As a stripper, you have to be very conscious of the way you smell. This means not only deoderant, but perfume and baby wipes for your vag. Dressing rooms in strip clubs are full of strippers liberally spritzing Victoria's Secret over themselves. Especially because a stripper's job is very physical (being on stage, giving lap dances) you tend to sweat a lot and always need to reapply. I've definitely smelled strippers before that haven't been as concious of their BO as they should have been, and I've also heard guys complain about raunchy smelling strippers.
For me, the main concern is IBBS (In Between Boob Sweat). Because I have such big boobs, they tend to sweat a lot and therefore smell funky. So I'm always applying to deoderant all over my boobs and then spraying perfume on them. I'm actually super paranoid about IBBS b/c I know they smell when I don't put on deoderant, and because I'm shoving my tits in guy's faces all night, especially in lap dances, I don't want to offend them with a foul odor from my breasts.
My first two lap dances the other night I was shoving my tits in the guy's faces, as per usual, and they kept turning away. This freaked me out, b/c I thought maybe my boobs smelled, even though I had applied my nightly deoderant/perfume. So I asked one of the other girls to smell my tits for me, and she said they smelled fine. "Maybe he just doesn't like boobs?" she suggested. I said "Maybe, I mean they are pretty big and maybe he felt like he was being suffocated..."

Once I finish school and get a "real" job (although who knows when that will be haha) I am going to write a book called "Stupid Things Guys Say to Me at Work." Some quotables from last night:

"You're going into so much debt from your education. You're never going to be able to pay it off. You'll never afford a house. How are you going to get even with that much debt? How? You can't. You're ruining your life by being in school."-from a 300 lb. truck driver

"This is bullshit. Why do we have to tip the girls. It's bullshit, it makes me so mad. In the Czech Republic you can just talk to the girls. These girls make me so mad because they want money."-bald Eastern European guy

"Blow job for $20?"-another Eastern European who experienced some sort of seizure after touching my breasts

Me: "Have you ever been to New Orleans?"
Dude: "No. But I been to Wisconsin."
Yeah, because those are so similiar.

Black Guy: "You don't like black guys."
Me: "That's not true."
Black Guy: "If I was homeless would you let me stay at your apartment?"
Me: "Well, being that I just met you at a strip club, then no."
Black Guy: "You're so rascist."

Yes, and that was just from last night. By the time I finish this book it will be 800 pages long.

I lovelovelovelove my Gender Studies class. It is the most intense class I have ever had, and every time I leave my brain feels like it's going to explode, but in a good way. The discussions we have are so intense and really open me up to other people's views or theories that I had never even knew existed. Like we are reading Gender Trouble by Judith Butler, and one of the theories she states is that gender is completely society based. As a society, we inscribe the meaning of gender on to someone and in a way "trap" people in that label. I definetely heard this before, but the way she said it and explained it made me see the issue in a whole new light. Just things like that.
After class, I went out with a couple students to a bar, although I almost didn't go which is funny b/c I've been complaining on here how I don't know anyone and it's so hard to meet people. But I think in a way I've grown accustomed to being by myself, so at first I was pretty hesitant to go, but I'm glad I did b/c I think my classmates are some of the most diverse, interesting people I've met, and it was really cool to hear their experiences and thoughts. It got me thinking about something, though.
Like I've mentioned before, I feel myself attracted to both guys and girls, but I am kind of strugglig with this. When I was younger, I would check girls out on the street, but I always thought that being gay was so horrible and wrong. This is funny, but I had kind of a crush on Princess Leia when I was little and I remember thinking about her naked for a split second, and it felt good, but my next thought was Oh my god this so wong. So I do think there is a part of me that is for sure attracted to girls.
BUT I am also attracted to guys; I enjoyed having sex with the one guy I've ever been involved with, and I honestly didn't like sleeping with the dancer from work. So I guess I feel confused, b/c I don't want to be one of those girls that is like "Oh, I'm so bisexual." or "Oh, I'm totally attracted to that girl." just because it's considered cool or risque or whatever. And I am very wary of getting into a relationship with a girl b/c I would hate to be with her for and then just figure out I actually am attracted to guys. I mean I think that's awful to use someone as your guinea pig. Like "Oh well that was fun, see ya!" I just would hate to be like that. And another thing is that no one would ever think I was attracted to girls just from looking at me or talking to me. People assume I'm 100% straight, which is a little frustrating. For example, when I went out with the people from class most of whom I was with were lesbian/bi girls, and I remember one of the girls asking another girl if she was straight or bi or whatever. And no one would ever ask me that b/c they just assume I'm completely not open to a girl-on-girl relationship, which isn't true. But I am very wary of identifying myself as attracted to girls b/c like I said before, I don't want to hurt someone and I feel like I am still figuring myself out, and I wouldn't want to, I guess, be "faking" my attraction? Just does make sense? But I don't think I am because I genuinely find myself attracted to females.
Anyways, another thing last night made me think about was the issue of guy-girl friendships. I was talking to the one guy in the group, who's very nice and cool and interesting and attractive, but I am not interested. We rode the train back together, and I could tell that he was interested and I really enjoyed talking to him. But that's the tricky part, b/c I feel like you can never be just friends with a guy. They are always going to want something more, at least in my experience. They are always going to want to be friends with you for another reason (ie to sleep with you) and that's not a real friendship IMO. B/c once you make it perfectly clear you will not be sleeping with the guy, he stops caring about you. For example, I was friends with this one DJ from work in NOLA, and he liked me a lot, and I loved hanging out with him. Really enjoyed it, but I was not attracted to him. And then he ended up finding a girlfriend, which was fine by me, but then he stopped hanging out with me. I mean, that's not a real friendship. I was talking to my mom about it, and she said that she didn't think it was possible for a completely platonic girl-guy friendship b/c there would always be an attraction from someone. And so I asked her if that meant that men were only supposed to be viewed in a sexual way and she kind of got flustered and then admitted that yes, maybe. I think that sucks b/c there are a lot of guys I enjoy talking to and hanging out with (like the guy from class) but I just know that they are looking for something more, which I am not able or willing to provide.

Yet another reason why I love working at the club: I basically just did my homework for 7 hours in the dressing room and made $100. I mean, I know that $100 doesn't seem like a lot, but all I did was get on stage 7x for 15 min. apiece and I did 2 lap dances. Not b/c I was hustling but because I was asked to do them, or else I would have just crawled downstairs back to my book and laptop. I feel like I got paid to do my homework, and no one bothered me about it. The girls are all cool, even though I am pretty (very?) quiet around them, I like them. Some of them asked me what I was studying.
Also the owner gave me special permission to put my stripper shoes in the office since I don't want to carry them to class and then to work. I'm always paranoid someone's gonna look in my bag and see a 6 inch Lucite heel poking out. So I thought that was very nice of him.
Other than that, I finished my book review for my class at work, but I have to go volunteer in a couple hours and then class at night. After today I am passing out. I have 5 days off from school b/c of Columbus Day and I don't have class on Fridays and Tuesdays, plus I miss my super boring class on Monday b/c of the holiday. Very happy! The next day I work is Saturday; I will def not be doing homework though, I gotta hustle next time. That's about it..nighty-night (or good morning).

