Some of you get here following links from other blogs, or you know me in real life or through friends or online. A lot of people get here through google “how to live in a van,” “how to shave pussy like a stripper,” “hobo sex,” “stripper pee live,” “change water pump,” “nettles allergies,” or the ever popular “sex in the champagne room.”
Some of you comment and I know that you’re van dwellers, strippers, anarcho-primitivists, herbalists, clients of the sex trade, writers, and catholic school teachers. But that accounts for, like, twenty of you. That leaves six or seven hundred unaccounted for.
So especially if I don’t know who you are, but even if I do cause it’s good to know these things all together, please leave a comment and let me know who you are and why you read here.
Tara,
I found your website from a comment that you had posted on Heather Martin’s blog. Loving the outdoors and wilderness, I can relate to many of your nature-related adventures. I’m now hooked on your passion and freedom from the norm.
John
Bailey, CO
I also found you on Susie Bright’s journal. ^_^ I’m envious of your outdoor lifestyle.
Retired from stripping just after clubs went from table to lap dances…worked the bikini bars…worked 6 major cities…
Sat in counsel a lot, made a lot of money on stage and with dances and toward the end I was able to identify what someone could afford to spend in a moment.
got here via Susiebright.com
enjoying your perspective- you feel like a kindred spirit / lil sister.
I found you on the blog Grace Undressed when I was looking for other writings by strippers. I’m a west coast stripper/peepshow worker (among other things) who recently started a blog myself. I also have a sister in Fairbanks settling down for her third winter, and I like hearing about Alaska from your perspective. Don’t think she’s ever encountered a bear quite in the same way…
By the way, I’d considered moving up to FB to hang out with my sis for a while, and thought about working at Reflections — I seem to remember you having worked there. Do you recommend it? (I know how you feel about strippers from the lower 48 invading the alaska clubs, but if I went up there, it’d be for a while).
Check me out at honeyedwest.blogspot.com if you want. It’s still young, but I’m working on it.
I’m pretty sure I found you off of a link from divebardancer. I’m a queer, stripping, social work senior in the northeast US, and totally lost as to what to do next year. I’ve been reading your blog for a couple months, and sometimes i think, “i can just hobo-strip it around the country!”
I don’t live in a van, and I don’t frequent strip clubs (much). Yet I love reading your blog. You provide a different take on life that I find endlessly fascinating. I do not remember how I found your blog, but I am glad I did.
I am a professional writer in Chicago.
Since you didn’t do it yourself, I nominated you for the bloggers choice awards. It takes a few days for them to approve your site. I also shamelessly nominated myself and other Stripperwebbers. All it will take is 100 votes to get us to the top 10. With all the crossreferencing I don’t think it will be that hard!
I found you on SW. I’ve always had an interest in stripping. Your hobo lifestyle and excellent writing are a bonus.
Me: feminist, social worker, dominatrix, bisexual polyamorous grrrl.
I found your blog by following a link from CG. Since reading her series of stripping, I’ve been interested in reading other personal stories. That you write about other really interesting things is a bonus. I really look forward to checking your blog daily.
Me? Slaving away in retail, mother of one, she who devours books, student in health care administration.
I found you through a comment you’d left at Octogalore’s blog (http://octogalore.blogspot.com). I then posted about you, and I’m pretty sure Susie Bright found you through my blog (she commented on a post on my blog which was just above the post about you, three days before she linked to you), so I’m extremely glad that I might have helped in getting you much-deserved exposure.
I read you because, quite simply, you’re fascinating.
You may know about me since you’ve commented on my blog a couple times — I’m a paralegal, married, with plans for law school, and a Pakistani atheist exiled from home, family and country because of lifestyle differences. I deeply admire those who choose their own paths in life, as you have. You give me the courage to go on doing the same for myself and not fall into a rut.
I’m a sex worker in Portland Oregon. I learned about you through stripperweb.
Hi there…a dame in New Zealand says hello! I did some stripping when I was in my early 20s, but now, in my mid 30s, I’m a cubicle calf, too. Except in New Zealand, which means it isn’t as bad as in the USA. I live close to nature and I love it. Nomadic lifestyles fascinate me, maybe because I’m a homebody after my rambling years.
