On the Road Again...

I apologize for not writing much... I haven't been doing much stripping, but lots of working the day job and planning for my current trip... haha I'm in Bali motherfuckers! whooo! six months off! Actually i'm trying to get my clothing line started... heh. not really time off then.

Soooo currently I am in Sanur, Bali. I landed here a couple days ago after an epic Halloween weekend in vancouver with Rob, which was excellent. My flight was very long... vancouver to beijing, 11 hours, 3.5 hour layover in beijing (They had infrared cameras scanning for fevers... luckily my "swine flu" I picked up in vancouver never seemed to hit the high fever stage, just the sore throat. I swear everyone I was staying with/met in vancouver had it.), 5 hours beijing to bangkok, 6 hour layover, 4 hours (after a 2 hour delay) bangkok to bali. Whoo!

Hmm then I sat in a cafe for awhile trying to get used to the 30 degree heat then wandered off to Sanur and slept for the rest of the day.

I don't know why I picked this town, i guess because it has a beach and the book said it was quiet. Its full of retired dutch people and i'm totally bored. But I really did need a couple days to adjust and get over my illness and sleep. I am moving to Ubud, capital of yoga, crafts, and expats (hopefully younger ones!) tomorrow.

I was drinking with said expats at a cafe on the beach yesterday and one of the older guys said "oh Cambodia... I spent 7 years in jail there.. I had a girlfriend. she was 9." I giggled nervously and hoped he was kidding... right? right?? hahaha. the cafe was run by this really nice younger dutch couple, it had only been open a couple of months. we watched the windsurfers for awhile.

Hmm so yes! That is about it for now! Here is my itinerary of dates for reference purposes..

Nov 6- Jan 5 Bali, Indonesia
Jan 5-10 Bangkok, Thailand
Jan 10- March 4 Tonsai/Railay Beach, Krabi, Thailand
March 5 - March 11 Siem Reap, Cambodia
March 11-March 18 Pnomh Penh, Cambodia
March 19- March 23 Chiang Mai, Thailand
March 24- April 13 Pai, Thailand
April 14 Bangkok/fly home
(all dates subject to change! haha clearly.)

Burning (wo)Man

I'm preparing for the biggest festival of them all.. and by preparing, I mean being lazy. I have been working for many, many days straight and today is my first real day off. Sunday was spent, well, sleeping and fucking and cleaning and preparing, and today I haven't done a thing.

Panic is setting in! *pokes self to go do SOMETHING out of the piles of sewing, laundry, repairs, and packing I still have to do!*

Sorry for not posting in forever!

I have been super busy with festivals, where I drive out into the woods and camp and dance the night away. For these escapades, I built a 16' steel geodesic dome as a shade structure.

I love to travel, and my feet (and wheels) have been taking me all around lately. I ran off to another city to hang out with some amazing burner people and then voyaged off to a farm to dance around in the woods.

I had a hard time with this one party, I felt like the energy there was very damaging. It sucked at my edges, interfered with my buzz, distracted me from having a good time. I felt like I was jealous of everyone else having a good time, and not really fully involved in my own experience. I was over-exposed to the bad energy and therefore afraid to let any energy, even the good stuff, in.

I've only been to work twice since then. I get hot and tired and fall asleep and wake up groggy and unhappy. Perhaps I should air-condition my house, or spend less time watching tv in the hot living room.

Perhaps I should just stop being lazy.

My friday night was pretty fun. My manager is encouraging me more and more to do stage, and I think I will try to do it right after I get back. Of course, this necessitates a photo shoot the day after I get back from a week-long vacation without showering, but I'm sure I can pull it off :) One of my few friends at work was off sick with a kidney stone last week, and she has 2 kids, so I was feeling pretty bad for her. Around 1;30 I had just gotten out of a dance and was chilling in the back room with the money girls, and my friend was about to cash out.
Then this 18-year old kid wanders in. He looks like he lost his pub crawl, just out of high school with all the pride in the world and none of the lessons.

"Hey, howsit going," I say conversationally. I'm bored of this job, though its been easy tonight.
"I'm looking for a private dance," he stammers a little, obviously fairly drunk.
"Ooh me, ooh me!" I giggle, sticking my hand up in the air. He probably has $30 or maybe even $60, but he's an easy mark.. I didn't even have to walk the floor!
"So you wanna go for half an hour, right?" I ask my standard question. Don't ever give the customer OPTIONS.
"Sure," he says, "how much?"
"$200 including tip." This is the point that I expect him to balk.
Instead, he hands me the contents of his wallet.
"Aww honey you need another $60. Here's the ATM."

My friend butts in at this point. She is already in her sweats but she still looks hot.
"Do you want both of us?" she is medium skinned, soft-bodied, with epic tits and piles of honey brown curls. She looks almost hawaiin.
For a moment, red-hot anger flares up. I could have got my quota from this guy and gone home, and now she's getting half. It fades as quickly as it comes- I know she needs this, and she's been trying to help me get in on doubles all night, I've just been busy :)
"It'll be twice as much," I tell the kid.
"Ok.."
By this point, my friend and I are laughing at eachother behind his back. He's trying to figure out the ATM, so I tell him to give me his credit card and I'll put it in the right way up for him (heehee.) He is still coherant, but he says its his first time at a strip club and he wants it to be really good!

