Pregnant

So, I've been away awhile.  I think I got discouraged.  I honestly can't remember.  A lot's happened.  I finally left my club.  I didn't realize how crappy it was until I got to the club I'm at now.

It reminds me of home.  No, seriously, it reminds me of the club I used to love working at back home, before all the churches in town signed a petition and put us all out of business.  (They thought we were bringing rapists and murderers into town.  Turns out, something else was bringing rapists and murderers into town, and now their jails are overflowing, their police force is overwhelmed, and we're all long gone.  So I guess it wasn't our fault after all.)

But, yeah.  I'm at a good club.  I don't know the best way to describe it, but the atmosphere is completely different when you step through the front doors.  There isn't a panicked, frenetic sense of urgency as strippers run from customer to customers: "Would you like a dance?  No?"  Next customer.  "Would you like a dance?  No?"  Next customer.

It's very relaxed and pleasant here.  Everyone's friendly.  No one seems to be drowning under the weight of all their stress.  The girls are earning enough money that they aren't all on the verge of nervous breakdowns because none of them can pay their bills.  The rules are very fair, and easy to follow.  The clientele is generally very pleasant to work with.  In a nutshell, I've landed in a good place and I'm very happy.

Except, that I'm probably not going to stay for very long.

Because I'm pregnant.

My husband and I decided around December that it was time to start trying for a baby.  Statistically, it takes about 80% of couples roughly half a year to conceive.  That gives my husband a nice bit of time to hunt for a really good job, so I can take time off work to get as round as a barrel and, hopefully, pop out a kid.

Two months later, I was pregnant.  My husband is now scrambling for a job, and I'm very soon going to be kissing my wonderful new workplace goodbye.  At least temporarily.  I should probably crack a joke about pregnant strippers here.  Can't think of any at the moment.  Too bad.

Anyway, life's good right now.  My best guess is that I'm at the eight week mark, however, I could be way off.  The doctor will confirm it for us tomorrow.  Hopefully.  I've been having some pretty bad luck with the medical field lately.  Let's call it a severe case of Murphy's Law of Medicine.  If it could go wrong, it has gone wrong.  I imagine I'll be posting more on that, tomorrow after my doctor's visit.

Still, I'm (mostly) healthy.  I'm not on any drugs or medications.  I'm eating healthy foods.  I had a bowl of blueberries for breakfast this morning.  Last night when I got home from work, I had a sauteed head of broccoli.  Lunch might be egg drop soup.  I'm trying to think positive thoughts, and avoiding both stress and caffeine.  And the urge to bite someone's head off.  I really need figure out ways to deal with the mood swings.

I really had no idea what mood swings were.  People talk about mood swings.  I was a teenager once.  I was moody.  I kept it all together.  Pregnancy is the same thing, right?  No.  No, it is not.  Must... resist... urge... to... shriek.  Granted, on the bright side, most of the times I've wanted to scream, it's been stuff that would make ordinary people want to scream, too.  Mostly.  And it's not like I have screamed even though I wanted to.  Mostly.

Food has gained a whole new level of awesome, and I can't seem to keep myself awake.  My energy zaps out a lot faster than it used to.  I've been scavenging the internet for every money-saving parenting trick I can find.  (Cloth diapers.  Styles and brand comparisons.  The all-in-one diaper?  Or maybe the flat diaper with a cover?  Home-sewn diapers can be really cute or really ugly depending upon the skill of the sewer.  Can I even get my old sewing machine to work?)

I think I've been so busy trying to brace myself for impact, that it really hasn't registered in my brain that my (hopefully) future offspring will be cute.  Or endearing.  Or lovable.  Right now it's just an expense I have to prepare for, and a responsibility that I have to live up to.  (Eat healthy foods, avoid cigarette smoke.  And stress.)

I'm very excited, but in the "I just got hired for a new job" sense of things.

Getting Fitter

Worked last night.  I've been working a lot more lately, and I can feel the difference.  I'm not nearly as tired when I get home from work, and I've been able to do more vigorous tricks later into the night.  (If I'd known it would work like this, I think I would've worked a lot more often a lot sooner.)

So, anyway, I had a customer ask me out of the blue last night if I studied contortion.  Yay!  I told him I've been doing some contortion training, but I'm really very much a beginner.  He said it showed, and that I looked more flexible than any of the other girls in the club.  So, again, yay.

Ooh, and while I'm thinking of it, I've been working on some new poses.  I used to twist one of my knees back and around to hook my foot against my rib cage.  While it looks cool, I've been doing it often enough now that my ribs are starting to hurt.  So now, instead of hooking it against my ribs, I stand up and pull my foot back, up and around to touch my head.  Really should be posting pictures instead of trying to describe this stuff...

I've been trying to challenge myself to do tricks I don't normally do while I'm onstage.  I've got an arsenal of very fancy regular tricks I pull out just about every time I'm onstage.  They're nice, but I know so many other really cool pole tricks, that I never do because I just never think about it.  Since I've been kind of working toward improving my overall strength and ability, I'm trying to pull out some of these moves, dust them off, and use them.

Particularly because I'm getting stronger.  Not just from the dancing, either.  I am bound and determined to learn how to do a handstand.  So I've been doing handstands against the wall on a very regular basis (not quite daily).  My shoulders feel ever so slightly bigger, and my forearms are getting a bit more solid, too.

Anyway, on to the fun stuff.

So, last night, I had the following conversation with a customer, and it kind of made me laugh.

Me: (All super-sparkly happy) "Hi!  We're doing a dance special.  Would you like a dance?"
Him: "No.  I'm not spending any money here tonight.  I brought thousands of dollars to spend here, but then you guys kicked my brother out."
Me: "Oh...kay.  Why did they kick your brother out?"
Him: "Because he opened my beers."
Me: "Umm, how old was your brother?"
Him: "He's twenty."
Me: "Well, there's nothing they could do about it then.  They have to obey the law, or this club will get shut down.  They shut down my old club, and everybody there lost their jobs because of it.  It's not like they've got any choice."
Him: "I own two liquor stores."

I don't understand how owning two liquor stores sudden makes you so crazy-blessed you can break the law anywhere else, but okay.  I got up; I walked away.  I kept trying to sell dances.  People confuse me.

Seriously, if anyone can answer this for me, I'd be thrilled.  We're a strip club in a city that doesn't like strip clubs.  (Not many cities do like strip clubs, but that's beside the point.)  This city has done everything they legally can to make our lives difficult.  I should be earning a hell of a lot more to work than I do, because there are so many crazy, illogical, stupid laws in place here.  (Laws that I obey because I just don't give a crap about money.)

But, let's say we do start breaking laws.  Little laws.  Let the kid drink.  He's almost twenty-one anyway, right?  In a city that HATES strip clubs and would close our doors the first chance they get.  All because this one guy brought "thousands of dollars" and he owns a liquor store-- oh, sorry, two liquor stores-- which somehow makes him the Great Panjandrum of the Ffordian Universe.

I... really can't see the logic.

I also can't see why he sat on his fat ass in the front row for the rest of the night, telling anyone who would talk to him that he wasn't going to spend a single dollar on anyone in the club (dancers, waiters, nobody) just because his brother got kicked out.  I mean, if he was so pissed off, why didn't he just leave?

Oh wait.  He was an asshole.  Sorry.  I forgot.

Anyway, people are funny.

A bit bruised...

So, I worked for the last three days.  Got some good stretching in.  Got so good and sore and tired I couldn't lift myself up on the pole anymore.  Which is why I'm taking today off.

