A Job Is

There are a ton (about a short ton, not quite metric) of things I’ve been meaning to, wanting to, almost needing to write about.  Fortunately, or unfortunately, or just plain cosmically, there’s been a lot going on between finishing the collection, running workshops, being back at work, nursing a new relationship, giving other ones hospice care, and keeping my cat from shitting on the rug in defiance of my absence.

Yesterday my friend Stephen said some really resonant things about sex work in his Daily Rumpus email, so today I’m sharing it in lieu of a full-on post.  It starts out of a description of the Q&A at the debut of Cherry, the movie he just directed with James Franco (who I almost got to give a lap dance to!) and Heather Graham (who I met over dinner at my favorite restaurant one night before shooting began!).  Cherry debuted at the Berlin Film Festival, and will hopefully debut in the U.S. soon so I can be vain and go see it.  I’m the stripper who plays a stripper in the strip club scene.  (Breaking down stereotypes like the elastic seaming up an old pair of Body Zone booty shorts that you accidentally put in the dryer.)

Happier

Uneventful work week. Finally made some money last night, so the house tacked on an extra $50 for no other reason than to take an extra 10%, which is really an extra 12% after the 15% they skim off the top for converting “club dollars” into cash. Suddenly, $500 becomes $375 before the 20% they take out of dances.  Luckily most of that $500 was a tip, so I was still able to tip the DJ, Housemom, and my favorite floor host, although not as much as I had originally intended to.  I’m thankful for the opportunity and ability to do what I do, but, still: what a racket!

I scheduled off next week to focus on the 8-12 looks that R___ and I need to finish for the fashion show.  On top of all that, I have costumes to make for my camp’s V-Day gogo dancers, workshops to host at the shop, furniture to get rid of, a garden to tend to, and a motorcycle battery connector being held together by a key ring and a binder clip.  I cut myself some slack Tuesday night after a long day sewing and a longer night at work and spent a lazy Wednesday morning in bed with J____ and her partner.  We grabbed brunch at the diner and then I squirreled myself away in the shop for a couple of hours to work on a corset for the show.  My original plan for tomorrow was a lazy Friday at The Baths with my roommate followed by the first proper mani/pedi in months before dinner and zombie flicks with Frenchie, but it looks like I’ll be hand-stitching Victorian lace and satin covered buttons to a capelet, scrambling for the right lengths of 1/4″ flat steel boning, and then running to the store for spaghetti makings.

Oddly enough, I couldn’t be happier.

Bedposts

“I like that you’re cuddly,” he said. “It seems like your nature.”

We’d been talking about bondage and domination, sadism and masochism for the past couple of days. He wasn’t into it, he said, although he could see the objective appeal. I thought he would make a great top, hoped he’d come around to it. “It’s a lot to ask to be the sub,” I told him, “Doms are incredibly generous by nature if you think about it,” I added, appealing to the nurturing alpha provider ingrained in his masculinity. The best tops are incredibly romantic, I should have told him, the pinnacle of sensitivity.

Venture Capital

Last night my favorite customer sent me a text: “How serious are you guys about starting a business?” I had seen him a couple weeks ago and introduced him to R___. It was the first time he’d danced with anyone else with me, and they got along swimmingly. We talked a lot about the business we’re starting, but I was still surprised and honored to hear last night’s business proposal out of the blue.

Having invested in another creative business in the past, which he is now seeing returns on, he wants to reinvest in another artistic endeavor. Unlike the Kickstarter route that we were going to (and probably still will) employ, this would be a proper business agreement, contracted and all. We’ve recently costed our products and now need to find a sellthrough rate and the distribution avenues that work best for us. What really pleases me is that there are strip club patrons who are able to see us as human beings, neither pigeon-holed sex workers or princesses to dote on (although I’m not opposed to the latter, it has no place in entrepreneurship).  Likewise, I intend to see the people I meet at work as human beings of limitless potential, whether they become fond friends and business partners or are simply that guy who comes in for prime rib every week and tells me about his morning commute.

Yeah, we made that.

No Hanamachi

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I had studied creative writing instead of fashion.  Elliott tells me that the key to writing is practice, and I haven’t written here in weeks.  My last paid piece as Other Me has been finished since New Year’s Day and will be published (online) soon, which leaves me officially not-writing until I get my next approved pitch sorted out.

Thursdays I’m exhausted.  Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays I try to sew at the shop from noon-ish until I have to high tail it to work.  I stop at home to feed myself and my (new) cat.  I’m usually at least mildly hungover the next  morning, but I do it all over again anyway because sitting in the shop’s sunny window is so uplifting, because the dream of R___ and I having a line and small shop of our own someday is so motivating, and not as farfetched as I used to think.

