Long time no see, lover!

Wow, it has been a while since I've posted anything.

Where to start?  Well, at the beginning of the year we left that shitty small town behind.  We travelled South, visiting big cities and small towns alike. We lived out of our car, in a tent, in free parkland campsites and small-fee caravan spites.  We liked a lot of places, but eventually, travel time was over (money was running out, and I was soooo over sleeping in a tent most nights) We settled somewhere.

I started working at a new club.  That went well.  I'm still there now, and I have about 9 month's worth of stories to get down here.

Hubs settled well into his role of stay at home dad, and he is still home with our little one most of the time.  He has literally become the house husband.  Him and bubs have a weekly routine now, and he does so much of the cooking in this household that if he stopped, I'd probably starve.
*Amazing side benefit : I almost never do the dishes nowadays.

Bubs is amazing, I need to dedicate a whole couple posts to her to bring you all up to speed. But for now, the part of my life that I'm itching to write about tonight:

the stripping.

I've been working at the same club since February.  Its one of the most well-known club in Australia, unlike the Northern clubs that I started at.  Its in a bigger city, and its the flashiest, fanciest strip club in that city.  The standards for the girls are the strictest, and it tends to be the busiest club in the strip, on any given night.

Its also the only club I have danced at that requires you to audition first.
What does a strip club audition look like, you ask?

like this:

When I started, it was middle of summer.  Money was better than up North, not as good as Gladstone, but better than my last two regular clubs. Plus, at this place we have the added bonus of being open 7 days a week, which meant any night could be money night.

Then autumn came, and winter.  Things slowed down. Drastically.   However, by working 4-5 nights a week I managed to support us financially, get us approved for a rental home, and save for a trip back home to see my family.  And now its summer again! Yaaaay $800 Tuesdays! Yaaaay $5,000 weeks.  Yaaaay feeling like I am at the top of my game, and in my total element at my home club.  Yaaaay progress!

But it wasn't all sunshine and raining money from the second floor balcony.  And that's where all the great stories come from anyways right?  From the shitty nights where there is nothing to do but sit around and talk shit with the girlies and watch someone get so drunk they do something hilarious. Like fall off the pole.  Many of those to come...

Stick around ;)

What a Strip Club Audition Looks Like

-You show up at the club an hour before opening.  The lights are mostly still out, the door's locked, and the red carpet isn't rolled out yet. This means the alleyway leading to the club looks sketchy and damp.  You wait outside the locked door with another girl or two, who avoid eye contact, and look down at their mobiles, fake eyelashes casting bizarre shadows in the screen light.

-You are let in by a glassy, or a half dressed bouncer.

-You wait around just inside the lobby a bit more.  You aren't sure where to sit, and maybe you make eye contact with the other girls, and smile briefly as you realize everyone's here for the same thing.  Everyone wants a job.  You hope you have brought the right stuff to wear Eventually, dance manager shows up (DM henceforth), the required 15 minutes late, Starbucks coffee in hand.  The other hand is holding....a clipboard? Sexy.

-DM points out the stage, takes the group of you backstage together, and says this:
"One at a time, wait for the music to start, come out in an outfit, show us your moves and get naked, in one song."

(Let me tell you something: It takes bravery to get naked in front of a room full of drunk rowdy customers in a dimly lit room.  It takes steel-encased OVARIES to get naked in a room full of two women holding clipboards with all the lights in the damn place on and the dj watching for shits and giggles.)

But, one after another, you will all make your way out, stumble through a semi-awkward experience, and climb back offstage sweating and grateful that hell yes, its over! 

-Manager arrives backstage as you are dressing yourself back into street clothes, chatting happily with the two girls who had previously been too enthralled in pre-audition nerves to make conversation.  (You three will now share a special bond, having the same starting night, the same audition date, and the same level in the club hierarchy initially.)  Aaaannd....congrats! You all got the job.

-What were you worried about, anyway?

Ants IN YOUR PANTS! And other places.

The other night when Shea (who's stripper name is now officially Monster Bitch - a whole other post) spread an entire pack of wheat crackers across my living room floor and couch, I caught myself staring at this crummy disaster, and wearily thinking "if I leave it overnight, the ants will clean up at least half of it for me". This is not a sentence I pictured myself saying when I pictured future nicki in Oz way back in 2012. At least not daily.  Queensland continues to amaze me.

I've caught myself thinking about these ants quite a lot lately.  Its hard not too. They are literally possibly in every square centimetre of house.  Leave a speck of food anywhere and I guarantee these ants are going to be checking it out.  They love meat. Sweet flesh, any kind, or juice of meat even.  They can smell it from the other side of the house, I swear.  Poison them?  Ok, but their cousins will have moved in within 2 days, tops.  Thank god they're teeny tiny.  They aren't scary in the least and I've never had one bite me ever.   I'm grateful for this, because what's going on here is a forced co-existence.  When I go to wipe the counter-top, I tap it first with my finger, then wait and watch for the 20 or 30 seconds it takes for them all to scurry off.
All creatures, great and small.

But still, it pisses me off when they suicide bomb the honey.
 

The Last 6 Weeks

Well holy shit time has flown!   September's half over and the closest I've come to writing about it was a 2 minute attempt on a borrowed laptop with one big problem: a french keyboard.  Too many switched keys equals a typing mindfuck and I gave up.

