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It took a team of lumberjacks to restrain her.

Colossal, blindingly white, and straining the thick, steel cables taught, the Great White Butt tested the strength of the seasoned, burly men as they strained, veins bulging, to overpower her fight against the human anchors below.

"Land sakes, men!" boomed a barrel-chested, mustachioed foreman.

"Hold her fast and bring her down!"

From their position at the helm of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, the men, giant among the gawking on-lookers, were ants under the conjoined orbs above, a gluteal leviathan, swaying and threatening with her massive girth.

"Heave her! Heave, now!" the foreman bellowed madly, standing firm on his prosthetic legs, adrenaline swelling and surging through his body, weathered by years of pursuing this mighty beast.

But the Great White Butt heaved first, whiplashing the crew onto their backs in the street below.

In that instant, the foreman fell forward, charging through his fallen men to grab the cable that would pull her to him at long last.

"Ahab! No!" The first mate yells after him, reaching toward him as he lay helplessly in the street.

But Ahab looks back at him suddenly, meeting the terrified gaze with pure possession in his eyes, demon-driven for decades to hunt, find, and kill the Great White Butt.

In his distraction, a cable flies back and snaps, lightening-fast, around his ox-like neck.

"Nooooooooo!" the first mate screams.

Bug-eyed and cycling wildly as he rises with her through the air, the Great White Butt bolts powerfully away, dragging Ahab to his death and soaring to freedom in the wild blue yonder.

This entry goes out to Mr. Chris Gentleman, a US hero who has recently returned to Kansas from fighting in Iraq. Thank you, sir, for all you've done, and, as promised, we will get coffee! P.S. to the ladies: Did I mention he's SINGLE? Check this SINGLE man out on Twitter and send him a friendly 'welcome back' direct message or tweet.

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LADIES AND THOSE-WHO-APPRECIATE-LADIES, hang on to your hats, because I have huge news of the "holy bananas!" variety.

When we last officially checked in, I had not been offered a job to work at the (previously) unnamed club I visited first in New York.

As my stripper-friend and I filled out applications, we had stared hopelessly at the six-foot, gorgeous, model-like Amazons already dancing there, and convinced ourselves that the club, Lace, would not hire us.

But bust out your best cheap Champagne and celebrate with me, because THEY DID HIRE US AFTER ALL!

I was freezing my buns off in the big, illegal residential building I was staying in when I saw a 212 number show up on my phone on Friday last week.

"That's odd," I thought, pulling the borrowed blue Snuggie around my shoulders a little more. I frowned at the screen.

I needed to re-enter some numbers into my crappy new phone, but all my friends had the "new New York" numbers, which start with 646 and 347. Maybe it was someone's land line at work?

"Who is calling me from work?" I wondered, hoping it wasn't an emergency.

One icy finger emerged from the Snuggie to push 'accept call.'

"Hello?" I said, curiously, tilting my head toward the phone. My eyes swept the sides of the large city apartment for answers that might have skittered to the margins of the living room.

"Hey, is [my real name] available?" a man with a deep and unfamiliar voice asked.

What?

No one calls me that anymore. Even my 'pre-stripping' friends call me Anna, because I barely answer to anything else. Who the hell is this?

"May I ask what you're calling about?" I asked politely, suddenly feeling very guarded. I mentally reviewed the places I could hide and the people who would help me if this was someone to be afraid of.

"This is Jerry. I'm calling from Lace---" he started. Omigod!

I switched instantly to professional mode.

"Oh, hello there," I said smoothly. "It's so nice to hear from you, Jerry. I remember you from the club. What can I do for you?" I smiled into the phone.

Oh my gosh. Hire me! Please!

"We checked out you guys' applications, and we'd like you to come dance for us," he said.

"Wow!" I said, not bothering to conceal my excitement. "I can't tell you how cool this is. We were very impressed with your club and we would love to dance for you!"

"That's great! Can you come in tomorrow?" the man with the deep voice smiled into the phone.

"Unfortunately, we can't," I said. He started to speak, but I interrupted. "But we will be back in July, and we would be ecstatic to come work for you then. We are two, really great girls. How does that sound?"

I held my breath as my heart pounded. Omigod, I want this. I want this! "Please, please, please be as cool as the strip club staffs at the Outhouse and Paradise Saloon," I prayed, not daring to close my eyes.

"That would be fine," he said, still smiling.

Enormously relieved, I exhaled in a sudden rush.

"Wow, this is so exciting," I said breathlessly. "This is so great. Wow! I'm so glad. You know, I'm going to call you a few times between now and then to make sure you don't forget, because we absolutely cannot wait to dance for you." I was grinning with every word.

He laughed. "Oh, I won't. Don't worry," he reassured me. "If I do, just remind me about the girls from Kansas."

We hung up.

"YES!" I jumped into the air and ran over to my friend and his roommates gathered around their kitchen table. "You guys! You guys! I JUST GOT HIRED AT LACE!" I jumped up and down and clapped my hands. "They-only-hire-the-hottest-girls-and-you-have-no-idea-how-much-I-wanted-this-and-for-some-crazy-reason-I-got-hired-and-I'm-coming-back-in-July-and-I'm-so-excited-and-OH-MY-GOD!"

They laughed and congratulated me.

I hurried back to my laptop and posted about it in the comments on other entries. I called my stripper-friend who also got hired. I called my boyfriend.

"I can't believe they hired me! I'm so excited! I have to hit the gym and work my butt off and be the hottest thing ever by July," I said, still hopping as I told my boyfriend, Joe, the news.

