap their mouths around cups overflowing with baby powder looking for a drink.

I propose a new line of douches. Apple Pie, French Vanilla Ice Cream, Papaya or for the more adventurous souls, I feel like Maple Bacon Cupcake would go over rather well.

Again, for the millionth time, I digress.

The night in question, I walked out one door and into another.

Victoria: It’s not the star that I want. [She puts her arms around him]
[Seductively] You know what I want.

Except I was a little tipsy, seduction wasn’t necessary or possible. I was giggling and clumsy and fell into him and eventually into his bed.

First time we didn’t even pretend to watch a movie.

I have mentioned to him a few times that I admire this switch in him, where he goes from mild mannered mortician into full angel of death with wings. It is magnificent to behold and be on the receiving end of.

It gets even better with bellies full of scotchy-scotch-scotch.

We were messaging the other day about, well none of your business really. But the last thing I said was “I never really let go with you.”

I didn’t finish that thought. The closest I got was after he started dating she-who-skis and she happened to be away and I happened to be there, lost in him enough to forget that my pussy tasted of fucking plastic until his tongue was just south of my belly button. Then I squealed a “NO”, with an explanation.

We tousled and he won. I called him the Giant for a reason. Actually I won. He ate my pussy with conviction and vigor, I squirmed and squealed with delight and a bit of horror. And when he came up for air and a kiss, I realized it wasn’t so bad.

Then my own switch flipped. I let go of trying to control anything, especially myself.

He liked hearing about what I had done to myself, he liked tasting it too.

I liked being coveted/appreciated/consumed in my less-than-perfect form.

Me and my plastic pussy, my not-so-shaved legs wrapped around this godlike creature. Explosions. Thunder, lightning and storm swells making soaking everything. The lingering scent in the room after it was over and I fell asleep on his chest? Petrichor. The smell of the earth after it rains.

I almost attained Ataraxia. (The tranquility attained from not fearing gods.)

And I love the smell of napalm in the morning. (Apocalypse Now)

(All italics from Stardust, Neil Gaiman)

lost boys

The Head and the Heart…Shake

April 8, 2016

I have been falsely crying ‘writer’s block’. I don’t have writer’s block.

I have a mental block and it is fucking HUGE.

I want to stop talking/thinking about the Giant and I can’t.

I tried.

I tried to write about other things and it all kept wrapping back around to this.

There is some scientific research that states that sometimes you have to hear a song 10 times before you like it.

Happened to me with the Biebs, “Where are You Now?” mind you we were driving fast in Leah’s car laughing and smiling in the late summer warm.

Sometimes you just know.

I knew.

Also my life is a double entendre so keep that in mind while reading.

I told a lie.

I said “I hesitated to give you these songs because I didn’t want you thinking I was trying to say things with the lyrics, you know having feelings and whatnot.”

Walking After You was strategically placed and I meant every word. And I hunted down that version of Comfortable by John Mayer because it’s important.

I retracted the lie, but only partway. I have feelings, it is entirely possible I am made of pure feels.

Which is going to make this next part harder to believe. S’okay.

There is a girl at work, I call her Giggles because, ya, she giggles and it’s the sweetest thing, she is the sweetest thing. Baby strippers can go one of two ways in the first month, crazy or cute. She remains, totally adorable. She makes me think it is possible that serotonin can walk around in human form, just looking at her makes me happy.

One night whilst texting with the Giant, I asked him to come rescue me from work. She knew what was happening and was shaking invisible pompoms hoping he would show. I told her I would walk right out the damn door with him.
I wonder if she thinks my life is some kind of romance novel, I wish I could write her a better ending, but we are still in that conflict/shit is not working out right now, middle portion of the story.

He didn’t, but she watched the door for me and we played a rousing game of ‘that’s not him’.

In fact, all tall people now beg the question, “is that him?” I think she will just know if and when he ever shows up.

I gotta digress a bit.

I loathe a good portion of the music at work. We call the place “Tommy’s Hungarian Disco.” Lots of dance music, I realize there are different genres and subtle nuances to that shite but it’s lost on me, it all sounds like a headache waiting to happen, or the muzak in one of the seven levels of hell.

When I was on my staying away from anything remotely emotion kick post Giant, I stole some music from Giggles. A rather rapey, grindy tune by SoMo called Ride On.

She dances to a vast array of whatever she fucking feels like.

One song is called Shake, by The Head and the Heart.

I had to ask her 27 times what it was called. It was one of those songs I ‘just knew’ I liked.

I stopped talking to the Giant for 3 weeks, when I messaged him again he said he had burned through one of the cds I made him, played it so much it was starting to skip.

Oh ya I totally did that.

That was the lie. I made him 3 or 4 mixed cds, 19 songs each. Labeled them funny things like I tend to do. Lightning in a Jar was the one he warped, it was all instrumental. Oh the irony isn’t lost.

So, when we decided to meet for coffee of course I made him a new copy, and two new ones.

Upon which just so happened to be Shake. Song 5.

I swear it didn’t know what it said, and everybody knows I drink too much at work to retain lyrics.

