Me-me

Sometimes I miss her, the ole Mimi-doll. I miss being raped by a focusless gaze, the anonymity of being the centripetal force in a roomful of dicks, of being the other woman, the faceless other woman we females all fear, that bitch who makes our boyfriend / husband / lover drool and cower and snicker and groan, balls heavy and leaden and loaded with lust for the something more, the something more men always want because monogamy is just not in their sex. I want to be the high carbohydrate, benzene loaded, phenylanine fizzy smack, laced with aspartame and bursting with sugary, acidic cancer agents. I want to be the snack which fails to satisfy, the food for the hungry ghosts with empty holes where a stomach should be. I want to be Mimi again, for all the good it does me, did me. Sometimes, I miss her.

I miss her most, I think, when I slide back into her again. I feel it when I overhear another girl talk, a civilian – you know, not a stripper. “So in front of the whole lecture theatre the Professor made her take her lab jacket off because it wasn’t pressed, and all she had on underneath was a bra. All the girls in the class were crying.” There are days when you weep because your precious pride and your indignation and your idea of self has been destroyed by the simple act of exposure, and I will be staring at you with a sneer resting upon my lovely face, the fires of purgatory in my lovely eyes, fanned fires, swallowing up great gulps of oxygen. Haven’t we all seen the movie featuring the quivering female servant forced to undress in front of the stone-eyed master of the house, how her eyes slide with a choked sob to a distant corner of the room as his hand reaches, greedy, into his pants? Oh the shame! Pride! Indignation! Shame! Oh I feel for your exposure. I feel for it. I feel nothing but contempt for it as I rip my dress off and laugh like a madwoman, the woman in the attic finally let free, and yes, there are tears in this laughter, corrosive and briny and metallic and zinc, but you wouldn’t notice, too absorbed in your own soft, wet tears of human suffering. I want you to notice my fierceness, my lack of shame, the appropriation of my shame as my pride, because I want you to feel inadequate. When it comes to pride I lost it better than you, more, harder, faster, dirtier, in a more spectacular fashion than you can ever comprehend, and it hurt me with a pain you will never feel. A pain I quite enjoy.

Let me state it plainly, let me put it down. My point is that stripping is an art, like anything, an art which one can learn. But the ability to be shameless, the ability to turn our shame into our pride, this is something which is innate. You’ve acquired it well before you got onstage, with the knocks, the blows, the uppercuts, the scratches and hair pullings. You either have it, or you don’t.

The rest of it – the coy glances, the immunity to sickly, stagnant breath and hard dicks pressed intimately into… the money hunger, the money sense, the language, the predatory instinct - you have to learn.

London

I'm in London, writing, schmoozing and hanging out with friends. More writing to follow. In the meantime I will resort to photoblogging about my Sunday afternoon in Camden and Kentish Town. Funniest caption wins the opportunity to donate to me via my Paypal account.

Vertigo

You know when you're right at the top, looking over, and you have that overwhelming desire to throw yourself off?

"Vertigo." he said. It's a fear of what you might do even when the rational mind registers the drop, acknowledges the inevitable mess that will ensue and still buzzes that furtive little message through the neurons, jump, jump.

I think I lack vertigo, which is how I've survived for so damned long. There was never any fear for the wellbeing of this body. What I was carrying around I couldn't give a shit about. So long as it was fed, drugged up, fucked and drunk, my body did me fine. It carried me where I wanted to go, and hell, if it hit the bottom hard, so be it. Smacked up, stung, soiled - I was loving every fucked-up minute of an existence I couldn't recall because the brain cells had been damned near destroyed by living too hard. I was falling, falling, falling, but couldn't remember the jump, and the bottom seemed to be evasive. So I tried a little harder.