"Wow, New York wants to see my girlfriend naked. I have to say that's pretty hot," he (essentially) said. I laughed.

Clinging to my crappy cell phone, I jumped around some more. Yay yay yay!

In the same city I competed in for gold medals in ballet and jazz dance competitions as a teenager, I was now hired to get on stage and get naked for (hopefully!) a lot of money. Well, almost naked. I have to leave at least a thong on when dancing in Manhattan.

"There's no touching allowed here," I told my boyfriend. "Dances are still $20, but the tipping etiquette is likely very different." Or, at least, that's what I'm telling myself.

With Lace on my mind, the heartsickness I felt at having to leave my favorite city in the world was a little easier to bear over my last day and a half in New York.

Though it has a reputation for hardness, New York is actually full of very nice people with a positive energy that seemed all the more strong and proud that weekend after I got the call from Lace. It felt like the City was celebrating with me.

An adorable couple hugged and cuddled happily in the apartment I was staying in.

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The cakes in the Corrado Bread & Pastry display case in Grand Central Market looked extra good!

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Another adorable couple, Joe and Diane, enjoyed fondue at the famous Dylan's Candy Bar in Midtown East, my old neighborhood, that I miss every day.

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As I took a picture of a sign in my beloved, stinky, icky New York subway, a concerned New Yorker took the initiative to explain to a couple with two babies and a carriage how they could make traveling easier by using elevators to get to the trains instead of stairways.

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I took pictures of my favorite flowers, Gerbera Daisies, at Pavilion Florist, a charming little flower shop near my cousin's apartment in Astoria (for NY-ers: Pavilion is near the NRW at 30th!), as I ran errands for him. (My cousin recently broke his leg).

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I ran around the City all day, essentially checking to see if everything I loved was still there. It was! Even the ever-spectacular (and surprisingly affordable) Fig + Olive, the restaurant I mentioned in the first entry I wrote about running around in New York. Sigh!

Late at night, I headed home to pack, soaking up every New York scene I could.

A group of young men threw snowballs at a building (and the sneakers hanging from the power lines) across the street from where I stayed. (These kind young gentlemen inquired as to what kind of blog they were going to appear on, and, to my great delight, were not appalled by the subject material).

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Oh, New York. How I love you so, especially since you do not require me to own a car.

A bit heartsick, I began to fold my clothes and force my shower stuff to take on new shapes and fit into my bulging suitcase for my early Sunday flight. I wasn't headed back to Kansas just yet, but to Colorado, to meet for the first time my little sister's fiancé, a neurosurgeon whom we will call Patch going forward.

Dad met me at the gate.

"Um, could you go ahead and neglect to mention that you work at a strip club and blog about naked people?" My dad asked me quietly. "We don't want to scare Patch's family away until after the wedding."

As I wrote in a mid-December entry, my parents are not big fans of my new career as a 'cocktail waitress.'

I laughed. "Don't worry, Dad," I said. "I'll just say I'm a waitress. When I tell people that, their eyes just kind of glaze over and they change the subject."

Like the well-meaning family we are, Dad and I smiled at Patch as I shook his hand and met him for the first time.

"What do you do?" he asked me, at one point. "Are you still working at that nonprofit I heard about?"

"Oh, no," I said. "I resigned in December. I'm a waitress now." I smiled and distracted him with a rude question about how much his hands are insured for.

"Well, about a million dollars," he said, smiling patiently. "But I think they would have to be dismembered to get the whole million."

I laughed and thanked him for answering my inappropriate question so candidly.

He turned out to be as amazing as my parents said he was. Brilliant, sweet, and very in love with my beautiful blond little sister whose smile is legendary, he had my approval in under an hour.

What did not have my approval was something that had, very unfortunately, happened to his little sister, who is living in Santiago, Chile right now.

I listened, horrified, as her mother explained that when the earthquake happened, she scrambled for her daughter's Skype information and called what she thought was her current number.

"Hello? Hello?" Her mother had said frantically into the phone, pleading with the silence on the other end to tell her where her daughter was. As I understand it, the line then went dead.

She called back. "Hello? Hello? Is Megan [Last Name] there?! Please tell me if Megan is there!"

A man answered in Spanish. "No 'Megan [Last Name],'" he said. He said something else to emphasize that he had no idea what Megan's mother was talking about, who Megan was, or how to speak any English, and he hung up on her.

Unable to get in touch with their daughter, Megan's parents were tortured by each second in the hours that followed. With no word from Megan or anyone in Chile who could help them, they grew more and more gravely worried.

They finally got an email from her confirming that she was OK and that she made it out alive, despite being without water for an extended period of time.

Later, the family was able to speak with their daughter on the phone and put together a clearer picture of what happened when they were trying to reach her before.

Apparently, the number her mother called first was actually Megan's ex-boyfriend's apartment. They had lived together there until he cheated on her recently. She broke up with him and moved out.

There are far more wonderful people in the world than there are people who consciously do things that hurt others. The world is a better, safer place when people try to be nice.

That night, my mom and I talked at length about some family drama with my little sister at the center. At the end, she changed the subject back to me.

"What does your boyfriend think of you working at a strip club?" She asked as we lounged on the bed in Patch's parents' guest room. "You are working so far below your potential. The environment is horrible, and I can't imagine that he's impressed with your unwillingness to live up to our expectations of you."

