Birthday Blues

Enough! enough! enough!
Somehow I have been stunn'd. Stand back!
Give me a little time beyond my cuff'd head, slumbers, dreams,
gaping,
I discover myself on the verge of a usual mistake.
-- Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself"

Tomorrow my two greatest neuroses (aging and eating) converge on what is, for me, traditionally the most miserable day of the year: my birthday. I don't mean to imply that I'm ungrateful for my life. In fact, I love my life fiercely almost every day except my birthday, the one 24-hour span per annum I am most guaranteed to be legitimately insane and railing against the heart-wrenchingly confusing fact of existence itself. My breakdowns are no joke. Example: I was so stupified with the abject horror of turning 24 I didn't (or maybe couldn't) speak for two solid weeks.

To be pathetically honest, I can't count the birthdays past I have flashed back to my glory days as a competitive eater and, burned out from trying not to hyperventilate or drop to the floor in inexplicable sadness after a night spent with friends, had a midnight fit of semi-narcoleptic despair face down in a huge vegan cake, bought lovingly by my mother *

A well-meaning-yet-delusional relative (the same one who insisted on buying me a tv "in case of emergencies" after four years of blissful existence without one, immediately causing me to spiral into unproductive co-obsessions with "Oprah" and "Lost") who knows I can't handle birthdays recently sent me a care package consisting of a simple white ceramic crucifix to hang over my bed and 140 Oxycontin tablets enclosed with a hand-made card that said:

"Just in case, sweetie! Happy Birthday!".

Awesome. Well, at least I'll have the option of dulling the terrible waves of existential dread in my brain with drugs and religion (none of my relative are particularly religious, so they do their best to accommodate me, hence the crucifix) instead of locking myself in this unused spare-bedroom closet in my home I have been eyeing (I don't really cry, usually, so the best I can do is hide away in a small, darkened space. Just kidding. Pretty much.) :

Actually, since I don't ever take recreational drugs, I'll probably just throw them away or maybe give them to a friend and forget about closets without resorting to any medicine stronger than a nap or two.

Sometimes I invent lame excuses about why I can't bear to see anyone on my birthday, but I can never manage to deliver them with a straight face.

"I gave up my birthday celebration for Lent. It's a pretty paltry sacrifice compared to fasting for 40 days and nights, though... haha, just kidding, I actually just need some private time to have my annual nervous breakdown, but ya never know, this year might be smooth sailing, I have high hopes."

Every ten years my birthday falls on Easter, which was especially helpful when, a newly minted tea-totaler, I turned 21. My friends still thought I was just kidding about not drinking anymore, and were pretty determined to see me drink my weight in tequila just like the good ol' days.

Friend on phone: "Yeah! Let's get you drunk tonight!"

Me: "No way! You're such a heathen, do you think I'm getting smashed on the day we celebrate the miracle of Christ's resurrection? Fuck you!" (phone slam.)

Then I snickered and read Harry Potter books to my 8-year old brother for four hours the way I'd wanted to all along. Bars stay open just fine without me, I've found, and my friends know I love them sober.

Anyway, since Saturday my phone has been randomly erasing my unread texts, which I consider an act of blessed Providence. If I don't read the friendly yet psychologically devastating early birthday "sup!"(s) my opinion is they don't officially exist. Besides me, who really cares if I freak out on my birthday and avoid social contact, anyhow? It's my (perceived) loss, right? I'm grateful people care at all, believe me, but it doesn't help assuage the sting of aging. I'll tell them so.... after *IT* is safely over.

Who knows, tomorrow I may be able to follow through with some of the kind invitations to meet up with friends etc. I have been lucky enough, despite myself, to have received, or I may just sleep all day, half comatose with grief over my emerging crow's feet, white hairs and the paralyzing fact of my creative stasis.

Who cares....

* Why can't I stop eating cake in bed this week? I spilled an entire teapot of constant comment on my favorite duvet, and now, despite my best efforts, I have to replace it. I also recently discovered chocolate-raspberry ganache stains on my sheets. How bestial! I'm not so far gone that I can't--at the very least!--sit upright at a table while I'm binge-eating like a civilized human being...

PS I'd make a lot of money if I went to work tomorrow. Today some of my soon-to-be-regulars shelled out for extra lap dances, bonus! when I told them I'd soon be turning 21 or 19 or 23 (hahaha)-- but I probably should have just worked tomorrow instead-- everybody loves a stripper on her birthday, it seems. Ra.

PS2 It's not facing up to my mortality which makes me so crazy. Death-shmeth, I have a much more significant fear of crumbling into useless decay. Luckily I have a strong feeling that I may die young, which makes me feel a little bit better, believe it or not.

PS3 Getting a Pomeranian puppy would instantly make all this horror disappear, I'm convinced.

PS4 Or maybe I'll be able to behave in a reasonable, sensible manner on my birthday. Finally.

Barefoot In the Park

Last night I had a dream I lost my shoes and walked around Bryant Park barefoot. Nobody seemed to notice, even when I eventually wandered into the nearby subway station.

"Not again," I sighed.

PS Lately I've been weirdly preoccupied with the F Train. I wonder if I should ride it more just to discover the source of the attraction. Maybe I'll find a new hideout or soul mate of some variety...

PS I once sold a pair of my used panties to a craigslist pervert for 75 dollars in front of the Bryant Park F Train entrance. A lot of my friends were doing it, so I thought I'd give it a try. It's an experience not really worth repeating, though. I figure the odds of getting stalked after 3 or 4 such exchanges are about 100%. Who needs money that badly?

Tease/Stripper, wife, ecumenical nun, none of the above, whatevs

"The mind mingles not with the breath, whether moving gently or violently, when it has once drawn itself apart and discovered its own power, and think also of all that thou hast heard and assented to about pain and pleasure and be quiet at last"
--Marcus Aurelius

My messy living room:



I'm so glad I'm finally objective enough to regard a man who calls my virginity "beautiful" and another state or country "home" as a lost cause, romantically-- no matter how undeniably gorgeous, Christian or charming he may be. These things just do not phase me anymore.

Luckily I can now spot a heart-breaking tease a mile away. In fact, I recognize without reservation, due to the extreme level of paraphilia with which I'm psychologically saddled, that I am often a tease also. I finally know better than to date the type of man who keeps me at arm's length, reserving his most intimate, engaging thoughts and experiences for long-time friends from out of town whom I never do seem to meet. I've done it, too, to men who serve a purpose in my life as opposed to the ones who strike me as relationship material. So I'm now wisely avoiding the sort of man who seems to like my innocence only as long as he fancies himself the potential possessor of it-- a resource he can toy with at his leisure. Till my panties drop, perhaps, in a desperate effort to connect with such an unavailable Adonis, which is not a likely event at this point. Even so, I wish all those boys well. They still want the same three things I want in life, just like everyone else.

Anyway, we're all only flawed or selfish when viewed from a limited human perspective-- eyes that can't see atoms (though they exist!) view things at face value and label another person as a jerk when the truth of that person's wholeness remains hidden, or possibly perfection is too vast to be perceived all at once. If I could step back and see the bigger picture, everyone's truly flawless nature would be revealed, so I just take the matter on faith and know nobody is a victim or a predator... we're all equals.