First off, let me say that the current economic slowdown has hit the northeast coast in a big way!  Used to making a grand a night, (a figure so SO many girls bemoan) ?  You're happy with far less than that now.  In some places, my earnings have been down by a third, and that's with me actually becoming a better dancer and a way more experienced hustler.  There just isn't the same easy flow cash of the resource boom. The resource boom has banged, and all we are making do with now is some weak echos and a pause, and a hope for another boom as soon as possible.

That being said, this occupation is worth its weight in GOLD to me for the sheer staggering amount of first time experiences.  For example?  This past weekend, I was a proud member of a 4 girl-high stack of nakedness performing "the octopus".  8 waving legs; it was epic.  I was 2nd girl on the tier, but barely registered weight pressing down on me because I was giggling so hard.

The simultaneously easiest and hardest time at work was those 14 days I spent away down South. The money is still easier there, so long as you can actually carry a conversation for 3 minutes. I made a KILLING. The men outnumber the women in that town quite a bit and the miners are especially appreciative.  Its the first time I ever got an "appearance tip" (For those who don't know, as I didn't until then, that's a bit of money just for being there and looking good.  I got $20.) But no amount of money in the world stopped me from missing hubby and bubs.  Spending my birthday away from both of them was sad and difficult, and I won't want to do that again anytime soon.  However, even though 14 days was challenging and felt like an eternity, I'm booked in again on October 2nd, and I'll go back again and again as often as I can in the near future.  Its the best money for time out there at the moment, and with hubs out of work, we need it.

I've met more interesting people than you can shake a stick at, coworkers and customers alike.  The man who tossed doobie-shaped bills rolled and tucked neat enough to fly through 20 feet of bar space.  He would literally launch them from the bar and have them land at your feet on stage.  The stripper who has low self confidence, and self-medicates by visiting remote war torn regions to prove her awesomeness and strength to herself.  Stripping merely bankrolls the travel.   White trash, and high class, the seedy underground draws it all in, and if you stay in the circuit for even a few months, you can be roommates with BOTH ends of the spectrum. Hooray.

Hubs is settling into his role of stay at home dad.....rather uneasily, but I suspected that it would take time.  He's had a moment or eight in the last few weeks as his worldview adjusts, but I know he will survive.   Providing for all three of us and our dreams puts a bit more pressure on me and has caused a bit of anxious pondering on my part, but mostly I try to stay positive and remind myself that even in the worst of depressions, sex always sells.

Aside from that, all I've been doing is knitting like a mad thing for Christmas presents, TRYING to house train and socialize this monster we adopted, and lying to the mother's groups about pretty much my entire current life.  

Actually, that last part has gotten so difficult and guilt-ridden that I've nearly stopped going altogether.  The all mommy talk ends up getting to me after a while and I just want to leap up and announce "so I watched a girl light her bikini area on fire with shaving cream two nights ago, then make 150 bucks.  What'd y'all get up to?"

Fuck This Town

I'm so over this place.  Hubs has his last shift on Friday, we are getting a bit of flack from our semi-senile, shingle covered landlord about Shea being an indoor dog instead of a yard dog, and my phone has been silent for weeks.  I have been away too often to socialize regularly, and I think I've fallen through the cracks.  I just want this place in my rear-view mirror.  I fantasize about a Christmas spent in limbo, camping/touring/stripping our way to Adelaide and back.  I wonder how much we would need to save to comfortably explore some 4,000 km of coastline.  Working away these past twelve days, I earned as much as Hubby would in over two months.  If we were going to be hippies ever in our young days, now is the time.

Out the Other End

Hooray, we all survived the 12 days!! Hubs make it through his first really long stretch of solo parenting (although it hospitalized him in the end. - more on that one later)  I made it through an emotional birthday away from my family and everyone I know, and Shea recovered from her spaying and is a completely different dog from the one I left behind.  No more moping!! She's like a little rip tear machine around the  yard now!  Presley learned to say "Yes" and is honing his "shea shea" which currently sounds like "Yesh yesh"

I have so much to write about after my 12 day adventure.  No internet throughout the time, and no computer access at all means I have like 45 little bullet notes on my ipod I now want to type out and expand upon in more detail.  But of course, that takes time, and today's to-do list is alarmingly long.  I'll get to it over the next couple days.  I'm pretty excited about it actually.  It was an eventful time.  A lot of good stuff happened.

For now, Bubs has just given his "woke up from my nap mum" yell, so I'm off.

Dear Mr. Lovesick

Dear Rodney.
Dear Blondie.
Dear Sweet, Awkward 19 year old.

I think we are approaching this from slightly different realities.  I can't assume to know what your reality looks like, but here's what is going on in mine.

If we met within these walls, in this dim lit thumping box of sweat and music, with the sticky carpets and the stage, when I look at you

All I see is money.

We aren't going to be lovers, we aren't going to exchange digits, or meet at any of the wonderful locations I'm sure this town can offer.  We aren't even really going to be friends, (but I'll pretend to be interested in what you have to say, like a friend would.)

In short, there is no relationship.  Its just part of the fantasy the club offers.  It is not real.  And after this dance, despite whatever wonderful adventures you have offered me, your face will lose clarity, and be gone by the time I shake the next hand.

I hope this helps clear things up for you.

Sincerely,

N