"I think he kind of likes it," I said, wavering when she pointed out that I could do better. "I'm having tons of fun, Mom. I don't want to do anything else right now."

Bothered, my mother got up to close the door softly.

"Well, make sure you don't post about it on Facebook and accidentally tell Patch or anything," she cautioned me as took her place again and shifted closer to me on the bed.

"Mom---" I started to tell her Dad had essentially already warned me.

She petted my hair and looked at me. "My baby can do better," she said. "My baby went to the best schools, did the best internships, and you'd be so good in marketing or sales."

Her baby thought about all the money in stripping and wondered what she could sell for more and still be this happy and excited about coming to work every day.

"I miss my baby's old line of work," she said. "I want you to move on to the next phase in your life."

Of all the things that drive men to the brink of their sanity, the most common disaster they seem to lament is women. But apparently anger and jealousy can no more bear to lose sight of their objects than love, and so for these reasons and others, oases of hyperfemininity lurk quietly and seductively in the shadowy corners to meet demand everywhere from Kansan cornfields to New York City.

I and my travel buddy, another stripper, went as customers to one such oasis near the giant, brightly lit billboards and marquees of Broadway.

We stumbled over the place, called Private Eyes, as we looked for a less scandalous end to our night. Since it was recommended to us as a place we might be able to work, we ventured inside.

The cover charge, $15, was hardly prohibitive. Ushered into a darkly lit club that seemed right out of a movie with a strip club scene, we took stage-side seats, looked at the girls on stage, and knew immediately that we could work here.

The girls were all between 5' and 5'6" with toned or 'naturally slim,' attractive bodies, and faces ranging from just qualifying as 'pretty' to gorgeous.

We looked at each other and smiled. We don't have to be 130 pound, 6' Amazons after all!

New York does want to see us naked! Hooray!

We decided that losing 10 or so pounds would help us manage the effects of the exceptionally bright stage lighting around dancers' legs and not make us look anorexic, but we are already the kind of girls they hire: pretty and petite.

Whew!

A chat with the house DJ and the manager confirmed our candidacy. They told us we would need to do a two-song audition: one in a short dress, one in a long dress; both with high heels, of course. "We'll be back!" We promised, happy and confident we would be hired.

For now, we enjoyed the customer experience.

The stage, with lighting emanating from the side of the bar enclosing it, highlighted the girls' exceptionally attractive bodies nearly as brightly as the All Stars stage in Lawrence, Kansas. The girls smiled, for the most part, and at least one of every four girls we saw on stage was an OK dancer. Each girl's actual dancing, however, was limited by the tiny, bracket-shaped stage and the presence of two other dancers up there with her.

We didn't see any impressive pole tricks, but the girls were friendly, and a couple dancers came over to talk to us during their stage sets. I gave a few different girls $5 tips.

(Tips! It's how to make friends as a customer at a strip club)!

The girls, who rotated and therefore kept us very occupied with new eye candy at each new song, danced in front of us in everything from stretchy cocktail dress-style outfits to simpler two-piece bikinis, and only stripped down to a thong. Full nudity, it appeared, was not an option.

They danced on the bar separating our seats from their stage, showed us their cute behinds and boobs (of course!), and talked to us a bit. The girls I saw seemed, based on genuine-looking smiles and friendly attitudes, to be enjoying both their jobs as strippers and that particular night at work.

We told the girls we were dancers from Kansas and received a warm reception from each of them.

"Do you like working here?" I asked a few of the girls. They each said they did.

"I've got three kids," one of the girls told us right after telling us her dancer name.

Oops! Not a detail you share with customers--off-duty dancers or not--right when you meet them. This kind of reality--whether you think of it as a positive or negative piece of information--interrupts the fantasy experience.

Rightly following up with customers who tipped her well on stage, another girl, Mila, wearing a sparkly pink outfit, came over to us after her stage set. She seemed open and eager to answer our questions.

"Yes, I love working here," she nodded. She said she had been dancing in New York City for five years, mostly for Private Eyes and other clubs owned by the same company.

"What's tipout here?" I asked, inquiring about the fee that dancers, as independent contractors (and not employees), are required to pay to 'rent the stage' each night we work.

"It's [I think she said $65 or $75?] at the beginning of the week, but it's $100 for the other days," she said.

"That seems high," I said.

At the Outhouse, it costs $30 to work Sunday through Wednesday, $60 on Thursday, and $100 on Fridays and Saturdays. There is a sign-up system you can take advantage of to reduce the tipout fee to zero on the cheaper nights or 50% on the weekends, as well.

"At the place we work, there's a sign-up system you can use to reduce your tipout," I said. "Do you have something like that here, or does it always cost you $100 for a good night to work?"

She looked confused that such a thing would even exist.

"We don't have anything like that," Mila said.

For comparison purposes: at at least one place in Chicago, called the Pink Monkey, tipout is $40 for a night of work.

"How much do you typically take home after tipout?" I asked.

"Well, it depends on the dancer," she said.

Some people are better at sales than others.

"How about you?" I asked. "What's a typical night?"

"Around $600 to $800," she said. She said the biggest night she's had at Private Eyes and their associated clubs is $2,000.

"How much are dances here?" I asked.

"$20," she said.

"Can I get a dance?" I asked, smiling.

"Sure!" She said.

She led me over to a somewhat crowded bench on another side of the stage. Guys on either side of me got dance after dance from their girls.

I paid her in advance and sat on the bench. I copied the men sitting next to me and put my hands at my sides. It appeared that no touching was allowed.