Ohh, I have been very bad at updating this! But also I have been very busy and really nothing super noteworthy has been going on. Basially work, school, work, etc. Plus I had my first training session today for tutoring the kids I will be working with, and I am editing someone's article on this graduate journal I signed up to be on. Honestly, when I get home from the library I literally pass out, even if it's early, like 7 or something. Today I got home at 7 pm and just fell asleep for an hour; I didn't even mean to but I was so tired. And it's not like I work a whole lot b/c of school, but when I do it really is hard b/c I have to get to work at 9 pm, which sometimes is right after class, and then I don't get home 'till 5 in the morning. So for example tomorrow night I am scheduled to work, and I have class at 3:30-5:30. Then after class I will probably go to the lib for a couple hours, get on the train to work, stay till 4 am, get home at 5 am, and then I have to be up at 8 am for National Reading Day or something to read with the kids. So yeah, I will be pretty tired come Thursday. PLUS I still have to finish reading this book for pne of my classes. It's called Gender Trouble  but Judith Butler; for interesting but extremely dense and hard to get through, especially if you are running on little sleep. It's a pivotal book on queer theory, which I've never been too familiar with. And I am thinking of topics to write my paper on for another one of my classes. I'm thinking of writing about The Color Purple by Alice Walker and discussing the relationship between Celie and Shug Avery. Apparently a lot of male critiques say the relationship b/w the two women was a reaction to the negative male influence in Celie's life, and the female critiques say the men are wrong and not everything has to do with a man. For example, lesbianism is not a reaction to male hostility or the result of a female being rejected by a man. I want to say that Celie's lesbianism is not a direct result of the men in her life but rather her repudiation of the society she lives in. And I am not saying that her relationship to Shug is not also due to her inherently being attracted to females in general, but that if she were not in the situation she is in, she would not be maybe have acted on her attraction to women. Had Celie been raised in a middle-class family with  positive male role model, she may have still been attracted to women, but would have suppressed those urges due to society's outlooks on gays (especially at the time the book was written, which was in the early 80s I believe and gays were looked on less favorably than they are today). But because she is already living outside of society's norms, society has in a sense "forgotten" about her (poor, black, uneducated, unattractive, raped by her dad, and bisexual) she is in a sense free and able to act on her attraction to women. Whereas has she been raised in a more stable environment, she would have been pressured and constrained to act within what society considered "normal." I know that this is drawn partly from my own experience, where I felt like living in a middle class conservative family I suppressed my attraction to women b/c it was considered bad or evil or abnormal. But once I started working at a strip club I was able to view those urges as normal and explore them. And a strip club is kind of like a mini bubble outside the norms of society, much like what Celie's situation was (not that I was being subject to rape or anything workin there, I just meant our situations were similar in that we were both able to explore our sexuality without the restraints on society b/c we were both in an "abnormal" environment by societal standards and therefore not restricted by society's view of heterosexulity being the only acceptabl form of sexuality). I actually have more to say on this and I don't know if that made any sense as I am tired and about to go to sleep, but when I get together with my prof I am going to see if she thinks it's a viable topic for my paper (altho obviously not mentioning the strip club part, haha).
Other than that, well. I kind of have a crush on someone (I hate that word, it sounds so jr. high) but it's a girl. Ummm yeah. Not gonna say anything else. And I told my mom tonight that I had had sex with a girl and that I found myself attracted to women as well as men. She said I thought so. Lol, I love my mom. Although I have never been in a relationship (apart from a brief three month fling with one of my managers) so I obviously don't consider myself to be a relationship person or to be dependent on another person for my happiness, crushes are still fun. Still haven't really made any friends, but I try and not let this bother me especially as I am so preoccupied with other stuff. That's all for now, I hope that at least made some sense; going to bed now!

Quick update. I worked Monday night and made $250, and it was dead=yay! The next night I work is Friday, and the manager gave me a schedule for the month of October (remember I said they have to fit me in whereever until November when they make the new schedule). I'm pretty sure I work 9 days in October, which is fine b/c I'm feeling like 12 days (3 days a week) per month is gonna be my limit b/c of school, etc. I gave two guys lapdances. The first one was really cool; he was Dutch and I hung out with him for awhile and genuinely enjoyed talking to him, which is rare. He tipped me $20 on top of the two dances he bought and bought me a mini champagne (remember I get $10 off of each champagne I sell).
Then I danced for another guy, twice, who kept asking me if I was coming when I was dancing or if I had already came. I mean, sorry but I don't really get off on thrusting my hips against fat old guys, but he seemed to get SUPER into it and excited about the idea of me coming, so I lied and told him I came. At first, though, I told him I could only come using a vibrator (lol I'm really honest), but he seemed to really want me to tell him I had come. I left work drunk and happy Monday night and didn't get home 'till super late b/c the train I was supposed to go home on was broken or something so I had to take the bus to the next stop, etc. Whatever I was exhausted. Oh! And my manager, the one that hired me, keeps giving me $10 every time I work "for good luck." Except he doesn't do this to any of the other dancers, so I'm thinking he's definetely not just being nice. Which is whatever except I don't want to start seeing anyone right now, especially someone from work. It would be nice perhaps to find someone in one of my classes, but I don't know if I would have time for that.
So work is going well. And today I had a presentation in one of my classes and KILLED it. I was sooo happy b/c I was the first person to present (the other students present throughout the term), and the book I was discussing was pretty dense and difficult to get through. So my prof, whom I really like, I actually think she's my favorite teacher, complimented me in front of the whole class. She said I did a really good job and said she gave me credit for the way I tackled the book, etc. I was very happy (especially because I had to ask to be in the class as I'm the only non English degree in the class, so I felt like I had something to prove and I proved it). Doing well on that presentation was probably the highlight of my week thus far. I am feeling very pleased about that, and tomorrow I am meeting one of my classmates for a drink after my night class.
So all in all I am doing well, just extremely busy with the amount of reading to get through; it's really never ending. 

Things have been getting slightly better. On Tuesday, the first day I was supposed to work for the agency, I got my period, so obviously I couldn't work. But this ended up being a good thing because I decided I didn't want to just lay around waiting for it to stop and doing nothing, so I went to the biker bar I mentioned a couple posts back. The manager hired me; I didn't even have to audition! He just told me to put on my outfit, and then he took a picture and told me to come back the next day (Wenesday) at 9.
I just have to describe this place because it is so completely random and hysterical, but I really like it. First of all, it is on the outskirts of town, and I mean outskirts. The only thing next to it is a gas station and an auto-parts store. Walking there my first night, it was dark, no one was on the streets except some homeless people, and it was lightning in the background. If I was in a Lifetime movie, I would already have been dead in an alley somewhere. Luckily, that didn't happen, and I made it to work.
The place inside is small and there are motorcycles hanging from the ceiling. The "lapdance area" is basically just an alcove with leopard covered benches and a curtain separating it from the rest of the place. I spent the entire night trying to figure out if the bartender/barback was a guy or a girl; I still don't know! And most of the strippers are either fat, old, or covered in tattoos (I think tats on girls are super hot, but the city clubs won't hire girls with tons of tattoos). As The Honest Courtesan described Big Daddy's, it is a place where strippers go to die.
Reading this, one might think, why would anyone want to work here? Well, firstly, I am not trying to sound stuck-up, but I was probably the most attractive girl there. Not that some of the girls weren't good looking, especially if you are into tattoos, but if you aren't into biker chicks, I felt like I ranked pretty high up there. Which obviously is a plus. Second, I made $130 on a slow ass Wenesday night by basically doing nothing. In the city clubs, you have to work work work hustle hustle hustle and compete with the 40 other Russian girls, and the Russian are sharks. They will hustle a guy out of his last bit of change, and although I am not lazy, I'm also not a super hustler. Here, the strippers don't hustle, a lot of them just sit at the bar playing on their phones. Of course it was a slow night, but even the manager told me the girs weren't hustlers. So I don't have to work my ass off and compete to make a measly $100. Third, the way the girls make most of their money is on stage. The sets are 15 minutes long, and every couple minutes they get off stage, walk around the bar and collect money from the customers sitting at the bar, and get back on stage. I thought this was weird, but it makes sense once you do it. Usually, the guy at least tips a dollar to be polite and if he likes you he'll give you more. So it's like they are obligated to tip. If you did nothing else all night except your stage sets, then you are probably going to make at least $100 on a fairly busy night (at least from the way I saw it). Fourth, I love that it is so laid-back. There is not cunt housemom, no ridiculous rules, and you don't have to wear ridiculous long gowns that make you look like a slutty 17 year old at prom. In fact, if you did wear a gown you would be laughed at. So I can wear whatever I want. And finally, NO HOUSE FEES! Yes, I mentioned this before, but it is nice knowing that whatever you make you keep. And it's a fairly easy commute (except for the scary walk) both from where I live and from school. I actually went to work right after class Wenesday night. So I don't have pay cab fare. And I like that it is friendly and has a kind of neighborhood feel with chill regulars. I like the atmosphere of it and that it has personality. The city clubs are like the dancers they feature: impersonal, cold, and out to hustle you for every dollar in the form of house fees.
Also, one of the dancers there is super cool. We'll call her Alyssa. She showed me some pole tricks and we walked to the train together after work, which was nice because I would not have wanted to go by myself. She gave me her number and told me to text her once I got home so she knew I made it OK. It was nice to have someone to talk to and be friendly with. I think one of the biggest examples of female comaraderie can be found in strip clubs.
There are three ways you make money here. Like I said before, the main way is stage tips, but there are also lap dances and selling these tiny bottles of champagne. It's kind of unusual the way they do it. Dances are $20, and the way it works is for $20 the bartender gives you a chip. At the end of the night, you cash in your chips with the manager and get $10 from each dance; the house keeps the other 10. Which I know in other clubs you keep the full 20, but for no housefees I think it's fair, and then the guy usually will tip you on top of your dance. Wens. the guy I was dancing for tipped me a 20. Although he was so drunk I'm not sure if he knew it was a twenty. C'est la vie!
The way the champagne works is that there are these tiny bottles of champagne the club sells, and if a guy asks you what you want to drink you say champagne. It's $20 per mini-bottle, and for each bottle you sell you get a chip, and like the lap dances, you get $10 off of each bottle you sell. The whole thing is unusual and a bit funny; I remember giving the manager a weird look when he told me about the champagne thing. He thought I was worried and tried to reassure me that I didn't have to sell champagne if I didn't want to (basially no one has to dance anything here lol).
The only bad thing I can find with the place is the issue of scheduling. See, they make the schedule a month ahead, and the month of October is full, so since I'm new they have to squeeze me in whereever they can b/c there are only about 12 dancers per shift. The next day I work is Monday b/c there is was an opening, and I told the manager I'd like to get on a regular schedule for the month of November. So hopefully I can stick it out for the month of October and after that if I still like it (and it is honestly the most promising thing I've had since coming to NYC) I can get on a regular schedule.
So that's basically it for the club. I don't think I will go back to the agency,even after I'm done with my period, as I am not fully comfortable with the idea of escorting. It is really good money, a lot better than this club, but I don't think I would be comfortable with it. Now that I've found another way to make at least some form of income, I don't think I will go the escort route.
Also, the other good thing is I got hired for this work-study program where I tutor underprivileged kids how to read. It is a very reputable program associated with the university, and will look awesome on my resume. Not to mention I am excited, although a bit apprehensive, about tutoring 4 year olds. The program runs through the entire school year, and you have to be able to commit a certain number of hours to it, but it will be a good way to meet people and will keep me busy. As I told the lady who hired me, I like school, but I want something else where I can feel fulfilled and like I am doing something meaningful. And I did mean this; to me, teaching is very rewarding.
My interview was the day after my first night at work, so I got off work at 4 am (drunk, I might add), was at home by 5 am, and then woke up at 8:30 to go the interview. I didn't even brush my teeth and was rubbing off smeared black eye makeup in the bathroom before the interview. Then I came in to the interview and one of the questions was whether I was organized. Meanwhile, I am carrying my notebook which has 8 million papers sticking out of it b/c they fallen out and I had shoved them in haphazardly before getting on the train. But I guess she liked my answers and the essays I wrote for my application b/c I got an email saying I was hired only two hours after my interview :)
Annnddd after my gender studies class that night, I was walking by myself lost in my own little world, when this girl from class just popped up next to me and asked what I thought about the class. I felt as though she wanted to talk to me, like she had been waiting to ask me a question (maybe I am looking too deep into this though). So we ended up walking and talking for awhile, and I friended her on FB. So last night I sent her a message with my phone number asking if she'd like to get together some time. I felt like I was being kind of forward, as I don't usually message near strangers with my phone number, but as my friend from back home told me, she might be in the same boat as me and I figured it was worth a shot.
Yikes, I just looked at the clock and it is 1 in the afternoon and I have a shit ton of reading to do and that was the longest post EVER (I have a tendency to babble and describe every little thing)! Yesterday I was at the library for, I believe, 8 hours straight and got home at midnight. And I have to do the same thing again today. Grad school consists of a lot of extremely dense, complicated reading that's for sure!