Bought new shoes.  My old shoes-- veterans of three years of my abuse-- shattered onstage when I landed on them after dropping off the pole.  Poor shoes.

My left leg is covered in bruises.  Fell down while leaning on a chair and tying my backup shoes onto my feet.  This gal rushed past and I think she bumped the chair because it wobbled and I dropped.  There's a red line following the indent of the tile flooring I landed on.  The rest is just purple.

I'm a little tired.  The first day I made exactly zero dollars.  I didn't loose money to the club, but I didn't take home a single cent.  (Part of that was losing my shoes and then falling down and being too hurt to move much.)  The next day, I made roughly half what I make on a normal night.  Last night I made a little last than the day before.

Such is life.  I'm tired.  Bought myself a book by Tanya Huff.  (Smoke and Mirrors.  A favorite.)  Gonna sit quietly and read.  Don't have energy to do much of anything else.

Been working on book stuff, too.  So far I've got... never mind.  I don't know how many pages I've got.  Just a lot.  Been typing like a mad person.

Yet more of the tiredness.  Still, life is good. :)

Got a Good Feeling

...So there I was, with my fists jammed into the small of my back to support my lower spine while bending my middle spine, and I realized there was all this skin hanging off my back.  Me being me, I couldn't quite resist grabbing a handful of this stuff and just kind of squishing it around in my fingers...

Where was I now?  Let me back up.

I worked again last night.  Eight or nine hours.  This morning my husband woke me up with coffee and helped me build a little nest on the couch.  I didn't want to move.  My muscles are all sore.

I got a ton more stretching done.  Lots of middle back work, and that was mostly because I kept shoving my fists into the curve produced by my lower back and supporting that while trying to focus on the area of my rib cage.

I'm sure I made a weird sight, nearly bent in half in the wrong direction, taking careful breaths to pull my ribs up and apart, and allow my upper and middle back to relax and curve downward.

Just ordered a softball to shove into that gap so I can protect my lower spine from stress while working on my upper body.  Excited to get my hands on that.  I'd like to do some extreme contortions onstage.  People seem to be impressed by them and they tip me for it, not because it's particularly sexy, but because they've never seen anything quite like it before.

Didn't work on my pole-assisted one-armed handstand.  Forgot to for the first half of the night.  By the second half of the night I just didn't care much.  I spent the first four hours or so without much money.  I only managed to sell one dance, and I even asked the floor guy how much I'd owe for the night so I could estimate how much I'd have to pay in next time I came to work.

Then, all of a sudden, one guy bought a dance.  Then another.  And another.  I gave so many dances in a row that I became exhausted and had to go home an hour before closing.  (Gee, do I wish that was my complaint every day.)

One of the floor guys asked me if I'd employed any of B's dancing techniques and I told him I probably wouldn't.  He told me that was cool.  If it wasn't my style, it wasn't my style.  He said B likes to rub on guys, but not every girl at the club does.  He named a handful of other girls who don't touch guys in private dances, and I felt very encouraged.

It's nice not to feel be alone in something like this.  I'll still never win Miss Nude Tennessee, but at least, I'm not the only girl in the whole club who follows the letter of the law.

Today's got a weird feeling to it.  Probably because I'm so worn down physically, but I feel so light and airy. I feel intensely peaceful, too.

You'd think it would work differently.  People who are tired generally talk about feeling heavy, weighted down.  I feel that when I try to move.  But just sitting here, meditating and writing, I feel like I could float right up off the couch.  Everything is beautiful and magical, and I feel like I am part of it all.

And no, I didn't take any pain meds.  LOL.

I really do suspect it's just the exhaustion.  All the endorphin from all the muscle pain and stretching.  Natural highs anybody?  Just make yourself miserable enough, and you'll get there.  Yeah, I'm sure that's a drug that'll sell.  And yet, from what I've heard drugs always feel unclean in some way or another.  Right now I feel like I've been scrubbed inside out and made all shiny and squeaky-clean.

I think I'm going to soak up all this good feeling for a while.  Since I'm at it, I might as well add this wonderful floating sensation to the list of stripper pros and cons.  Extreme exercise will, occasionally, render extreme rewards.

So what if I can't win?

So I slept on all the things that upset me and woke up in the morning feeling a lot better.  After all, nothing's changed.  Now I just know about it.  Damn, wasn't ignorance blissful?

So what if people bitch about my dances?  They've always bitched about my dances.  The day people stop bitching about me is the day after my funeral-- although it might be safe to say they'll still bitch about me after I'm dead.  That's just a condition of being alive.  Can't help it, can't really waste the energy to be upset about it.

I have been asking myself, though: What am I working so hard for?

Why am I working so damn hard?  It's 5 am and I haven't gotten any sleep and I'm sitting next to the computer listening for music I might dance to in the next competition and doing exercises to strengthen my wrists so I can do new pole tricks.  Why?

I know now that there's no way under the sun I could've won Miss Nude Tennessee.  I was the only girl giving a 100% legal dance.  Of course mine was going to be the least sexy out of all of them.  In fact, it was really rather silly of me to try in the first place.  Even if my stage work had been excellent and my swimsuit piece flawless, I still probably wouldn't have had a shot in hell of winning.  (I still think the girls who won deserved it, but I want to know how far down the rung I ended up because of my silly lap dances.)

And none of that even matters.  What matters is why?  Why?  Who am I trying to impress?

I'm working on my novels.  I'm trying so hard to get Justine out and published.  I'm writing out the layout for Promethean Riddle #3 while penning down #2.  Who reads this stuff anyway?

I work my butt off every time I sell a dance to a guy.  I do anything I can think of to amuse and entertain him (within the letter of the law).  I make it my own personal goal during that song to make that guy smile.  And he still goes and bitches to the next girl how I cheated him out of his money. Why should I dance for him at all?  Why I don't I stand in front of him and just sort of vaguely rock from side to side then grumble at him, "Sorry, no refunds."  Will it even make that much of a difference to these guys?

And then I tell myself to stop acting like a drama queen.  I do my best on the lap dances because I at least owe it to these guys to try and be entertaining.  And besides, it gives me exercise which makes me healthy.

And as for the books, I'm doing all that craziness because I'm hoping-- praying-- pleading with the powers above-- that if I can maybe maybe get enough people to read even one of those novels and give me good reviews (or, hell, any reviews) I can pitch my work to an agent.  I can say, "See, I've done the work, I just need a publisher to add a bit of polish and help me make it bigger."

The thing is, right now, I'm doing the work, and there's no reward.  There's no end in sight.  There's just me and the work.  And every now and then I find myself wondering if I'm just kidding myself.

I love what I do.  I really and truly love it.  I will be doing these things until the day I die.  Maybe I'll just be doing them for myself, though.  Maybe I'll write my books just because I get depressed when I'm not creating something.  Maybe I'll keep dancing just to keep my health up.  I'll probably be doing these things when I'm ninety.

And yet, I can't help but think I'm leaving something undone.  There's some avenue I haven't taken yet.  There's someone I haven't talked to yet.  There's something--something-- that I haven't tried.  And that something's the key.  Whatever it is, wherever I find it, once I've done this thing, I'll start making progress.

Then again, that probably isn't how it works.

Someone who wanted to be a millionaire told me that he was at least pursuing the goal of a million dollars.  He was that much farther ahead of all other people who wanted it but did nothing to get it.  Every step I take puts me that much farther ahead of all the other people out there striving to reach the top.

