Entries by TATIANA

For those of you who are curious about strip clubs....well lucky you, I took some pictures to show you. Here we go, In The Club Part 1, come back tomorrow for Part 2.
The dressing room, the place where all the really fun stuff happens. For YEARS now I have been suggesting to have a live stream from the dressing room and let the dancers just BE, be themselves. It would be such a highly entertaining mix of everything and it would be one of the most interesting live streams ever, especially if I would be in it.
The dressing room in one of the clubs I work (I currently work at two, well technically three if we are going to be picky).
This one fits five girls comfortably, six would work too. This particular club caps it at five girls per shift, which is perfect. The dressing room is comfortable, we are all friends and have a lot of fun together.
We do things together outside of the club and there is a feeling of camaraderie here. I spend like 80% of the five hours that I work here in the dressing room. I bring my laptop, catch up on emails, write blogs, read, study. Talk to the other girls. It is so relaxing.



The other club's dressing room. Not as comfortable. Sometimes there are too many girls, more often than not lately. Too loud. Always cold. The fans in the ceiling have large dust bunnies clinging to them, even though I have cleaned them a few times (I dusted the fans off prior to taking this picture). I don't like this club that much but it provides income. The shift is six hours and I often pay extra to leave early because I just don't want to be there anymore.
Anything more than five hours is too much.



A note from the owner to the dancers. Yea....some girls stink.
Not many but I have work with a few that smelled like unwashed sweaty armpit. That smell takes over the whole dressing room, lingers its way into other areas of the club, it is gross. Do not be that dancer.
Right now my perfume (when I wear it and it is not every time I work) is Decadence by Marc Jacobs. I also really like a lotion called Bum Bum Cream by Sol de Janeiro. I rub that in on my butt and the left over residue I just pat on my arms and scrunch into my hair - people looooove it. Sometimes I don't put anything on, my hair smells like the shampoo and conditioner I use. One of the nicest compliments, well one of the compliments I have remembered is when somebody told me I always look CLEAN.



Some random heels.



If you got a pink wig and some sparkly heels you can change your life for the better! Throw in some essential nutrients like cigarettes, Red Bull and pizza and you are good to go.



And on the other end of the spectrum, this girl is super into yoga, working out and brings her own home made smoothies and eats only vegan. And no that is not my stuff. Me making a smoothie before work? I am too lazy for that.



The stages in one of the clubs, there are three stages here but mostly one is used, sometimes two when I work. I do not like going on stage here. The lights are not the best and the stage just feels cold. And it is kind of small. Meh.



The stage in the other club. There is one stage because the club is a smaller club. Great lights, I really like this stage. We play our own music, most of the dancers use Spotify. One of my fave songs to dance to right now.....cause it changes but right now it is Kinda Like It by Black Atlass - it is yummy.



And speaking of Spotify, it costs $10/month. Once in a while a girl does not want to spend that (?), I mean I can be frugal too but come on! So if you do not spend the $10 for Spotify you get to hear commercials in between the songs. You know.....car insurance, laundry detergent and random stuff like that. Something the owner does not want to hear when he visits to check up on his club. Capish?

Woke to up snow.....April snow. Later I found out that this was the latest date for snow recorded in Portland, since they started keeping track of these kinds of things. April 11.
It melted quick though. And the beautiful lilac tree I have in my yard got damaged from the snow. One of its larger branches must had gotten too heavy from the snow weighing it down because when I looked outside, the branch was down. Broken. I wonder if I can tie it back up together again.



I basically spent my day doing laundry. I finally got to put two of my new pillows to use. I have two more new ones, king size but I need to get some pillow covers for them first before I use them. Nowadays new pillows are exciting to me. I did not do much else. Besides the normal......got a latte in the morning, ate, took a walk in the evening, had some tea and lemon cookies at bedtime and now I am in bed enjoying these new pillows and clean sheets waiting for tomorrow's Wordle to be available. It is four minutes until midnight.

Last Friday I had a couple of friends in town and I have been wanting to visit a place called Huber's Cafė and taste their famous Spanish Coffee. Huber's has been around since 1879 and I liked the place as soon as I entered. And I finally got to taste that famous Spanish Coffee and yes it IS yummy and I will definitely go back for more. Super nice place to enjoy food and a beverage.







