The naked truth in a clothed world.

I’m really sick of rude men. I know I work in a strip club, I know it’s a breeding ground for them, but why do they have to be so goddamned obnoxious?? I’m not one of those booty-shaking dancers. I don’t shake my ass, I barely know how. I’m just learning how to do the thing where you use your quad muscles to shake your ass, but I dont do that thing where you squat down and shake it, I don’t do that thing where I kneel on all fours and shake it, I dont’ do that thing where you lay on your stomach, lift yourself up, position your crotch directly in front of the guys face and shake it.. I just don’t do it- it’s beyond my comfort zone- and being naked, I have all the authority in the world to declare my comfort zone.

Some drunk guy (who later fell over backwards in his chair- instant karma) said to me tonight, “so when you gonna shake dat ass”. I told him- I don’t shake my ass, I can’t do it . Of course, it was two-for tuesdays and I was paired with the best ass-shaker in the entire club. He thought I was joking with him. ugh.

I like dancing to rock music, slow sexy rock music, high energy rock music, weird ambient trip-hop music, reggae even, anything but RAP and HIP HOP, it doesn’t fit me at all. I like floorwork, crawling around on the rail like a cat, spinning around the pole and being cute. I will never be one of those ass-shaking, pussy in the face dancers, I just can’t do it. Good for them if they can do it, but I’m not one of them.

rant over.

It’s true. I lie. I get naked for strangers and I lie. I lie about menial things; where I was born, what I’m studying, what I did over the weekend- these things have little to no consequence in my opinion. I tell them what they want to hear, I adapt, I become anything and everything they are looking for, and they pay for what they want. Stripping is honest. I know it’s been said a lot, and shot down even more, but it’s very true. Those who say it’s just a cop-out are kidding themselves.

I recently looked up a couple acquaintances from high school on the interweb and was pretty stunned at the current state of their lives. One, who I was very close to and I lived with my freshman year of college, is working at Hooters. She is intelligent, better at math and science than I ever was, and always demeaned my idea of going to audition at the stripclub when I would complain about my minimum wage job. Now she’s working at Hooters.

Hooters is worse than a stripclub, worse than ANY strip club could ever be. The decor is atrocious, orange spandex does not belong on anyone’s ass, and those tacky oversized christmas lights are equally as offending. I will admit, before I made the plunge to work at the titty-bar, I applied at Hooters and was accepted. They require a month or so of working as a Hostess for minimum wage and a very small fraction of tips, before you can be a full Hooters girl. I didn’t really want to work at Hooters, but if I was going to work at Hooters I wanted to work the tables right away and make money, not hang around in the ugly white diaper looking shorts that preceded the traditional orange spandex. I was scheduled to work and never showed up. My ex-roommate apparently loves it. I’m speculating that it has something to do with the free hot wings and fried food she gets to eat, as she’s almost completely carnivorous, a 5 foot tall twig of a girl who never gains weight but manages to eat more than than a football player. She claims it’s fun, and I’m sure it is, but she’s still perpetuating the lies. Hooters welcomes families to come in and eat its factory farmed chicken wings and saturated fats laden french fries, with a side of tits and ass. Despite the blatant sexuality, my roommate still maintains that her job is moral and better than stripping, but I disagree.

I get naked for strangers. I take their money. The exchange is simple, they want naked girls and company, I want freedom. Money equals freedom to me, as an extremely tenecious 19 year old girl living on her own with huge goals, positive manifestation can only go so far.

So here I am, back in Portland, after traveling all the way south, and as far east as I could go and back within the united states. I went to San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Florida. I was going to not come back, but decided to wait until Summer for the europe expedition- cold weather is no fun.

So here I am, in Portland. We stayed at my boyfriend’s friends house for a week, and then finally found an apartment, 250 square foot-ish converted hotel room studio apartment smack dab in the middle of the city. It’s close to the health food store, the tanning bed (I know it’s bad, but I make more money and am happier with sunlight), all public transit, etc. It’s a bit expensive for what it is, but it’s temporary, we’ll be staying here three months maximum. The plan is to get a house with a bunch of people over in SE in the Spring.

I’m sitting here on my couch/bed/futon that I bought at IKEA. I never thought I’d shop at IKEA, courtesy of fictional character Tyler Durden, ironically authored by PDX resident Chuck Palahniuk, but the furniture really is inexpensive and stylish at the same time. I perused craigslist’s endless postings of free furniture and cheap stuff, but I couldn’t find anything that didn’t need a u-haul or pick up truck, of which I neither have or have access to. IKEA it was. I am now the proud owner of a green futon sofa bed, a surfboard shaped retro oak coffee table, an abstract wicker chair, a crazy fiber-optic lamp, some small circular area rugs, a free desk I found in the hallway and a free small 3-drawer chest- also found in the hallway. I have never owned my own furniture before, or had my own place in a lease under my name- so this is a big first for me.