Will I ever reach it?  Dunno.  I do know that if I stop trying now, then I definitely won't reach it.

Proof that the world is fundamentally UNFAIR

Just got home from work.  Left work because I was too royally pissed off to try and smile at people and sell them dances anymore.

Why?  Because I give shitty dances.  Why do I give shitty dances?  Because when I got my license to work, the very first thing I did was ask the lady who worked at the licensing board:

ME: "Durr, what's legal and what isn't according to Nashville law?"
LICENSING OFFICIAL: "Blah blah blah... blah blah blah and no physical contact during dances."
ME: "None?"
LICENSING OFFICIAL: "None."

So I give shitty dances that no one likes, because all I can legally do is stand in front of these guys and dance in front of them.  I've been doing this for two years now, and every guy I dance for complains to me, but life's a bitch like that so I deal with it.

They love me onstage.  They think I'm awesome onstage.  But then they buy a dance from me and immediately ask for their money back.  I've gotten so very good at asking for my money before I give a dance, because every time I give these poor motherfuckers a "legal" dance, they immediately want their money back.

So, we had a staff meeting on Sunday discussing the slight (yeah right) discrepancy between what is "legal" and what is outrageously illegal in a dance.  The head manager said we needed to clean up our act.  He said only two girls were following the law on their dances: me and a girl we'll call "B".

I was really excited.  Gee, I thought to myself.  You know what this means?  This means that I'm gonna be on an even footing with the other girls.  At long last, I'll be able to sell dances in this club without practically having to break someone's arm to do it.  Because I'll finally be giving the same dances that all the other girls are giving.

Nope.  Nope.  Doesn't work that way.

Today, I asked B to tell me how she gives dances, because she doesn't have trouble selling them and the manager said they were "legal".  She said she just does what she always does.  Okay.  So toward the end of the night, she told me that she was going to give me a dance to demonstrate how she dances.

ME: Thank you.  I know nobody likes my dances.
B: Yeah.  All the guys you've been giving dances to tonight have been complaining about you to me.
ME: I'm not surprised.

So B takes me to one of the rooms and proceeds to give me her typical "legal" lap dance.  And just about the point where her boobs are rubbing across my face, I start thinking, "Gee, I never thought any of this stuff was legal."

So afterward, I asked her if it was.  She told me that, technically it wasn't.  She also told me that if the inspector ever drops in I need to dance the way I've been dancing or just not sell any dances while she's there.  She then proceeded to tell me when the inspector usually comes in so I'll be duly forewarned.

I was like, "So, really, it's not legal."  B was like, "Well, if you want to get technical, it's not 100% legal."

So... yeah.  I thanked B and went to the manager.  I told him that everybody's been complaining about my dances, and I'm pissed off because (apparently) I'm the only girl in there following the letter of the law.  I told him that I feel like I'm punished because I'm doing the right thing.  Because I'm doing what I'm supposed to do, I'm making far less money, and the customers bitch about me to all the other girls in the club.

The manager (not the head manager) was caught between a rock and a hard place with me.  He couldn't really tell me to go ahead and break the law "just a little" but at the same time, that was probably the only good advice left available to him.  I thanked him for at least listening to me bitch about my problem, then got dressed and checked out.

Outside, I told another dancer named M about my problem and immediately she was like, "Oh, so you're the girl everyone's been complaining about."  Yeah.  That's me.  I'm the girl that everybody regrets buying a dance from.

So there you have it.  Proof that the world is fundamentally unfair.  I can either start breaking the law so that I won't have people bitching about me "cheating" them all the time.  Or I can keep obeying the law and just deal with the fact that I'm working twice as hard for half the money.

Right now I'm thinking I'll just keep obeying the law, but I have no idea what I'm gonna do.  I'm angry that I have to make this decision.  I SHOULDN'T FUCKING HAVE TO MAKE THESE KINDS OF DECISIONS.

So fuck the fucking world right now.  I'm mad.  I hope you all have a good night, and I will post again when I no longer feel like screaming at somebody.

Busy But Happy

Work has been physically exhausting lately.  I'm very happy with it.  I have several ideas I want to put into my stage work.  I've been trying to figure out ways to improve my couch dances (because no one seems to like those).  I've been working at improving how I do my job.  And I'm happy with that.

I'm also just worn out.  I want to write, but I'm tired.  I'm halfway through Justine, and I want so badly to finish.  I'm also trying to remedy any plot inconsistencies before I write them down.  Is the ending sufficiently climactic?  Are important matters explained so that they would make sense to a reader who's new to the Promethean Riddle universe?

Am I inserting enough philosophy and introspection to match the original flow of the series?  Can I insert it without making it feel tacked-on and unnatural?

Yesterday my husband threatened me with Tylenol to get me out of bed.  LOL.  I'm pretty anti-medication, and while I was considerably sore, I'd much rather be sore than take a pill to make it go away.  So anyway, when every other tried and true method of getting me up failed, he resorted to bringing me Tylenol and a glass of water to help me get past the soreness enough to crawl out of bed.

By now my muscles feel pretty normal.  Tomorrow I'll be back at work trying to wear them all back down again.

That's all good and well, but nowhere in my immediate schedule is there time to write.  That was what yesterday was supposed to be for.  I kinda dozed through it.

I suppose I've got right now, but I'm still trying to get the right rhythms running through my head.  Instead I wrote a chunk of the outline for Promethean Riddle #3.  So far, it's still going down on paper easily enough.  I just need to figure out the ending.  Worried about that.  Need to know how it will end so I can write in all the little threads to foreshadow it long before the event itself occurs.

Until then, I've got what I've got.  While I'm inclined to call it a hot mess (because that's how it feels sometimes) I know it's not.  It's just unruly, that's all.  Like my hair.

A very gut-instinct driven part of me wants to take some time to just float... meditate, relax, ponder, listen to music that doesn't come from work (i.e. not loud dance music).  Do things that are calming, centering and peaceful.

I imagine this is exactly what I need to be doing.  It's not what I want to be doing.  I want to be rushing through the second half of Justine and finishing off Book 2.  I'm pretty sure if I did this, Justine would come out with plot holes and a certain lack of depth or thought in the belief systems of its characters.

I wonder sometimes if Promethean Riddle #1 did that.  I don't think there was really much time in the environment and situations the characters were thrown into to contemplate the universe.  I know Raina did a little bit, and maybe I should have given her more time to voice her thoughts.  But where would I have fit that in without disrupting the flow of the story?  I know I could have.  If I wanted to badly enough, I could have.  I think...?

I think I'm doing that thing again where I throw too many irons into the fire and wear myself down to nothing, then have to stop for a while just to recover from all the many things I'm trying to make myself do.  If I stop now, and meditate, I should be okay in a few days, to go back to rushing around like a chicken with no head.

I think I'll go now and do just that.

I'm gonna be so sore tomorrow...

So the club was pretty quiet.  On a Friday.  Something about freezing fog and rent being due soon.  Too many dancers, hardly any customers.  And it was cold.

So I did lots of stretches on the back tables to keep warm. :D

I've already got one bruise showing purple on my knee.  The others will make an appearance tomorrow morning.  Always signs that I've been getting plenty of good exercise at work.

I got some really good stretching in.

I managed my very first ever straddle splits.  (That's the one where one legs goes left and the other goes right.)  It was uncomfortable and it wasn't as poker straight as I would have liked, but it was pretty undeniably a splits.  I managed to get to it by doing lots of back-bends (lots of work done on the back tonight) and then stretching in the opposite direction by spreading my legs and laying my torso forward between them, keeping my upper and middle back as straight as possible.