Divining the Mysteries

Sooo… I never got around to writing about the rest of the shibari party J____ and I went to.  Or anything about work over the past few weeks.  Even following the decision to wait a year to apply to grad school, there’s still been a lot to keep me busy between working three nights a week, filling design orders, starting a corsetry business, writing paid pieces, and divining the mysteries of my mid-twenties.  I know — melodramatic whining, all of it.  What I have been contemplating very seriously these days, though, is the nature of relationships, the spectrums of intimacy that they lie on, and the paradigms we tend to operate them within in an attempt to keep them coexisting peacefully.

In a sense, I’m not talking about the single partner/small group of close friends/larger group of acquaintances standard that most people’s social circles ascribe to, but in another sense that’s exactly what I’m talking about.  Why is that the generally accepted structure of our relationships?  How is that fulfilling enough to the majority of people for it to have become the norm?!

I’ve pondered this as I’ve examined my own relationships and the Venn diagram they superimpose on my life.  I’m immeasurably happy within this moment, but concerned as ever for the sustainability of it.  “We don’t ever have to break up!” J____ giggled as the three of us lay in bed the other morning.  “I mean,” she explained, “This is good.  It can keep working forever.”  I hope she’s right, but it’s hard for my mind to be at peace with the possibility when so much of our culture says otherwise.  Even if it is possible, it’s a delicate dance dependent on the right partners for true coexistence; But if it is possible, it’s worth all the fancy footwork in the world.

Juliette

“Do you ever look down at yourself and and just go…’WHOA!’?” I asked Juliette.

She gargled the salt water rinse someone had brought her and smiled from the glass shower, “All the time, Honey. Don’t you?”

“Sometimes,” I admitted, “But I was born with the one I have now. I watched it evolve slowly, otherwise I’m sure it would be a constant shock.” Juliette smiled and told me that if I had any questions about the scene I had just watched her in that her and her partner would be glad to answer them. I thanked her for letting me pee while she showered — we were at a party in a private house with only one bathroom, and the occasion had necessitated the consumption of many cocktails.

I thought again about her “scene”, as I’ve learned to call them, my co-worker J____ squeezing my hand as we sat on the floor in fear and fascination some ten minutes ago. Juliette had been naked in front of us, dominated by a woman who, half an hour prior, had been suspending someone else from the basement ceiling. I thought about the definition of beauty and physical contentment. I realized that in some way, Juliette is more of a woman that I am. That her constant efforts toward the feminine that her body denied her at birth sort of make the fact that she has a penis more curious than gender-defining…

I Took It Apart and All I Found Was…

While I’ve been writing more I’ve realized that I’m not ready for grad school yet.  I think I’m going for the wrong reasons. “Doing something out of fear is never the right reason to do it,” NQB told me Tuesday as he dropped home made matzo balls into the soup pot.  “I don’t know, but it sounds like fear to me,” he said when I told him that part of me wants to be back in school, part of me wants to say fuck it and part of me wants to run for the hills and start a small farm.

“Do you ever really know if you’re ready?” a customer asked me the other night.  We were talking about grad school and he was telling me that despite being a doctor, he still thought most grad school wasn’t worth it.  “Maybe not,” I said, “But you know when you’re not ready.”  We talked about Burning Man and he lamented his business partners all being so stiflingly straight-laced and I was suddenly extremely glad to be young and free, but sad to know in the same breath how little time I have left to be truly unfettered before I have to make plans to take care of Future Me instead of just Present Me.

So I dyed my hair magenta.

Anyway, I have things to sew and a secret advent calendar to take part in (and get in the mail by 5pm) and I want to write more, but then I always want to do more and I hardly ever appreciate what I’ve actually done.  I’ve been making myself take pictures of my life lately so that when I’m feeling underwhelming and it’s getting overwhelming I can take a step back and look at it and make it feel smaller or warmer or more  like whatever I need it to feel like in order for it to be manageable.  This is what it looks like lately:

Would Not (Could Not)

Mondays at the club are “Gowns and Garters” nights.  The girls wear Malibu Barbie versions of prom dresses that could double as swimsuit cover ups.  Some girls hate Mondays or just don’t want to buy a gown.  I like Mondays because they’re quiet and I relish the opportunity to dress up.  My friend R___ made herself a vampy leopard and lace number with a big ‘ol swishing skirt and thigh high slit reminiscent of the drag queens she grew up around in New York.  Now that she’s got a day job, she doesn’t work Mondays, so I wore it with a long brown wig for ultimate Cher-meets-Halston effect.  Most Mondays start off slowly, but end with at least one decent run of dances, or a tip  from a sympathetic regular or two.  Last night I was ready to give up when I hadn’t seen a cent by midnight, not even a tip on stage, but by that time my mind was already amok with disturbing stories and bad energy from earlier that night.

Very Little of Everything

It’s been awhile since I’ve written because grad school applications are due soon, and I feel like I should be working on my manuscript instead of writing about the people I meet while sitting around in my underwear.  Really, though, except for a couple of good days a few weeks ago, my manuscript is at a standstill and I’m almost glad to go to work by the end of the day because I spend my afternoons watching time pass while I sit in front of my computer feeling less and less hopeful.