only the jodi

Some jobs are so distinct from the rest of the world, that the rules of conduct and survival are different. We were a closed community, we had to be.

Sexwork & Stripping. On & off stage, under the lights or in the dark; back in the day, until today. For me, it would never as good as the first time.

When Roe v. Wade passed in 1973, my life was a mess. An alcoholic and addict in the embryonic stages, my virtue had already been compromised despite growing up in a “good” suburban home. Life without birth control would have made me a teenaged mother. Life without abortion would left me a drug-addicted mother with an infant that needed to detox in the NICU, whose survival was threatened just by living with me.

Ma has an active social life, in her sleep. The line between sleep and waking is porous; she can spend a day waiting on someone that can never show up, like an eight-year-old waiting up for Santa.

When I don’t know where I’m going, it’s best to start, not at the beginning, but where I am. Except, for someone with dementia or caregiving for a loved one with dementia, where you are is a moving target.

Dementia steals your memory and your life, the progression slowly peeling away who you were. It is not, however, contagious. Nothing is contagious via the telephone. Uncomfortable making that phone call? Try shuffling through life in her slippers for a while.

Q: What do alcoholics and addicts say all the time? / A: Leave me alone, I’m not hurting anyone but myself.

Even after thirty years of twelve steps, I’d been underestimating the impact I had on her life. Then our lives were thrown against a wall of dementia like a handful of spaghetti, and I got to see what stuck.

Aimless. With no clear plan of going somewhere, no “there” to get to, there is also no clear plan on how to get home.

There are words that make me sad: Ma looks me in the eye, “You’re really so good to me.” Sometimes followed by an “I love you.” Does she, or are those words part of her survival plan?

3 naked ladies talk about their view from the stages and laps of the 70′s, 80′s, 90′s and today.

17 Naked Ladies wind up in one virtual room, for the last of the Holiday Gang-Bangs. Any advice, warnings or words of wisdom for anyone just starting out in the Naked for Money business?

3 Naked ladies talk about their view from the stages and laps of the 70′s, 80′s, 90′s and today.

We gathered 16 Naked Ladies in one virtual room for round three of our Holiday Gang-Bang, tackling hard questions…and getting some surprising answers. If you could have a do over, wouldja do it again?

3 naked ladies talk about their view from the stages and laps of the 70′s, 80′s, 90′s and today. 

We wonder, how do you manage a romantic relationship when you make your living making strange men lust after you?

3 naked ladies talk about their view from the stages and laps of the 70′s, 80′s, 90′s and today.

What was your first time like?

3 naked ladies talk about their view from the stages and laps of the 70′s, 80′s, 90′s and today.

Spit or Swallow? How drugs, booze and cheap champagne fits into the picture.

3 naked ladies talk about their view from the stages and laps of the 70′s, 80′s, 90′s and today.

The difference between being “naked” and working bottomless, life before lap dances and the evolution and enforcement (or lack thereof) of the no touching rule.

3 naked ladies talk about their view from the stages and laps of the 70′s, 80′s, 90′s and today.

Girl-on-girl on-stage, back-stage, or lap-dance action, it all freaks bar managers out, and turns customers on.

3 naked ladies talk about their view from the stages and laps of the 70′s, 80′s, 90′s and today. 

Can you make money if you don’t look like Barbie? Strip club segregation, implants and how the industry has changed.

3 naked ladies talk about their view from the stages and laps of the 70′s, 80′s, 90′s and today. 

The Educated Tart joins us to talk about how being naked can mean access to higher education.

They say if you want to make God laugh, tell him/her your plans. Her doctor said, “Starting thinking about plans for palliative care.” That’s not funny, God.

Object Permanence is the why in why Peek-A-Boo is such a blast, why babies are surprised AF every time you appear again. The other end of the spectrum I call Object Impermanence in adults with dementia. That rock solid knowledge that when something or someone is out of sight or sound, that thing or person is simply…gone for good and for ever.

There is no aide today, only Big E & me. Tomorrow is our anniversary, Ma and me living together for the last two years. Both still alive, older and tireder than when we started. Outside, there’s a raging pandemic & it’s 90-hell-degrees. Inside, we have each other.

Today is Day 7 of working from home (WFH), of  online meetings, of no one else to be there for her other than me. Social distancing is the new normal. I’d always considered myself her sole caregiver, but it’s become very apparent that that was not exactly accurate. There were aides, therapists, social workers, random alter kakers. Now, it’s all me. And the occasional phone call from someone she loves but cannot remember.

Big Edie Benjamin Buttons along, forgetting all the every-day things I’d learned from her, the things that make up a life, she  tries to re-learn living, from me. What’s lost will never come back. I can’t fix it or slow it down. Instead, I honor our lessons, reminding her who taught me to read a recipe & cook; clean a house properly; put on lipstick and that it’s okay to enjoy sex.

The MMSE measures cognitive loss. I know Ma’s getting worse, but held on to the years we called it “mild cognitive impairment,” blaming any decline on the questionnaire. Like all standardized tests, I was sure they were asking the wrong questions. Rather than measuring decline and failure, reinforcing her belief she’s become “a nothing,” let’s meet our elders where they are now by asking the right questions, measuring what she does know and can do.