I'm quite sure there's a yogic term for that position, but I'm too tired to look it up right now.  I guess it's a pretty commonly used position to open up the hips and widen the splits.

Anyway, I did tons of that stuff.  And I only shivered uncontrollably from time to time.  (My internal thermometer's funky.  I suspect I'm some sort of reptile.)

Anyway, it was good.  I tried really improving the depth of my back-bends in the area of my spine around my rib cage.  I know I tend to neglect that area when doing a bend, and it's kind of hard to feel it right now because I'm still building up the muscles to arch it backward and really open up my rib cage.

And I'm rambling.

Some drunk guy tried grabbing my butt.  I walked up to him and asked for a dance and he wrapped an arm around me and grabbed a nice handful.  So I pushed him away and he acted like I'd done something wrong.

HIM: "Hey!"
ME: (grinning like this is all just flirting, because there's the slimmest chance I'll make some money from this group of people) "You can't just go grabbing on me without paying me.  What kind of a girl do you think I am?"
[NOTE: No one can go grabbing my ass-cheeks like that.  Especially when I'm in a super-mini mini skirt and a pair of undies.  Wait.  I take that back.  My husband can.]
HIM: (drunken stare, clearly at a loss for words.)

So I walked passed the drunk grabby fellow and asked his friend for a dance.  His friend said yes.  I think because #1 it was his way of apologizing for his friend being a drunk idiot and #2 I didn't freak out at grabby guy, but maintained a flirtatious manner while scolding him.  What wisdom to take from this, I really can't say.  Don't flip the fuck out at guys who are trying to knead your butt like they're making a loaf of bread?  Or, maybe just don't flip the fuck out at people when you're trying to get money out of their friends.  (That's the second time I've made money by acting cheerful immediately after someone makes an ass of himself.)

I really hope that in a real-world situation (and the strip club is kinda surreal, so it doesn't count) I'd punch whoever grabbed my butt like that.

Anyway, that was my one asshole for the night.  I also met a really cool Dune fan-- yay, Dune!-- and another gentleman who was very pleasant to talk to.  I made hardly any money, but I'd still call it a good night.

Sleepy now.  To that degree that I feel mildly goofy.  I knew it was time to go home when I exclaimed to myself,  "Holy Carp!" in the changing room and then burst into a fit of giggles.

In the last three days I've managed to write 24,000 words on Justine.  This is probably contributing to my tiredness.  Probably more than a little bit.  I can't wait to get Justine done and published.

Future Goals: Finish writing Justine.  Find a willing editor.  Finish book two of The Promethean Riddle (it's already halfway done so it should go by pretty fast.)  Start posting youtube videos about dancing and writing.  Learn how to do a handstand.  (I've really been working on this one, but I'm not quite there yet.)

Guys, I really hope this is legible, because I'm falling asleep at the computer.  Good night.

A Familiar Face

So, I posted about this on facebook at some point, because I was fed up then.  But I'll write out a whole long blog on it, because I have the feeling my unwelcome passenger will be accompanying me for a little longer than I'd hoped.

I have a chalazion on my eye.  It's not really gross, and most people don't even notice it.  But when I look in the mirror, the first thing I see is, "Hey, that's not my face."

I've had this sucker for five months now.  It was there at my freaking wedding.  I had it for one month before the wedding, and at that time, I looked up "How to get rid of a chalazion" and every source I read up on said, "It will go away in a month on its own."

So I applied hot compresses to it, and prayed that it would be gone before the wedding.  It wasn't.

So I applied soaked teabags.  I soaked my eye in saline.  Nope.

Finally, out of frustration, I sterilized a needle and stabbed the damn thing.  I got a little pus out, but in the long run, no difference.

So, we went to the doctor.  Apparently, you have to go to a GP before you can go to a specialist.  We went to the GP.  I asked, "Can you cut this sucker out of me?"  They were like, no, we need to schedule you a visit with a specialist.

Figures.  So I got a call from the specialist this morning.

ME: I'm so happy you'll finally be getting this thing out.
SPECIALIST'S NURSE: Oh, I'm sorry hun.  Our plastic surgeon does that.  You need to meet with our specialist first, though.

Are you kidding me?!?!?!  Where's that fucking needle I left in the bathroom!  I'm gonna cut this motherfucker out of my fucking face tonight!   Give me the damn needle!!!

Needless to say, my husband has decreed that I may not cut my own chalazion out.  (Yes, I could go and do it anyway, but his logic is too sound.)  Apparently, you're not supposed to attempt DIY eye surgery at home, because the eye is "very vascular."  To laymen like me, this means that if the pus inside my eye had been infectious, the infection could easily have spread throughout my entire eyeball, necessitating excision of the entire eye.

I suppose, if I hate having a little bump on my face, I'd really hate having only one eye.

(Damn, I really think I could get it if I just stabbed it hard enough...)

I solemnly swear I will not go cutting open my own eye.  I will wait for the (second!) doctor to look at it, then take my money, then tell me they can't do anything, so that the (fucking third!) doctor can look at it, then take my money, then tell me they can do something about it in another month or so-- something that will cost an arm and a leg.

Fucking medical system.  I've got a perfectly good sewing needle in my bathroom.

Guilty... and Hoping to Change.

Have been putting tons of effort into advertising my book.  Forcing myself to tweet, trying to add every human under the sun as a friend on facebook.  All because I've gone around online and every article I've read has insisted this is the only way you can do things.

Being on twitter for a while, the only people who ever follow me are people who post (every seven seconds) "Buy my book!  My book is awesome!"  And I really didn't want to become one of these people.  It seems cheap and dehumanizing.  And yet, there I was on twitter and facebook (I still want that account on youtube) trying to friend-add and follow and tell everyone about my book.

And I was hating every moment of it, because it's so totally not me.  I am not that kind of person.  Granted, I'm generally just a very antisocial person.  I'm also kind of an uninteresting person (if you exclude the stripper/novelist/off-gridder-ness).

So last night, I decided I needed to can the "buy my book everybody!" mentality, because it was making me sick and depressed and kinda headachey.  I started looking up new marketing strategies today, and came up with more garbage, so I decided to see what other successful people had done.  (Them, specifically, and not other people who may or may not have succeeded, but were very happy to shell out advice.)

That led me to this gem: an interview with Smashwords success story, Amanda Hocking.  My favorite quote from that interview being this one.

"I think the biggest things that I see people do is becoming very spammy. Or they'll comment on blogs and all they really say is, "Yeah, I agree with you because my book is like this." They're not adding anything to that conversation. They just immediately start talking about their book. I get tweets all the time from people that say, "Buy my book." I know nothing about this person. I know nothing about their book. All they're saying is to buy their book and I'm not going to do that. They're just being obnoxious."

Took the words right out of my mouth.  (And used better grammar than I might have.)

I think the reason I've been hating twitter with such a passion is the fact that a good 80% of the people I know on twitter are constantly pestering me to buy their junk.

I've hated the idea of advertising my books, because I was under the very erroneous impression that I needed to be just as irritating to sell my work.  And this just can't be the truth.  If I'm driven nuts by these people, who's to say prospective readers aren't too.

That said, I'm gonna unfollow a lot of my spammier followers on twitter, and I'm gonna make a point to tweet things I want to tweet, and not just shit I'm "supposed" to retweet.

Will this help me sell more books?  Honestly, I have no clue.  But, on the plus side, I won't feel cheap and sleazy anymore.  Gotta say, that's a definite bonus.