So now I'm trying to feel my way. However, I'm not relying upon the mutable mess of selfish human emotions I used to let rule me. Instead I'm using a deeper divining rod-- a telling sort of vibration that becomes fairly intense when I visualize someone or something currently meaningful in my life; it's an as-yet infallible method which tells me where to focus my energy, The only catch is that I can usually only feel it during meditation. Soon I hope I'll be able to let the particulars of the people and things drop, and be able to catch various vibrations anywhere, though.

My love is free, and unconditional, but from now on I will only flow with a partner who is as much of an open book as I am, or strive to be. I don't shrink from physical affection, especially after I get to know a man well, but potentially making myself a night-blooming garden of disease simply because I've got nothing better to do than be charmed by a handsome man seems to be a bad idea. I want to be tidy and pure, mind, body, and soul and share my secrets with just one man.

Sometimes it gets a little bit frustrating, though. I'm already impossible to fuck, so I have limited patience with the hard-to-get game.

If I count the five most attractive offers (ie intelligent, well-off, handsome, non-regulars) from the strip club patrons and the most interesting random guys from the train or craigslist (more about that tomorrow...) I suppose I was asked on about a dozen dates this week. It's overwhelming. If nobody I like makes sincere boyfriend overtures in the next week or two I'll probably get burned out and bury my genuine sensuality underground again, unearthing a modicum of it here and there, perhaps, as a reserve upon which to draw for method acting at work. I'll be happy either way.

I'm beginning to realize human beings have so many more similarities than differences that I just try to be sweet and have fun with the dating process. I'm ever-aware that the romantic formula I'm after (statistically speaking, the most successful for marriage) is: smitten guy who tries the hardest to win me plus me, pleasant yet detached-- maintaining a degree of emotional distance because I'm confident things are under the auspices of the Divine and can't help but work out well, rather than using my serene equanimity as a hard-to-get ploy. The attractive, honest man who really wants me most will probably get me in the end. Anyway, I can always become a sister at Taize if nobody snags me by 30. Stripper, wife, ecumenical nun, none of the above, whatevs. I have a lot of love to give and, as always, it'll inevitably get channeled in some constructive way and saturate those around me, thankfully-- I'm learning to be more of a giver every day.

Moving on...

I am considering buying some bad-ass, sewn-in hair extensions and getting a fake tan in the near-ish future. I kind of want to try the stripper look on for size and really go for it.

PS I just rediscovered this modest dress-- seems like a good dress for church or a date that doesn't involve teasing anyone:



PS 2 I guess I don't need to go to France to be a sister in an ecumenical community:

http://www.benedictinewomen.org/index.html

Kind of reminds me of Wesley Woods, the secluded Methodist retreat on Lake Geneva where I spent many long, happy weekends as a teenager.

Forbidden Fruit Leitmotif, Vivacious Vivi

"No thank you, Creation,
no muse need apply.
I'm out for good times--
at the very least,
some painless convention."
-- Alice Walker, "I Said To Poetry"

I find it nearly impossible to write and have a job of any sort at the same time. Unconventional as my job may be, doing it well requires that I relegate my more fanciful artistic thoughts and impulses to an obscure part of my brain. Instead, I focus on behaving in a socially prescribed manner calculated to come across as adorable, fun and/or sexy. Hopefully I'll get used to stripping soon enough to get back to a regular writing schedule, for even when I leave the strip club I find myself keyed up and replaying the colorful events of my shift over and over in my mind. During my off time I get no respite-- a thousand distracting thoughts swirl madly and regroup like a swarm of bees without stingers, plaguing me in an amorphous, yet undeniably vexing way.

Inspired by William Blake, Fra Angelico and various Book of Hours-style illuminated manuscripts, I have been toying with the idea of illustrating some of the 60 or so poems I have written since Valentine's Day. However, I must choose one cohesive theme, such as Blake's "Songs of Experience". In fact, believe I will choose loss of innocence and forbidden fruit as my prevailing leitmotifs. I want to keep the illustrations simple and use a single figure as much as possible, like this:



I've also been running into a girl named Vivi all over town for several months now. A slender, friendly, vaguely Latina native New Yorker with a huge, magnetic smile, Vivi is obviously a very independent young lady. I first noticed her working behind the counter at my favorite little cafe to buy vegan goodies in the LES (sometimes, after beating men up at the Dungeon all day, I'd stop by with my best friend, a fellow vegan domme with whom I often worked, and order a pecan roll as big as a cartwheel). I especially like Vivi's long, wild, curly hair-- the sort I used to have when I was her age (20) and hadn't yet discovered the miracle of the Japanese straight perm (apparently I now have the same haircut as Anna Wintour, or so I was told by a guy who paid me to just sit and talk with him at the strip club last night).

Anyway, I saw her again two nights ago in the subway near her college in Tribeca. She asked when I'd be old enough to drink and I explained that I'm almost 28. She'd always assumed I was closer to her age. She asked what I was doing in the neighborhood, so I showed her my shoes-- standard black 5-inch stiletto platforms of the variety only transvestites and strippers ever wear. I thought she'd understand right away, but it took a few tries.

"You design shoes?" she asked.

"No. I wear them at work..."

"You write about shoes?" she tried again, which makes sense since I write for a women's magazine she often reads.

When I told her the real deal she didn't believe me.

"Nuh-uh!" She cried with a shocked smile, running her hands lightly over my smooth hair and laying her hands lightly on my cheeks. I like a girl who's unafraid to touch me. I'm the same way.

"With this baby face?" she asked, shaking her head and giving my shoulders a playful squeeze.

"It's true." I said simply, taking her hands in mine.

We parted with a hug. I like her enormously.

Last night I spotted her balancing trays outside an Irish pub, overwhelmed but still smiling, even at her second job. That girl can take care of herself.

"Hi Vivi!" I call over to her in passing.

"You look pretty!" she exclaimed.

"So do you!" I chirp in response and bounce off to the Brooklyn-bound F Train, blithely swinging a bag laden with cake for today's breakfast, which I enjoyed a little bit too much. I'll never be a size zero till I can stop eating so much sugar:



PS I also ran into Sister Corrine on my street-- I used to go to the Pentecostal church where she is a deaconess on Friday nights, but I get home too late these days... I made sure my bag was zipped up so she couldn't see the sheer lace gown or fishnet stockings inside.

Dream On

"I don't like girls in the daytime," he said shortly, and then, thinking
this a bit abrupt, he added: "But I like you." He cleared his throat. "I
like you first and second and third."
-- F. Scott Fitzgerald, "This Side of Paradise"

My horsie bag and stripper gear...



Today the "What the hell are you doing in a place like this?!" factor reached critical mass. Everyone thinks I'm 18 and just fell off the milk-truck, including the manager, who photo-copied my ID three times already. Then I start talking and the heads start to shake.

Finance Guy: "Were you an English Lit major?"

