Traveling with the rollergirls: strippers, hookers, but no fire down below.

When last we spoke, I was headed off for a weekend with the rollergirls in beautiful California. I am writing this at 9:11 on Sunday morning as I sit at the airport, waiting for my flight.


I have not slept.

I am carrying half of my belongings in a grocery bag.

I have more eye makeup on right now (14 hours after it was applied) then I have worn since my wedding 12 years ago.

And some guy is doing aerobics in front of me at the gate. He is lying on his back stretching and pedaling his legs in the air and crunching and doing leg lifts and I, for one, wish he would just sit down and chill the fuck out. AND OH MY GOD they are playing some sort of motivational/mariachi music here at Southwest. Why is this happening to me again, at the airport, first thing in the morning? And they keep announcing that I am supposed to maintain close personal contact with my luggage at all times. I do not want any trouble with TSA today, because I have no idea what is IN my luggage. I packed in the dark, half naked, while I took a few slugs out of a bottle of champagne that was on top of the mini fridge.

So I am straddling my suitcase.

God I need more coffee.

I think now would be an appropriate time for us all to take a deep cleansing breath, a Xanax, and a look back on the weekend and say to ourselves:

"What the FUCK is wrong with this state?"

We have had a very memorable 4 days, but last night we wanted to have a grand finale of sorts. we managed quite nicely, thank you very much, and we will run the highlight reel once I have reviewed the photos on facebook, and untagged anything that could be incriminating.

Last night, after a full evening of roller derby and beverages and ice cream, we made it to a strip club. I will be the very first to say that I love strip clubs, and we were all looking forward to our big city strip club adventure.

Where do I begin.

First and foremost, I am most disappointed with the fact that the girls in the "strip club" last night didn't actually strip. (This would be your first opportunity to say to yourself "What the fuck?" And I, for one, am right there with you.) I saw more nudity in a freezing cold warehouse at 9pm drinking free beer with my teammates, then I did at 1am at that whateverthehellitwas we were at, that was definitely not a strip club, due to the significant lack of stripping going on.

I knew we were going to have a problem when we did a search on the GPS and the name of the club came up "Jimbo's Fun Bags" or "Dumbo's Clown Room" or something like that. I wasn't interested in seeing naked clowns, or elephants for that matter. I just wanted to take my teammates to see some pole dancing. Naked pole dancing. I didn't know it was necessary to specify nudity but apparently, in California at least, IT TOTALLY IS.

Half of the girls sat there clutching their dollar bills staring up at the stage, just waiting for someone to get naked so they could throw money at them. When they realized the girls on stage weren't going to get naked, they started looking around to see if anyone ELSE in the club might consider it.

The other half of the girls vacated the premises right around the time that one of the definitely-not-naked dancers leaned over the railing and made out with one of our teammates. After that, it became clear that we were probably the most entertaining part of that club (of any club, for that matter - those dancers really didn't know what kind of crowd they had on their hands) and I am pretty sure we had more fun standing in the parking lot than ANYONE was having inside.

Now, don't get me wrong. Jimbos or Dumbos or whatever the hell it's called was a nice little club, but we are used to seeing several of our very hot teammates get almost naked and make out with chicks on a semi-regular basis. So for us to go to a club, and be entertained, you gotta do some pretty special stuff.

And you gotta do that stuff naked.

It's time for me to get on my flight, but I will be back to tell you about all of the things that would quaify as pretty special stuff. Like vintage purple thong leotards, a guy named Sully, Thelma and Louise part deux, and angry, angry homeless people who hurl energy bars at passerbys.

Because I am pretty sure that shit only happens in LA.

And whilst there is a wireless option showing up on my computer saying "free public wifi" there does not, actually, appear to be any wifi connection whatsoever. Much like the ghettotel wifi, which also came up as a wireless connection, and then disappeared into the ether as soon as I attempted to connect to it.

I fucking hate it here and I cannot WAIT to get home. I didn't even get to buy more Fire Down Below yet, which is, in the end, one of my greatest disappointments about the time I have spent here in LA.