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!