Whew. I’m finally done with my two weeks of dancing in this crazy drunken little christian town.
Having to work at five every day and expend enormous amounts of social and physical (at this club I’m on stage for exactly one third of the eight hours they’re open) energy just doesn’t lend itself well to normal functioning for me. Where is the time for waking up and reading a book and playing dulcimer and cooking eggs and sitting in the van appreciating it? No where. I wake up and already I’m rushing to get a shower, get food, and get to work. After work I am invariably starving because I of course was too rushed and sleepy to get food before work. Of course everyone is going to breakfast at the truckstop, and of course there is a complicated situation with Hat-Ma, one of her regulars, one of her new customers, me, my many suitors, and my regulars. So then there’s breakfast after work and it’s 5AM before I get to bed and it starts all over.
This is why I normally don’t work in clubs where you have to book and work every day and be there early. And paint my nipples and give them a quarter of my dance money and deal with way too many sad sucidal people and very rude people. But where else in the world could I knock out the IRS bill, new transmission money, and a couple months worth of gas money in two weeks? I didn’t quite make my goal, but I attribute that to my bad mood and sitting in the dressing room with an ice pack on my back rather than the club.
The last night was great. It was packed with ranchers, farmers, oil workers, and a bunch of straight women. Near the end of the night I peeked out of the lapdance room when I heard the whole bar singing along with “Sweet Home Alabama” and saw the tip rail packed with straight women singing and wooping and waving their dollars. It only happens here.
Today I’m still here. I’m waiting for the post office, for Hat-Ma, and for Susan, and I’m reclaiming my van and my time.
It’s time for a major spring van cleaning. Things are starting to thaw out, and something smells somewhere. I have a van cleaning method. First I get in the back and throw everything in my way up front. Then I eliminate some things (a dumpster bag and a goodwill bag). Then I organize and re-organize what’s left until it takes up less space. I’ll grab a few of the things off the top of the pile in front and fit them back into the scheme of things in the back. Then I get in front, throw everything in my way in the back, and organize and re-ornagize what’s left in the front. Then I get in the back and throw everything up front again. Somewhere along the way I’ll have an epiphany about how things could be stored. This time it’s the water bottles. I’m going to line them up along the ridge that sticks out on the side of Bro’s crate, next to the drivers seat, where they will be further supported by the stove. Then I’ll bungee them in place with pieces of cardboard between them to prevent breakage. How come I never thought of that before?
Eventually things all work themselves out and I’m left with a bunch of stuff on the bed that needs taken to a thrift store or mailed to people. When I go to bed I throw all that stuff somewhere in a very organized way, and then Bro re-organizes it while I’m asleep, and the whole thing starts all over again.
Highlights of this cleaning are:
– New water bottle storage method! Woohoo!
– I finally threw away this great old blanket that my aunt gave me instead of throwing away way back in 2000. I would write the story of that blanket someday, but it wouldn’t be very interesting. Anyways, I took it off the bed when I got all the down, and Bro slept on it most of the winter folded up in the passenger seat. Then I had some passengers and things got all out of wack and it got all muddy and wet and smells funny and it’s seams are coming apart.
– I finally eliminated the box of stuff I was given for Christmas and didn’t know where to put. I put it all somewhere, and I’m going to mail out the stuff that I’m passing forward as soon as post offices open on Tuesday. In the meantime it’s on my bed and you know how that’ll go.
– I’m getting rid of the big duffle bag I bought last December when I flew to Alaska. I’ve been keeping it for the next time I need to throw half of what I own in a bag and jump on a plane. But the thing has been taking up space, and when am I going to jump on an airplane again? I hate airplanes. And it was only fifteen dollars. I can get another one if I need one.
– I guess I should admit that, actually, I’m being really lazy and quit cleaning half way through and came to the coffee shop to post this because they’ll close in an hour.
Maybe I shouldn’t call it cleaning. It’s more like organizing, I guess.
Tonight I’ll write and read and play dulcimer and throw the ball for Bro. I might hang out with my ardent lesbian suitor, whose shower I’ve been using while she was out of town. I might indulge in the Sunday Applebee’s tradition that exists in this town, except that I really don’t feel like more crappy restaurant food.
So, there it is. End of the week re-grouping, except you’ll read it tomorrow cause WordPress lets me manipulate reality that way. 🙂