WISDOM: (I keep relearning this lesson for some reason.)  Don't keep banging your head against a brick wall just because everyone around you insists it will turn into a door.  It may be a doorway for them, but it's not for you.

Writing Against the Odds

I dreamed last night that I was competing in a beauty contest I couldn't possibly win.  Before you try to psychoanalyze such a symbol-potent dream as that one, I'll spare you some trouble.  I really did enter in a beauty pageant I couldn't win.

Miss Nude Tennessee.  A couple weeks ago.  And let me tell you something, I totally lost.  And, be it a good thing or a bad one, after the contest, when many of the other girls were wailing about how unfair the judges were, I was congratulating the girls who won.  Because they deserved to win.  They were beautiful.  They gave excellent performances.  They worked hard.

And so did I.  It just wasn't what the judges were looking for.  They were looking for a girl who looked like the quintessential Tennessee stripper.  They were not looking for someone who looks a little bit too much like a novelist that dons stripper shoes after dark to battle the dark forces of her own expanding waistline.

So, the dream might've been a very realistic replay of events that have already happened, or it might represent something that's been on my mind a little more.  The other contest I feel like I don't have a hope of winning.

Let's call this the Indie Writer Contest and it involves seeing some measure of success as a novelist at some point in the foreseeable future.  Honestly, I'd almost rather be going up onstage to compete against girls I know have already got me beat.

I have a very long-held, and probably irrational belief, that some people were born to be winners.  Some people were born to be the very best at something.  Some people have the talent, the determination, the connections and the sheer good luck to climb to the top.

And I am not one of those people.  I never have been.

If life has taught me anything, with all my repeated scraps and bumps, with falling down and getting up again and again, it's that I was not born to carry the first prize.  I should not-- and do not-- toil to become the very best there ever was.  Because I never will be.  I was never meant to be.

And yet, here I am, working my ass off.  Day after day, writing novels, trying to find new social media to sell my work through, ordering business cards with clever quips on them.  I try anything I can think of.  Somewhere down the road something has to work.  I keep telling myself that.  Even though reality functions more like this: somewhere down the road something might work.

So why try?  Why enter into a contest that I can't win?  Why try to be something so few people can successfully be?

Because I may never have been destined for first place, but that doesn't mean I have to be a loser.  Too many people assume that, if you aren't on top, you must be crawling in the dirt.  It doesn't work like that.  There's always a second prize, a third place, a fourth, a fifth.

There's always that one sorry rung above the losing place.  I've clung to that rung so many times, working desperately not to drop off and sink to the bottom.  (And sometimes I've still fallen, despite my best efforts.)

If I become the best pole dancer I can be, even though I'm not the best there is, I'm still pretty damn impressive.  If I become the best novelist I can be, I probably still won't gain any recognition for my work, but at least I'll produce a good story or two.  If I become all the many things I want to become, I will never be the best at any of them, but the combination of my skills will make me a unique and many-talented individual.

If I reach my old age, and I can look back and say that my life was not boring, I will consider it a success.

That's the prize I work for, the prize I'm quite certain I can win.  And, of all the prizes out there, isn't that one of the most rewarding?

Been Away Awhile

I haven't posted in forever.  And, hey, there's a new layout!

I haven't posted lately because this blog was, until today, called "Life After Stripping."  Well that didn't happen.  It was also about "going off-grid".  Yeah, that didn't happen either.

In fact, one might say a whole list of things I planned to happen didn't happen.  Either because I trusted the wrong people or... no, mostly because I trusted the wrong people.

It happens.  I've spent my life refining the careful skill of trusting the wrong people.  I would claim to be a master of the art, but I've seen some of the people my coworkers trust.  For example:

"The cops are calling me because my boyfriend borrowed my car out to a friend of his who used it as a getaway car in a robbery-- all while I was out of town!  Now I need an effing lawyer!"  If you hear someone screaming this in the changing room at work, you know you're a stripper. :)

Or any time I go back to fix my hair and find a girl in tears because, "My baby-daddy just <insert outrageously crazy, stupid, careless, reckless and destructive thing here> and I don't know what to do!"

So, yeah.  I'd say I'm a pro at trusting the wrong people, but I know other people who show me what a true novice I really am.  For example, after getting thrown out of our apartment and spending a couple nights in a hotel, my then-fiance (now husband) and I decided to place our trust in some really wonderful friends who gave us a place to stay for a whole month until our next apartment was ready.  A true pro at trusting the wrong people would have gone to stay with someone who would have:

A.) Stolen their belongings, then denied it.
B.) Sold them into sex slavery for drugs.
C.) Raped them, then stolen their belongings, then sold them into sex slavery for drugs.  Then denied it-- to the cops who came asking questions later.

So, obviously, I'm not too much of a pro at trusting the wrong people.  I get it right about half the time, and I suppose I've done pretty good at trusting the right people where it's really important.  I have a husband whom I love and trust completely.  I have very good friends that I trust as well.  These are good things.

Anyway, we stayed at their place for a month, then moved into our new apartment.  It is from this new apartment that I now write.  Obviously, I'm back to stripping.  I've lost a bit of weight, which is never a bad thing.  I've published a second novel, and I'm working my way through a third.  (And a fourth...)  I'm not sure anyone actually reads these things, but I keep putting them out anyway.

I think that more or less covers what I've been doing in the time since my last post.  That, and getting married.  Did that.  Beautiful ceremony.  Everything was perfect, which really surprised me because you always hear that several things always go wrong somewhere in the process of getting married.

I always promised myself I'd stop dancing when I got married, but practical considerations kind of got in the way of that.  We could live on my husband's salary.  But if we did, he wouldn't be able to pursue other business interests, and we wouldn't see as much of each other.  And hey, we're newlyweds.  We want to see a lot of each other.

What else...?  The piece of property we bought was a scam.  (Trusting the wrong people...)  Or maybe it wasn't a scam, but there was a huge "problem" with the paperwork.  Which is just as well.  We're here and I'm not driving 3 hours just to get to work and back.

Still dreaming of that house that I'm gonna build.  It's just a way off.  A long way.  And I'm not complaining.  I have a wonderful husband.  I have a roof over my head and food in my stomach.  I even have my novels, though I'm not sure anyone's going to read those...

Future Goals: Going to start a youtube channel and put up amusing videos about stripping.  I can't do this now because I'm a little under the weather, but as soon as I'm all fixed up, this is going to happen.  Wish me luck. :)

So I finally published that novel...

Came back here with the intention of deleting that last post.  I guess it really wasn't too bitchy, but it felt bitchy.  I was in a bad mood when I wrote it, and the words felt moody in my head.  Feel free to ignore that last post.  There's some very good advice in it, but it's rather bitter advice, and I try to tell myself I'm more optimistic than that.

Anyway, another thing.

I finally published my novel.  Here's a link.  I doubt anyone comes to this blog, but I'll leave it anyway.  The novel is called There were Spirits in the Stone and it's a post-apocalyptic sci-fi.  If that's your kind of read, then follow the link to get a better description and some free sample chapters.  If you enjoy the sample chapters, the rest of the book is only $1.99 which is pretty affordable.

It's a first novel, so publishing it has been sort strange.  Not really emotional so much as just strange.  I was telling my fiance earlier tonight.  I can't sit down and read my novel, because every time I look at it, I hear a different voice reading it to me.  Normally when I read a novel, I envision the author's voice reading it to me. Every author writes to his or her own specific cadence, therefore, I can hear every author's voice as a unique voice.  My own writing doesn't sound like anyone's voice.  It sounds... weird in my head.