"Critics are especially concerned with potential distractions for troops serving on the front lines in Afghanistan and Iraq if heterosexual troops would have to live and bathe in close quarters with gays." -from the Washington Post

Yes, heaven forbid we have to live with "the gays." Get a life people.

Oh boy, something (or someone) really pissed me off today and I just have to rant about it here. So you know how in my last post I mentioned sending a really long, rambling message to this guy about how unhappy I am here?
Well, I guess I am going to have to map out how I know him/ our whole relationship. Really, there's not much to tell. Basically, he really liked me, and he would come to the club I waitressed at and buy really expensive bottles of champagne, like $2,000, to try and get me into the champagne room with him. Because I was only a waitress, I wasn't technically allowed in the rooms unless the guy really spent the big bucks to get me in there, which this guy was willing to do. So I would get the commission off the bottle and he would tip me an additional 300 or so dollars. He did this a couple times, but I NEVER asked him to at all. Never even suggested it. In all honesty, it made me feel slightly awkward b/c I knew him outside the club and we had mutual acquaintences, but if he wanted to throw his money at me, who was I to stop him?
So we went out a couple times, and I just wasn't feeling it. The one thing I regret doing was that I stood him up a couple times. I ended up making it very clear to him that I wasn't interested, but we still talked and saw each other. The last time I saw him we went out to eat and he was a complete gentlemen, but just as friends. So I had assumed that things between us were cool, that he had let go of the fact that I wasn't into him and forgiven me for standing him up. He never gave me any reason to think otherwise.
So yesterday, in my state of depression, I emailed him asking what I should do and basically telling him a lot of things that I don't really feel comfortable telling anyone, like how I feel I have to rely on my looks to make money and how I am lonely here. Just things that I felt were very private that I don't like admitting. And like I said, it wasn't like we were bffs and I felt a little embarrassed for admitting all that to him, but I wasnt' expecting his response.
He emailed me back giving some practical advice about my lease and law school, then ended his response with this little gem: 

I must say I find it surprising that you were asking for my advice in such  serious matter. I never got the impression we were very close, and although I was clearly interested in you, you were equally clearly not interested in me. So I find it very odd that you would be asking me.

Or something like that; I'm actually paraphrasing as I was so mad I deleted the message as soon as I got it. Actually, not mad at first, but humilitated and upset and betrayed. I really trusted telling this guy and told him personal stuff about myself with the impression that we had left as friends. Clearly though, I'm not allowed to ask for his advice or help unless I've fucked him, which I was not going to do. And clearly his ego is still bruised from me rejecting him, something which I thought he had gotten over. I mean I love how I genuinely was just asking for his advice and some sympathy, and he brings up the fact that I rejected him, as though to point in my face and laugh.
I just feel like if you are depressed and making yourself vulnerable/exposing yourself to someone and they use that as an opportunity to get back at you for something you had no idea they were still upset about, then that is a very cruel and vindictive thing to do. I would LOVE to go back to New Orleans and give this d-bag a piece of my mind. For now, I've defreinded and blocked him on FB and deleted his number. I really just never want to look at him again.

Right. So I feel like my life is some weird joke or something. Idk even where to begin. I've been looking like crazy for a "real" job, waitressing, receptionist. Even unpaid internships! No luck. Yesterday I went on an interview to an Italian restaurant which went comically wrong.
And I didn't go back to the pimp guy. He called me a couple times and texted me but I didn't respond. I decided that what I was doing was not cool, and it was SO not a real agency or upscale in the least. So I was online last week and discovered this other agency. It looked like a real agency, with REAL pictures, and it seemed reputable, ie good reviews on TER, etc. So I emailed my pics and the lady emailed me back. After a couple correspondences we decided to meet at my apartment to take some pictures and she said I could start on Monday (this might not be possible though, as I feel like I might be getting my period, but I didn't mention that). The agency is based in FLA and she lives there, but she was in NY so she came to my apartment; she said usually they go to a place she has but she was in a hurry.
So I open the door; I had just stepped out of the shower, my hair was still in damp, and I barely had on makeup and had thrown on some horrible clashing combo of bright orange running shorts and a neon pink t-shirt. So 3 ppl are standing at my door: the lady that owns the agency (we'll call her Jen) and two guys, one of which looks slightly familiar and the other one is Hispanic and holding a camera. So Jen has looong dyed blonde hair, really tan, looks like she's had some work doe, and is wearing a tight black supershort dress, knee high hooker boots, and a jacket. And she starts talking in this really loud voice about pictures, and all I could think was that I didn't want my quiet, respectable neighbors to hear her. So the guy that looks familiar is sort of peeping in and she asks if he wants to come in and he goes "No, I'll wait outside." So Jen and camera dude come in and she starts clomping around my wood floors in her big high heels and all I could think was Oh God I hope the downstairs ppl don't hear her, b/c my landlady is a Nazi and they have really strict rules about not disturbing the downstairs ppl with noise, like heel clomping.
So Jen is clearly in a hurry and tells me to throw on a short skirt and heels and a bra, so I do, and then we start taking the pictures, and my apartment doesn't have curtains (I know I suck I have to get some), and the entire time I'm thinking Please don't let the across-the-street-ppl look out of their windows and see me taking ridiculous half naked pics. And then I'm also worrying about Jen's foot clomping, so really I just wanted to get the whole thing over with and Jen's telling me to smile and think sexy,and I couldn't. But it felt better than with Tom, maybe b/c Jen's a woman (and despite how I'm describing her she seemed OK, just a little brash/loud, but I guess in this business you have to be) or maybe b/c I'm in my own apartment or b/c it's daytime or whatever. It just had more of a professional feel to it. So anyways, Jen tells me the familiar looking guy is someone that we've all heard of, sort of a celebrity and sort of a joke, haha a celebrijoke. But it was SOOO ironic, I just was thinking "Wow I can't believe this guy was at my apartment and witnessed the beginnings of my climb towards becoming a prostitute." The first "celeb" I see in NYC, under circumstances I would never have imagined. Apparently Jen and him are friends.
So after we're finished Jen tells me that she's gonna have her associate meet me on Monday to discuss logistics. And then she welcomed me to her agency and left. Whew! It felt like a mini whirlwind in the form of Jen and her clomping boots and Hispanic photo dude with his big clicking camera and the "celebrijoke" had entered my apartment. So yeah, just thought I'd update everyone.
I had a freakout this morning and was seriously considering leaving NYC and I emailed this guy I know from NOLA and told him I wanted to go back and drop out of NYU and reapply to law school. This guy used to like me alot, I'm sure he won't after my hysterical email, though. He is a lawyer and went to the same law school I would have gone to and is well-off and has his shit together.Oh god...I also told him I was thinking of becoming a stripper. Very embarrasing. It was one of those moments when you tell someone a whole lot of stuff b/c you're just freaking out and after you do it, you're like wow I can't beleive I admitted all that. So yeah I don't want to check my message b/c I don' want to see his response.
I also hung out with the ONE person I know from NYC, he is going to Columbia for grad school and I know him from my hometown. I told him I wanted to drop out; he said I should wait out the semester and see if it improves.
I just keep thinking that being this miserable and lonely and doing what I'm about to do b/c I can't get a normal job isn't worth being in school for. And the thing is, I mean my classes are enjoyable, but they're not even that challenging. Sure, the discussions we have make me think and I always contribute something, and the books are challenging, although very obscure and dense and philosophical, but it's not like I'm super busy with school or it occupies that much of my time. Like law school, it was people's LIFE like they lived, breathed, ate, slept law school. And in undergrad, I was always super busy with school and classes. Here at NYU, I'm not. School just kind of seems like an afterthought.
Whatever I'm gonna shut up and go read for class now.

