The naked truth in a clothed world.

My mom found this on a crumpled piece of yellow paper in between the pages of a book after my father died. He wrote it while he was living in a hippie commune in Freedom Maine. He was meditating on the principles of buddhism and existentialism. This is what he wrote:

“You are like you are, because you tell yourself that you are that way. If you had a strong commitment, you could change your impression of yourself, and thus, change your world. And in changing your world over and over through the course of your life, you will never be bored, or depressed, or have any of the woes of men descend on you, for you can change what you see as being important into non importance. Your troubles will n longer be cause of inner disharmony, and you can look on each day as great, wondrous and the world as a constantly enriching setting in which you play out your life”.

He has my handwriting.

This is my favorite poem right now, it makes me cry.

Out of the rolling ocean the crowd came a drop gently to me
Whispering I love you, before long I die,
I have traveled a long way merely to look on you to touch you,
For I could not die till I once looked on you,
For I feared I might afterward lose you.

Now we have met, we have looked, we are safe,
Return in peace to the ocean my love,
I too am part of that ocean my love, we are not so much
separated,
Behold the great rondure, the cohesion of all, how perfect!
But as for me, for ou, the irresistible sea is to separate us,
As for an hour carrying us diverse, yet cannot carry us diverse
forever;
Be not impatient-a little space-know you I salute the air
the ocean and the land,
Every day at sundown for your dear sake my love.

-Walt Whitman

I’m back home in Sarasota. All the love is gone. Everyone I love has left. Everyone I know has no love for me anymore. Everything is different, because nothing has changed. I drove past my old club. It’s on a shady stretch of 301, bordered by car dealerships, furniture warehouses and liquor stores. You can see the neon lights coming before you can read the sign. It must have been a good night, the parking lot was packed at 7pm. The sign outside boasts “100 Beautiful girls every night”. That’s a lie. There are never 100 girls at a time, maybe 40, but not 100, and they’re certainly not all beautiful inside out.

I met an old friend (okay.. lover) for coffee for an hour and a half in the rain. I got jasmine tea with honey, my throat is sore and I didn’t sleep much on the plane due to the screaming baby next to me. I have such a strong maternal instinct, my heart literally hurts, my whole body gets tense when I hear a baby cry. I flew over a volcano… or some sort of geothermal activity. It was pitch black, and there was red lava glowing through the cracks. It was over Idaho. I made a bed for myself out of stolen airplane blankets and my backpack and slept on the floor of the Atlanta airport for an hour. I was at the wrong gate though, I should have known with all the nuzzling couples sitting around that the plane was for Montego Bay, not Tampa. I had to run to catch my plane, they changed the gate at the last minute. While in my rush and sleep-deprived haze, I boarded the subway that connected the airport terminals. There were stripper poles on the subway car. I, not thinking, twirled around it and was playing on it in my hemp sandals and grungy backpack looking like quite the vagrant, before I realized what I was doing. It was quite humorous.

I arrived in Sarasota around 9. My mother cried, of course. I stayed awake the whole ride home, amazed that I was back in Florida, in my mother’s car, driving around. Everything looks different, nothing has changed. I got to my house, my little sister and brother were still sleeping at 11, I guess my little sister worked the night before and was tired. I crashed for four hours in my old bed. I forgot what my room looked like. I’m going to stuff it all in a big suitcase and take it to portland with me. Well, at least my old sheets, curtains and pillow cases, some books, acrylics and brushes, clothes.. you know.. everything I couldn’t fit on my first voyage out there with nothing but 2 suitcases and myself. We have a TV in my house. We have lots of them actually, one in my parents room, one in my brothers, one in my sisters, one in my other brothers, one on the patio, one in the livingroom- my room is the only room without one. That’s a total of 6 televisions in a (now) 4 person house- a little excessive? They even got digital cable now. I laid on the couch and watched the Devil Wears Prada, envious of Anne Hathway’s hair and red lipstick, watched She’s the Man and had the sudden urge to wear a red dress, watched Practical Magic and wanted to BE Sandra Bullock. Practical Magic has got to be my all time favorite movie. I never get sick of it. The only part I dont like is when Jimmy Angelo comes to live in spirit form and glows blue, I have to look away.

I drove around Sarasota in my parent’s little red hyundai that will soon be my little sisters, and felt really bad about driving. My first five minutes in the car were a little awkward after not driving for three months, but after that I was on autopilot again, fidgeting with my ipod music transmitter, calling people on my cell phone, adjusting the mirrors, daydreaming– all the things you’re NOT supposed to do whilst operating a motor vehicle. I miss my bike.