An earlier poster said she was looking to use sex work to fund travel. It’s pretty easy to get hired as a stripper in NZ, and if you want to take the ultimate sex-work plunge, prostitution is legal.
I been knowing you from SW some years now. I’m a stripper and a writer with an ’85 Vanagon but have never managed to synchronize dancing and travel. I read your blog cause it’s awesome, and cause I have a sororal interest in strippers, bloggers, and stipper-bloggers.
Hi Tara! I followed the link from Nerve and got hooked. Sometimes I wonder why I even read Nerve anymore, but this time it paid off. 😀 I tried stripping when I was younger and discovered that I wasn’t cut out for it – turns out there’s more to it than just being well built. It became a mystery that I’ve been working on ever since. Sometimes I suspect that I am somewhere on the autistic spectrum, because these things should be fairly obvious, but not to me. I love your van-dwelling stories, I am a van owner myself and think of it as my home, altho I mostly stay in houses these days. I’m 33 and about to move back to Minnesota from god-forsaken northern Ohio. Drop me a line if you ever need to plug in an extension cord. 😀
I am an ex-marketing researcher who has been unemployed for about a year from that job (Thank Goddess!). I came across your blog site through SW weedforum. I live with my boyfriend and a cat with an attitude here in Toronto and have e-mailed you sometimes. I have read several books on the Goddess religion and admire you for not taking any shit from anyone.
If you are visiting Toronto, I love to see you and Bro at my favourite coffeeshop in the west end here. Maybe we can get some organic coffee and have a chat there.
Blessed Be!
On the left coast came by way of SB
Nerve linked to you a little while ago and I’ve been checking out the site ever since. Rock on.
I found you from Nerve (www.nerve.com) recommended on ‘Scanner’. It was a good recommendation – I love your writing style and openness, and how your life is so different to mine. I am a self-empoloyed computer programmer in the UK.
I have your site as one of the tabs that comes up as my home page(s). I read you because you’re a very good writer, and I find myself emotionally affected by the way you write. Also, I had been having a discussion among my friends about the inherent “gypsy” quality that we share. I support a family, but if I didn’t, I’d enjoy sleeping out under a tree, under the stars. I also would enjoy taking my clothes off for other people. So part of why I read you is the vicarious thrill. What I like most about how you write is that you seem to enjoy the inherent beauty at the core of each moment. This is the main affinity I feel for you.
Hi Tara! I found out about you from Amber Rhea at http://beingamberrhea.com/. I am glad to be part of the linkage from Amber to me then Apostate and Susie Bright that brought so many folks to your site. As you probably know, I’m an ex-stripper, ex-lawyer and now partner in a legal search company. I love your site and your stories. It’s fascinating to me in that I approach things in a very different way, but there’s a lot I admire about yours. I am very methodical, stripping for me was about 95% money and 5% exhibitionism, and my favorite kind of camping is at a nice hotel, although I can be coaxed ourdoors for the occasional hike as long as I’m lathered up with sunscreen. I have great respect for your ability to find meaning in the moment and the journey.
I found you through Grace Undressed. I’m an occasional customer of clubs, and find the dancers, their stories, and their lifestyles intriguing. I also grew up in rural Oregon, and almost moved to Alaska with parents as a teenager. I appreciate your perspectives on Alaskan life. Something about it draws me. Keep up the great work!
I found this site while reading Pretty Dirty Things, which I found by reading Confessions of a College Callgirl, which I found by reading Boing Boing. Whew!
Well…you know me…but I get sort of freaked looking at my stats sometimes. It just gets weird even on my site. Lots of “granny porn” searches.
The ground cherries are coming in and I wanted to collect some and do them for my food article…but I keep eating them before I get them inside.
Heya,
Dee-dee’s roommate. You know which one. 🙂
P.S.
Always been a bit intimidated to read your blog . . . your writing can (often) be on the cerebral side, which, frankly, I’ve usually not got the energy to handle. (It’s true).
But it’s really good, and so, whilst I was cleaning up my browser bookmarks today, I decided to pay it a visit.
Hope all is well, and stay warm! 🙂
I’m a phd candidate in a nanoscience program.
