I've been having a low day, a bad Friday. Nothing in paticular has happened, I just feel awful. I laid in bed and read a book or two, but the words just seem to wash over me. I'm working tonight, and guess that I am going to have to buck up and get my head out of the sand. I can't say that I am paticuarly looking forward to it, but I also know from experience that once I get into the club my smile will switch on and I will become a happy, flirty little automaton.
Working nights can be fun, hilarious even, and gives you the day to yourself. I'm free to do whatever I want. But sometimes those long hours seem to stretch out. You wake up in your empty bed, sometimes in the morning, more usually around lunchtime, occassionally in the afternoon. You stare at the ceiling, perhaps open the curtains, look at the weather outside. You know that there is no reason to venture outside the house right away, so you putter downstairs and make yourself a cup of tea. Wipe smears of encrusted eyelash glue and sleepy eye from your puffy lids, and think about what you are going to have for breakfast. Pick my nose. Scratch your bum. Look at any fresh blisters on your toes and press them against the cold linoleum. Then you check how many hours you have till your shift that evening and wonder what you are going to do with all that time.
If I'm feeling sprightly, I might go for a jog. Hit the gym. Do a few cat-like stretches and some yoga in the living room.
If I'm feeling numb and bored, I'll just slump back to bed. Read a book. Open up the papers. Jump on Twitter and see what the rest of the world is doing. Log on facebook.
Someone sent me a message today, that a new book on stripping was out. I looked on Amazon. There it was. A memoir of lapdancing in London. "Stripped; A Life of Strip and Tease in Clubland" by Samantha Bailey. I recognised the author. She looked happy and smiling in her promotional photo. I felt a pang of jealousy, followed by a huge feeling of inadequacy. Why wasn't it me in print? I've been faffing around with a novel for the best part of two years now, starting and stopping, changing the format. I started work on a memoir, but that seemed dull and formulaic, so I began on a novel. A girl at university that becomes a stripper in London. But that didn't seem to work, not properly, so I began again - condensing time, trying to fit an average night, an unusual week, the run-up to Christmas, into 20 chapters. I'm still fiddling, but the fiddling is going well. I feel like I am actually getting somewhere. Perhaps eventually I will see the publication of another girls memoirs as something exciting, and inspirational. It certainly bodes well if there is a publishing precedent.
I googled around a bit more, to see what other women in the sex industry were publishing. Most interesting was Lorelei Lee, who has screenwritten a movie called 'Cherry', starrring the ridiculously gorgeous and talanted James Franco. I felt a pang of jealousy at this too. Here was a porn star whose writing prowess had landed her the opportunity to work with Hollywood's hottest talent. The movie is still in post-production, and is on my must-see wish list.
Then there are the big-hitters - Diablo Cody, another stripper, this time American, who wrote the screenplay for Juno following the success of her stripping memoirs 'Candy Girl'. Another girl who made it to Hollywood. Belle de Jour, or Dr. Brooke Magnanti, is another British sex-industry worker done good, who is on her 3rd or 4th book already and had ITV turn her vice-girl memoirs into an awesome TV series. Starring Billie Piper. I remember Billie from when I was growing up, she was a teeny bopper pop music firehouse who was around my age and had grown up in London. We were all jealous at my school and longed, secretly, that we were also prancing around with a record contract and the catchphrase 'coz we want too'!
I know that Rome wasn't built in a day, and that aspiring to be like others who have had success in a field similar to yours is a good thing. But it is still dispiriting sometimes, especially when you wake up with bruised toes, in a hot bedroom, alone, with nothing but a few cups of tea and a computer screen to fill up the hours of a grey London day. Sometimes I can't wait for dusk to fall.....
Working nights can be fun, hilarious even, and gives you the day to yourself. I'm free to do whatever I want. But sometimes those long hours seem to stretch out. You wake up in your empty bed, sometimes in the morning, more usually around lunchtime, occassionally in the afternoon. You stare at the ceiling, perhaps open the curtains, look at the weather outside. You know that there is no reason to venture outside the house right away, so you putter downstairs and make yourself a cup of tea. Wipe smears of encrusted eyelash glue and sleepy eye from your puffy lids, and think about what you are going to have for breakfast. Pick my nose. Scratch your bum. Look at any fresh blisters on your toes and press them against the cold linoleum. Then you check how many hours you have till your shift that evening and wonder what you are going to do with all that time.
If I'm feeling sprightly, I might go for a jog. Hit the gym. Do a few cat-like stretches and some yoga in the living room.
If I'm feeling numb and bored, I'll just slump back to bed. Read a book. Open up the papers. Jump on Twitter and see what the rest of the world is doing. Log on facebook.
Someone sent me a message today, that a new book on stripping was out. I looked on Amazon. There it was. A memoir of lapdancing in London. "Stripped; A Life of Strip and Tease in Clubland" by Samantha Bailey. I recognised the author. She looked happy and smiling in her promotional photo. I felt a pang of jealousy, followed by a huge feeling of inadequacy. Why wasn't it me in print? I've been faffing around with a novel for the best part of two years now, starting and stopping, changing the format. I started work on a memoir, but that seemed dull and formulaic, so I began on a novel. A girl at university that becomes a stripper in London. But that didn't seem to work, not properly, so I began again - condensing time, trying to fit an average night, an unusual week, the run-up to Christmas, into 20 chapters. I'm still fiddling, but the fiddling is going well. I feel like I am actually getting somewhere. Perhaps eventually I will see the publication of another girls memoirs as something exciting, and inspirational. It certainly bodes well if there is a publishing precedent.
I googled around a bit more, to see what other women in the sex industry were publishing. Most interesting was Lorelei Lee, who has screenwritten a movie called 'Cherry', starrring the ridiculously gorgeous and talanted James Franco. I felt a pang of jealousy at this too. Here was a porn star whose writing prowess had landed her the opportunity to work with Hollywood's hottest talent. The movie is still in post-production, and is on my must-see wish list.
Then there are the big-hitters - Diablo Cody, another stripper, this time American, who wrote the screenplay for Juno following the success of her stripping memoirs 'Candy Girl'. Another girl who made it to Hollywood. Belle de Jour, or Dr. Brooke Magnanti, is another British sex-industry worker done good, who is on her 3rd or 4th book already and had ITV turn her vice-girl memoirs into an awesome TV series. Starring Billie Piper. I remember Billie from when I was growing up, she was a teeny bopper pop music firehouse who was around my age and had grown up in London. We were all jealous at my school and longed, secretly, that we were also prancing around with a record contract and the catchphrase 'coz we want too'!
I know that Rome wasn't built in a day, and that aspiring to be like others who have had success in a field similar to yours is a good thing. But it is still dispiriting sometimes, especially when you wake up with bruised toes, in a hot bedroom, alone, with nothing but a few cups of tea and a computer screen to fill up the hours of a grey London day. Sometimes I can't wait for dusk to fall.....
