The naked truth in a clothed world.

It is possible to know everything and nothing about a person. These women I work with, my co-workers, fellow dancers, strippers, distant strangers… they let me in and put up barbed wire fences at the same time. I know the dirty things, the juicy secrets, the gossip, the dramatic details- I know where so-and-so’s boyfriend is in jail, I know how many kids you have, I know that your mother is dying of cancer, I know what type of breast implant you have an how many cc’s of saline was injected into them, I know what brand of eyeshadow you use, what bra size you are, I know how old your husband is, I know that half of your hair is fake, I know that you’re Russian, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, Guatemalan, I know that you think your boyfriend is cheating on you with a girl named Sara, I know what you spend your money on, I know how long you’ve been dancing, what kind of music you like to dance to, your favorite outfit….but I don’t know you. These women I work with are so powerful and mysterious and beautiful. They aren’t just dancers, they aren’t even my friends, I don’t even know them. All I know is the dirt. The raw sort of secrets that only spill out in the dressing room, next to other naked strangers who are just like you. We are a different breed. We are open books that only cover the plot and the setting, we are open books without character sketches. We are covers of books, beautifully designed covers, the kind you buy just because they look nice on your shelf. We are nothing like those old tattered books in the library that you know page to page and wrinkle to wrinkle. We’re more like brand new magazines at best, superficial and eye-catching, but only at face value. You know the headlines, but you’ll never read the whole article.

Equals a very, very bad night. Monday night, the moon is waxing, 24 hours away from being completely full and 4 hours away from being totally eclipsed by the shadow of the earth. I arrived at 4:30 pm, intending on working the 5-12 shift, not thinking that the 5-12 shift is much much longer than my usual 9-2 shift. I only brought one outfit, a white crocheted 2 piece skirt set with wooden/cork 7inch stilettos, tons of bangle bracelets and my hair all curly rastafari-like. — very gypsy. very me. very non-conducive to making money in a place where people want to see glamazons with big breasts and deeply tanned and make-up’d bodies. I decided to go with a more natural “me” look, being that it was a Monday. I didn’t even top 200. I worked 7 hours and didn’t even top 200. I only sold FOUR dances. No one was buying. I asked too, most of the time people just shyed away from the stage and sat at the tables while I danced and they watched for free. I had one good stage set. It was when I was at the back stage. I wore my street clothes, I was so fed up with the white outfit I put on my beautiful bohemian/egyptian looking wrap skirt, and a black bra. I went up and whirled around the pole so my skirt flew out in a big circle, and really put on a show. When I started, one dude was sitting at my rack wearing a tie dye, within 30 seconds I had 7 more guys at my rack, complimenting me, loving it. That’s when I got the-best-compliment-ever. “wow, you really know how to do a classic striptease, not a lot of girls do that, they just strip.. but you are so classy” That is what I try to do, I try to put on a show, a peek here and there, and really tease them- that’s the point of stripping anyways- to entertain. I made 26 on that stage set, the most all night. I didn’t get any dances though. I went home for 176 dollars, spent 24 on a taxi, tipped out 20, housefee 15. Horrible.
On the way home the taxi driver told me that Owen Wilson tried to commit suicide that night. The taxi driver was a libra, he had a sticker of the beatles in his cab. He was pretty nice, trustworthy, so I got his card. A good cab driver is hard to find.
There is no way I am working tonight, on a full moon. No way, heck no. I will not subject myself to that environment. A strip club is already an extremely volatile environment- naked women, drunk men, money, power, sex…….add in the pull of gravity and it could be dangerous.

I have a plan. I am going to be a nomad. I’m going to be a real gypsy. Sure, my stage name is Gypsy and I wear tons of bangle bracelets and shimmy my hips around to acquire people’s money and adoration… but the farthest I have traveled is from Florida to Portland by myself. I want to be a real nomad, in a perpetual state of motion. I want to be mutable. I am taking one more semester of school, the semester that actually has classes that will help me in becoming a better writer : Shakespeare, Critical Analysis of Literature, Utopia and Dystopia in film, Women in Rock and roll, and bellydancing. Trust me, they’re going to be great classes. After the semester is over, at the end of November, my partner and I are embarking on a journey. First we will go down the coast of California on a goodbye mission to say goodbye to America, every last beautiful piece of it. He will be seeing it for the hundredth time, I for the first, but it will be goodbye all together. I know that I will never live here again, I know that it’s my time to go. We’re going to go to California to the redwood forest, to san francisco and golden gate park, to venice to say goodbye to his family, and then we’re flying out of LAX and heading for Europe.

I met Mod a month ago in the health food store. He was with his girlfriend at the time, he passed by me and he caught my eye. I walked next to him and went behind him in line. I was buying hemp nut milk and organic raisin bran. He was buying organic pizza. It was about 8 o clock. I dont remember what I was wearing. He was wearing a really cool hat, multicolored tweed. I told him I liked his hat. He couldn’t speak really well. His girlfriend got jealous. We talked a bit, and then he left and I didn’t see him again for three weeks. Just last week, I saw him again walking through the park. The next day I was walking to the bus stop down the sidewalk from my apartment building and he stepped out of his apartment right next to me and was walking to the same bus. It was really, really strange. We decided that we should hang out, and we did. We have everything in common, except for I don’t like water pipes and he does, and I don’t like nutritional yeast and he does. Strange, I know. Right now life is good. I am in the moment, he is in the moment, and we’re going to go to Europe and make music together and change the world.

edit : The direction has changed a bit since I wrote this, but it’s still the basic idea. Again, this is copied and pasted from another blog, to consolidate

I’m working on a book. It’s called “Men”. Obviously. It’s a social commentary from a feminist-anthropological perspective that is part-memoir, part non-fiction social theory. I’m scientifically breaking down MEN, in all aspects of the word. Men vs. Women, MEN vs. the Earth, MEN in society in general, MEN cross-culturally, huMANity at its best and worst. I’ve always felt different than other girls- I never felt like my friends in school were really my friends, because they weren’t. I have always been, and always will be, a loner- because it is my nature. I’ve been thinking a lot lately that maybe I’m becoming asexual- which would explain my awful “luck” and “talent” at building relationships and maintaining them. I cannot even maintain a purely physical relationship that runs solely on biological impulse.