My eyes were rolling and I could feel it along with the pang of a jaw strung taut, frayed elastic ready to pop with the gurning, and I couldn’t remember where I’d been, but I knew where I was, and when he opened the door he knew where I’d been because my eyes told him. So without a word he led me in, lay me down and there were no kisses, not that I remember, not that I could feel, but what I could feel was the drug shuddering through my body and my body following instinct not instruction. Instinct dictated what I did, because my head was incapable of it. I remember it didn’t hurt but from somewhere I felt like it should, and all the while I stared at the sordid red glow from the cigarette which dangled loosely from thick lips, burning embers and flecks of ash drifting into a sepia night, and from the light cast I could see that my body still looked young even as it felt so old, cold and trembling from the inevitable comedown. This time I think it did hurt, but by that time I was out, gone, on the move again, and the streets were quiet because it was 7am and France had not yet woken up.

He called me later when I was sitting on the bow of the boat, looking out across the harbour and the crew had gone to The Blue Lady. It was a pink sun, always a pink sun, and the Mistral was starting to blow, because summer was nearly over and it was time to go.

"You never said goodbye," he said

"No, I didn't." and I hung up, called the next one. "I'll be in Palma in two days. See you there."

Kept jumping right into the next addled day sodden with alcohol and the echoing, stark numbness of a beer-sodden soul still reeling from a chemical high and the smack of the night. I forget every man, but I remember every morning, my eyes wide and vacant, unable to speak. I'd sit at Bar Toni, down espresso and nod to the French guy with the curly hair and the dirty, long, yellow fingernails who sold me shit I'd sell to tourists for twice the price. I left my men like I left my boats: abruptly, before I got kicked off for turning up for work at 6am with no sleep and a jaw locked tight, clenched shut - whether through drugs or something else, I couldn't tell. Still can't.

In Palma he came with an unspectacular yelp like a small dog while his wife roamed the streets for him, calling a cellphone which beeped uselessly beneath the bed next to the suitcase and the flip-flops.

"I'd leave her for you, you know," he sighed, and he would, I knew it. He'd jump, knowing that the fall would be swift and clean and the result a carnival of crushed and splintered bones, intestines oozing like reptiles across a baked sidewalk. Whereas I'd just walk away.

When I got to Gibraltar he'd left a message for me. I ignored it. And then we sailed to the Canary Islands - which island I forget - and it rained, and we sat in a bar sipping Bailey's staring at the masts of sailboats kissing dirty grey clouds. He called me again.

"I want to leave her. I've decided. I'll meet you in St Maarten."

But I hung up, and when the Captain looked over to ask me what was wrong he caught my eye and smiled, and he knew, having mastered the exquisite art of falling, falling, falling for all eternity, without fear or retribution or spilt blood - ours, at least. I time them to perfection, my leaps over that cliff, waiting until the bow of the next boat noses close to mine and I can spring over in a perfect arc, clearing salt water licking at my heels, fall to safety, fall on my feet, hit the deck cleanly, half wishing I could feel the same sting that everyone else gets from the impact of earth punching body.

I'm always on my way out, ready to jump. Bag slung over shoulder, moving on, ticket in hand, a flight, a boat, a train. It's a solo occupation. On reflection maybe I never mastered the vertigo. I just lived with it until it became part of my soul, and every night was just jumping again and again, senseless, exalted, perfect. I don't know if I can give it up.

"I don't know if I can give it up," I told him at 7am after a night of hard drinking, and ash from my cigarette spilled like wine onto my lap. "I think that even though I want a normal life and clean living and everything to be nice and what it's never been, I know that at some point I'll get to that cliff, and I'll want to jump." It felt weird saying it out loud. But he was the one who told me about vertigo. And he said he mastered it by jumping, so that's something, at least. That's something.

"It's OK," he replied, and I could tell it really was. "'Cause if you get to the top, and you want to jump, I'll jump with you."

I wanted to say that wasn't the point, but then it occurred to me that maybe it was, and it would be OK after all. I thought some more. All I said in the end was "Thanks." But I think he understood.

Anonymity

The last night I worked at the club, just after I'd gotten the book deal but before I'd extorted a close family member of enough cash to tide me over until the check hit Bank of America, I got recognized.

It happens occasionally, has happened. You open your mouth. "Oh, you English?". You say some more. "Fuck, you ain't no dumb bitch," You say your name, 'Lily', "Oh, hey, Lily, sounds like Mimi... hang on?" So yeah. I got recognized. A few times. Enough to make me anxious. "This is like a star fuck!" said one guy as I sat on his lap, ignoring the fact a fuck, at least in my equation, usually involves an exchange of bodily fluids, and not hard cash.