Right well, last night was interesting, I guess. So Tom called me and asked if I was coming and I told him I was, even though if he hadn't called I probably wouldn't have gone b/c I was v. nervous. Honestly, I almost started crying on the way to the place. Like I honeslty thought I would be with a customer and just burst into tears. Anyways, once I got the place he told me to go, I called him and he told me the apartment. So I go into the building and it's just him, so of course I am thinking he's going to rape me or sell me to be a sex slave in the Middle East or whatever (I have an overactive imagination, I'm always thinking of the most awful scenario.) He told me the other girl didn't show up so it was gonna be just me. And then he kind of got into more details about what exactly was gonna happen. He said that he had ads in the back of the Voice and on backpage.com which I had never heard of, but it's this site that's like Craigslist except they allow the sexual stuff (remember Craigslist banned that). So people call on the cellphone and I answer it and tell them the first location. Once they are at the first location, I tell them the apartment. This is when Tom leaves. It was funny; it asked him if he was gonna be there when the customer shows up and he laughed and was like "Um no that would spoil the mood if I was in here watching the whole time." Then once they are at the apartment, they have to call AGAIN so I can buzz them up. So once they get up, I have to ask them to take off their coat, and if they don't or are weird about it, that's a sign that something is up. So once they take off their coat, I ask if they want a half hour or an hour and then they give me the money. Then I call Tom and tell him that it's good and then we begin. Somtimes they have a phone girl that the calls get forwarded to but a lot of times I'm the one answering. So after that, I went into the bathroom to change into an outfit so he could take pics fr the ads. I really hate taking pictures, esp. ones that are supposed to be "sexy" because I feel like a retard. So then after that was finished, he asked if I wanted something to drink and we went to the liquor store to buy some vodka, and we talked along the way and I know it sounds weird b/c he's a pimp (even though I don't think of him that way, but really that's what he is when you get down to it) but he's actually very easy to talk to, well-spoken etc. So after we got some vodka we came back upstairs and he went to edit the pics and post them online. Then we kind of just sat around and drank and watched some stupid movie with Christina Ricci and talked. Yes, I know this is sounding funny, hanging out with your pimp and watching movies. Anyways, the first guy called and I went through the whole schpiel and had my first client.
But here's the problem. We had a phone girl for the first hour, which meant that I didn't have to answer the phone, but then her kid got sick or something and I was the one answering the phone, which is apparently how it is most of the time. First of all, I am sooo new to this, and I didn't really know the address the first couple of times or what to say. Like I would pause before telling him where to go or sound uncertain, which I would think can turn a guy off. Then, sometimes you get guys asking questions that I don't know the answer to. Like, can I do some blow at your place? Or they'll ask things about "showers" which is apparently a golden shower, where you pee on someone (don't ask, idk why anyone would want to be peed on, but apparently it's quite popular.) So I never know what to say to those guys and that doesn't sound very appealing when I'm unsure or keep pausing to ask Tom a question. Then what happened is I was with a guy and I got three different calls when I was with him. Obviously I can't answer thephone when I'm with someone and the by the time the guy leaves, the people that have called me will have already moved on to someone that is available. So I only had two guys last night, two half hours. And a lot of guys did call, but I'm not very good with the phone, so I think that's a big part of why I didn't do that well.
I have a lot more to say on all this, but I'm tired now and have to read for class. One thing I would like to say is that I think a lot of people (myself included) have this idea that escorting is glamorous and you get to go on dates with hot, wealthy guys and dress up and get expensive presents and whatnot. I mean, has anyone seen The Girlfriend Experience? But to get to that sector of the business you really have to build up your game. A lot of girls really are just working for guys like Tom or posting their ads in the back of the newspapers. And there are a lot of independents, or what Tom calls "weekend warriors" which is like girls working in retail that just decide to post ads for a little extra money on the side. It's really just prostituton by another name. I'm not sugarcoating this at all or trying to give anyone a false idea.
But like I said, I think that there is defintely potential to make a shit ton of money and move up in this industry and become one of those "high class escorts' but it's not something that's easy, like a lot of girls think. Again, I know I'm repeating myself, but a lot of "agencies" are really just one guy, like Tom, and they post ads to make you think you'll be glamorously acccompanying some rich dude to dinner when really you're just having sex in an apartment. Or like I thought some really high class agency would hire me right off the bat. No. I don't think it usually happens like that. And a lot of the girls advertising on backpage are quite attractive. It's a lot of competition.
Anyways, I told Tom I would work Monday night again. Also, this one agency that actually seems pretty legit emailed me and I am supposed to have a phone interview with them tomorrow. They also only charge 230/hr., but half hours aren't an option, like they are with Tom. Also, they have an actual website, which Tom doesn't, and they do outcalls as well and they have drivers. So that seems more promising. Plus they have girls that answer the phones for you. So if I get hired, which I'm assuming I will because they said they like my pics, then I will start working for them.
I think one of the major things holding me back from charging higher prices is my weight. I am definetely not fat or even chubby, and a lot of guys love my body, but I do have thighs and my belly could use some toning. A lot of the premium agencies only hire super skinny girls or girls that really have banging bodies. I gained weight living in NOLA, but if I lose around ten lbs. I would be back to having a really good body and could start charging more.

Right so. I found another agency. Truthfully, I don't feel too great about this whole business, but I figure I have to pay the rent and it is hard to find jobs in NYC. Moreover, if I did manager to snag a job, I would be working my ass off and still barely afford rent. Aaahh the travails of a grad student in NYC.
I am going to be perfectly honest right now: I have not had sex with more than 3 ppl (2 if you only count guys) and only one of those was for a prolonged period of time, the first guy was one time. I am very naive when it comes to sex, so maybe this is not the right line of work for me. But I should at least try, right? I just hope I don't hate myself in a year or get depressed or something. Or get a cocaine addiction.
Anyways, it appears that being an escort is a highly sought after job in NYC; I emailed SO many agencies with my info and stats and only a couple called me back and those weren't even the really high class ones. And I am not ugly! I mean I'm not Giselle, but I would consider myself fairly attractive, well-educated, etc. So I thought it would be easy. I mean, how many girls want to be whores anyway? Well, I guess a lot. Like everything else in NYC, escorting is super competitive.
So the one guy emails me back right after I sent in my info and tells me where to meet him and when I am there I should call him. I am a little wary of this because it seems weird to just hang out somewhere and call some guy so he can meet you. I mean, what if never shows or try to drag me into a warehouse or something? So I take a cab and call him and comes over in a couple minutes. The guy (let's call him Tom) is black, fairly light skinned, bald, 30s, little chubby, and dressed in  light blue botton down dress shirt and jeans. So we sit down to get sushi and he starts talking. He is very well-mannered and well-spoken. He asks me if I have done this before, I say no. He tells me that a lot of people think it's easy work, but not everyone can do it, so I nod and tell him I'm just trying it out.
So we talk and I ask questions. This is what it amounts to: It's an incall agency, where the guys come to you. In an apartment building, so there's only one client at a time (the building is in a nice area, not ghetto or anything). There's only a couple girls at a time working (tonight, just two, me and someone else). He told me this was so the girls can make money, which makes sense. If there's too many girls, no one makes money. The split was 50/50; a half hour is 160 and 225 for an hour. This actually seems pretty cheap to me from what I've heard in NYC, so I am feeling like I am a little on the low end. But then, I am begining to get the impression that to charge extragavant amounts of money or work for a really upscale agency, you have to either be experienced or a model, something like that. Or you have to know people and get references. He says he will call me at 10 tonight so we can go the building and this other girl is supposed to be there. So we'll take pictures and then I can get to work.
Then we talked some more; he told me he started his first agency 14 years ago, then went into the corporate world. Two years ago, he lost his job when the economy tanked and he went back to running escort agencies. He said he gets a lot of requests from girl that want to work b/c they lost their jobs or whatever. Like I said, I never knew how big of a thing this was in NYC or how many girls there were out there doing this. Honestly, it seems like a lot.
So now I'm waiting for his call and trying to read History of Sexuality for my Genderr Studies class which isn't going too well b/c I don't understand any of it and I am wondering if I am supposed to It's making me feel really stupid.