I’ve been reading a lot of Buddhist literature, and according with the teachings, the cause of suffering is polarity- that being, the massive perceived divide between male and female, good and evil, black and white, heaven and hell, night and day- and the desires that are created due to those polarities. To be completely void of polarity would be utopia if you think about it really. Take men and women for example, a man cannot simply exist, thrive and fulfill all their needs without a woman (biologically speaking, social deviances (homosexuality and asexuality) and emotional and spiritual anomalies aside) Men NEED women and DESIRE them to fulfill their needs- raising a family, having children, having a sex life (as socially constructed by MEN). The same can be said for women (biologically, social deviances aside). Even in “socially deviant” situations polarity finds a way in. In lesbian relationships, there is almost always (and I say almost because I cannot speak for all lesbian relationships, solely the two that I have been in) a partner who is more dominant or “masculine” than the more submissive “feminine” one, correct? Even in the seemingly crisp line between good and bad, polarity is there. Priests fuck little boys and murderers turn themselves in to pay for their crimes. In cartoons, the bad guy always ends up having a little “good” in him and there is a happy ending. It’s a classic example of the yin and yang of life.

I am not so adept at maintaining these balances in my life. I try to balance good and evil and end up either being extremely awful or sickeningly sweet. I try to maintain a relationship with MEN, or any sort, and either end up in dead-end relationships that break my heart or use them. There are no shades of grey, no beautifully designed yin and yang symbol hanging from my heart, no lines dotted or dashed… only the crushingly suffocating black void or blinding and deafening white. It has become nearly impossible for me to balance in between the two- despite being born under the Libran sun sign- the diplomat, the justice-seeker, the balancing circus performer of the zodiac.

I have come to the conclusion that the yin-yang is merely a facade, something that the ancients came up with to trick us- so we would be constantly seeking this “balance” and end up forever enveloped in desire and never truly reach “ascension” or “enlightenment” or “utopia”. Like many things throughout history, such as the words in the bible, Da Vinci’s drawings, government cover-ups and conspiracies, the yin-yang, as popular and well-known as it is.. is NOT the answer.
Polarity is not the answer, yet the symbol is repeated countless times in literature, textiles, art and architecture. MEN are meant to be polarized (when I say MEN I’m referring to all of humanity) because the destruction that polarization causes leads the the creation that is utopia. Until we realize we are all the same, we will continue to be black and white and fucked up all over. The answer is grey.

So perhaps the lesbians, gay men and hippies have had it right the whole time. We are all one- or none(Bronner). Maybe love is not meant to be solely between a male and a female, and maybe it’s certainly not meant to be romantic. Love is meant to be universal, not polarized. This whole romanticism has got everyone thinking backwards. Transcendentalism is where it’s at, that is where the truth lies: Henry David Thoreau, Emerson, Whitman; they had it right. As did the second wave of uprising against the norm; Ginsberg, Thompson, Kerouac, Kesey, all the beatnik poets, the hippies of the 60’s- they knew.
Now the third wave of modern Transcendentalists is coming, and we’re having the hardest time of them all because everything is reaching a cataclysm. Our government is out of control, our entire world is at war, the earth is sick almost to the point of being irreversible, Religion versus Politics is affecting us at an intensely personal level, science is making breakthroughs that we once only dreamed about- the world is about to change.

So… that’s a brief synopsis. It sounds a little all-encompassing and overwhelming and random, but trust me, it will come together beautifully.

Is it possible to co-exist with both the root and the product of ourselves? The root being nature, simple living, existing in nature rather than building up walls to keep it out. The product being technology, science, “modern” living, our fast food, fast cars, fast lifestyle that is as far from natural as possible. It is easy once you get a taste of natural to be turned off by our “reality”, because nature is so true, nature doesn’t lie, nature is not debatable, predictable or programmable. After going to “reality” after being in nature, “reality” seems so insignificant and strange, with our neon lights and strip malls, automobiles and airplanes, computers and video games, it doesn’t seem real. I am so tempted to give up this “reality” forever, to abandon the pursuit of getting a college degree, to stop living in an apartment with all the modern “real” luxuries like electricity, high speed internet and warm water. It seems so easy, I’ll keep working my job, make money just to get by, go to festivals, rent a house with a big backyard and cover the walls with art and the backyard with flowers and organic vegetables, be completely self sustainable, take psychadelics, publish some books and have beautiful little hippie babies. I know that this lifestyle choice is not acceptable, that if I gave up my college education I would be looked down upon.. but why? Why am I even going to college when my life goals are easily attainable without attaining a piece of paper that says I studied literature and wrote several papers that received a passing numerical grade?? All I want to do is travel the world, wrote to change the world, and live naturally in the world, so why am I not doing it. Is it possible to live naturally without completely abandoning the “modern reality”, or are the two meant to be separate?