Me: "Uh, haha, no I'm just an avid reader, sometimes, when I'm not here taking my clothes off. You want a dance?"

But eventually it always comes down to:

"Seriously, you're too good to be true. Would you ever date a guy you met here?".

God bless all of us. It's so weird.

I know I set myself up for this, and that I have, by the deftest subconscious maneuvers, put myself in yet another fish-out-of-water scenario to garner attention. Nobody is special, though. I am not. We are all equally deserving of love and attention, and the day I can walk in the strip club and fit in will be the day my ego really is shed like the outmoded lizard skin it truly is.

A guy came in, for the second time ever, apparently, after meeting me on Monday and bought a few dances from me with my clothes on (this is how you know a guy REALLY likes you). He wants to date me. I don't think it's going to happen, because he met me naked in a STRIP CLUB and I have serious doubts about the odds of that sort of meeting panning out into an awesome relationship. He knew how lame it was, he mentioned it, yet he couldn't seem to help himself.

I talked about Camus and Vonnegut with some customers when it was slow (chatting with the tightwads who don't buy dances is something I do when only I'm bored of talking to the Ukranian cocktail waitresses) and got some tips from Lexi, the Bronx hustler who often makes me cringe even though she's got the hang of the money-making part of this business. Behaviorally, she's a totally different human animal than I. I observe her keenly. Her nose looks as though it's been broken at least once.

"Don't talk with them for more than one song, and if they don't buy a dance, bounce to the next guy," she told me.

Then she volunteered some personal information:

"I don't have no boyfriend or parents, so I have to take care of myself. I used to have a guy who supported me, but that ended, and now I just have to do everything. I don't got no one, so I just do it."

She doesn't have to be nice to me, or tell me anything. I appreciate it.

PS The other day I went on a date with a thoughtful lawyer who gave me some vegan cupcakes and a book of Marilyn Hacker poetry. It's so nice to have a man do all the simple things like pay for a cab home, email the same night to say he had a great time, etc., which I haven't put myself out there to experience in awhile. I forget the positive aspects of dating sometimes. Funny to be on yet another date at Wild Ginger with the latest in the series of conservative men interested in me and well-off enough to take me off the meat grinder circuit yet still balk at the prospect of being kept by someone who doesn't electrify me attraction-wise from the get-go. NEWSFLASH TO SELF: Apparently Mr. Right with a career in the arts doesn't marry strippers/ ex-dominatrixes!

PS2 It's so slow at this club. I'm not making very much money at all, though I'm doing as well as most of the other women. Being new doesn't help. Neither does the economy, but my living expenses are VERY low, so I'll be ok by next week, money-wise.

Friends

I get sad that I never can post pics on my friends on here. It makes me feel tainted. Some of my friends say they wouldn't mind at all, but I still wonder if it's wise to put their faces up here. Or mine, either, probably. So I won't. Except when I crop them like this:



Two cute girlies + me in Astoria, one a fellow ex-domme I especially love, making the most of spring break before they return to their Ivy League school.

So many of us have secret lives...

Strip Club Schiele

Huddled under three layers of chenille and still shivering from a chill that seems to have penetrated my bones, I'm so burned-out I can't seem to put my thoughts in an orderly sequence. They run over one another in an overwhelming, indistinct blur of female body parts and mordant juvenalia (I'm drawing a lot of pictures of the cutesy little tchotchkes in my room and they all seem creepy). All around me, facades of beauty are crumbling and morphing into carrion (ever seen an aging stripper cry under the harsh lights of the dressing room, makeup running down her face in black rivers as she run out the door, straight to her drug dealer?) so that I feel as though I'm channeling Egon Schiele or something.





However, I'm not sick, just overexposed. I feel like one of those delicate Victorian women who got fed up with her hopelessly static, unrewarding existence and decided to join a progressive, edgy organization to get as far out of her element as possible, only to end up dead of tuberculosis or scarlet fever.

Sometimes the wheel of progress crushes the unprepared unmercifully and spiritual deep-sea diving in the name of routing ennui seems to eat nice ladies alive.

I wonder if I am about to be devoured?

Shades of Flaubert! But I always hated Madame Bovary... if that's the kind of curious cat I am, after all, I welcome the poison. Time will tell, and if I am going wrong, I trust Virtue to throw me a lifesaver and myself to spot it before I go under completely.

Lately my cause is exploring subjective reality in the controlled environment of a strip club, but I must admit the pursuit seems a bit hollow lately. I've been viewing the events of my life with "the sovereign calm of aesthetic emotions" Sartre always seemed to be talking about. It nips drama in the bud, yet seems to have rubbed the bloom from some of my experiences, mainly because it seems I only know how to be joyful on the edge of hysteria or a great revelation.

I've also been meditating with Megan a lot, which frees me from my egoic machinations a little bit more every day. Bonus: I secretly get to pray for her, too, with ease and total confidence she's on the proper wavelength to receive the positive vibrations I send her way.

As to my recent activities...

After a series of look-sees and auditions I'm dancing at a new club in the Wall Street area. It's small and relatively low-key with intelligent customers, and, since a couple of smart punk-rock girls with feminist sensibilities work there also, I feel a little bit more in my element than at the working-class club in Queens where I was before (I knew it was my last night there when the dj on the mic started making up random obscene nursery rhymes which charmingly included words such as "twat".).

Notable occurrences at the new place, let's call it "Tryst":

1.) On Friday I was paired with a slightly chubby blonde girl for stage dances. Although her dance moves were unremarkable and she didn't do any pole tricks whatsoever, the way she moved very slowly, deliberately and sensuously, watching herself without any inhibition in the mirror made her-- as if by magic-- a thousand times more attractive, instantly. She was busy all night. Ever since then I have danced more slowly, practiced touching my reflection in the glass with as little shyness as possible and am even speaking at a less rapid clip, choosing my words more carefully and conveying my meaning by using a slow, sonorous, measured tone. This place is a goldmine! What a valuable lesson that girl taught me without even knowing it. However, the mystery of how I got to be 27 without figuring out such a basic tenet of female sensuality as "slow and self-aware is sexy" makes me shrug and cringe. But the idea that things are amplified and expedited in a strip club gives me hope I will figure these things out a bit more rapidly than has been my wont in the "straight world".

2.) Lexi is a totally nondescript brunette Greek/Latina girl with a large nose, long hair and average body, with the exception of her voluminous rear end, which she bounces in an ungraceful but effective manner, like a frog.

Watching her dance is painful for me, so often am I disgusted at the way she manages to isolate and exploit one part of her anatomy with as much undignified carnality as can possibly be imagined. It's like throwing a huge, bloody steak to a prim vegan, I guess, which I am.

As politely as possible, I asked,

"Is she from the Bronx?"

Her fingernails are like claws and, during her stage dances, her smile never reaches her dead eyes. I can't decide if, sadly, she is the only one of us who can't pass for a lady on the street or simply the smartest piece of meat in the room. Either way, she's a hustler who makes money. I'm mystified, and I know my pathetic feelings-- undeniably visceral as they are-- and ego-based judgements ultimately signify nothing. Nothing. After all, our minds will both be quiet in our respective graves, and till then I know it's my place to experience and radiate joy, not judgement.