We were 25% of the way through the song that was playing, but Mila immediately started dancing on me. I didn't stop her.

She smiled and moved around my lap in a sexy way.

Based on how she was moving around on my body, her dance seemed more intended for a male customer than a female. Either way, I can appreciate a good lap dance, and she gave an OK one. She wasn't rough, but I like them a little softer, slower, and more seductive than what she gave me. I also like them a little more intimate. When I give a dance, I get close to a customer and make sure they know, based on my expression and my proximity to them, that it's an intimate act and my focus is 100% on them.

If I planned to return to the club, I would make her aware of how I like my dances, and give her another chance to dance for me. But I knew I wouldn't be back as a customer, so I didn't say anything. Moreover, she didn't ask me how she was doing, and requesting a specific move during a lap dance without being prompted to do so strikes me as a little creepy, so I kept my thoughts to myself.

While she danced, I made conversation.

Explaining that I was interested in working at Private Eyes and potentially owning a place in Manhattan, I asked her if she owned her current apartment.

"No," she said. "I don't do that kind of weird stuff."

I made sure she understood my question, and she clarified that she just thought home ownership wasn't for her.

Well, to each their own.

The song ended.

"Thank you," I said, smiling, and started to get up.

"Oh, we started our dance part of the way into the song, so I'll dance a bit more for you," she said, her hands on my shoulders. "Everyone gets a full song for their dance," she said, nodding.

I smiled and decided she was a good businesswoman.

When she finished, I thanked her and headed to my seat. She followed me back and asked my friend if she wanted a dance.

My friend politely declined. Like a good salesperson, Mila tried once more before politely thanking her anyway and moving on.

I looked around at the customers. They looked like tourists, and since we weren't far from Times Square, I thought that might be the case, but you never know.

The men seemed to be dressed casually, for the most part. I only noticed a handful wearing suits. My friend and I were two of perhaps three or four female customers in the club.

We politely ordered bottled water when the waitress, wearing a see-through outfit and a black thong, informed us that there was a one-drink minimum.

$9 for a small container of Voss water. Alrightythen. It is a strip club, after all. :)

We watched a bit longer, and took in the physical setting and surroundings a bit more: small, as dark as the Outhouse except for the stage, the room appeared similar in size and set-up to North Lawrence's Paradise Saloon, a small strip club two miles past the Lawrence Airport on Highway 40.

Private Eyes also has a Champagne room, which Mila told me costs $595 to take a dancer into for one hour.

"How much of that does the dancer get to keep?" I asked her.

"$200," Mila said.

Wow. It struck me as kind of a gamble to head to the Champagne room as a dancer who likes to make as much money as possible.

It's not unheard of to make over $200 in one hour on the regular floor at the Outhouse (and, perhaps, at Private Eyes as well), so if someone's going to take a dancer in there, I'd hope he'd tip her on top of that $595 fee.

Reviews of the Private Eyes on Yelp.com stated that the $595 did not include Champagne, which I thought made sense from the perspective of someone who wants to make a lot of money, but perhaps prohibitive to some clientele in an economy like the one we're stuck with for now.

I would say that overall, I had a fun experience at Private Eyes as a customer, and recommend it to anyone interested in seeing some cute, almost-naked girls on their next visit to New York City. Good times. :)

What do you think?

Based on what Mila shared with me, should I apply to work at Private Eyes when I come back to the City in June?

If you're a health nut like me, a visit to New York will both delight and horrify you because you are forced to learn exactly how many calories you are putting in your body when you buy your favorite treats at a restaurant with more than 15 "outlets" nationwide.

Starbucks, a.k.a. the best legal addiction available, is one such restaurant.

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Sigh. It's posted for every drink (in every size), too.

In a related vein, I've decided I really will lose a few pounds so that I can improve my business in Kansas and prepare for a late-March trip to Las Vegas with my boyfriend, who wrote to me in an email today:

"A graph of my love for you would have a continuously positive slope[.] :)"

It might also help me when I come back to New York in June for a wedding and I have to squeeze into a dress I wore comfortably before I moved to meat-and-potatoes Kansas.

So, talk to you later. :) I'm off to my old gym at 59th and Park. (Bragging: I finagled a free week of temporary membership for this trip. Yay for saving at least some money on vacation).

Have you packed on some pounds (even just 10-20, like I did) over the past year? Would you benefit from restaurants posting calorie information on menus?

As you know from the last entry, I came to New York with another dancer. The night we got here, we were tired, but we forced ourselves to go out and look for a job.

We assumed they would hire us if they thought we were cute, so we got all dolled up and Googled 'New York City strip clubs.'

We called a car to my friend's Brooklyn apartment, where we're staying for this week, and headed into Manhattan to investigate the first club, which shall remain nameless because they have our personal information.

"Oh, hi!" the door staff said to us politely. "Are you applying to be waitresses?"

"We're applying to be dancers," we said, smiling sweetly and taking the applications.

"Oh, OK," the tall man said. We filled out the sheet of paperwork at a small table in the hallway. Name, dancer-name, social security number. Any arrest record? Bra size. Height. Weight. Hair color. Eye color. Tattoos? Scars? Would we dance topless? Naked? All of the above? Short description of work history.

We filled it all out, and a man took Polaroids of us with our clothes on.

"This is the best place to work," the man said, smiling.