So, I've put the book away.  I don't know if it's a good book or a bad book.  I'm really hoping someone will give me some feedback, because I think it'll be quite a while before I'll be able to just open it up and start reading it like a normal book.  And I've already started on the next book.  This first one was actually a prequel for a series.  Don't worry, the series will be better written than the first book.  I hope.

In other news, I've drawn up plans for several different imaginary houses.  There's the concrete one, which is definitely my dream house.  There's also a few different ideas regarding what to do with the trailer, since we've got it and I might as well no waste it.

It might turn out to be good to have, because building a wooden house will be very difficult in the woods in the middle of nowhere without access to tools or electricity.  If I realize I need a special kind of screw out on our land (middle of nowhere), it'll take me four hours to drive out, buy it, and drive back.  But if I do it on the trailer on a property near a home depot, my chances of getting it successfully finished are higher.

I'm still not gonna take help from anyone in making it.  I'm really not trying to sound bitter with this, but I'm not taking help making this unless its from my fiance.  It's no one's fault, it's just that people have schedules and they get busy and things don't get done.  And it's more than that.  I want the learning experience of turning the trailer into a tiny house on wheels, because if I understand how to do that, I can then move on to bigger projects (like the concrete dream house).

So... now all I need is money.  Since I'm going to be making this with the cheapest material I can find, I should be able to make it with about $2000.

I'm gonna have to sell a lot of books...

My Recent Obsession

I must be a crazy woman.  In my spare time I've been compiling information on the requirements of a DIY house-building project.  I call it the Imaginary House.  It's my guilty pleasure.

Guilty because the trailer didn't pan out, and I spent $800 to get a series of unpleasant, practical, and "you'd think I'd know better" lessons.  The trailer is going nowhere.  It started going nowhere within the first week and when we had our unexpected relocation, I decided to scrape what remained of my dignity into a thimble and abandon the thing.  I could gripe and complain, but the fact of the matter is that I really needed those lessons to know what not to do with the Imaginary House.

~Imaginary House Rule #1: Have a very precise cost analysis of all materials required, money set aside with which to purchase them, extra money for unexpected expenses, and purchase all materials ahead of time.  (You'd think I'd know better...)

~Imaginary House Rule #2: Be capable of doing everything yourself.  If you can't do it entirely by yourself, have money set aside to hire someone to do it.  (Since hiring someone is expensive, might as well learn how to do it by yourself.)  People might volunteer to help.  That's very nice.  Don't expect them to follow through.  People have busy lives.

~Imaginary House Rule #3: Understand the logistics of everything.  Have a clear plan for how every little piece of every step works and do not deviate.  People will tell you the "correct" way to do things.  Unless its a safety issue, thank them, then ignore them.  They do not necessarily have a vested interest in completing the project.  They do not necessarily have a working knowledge of what you want the project to look like.  And even if they do have a working knowledge that could greatly improve your project, refer back to Rule #2.  Nothing sucks like waiting around for several months for someone to finish the key element of one comparatively small piece of a project that only they know how to do.

~Imaginary House Rule #4: This is more like a dire warning about rule #3.  I like to think I'm not so arrogant as to ignore a professional when they tell me I'm doing something wrong.  Normally I'm a strong advocate for listening to other people and considering their advice.  The problem with this comes when they tell you you're doing something wrong then refuse to offer a workable alternative.  So, when issues arise with Rule #3, consult Rule #2.  If someone tells you doing something is vital to the completion of your project, does doing that something depend entirely on them finding the free time to do it for you?  They might think they're helping by offering to do this complicated thing for you.  But really, they're not.  Nothing sucks like being stuck on a project with nothing to do for several months because someone started to do something vital that you don't understand and didn't finish it.

So... yeah, those are the first rules of my building plan for the Imaginary House.  They sound fantastically bitchy.  I do apologize.  I had a lot of help from several well-meaning people on the trailer, and it wasn't anybody's fault (expect probably mine) that it became such an absolute disaster.  There were several points during which, if I'd had any leadership qualities at all, I should have taken charge and said, "No, we're going to do it this way."  However, I have no leadership qualities.  I'm an antisocial person.  I'm not a team player, and my plans for the trailer should have reflected that.

So, because of this, my Imaginary House plans will be based on the assumption that I don't play well with others, except possibly Fiance.  If something needs to be done, I will do it myself.

Of course, this opens up a whole new door that I would never have expected to open in the past: the sheer mental joy of learning everything about building a house from the foundation up.

Last week, I spent hours trying to figure out how to correctly design and hand craft large beam trusses for a cathedral-style ceiling.  This week, I'm beginning to look at electricity.  Half the challenge is finding out how these things work in the first place.

I should mention that I'm one of those odd folks who gets an enormous jolt in the pleasure center by learning something new and foreign.  I'm in house-building heaven, weighing the pros and cons of different roofing materials because installing roofing is something people always tell me to hire someone else to do.  How many people who've never worked as roofers install their own roofs?  And what about all the stuff that goes on underneath the roofing material?  Trusses?  Support beams?  How about some fancy-looking purlins?

Roofs used to scare me.  I didn't know how they were designed, and because I didn't know that, I assumed that I'd have to hire someone to put them up for me, thus tremendously increasing my imaginary building costs.  Before roofs it was plumbing.  How on earth does plumbing work?  And then I saw youtube videos of people who'd installed tankless water heaters in DIY off-grid housing and some of the mystery's gone.

I feel reasonably confident that I can install my own plumbing, build my own roof, and assemble my own walls.

So now I'm studying electricity, which is perhaps the biggest and scariest of the big scary things I don't know how to do.  I'm not sure I'll be able to make electricity work for me.  I might have to cave a little and hire an electrician to make sure I don't burn my house down or electrocute myself.  But I'm going to study it first.  I want to understand it.  I want to know how it works.  I want it done my way.

I'm sure that sounds spoiled and bratty.  Maybe it is, but I want to understand the Imaginary House.  I want to build it and, having built it, I want to be able to dissect it with my eyes and identify all the inner workings that make it what it is.  If something breaks down, I want to understand why and how.  I want to know which parts broke down and how those parts can be fixed or replaced.  I want to be capable of doing the fixing/replacing myself.  I don't want to feel helpless in the Imaginary House until a professional comes and magically fixes whatever broken thing I don't understand.

Of course, there is a possibility, the Imaginary House will never be built.  It is imaginary after all.  If that's the case, I still want to learn and understand how it works.  If only because it's way too fun to learn about.

Why I haven't posted in a while...

Due to a series of unforeseen events, we ended up moving away from where we lived very hurriedly.  We packed up all our belongings, spent two nights in a hotel room shopping for apartments, then a month at a good friend's house until our new apartment was ready.  It's a beautiful apartment and we're very happy here.

We were able to bring the cats with us (they're like our pre-children children).  We were not able to take the chickens with us.  The last I've heard, they were sold to a very humane chicken farm.  The trailer is sitting in someone's driveway.

The move was a bit stressful-- as I suppose any sudden relocation would be-- but I'm very happy that we ended up where we are.  This is a beautiful place, and both my fiance and I (and even the cats) are very pleased with out new home.

That said, today I finally began looking at what to do with the trailer.  Since the sudden move, I've been considering abandoning the trailer altogether to build more permanent housing on the land we purchased.  However, we've begun discussing the possibility of leaving the state altogether.

If this were to be the case, we might benefit from having a livable trailer to plop on a new plot of land in a new state and live out of until a more permanent dwelling was constructed.