The point is, I'm no celebrity, but you get burned in Manhattan when people know who you are, and you learn to keep your mouth shut, and you creep around sometimes, expecting that backhanded hard wallop to remind you there's no 401k in this job. Then I traded that for this writing thing, the thing I wanted all along. And in this new job you crawl right back under the layers and sit in your skin for a good long while, until you forget that 5 metres away sits this light factory of a city, seething and fuming and stinking and fucking and doing all kinds of crazy shit, while you just sit, and think, and write, and think. I feel I could lose myself in the nameless person I am now, writing assiduously everyday, ignoring phone calls and proffered drinks. I keep sane by going to the IFC, a place where you can stay anonymous and no one notices if you don't know what day it is, or even what name you're going by.

Tonight was one of those nights. Too many identities, too many words, too little time. I wrote and wrote, and then it got to 7pm, so I wandered over to the IFC to catch Factotum at 8. What can I say. I'm a fucking nerd. I hit Broadway, and immediately some guy in a group stopped me.

"'Scuse me, you from around here? Where's a good bar?"

I nod down 3rd street. "Keep walking, hit MacDougal, there's plenty."

The guys smiled gratefully and walked behind me a few metres back, and I could feel the change in the air in Manhattan. Summer's over and the pretention's gone, along with the heat. Just New Yorkers and the odd out-of-towner, and we reclaim our city as the leaves curl, crisp, fall, and the white linen gets packed away for next year. I heard them talking behind me.

"What did she say?"

"MacDougal, I think."

I stopped, laughed, asked them where they were from.

"Oh, we're here for auditions," said one, and I nearly walked away right there and then. I fucking hate actors. "You heard of Blue Man? We're here for that. I guess we're the final three." They shrugged.

"This is MacDougal. Good to meet you guys." I turned back to Sixth and the shameless anonymity of an empty movie theater on a wednesday night, my own writer's misanthropy...

"You wanna drink?" they asked, and I paused for a minute, eyed them, knew they weren't New Yorkers. Sure.

There are two kinds of people in this world, the ones who take the drink, the ones who reject it. I'm not talking some bullshit analogy for peer pressure and severe drug use and blatant alcoholism, I'm talking the people who are open to shit, the people who aren't. I'm the one who takes the drink. One, because it's free, and I ain't been fucking paid yet. Two, because I love new people, new experiences. Soon as I get plunged into a new environment it's like a little part of me just got born again, and the writer in me is thinking, thinking, thinking and revelling in whatever plays out. So we go to some jazz bar, and there's an old fat black lady singing Norah Jones in the back of the club which ain't the best of songs for someone raised on Bob Dylan and Van Morrison, but hell, it'll do.

"Whatta you do?" one asks.

"I write. I write all day and I teach yoga."

"Whatta you writing?"

"A book about New York. A book about a girl called Mimi."

"You sold it?"

"Yeah," I laugh, hold my bottle up, watch the light filter through, refracted, distorted. "I sold it."

"Cool," they say. And then they talk about their audition again, and one says, "This is all I want in the whole world right now. All I want." And the others agree, and we chink bottles, and I know what they mean, and it's kind of a weird feeling, 'cause I got what I want. And now all that's left is this watching, this observing, this enjoying, sitting back in total anonymity, stripped clean of the identity I assumed for 18 months, like it was just a layer, skin deep and nothing more.

"So tomorrow we find out," one says, and turns to me and smiles. "Make or break. So you out with us tomorrow? 'Cause either way, we're gonna need a fuckin' drink."

Yeah, I feel real lucky.

Ugh

Really, I'm not impressed with the situation at all.

