You could call it my night job while I was trying not to pass out in the University of Nevada-Reno Student Union every morning, pouring over my pills and Starbucks that kept my secrets in. On that morning, I was just Cat: late to class and underachieving on the academic scale I would attach myself to. I fit the profile of 'artsy girl with unrealistic expectation of student living. I took too many selfies in the strip club dressing room and filled too many diaries with stranger-than-fiction tales.
I had an identity crisis every night. I went through phases of feminist thought, drugs, fashion, and men. Upon closer evalutaion, you'll see an unlikely, and truly bizarre, feminist bravado unfold: House moms with hard accents. Strippers who cried too much. My life was mirrors and femme rage. I raged on and on and on and on. I breathed in way too much secondhand smoke. For an entire month, I only stripped to Rage Against the Machine. Ah, to be 23 years old without a care in the world while prancing around to protest music.
I thought I was so edgy. Sometimes I miss stripping. Not so much the hauntings that occurred but the shadiness of the whole ordeal. I miss my iPhone camera, my most loyal companion, always right next to the stripper who always cried.
And don't ever make eye contact or she'll unfold her troubles onto you. I was so many girls at once. The selfies I took expressed a millennial attitude of arrogance. It said: I like my face, but not enough to smile with teeth. Me: a tall, pixie brunette l ooks at her reflection with her best Playboy centerfold. She doesn't notice, too busy dipping into nachos and asking the house mom β a well-intentioned woman who babysits dancers in the dressing room, often with a maternal ruling that sustains order and comfort.
The crumbs on the velvet carpet. Evidence of cupcakes in the fridge suggests another dancer turned Ripped magazines on a broken loveseat couch. Cigarette burns on the maroon comforter.