Anyways, long story short, we have our fun. My friend and I are all over eachother, not really dancing, taking swigs of her "fiji" water (read: vodka) in the back room. He's enjoying it. We tie him up with his belt and pull his hair, laughing at his innocence yet pleasing him at the same time. It's nice to relax with a girlfriend for once :) I even kick off my shoes.

We don't last the whole half hour, and so we ask him if he wants more :) Sure, he says. We put on half our clothes and go back out to the machine.
"I want another girl, too.."
"That'll be another $400 please Alex... *ding ding ding*"
More fun, its the end of the night, and our third girl gives him a massage, rolling her eyes and laughing behind his head. My friend and I enjoy ourselves, loving the easy money.

Anyways, even though I had a good night, I felt quite sick last night and didn't go in. I think it was mostly the heat, and the fact I have a hard time sleeping during the day, and I'd stayed up until about 4;30. Silly girl.

So I just spent the cooler hours of the night working on this GORGEOUS jacket I'm making. Unfortunately, its fur, and I was stupidly using a zipper foot to sew it (i.e. the fur got caught in the foot a lot) and I managed to punch the needle through my fingertip. I got all dizzy and thought I was going to pass out for an hour, but my cracked nail is still holding the cut together, so I think it'll heal up pretty quick. It HURT like a motherfucker though!

Alright I've got to do some more trim on said jacket, put in one more shift at the day job at 1 pm tomorrow, and then i'm off to the woods! *mwah* Pictures of the jacket and the dome to come when I get back!

~Trystan Cinnamon Pteradactyl~

On Sexuality

When I was 15, I was determined to die. Just short of actively suicidal, I was sure that one day, very soon, the bus would crash, the booze would be too much, that car wouldn't stop as I sauntered across the street. So, sex was something I had to do before I died.

When I was 16, sex was the inevitable end to a drunken night. Sometimes desired, sometimes not, a few times it was held-down, struggling, not screaming because my friends were in the next room. There was comfort in these overgrown adolescents, the punks who wanted this punk teenage girl, with her shaved head and disasterous fashion.

When I was 17, sex was a game of conquests. I could fuck whoever I wanted to. I never had to say no or settle, because I was determined to fuck the prettiest boy in the room. I wanted to take my control back, to conquer, to attain. My weekends were full of drugs and bright colours, my mornings were twitching comedowns in someone else's house, afraid to go home all sketchy-like.

I lost a year or so of my life, after that. It started innocently enough, another conquest of an older boy. Slowly he stole my soul, my friends, and my will. He stole my sexuality, turning my fetishes against me, turning play-fighting into real hitting. Sex was mandatory, and I despaired and revelled in it at the same time. White powder blurs my memory of those days, when we were always searching for a better high, a crazier kink, another revelation. My squeaked-out words of protest went unheeded, for I wasn't able to survive on my own, or so I thought.

Eventually, I got out. Thats a long story, not entirely sad, but not the one I'm telling here.

I was 19. Leaving for university. Thinking myself soooo wise, so worldly, sooo strong. I didn't know, I think, how weak I was still. I slept with anyone that remotely piqued my interest, discarding them a couple weeks later, or being discarded. I wanted boys, girls, couples, anyone. I wanted to be in control. I wanted to be worth something.

A short, abortive relationship. After we broke up he raped me in my bed, drunk and there under the pretense of "talking." "You'll like it", he said. "You're so beautiful, I have to do this to you." He took advantage of the leash I had handed him, the buttons I gave him access to, even after I tried to take the other end of the leash back.

--------------------------------------------

The common thread of all these years: Sexuality based around submission. Whether it was being dragged out of me or thrown at someone's feet, I screamed, "take me." I drowned in losing myself, in the deep pools of dissociation, in the abjectness of it all.

I even found a healthy, happy output for this sexuality. When I was 20, I met my lover. We learn and grow together, experiment, teach, learn, take things too far, cry, and do it all again.

However, I find myself coming to a new phase in my sexuality. Does it have to do with stripping? Maybe I respect myself more because I have to, I need to maintain my boundaries in the club. Are these walls a remnant of my work persona, staying up too long?

My energies are all off. I feel desire, I feel attraction, but I don't feel passion or lust. My lover and I have slipped into the grind of life; sex happens in quick bursts, or on sundays. (the few sundays we are here.) I've fallen in lust with a dozen women in the past year, but I'm afraid to approach them now, when in the past I would have seduced, cajoled, charmed, and kissed my way into their beds. Now that I look at myself with some measure of respect, rather than careless abandon, it's harder to stand next to them and feel worthy. The beautiful tall damaged redhead. The candy-coloured cutie. The beautiful costumed women I meet at festivals across the country.