I noticed a tall, thin girl in booty shorts and a small top scamper out of the entry to the club's floor and disappear into what looked like an adjacent bathroom. As the door closed, I saw a tall, thin white girl with a body like Kate Moss (with slightly bigger boobs) swaying slightly to the club music. She might have been 5'10" in flat shoes. The lighting was bright compared to the Outhouse, and the slightly softened lighting did not disguise any flaws. She wore a tight-fitting, sparkly gown made of inexpensive-looking stretchy material. Her top was scrunched down around her waist. It looked less like a dance show and more like she was just kind of standing there on a tiny stage, shifting her weight from hip to hip in front of a large column, like a doll on a stand. She was smiling.

Behind her, another, similarly built girl appeared to give the same low-key viewing opportunity on a similarly small stage.

Male customers in suits sat in comfortable, sofa-like lounge chairs.

The door closed.

My girlfriend and I exchanged looks.

We are both about five feet tall in flip-flops. We eat. And where we come from, there's a pole, and we dance. (Some better than others).

"Um, holy crap," I said. "There is no way they are going to hire us."

"I'll put in a good word for you guys," the tall man said as he collected our applications and stapled our Polaroids to them.

Right.

A male customer came out of the main room and suddenly shoved a camera in my friend's face.

"Will you take a picture with me?" he asked.

"Haha, sorry," she giggled, trying to keep the mood light, despite his aggressive behavior. The tall male staffer said nothing.

"Your fly is down," I said. It was wide open. "At least zip it up."

"Why are you going to make me do that?" he laughed.

Um, what?

"Oh, c'mon!" he insisted. He started to put his arm around her.

"No," she said sweetly.

He walked around the other side of the table by me and pointed the camera at her face. I put my hand in front of it.

"Sorry, she said no," I said firmly.

"Will you take a picture with me?" he asked me.

"Sorry, no," I said, dodging its lens in case it went off. What a creep. I couldn't pull my eyes off his unzipped pants, either. Jesus. What a mess.

"They're applying for a job," the tall man said, finally.

The guy continued to insist.

"Sorry!" we continued to say. What a jerk.

The annoying man went back through the club's doors. Good riddance!

Worried that we might not get hired by this place, which seemed to prefer taller, thinner girls, we asked the tall man to suggest another place we might check out. He recommended we try Flashdancers, another club.

We jumped in a cab.

We walked downstairs to enter the darker lit club, and spoke to an older man at the front desk.

"No, we're not hiring," he said.

What! Now, when you hear this at a strip club, this is absolutely not true.

Pro-tip: strip clubs are always hiring, unless they aren't hiring you.

We were still wearing our jackets, but you know what? We're cute girls! Especially my friend, who just turned 22, and looks about 18.

We were blown away. As we walked back up the stairs, our jaws were definitely somewhere in China. Halfway up, I turned and asked the man: "Where else should we check? Who is hiring girls like us?"

"Try Private Eyes," he said.

It was late, so we agreed to go home and check it out another day.

"Oh my god," I said. "New York doesn't want to see us naked. I don't believe this. It's impossible!"

The next night, we were celebrating my friend's birthday at Whiskey Blue.

"What do you do?"

"We're exotic dancers," we answered.

"Wow! Really?" several groups of guys reacted the same way. They were blown away. I guess they thought dancers only exist in clubs, and that we never go out and mingle with the masses.

The guys were especially interested in my friend, who is exceptionally gorgeous.

"What do you mean the clubs won't hire you? Are you serious? Can we set something up?"

The guys we spoke to were so nice. Birthday shots in honor of my gorgeous friend, and all the apple-tinis we could handle, at one point from several different groups of men, all different ages, all of whom seemed to be aware that other guys were buying us all kinds of drinks---we were definitely drunk.

Rather than disrespecting us, or becoming less interested in us after discovering that we're dancers, all they wanted to do was give us business.

Don't you wish your business had that kind of demand? :) Yet another reason I so like the sex industry.

We were excited to be partying, to have all this attention, and I was thrilled my friend was having a great birthday on top of discovering that we didn't need to get hired at a club to make money in New York.

Yay! No tipout! :)

"I am not going anywhere alone," my friend said. Smart, but I thought this would be hard, because she's a much more popular dancer than I am, generally speaking. I'm a pretty girl, but looks-wise, she's definitely more attractive, and her boobs are significantly bigger, and I doubted that people interested in her would also be interested in me. I'm a different kind of pretty, and we seem to appeal to totally different customers, most of the time.

As it turned out, one older banking executive wanted her to come back to his room and dance for him. Later, he said he wanted both of us to do it.

And we probably would have, but my gorgeous friend became ill from all the drinking. I ran out to Duane Reade and brought her bottled water, some veggie chips to try and hold down, and Tums, which she likes.

The poor girl felt awful. I didn't want her to miss out on possibly making money, so I told our banker guy it would be an hour and a half until we got to his hotel room.

"Drink!" I commanded her several times (nicely!).

In the end, it wasn't going to happen, so I called him with the news.

"I'm really sorry, but it seems my friend was a bit too popular this evening," I explained. "I'm really sorry, but I don't think I can bring her. Are you still interested in having me come?"

"Oh, that's too bad," he said. "But I'd still like to have you. We'll say $400?"

I agreed.

I helped my friend, who was more and more lucid with every passing 10 minutes, evade security and get into a cab to go home and sleep. I gave her the key and made sure the cabbie knew where he was going.

I headed over to the Hilton, where our banker was staying.

"What's the name of the person in that room?" The security guard quizzed me on my way in. I was offended by his questions, but answered nicely.