Right, so after a whole day of worrying and wondering and analyzing over whether I am doing the "right" thing, I go down to the drugstore by my house. I buy condoms and Diet Mt. Dew. I think, "Maybe I should buy some lube," but then I decide not to because I go to this drugstore all the time, and I am embarrassed (I am actually quite introverted). So I go back to my apartment. I make myself a very strong drink consisting of Diet Mt. Dew and vodka and proceed to get dressed. I use wipes on my vag, spray on perfume, etc. The only thing I don't do is put on a ton of makeup, maybe b/c I am too nervous. Finally, I get up the courage to call Jerry the Pimp, once I have a good buzz going.
He asks me when I am available until, and I tell him midnight. He doesn't seem happy about this but acquiesces. He then proceeds to tell me he gets around 3 or 4 calls a night. I try not to shriek. THREE OR FOUR CALLS??? That's nothing! So, basically there is no guarantee I will be called on tonight. Ugh. I did not know this; I thought once I told Pimp Jerry I was available I would automatically receive a call/order/whatever it is.
So, now I am dressed up, made up, and liquored up with nowhere to go. I proceeded to email about 3 different agencies with my picture and info, because I have read that escorts can work for many different agencies at once, and now I see why. The last agency I contacted was by phone, because they have a number on their site. An older woman's voice answered and she called me sweetie and told me to call after 9 am tomorrow. I like that she calls me sweetie and that she is a woman. Maybe this is the kind hearted, wise madam I have been anticipating.
See, I was half dreading being called to work tonight, but I kind of pumped myself up for it. And now all that anticipation and prep will most likely come to naught. I mean, if I'm going to take the time and nerves to get ready, I might as well be getting paid for it! In the meantime, I shall be lolling about in bed awaiting a call which may or may not come.
PS. My class went well; everyone seems very smart/serious, but I guess that's how it is in grad school. Also, the only black person there was the instructor haha (I was nervous I wld be the only white person, clearly my worries were unfounded).

OK, soooo I got my pillz. Which explain why I'm up at 3:30 in the morning. Actually I haven't been sleeping that well in general, but I digress. My first class is tomorrow: African American Literary Crit and Theory. I'm super excited! I bought most of the text books for it and have been reading a couple books to catch up on my African American lit. Beloved and Their Eyes Were Watching God. I really don't want to be the only white girl in there who hasn't read anything of interest to the class.
Also, well, I don't know how to put this, but I've been thinking about being an escort. Not gonna go into details about why. So I emailed an escort agency a couple days ago. Some guy called me. I freaked out, then decided why not and called him back. He said his name was Jerry and he was very (deliberately) vague. Funny, but on the website it said the agency had the girl's "best interests at heart." Haha. I really don't think Jerry gives a shit about my best interests, but whatever. I keep imagining some gross guy in a windowless office eating a Big Mac. He told me it was a "full service agency," (love the pseudonyms) and asked if I was OK with that. I said yes. Then he told me he would call me and give me the name and number of the meeting place, and I was to call him when I got there. It's a 60-40 money split, so I get 300 if it's 500 an hour. When I asked him how I would get him his share of the money, he told me I would wire it to his bank account.  I told him I could work tomorrow. And that was it.
I was imagining some big todo where I go to the agency (I even had my outfit planned out!) and they interview me and ask me to pose for pictures for their website. And some kind hearted, wise madam explains to me the tricks of the trade. But no, instead I get a phone interview with Jerry the Pimp.
Well, this may be the stupidest idea of my life; I know that I am young and naive. I am aware of that. I am also aware that I may hate it so much and be so grossed out that I never want to do it again. In all honesty, the two scenes that keep popping into my head are that of Christian Bale in American Psycho mutilitating prostitutes, and images of Cops, where policemen bust into a hotel room and arrest everyone on site. Comforting.

OK I have a confession to make. Not that anyone really reads this so I'm not really "confessing" to anyone except myself. But I am feeling like I have an addiction to Adderall. Or Ritalin or Vyvanase or even the Daytrana patches (basically all ADD drugs). And I know for a lot of people Adderall is synonymous with college students cramming for finals, not like cocaine or even painkillers or Xanax or whatever. Most people know it as just a "study drug."
Well that's how it started for me. I was in my second year of college and I had a  waitressing job where I wouldn't get home some nights till 1 or 2. And of course being the overacheiver that I am, I was taking a full course load with the hardest professors I could fnd and the hardest classes. If a professor was mean or hard or whatever, then I had to take him.
So anyways, one night I had gotten home from work and was freaking out because I had a paper to write and I hadn't written it. Something like that. I'm pretty sure the class was Latin American history. Anyways, I'm freaking out, and I was friends with this girl; she was this hippy chick that ended up dropping out to go white water rafting. Really smart and cool and not like my usual friends. So I was freaking out to her and she says she knows this guy that can sell me Adderall to help me stay up.
Well up until that point I had never even smoked weed. Maybe one time. And I had done cocaine one time. And that was it. The only thing i did was drink. I didn't even smoke ciggarettes. But I was desperate to finish my paper so I said OK send him up. So she called up her friend and I bought a couple pills off of him, really low dosage. I remember going into the bathroom at the end of the hall and feeling rebellious and a little scared b/c like I had said, I had never really done drugs before. So anyway, I took one of the pills and within minutes I was feeing wired, like I could totally take on this paper, no problem! So I finished the paper that night and felt great. It was awesome! I felt totally motivated to do my schoolwork, my brain was on overdrive; it wasn't a chore to do my hours of tedious schoolwork anymore!
So that whole year, I kept taking Adderall to study. But I would only take it when I really needed it, like when I had gotten off work at 2 in the morning and had ten pages to write or when I was on debate team and had a major case to research before a debate. It was really like an emergency only type thing. Then the next year came and I started taking it again, only this time I was also studying for the LSATs to go to law school, so I started taking it more often. It wasn't like an emergency only type thing anymore, it was more like I have a big paper to write, I'll just pop an Adderall. Or I have to study for the LSATs, I'll take an Adderall. And I loved it. I remember being at the library until 3 or 4 in the morning during finals (I went to the big university library which was open 24/7 during finals, I know I'm such a nerd) and being on this great high, just studying way late int the night and feeling super productive. And then on top of that I would buy a huge coffee and Red Bull at the 7-11 across the street. Crazy, but like I said, I loved studying so late and then driving back hometo my apartment at like 3 in the morning, just coming off the high. It was very solitary and isolated coming back home, but I liked that. I was wayyy into school, so I never did any party drugs like coke or Ecstasy, not that this matters, but to me, the Adderall use justified itself because I was using it to further my education, just like my parents wanted, and to get into law school. I was using it to become succesful. It wasn't like i was taking some party drug to get fucked up; I was being productive, so it was OK. So, by the end of the year, my last semester, I had basically started relying on the drug just to study. I think a lot of this wasdue to the fact taht it was my last semester and I had already been accepted  to law school, so I was just kind of trying to finish up the school year. But yeah, I had gone from using it for emergency only situations to just doing my schoolwor stuff that I didn't technically need it for.
Anyway, I moved to NOLA to start law school. Like you must have figured from reading this thing, I never ended up going. I decided law school wasnt the right path for me, at least not at that young of an age (I was 21 at the time, graduated a year early), so I took a year off and waitressed at the strip club. Ironically, working at the strip club I wasn't doing Adderall.
Sometimes, though, what i would do is steal Concerta from my roomate. You see, my roomate had ADD and was taking Concerta, basically this really shitty drug that didn't do anything for me. It was nothing like Adderall, but it was the closest thing I had. It would make me get a high and get me pumped for work when I was doing my makeup, but after the first couple hours of my shift, it would wear off and I would get really tired and irritated. Sometimes I felt like I was better off without the Concerta, but I would still steal it sometimes. I think part of the reason was mental, honestly. I felt like if I took it I wouldn't get tired, but really I don't think it made that much of a difference. So anyways, I couldn't get my hands on any "real" ADD drugs, but I still wanted them. So after my year in NOLA, I moved back home before going to NY. I called my old drug dealer, the guy that had originally sold me my first Adderalls, and asked if he had any. He said no, but called me a couple weeks later and said that his friend had some Vyvanse. Vyvanse is this new drug on the market that is manufactured by the same company as Adderall but has some chemical differences, plus it lasts a lot longer (like 11 or 12 hours).  So I had never taken any Vy but ended up buying the 14 pills off of this kid because I hadn't had any actual ADD meds for a year.
I bought the Vy right before I visited NOLA for a couple weeks; I went back to say hi to everyone, dance, and make some money before moving to NYC. I figured I could take the Vy while dancing and it would get me pumped throughout the night and give me more energy. I was definetely right! Remember, in NOLA strip clubs and bars can be open as late as 6 in the morning or later. So,anyways, I took the Vy before work and it helped so much. I was always pumped to be talking to these guys and if someone rejected me, it was easier for me to brush it off, because the Vy (and any other ADD drug) makes you feel like you are awesome, king of the world. If something bad happens, it's easier to just let it go. After dancing in NOLA, I came back home and still had a couple Vy left, so I took them when i was at home hanging out. Before, I would always save my Adderalls for academic stuff, but not i was just taking them to feel good during hte day.
So, as everyone knows, I moved to NYC. Lemme tell you, it hasn't been easy. I don't know anyone here and it's lonely, I don't have a job and school hasn't started so it's hard for me to meet people. Anyways, my friend called and told me he had some Vy last week, so I sent him the money for 20 pills in a bday card and he sent me the Vy on Monday night, I'm pretty sure. Now before someone calls me stupid for giving the money to him b/f I got the drugs, I trust this guy. I've known him for awhile and we talked for a long time after he called me to tell me he received the money. I'm not worried about him fucking me over, but I'm just freaking out b/c what if the Vy got lost in the mail or it got returned to sender or whatever. I feel lilke I'm going insane, I checked my mailbox three times today, even though he only sent it on Monday but it's Wenesday today. I feel like I should've gotten it today and I'm freaking out! I just really want my Vy b/c I feel like once I take it I will be not so lonely and be able to get my ass off the bed and walk around and be productive and help me write. I'm working on a book right now and the Vy really helps me with that. But I am soooo nervous b/c I am scared it got lost or something and I'm not gonna get it. And so I've confined myself to my apartment, just lieing on my bed for the past couple days, eating and being gross and just waiting for the Vy to come in. And yes I know I sound like a crazy person but I can't help it. I think part of it is that classes haven't started yet so I don't really have anythin to focus me at the moment, but literally last night I stayed up ALL night wondering if i was gonna get the package, then I came downstairs and checked my mail at 8, 11,  and 12 and no package. And now all I can think about is what if it got lost, even though he sent it on Monday night. But still! Usually packages take only 1 or 2 days to get to NY from PA. And plus, he told me that on the package he labeled it his "his name, in c/o my name." See, c/o means "care of" so in case someone notices there are pills in the package, it will look like he's sending the pills to himself in "care of" me. Pretty sneaky, but I'm getting so paranoid that I'm thinking maybe the mailman doesn't know what c/o means and just sent the package back to the sender. Or like I said, it got lost or something. So yea, I'm freaking out, can't leave the house, I feel fat, and bleegh. I just really want that package to get here and I know I sound like someone out of Requiem for a Dream, but this is just how I feel at the moment. In despair and like the package will never get here. Ugh, had to get that off my chest.

