3 years ago

I skipped out on work tonight. My week was supposed to be sat, sun, mon, tues, wed, sat...etc but now I'll have to work tomorrow and Friday night.

I'm going to a work friend's fiance's concert at this really seedy dive bar on Thursday evening which will be fun.

I decided not to completely waste the evening and get some tanning done in lieu of work. I also ordered over $50 worth of nail polish and accessories online so that's exciting.

I got my hair done today and I was talking to my stylist about my life and realized that I haven't done anything noteworthy over the past three years. Pretty much my biggest accomplishment is that thousands of people have seen me naked.

My attitude has changed a lot in these past years, though.

Below is a excerpt from an email I wrote to my mother after she found out I was working as a stripper. I was so naive then...

I know you've never worked as a stripper, or even set foot in a strip club, but it really is an interesting environment, and I think if you were to ever enter such an establishment, especially as a worker, you'd be surprised. It's not just full of lecherous old men looking at naked women. If you think about it, they can do that at home on their computers for free (and a lot do). I think a large part of it is about the temporary companionship. I can't tell you how many guys I actually took the time to have legitimate conversation with (as opposed to just asking for dances) told me they appreciated the fact that I am able to hold a decent conversation. In the few weeks I've worked thus far I've had more interesting conversations about everything from politics to religion to quantum physics (yup), than I'd had up to that point in my entire life. In life it's rare to just go up to strangers and start conversation with them, but in the strip club environment it's perfectly acceptable. Not to mention you're being paid to converse

I don't think so little of myself, and the job really has had no bearing on my self-esteem. Besides the fact that I love feeling self-sufficient. To be honest, success in this job has less to do with looks, and more to do with sales skills. Some of the top-earners are definitely not 'lookers', but they can hustle like no body's business. A lot of the rest of that paragraph is simply your opinion, so I can't really refute it. And trust me, I take everything told to me there by customers with a grain of salt. I know men can't think clearly, especially when surrounded by half-naked women.

Yes, there are drugs. Yes, a lot of the girls abuse controlled substances (mostly alcohol). I have no interest in the drugs or alcohol. Even if I were able to drink at work, I wouldn't. I see too many girls at the end of the night absolutely trashed in the dressing room, and I know it hurts their money. A lot of the girls claim to need to drink before they can get of stage, well I don't have that problem. There is really no way I could get in trouble by the law unless drugs were found on me, which is not going to happen. If anything this job is more of an anti-drug, seeing all the shit that the other dancers go through.

Ha ha ha. How cute was I? If I had only known.