"I'm not a prostitute," I said. He apologized, and I headed upstairs. I wasn't nervous at all. I thought briefly about what my boyfriend would think, but felt pretty confident he'd be OK with what I was doing. Somewhere in the back of my mind, it occurred to me that if he didn't feel he could trust me, I'd probably break it off with him.

I knocked on the door quietly.

"Hi!" I said, and gave him a hug. "Thanks for having me over."

"The pleasure is mine," he said. "What are the rules?"

I told him touching is allowed as long as it isn't in my bikini area.

"You should put on some music," I said, smiling, and excused myself to the bathroom to undress. I emerged, dressed in a matching bra and panty set I just happened to be wearing, and matching heels I used to wear to the office as an intern at an Ivy League university.

My, how life can change!

"You look great," he said. I wasn't standing in the dark lighting at the Outhouse or wearing my usual Bettie Page-style fishnet thigh-highs, so I was flattered by his compliment.

"What kind of music do you like?" he asked. "Hmm, let's see," I said. I scanned the list of options on his TV screen.

"How about Diana Krall?" He selected her album "The Look of Love," and we began our first dance. I kept my clothes on for this one.

He sat on the edge of the bed. I faced the television at first, and took my usual approach. I had decided to do this with him because he seemed like a safe person, and he proved very respectful, as well.

"You're a good dancer," he said. "Do you have dance training?" he asked me.

"Yes," I said. I told him where I studied.

"Wow," he said. I smiled. I wasn't at that particular ballet school for long, but it made me an even better dancer than I was before.

With Diana Krall crooning in the background, I gave him several dances, occasionally taking a break to chat about my work and his. We talked about the challenges of managing others and working with difficult people.

He was extremely easy to talk to, and encountering this in a customer is always a treat because it makes 'work' fly by and keeps it pretty interesting. There are a lot of amazing people out there.

He kept his hands four inches away from any rule-breaking, the entire time.

Before you go and say I could've been killed, please know there are a lot more good people in this world than there are bad. :)

The songs began to repeat.

"One more dance?" he agreed. He remained The Perfect Customer for his last dance.

"You're very good at what you do," he said. I smiled. He handed me $400. I felt awkward taking it.

"Thank you so much," I said, and took my things into the bathroom to change. I emerged.

"You're really great," he said. He tipped me an extra $100.

"Oh, thank you!" I said. "Thank you so much." I hugged him.

Yay! My trip was paid for. :)

I walked out of the hotel with a spring in my step. I took a cab home and slept.

"That's a little dangerous," my boyfriend said the next day over the phone.

"But I lived!" I said, patting the fold of $500 in my pocket.

The world is a nicer place than people give it credit for.

New York has that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by its apparent absurdities.

The repeated and harrowing death rides in cabs through streets empty and crowded. Personal shopping service offered at a long list of places from Bloomingdale's to the local candy store. The fight to get your 3-year-old into the right nursery school and how outrageously epic it is. Crowded sidewalks; hot, packed subway trains in the summer; and multi-roommate apartments with and without air conditioning. Living shoulder-to-shoulder every second of the day, sometimes in spaces the size of a car.

But it is these absurdities, as well as the rest of the City experience, that captured my heart when I lived there for two years before I moved to Kansas after I suddenly lost my job. Jerked out of my nearly perfect New York life very abruptly because I hadn't planned for, well, anything, in terms of personal finance, the reluctant but necessary move punched a hole in my world that I still walk around all day long, and fall into sometimes when I'm alone.

Though rightly accused of being an overly perky and excitable person every day, I do think about New York every day and it does hurt. The best way to mourn this loss, it seems, is to share my love for the City with someone else. I'm here with a fellow dancer, and showing her what I love so much has been great therapy.

I have danced with this girl for 10 months now, and I have seen her happy many times, but I have never seen her as happy as she was when she explored New York's famous candy store, Dylan's Candy Bar, pictured below.

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Her smile was even bigger when she had her first bites of her multi-course birthday dinner at Fig + Olive. She checked out Tao, a restaurant with high-quality Asian food, a fun bar scene, and over-the-top decor. I took her to Whiskey Blue, a favorite bar of mine at the midtown W Hotel. Times Square, Bloomingdale's, a David Burke restaurant, the Plaza (home of Eloise!), a comedy club (where, as "strippers from Kansas," we were significant fodder). BLT Steak, Morimoto, Chelsea Markets, and---squeal!--Carrie Bradshaw's apartment on Sex and the City--we've run around and seen so much.

Here's the outside of Carrie's building, with my Free State Social bag on the steps.

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Our vacation is an awesome one, and seeing someone else fall in love with the greatest city in the world has been great therapy.

Now for the next entry: The Dirt. :)

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Hey guys!

I'm homesick, so I'm headed to New York City tomorrow to visit my friends and briefly rejoin the rest of the crabby, self-righteous elitists I love so much. I'll be sure to blog all about what it's like to work there, assuming a club hires me for a couple nights. :) I'm headed there with a friend, so we'll get her perspective, too.

In the mean time, please use the comments section below to suggest things you'd like me to write about that have to do with stripping, Kansas, New York, or anything else you'd like to hear about, or hear more about.

Budget permitting, I'll get you all an "I heart NY" t-shirt. The cheap kind off a vendor at ground zero, of course. :)

(What?! I'm not made of money! Yet!)

If you've made a suggestion before, please resubmit it here so it's all in one place. Grouches won't get t-shirts, so save your energy.