So you know that club in Times Square I was working at? Well not too long ago I just walked out, literally just packed up my shit, changed into my normal clothes, and walked right out the door. Without even paying my house fee....teeheehee I'm such a badass. Not really, but that place was ridiculous.
I was getting ready for work at the beginning of the night, contemplating whether to come in or not. Then I checked online and saw that the biker bar only had auditions Monday thru Thursday, which settled it. Might as well go to work. So I get there, and the house mom, who is this HUGE bitch, tried to tell me my dress was innapropriate because it looked too much like lingerie. OK, first of all, you told me to buy a long GOWN. Sure the dress was a little lingerie-esque, but it's a strip club for cyring out loud, not a ballroom! Second of all, I worked in that dress all last weekend and no one said anything. Truth be told, I think she trying to get me to "rent" one of her gowns for twenty bucks a pop. Well, I wasn't doing that, so she told me I'd have to buy a new one anyway. Hmmm lemme think about that. NO! How can I buy a new anything with the outrageous house fees.
Plus, this is the same mom, the first night I worked, who made me buy a TWENTYFIVE dollar g-string b/c mine didn't 'cover up enough'. I hate this woman. So the night was not off to a good start, and it only got worse. Not a lot of dances, no rooms, you know. By 1, I had made $120 which wasn't enough to cover my house fee, which I hadn't paid at the beginning of the night (and of course, the house mom yelled at me for that as well.) To be fair, I don't think anyone was having a good night, and I know I was doing better than at least some of the girls, but I didn't care. I honestly was just so pissed with the house mom trying to hustle me because of her stupid made up rules (What is she, the strip club fashion police? Btw, this woman wears a fanny pack and is telling me what to wear!) So I went down to the dressing room and put on my clothes. The one girl, this drunk Hispanic chick, kept asking me where I was going, but I kept telling her to be quiet. See, you're not supposed to leave early without permission and defintely not before tipping out, but that was part of the satisfaction for me. I got to keep all the money I made!! Wow, I know, what a novel idea. But it felt good, like a nice little "fuck you" to that place.
So anyways, I changed and snuck out. No one even noticed me leave, not even the house mom. I walked right past her; she was reading a book! And I think the bouncers thought I had gotten permission. And once I was on the sidewalk, it was SUCH a good feeling. Free at last, free at last! It really felt SO good to be out of there.
So I went to sleep for a couple hours and kept having these nightmares about the guido managers hunting me down and banging on my door, demanding their house fee. Or that I was in the club and kept trying to run away but the bouncers kept carrying me back in. LOL
The new plan is to audition at the biker bar until I can get a nice waitressing job. I really don't think dancing is for me, especially in these ridiculous NY clubs. The only place I would dance is my old club in NOLA ( or maybe the biker bar b/c it seems cool and laid-back).

So I'm scheduled to work tomorrow, but I'm thinking of changing clubs. The thing is, I hate that my money is going to the house; I hate it. I'm working my butt off just pay some fat greasy manager and the house mom. Like what the fuck does she do? Give the girls Motrin. Oh great, I can get some at the drugstore. I mean, the DJ, I understand. He plays the songs, but $150 to the house seems ridiculous to me. And I get that the rationale is that you're supposed to make more money in Times Square, but part of it is also the principle behind it. It's like if you were working retail, and the first four hours of your time you didn't get paid. That's really how I feel like, because my first TEN lapdances are going to cover costs.
The club I danced at in NOLA never charged house fees as long as you put yourself on schedule once a week. What this means is that you told the club you were gonna show up one day a week from 7 pm to 2am. You could stay longer, but you HAD to put in your seven hours and not be late. If you stuck to this, then the rest of the week you didn't pay rent. And we didn't have a house mom, so the only tipout you had to give was $15 to the DJ, and he didn't even count it. If it was a slow night, he'd be very understanding and let you make it up to him. And if you got a champagne room, then tipping the host was OPTIONAL. A lot of the girls didn't even tip hospitality. At my club in NYC, you have to tip the host, even if you do a 15 min. room. I mean, I feel like I'm being sucked dry by bloodthirsty piranahs.
So anyways I was talking to this one girl at work. Gorgeous, blonde hair blue eyed Russian. She was hired the same as me and is having the same problem. She can't make money because of tip-out, but she mentioned she used to work at this place in Queens, I think, where tip-out was only $50 and she could walk with $500.
So I went home and researched and there's a bar in Brooklyn called Pumps. It's actually a divey biker bar; apparently motorcycles hang from the ceiling. This actually seems cool to me. As clean cut as I seem (and I actually am pretty clean but) I love dive bars and wouldn't mind at all working in a biker bar. In my experience, people at dive bars are super friendly. So I called there and they don't have any house fees, which is awesome AND you don't have to wear the stupid long gowns that make you look like a slutty prom queen. So basically I can wear whatever I want and no house fees. This means I get to keep all my money. Awesome! And this is funny: apparently they have just one "champagne room" that says you can buy your lady her favorite bottle of champagne for $20. Hahahaha TWENTY BUCKS. Must be some pretty awful champagne. But anyway, I digress. It seems like a pretty chill place and I bet the money's not bad.
See, before I started waitressing in New Orleans, I used to waitress at this really divey titty bar/restaurant in Virginia. I made good money there, AND it was easy. Like I didn't have to hustle and I didn't get pressure from the managers to "upsell" or anything. Guys would just tip me lots of money, and I was just a lowly waitress. My first night working I made around $200 without a clue as to what I was doing.
Then when I started working in New Orleans, I worked for a big corporate club with big corporate rules. It took about a month for me to make any sort of money, and I had to hustle my ass off to make it. Plus, there was always a lot of pressure from management to upsell and sell bottles, etc.
Basically my point is that I don't care how classy a club is or how fancy the "gowns" have to be, if they're hell-bent on sucking my money out of me, I might as work at the unclassy biker bar, ya know?
I might try it tomorrow and see how it goes.