So... I might begin working at the trailer again.  I'm pretty sure it would be mostly me doing the work on it this time around.  The people who had been available to help me in the past had a lot of schedule conflicts, and several aspects of the trailer work were delayed indefinitely while we waited for our schedules to line up.

So, this time, I'll just work on it myself.  If it turns out okay, it turns out okay.  If it doesn't, I'll consider it a learning experience.  My long-term goal is to live someday in a house that I've built (more or less) with my own hands.  As the trailer will be a much smaller project, it might give me an idea how realistic my aspirations are.

It might all be a disaster.  Certainly there will be at least a few problems that I don't have the experience to remedy correctly.  So I'll just have to make due with the flaws and try to compensate as best I can.

Wish me luck.  One of these days, we'll get back on track.  One of these days, I'll be able to start up a new flock of chickens and build that tiny house I've wanted to build.  We'll just have to wait until we can do it in a place that's more stable.

Every experience, good or bad, is a learning experience.  I'll look at the world that way, and just keep going.  It's all any of us can do.

The Coop is Finished! :)

Yesterday, my fiance came to me at about noon and told me the chickens didn't seem to be handling the heat well.  We'd managed to put a roof on the coop and move it outside, but the run wasn't finished, so we'd kept them inside the coop for the last two days.  It wasn't ideal, but it was roomier than the tub.

I went to check on the chickens and they all looked uncomfortable in the coop.  The window that I'd hoped would give them ventilation didn't seem to be venting out enough.  They were all panting.  So we did something I read about in my research (I was not voluntarily being mean to my poor chickens) and carried them out of the coop one at a time and poured water on them from one of those sprinkly watering pails.

They weren't thrilled about it, but they did cool off very quickly.  They seemed a lot more lively afterward.

This meant that the rest of our day was devoted to finishing the coop and run so that they could go outside to cool down on hot days (like yesterday).  I was a bit burned out on coop-making and a tad under the weather, so I ended up watching while my fiance finished the chicken ramp.  I was very grateful.  He did a wonderful job (better than I would have).

So, we have our completed coop and run.  The chickens seem happy.  We lock them in the coop overnight and open the ramp up for passage during the day.  We need to water them regularly, and make sure the have food.  In the evenings, I plan to give them some sort of "treat" to lure them up into the coop.  Last night it was squash guts which they seemed very excited about.

Here they are, clucking and fluffing happily around the ramp J. made for me.

Our chickens have now become considerably more low-maintenance.  This means I can return my attention to cheese-making.  From thence, onward to goat-owning (and the subsequent goat-cheese making and goat-cheese selling).

Hopefully all of this works.  So far nothing's gotten into the coop and killed any of our birds, and the birds themselves don't seem to have any illnesses (knock on wood, knock on wood).  I do hope to make a small detachable tractor for them sometime in the near future so that I can house sick or broody hens as they come up.  I'd prefer to have the tractor and not need it for several months than need it and not know what to do without it.

Anyway, for now all seems to be going well.  I need to go make dinner.  ttyl :)

Chicken Taming and Land to Live On

So, yesterday, my mother-in-law, R. and I all drove to this plot of land and met with a very pleasant lady who posted it for sale on Craigslist.  It's a bit out of the way (understatement) but it's within our price range.  It's a beautiful stretch of land.  We'll need to clear parts of it.  Maybe we can get a goat to clear it for us... not yet.

Anyway, here's a picture:

Beautiful, eh?  I was a little nervous, because this is a Craigslist deal, and you get what you pay for, but the seller seems honest.  It's worth a try.

We won't be able to live on it right away (even if we could magically clear the whole half acre overnight).  But if my fiance and I work with the land during the weekends, clearing and building, it might prove to be a very beautiful (getting-in-touch-with-nature type) bonding activity for us.  I'm trying to give my inner optimist a voice here.

And, now for something a little more entertaining.

The birds are getting big!  I didn't get to see much of them yesterday, and it looks like they grew visibly overnight.

I've been trying to tame them.  At least to the point that they don't flee and cower at the far end of the coop every time I approach them.  (Chickens, apparently, are instinctively afraid of people.  I really can't fault them on that one.)  So I've been making sure to bring a treat every time I spend any time with them.  I've been using dry oatmeal because I have access to it, but I'd like to switch over to sunflower seeds, which are supposed to be good for healthy feather growth.  I had to buy the salted kind and wash all the salt off.  It was that, or barbecue flavor.

Anyway, this morning I opened the door to give them some fresh water and food, and I brought a piece of zucchini (they haven't been able to go outside, so I figured they'd enjoy something green).  They all ran up to me when they saw something in my hand.  Then they noticed that it wasn't oatmeal, and stood in a little circle around my hand, staring at the zucchini.  Eventually one of them walked up and pecked at it, then backed away quickly.  A few of the others tried, but it was too big a chunk for them to do much with it.

I put the zucchini away and sprinkled some oatmeal in my palm.  Chicken feeding frenzy.  They all ran up to me and started nibbling at my hand, picking up little oats, and chewing at my fingers.  They have this very delicate bite and twist technique that tickles.

So, good.  They're starting to associate me with food.  That means picking them up to check them for parasites will be easier.  Plus it's fun to see them all come running up to me when I open the door.  They are cute, funny little creatures.

People keep telling me they'll breed like flies.  I really hope that's true.  Anyway, I must finish building that chicken coop.  Until next time :)

Separated the Flocks

Bits of info today.  I've sliced my hands up so much now that this morning when the tomato stake I was carrying broke and split open the skin between my fingers, I didn't really even notice that the blood was oozing all over my hand until I was in the car and halfway to the hardware store.

Got hinges for the coop door (the one the chickens will use).

We separated the flocks last night.  Her chickens are in the tub (she has four).  And mine are in the coop I made.  They don't seem to object to the wire mesh floor.  I finally managed to look it up.  (You know how, when you google something, you don't necessarily find any information pertaining to your topic?)  So, people say it's okay.  The birds won't mind.  Awesome.

So, they should be ready to live outside permanently in about a week.  I can't wait.  Of course, the coop's not done yet.  I wouldn't call it a defensible structure just yet, and I wouldn't want them outside in it until it reaches that point.

I started work on the run yesterday.  In fact, that's all I worked on yesterday.  I wove the wire mesh for the roof together.  Then, since I didn't have wood to complete the frame, I went out into the woodsy area behind the garage and found some fallen limbs which I then sawed down to the appropriate lengths.  I'm using those to support the over-all frame, which has been going relatively smoothly so far.  (Knock on wood.)

I should be getting back to work any minute, but I wanted to burn some time just sitting and doing nothing.  I've been working like crazy to get this coop done.  Once it is done, I realized I'm probably gonna have to sit around for a week and wait for the birds to get big and strong enough to handle being outside.

I also need to take some time today just sit with them and let them grow accustomed to my scent.  They scratched me up pretty good last night when I started carrying them from the pen we had them in outside.  They're getting big enough that they can do some damage if they want to.  Must remember to look up the best way to pick up and hold them so that they'll stay calm.

So much do to.  Will post pictures of the run once it's up and running (no pun intended).  Wish me luck.

P.S.  Received a renewal notice for my stripper license.  Tore it up.  So that's the end of that part of my life.  Now I just hope I make a satisfactory housewife.

Coop!

(Still getting used to this new composing program.  I adapt slowly to things.  Painfully slowly lol.)