3.) I have learned to accept compliments without involving my ego whatsoever. I follow up each compliment I receive with:

"Thanks you. Do you think so?"

And listen for the response with as little mental analysis as possible. I treat everything I hear in response as a koan and feel the tell-tale Zen *drop* in the urgency of my thought process when I repeat what they say. ie the manager, Jimmy, watched me practice pole spins on the small bar stage when no customers were around, and we had this conversation:

me: "I suck at these now. I know I look pretty ungraceful, but give me a week and I'll figure it out!"

Jimmy: "Oh stop, you have a beautiful body."

me (*drop*): "Thank you."

Jimmy: "And you KNOW it!"

me: "I do? (*drop*)?"

This really works. If I become totally unsusceptible to flattery as well as insult I suppose I will be on the royal road to peace from inner turmoil.

3.) From my inner thighs to the top of my feet, I have enormous, disgusting bruises on my legs from learning those pole spins. I appear to be legitimately battered. I actually gasped in pain (involuntarily) when I took my tight jeans off last night, feeling the sharp stab agony caused by the friction of the denim sliding along the egg-sized bruises. I'll have to buy pancake makeup to hide them when I go back for my shift on Thursday.

They look bad now, but I'm gonna reserve the money shots for later on in the week, when they'll be EPIC:

Pretty Piggy Bank

"Self-Portrait of a Stripper"

Done from my favorite piggy-bank, a gift from my then-six-year-old brother, who insisted on sight that it be purchased (in Chicago's Chinatown) because:

"It looks like you."





If society say I'm a pretty piggy bank, do I agree? If so, is it from lack of self-esteem, admission of vice or the desire for total abasement in order to obliterate my ego?

Abasement/Ego/FUCKING SERIOUS ABOUT PANTERA

"Abasement, degradation is simply the manner of life of the man who has refused to be what it is his duty to be. "
Ortega y Gasset

"Never esteem of anything as profitable, which shall ever constrain thee either to break thy faith, or to lose thy modesty; to hate any man, to suspect, to curse, to dissemble, to lust after anything, that requireth the secret of walls or veils."
-- Marcus Aurelius, "Meditations"

I really agree with the truth of above statements, yet, often, I do not live up to them. I continually distract myself with exercises in abasement, I never had any modesty, sometimes I hate men, if there's a place to learn fouler language than a strip club or Dungeon I haven't found it yet and I love secret walls and veils, etc. So what compels me so ardently to work in the sex industry these days, when it seems to flout the virtuous life I claim to seek? I suppose the most honest answer I can give now is this:

"To express myself sexually. To be beautiful and adored, as well as abased, in hopes that my ego will eventually drop like a leaf as a result of being mercilessly and constantly put through its paces."

For no longer do I believe in any fellow human being's right or ability to judge me in any way. So if I feel abasement I know it is only my own ego burning like dross in the furnace of my own consciousness.

That's it, I am going to shine a light of RADICAL honesty on my life and see what happens. No more shall I allow myself to hide.

PS I used to LOVE Pantera as a teenager. In fact, when Dimebag Darrell was so tragically murdered, I cried for the first time in three years. I wore this shirt every three days or so in my sophomore year of high school, until it fell apart, and now I want a replacement:




I hope nobody thinks my proximity to Williamsburg makes me a progenitor of irony by wearing it. Irony is a ruse, a pose, a sham! I'm FUCKING SERIOUS ABOUT PANTERA.

Obama Votes=Dolla Dolla Bills Y'all...

At the strip club the other night a larger than life "man of leisure" type asked me where I was from.

"Chicago," I replied, taking his dollar with a smile.

"You vote for Obama?"

"Hell yeah, four times in the last three years!" I exclaimed gleefully, ticking off on my fingers the times I'd joyfully selected "Obama" in the voting booth:

"Illinois senate primary, Illinois senatorial election, national primary and, obviously, in November."

He gave me a dollar for each vote, deeming me "a progressive white girl" and throwing scads of cash at me thereafter.

Thanks, Barack!

PS In a random Illinois political note, since disgraced governor Rod Blagojevich (he ran his office like a teamster's union, in Illinois? Oh how shocking!) whom I voted for twice, btw, seems to be out of the running for Obama's senate seat, it looks like Alexi Giannoulias, Obama's wealthy basketball buddy (yes I voted for him in his successful bid for state treasurer) is going to throw his hat in:

http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2009/03/illinois_state_treasurer_alexi.html



Worthy of note: he's only 32! Also worthy of note: he fine.

My February/March BUST reviews

So I write music journalism for BUST Magazine-- these reviews (of bands Asobi Seksu and These Are Powers) are currently featured in the February/March issue (Amber Tamblyn cover) still on stands if you grab it sharpish, yo. Ignore it being credited to (my other) pseudonym.



And (no pic, not worthy of a scan):

These Are Powers
All Aboard Future
Dead Oceans

Sonically amorphous yet stridently opposed to such catch-all phrases as no-wave and without a clearly discernible political agenda or polarizing allegiance to a particular scene, noise rock outfit These Are Powers, who spilt their time between New York and Chicago, are harder to pin down than most. With the release of their latest inscrutably hip effort “All Aboard Future”, whirling dervish front woman Anna Barie and company will no doubt continue to inspire an excess of superlatives in the underground media. Most of the nine tracks that comprise the album slither, stomp and stutter without a cohesive groove, adding credence to the rumor that much of the record is improvised (or at least strives consciously to sound like it). “Life of Birds” features dive-bombing guitars and wails as strangely avian as the title suggest, while the vocals on “Easy Answers” side-step between a sexy scat and striving-for-street rap, and “Sand Tassels”, comes across as a creepy and discordant urban sea chanty, proving that the territory of modern noise music can, in the hands of capable and enthusiastic artists, be expansively defined, transcending the cultural boundaries of Wicker Park loft parties and Williamsburg keggers without losing its edge.

xo,

Robin

Tools Celebrate Their Usefulness

"Why do I make lists?" Amory asked him one night. "Lists of all sorts of
things?"
"Because you're a mediaevalist," Monsignor answered.
"We both are. It's the passion for classifying and finding a type."
"It's a desire to get something definite."
"It's the nucleus of scholastic philosophy."
"I was beginning to think I was growing eccentric till I came up here."
-- F. Scott Fitzgerald, "This Side of Paradise"

My two favorite types of work g-strings look like this:



In order to express solidarity with Christ and to help my friend renovate the house, I've been learning how to do all sorts of things. Some of the tools we use look like this:



My work clothes look like this:



And my Bible looks like this (I've had it almost 15 years, since I got confirmed:

New Blonde Friend

It is an infantile superstition of the human spirit that virginity would be thought a virtue and not the barrier that separates ignorance from knowledge."
--Voltaire

I hung out three times this week with my neighbor Megan. Strangely, although we lived in adjoining apartments and even shared a living room wall, we never met until the evening before I moved out. Luckily I only moved down the block.