:)

Just pictures this time.

Stayed in a small hotel in le Quartier latin (the Latin Quarter), very close to Notre Dame, pictured below. The river is the Seine. http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/e...

This was right near the University of Paris. It is an extremely prestigious university you might think of as the public Ivy League school of France. http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/e...

Paris has no shortage of flower shops. http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/e...

Some of them specialize, like this rose shop with a nice storefront display. http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/e...

You'd think the smell of a rose shop would be too much, but it just smelled like strong, healthy roses. So nice. http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/e...

So pretty! http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/e...

One of the shops I went into seemed pretty high-end. When I asked to take pictures, the florist politely informed me that he'd prefer I only take them from outside. Here is a sample of his talents, which sat in his window display a couple days ago. http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/e...

Like the flower shops, chocolate stores were everywhere in Paris. http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/e...

Everything looked good. http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/e...

Towers of tastiness at Swiss chocolatier Jeff de Bruges' Paris location. http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/e...

Even in the cold, the French demand their vegetables fresh. You can find a lot of them in outdoor displays like this one at a 'natural health' specialty store. http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/e...

One of so many charming hotels. http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/e...

Snow on the Rue des Écoles in Paris. http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/e...

The snow does not deter committed cyclists. (Though she's crazy for not wearing a helmet). http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/e...

@Esq2eb remarked that he wanted to know about the food I enjoyed in France, so I've put together some pictures to show you. :)

Starting with the flight over, the dining was memorable. Thank you, Swiss Air, my new favorite airline. Anton and I thought it was funny that in Logan Airport, we were given plastic knives to have our seafood with, but on the plane to Zurich, we had real knives to cut our chicken with. http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/e...

While the petit déjeuner buffet at l'hôtel Méridien Etoile, where we stayed the first few days, was not all that inventive, the service was unsurpassed. The team of servers was almost overly zealous in their efforts to make sure I was comfortable as I had breakfast and worked on my posts for you guys (at 6:30 a.m.!), that my laptop had a charger, that my battery was good to go, and that I was not distracted by anything happening around me. A++++, will do business again. And that stereotype about French waiters being lazy? A cultural misinterpretation (which I'll get to when I post about the French wedding I attended) and an utter falsehood in this gorgeous hotel. http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/e...

Stumble into any Paris café and about eight times out of 10, you'll be blown away by the quality of the food and the service you receive (after you understand why the pace of service is the way it is). I may have been on a backpacker's budget, but thanks to his very deserved business success, Anton wasn't! He made a point to repeatedly tell me just to order what I wanted, so I did! Everywhere we went, we tried the foie gras, the snails, the wine, the cheeses. Below, my beef tartare, and his calf liver, shortly before they disappeared completely from le Ballon des Ternes. http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/e...

La Basilique du Sacré Coeur, our destination on a bitterly cold night, was visited by Anton alone. So cold from standing in line at the Eiffel Tower, my body kept involuntarily grabbing some severely injured rib muscles to shiver--even under my winter coat--so I sat this one out and sought refuge in a nearby café. Having overdosed on French, Mexican, Spanish, and Italian cathedrals on family and family-sponsored trips abroad, I can't say I was too upset to miss it. Especially with this chocolate crêpe to keep me company. http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/e...

One thing we didn't have enough of in France was their seafood. It was available everywhere, though, no matter how we wanted to have it. Below, des huîtres (some oysters) à Paris (in Paris). :) http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/e...

What we certainly did get enough of was wine and cheese. The last three days, I'm pretty sure that's all I ate. In the US, cheese can make me very sick (story at end of post), but I had zero problems in France. The wine you see in both these pictures, recommended by the servers who brought it, are Bordeaux. The first picture is from Restaurant Victor Café, if I recall correctly. http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/e...

I can't recall exactly which cheeses are on these plates, but the softest-looking cheese in both of them was definitely camembert. http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/e...

This last picture is my last dessert plate from Restaurant Victor Café. The drink was hot chocolate, and the little bag contains chocolates from the Paris location of a Swiss chocolate store with the same name as my boss. :) Purchased for him, of course. I wonder whose post card I was working on?? :) Let me know as they come in! http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/e...

Story mentioned above: Warning! There is gross stuff in this story. In my family, it is believed that no one is allergic to anything. And if you make a declarative statement to this effect, it will be challenged. I came home one day from college to visit my parents and when it was time to leave, my mom insisted I take an organic cheese snack with me. "Mom, I'm allergic to cheese," I said. Of course, this couldn't possibly be true, so I was forced to eat it, and then get in the car to go. Sure enough, halfway back to school, in front of a very famous block of boutique stores in that area, I threw open the car door and threw up all over the sidewalk, to the abject horror of my dad and a group of club-goers on their way home. :P

"Oh," my dad said. "I guess you are allergic to cheese."

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The Moulin Rouge, which bills itself as "the most famous cabaret in the world since 1889," oversells itself with every shiny plastic "jewel" on the sign over the front doors.

It is le suck. Don't see it.

After a long stand in line, during which my clothes went out of style, a Tuxedo-wearing man smiled and ushered me and my companions into the legendary theater. (No cameras allowed after the point pictured below). http://media.lawrence.com/img/blogs/e...