And afterwards we went to see the cherry blossom trees and it is good that we did because last night it was super windy and most of the flowers are on the ground now.







A fun evening.
On the way back to my car I saw this little bunny propped up against a wall in the middle of downtown Portland. It made me feel a bit sad. Poor little bunny. I hope it is OK. It reminded me of the Velveteen Rabbit.



When I was little I had a bunch of stuffed animals that I slept with and before I could settle down and go to sleep I had to make sure that ALL of them were tucked in under my cover. Not one could be left out and alone, all had to completely safe under the cover together with me.

Started today with a boring day at work. Very uneventful.....kind of like this.



Did errands afterwards. Got cleaning vinegar. So everybody knows that you can use vinegar for cleaning stuff....for example floors, coffee and tea pots, faucets. But did you know that there is CLEANING vinegar? I didn't until recently. Cleaning vinegar has a higher level of acidity than regular white vinegar. Well I got some of that today since I like to clean. It is therapeutic.
Then I went for a walk. It looked something like this.



I can't get enough of the amazing cherry blossoms. They are SO pretty.



Hello, is it me you're looking for?



And now I am going to talk about some stuff. That is why you are here reading right.....cause you want to know my thoughts on stuff. And I have plenty to say about a lot.
I can't remember last time I watched the Oscars. Does not interest me, feels stuffy, outdated and full of annoying ass-kissing hypocrites.
But of course this year's debacle blew up larger than things that really matter, like wars and injustices and people and animals getting hurt.
I am not surprised.
My thoughts on the drama? My initial reaction was that it must had been fake or staged when Will Smith indignantly stomped up on the podium and slapped Chris Rock. But I guess it wasn't fake. And if it was indeed fake then everybody should cancel Hollywood, enough of that bullshit already. I should add here that I only watched the slap incident once. So I do not care for either Will or his wife Jada, their kids are annoying as well. That whole family is CRINGE. I am pretty sure that Jada can defend herself, she has mused about her past drug and alcohol issues and she used to hang with Tupac after all so she is not a defenseless fragile flower. The stuff she has revealed about her and Will's marriage is kind of embarrassing so no wonder Will has lots of pent up rage. I would too if my significant other looked outside the relationship constantly. And the alopecia.....really now? You are a millionaire and openly talking and complaining about hair loss that might actually be due to the way you have been treating your hair for the last 40 years. Put a wig on, or one of the head wraps you claim you love wearing or be bald and fab, now sit down and shut up. And not everybody is aware of your sorry traction alopecia issues.
Perhaps Rock wasn't, did that occur to you? A guy that produced a documentary called Good Hair (and yes I watched it) so he is not completely unaware about hair struggles in the black community.
And the joke wasn't even that shocking, I consider it mild, nothing to raise an eyebrow over, certainly didn't warrant Smith's outburst.
The Hollywood crowd is so fake. Ten years ago they were all kissing Harvey Weinstein's ass knowing damn well that he made the ladies go the ole' casting couch route to win a role in one of his productions, which the ladies also did but later on when the Me Too movement swept the globe he was suddenly a pariah. Hypocrites. They should have somebody like Ricky Gervais hosting the Oscars but the hypocrites are too scared to be outed for the sorry hypocrites they are. There are wars going on and Smith decides to lead by example and slap somebody. So I am team Rock all the way on this one.
Sit down Will Smith. Good that Zelensky was kept out of the Oscars.....he does not have time for that kind of Hollyweird stupidity.
And speaking of Zelensky. I feel that he should allow Russia to have Donbass and declare Ukraine a neutral country. Enough of death, suffering and destruction. It is not worth it. What other solution can there be to put an end to this? I am so disappointed at Putin at this point. He too needs to sit down.
And I think that was it for me tonight. Shower and Wordle next.
Then sleep.

I got a milk frother. A Breville Milk Café frother to be exact. So this evening I made a London Fog at home! I am excited!
I am going to learn how to make more foam but yeay now I can make my lattes and London Fogs at home. And I got some vanilla syrup and I will also look for lavender syrup. I like my London Fogs with vanilla and lavender syrup. I saw that there is an oat milk by a brand called Califia Farms called Barista Blend. I will try that next.