I’m taking two classes in school. Technically, I have not dropped out of college, but emotionally I have. The two on-line classes are extremely easy. I’m taking Anthropology 201 and Geology 3-something. The only assignments required are four tests for each class, and one class requires a weekly blog posting. It’s a breeze. I took 4 practice tests this morning without even reading the book and got 100%. It’s an easy 8 credits, so why not?

Besides having my own apartment (well, my boyfriend lives with me, but I paid for everything, he doesn’t have the privilege of being able to start working as soon as he steps foot in town), and being an official “part-time” student, I’m also planning a tentative schedule: Sunday through Thursday, 5pm-12am. 35 hours a week. If I make a minimum of 30 dollars an hour, that’s about a thousand a week– minimum.

Now the existential dilemma presents itself. What is a nineteen year old girl living on her own with a ton of goals and no plan to do with 4,000/month?? After all bills and expenses are paid, I am left with around 2700 for savings. By July, if I continue working 5 days a week, I’ll have around 14,000 saved up. What am I supposed to do with that? A lot of people would invest it, or get a car, or start saving for a house, or travel a ton and blow it, but I don’t want a car, or a house, and I travel lightly and economically.

So I am left with nothing but the need to make a plan to accomplish my goals. I have so many it’s overwhelming. Here they are, listed in short term-long term.

sew recycled clothes and sell them at the saturday market
move into a house by spring with some cool people
grow a really nice vegetable and herb garden
start uncooking raw vegan living food and invest in a blender/dehydrator to do so
open small business with partner that sells vegan food/organic coffee/tea and is a live music venue.
get accepted to an “alternative” university to study botany, environmental science and creative writing
buy some land and build environmentally friendly living structure(s) on it
stop dancing by age 23, create own business that makes equal amount
grow a huge organic garden on said land, manufacture herbal remedies, soaps, lotions, oils etc.
turn property into a commune (possibly)
convert an old bus to live in and run on bio-diesel, drive down the 101 and camp in the redwoods
get married and have babies (at least 2)
go to india at least once before i die.
visit as many countries as possible.

So that’s the gameplan. How do I plan that?? I guess the first step is finding schools that I would be interested in attending around the area so I have the knowledge to do all the gardening and herb manufacturing I want to do. Secondly, I need to make as much money as possible and go about saving and managing it the proper way. Thirdly, I need to keep a positive attitude and be grateful for everything I have at the moment, because I tend to get caught up in the future and not stay present. It’s very important to stay present.

This is where Elliott Smith died. Strange, coming from the place where he lived a good portion of his life, Portland, it’s easy to picture why he died here. Portland is rainy, dark, cold, yes- but alive. Even though the outside isn’t very habitable or inviting- the people are very much alive- through music, art and passion- they keep going despite the rain. Los Angeles, on the other hand is very much opposite. It’s sunny here- every day. It’s pretty warm for December, 65 degrees. The streets are lined with palm trees and the sun sets over the ocean, illuminating the whole sky- all the way to the purple mountains they never show you in the movies. I think the reason you never see the mountains in the movies is because it makes LA look too natural. Think about it- what movie have you seen that is depicted in Los Angeles that actually shows the huge snow-capped mountains in the distance? None I can think of.

My lover and I are staying here for 11 more days. We’re staying at his parent’s apartment, right by the hindu temple. It’s a pretty convenient location- there’s a CVS, Trader Joe’s, major bus lines, movie theatre, etc all in within walking distance. Of course, walking is a bit of a problem as I have a stress fracture on my fifth metatarsal of my right foot that I attained while walking miles in San Francisco in rubber flip flops and sliding down some stairs. I’m a little predispositioned to foot problems as when I was born my feet were curled inwards like tommy pickles on Rugrats and I had to get them put in casts until I was 2. We got to San Francisco on Tuesday, I fractured my foot on Wednesday, we left on Saturday.. so for the duration of our time in SF, I could barely walk. I managed to wrap it up in an elastic bandage and do reasonably well though. San francisco is a really nice city, if only it were quieter, less populated and less expensive. I loved Golden Gate Park and Haight Ashbury, I think that when we get back from Europe we’ll be living a bit north of SF.

Los Angeles is extreme. There are people patrolling around in their Lexus SUV’s, Porsche sportscars, wearing designer jeans and makeup during the day (as a dancer, I can’t fathom wearing full face makeup if you’re not getting paid for it), while there are also extremely poor people wearing baggy tattered clothes patrolling their neighborhoods in gangs, living in broken down apartments with graffiti on every possible surface, doing speed in their garages, selling drugs to kids. It’s crazy, los angeles is insane. I could NEVER live here. The only good parts are Venice Beach, Santa Monica beach, and the Hare Krishna neighborhood (they have amazing indian food). Other than that, there is no point of visiting. Oh yeah, and Culver Hill is pretty cool too. We climbed this hill/mountain thing yesterday and from the top we could see the ocean, the mountains and all of Los Angeles. Looking from the North side of the hill, it went like this : Ocean, Venice Beach, Santa Monica, Culver City, West Hollywood, Downtown Los Angeles, Mountains. It was really beautiful. It makes me want to go fly in a hot air balloon.