Blonde and attractive in that hale, classically conservative Utah Mormon way (Her mother is a lapsed Mormon, her Father is a Swiss-born Catholic, and she was brought up Catholic in the heart of LDS territory-- with an endlessly prosletyzing extended Mormon family-- talk about alienation!) she is, to my shock, another virgin and writer. Most worthy of note are her moments of awkwardness and distance when it comes to personal sexual matters-- the very mirror of my own! Since I've had many more intimate experiences than she, I have also found myself-- for once-- possessed of more carnal knowledge than a girl of my acquaintance.

The two of us have begun a regular practice of meditation in my new home. I can already feel the positive effects of sharing extended moments of unbroken awareness with another person in such close proximity, and I relish her company. I find it very easy to pray for her as well as myself, and I have every expectation that we will effect great changes in our respective mind-states the more we dedicate ourselves to the practice.

Observing her behavior, I noticed an interesting tendency she has to absolutely obscure her sexuality and attractiveness-- not by means of dress or even speech, necessarily, but by putting up a wall/withdrawing her personal sensuality to the far recesses of her being. I know she does it to minimize random approaches and confessions of love and lust from men in whom she's not interested; however, I'm sure it's difficult for her to loosen up when a man she is attracted to comes on the scene-- a sure-fire recipe for being an old maid if she isn't careful. I notice these things in her because I do them also. We discussed the matter and acknowledged it mutually, which will hopefully be the first step to overcoming the problem.

Truly, this joint effort to stop projecting unconscious frigidity is a matter of the blind leading the blind, but hopefully we're being led in the right direction. We're ignorant in some respects, having chosen (as yet) to not fully indulge ourselves sexually, but I believe we really can open ourselves fearlessly to a less guarded outlook and mode of behavior if we try.

I think our quiet moments together are going to bear immense fruit. We are two very similar souls lucky to have found one another.

Not that I believe in luck.

PS I've been wearing this robe my best friend in Chicago gave me. It cheers me up when I'm struggling with my sleep disorder.



PS I really like Mormons. Especially the young blonde missionary boys.

PS She doesn't have anything negative to say about my sex industry escapades, so I don't have to hide my true self from her.

The Difference Between Life and Art

"There is a difference between life and art. That is why one is called life and the other art."
--Goethe

You perceive, then why it is that I write you this letter-- it is on account of my ennui and your sins.
-- Poe

With a painful sting (better felt sooner than later!) I have realized this blog is not art. Diaries unto themselves are only interesting when the person in question is notable for some worthy/infamous reason or other or a sterling representative of the zeitgeist of his or her time (no matter how unwittingly) ie "The Diary of Anne Frank". Since I am clearly neither famous nor imagine that I am a symbol of my particular as-yet-unnamed-for-posterity Age, I accept that this writing is merely a useful means of recording my state of mind and experiences on this, presumably my last foray into the sex industry, for an as-yet largely unwritten book (which must necessarily be one step removed from documenting my life as a matter of course to be considered proper art, as I see it).

After all, who cares what Shakespeare usually ate for dinner or what Milton thought about his landlord? It is their noble works we remember-- the ones which speak the universal language of truth, rather than the trifles of their personal lives they and history have wisely conspired to obscure.

Although I'm sure some would disagree, I remain convinced that the process of making or discovering how to make art is not, unto itself, art (whether living itself is the highest art itself I shall leave for wiser heads than mine to decide). I also believe the tools and detritus involved in creating works of art-- whether they are paintbrushes, to-do lists or microphones-- are, in my opinion, memorabilia, rather than objets d'arts in their own right.

This diary is my sounding-board and record of my life and aspirations if I should die before a more worthy relic is produced. I repeat: It is not art.

Apparently it is also the only place I feel compelled to flash my panties and NOT get paid.

Sometimes lately I do feel death to be close at hand, somehow. Whether that may mean death to my current personality or way of life or the actual physical end of it, I cannot say.

For myself, I would really like to leave behind at least an EP and book....

Maybe I'm just exaggerating because of ennui? I'll play it off like that, at least for now.

PS I really need to get out of the house more often.

The Void Stares Back With Many Eyes

I think a spirit of my blood laments
The sin which down below there costs so much.
--Dante, "Inferno"

Last night I had a very vivid and terrifying dream-- an unexpected vision of hell, the sort I've never before imagined, even more remarkable considering I don't believe in Hell as a firmament or external territory of any sort.

However, I got the loud and clear message last night that such a Hell believes in ME.

I dreamed all sorts of Lovecraftian monsters from another dimension were surrounding me, ready to devour my flesh, and that, somehow, I had attracted them by my latest sinful activities. Even now I shudder when I recall the menacing creatures' ochre flesh, ripe as a succulent plant with mordant parasites ready to burst forth like maggots from a sun-swelled animal corpse...

Maybe stripping is a much more evil and destructive endeavor than I imagined-- I breezily thought I could have fun with it without tapping this chaotic, malevolent energy, that now seems to be flowing from me inwardly as well as bearing down on me from outward entities, if my subconscious is to be believed.

It appears that staring into the void with curiosity and, possibly a bit of haughtiness, has revealed to me a terrifying truth:

Not only does the void stare back, but it has many eyes.

PS I only believe in Nietzche once a year or so. I guess it's about that time...

In The Flesh

All life is just a progression toward, and then a recession from, one phrase—'I love you.'"
-- F. Scott Fitzgerald

Out of the blue I've been thinking often and fondly about my friend Paul, a brilliant young lawyer I met in East Hampton this summer. A friend of his-- a beautiful dominatrix I worked with at the time-- brought me to his marathon birthday celebration at his vacation home with every expectation of seducing me, which fell flat when she discovered I was totally infatuated (needlessly, as it turns out) with someone else.

The upside of all of this was being introduced to Paul, who was and is, a kindred spirit of the sort one does not meet every day. Dashing, charismatic, and almost brutally intelligent, his self-assured smile made me feel welcome-- even coddled--immediately. At the time we met, he was in an open relationship with a girl I thought was very sweet but possibly a little bit too reserved for my tastes-- she was, however, of the same redheaded, fair-skinned white girl variety as myself, which I suppose must be Paul's type, based on the scant amount of time he spent dropping hints that he was very attracted to me also.

Surprisingly, he was charming, rather than vexing, in his attempts at seduction, never pushing me or pouncing, but playfully ruffling my hair or teasing me-- which I secretly loved-- and always carefully gauging my amused but distant reactions with his sparkling brown eyes.

In short, he is a bon vivant rather than a libertine, which I never do mind.

I found every conversation with him to be memorable, but our physical rapport was probably even more so. Every time we touched I felt my body relax, and every instinct told me, despite the way he openly flouted monogamy, Paul didn't have a truly mercenary or vulgar bone in his body. When we hugged it was so heavenly that I can still recall the press of his slender waist against mine, my head resting briefly against his lean but powerfully built shoulder. I wonder if he remembers my body as warmly?

However, although the sight of the sunlight dappling his dark, roguish curls as we sat by his backyard pool made my heart race, I kept things between us strictly friendly. I was hopelessly smitten with another man, and he had a girlfriend.

