wednesday night.
235 before tip out...170 after.

not so awesome of a night...lots of tightwads not wanting to spend money. when i had lunch with b- and a- last week, one tip a- gave, which she gave under the header of "don't be lazy" was that she doesn't hang out with customers...she counts songs...usually by the end of a song or two she can tell if they are going to buy a dance or not. i've been using that strategy, and tonight was frustrating because it was clear that almost everyone did not want a dance. or not YET. another frustrating/weird thing. sometiems guys come in and they are just READy for a dance, but tonight there was not a lot of that. i guess i have to figure out also, if i am waiting one or two songs to get a read on it, to not try to get a read on it BEFORE the first song is over. maybe just to try to be present throughout the first song and then check in at teh end of it, instead of trying to call the whole situation the whole time.

Also, I need to have a better cache of conversation topics to go over. I really lost my ability to hold htat part down tonight. And I resorted to sticking my butt in folks' junk, but somehow that just feels less effective.

That said, when I first told N- that I had started stripping, she was like, "wow, that's a whole nother movement vocabulary." And I thin kI've been a little bit in denial about how entirely unfamiliar that movement vocabulary is to me. I mean, I'd barely been in strip clubs before I started working here. But I'm starting to get it down, I think. And practicing some radical acceptance around the fact that the other dancers have more experience and more skills than I do. But I am feeling more confident on stage and am ever grateful to M- for her booty shaking lessons.

Well, I went upstairs at the end of the night after wondering if the closing customers would get a last minute dance in, and Momma and maybe C--, the security guard, were standing on either side of S--, this sweet woman who had walked me to my bike the other night and was nothing but friendly. They were dumping everything out of her bag, which I'd only ever seen once before, my first night at the club, when this dancer was accused of stealing. But in this case it was getting all her money out of her bag I guess and figuring out waht her tip outs were because she was so trashed she couldnt' even stand up. And they'd found a syringe in her bag, and I guess she, like a good handful of the dancers from how I've heard them talk about it, was a recovering heroin addict but had fallen off the wagon and had shot up in the bathroom that night. Momma was irate, the way...an actual mother might be..."there's blood on your had I can see it I can see the marks!" she was screaming. And S--'s story kept changing...first she had fallen off the wagon yesterday, then earlier today, then she finally admitted to shooting up at the club. And she genuinely seemed pretty devastated to have done so. And momma was irate, and I guess she had also cut/poked herself with the syringe when she was looking through S--'s bag, so...FUCK.

R--, the DJ said something really fucked up tonight...well, he often does...and I'm still cringing from when he played that Helen Keller song when I was on stage. But tonight he said something, I don't know in reference ot what, but he said, "shut up, negro," or something like that. I heard a voice from the left of me, one of the black dancers, sitting on the lap of a patron say something like "uh-uh" or "oh no" and she got up off his lap and walked over to where r-- and s-- were, and I thought she was going to say something, but I think she just said she was going home. So far I have not found a good way to be an anti-racist ally or a change agent in this work...not quite sure how to handle that.

C-- was back tonight.I really like her and hadn't worked with her in a while. She's super cute and sweet and genuine, and I wouldn't mind knowing her more in teh real world. I'm also fascinated by her story. I just know that she drives in from Mississippi every day, and that her brother was going to pick her up when she got off work. I wonder what their life in Mississippi is like.

This guy, when I was givign him a lap dance, kept telling me that I seemed tense. I foudn this annoying. I hate when people tell me that in general, but also, it is hard to perch above someonces groin and then gyrate your junk across their junk over and over while not exerting force. But I guess everything should look effortless.

Also, that cop was around again. And he was grabbing girls asses while we were at the door...not mine. But that was totally effed! I was like, A) that shit is SO NOT FREE. And B) ABUSE OF POWER. I don't even have anything else to say about that because it's so fucking obvious.

Also, I'm sort of over spending time with a guy only to have them say, "I don't do strip clubs, but you can come back to my hotel room." Dude, you're IN A FUCKING STRIP CLUB, wasting my time. If it helps some women out to have dudes looking for paid sex in the club, that's fine, but at least honor why you are there, and respect the business that people are there to be doing. I've had guys who I've given dances THEN ask for something more outside, which I feel like is way more respectful.