So, yesterday, I finally finished enough of the coop to house birds in it.  It's not perfect, and it's definitely not ready to go outside.  (Only half of it is finished, and it has no roof.)  But, I was concerned about the larger birds.  They're broilers, and they're prone to irritation of the stomach because they don't walk around as much as the smaller birds do.  They lie down a lot, and if they lie down in their own filth, the ammonia gives them rashes.

I've noticed all our broilers going bald on their stomachs and I've been concerned that they were over-crowded in the tub we originally had them housed in.  (They grew so fast!)  We've been trying to keep them clean, but pooping is like a twenty-four seven hobby for these guys.

So, yesterday, at about eight in the evening I finally finished the fourth removable door of the coop, which would enable me to secure the birds inside at night.  (It's not predator proof, but it will contain the chickens.)

My coop design has been rather interesting (to me at least) in that it is a hybrid coop/chicken tractor.  It's a complete coop in and of itself.  However, it is designed to be disassembled and relocated from time to time to give the chickens constant access to fresh, clean grass.  (Clean is a big thing with me.  Clean is healthy for them and not-stinky for me.)

Anyway, there are four "removable doors" on the coop that can be unlocked and then lifted off so that the coop is light and moveable.  Once the doors are in place, it's far too heavy to move.  The second part of the coop, which I'd like to start building today will be a chicken run/chicken tractor which the birds can be housed in while the main coop is being moved.  At some point I'd like to add an isolation pen on the other side for introducing new birds to the flock.  But that's not happening anytime soon.  I'll be happy if I can get the tractor/run up and working.

So far, our coops cost us about... seventy dollars?  The wood was free (thank you again to R. for negotiating to keep the junked lumber and wooden pallets, and to my in-laws for letting us have the wood).  The wire was a big ticket item because I bought hardware cloth instead of poultry fence (which is pretty useless at stopping anything other than poultry).  After that, there were the eye hooks, hinges and various odd bits of metal that held the thing together.  Those add up... ugh, and I need to buy more.

Anyway, I'll stop rambling.  Here's some pictures:

So here's a side view of the coop, with the little

chicken window for the birds to see out of. 

 Here's a view of removable doors one and two.  Made from pallet wood

which R. and I took turns sawing loose from the pallets they were nailed to.

Each of those two doors is hinged and locked in place, but they are relatively

easy to lift up and off the coop for cleaning and coop relocation.  Without

the four doors in place, the chicken coop is incredibly lightweight.

Here's a view from the chicken window in the first picture.  The demonic

red light is the heating lamp we put up to keep the chicks warm overnight.

You might be able to see the mesh floor of the coop.  I was rather concerned

when I first constructed this.  I didn't want it to be uncomfortable on their feet, but

I did like the cleanliness factor.  Most of the chicken poops drop through the mesh,

which means they won't be lying on their own filth.  I left the cardboard box in

there, though, so that if they were uncomfortable, they'd have somewhere soft to lay.  I

worried that the wire would also be hard on the broilers' stomachs, but I was

surprised to notice this morning that they seem to be regrowing a little of

their fuzz.  Maybe it's just my imagination.

And here (in case you were wondering why I don't simply clean the coop more

often if filth is an issue) is the reason frequent cleaning alone won't stop the filth.  We put

them in the new coop right before going to bed.  When we woke up in the morning, all

of this was lying under the coop, having fallen through the mesh.  And this is just

the stuff that made it through the mesh.  There's all the stuff in the box to consider.

And there's also all the stuff that didn't make it through the box.  The big puddles

are from the water feeder, which leaks occasionally, and then dribbled down to

make a nice, fetid poopy-soup.  And if they'd been in their tub, they would have

been sleeping in that.  Let me reiterate: they did this overnight.

So that is the update on my little poop factories-- er-- baby birds.  The coop is made.  The birds don't seem to hate it (that I can tell).  And now all I need to do is construct a roof and a chicken run/tractor.  Wish me luck.  (If anyone's even reading this... I don't think anyone's reading this.  Oh well.)

Another Infodump (regarding chickens)

Wow.  New posting format... I'm kinda lost here.  Anyway, today is another infodump.  A lot's happened that's been keeping me away from the computer.  Namely: the birds are getting big!  (I call the cats "the girls" and our chicks "the birds".)

So, yeah.  They're getting big.  Too big for the galvanized tub we originally had them set up in.  They're dirtying their bedding overnight, which means we've been replacing it very regularly, but even that isn't quite good enough.

So I've been trying to make them a coop.  I've kinda been in a hurry because, as soon as I've got the coop part of the coop ready, we can move them into that overnight, and put them in an outdoor chicken run my father-in-law built during the day (while I continue to build onto the coop).

So, once again, behold the innate messiness of the infodump:

1.) Blight.  We lost half our seedlings to it.  I've still got my rosemary and lavender seedlings, and plenty of tomatoes or peppers, but unfortunately while we were throwing away all the blighted plants, the remaining got mixed up.  So we'll have some surprise plants growing.  I know the peppers and tomatoes will probably cross-polinate, but since it's all going into my Infamous Throw-Together Burritos anyway, I don't think that'll be too much of a problem.  Live and learn.  Learn and live.

2.) Roof.  I cannot thank R. and my in-laws enough for letting us have the junk wood salvaged when they were having their roof redone.  Hail damage--> Insurance--> New roof--> wood for poor man's chicken coop.  Long story short.  Anyway, I'm very grateful for that, and all the help I've gotten figuring out how to use the power tools in the garage.  And on that note, I'm also very grateful for the use of the power tools and all the nails, screws and drill bits you guys have let me use.  This would quite literally have been impossible to do without that.

3.)Hands.  I used to think my hands looked rough compared to the other strippers because I refused to wear nail polish.  I didn't know the meaning of the word.  My hands are now covered in little red dots where the hardware cloth poked through the skin.  I've got burns on my right thumb and forefinger.  I've got a slash on my left ring finger.  I'm just happy I haven't lost a finger yet.

4.) Trees.  I can climb them.  Like a black bear.  I didn't know I could do that.  I was trying to get a dead limb from this rather tall tree which had no limbs near the bottom to use for support, so I just climbed right up it, grabbed the dead branch and hung from it until it broke loose, at which point both the branch and I hit the ground.  (I landed on my feet.)  So... awesome.  I'm a cat.  Cool.

5.) Roosting rods.  Of my birds, Wings seems the most willing to tolerate my interference, so I've been using her as a "stunt bird" whenever I want the others to catch on to a new idea.  For example, I made a mini roosting rod for the tub.  I put Wings on it, and she very obediently sat in place, chirping in that way she does when she's content with whatever it is that I've done to her.  While she was doing this, the other stopped cowering away from my hands and ran up to the rod, pecking at it curiously to determine whether it was edible or not.  I left them to it and came back to find three of them perched on the roosting rod.  Sadly, it's too small for the broilers.  I'd like to make them all a little birdy ladder that they can climb to get up to the perches in the coop.  People who've looked at what I've made so far say the coop looks like an aviary in a zoo.  Basically, it is an aviary.  These are birds.  Yes, they're chickens, but they're also birds.  Birds are happiest in aviaries.  So, I'm making them an aviary coop. LOL

Hopefully, it's sturdy and not just pretty.  I'm rather concerned about predators getting in.  I built the first removable "door" of it yesterday.  (Will post pictures soon.)  I've also run out of hardware cloth, and apparently the store is sold out.  Which reminds me that I need to go out and buy a latch for the removable "doors".

So much to do.  Anyway, ttyl. :)