After all, to me a man in a relationship-- ANY kind of relationship-- becomes unappealing-- almost inhuman-- romantically speaking. Taken men are forbidden fruit of the strictly rotten variety in my estimation-- at least when it comes to cheating with them.

Anyhow, he let me know as soon as he broke up with his girlfriend, although, at the time, he was back on the West Coast where he works and lives with as much good humor as he can muster while still longing for New York.

After our summer encounters I saw him briefly in October, after he showed up-- to my delight-- at my friend Pearl's birthday party. He met the person who had been the object of my infatuation over the summer (whom he knew by name and openly loathed on sight, which shocked me) but I kept the fact that there was, after all, nothing going on between the two of us to myself. Paul just assumed otherwise, and I was somehow reticent to disabuse him of the notion.

Maybe it's the disparity in our social classes that makes me so wary-- after all, he can't even join any social-networking sites because of the gossip blogs that constantly try to unjustly portray him as a rich, reckless party animal in order to paint his endlessly Forbes-featured father in a bad light, and I'm... a stripper (at least for now).

When I told him that, in addition to my ghostwriting job, I was working as a dominatrix, he hardly cared. He was more fascinated with my religious beliefs and having conversations about ethical quandries, astral projection, etc. I suppose it's the same way I feel about him, unless I'm much mistaken, or a fool-- our occupations are only so much stage business compared to the lively affection we feel for one another. I don't really want to tell him I'm stripping just yet, though.

Anyhow, he recently invited me "Come see him in the flesh" on the west coast. I'm considering it. Since he's now fully aware I'm saving myself for marriage, he can't possibly imagine I'm an easy lay, not that finding willing girls has ostensibly been much of a problem for him. Yet, in my mind, regarding an in-person encounter, all roads lead to his bed, and I can't imagine that he feels much differently. However, I'm sure it would be very frustrating for him to take things back to junior high in terms of physical intimacy, which is my basic M.O. In fact, I get so dizzy just thinking about the possibility of his lips brushing mine that I wonder if a weekend spent together wouldn't be more like torture for both of us, really.

I've accepted that my ideas about virginity are not the only valid ones. I wish other people would do the same... it's difficult enough to be divided from such a critical aspect of human life without being thought of as backwards. What Paul will say at the critical moment, I do not know, and slightly fear.

Even so, I'd be lying if I didn't admit the half of me that still believes that romance with a man is possible, despite all my previous strike-outs, longs to find out. I would love to give him my finest attempts at intimacy and partnership for a few days and see what happens.

Would he break my heart?

Would I end up becoming as frozen and out of control as I fear and say or do something cruel to him, as a coping mechanism?

Should I go?

I wonder...

PS The way Paul signs his emails with a single capital X makes me bite my lip.

PS I got so much paint on my clothes they were starting to actually drip. Consequently, after stripping them off to finish I got so splattered with paint my skin began to look as mottled as Zartan's in the swamp (Remember that villaneous changeling from GI Joe?). It's even in my hair.

Useless G-String

Today I tested a certain style of nude g-string I've had for awhile, trying to determine whether it would:

1.)Ride up too much when I dance

2.)Expose more than is acceptable when I bend over

3.)Be too transparent for comfort in strong lighting (just in case)

The answer to all three is apparently yes, so I guess I'll hold onto my 6-pack of these for private use, most likely to be worn under white dresses in the summertime...

PS Sorry my house is still busted up in these pics-- the detritus of my painting and houseplant re-potting should be removed by this afternoon, when I'm all finished...

Good Songs That Get Me Naked

Alright, so I've been a stripper for two weeks now, and I have to say the music is becoming pretty intolerable. I had a serious dj career in Chicago for years (about to start up again when my gay sugar-pop dance EP is finished) and bad trance remixes and generic reggaeton make me itch and convulse inwardly when I know how much fabulous hip hop and dirty disco is out there.

I'm going to have to start bringing my own selections to the dj-- I'll just use the songs that keep me motivated to jog/walk on my treadmill every day. For 100 minutes.

Anyway, I'm really feeling "Bounce" by Mstrkrft. Sorry, I have no idea how to embed video yet, so here's the YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXvYZzXzyD0

It's awesome to see them blowing up after a few years on the circuit... I remember seeing them play at a deliciously sleazy warehouse party @ the Winter Music Conference in Miami awhile back when they first got together (they were unknowns wearing masks, so at first it was kind of like, "Are these guys secretly Daft Punk or what?".) and they really threw down.

Ah, sweet memories of South Beach.

This song makes me wanna tear my clothes off at home (not that I wear much more that a bra and panties when I jog, unless it's cold), so I'm pretty sure it'll be a good one for work, too.

PS So this is, hopefully, gonna be the raunchiest thing I say on here for awhile, but their video for "Easy Love" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEfKBEWGQwg is worth checking out, too if, like me, you enjoy seeing beautiful, smiling women having their faces and busts drenched with sticky, vicous fluids. Makes me want to reline in a danish modern chair or get down on my knees and get absolutely slathered with-- strawberry milkshakes (soy ones, now, I'm vegan...).

Bruises

My legs are so banged-up I have to cake them with make-up when I dance. The bruises life leaves on my body are so obvious. I wonder how the ones on my mind and spirit manifest? I venture to say they're just as obvious, although perhaps not to me.

Lonely At Home/Romance in Modern Brooklyn

I wish the composure but not the depression of solitude.
--Poe

Although I love spending quiet time on my own, I don't like living alone very much. With a couple of miserable exceptions, I've always lived with one girl at a time-- wry, skinny worry-worts who were gone all the time (that's my type of girl), but the idea that I'd see my roommate at least a couple of times a week always eased my mind and made me feel less isolated. In fact, until recently I've NEVER had a problem with loneliness WHATSOEVER, but these days I feel it descend on me like a heavy mantle fairly often.

What changed? Maybe my youthful optimism is being dampened slightly by the fact that I have been putting myself through the wringer coast to coast for a few years now. Maybe I feel so over-exposed from working in the sex industry I don't have the energy to emotionally bare myself after I leave work. Maybe I'm sick at heart, sick to death, sick and now scared of being an old maid. I know a person has to work pretty hard to maintain total disconnection from fellow humans in the NYC area, so I'm going to have to take responsibility for my condition when it gets totally intolerable, an eventuality which seems to be on the horizon. I know I'll only receive as much love as I give, so once I respect the immutability of that eternal equation and stop complaining, things will change. Maybe I just find romance in being miserable lately?! I need to pray about that one, what a waste of God-given life, which should be so full of joy...

Anyway, living alone on the second floor of a rambling old three-story house seems unnatural. Houses should be full of life and activity.

I rent my new place from a good friend... he's still renovating the first floor and basement, and his brother and father help him out. We all get along very well, and, when I need a break from the chaos in my brain and long to accomplish some innocent, tangible and constructive task, I ask him to teach me how to lay wall tiles or parquet flooring. He is, perhaps, the most honorable man I've ever met. I appreciate the company, and so does he...