Every time I think I've found myself, figured out where I fit in, I feel the growing pains of my skin stretching and shifting again. Pulling over my bones, scraping, too thin here, too thick there.

My lover worries. I seem to be sick all the time. Is it mould in the walls? Anxiety? or simply a missalignment of the chakras? Do I have time to investigate these changes among my crazy life? To meditate on sadness and detachment? Can I convince myself that I am worthy again?

Has anyone else in the industry experienced this detachment of sexuality? I don't know if it is a common problem in general, or if my problem is just the transition from sub to not-sub. An equal (that still loves the whip.)

Perhaps I'm just always crazy, never in balance. Ah, well, where would I be without a quest to improve myself? Bored, I suppose.

A Strange Night

As I was leaving my day job today, I was having a conversation about changes. One of my friends said he has recently done a "purge"; he quit smoking weed, quit eating red meat, and did a couple days of fasting and sweatlodging.

This got me thinking about the things that I would like to change in my life. I thought about how I am addicted to my lifestyle, to drinking, to smoking, to having and spending money. I would like to be able to experience life without getting addicted to it, I would like to be able to have a drink or two without getting trashed. I would like to buy something amazing that is perfect for me, not buy six or seven dresses on the way to finding a decent one.

I would like to spend more time being creative, writing, drawing, sewing, painting, singing, and dancing.

I would like to save money to travel.

Tonight, I stayed up. I have been all over the place, drifting in and out of time. Getting lost in another universe, reading tales of a desert and planning elaborate structures. As the sky started to lighten outside my office window, I began to travel so deep into other people`s thoughts and creations that I actually came back around to my own.

I got up. I picked up my darling grey cat from my lap, where she had been cutting off my circulation for several hours now, and I went outside. Sliding up the creaking stairs, trying not to wake my lover, smoking half a peach cigarillo in the cold morning air. Even at 5 am the wind is gusting around the house. I put up my tent, struggling by myself, checking for missing parts and strange smells before our camping trip this weekend. It takes me all of five minutes. Still wiggly.

So I decide to go for a run. The thought has been sneaking around my head lately, passed back and forth between laziness and a desire for something better. Running has never been my thing, it takes too much mental fortitude, but the few times I have succeeded, its almost a religious experience.

Find fresh batteries, pull shoes out of closet, pull on sweater, leave note in case lover wakes up.. 5:23 I sneak out the front door. The world has a certain stillness, a quiet that I haven`t heard in a long time. There`s no ringing in my ears from the club speakers, which is usually the case when I see the sunrise. The sound of engines slowly starts to increase as the morning shift starts to travel off to work.

My feet pound against the pavement, in time with the music in my ears. My breath comes surprisingly easily, in-two-out-four, in time with my feet. It is my muscles that protest, not used to this endurance, strong and powerful in short bursts but stiffening up quickly.

I run down into the grass, into the gravel, between the trees. The early light filters through. Just after the solstice, the sun is already half-risen at 5;30. The grey light is fading into yellow and green, filtered through the trees. The creek is still, choked with green water plants, nibbled on by a mother duck and nine fuzzy, floating puffball babies. Poplar fluff flies up my nose, rising under my pounding feet in little clouds of dust.

Running up and down gravel hills, pausing at the top of the ravine, I decide to go back through it rather than take the shortcut back along the paved streets. Push yourself. Go ahead.

The last few minutes are hard. I walk more and more on the uphill, lenghtening my strides on the downhill. Half an hour is a long time when you haven`t gone running in god knows how long. I walk up the last hill, peeling off my sweater as the air starts to heat up. The path ends on a grassy shoulder, peeling off the edge of the trees and blending into pavement and houses. I sprint the last 100 metres, coming out of the shadows of aspens and bursting into the sunlight.

Stop. Walk to the nice grass. Stretch my arms high above my head, feel my spine crackling, my quads and hip flexors complaining. Sun salutations, greeting the new day with the itch of grass against my palms and the rising sun blinding my opened eyes.

I`m not a stranger to this feeling, but its so elusive. I want to remember to go looking for it.

Being Different

So tonight was decent at the club. There were a TON of bachelor parties there, and lots of them were buying in 1s and 2s. I only did one set of 4 which is odd for me.

The hard thing is that 2 other blonde girls who have been doing this like 2 weeks, max, both DOUBLED my income. more than, including tips, I'm sure. This leads me back on the track of getting down on myself... "I'm too fat, I'm too drunk, I'm not drunk enough, my hair's not long enough, my hairs not BLONDE enough!"

Now, I got a few people tonight that REALLY loved the red hair. But most of the blondes can have anyone. Proportionatly, there are way more people that love blonde hair than red hair.

I was going to go into a whole in-depth psychology thing but my brain-death just hit for the night and I'm starting to type gibberish.

Tonight was a write off

..but at least I dragged myself in to work. the club was dead. I made $60. whoo.

New Zealand is looking further and further away.