Tomorrow we’re going to the Un-Urban cafe and doing an open-mike night. We’re leaving for Sarasota December 23ish. I miss Siesta Key. Once my foot is completely healed, I’m going to audition at a club here called 4play, hopefully it will be lucrative there.

I have been feeling out of sorts lately, mainly due to the Mercury retrograde, but also due to the circumstances of my life right now. I am enrolled in classes at the University here. The only reason I’m in school right now is because it pleases my family. Last March I went to a music festival in Ft. Lauderdale and picked up two kids my age who were rainbow family. It was my first exposure to the rainbow family, the first time I ever heard about it, and it amazed me that I hadn’t heard of them before as I’ve been hanging around hippies and nomads my entire life- due to my father being a deadhead, listening to jam bands and hanging out on Siesta key. Their names were Wolf and Star. Wolff was a probably 7 feet tall- a giant with a guitar on his back and a big worn out backpack. Star was tiny, maybe 5 feet tall, with short blond dreadlocks with glass beads strewn on them. They smelled pretty bad- like they’d been camping out for weeks, but they had a lot of stories. They had hitchhiked to Florida all the way from Portland, Oregon–and after hearing about the city, I decided I needed to get there somehow.

I was still partially dependent on my parents, working as a barista at a coffee house and taking 18 credit hours in college when I decided it was imperative that I get to Portland as soon as possible no matter what. The only way that I could get out there was through a program at the university I attended that gave a small chance that I could attend a school in Portland for an exchange period at the same price of tuition as the school in Florida. It was perfect. I applied for the program, got all my letters of recommendation, kept my GPA up (I had a 3.97 at the end of the quarter) and waited. At the beginning of May, I got my acceptance letter from the University I’m attending now in Portland. 2 weeks later I started dancing, my plan of escape.

I am now 100% financially independent except for a portion of my tuition. I will be 100% independent if I don’t go to school. It’s really killing me. I don’t want to be in school right now, I want to be out experiencing life, traveling, not having plans, not being stressed, not having deadlines, jumping on trains and planes and buses, playing music with my boyfriend all around the world. Oh yeah and the ironic thing– my boyfriend is rainbow family, and most likely knows the kids I picked up and drove across the state. Everything happens for a reason, and the reason I’m in Portland was not to attend school- it was to meet important people and start a journey. The school part was just the loophole that allowed me to come here, and now that I’m here, I don’t need it anymore.

I’ve been thinking, and it almost seems as if attending University is futile at this point. I have never followed the rules. I have never flowed smoothly along with society. Attending a university after graduating high school is mainstream society’s norm. Getting a degree that has little to do with your future career is society’s norm. I know that whatever I end up doing for a living will be hard, weird, entrepreneurial, revolutionary journey– because I make my own rules. My jobs in the past have been pretty dull, besides the last two that are at completely opposite ends of the spectrum :cashier, retail, waitress, barista, environmental canvasser, daycare worker, stripper.

The reason for all this re-thinking is the re-trograde for sure, but also because I just read an amazing book. It’s called “Radical Simplicity” by Dan Price. The man flunked out of college, took a bunch of photographs for a magazine, started his own zine called “The Moonlight Chronicles”, rode a tricycle across the country, had 2 children, married his high school sweetheart, wrote a bunch of books and makes very enviable simple dwellings in nature. His book was called the Walden of our generation, and while I think that’s a very lofty title to aspire to, his life is definitely admirable. He currently lives in an underground dwelling like a hobbit hole, and has in the past lived in tents, tipis, cabins, and various other semi-permanent outdoor dwellings. He also tells you how to build a sweatlodge and explains how he adds sources of electricity and heat to his dwellings.

After reading his book, I am very very inspired to either a) buy a bus/van and live in it b) make a tipi and live in it c) build a treehouse and live in it. Or, a combination of all three. A bus can be a home while traveling, a tipi is portable and can be permanent, and a treehouse- would be heaven. I went to Powells the other day for FOUR hours straight and went through a stack of books 2 feet high on how to build treehouses and set up alternative energy sources. I think the ultimate alternative dwelling would be a treehouse that utilized photovoltaic panels up on the canopy that wired down the trunk of the tree and into the house, as well as collected water up near the canopy and used gravity to lead it down to the house for bathing and washing. For heating a treehouse… that would be tricky, but i think the best choice would be a wood stove that was installed correctly, in combination with solar heating.

Something like this, with rope bridges connecting a bunch of small treehouses is what I have in mind :

So.. I’m going to make it happen. It would be cool to build a treehouse village in India, or a forest in Ireland-anywhere really green and not too cold.