I adore his wife, too. He's Peruvian, she's Hasidic, or was when they met... every time some guy doesn't call me and I start making excuses for him, I remember my friend's love story, and how he spotted his future bride on the train and knew no matter what, he was going to be with her EVEN THOUGH SHE WASN'T EVEN ALLOWED TO TALK TO HIM. He must have felt as though he was hit with a hammer the first time he saw her. He never let her go, that's for sure. What they must feel when they look at one another... I can sense it sometimes, but the inner reality must be paradise. They're the happiest couple I've ever met. She's a blunt person with a lot of integrity, which I admire-- being nobody's fool is one of Barbara's specialties.

Today I made everyone chocolate chip/hazlenut/coconut cookies and put hers in little heart-shaped tart forms. They gamely tolerate my vegan cooking, but I usually spare them and just make them baked goods instead, which are not so obviously weird.

It's so inspiring to know true romance really does exist in modern Brooklyn.

I wonder what they would think of me if they knew about my secret life.

To a degree, they probably have one, too.

PS I bought this print in a furniture store on Broadway. Bushwick is full of surprises.

Strip Miners

Apparently goldmine is the word men at the strip club use on me by default. Maybe they do it to everyone, I have no idea.

The thing about goldmines is this:

They are elusive, and some men search for them their whole lives. After they find the goldmine, they guard it with insane jealousy, strip it of every rare and valuable resource and, when it is barren of its treasure, they abandon it.

I'm not a goldmine.

I'm a girl.

And I want a boyfriend, not a strip miner.

More Plastic Surgery

I'm seriously considering undergoing more plastic surgery. Last autumn I got a nose job, which turned out really well, but my plastic surgeon wouldn't even consider giving me a chin implant or doing my upper eyelids, which, to be frank, I still really, really want. He said those procedures are totally unnecessary for me (his boss actually called me crazy), that the scar from the implant would be very hard to hide, etc. but I *like* scars! And it would only be under my chin, anyway. Who notices that sort of thing, or cares, anyway? I could always lie and say I got it from a brutal pirate knife fight or saving a child from being run over by a semi truck. Or just tell the truth...

I'm completely fascinated with the idea that, to be more beautiful, I must be cut up, have my bones broken with a mallet, my skin stitched with needles etc. I mean, the process of cosmetic overhaul is no different than any other sort of renovation. Half my house is busted up and being re-done, does the ugliness of the process mean the renovation should be avoided? I don't think so!!!! My living room looks pretty crazy right now because I'm painting everything, but the idea that I have to tolerate a little bit of inconvenience for a whole lot of benefit makes it an entirely tolerable process... much like plastic surgery.

Note: I think bruises are hot, too.

Sometimes my surgeon IM's me to say hello (never anything inappropriate), and it's always a treat to pick his brain. We get along remarkably well and have interesting conversations about his time spent doing reconstructive surgeries, his main passion. I find it very admirable-- a young surgeon correcting the cruel ravages of outrageous fortune and restoring normalcy to accident victims, children with harelips, all those sort of things. Last Friday night he told me a particularly inspiring tale about a breast cancer survivor upon whom he'd recently operated, and I wondered what it would be like to be able to tell the truth about my occupation and actually garner praise instead of infamy. Maybe someday...

I could anonymously send him some of the fetish magazines I've been in, with "Thanks for the new nose, Dr. L!" scrawled across the front or something.

Nah.

It's a funny thing, when even your plastic surgeon says you don't need more plastic surgery, yet the vision you have of yourself override his objections with ease. It's just that I have a very clear vision of the way I want to look, and what I see in the mirror doesn't match just yet, no matter what anybody says.

Guess I'd better get a second opinion-- boy is he going to be mad at me for not listening to him!!! He's a jovial but very dominant personality, and I sense that he would be very unhappy if I so flagrantly flouted his advice. What's he gonna do about it, though? Hate me? Spank me? I sorta wish, too bad he's my doctor and married, ah well!

PS I have to wait till Venus retrograde is over to get anything done-- April 17th, to be precise. One doesn't want to go under the knife when the planet of love, Beauty and sensuality is sleeping. I didn't write astrology for two years for nothing.

Silence

“Men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues, and can moderate their desires more than their words”
-- Spinoza

As I get older, I seem to get a lot more lackadasical about communication, but these things come in phases for everyone, and I know my friends and family are aware I love them even if we don't speak as often as we used to, and that I'll get in touch again eventually. However, I'm a little ashamed to admit I've been blowing off birthday parties without a phone call, that sort of thing lately. In fact, I haven't seen my phone in days-- I think it may have gotten lost in the move, which means I can be M.I.A. without being rude, but only for a little longer. Lately I don't miss or desire socializing outside work and errands whatsoever, but I'll have to be careful not be too much of a hermit.

It must be the effects of winter and/or the Lenten season, or maybe I'm just adjusting to the fun, horror and fascination of being a stripper.

This time of year I always think of Christ in the desert, fasting and purifying himself for his coming trials. By intrinsic inclination and custom as a Protestant, I don't venerate Saints, but I often find inspiration in re-reading "Lives of the Saints" around this time of year. Although the "holy" men and women who indulged in voluntary mortification of the body strike me as having severely missed the mark, every time I read the story of St. Francis or Bernadette I feel renewed in spirit on an idealistic level. Transcending, rather than giving free rein to, the grossest and most indulgent demands of the flesh seems to be one of the key ingredients to a Virtuous life. I don't want to learn how to manipulate the material world to my advantage by adapting to its vagaries. I don't even believe such a thing is possible. The only thing to do is use prayer as an anchor and foundation and project one's inner world outward.

Funny how I spend so much time thinking thoughts like this, have been born again a few times and still can't seem to stay away from the sex industry. Obviously my intellectual machinations and physical being are barriers in this instance, rather than catalysts for further spiritual growth. My flesh itself yields no insight, that's for sure, although I've found I become more radiant the less I let my own brutish animal instincts run the show. Believe it or not.

I need to find a partner with whom to pray/meditate. I think my blonde friend down the block would be into it.

I am considering taking an informal vow of silence until Easter outside work, which I was able to do with a fair amount of success in 8th grade. Maybe I can do it again.

Most words are wasted, anyway. A touch, a prayer, a vow, a simple explanation-- all of these things can be sacred, profane, or inconsequential, depending on the context.

I might make more money at work if I talk less, anyhow. I seriously doubt most men come in to a strip club to have a meaningful conversation, right?

I Love Lawyers

Although it’s true every man who comes into a strip club is a potential source of income, and therefore somewhat of a mark, it’s impossible not to like some of the customers. Occasionally I’m even attracted to them. I asked my old roommate if she thought I’d ever meet a man to date who would treat me like a lady if we met at a strip club, and she replied:

“No. Never”

I believe she’s right, so I have decided to simply settle for dropping the pretense of hustling the men I really like in exchange for a few minutes of honest conversation and not expect or court anything else. Nobody wants to bring a stripper home to mother, right? Even if she’s a published writer and a virgin it’s too much stigma for the average man. It makes my soul bleed to admit it, though. I’m not a nice girl anymore.