Although will miss my baristas at the coffee shop I have been going to almost every day. They are my girls. So I will have to swing by once in a while and get a latte.

Today the ticket registration for Burning Man opened. What I did not realize back in 2012 when I decided that I was for sure going to Burning Man that year (or so I thought) is that getting a ticket is a rather complicated matter. Tickets are not sold at the gate. You can't just show up and hope for the best although there are brave souls that do just that every year and I guess it works out for some of them. Maybe tickets used to be sold at the gate at some point but not anymore! So since I had not educated myself on how to get a ticket back then I missed out and instead 2013 became my Birgin year. Birgin = a first timer at Burning Man.
The first time I heard about Burning Man was around 2004. I was at Ash Springs hot springs in Nevada with my ex boyfriend David and a person there told us about this event up by Reno. We thought it sounded amazing then but didn't go for all those years and we lived in Nevada too. Well I didn't go until almost a decade later. I wish (of course) that I would had went sooner than 2013. I know I missed out on all those earlier years, so that is a regret of mine.
This year it will be a fight to get a ticket. The number of overall tickets decreased by about 20 000 and the number of tickets in the main sale, the sale I register for, are reduced to ONLY about 10 000 tickets.
A serious reduction from the 2019 main sale that had, if I recall it right about 30 000 tickets. Had I belonged to a theme camp my chances of getting a ticket would increase but I do no affiliate with a camp at Burning Man. I like to do my own thing. This year Burning Man decided to drastically reduce the amount of tickets in the main sale and instead increase the tickets allotted to the different registered camps.
You can also get a FOMO ticket but those are expensive, $2,500/ticket and then there are some for $1,500/ticket. Plus fees and taxes added on top of that. The main sale ticket cost is $575.00, plus fees and taxes.
So....I am hoping for the best.

A big change this year at Burning Man is NO MORE Center Camp Coffee Shop. Here is what Mango writes in The Burning Man Journal about the beloved Coffee Shop.
"In 1995, the Center Camp Coffee Shop was born as a single espresso machine sitting on top of hay bales. Rumor has it that a storm took out the bedouin-style tent that housed the bales, but the espresso machine and its offerings persevered — an early testament to the dedication and resilience of Burner culture. In 2000, the Center Camp Coffee Shop moved under a huge structure that can withstand 120 mph winds, truly an engineering feat. Since then, the Center Camp Coffee Shop has grown to over 1,000 volunteers and into a vibrant community.
Black Rock City is a continuously evolving, living experiment. As we shared at the end of last year, we will no longer do coffee sales at Center Camp in 2022. There are other big changes to our city, as well. This decision is ever so bittersweet, and it was not made lightly.
Center Camp Coffee Shop volunteers, you have for many years contributed to Larry’s idea. Under the guidance of Center Camp managers P Segal, Dana Harrison, and Marcia Crosby, you created a culture and an organic community. The Center Camp Coffee Shop is a beloved chamber of the beating heart of Black Rock City, and will forever be a part of our history. The memories and deeply-rooted value of your quarter century (!) of service is not taken lightly, or for granted. You have been inspirational and welcoming, and we can’t wait to see where and how you bring your energies, joy, and playfulness next. People like you are what makes Black Rock City… well, Black Rock City. From the entire Burning Man community, we offer a deep bow of gratitude to the thousands of the volunteers who have made the operation of Center Camp Coffee Shop what it has been."

Read the whole "Love Letter to the Center Camp Coffee Shop" here,
https://journal.burningman.org/2022/02/black-rock-city/building-brc/center-camp-coffee/

It IS bittersweet. I get tears in my eyes when I read that. I am sad that the Coffee Shop is no more. I LOVE that place and I started volunteering as a barista there in 2016 and did it through 2019. And it was amazing. I will miss everything about the Coffee Shop. Perhaps I will make my own coffee shop at Black Rock City. Many camps serve coffee and I did notice a decrease of people coming by the Coffee Shop starting in 2018. I understand Burning Man's decision to put an end to the Coffee Shop but yes bittersweet is a good word to describe the feeling.
I am hoping to find another place to volunteer at Burning Man. ❤️
The Man burns in 164 days.