“This is Susie Smith, she’s Jimmy’s mom,” my mom says. “Susie, this is my daughter Tara, she’s going to be subbing for a while.”
“Hi Susie,” I say. “You’ve raised a great kid. Jimmy was a big help when I was here a couple weeks ago.”
See, I imagine that there are social rules, and I imagine that I am following them here. First you meet someone, and then you smile and give them a superficial compliment, right? I learned this in PA.
“Aw, thank you,” she says. “So where are you visiting from?”
“My van.”
My mom breaks in, “Tara just finished college and she sold her house and she’s taking a couple years to travel around and see the world.” See, now I seem all un-hobo-ish and socially acceptable.
“Aw,” Susie makes one of those faces you make when a little kid does something cute, but not really that cute. “How old are you hon?”
See, this is where I would normally excuse myself. I’m gonna go make money, you have a good night. Or just a plain old fuck off. But that’s not the thing to do here.
So I smile really big. “I’m twenty six. How old are you, hon?”
She giggles. Not the uncomfortable kind of giggle, the superior kind. “Oh, I was just wondering what age kids are moving into vans these days.”
“We do it whenever it makes us happy.”
“It’s going to be cold here soon. You picked the wrong time to come to Alaska,” she informs me.
I think about telling her that I lived in a little D 50 with one wool blanket in Alaska the whole winter I was sixteen. But I don’t. I smile and thank her for telling me and let her be the stupid bitch.
Cause really, how are you supposed to deal with normal people?
I don’t think that’s due to stripping. You just have a strong sense of reality and a spirit. I just finally left a state government job (nothing like stripping) after six years and ten months of the same sort of conflict between my spirit and those half-alive people who can’t see beyond their own trap.
Yikes. Try not to let it get to you. She doesn’t know any better, you know? She has no idea what makes you happy, or how wonderful your life is. My boyfriend gets the same shpiel from his parents when they ask him when he’s going to quit the video game industry and get a “real job”. You know, one of them government jobs. Blegh.
That’s ok, the Real World needs to be Ruined anyway. 😈
Hey, unrelated but just FYI… last night in pole dancing class, one of my classmates came up and said she found your blog via mine (I had no idea she even knew about my blog) and absolutely LOVED it. 🙂 Just thought you might want to know about another fan you’ve got!
OK, admit it, naughty girl — when you answered you were visiting from “my van” rather than whatever city you’d driven in from, were you kind of hoping for this type of reaction? Granted, Susie seems like a jerk, but sometimes it’s hard for even well-meaning traditional types to “get it” on cue.
There are many different ways to present the same facts and many of us have more inflammatory versions. Here’s mine: I sit around all day in sweats and make phone calls, and I have no set salary. Sometimes I take off huge amounts of time to go to the gym or blog about feminism or stripping. Most people hearing that would say “hmm.. how old are you, hon?”
Granted, my other version is more “corporate” sounding than yours, but you could accurately say you’re a dancer on tour to different places that have booked you.
Not that either of us needs to dress anything up, but the Susies are such easy prey. Why open the door to their meaningless judgment?
^ I can’t claim a city around my mom (like, if I were to say the city I came from before that my mom would call me a liar), and I’m not supposed to say I’m a stripper, dancer, entertainer, etc.
But please, tell me something socially acceptable to say? I’m touring the country’s national forests? Doing research for a travel book? Help!
I’ve begun telling people that I’m “originally from Columbus, Ohio.” That’s not the exact truth, but it’s close enough for government work.
Yeah, I’d just lie. Tell them you’re researching a travel book, that sounds good, and it’s not actually a lie anyway, because you are researching and writing a travel book.
I think that skill of letting the other person be the idiot is a good one. I’m much better at that now than I used to be. When I was younger literal truth, and putting people’s stuff in their faces was much more important than having an easy life. Now having the life *I* want is more important, so I’m much more choosey about when I make people uncomfortable (apart from all those times when I’m not aware of how uncomfortable I’ve made someone 😉 ).
The other skill I really like is the one of invisibility. I hide my power alot now. It’s not something that I have to have out there in the world so much. There are times when I let people see me as the passively ill, not much use to society person they naturally see me as because it means I can go about my business beneath their radar. It still pisses me off alot, that attitude, but I’m learning that I can make use of it at times too.
Other times I tell people I make herbal medicine and it avoids the whole ill person conversation altogether. It took me a while to realise that it’s completely valid for me to describe my self as a medicine maker even though I have many months when I am too ill to do that. And even though it’s not how other people would describe (but what do they know?).
Again the invisibility thing is something I learnt as I got older… it’s a natural middle aged woman thing I guess, so maybe not appropriate to you Tara (not that I think of myself as middle aged lol). But I can see a young woman developping that invisibility skill well too. Your hobo life is one of the seats of your power. You don’t have to share that with everyone, even though another seat of your power is your non-conformity/marginalness and another is your honesty. The real power is in having the choice as to which ones you sit in at any given time.
Yes, when I’m on a show and a guy asks, “how old are you?” I immediately ask back, “How old are you?” It’s rude, but some people think it’s okay because we look and probably are under thirty.
As always i LOL while reading your material! I do the same as FiftyOneFifty…I ask how old they are/ it catches them off guard … then I inform them that it’s not polite to ask a ladies age (mind you I have been doing that since I was 18!!) But, as for the other stuff you know I am good w/ morphing the bullshit…. and the only reason you should morph any of your stuff (lie) is for your mom’s sake, a little…. tee hee … I am off to put on a “sportsmen’s expo.” wink !
I don’t see anything disingenuous at all with saying you’re a travel writer. Because you are.
claiming to do research would be nothing but the truth, your honor…anyway, i get the same kind of reaction (middle-european version) because i am 27 and studying again. how dare i?
Outstanding post … if you figure out what nornal is, will you let me in on it? As for obvious questions, people have dumbed themselves down via devolution for almost a hundred years now in this land, and obviousness has become as rampant as obesity and herpes I.
Great stuff, Tara … you are the goods, sister.
I think spending as much time with yourself as you do causes problems relating to the outside world. It may be something in the stripper culture that allows you to get away with being that straightforward, but I think telling people things exactly as you see them (and not what they want to hear) comes from having enough alone time to be comfortable with the way you see things. Right after I go tout of the army I spent months on unemployment and practiced speaking in haiku and learned to play bass. Even my friends started to wonder when I was going to grow up. Their point that I was often still in my underwear at five in the afternoon was only a valid criticism from their reality. Kate and octagalore make god points, but only you can live you life. And I feel ridiculous teling you something like that. You know it.