I think when you are a stripper you always have certain customers that you remember, that stick out for you even after they are long gone.
For me, that one customer that I remember was this big fat guy; I think he was from Boston. I was actually waitressing back then (remember, I've only been taking my clothes off for total, not even two weeks). Anyways, it was a Thursday night, and I remember this because the last Thursday of every month the club I worked at had Taboo Night. What this meant was that the employees and dancers had to dress up in "fetishwear," for the strippers this meant big black plasticky looking boots with buckles and black lingerie sets. My taboo outfit was a black pleather skirt with a zip that went all the way down the front and a red corset. I'm not trying to sound vain, but I looked hot in that outfit. In the back, the club set up a stake that the dancers could get tied to and whipped. One time there was even this latex thing that customers and dancers coud get sucked into or something so they were being suffocated. I don't know the exact dynamics of it. And we had drink specials with names like Tie Me to the Bedpost or Liquid Cocaine.
So, it was about the end of the night and I had a hoodie over my red corset because it was cold, and I was getting ready to clean up. The hoodie was pink and had the name of my undergraduate school on it. Not very taboo, right?
This guy sits down in the back. A stripper, her name was Wenesday, after the Addam's family, sits down next to him. Wenesday is goth chick hot, like super skinny and pale with tons of tattooes and flaming red hair. I go up to the table, ask what they would want to drink. Wenesday orders her usual, Tequila Sunrise with Patron, and the guy orders two of something, I forget what. So I bring the drinks back and he gulps them down. Like literally downs the two drinks in a matter seconds, gulpgulpgulp without stopping. I just stare at him. Then he starts talking to me about my hoodie. The name of my alma mater is actually a fort that George Washington lost in the Revolutionary War. So the conversation goes something like this:
Him: "You know that Fort ____ was actually one of George Washington's losses during the Revolutionary War?"
Me: "Oh yeah, I think I've heard something about that. It's actually the name of the school I went to. This hoodie is from there."
Then he starts telling me about the Revolutionary War. I tell him I was actually a history major in college. By this time, I am sufficiently interested in him to sit down and talk a little about history. Now, when I was a waitress, I usually never sat down and talked to customers. I figured this was the stripper's job, and I would rather make money slinging drinks. But like I said, this guy was actually fairly interesting, and it was the end of the night, so I figured why the heck not.
Wenesday is listening to the conversation, occassionally adding something, but mostly it's just me and him talking. Then Wenesday gets called to the stage. By this time, I can tell the guy really likes me, and I'm thinking I can make some money off of him. Some other late night customers trickle in, and since I am the only waitress, usually I should spring up, greet them, and serve them their drinks. But I don't, I sit and talk to Mr. History Buff. I get up and brink him two more drinks and he gulps them down, one after the other. I tell him this is impressive. He says it's not and he's actually an alcoholic. "Oh," I say, a little awkwardly.
Wenesday gets off stage and sits back down at our table. He practically forces another Tequila Sunrise on her. By this time, he is telling me he loves my eye makeup and keeps calling me a "raven-haired beauty."
Rachael comes by our table and taps me on the shoulder, whispers in my ear. "Hey you have customers coming in. Go take care of them, then you can sit and talk."  But then someone, Wenesday or the guy, mentions doing a room. And then it becomes clear to Rachael that the guy reallyreally likes me. So of course, fuck the other customers. Rachael, Wenesday, the guy, and I all troop into the elevator to take us up to the VIP floor.
We get off and the first person we see is the VIP host, Drew. Drew and Wenesday used to fuck, which is something that Wenesday mentioned to the guy when we were on the first floor. The guy then mentions this to Drew, says something about him being good in bed. Everyone immediately freezes up, Drew says "Oh god," and leaves (because it is clear now that he can't do the tour), and Wenesday has this look on her face like ohmygodican'tbeleivehejustsaidthat. So Rachael does the tour and I kind of hang back.
The guy chooses to do one of the more expensive rooms, with a $300 bottle of Absolut. I get him to sign his reciept properly, scratching him on the back while he calls me his "raven-haired beauty." He tells Drew that he is gay, insults a regular standing by the bar and tells him he looks like David Crosby. "Fuck all of you, the only one I like is her," he says, pointing at me. Then he points his finger at Rachael. "And I don't trust you. You like like Dakota Fanning."
The guy is a trip and clearly hard to handle. The only one he likes is me. Rachael gets him to buy around 8 $30 shots of Patron Platinum and adds a couple Red Bulls on his tab without his knowledge for us to drink after he gets into the room. By now, with the room, the bottle,and the ultra premium shots of Patron Platinum, his tab is around $2,000. "I'm doing this for you. This is all for you," the guy tells me after signing his tab, as though I am going to marry him because he's spent a fortune on overpriced alcohol and strippers. I get a commisson off of the bottle, but the VIP bartender is the one that rang up the Platinum, so she is getting the automatic gratuity off of the shots. And Wenesday is getting the funny money from the room. I am irritated because I am the one he likes best, yet I am making the least money. And I am too polite to tell him to tip me, so he doesn't. Doesn't tip the bartender either.
As Rachael rings up the extra Red Bulls, Shay, the funny money girl, whispers in my ear. "Oh god we are going to stripper hell. Hell probably has a pole where we can spin on, made just for strippers." The guy and Wenesday go into the room, and I stay upstairs because I figure I can maybe make some more money. By this time, Rachael is happy with me and doesn't really care that there isn't a waitress to clean up downstairs. So after a while I wonder back into the room.
The guy perks up. Wenesday, releived, says, "He's been asking for his raven haired beauty this whole time." So I sit with them, hold the guy's hand. Wenesday pours me some Absolut as the guy tells me how much he likes me blahblahblah. I get drunk and Wenesday leaves, but Rachael tells her to go back in because waitresses aren't supposed to be alone in a room with a customer. Then the hour is up, and Drew comes in. "Do you want to go again?" The guy looks at me. "Whatever she wants." So I nod yes, and Drew asks what kind of champagne we would like. Again, the guy defers to me, so I tell him Krug White Label, the most expensive champagne we have. This time, my commission is significantly larger because of the bottle, and Shay forces him to tip me $300.
And somehow, Rachael has convinced him into paying both Wenesday and Fiona, another stripper, to stay in the room with him and me so I am not by myself. Weneseday leaves after a little, but Fiona stays. All three of us are trashed off of the champagne and the Absolut. The guy keeps asking if he can watch the movie Gladiator on the TV in our room. Fiona tells me I am the queen bee. I like Fiona a lot; she is queen of the strippers and will make money no matter what. I run out of the room to see Rachael getting off the elevator, holding a plastic bag filled with takeout containers from the bar around the corner. She has bought us breakfast, consisting of corndogs and fries, because it is 8 in the morning and her sales as manager tonight are through the roof because of this guy. "Rachael," I run up to her, giggling hysterically, "this guy is in love with me." I am ecstatic because of the money I have made and the alcohol and the fact that I have made Rachael money. "You're drunk?" she asks me, but not disapprovingly, with a tiny smile on her face. I run back to the room with the food and we eat it. Funny enough, I only take off my top one time in the room, when I straddle the guy for a couple second and shove my boobs in his face. The rest of the time, I am fully clothed and wearing a baggy college hoodie.
 After, Fiona tries to get me to get the guy to go again, but he is too drunk by this point and can barely stand. Shay tells me to hide in the stairwell so the guy can leave, because otherwise he will keep talking to me. Fiona and I check out with Rachael, and Fiona gives me a hundred dollars of her funny money, becuase without me she would not have made this much. Fiona is always fair.
Fiona, Drew, and I walk out into the bright New Orleans sunlight and Drew gives us a ride to our cars. I wake up that afternoon with a hangover and a tummyache because of the fries and corndog, but I am happy, pleased with myself.
Later that night, I am at work again, and the guy shows up, sober this time. He orders a bottle of water from me and asks if he can take me out to breakfast. Tells me he like my eye makeup again. But I shake my head, say I don't meet guys outside the club. He is disapointed, gives me a twenty and tells me to keep the change for the $7 bottled water, and leaves.
And that is one of those guys that I will never forget.