I found your blog through wide lawns.
I keep reading because I’ve always had this view that strip clubs should be more like temples to the female archtype. Who knows if I phrased that right, I’m a math guy and don’t have time to study the word sciences.* I’ve been in enough arguments about my view of strip clubs and sex work and feel like I should bow to the predominate view but I keep finding things like your blog that convince me I might be right. The dilemna goes like this…
I’m a guy, the girls (and grrls) I talk to about this certainly seem to think that I’m fucked in the head and that there are no temples of aphrodite, but only symbols of oppression. Except for the rare few who tell me that the power in the strip club is all in the hands of the women. Once I start down this road I can’t help but wonder if this attitude is also part of the oppression, that women feel so powerless that they don’t want to be worshiped (or don’t believe they should be worshiped). I know how to handle these arguments in a math frame, it’s an infinite series and you just look at the case as it converges. Or maybe it never converges, but that’s still an answer. But I diverge, I’m trying to say that I appreciate your viewpoint.
I’m afraid I have forgotten how I found your blog, but I’m following it because I like to read stories about interesting people, and you defenitely are one. I like how you write and to learn a bit more about living on the road, which I find fascinating.
Greetings from Germany.
I think I found your blog through a link from another site, but I cannot remember. I write from time to time, and really like what and how you write. I’ve been promoting you on my Facebook page (“it’s like Steinbeck in a g-string”), which I hope is okay. Cheers!
Steinbeck in a g-string! I love that!
Thank you to everyone who’s posted a link to me…
Found you through Susie Bright. I was a dancer for 10 years at the Lusty Lady peepshow in San Francisco, and was also an occasional porn star, burlesque performer, and lapdancer. I’m 35, and currently a (non-sexual)massage therapist. Your writing makes me nostalgic for the biz and the wonderful, diverse, intelligent community of women like yourself that kept me there for so long. I’ve been a writer myself and love smart discussions about the endless complexities of sexuality and sex work, and the stories never get boring.
I found you via graceundressed.blogspot.com, via pigeoninthesun.blogspot.com, who I knew in grade school. I’m a librarian’s assistant but have always wanted to be a hobo and a stripper, as well as more knowledgeable about herbal remedies and wild food. I have always recognized the magic in little moments, but feared I was losing the ability in a sea of material possessions and worries about things that don’t matter. You’re writing has been a reminder to me that if I look at everything I see it is a spell for joy, and that helps me remember that there is magic everywhere.
I followed a link from Debauchette’s tumblr page and then started from the beginning. I work in web development and have been working toward a masters in social work. I’m in NYC via Colorado, and as the years go by I feel more and more like the city is unnatural and is crushing my spirit. Reading your work has reminded me that it’s so good to get out and walk in the dirt. 🙂
Last night I dreamt of being a stripper…funny where things lead… 💡
I don’t know how I came across your blog, but I love it. I’m English, living in the country, working as a writer in marketing type stuff, which is often fun and sometimes infuriating. I’m married, been divorced, got children, do chi kung every day and can’t do without it (it’s the real thing, the stuff I do – genuinely powerful – makes life lovely, makes it lovely to be in my body, and gives me lots of energy, and hope too, and joy).
Since I was a little kid I have not wanted to live in modern civilisation (I used to hope I was having a weird dream and would wake up as an outlaw living in the forest in the middle ages, or perhaps as a viking), so I’m a bit anti-civilisation, but I also find civilisation fascinating and love being alive so whatever comes my way is interesting anyway, even if it’s in many ways fucked up.
I love the way you observe, critique, interact with things. I love the way you’ve always got an interesting perspective and surprise me. And you write very well, it’s true.
I’m one of those people who has never been to a strip club. Never considered it. But it’s fascinating to hear about it. I’m wondering about the power relations there. I’m not sure, and that’s fine with me right now.
As for living in a van, I’d like to live in a boat (a lot of people live on canals in Britain, but the sea would be even better). But not just yet. Children place certain constraints on things. My house is in a beautiful spot anyway.