I’m not a nice girl. I’m a sex worker. Repeat, believe it, stop the denials.

Saturday night I met a really amazing young lawyer from Colorado , in for a friend’s birthday party, who asked me,

“You’re way too well-adjusted to work here. What’s really going on?”

When I explained I write for a feminist magazine and I’m on the last leg of a journey of exploration into the sex industry, focusing on the apparent duality (particularly when one considers my religious beliefs) I experience, I could see his expression change in such a way that I would have believed his eyes had alighted on a goldmine in any other situation. However, because I’m a stripper and ex-dominatrix, and not doing this experiment strictly for the sake of investigative journalism or as a private sociology experiment, I simply asked him what he was doing in a profession notoriously full of people who go to extremes since he, too, seemed very even-keeled.

I explained the known phenomenon of raging sexually dominant and submissive men in law, and how my time as a dominatrix was mainly spent with lawyers. I also told him because I like staring down submissive men on the street and am looking for a dominant man in my private life I’m a lawyer magnet, since so many men attracted to codified rules gravitate to the law as a profession and seem to sense that I’m pretty kinky, too. I haven't even dated a non-lawyer in quite awhile.

He was pretty wonderful, and even though he looked pointedly and with a lot of longing at me as I ducked out of the club in my street clothes, I knew there was no point in giving him anything but a smile in parting. You can't tell me someone that fabulous is single. I refuse to believe it.

C’este la vie beautiful boy.

You know you dodged a bullet, anyway.

Safe Haven/Vulgar

"I'm awful," he said sadly. "I'm diff'runt. I don't know why I make faux
pas. 'Cause I don't care, I s'pose."
-- F. Scott Fitzgerald, "This Side of Paradise"

I spent the afternoon ordering this vintage wallpaper and some damask pillows for my new house. The figure on the wallpaper reminds me of a Mercury dime, which I love.

Sometimes, achingly lonely after riding the subway home all by myself after a night of hearing how pretty I am, and how lucky any man would be with to be with me, etc., I attempt to mollify my screaming psyche with home décor. It’s not mere retail therapy, more like some eternal, feminine nestling instinct that emerges when I am sinking in some sort of moral or situational quagmire and desperately need to create a safe, beautiful haven for myself.

Random note: if there’s one word I remember from my three years of Spanish classes as a teenager, it’s salvavidas: lifeaver. I guess it makes sense that I retained that particular palabra, when I give it some thought. After all, I’m the type who perpetually relies on the kindness of strangers, so I always have my eye on the buoy, branch, ladder, and, ultimately, exit. It’s a survival instinct. In fact, I’m lost so often these days that I’m actually getting used to it-- I have a horrible sense of direction. However, I often enjoy it, especially when I have to ask for directions and I get to meet someone new. I wonder if strangers can sense the gratitude and friendliness I feel for them in those instances. I try to convey it as ardently as possible-- it's safe to say it fairly radiates from me, so I guess I'm doing my part.

I find it so easy to love people I barely know. I wish familiarity didn't breed contempt, or that I was able to care about people personally for longer, which is difficult for me sometimes. I try to love everyone unconditionally and make few distinctions, which is Zen but occasionally alienating. Sometimes. However, I often find it just as satisfying to love others from a distance as when they are near, if not moreso in some instances.

That's probably why I occasionally have a difficult time letting go of crushes I rarely see, for whatever reason. It seems I'm attracted to men with the same predilection because my phone and email get absolutely blown up on every major holiday-- I even hear from guys with whom I went on one date years ago.

The weirdest one I got this Valentine's Day was from a person I was infatuated with to the point of distraction this summer. After an apology for not keeping in touch he sent some random text about his jock as if we were bro's... it really hurt my feelings. The fact that I had a raging fever didn't help, either. He apologized, but clearly that's that between us. Regardless, he's a brilliant painter of industrial landscapes, and I think one of his prints would go nicely on the western wall of my living room, which is the metal/metallic-themed area according to the laws of Feng Shui, which I try to observe faithfully..

However, after thinking about how vulgar he was (I once had a dream I was scrubbing his studio floor naked a few months ago, I liked him so much!) I'm suddenly inspired to take a deep breath and order some curtains, too...

Sex and Violence

I cannot forbear to mention among these precepts a new device for
study which, although it may seem but trivial and almost ludicrous,
is nevertheless extremely useful in arousing the mind to various
inventions. And this is, when you look at a wall spotted with
stains, or with a mixture of stones, if you have to devise some
scene, you may discover a resemblance to various landscapes,
beautified with mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, plains, wide
valleys and hills in varied arrangement; or again you may see
battles and figures in action; or strange faces and costumes, and an
endless variety of objects, which you could reduce to complete and
well drawn forms. And these appear on such walls confusedly, like
the sound of bells in whose jangle you may find any name or word you
choose to imagine.
-- Da Vinci




I’ve recently surrendered to the fact that overages of sexual energy often activate the most violent part of my brain. On some level, I’ve always felt, for me, sex and fatalism go hand in hand, but working in a strip club has, believe it or not, kicked my my sado-masochistic fantasies and inclinations into overdrive in a way being a dominatrix never did. So I guess I’ve answered the chicken or the egg question of whether my sadism was a product of working as a domme or one of the many reasons I wanted to become one in the first place.

Examples of random sexual/violent thoughts I've had recently:
Last night, as the hot water in the bathtub lapped across my bare breasts, my eyes hazy and unfocused, I found myself casually viewing the tiles in my bathroom as a strictly solipsistic Rorschach test, picking out images of myself as Salome, with the head of a certain customer I’d recently met on a charger before me, as well as a blank sort of Persephone, with my foot on the head of a smiling man in profile.

I had a dream the other night that a near-stranger with whom I recently had a naughty dalliance on a long train trip was inexplicably trying to steal my gown after I was done dancing onstage. We had a violent tug of war and he stuck his finger in my mouth, upon which I bit it so hard I actually felt the bone and gristle snap, my mouth full of his blood and his actual fingertip. The dream was so vivid I actually believe if I ever had a mouthful of someone else’s blood I’d recognize the coppery taste as surely as if it really had happened to me in reality.

Scary.

I'm not insane, though-- just dealing with a raging tidal wave of lust from strangers in a new form. Again.

PS Maybe one of the reasons I always draw a correlation between sex and death is that I always feel intimate physical connections with men distance me from the Divine, which is, in essence, the true wellspring of my existence. In that sense it is like death— voluntarily separating myself from the Absolute and laying my flesh on the altar for a carnal connection that is comparatively cheap. As much as I love to touch and be touched, since I've never been in love, I recognize that further effort to connect is fruitless, and it becomes like drowning, I hate it so. It was only different with one boy, ever, who pulled my hair and told me no but loved me fiercely and would have married me if only I hadn't sensed we were not quite destined to be together forever.

A good friend recently told me I’d probably feel an easier and more fulfilling communion with the man I eventually marry, since intercourse itself is such a source of bonding. I hope it turns out that way for me if and when I ever do find that person.