Well, I'm back and I'm bored. I don't have a TV in my apartment, and the only book I have that I haven't read is on the genocide in Darfur, and I don't really feel like making myself more miserable, so I am going to write. Maybe it's good that I don't have a TV, this way I can focus more on my writing. Tonight the topic of discussion is.....liking girls.
Now, I am not a lesbian, maybe bicurious would be the better word? Let me explain. When I graduated college, I was 21. I had never had a boyfriend, never had sex, and had only seen a penis maybe two times. The only contact I had had with a penis were two  (seperate) drunken encounters where I tried, unsuccesfully, to give someone head. So, there I was, little naive girl with pretty much no sexual knowledge and really no burning desire to gain knowledge. I wasn't really that interested in guys. I think part of the reason was because I was very focused on schoolwork.
Upon graduation (and withdrawing from law school), I found a job waitressing at a strip club. For the first time in my life, I didn't have school to occupy my every thought, and I was basically bombarded with sex. Working in a strip club 40 hours a week, you have no choice but to think about sex; it's thrust upon you, it's your livelyhood . Sex is everywhere in a strip club. So naturally I started thinking about sex. And it just so happened that I became aware of my sexuality and my sexual needs (I really don't mind to sound like the Vagina Monologues here, but this is what happened) in a place filled with attractive naked women. And not only that, but in a strip club, everything is very touch oriented. To get someone's attention, you scratch their back. To say hi to someone, you squeeze their boobs.
So anyways, I had this manager. Her name was Rachael. I remember very clearly the first time I met her; it was when she hired me. I didn't think she was attractive. I remember sitting at the darkened bar, and I watched a pale woman with straggly somewhat greasy shoulder length hair, streaked with blonde, approach me. She was wearing a long white skirt and white tank top and covered in tattoos. I remember thinking that she shouldn't be wearing white because it blended in with her pale skin. Really, my first impression of her was that she was just kind of blah. I tried smiling at her and acting preppy, because this is how I thought a strip club waitress should act, but she just kind of looked at me like I was retarded. So I stopped smiling.
Rachael was kind of a bitch to me at first (or maybe she was just being Rachael), but I noticed over time, how I would go out of my way to be alone with her. For example, at the end of the night, I would change out of my uniform veerryyy slowly so that I was the last one there and we could be alone together when she ran my checkout and I handed her my money. Or how I would always try and get her to sign my credit card receipts for me, instead of the other managers. Even when she would write me up for doing something wrong, I was happy that at least she had noticed me. Eventually, I faced the facts: I really really really liked Rachael. And once I came to terms with this, I became kind of obsessed with her. Like I thought about her all the time, and when she was talking to a dancer or employee, I would get depressed and jealous, because she wasn't talking to me. When she played with my hair (not in a sexual way, just in a normal strip club touchy feely way), I literally could not concentrate on what I was doing at the time. I would try and sell champagne to customers so that she could tell me I had done a good job. I had it bad. And I was delusional. So delusional that I convinced myself Rachael liked me back, but couldn't do anything about it because she was the manager.
I had never liked a girl before (maybe had one or two "girl crushes" like when you idolize a girl in your grade, which I think everyone has had at one time or another), and so this was totally new to me. But I figured, hey, this must be why I've never had an interest in guys; because actually I like girls! So fast forward to December. We had this Christmas party for all the clubs which our company owned. I got shit faced, and there was this dancer there; her name was Natalia aka Leah. Long story short, Leah and I ended up going back to her place and having sex. I genuinely beleive this would not have happened had I not been so infatuated with Rachael and convinced myself I was a lesbian. We ended up having sex a couple more times after that; she was more into it than I was.
Later, I started having seeing this guy I worked with (the first time I had every been intimate, both physically and emotionally, with anyone) and I finally ascertained that I do, actually, prefer guys. However, this is not to say that physically, I find girls less attractive than guys. I think there is a reason the female form is the most copied form in art. . Or, there was an exhibit at MOMA featuring a naked man and naked woman standing opposite each other. 80% of musem goers, both male AND female, chose to look at the naked woman over the naked man. Aesthetically, girls are more pleasing to look at than guys. I mean, penises are not cute. They are wrinkled and dangly and have two purple squishy sacs attached to them.
And what happened with Rachael? Nothing. It turned out, Rachael did not harbor the same obsessive desire for me as I did for her. I eventually came to terms with that and moved on. But would I still sleep with her if given the chance? Abso-fucking-lutely. The more unattainable a person is, the more you want them. And I will always harbor a soft spot for my tattoed, surly manager. THE END (PS this story is excellent to tell to customers at work. They will always go for a story about girl on girl action)

Wow, I was drunk when I wrote all that last night. Now I'm sober and depressed. I feel very alone in this big city right now. Which is ironic, because when I was younger, all I wanted to do was move to NYC.
I was living in New Orleans when I found out I had been accepted to a school in the city. Of course, my immediate reaction was to run around the house yelling and call my mom to tell her the good news. And everyone told me how lucky I was to be moving to the Big Apple and going to such an awesome school. The thing is, I was happy living in New Orleans. I waitressed at a strip club on Bourbon and loved my job. I loved the city, loved my friends, and I even had a guy I was somewhat seeing. But everyone told me how lucky I was to be leaving my paltry waitressing job for a master's program. I didn't tell them that I was happy waitressing and that I didn't really want to leave. And I guess in the long run, I did the right thing. I mean, I can't be a waitress forever, right? But now, I really miss New Orleans, I miss my friends, and I miss my job. I feel very much alone here, and as much as I like to tell myself how self-sufficient and independent I am, really, I think everyone craves human companionship.
To top matters off, I don't know what I am going to do about money. My parents are helping me out, but the amount they are giving me doesn't even cover my rent. Like I said, I've been stripping for the past couple days, but it's hard to make enough to cover base rent AND have a good amount left over. I know I need to be more aggressive with the customers, hustle them more, but it's hard for me to do that. I know what I need to say to them to get them to spend more money, but something in me inherently prevents me from doing so. Probably my parents teaching me to keep my head down, work hard, and be humble. And I still have some of the shy, bookish highschool loser in me that is too sweet to try and take these guys for everything that they're worth. I think part of the problem is that I see them as actual people, not just dollar signs. And when I do that, it's hard for me to be aggressive and coerce them into doing something they don't want me to do. I don't know. Maybe I care about what they think too much, I don't want them to see me as just another money-hungry stripper. I'm too nice.
But if I am going to make a living doing this, then I have to say to that person inside of me, that shy sweet girl, to shut the fuck up and let me do my job. Let Francesca take over. Because otherwise the real me can't pay the rent.
In my depression and self-pitying mode, I ordered a shitload of Chinese food, also not good for my job. Can't have a beer belly hanging out over my g-string. Bleegh. Next time I work is Friday. Hopefully it will be better.

So, here are the basics. My name is Francesca, I just moved to New York City to start my Master's, and I am trying to make it as a stripper in NYC in order to pay my rent/tuition/groceries/whatever. I stripped for about a week in New Orleans in the club that I used to waitress at for a year. Dancing in NYC is alot different than dancing in NOLA, let me tell you.
But whatever. More on that later. Actually I got off work not too long ago, ate some Ramen, and I'm drunkkkk. It's my third night working at the club I got hired at when I first moved here, and it sucks. Mostly because of the house fees.
You see, dear readers, strippers are "independent contractors," meaning they are not employees of the club they dance at. They don't get paid salary and usually are not required to stick to a specific schedule (a lot of dancers will dance at one club and the next night dance at a different club). They are self-employed; independent contractors. Therefore, they are required to pay the club they are dancing at a base rent in order to "rent" the club for the night so that they may ply their services at aforementioned club.
And in NYC, base rent is insane (tonight, a Monday, it was $150). And that's not all. After the $150, dancers must tip the DJ ($20), house mom ($10), and VIP host, if the dancer is luck enough to sell a champagne room ($20 minimum). And THEN there's the fact that I take a cab to and from work, $13 there, $13 back.
Soooo, back to me. Tonight, my third night, I did around 5 lap dances at $20 a pop. Then I did a 15 minute room where I got paid $80, plus a $60 tip. Including a $5 tip, I made around $250. Not bad for a Monday, eh? Think again! I gave around $200 of my money to rent, tipout, and my cab fare. So basically I made around $50 for eight hours of grinding on guy's cocks, shoving my tits in their face, listening to booorrring stories about whothefuckknows with an interested smile on my face, all the while trying to breathe through my mouth to avoid the smell of ciggies and beer on the dude's breath.
Is it any wonder I'm drunk? No, not at all. Drinking makes it easier, more fun. So should I stick it out and see how it goes or go back to waitressing? Hmm....who knows, but I'm stubborn as fuck and hate being bad at something, plus I'm getting to know the people I work with, who are actually pretty cool. I'm scheduled to work on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Hopefully I can hustle my ass off and actually make a living doing this. Because I know there's money to be made, I just gotta get good at it.
Anyways, lovies, that's enough for now. I'm drunk, I've satisfied my late night drunk cravings with Ramen, and I gotta go to school tomorrow to get my schedule straightened out. Off to bed I go!