I find your observations of men fascinating too (and of school, incidentally). That conversation you had with the guy when you had run out of oil, and he said ‘Are you trying to sell us a cup of coffee?’ or whatever it was, and the way you immediately noted that he was trying to establish a dominant position. Brilliant. Since reading that I have been more aware of the whole power play that goes on with so many people. Luckily I have an instinct for avoiding arseholes (as we spell it over here) who try and impose themselves on me, try and play power games, competitive games that go on between men, or assert their dominance. Except for my wife – she’s pretty powerful without being manipulative. Scary she is, sometimes. More of an alpha type than me, but with a strong belief that you should not interfere with other people or impose on them. She’s cool. Doesn’t take any crap – won’t be talked down to by men.
So I just wanted to say keep going, keep living – here’s someone else who reads your writing and finds it uplifting and challenging.
That body search on the border sounds unpleasant, by the way.
piers
I don’t know if you still get comment notificiations, or if this comment will be lost to time, but I figured I’d leave it anyways 😉
There was talk about living in your car on the livejournal community Poor_Skills
For the last couple of years, I’ve wanted to just get a van, & live out of it, just traveling around Canada
I’ve also wanted to be a stripper, but I don’t have the body for it in the least
I love reading about what you do, just in case some day I have the opportunity to leave it all behind, I’ll know what to do with myself
From Suzy, I drop by from time to time. I don’t think anything should change. I’m some one who lives close to ground but not mobile to much. Stay safe and live.
Hi. I came here because I’m trying to learn how to balance the on-the-grid work I want to do and debt I need to get rid of and my insane need for freedom and flexibility and being closer to nature– I saw a link on a blog, and clicked. Trying to find work in sexual and reproductive health policy to help out with women’s rights, especially promoting physical safety for sex workers in the developing world. I keep reading because, despite the fact that I rather think you’d find me irritatingly conventionally minded in real life, I find some of your thoughts echo the thoughts I have. Also, I’m learning to play the mandolin now, so I rather enjoy the mentions of your dulcimer. Maybe next instrument I try will be one.
A question for you, if you don’t mind: have you found that stripping has enhanced your sense of body confidence and your awareness of your sexuality? Or does it distance you from it? Or both?
Just a regular guy in northern Maine.
I found your blog via the “Eros Blog” – one of the entries there quoted from this blog.
I continue to read, because I enjoy the writing style, and finding out more about Alaska and stripping.
Been reading your archives all day – looks like I got to the party too late. Wonderful prose and insight. I’m a mom of 4 who unschools and lived on the road for 3 years before the 2nd born decided we needed to stop traveling for a while and we stopped in Mexico. So here we live. I sure hope you continue to write. I’m loving every entry.
Oh, I think I got here from 721 Sandwiches.
Hi there,
just a regular office bee dreaming of someday traveling the country… or living in a van 🙂
Found you through Jack’s “Adventures in Voluntary Simplicity” blog…
A 23 year old girl raised on farm living and new england fall foliage. I want to strip, but find myself continually either too fat or not quite broke enough to justify it to myself. But I think I’d be quite good. I found this looking up exactly how much bodyfat I can get away w having.
I *think* I found you on Susie Bright’s blog. Specifically, I seem to remember Susie giving you a shout-out for sex-worker must-reads. This was around the end of 2008, the same time I discovered Grace Undressed.
I’m a second-year law student in a notably conservative, influence-peddling town, trying my best to defend the rights of sex workers and figuring out what I can do with a law degree to continue doing so.
I want to keep reading what you have to say about anything and everything that prompts you to write. You are a well-balanced human being in the sense of having found your true north in spite (or because) of very trying, nontraditional circumstances; you are fascinating for your intelligent, honest, brave, and focused interests; and I wish to know more about your retreats.
I am a former massage-parlor girl, escort, dancer, and pro-domme. It’s hard to assert these as credentials when aspiring to be admitted to bar practice (or even when talking about why I’m enduring this law school purgatory); it’s harder still to find ways to “keep a finger in the pie”, so to speak, so as not to lose touch with the Biz and those actively in it.
So: don’t stop doing what you do, or writing about it! You help me keep in touch and remember why I do what I do (and stopped doing other things, not for want of curiosity or calling).
Much love to you.