The weather forecast looks like rain all week. I guess that means I’ll be in Tampa with my old roommates, probably go to that little kiosk in Tampa that sells those indian sari wrap skirts I love so much and buy a bunch, probably go to Skippers and dance a bit. We’ll see.

Portland, I miss thee already.

I am a therapist. I am not a stripper.

I tell myself this on the bad nights. The nights where the customers are looking for more than naked women. Of course, they usually are looking for more than aesthetic appeal, some nights more blatantly than others

I seem to always get the most lonely people as customers. Sitting back in the private dance area, wearing my red silk dress, my rhinestones, my curled hair, my perfume, I’ll be draped across some lucky stranger’s lap and all of a sudden I become a therapist. I look around at the other girls and their customers and they’re doing one of two things; either laughing and talking and cuddling, or stuck in a robotic non-verbal communicative trance dance. I on the other hand, am always stuck with my eyes plastered to the center of the customer’s forehead, because looking straight in would be too painful. They tell me all their secrets, I tell them mostly lies. I’m not 18, I’m 19, my real name is Jane of course, not Gypsy, just Jane, plain Jane… they love this, except for the ones who get the Closer reference, they just scoff. My customers tell me about their boring jobs, their boring wives, their boring lives, I tell them tales that they’ll never be able to pick apart what is fact, fiction or fantasy- but it doesn’t matter as long as it’s entertaining. I get men who want to whisper their sick fantasies in my ear, I get men who try to peck me on the cheek, I get men who are in the middle of a mid-life crisis involving their wife finding out about their mistress and their children not talking to them, I get men who have all the money in the world- but it doesn’t matter. I get heavy men. Big, fat, heavy men.

I’m finally starting to get regulars at the club. I don’t know if this is a good or a bad thing. One’s name is Jim. He is older- about 60, with soft white hair, he always smells nice- Burberry cologne. He is quite pleasant to dance for physically, he’s not smelly, hairy, spiky or awkwardly shaped, but he is overbearing. He showers me with praise and compliments and likes to whisper sexual fantasies in my ears as I’m giving him dances. I block it out and sing songs in my head to ignore them. Whenever he comes in he buys at least 3 dances, and he comes in for me at least 3 times a week. My other regular’s name is Joe. He is fat, Hispanic and smells nice as well. He is emotionally fine to dance for, no creepy fantasies or mind-games. The only annoyance is his pestering for my phone number, but he keeps coming back despite me not giving it to him. He is not too fun to dance for though, i am constantly having to duck and position myself so he does not peck my cheek. It’s disgusting. I dont understand why men want to kiss me while I’m dancing. It’s not appealing. The third regular is Chris. He’s 22, Asian, works for some computer company and is a VIP cardholder, which means he gets in free. I see him everytime I work and I work sporadically, so he must come in a lot. He will always sit at the rack, his face expressionless, and tip at least $5 a set. He won’t talk to you, smile at you or look like he is interested- but if you ask him for a dance- he’ll always say yes, but he’ll only buy one. During the dances he is completely stoic as well, his arms stiffly on the back of the couch, his head erect, mouth relaxed. He won’t look me in the eye.

Secondly, what I do isn’t even dancing. Couch dances at the Dolphin ?? What a misnomer. There is no dancing involved. A couch dance consists of the “dancer” draping her body over the customer with a pillow in between their bodies, and gyrating to the song, rubbing your cheek against his, giving the customer various up close and personal views of your fully covered body. Some girls just wear bikini tops and spandex pants, but I think that’s a little too close- I need the extra fabric. I bought a silk red dress from Ross for 25 dollars and it works beautifully- my body is about 80 percent covered up and I like it that way.

I am not comfortable giving couch dances. I have found ways to cope with the closeness though. Wearing my double layered silk dress, looking at the customer between the eyes instead of directly at the pupils, and trying to talk more than gyrating are my ways of coping. I don’t see how these men solve their loneliness through meaningless physical contact, but it seems to work- because they keep coming back, night after night, as do I- for different reasons.

Or so I think…I don’t need the money that badly right now. I have a pretty large savings account given my situation. I am financially fine. I am not scrounging around to pay bills, everything is fine, yet I still go back- night after night. Whether it’s to satiate my need for experience as a writer, or to have human contact or some extra money- who knows- but there seems to be something about the club besides the money that is addictive for me as well.