The maître d' seated us at a tiny round table in the middle of the theater. Red and white-striped canopies bellied out from the ceiling, appearing pinned there by well-spaced seams of softly glowing lanterns saturating the room with a romantic yellow warmth. Rows of tightly arranged, narrow, banquet-style tables blanketed by formal white tablecloths hugged the stage as the Tuxedoed men led well-dressed theatergoers down the garnet carpet to their seats. Graduated crescents of tables emanated from this stage-side phalanx to the edges of the room. Small, boudoir-style lamps with quaint red shades sat on each long table, emphasizing the romantic, old-world style of this famous Parisian cabaret.

A waiter poured our Champagne as the three of us chatted and took in this exciting scene.

Having enjoyed many years of serious ballet training as an adolescent, I couldn't wait to see the meeting of my two favorite worlds of dance. The atmosphere, with its wonderful decorations, was as high quality as a decent team can muster in a high-traffic performance venue, seemed to promise top-notch show. I was psyched!

The sparkling red stage curtains parted.

And then...

It was a huge let-down.

In a word, the choreography and dancing in the opening number was "OK." I might have rated it higher, but there was no surround sound (!) distracting me from the seriously sub par performance on the stage.

Dancers in the front line had sloppy technique (can't you point your toes?), important group movements weren't uniform (you are a chorus, so act like one), and in the city known for fashion and fussy custom tailoring, the opening number attire looked like the 1980's took out the trash. Instead of putting it in the poubelle, the Moulin Rouge put an iridescent beanie on top, threw the whole thing on stage, and charged us all 100 Euro to check it out.

And in the same country that invented ballet, at least five dancers right in the front flagrantly bent their supporting leg as they did kicks, hunching their backs, and leaning their faces forward to make it feel like they were kicking higher.

Um, yeah.

Wow.

If you have trouble picturing this kind of artistic failure, stand up right now, and try to kick your shoulder with a straight leg.

Fail.

Congratulations to you, though, because you were at least as good as five "professional dancers" who performed Monday night in Paris.

For this and other reasons, the show was far from what the marketing alleged and significantly over-priced.

Paris is, um, a reasonably cosmopolitan area, and if you're promoting cabaret, that implies everyone in the production will sing and dance quite well, especially for ~100 (regular) up to a couple hundred (holidays). Performers are a little naked, but the emphasis is on dance and engaging, whimsical story-telling. It's not a stretch to assume that a show is going to be good.

They weren't.

I'll briefly list what they did well, because it feels nicer, and focusing on what's positive is much more fun. The female half of the cast was talented and beautiful. The costumes, which flattered and featured the women's bare chests on a few occasions, were appropriately over-the-top, brightly colored, and varied interestingly from story segment to story segment throughout the cabaret. Overall, the cast's dancers ranged from 'talented' to 'exceptionally talented' performers (with notable exceptions right in front). The juggling, acrobatic, and ventriloquism acts that punctuated the Doriss girls' numbers were entertaining, if unoriginal. The sets were gorgeous.

They found a way to suck anyway.

Right in the beginning of the show, some of the Vegas-style showgirl dancing did not even have a consistent relationship with the (recorded!) music.

At one point, the music was the only working performer in the theater, swelling and building with excitement while the girls just kind of stood there... a huge, musical climax passing with all the specialness of oncoming traffic sailing past a group of them, signaling in the 23rd Street turning lane, ready to pull into Dillon's as their long, feathery Vegas-facsimile tentacled costumes undulate in the Kansas breeze.

::snore::

Then the show became a joke.

Dressed as adorable pirate wenches in a following segment, the chorus girls swept off the stage too quickly, apparently to make room for a sudden and sappy duet that seemed to come from nowhere.

Interrupting romance! Kind of like interrupting cow, only with even less of a backstory or convincing romantic moment. Worse, the twosome's melodramatic body movements may have matched the song's message, but, um, their mouths didn't.

They were lip syncing. They weren't even pretending to breathe or push their lungs like singers on the recording. And the entire cast was wearing headsets complete with face-front microphones. Fakers.

Sadface.

Part of my job is selling an illusion, but the fact that it's an illusion is clearly written on the wall. We don't call ourselves the Your New Girlfriend Ballet, so no one comes expecting that.

No singing at the French cabaret? With cabaret written all over everything?

I could not take the rest of the show seriously, even when a lithe female dancer jumped into giant water tank featuring approximately four huge pythons for the serpent segment.

Le sigh.

Fail Paris.

Don't see it. If you must, down all your cheap Champagne before the opening act.

AWARDS FOR PREVIOUS COMMENTERS (from last big blog and the mini ones):

New Grandma Award: Grammaddy!

Most Helpful Commenters Award: BMI, Vuduchyld, Succotash, BorderRuffian, parrothead8

Brief and Few, But Valuable & Appreciated Commenter Award: Newell_Post, BorderRuffian, reticent_irreverent

Good Comments-Section Conversationalist Award: KansasPerson, Vuduchyld, BorderRuffian, jwsuber, parrothead8, Bunny_Hotcakes

White Knights of the Invisible Round Table: Vuduchyld, parrothead8

Incomparable Ladies of the Internet Round Table: Zilla, Maddie_M, Veritas

Much Appreciated Official Blog Medics (from when I was sick) Award: honeychild, Wallythewalrus, Vic, GardenMomma

All Around Nice Person Award: acg (how's the new workout going??), gentlemanc, brujablanco, Vic, Zilla, Maddie_M, KansasPerson, Grammaddy, kiklu, honeychild, Wallythewalrus, Vic, GardenMomma

Person Who Seems to Prioritize Harassing Strippers on LJWorld.com Over Spending That Time with Family/Children: denak