But if the perfect song fits…

Well the ink in my pen ran dry long before your smile
And the pages have always been blank like the trees in the wild
But the wind yes the wind keeps pushing you to me
Time being time I know when it’s time to leave

And the memories we’ve made
Will never be lost, no
And the look on your face
We both knew the cost
But the wind yes the wind keeps
Howlin’

I put in the pictures, you put in the time
You put all those memories so deep inside my mind
Now the wind yes the wind keeps pushing you to me
Time being time I know when it’s time to leave

And the memories we’ve made
Will never be lost, no
And the look on your face
We both knew the cost
But the wind yes the wind keeps
Howlin’

Even if it was a mistake, I can’t forget your face
Even if it was just a day, you won’t forget the one
Who’s making you shake

Come around, I lost my way to see
Come around, I lost my way to see
Come around, I lost my way to see
Come around, I lost my way to see

Even if it was a mistake, I can’t forget your face
Even if it was just a day, you won’t forget the man
Who’s making you shake

Who’s making you shake
You shake
I’m making you shake
You shake
I’m making you shake

He’s making me shake.

The last thing he said is that the things we’d done would be hard to forget.

Why would you even try?

I can’t Taylor Swift and “shake, shake shake it off.”

I cannae Florence and her glorious Machine neither “And it’s hard to dance with a devil on your back. So shake him off”.

Maybe it isn’t so much of an I can’t, as an I don’t fucking want to.

What if this storm ends and I don’t see you? Snow Patrol, song 7.

I fucking miss you.

dancing girls

Hotel California

March 31, 2016

I work in Hotel California.

I check out often, but I have yet to leave.

Truth be told I have been checking out way too often as of late.

I had a girl thank me for sending her over to a man the other night. I have no recollection of doing this. Sounds like something I would do.

Sometimes I am hard pressed to recall the cab ride home, or the 3-4 hours proceeding it.

I had a focal seizure at the bar the other night, well before I got drunky. My drinking makes it hard to tell the difference but I knew. I am wondering now how many times that happens in a night and I am just too full of booze to notice.

Some dance to remember, some dance to forget.

I dance because I love being on stage. I don’t drink to forget, I drink to cushion my knees from the hard surface of the stage, and to buffer my shyness. I am shy. I know it sounds unbelievable for a girl who spends 5 nights a week naked on a stage in front of strangers, but it’s true.

I don’t look past the stage, the lights get in my eyes and I let them. The music carries me away somewhere else and I let it. I snap back to the here and now when there is applause. Some days I shut out the cat-calling and commentary and sometimes I fight back with righteous fury. Depends on the day, my mood, how many drinks I have had.

I don’t actually know what I look like up there. Every club I have ever worked at has a mirror behind the stage and I just don’t look. I take a Stevie Wonder approach and do what feels good.

People clap, an entire conference of 200+ men once did the wave for all 5 of my 3 song shows. The starting line-up of a football team both cheered for me and sang karaoke once. I get tipped more than average. Other girls tell me they like the way I look. Queen of the Plastics said she loves my show last night, not my music but the way I move.

I love and hate my job.

Last night the DJ looked at me, took his thumb and tried to smooth out the vexed ‘I want’ dent I get in the middle of my forehead when I am thinking real hard on something.
We talked for a bit about my dilemma, he absolved me like a priest in a box, reminded me my happiness was important too and then proceeded to add…”if I was single”
I thought I knew what was coming, but the end was “I would go fuck her so you could have your boy back.”

This is what friendship looks like.

This is why it is hard to leave.

This could be Heaven or this could be Hell

The comradery. Feeding each other, watching Jeopardy with my bartender, belly laughs with my girls.

6 weeks ago I showed up at work, eyes swollen from crying, broken toe, broken heart, uterus in protest and trying to exit my body. Hadn’t eaten or slept in 2 days. And there was a great rallying around me. My little nudist colony playing music I liked, feeding me homemade tidbits of this and that, just holding me in the change room while I rocked back and forth and cried in a high keening wail.

And then last week I got in a fight with a girl and it almost came to blows.
That night too my stage shows were lackluster, just counting the seconds until I could walk off and retreat back to the bar, my back to everyone.

My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim
I had to stop for the night

I don’t want to be here anymore.

My soul isn’t happy there anymore. Used to be, not now.

I know exactly what happened.

End of December it went back to the way it was in the time called before. Way back in the day when a $400 night was reason for pouting and protest and $700 was average. Where I had a hard time leaving the back room to make it to stage or out for a smoke because there was a line up waiting for me. All these men moving geographically closer to the dance lounge hoping I would emerge and they could catch my eye. When the tips and drinks were flying like murmurations of sparrows.

We haven’t had that spirit here since nineteen sixty nine

We had exactly 3 days of this and now it’s dead again and its killing me.

I don’t hustle, that is my hustle. I walk around, I say hello and then I walk away and let them come to me. And they do.

I find it tacky as fuck to try and ask a man for a dance before he has even gotten a beer. That is not what we are here for. I rarely ask, I make them feel like it was their idea, and what a good idea it was honey.

The other girls do not function this way. I am as cool as a cucumber until someone disrespects me to my face. I went a decade without a single fight with a girl. Sure I had to choke out a customer or two, but that doesn’t count. I firmly believe in sisterhood, and as with all sisters, we may not get along, but we are in this fucked up little family together. But apparently I will still cut a bitch.

I mentioned said almost-fight to the Giant the other day, he said “How would you feel if I said I wasn’t surprised?”

Weird. I felt weird sweetheart.

17 years and 4 girl fights. 2 of them in the last 3 months.

I sunk to my lowest and dated that god awful bouncer with severe mental illness, I think I didn’t notice because I was drunk the entire time. I have got to get out of there, this isn’t me.

It is a riptide and I am getting tired of swimming.

We are all just prisoners here, of our own device

I know I fucked up. I took a year off when I should have been busting my ass and banking everything. I made two major purchases and lost money. I have downsized my life substantially. I now know I can make it as a waitress.

I have a choice between fight or flight.

Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before

(all italics from The Eagles, Hotel California)