So the money worries go, I'm writing the sodding book, waiting for a check which will see me happy for a few months, teaching yoga, training for a marathon, about to go to England to visit friends and family... And what happens? Fucking hormones. Hormones. Imagine. I'm sitting happily composing a convoluted and dark sentence hinting meatily at my tortured artistic soul, concealed beneath Mystic Tan and the finest of polyester hair pieces. I'm just about to get to the good part, the snappy one liner on the tip of my tongue ready for when the asshole client belches, says something suitably disgusting and wields his penis like a light-saber... and puppies and babies pop into my head. Puppies and babies. Dachsund puppies. Bassett Hound Puppies. Cockapoo puppies. Little fat brown babies with long dark lashes which only wake up when you feel inclined to play with them, and then obligingly sleep when you put them back in the box.

I'm feeling maternal.

I know, I can't believe it either. I'm going to have a fucking cigarette, and then indulge in some self-flagellation in the hope that I can beat it out of myself so I can get back to Chapter 3.

Laboring

I'm in a fog at the moment. People who know me from university will totally recognise my behaviour from June 2000. It's the finals fog, when every waking moment of your existence is consumed by one thing: this time it's not the Part II Tragedy paper and my dissertation deadline, it's The Book. I can't go anywhere without a piece of paper and a pen somewhere on my person, for fear I'll get an idea and have nowhere to record it. I was on about mile 5 running around Central Park last Sunday when an idea came, and of course I had nothing with me, so I ran back half a mile and molested a hot-dog vendor for a napkin and a Bic so I wouldn't lose it. It's becoming a little obsessive, especially on such a short time scale - the manuscript is due December. But it's amazing to be doing what I've wanted to do ever since I first picked up a 'real' book when I was six. No more dancing for IB's and vapid conversations with busty latinos about their errant boyfriends, STD's and chihuahuas - bliss. It does come at a cost, however. The last time I was in a bar was about two weeks ago, and my addiction to Entourage has started to rule the non-writing / non yoga-teaching hours. I've become classically ditzy - after a yoga class this morning I went into Trader Joe's and was paying for something on my debit card, when the cashier looked at me and said, "It'll ask you to place your thumb on the screen any second." I obligingly put my thumb on the screen, still thinking about Chapter Two. And then realised the entire store was in fits of laughter at the dumb English girl naive enough to fingerprint her debit card payment. I then walked home in the wind and the rain and had one of those superb New York moments - huddled beneath scaffolding on St Mark's were four hipsters, guys of about 18 with hooded designer tops and heroin-chic eyeliner, and a sign: "Please help. Hungry and away from Home. We got fired from our modelling agency". Fucking fantastic. Only New York can boast homeless models.

So, this is why there are such long silences in between blog posts, all energy directed to writing book. Also, I gave up my anonymity a long time ago, and with that comes a certain caution. I don't want to write about my family, or my friends, or who I'm dating, that kind of stuff. I wrote about myself in the most honest terms for the last 18 months, but now I'm getting my life back I'd prefer to protect the people I care about and save the merciless caricatures of their worst assets for my next book, when I can claim it's merely fiction. And that doesn't leave a lot to write about at the moment...

One thing I will write: these last 18 months have been hellish, but they've taught me so much about people, the best and the worst sides. Thank you to all of those friends, family, readers and fellow bloggers who showed me so much support. And for all those who put me down, insulted me, sent me hate mail, told me I was evil, dark, fucked up and would never be anything more than a stripper - Fuck You. If you want something in life, you go for it, you put your heart and soul into it, and you don't give up until you either fail spectacularly, or achieve your heart's desire. Don't just sit back in your armchairs feeling sad and bitter and jealous of other people having the guts to live life to the fullest. Put all that energy from hating into doing something you truly want to do, give yourselves some new challenges, take some risks, make yourselves happy instead of trying to unpick other people's happiness. Live. And buy the book when it comes out.

OK. Labor Day weekend and I'm back to the writing. I'm hitting it hard over the next two weeks as I'll be in London by mid-September, when I intend to take a break, meet friends, family and publishers, drink a lot, eat fish and chips and bacon butties, and chill out.

Oh and one more shout out to my twin sister Piu-Piu who is off to make a documentary in Israel in two days. Good luck bitch! Don't get blown up, and if you do, leave the credit card debts to Mum and Dad, not me.

And thank you to the Cambridge contingent (Jools, Sarah, Giles, Robin and Beth) who just called me up blind drunk from a birthday party in London - Can't wait to see you again!

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