Roles

I’m wondering what truth is anymore. I’m wondering whom I speak to when I write my words. I’m wondering who I was and who I am.

Who will my children know me as? When I am old and need to be driven to the grocery store, what will they tell their spouses when they talk about me afterward?

I know I am not the only one who is right.

But I am wondering how and why I became the caretaker. I don’t feel like I ever chose the role, rather it snuck up and clobbered me on the head, said, “You’re mine. Now get to work.”

Perhaps I just need to accept this role. And all the other roles I play.

And the roles I played, that are now quite played out.

Get ‘er Done

I’m still just getting better—not all better yet.

I’ve been doing a good job of keeping up with my writing. It truly amazes me that I’m getting so much more writing done since I became a mother.

I wasted so much time as a non-parent. I would think nothing of watching three hours of television an evening. I don’t even know what shows are on TV anymore.

Have other parents experienced this upsurge in creativity since becoming a parent?

And for you non-parents, how do you keep yourself working and not being distracted by all our digital era offers?

Storytime

Here is a funny stripper mom commercial. This would never fly in the United States.

I’m wiped out. I took Genny and Cole to the pajama storytime at the library.

Cole threw up pear sauce and breast milk all over him and me.

Genny actually sat in the circle with the other girls. She still looks to the others for how to act though. She laughs when they laugh. She copies. She follows.

I’m hoping that this year being the oldest at her Montessori School will force her into being a leader.

I want her to lead. I don’t want her to conform.

My Life In a G-String: A Round Up of Stripper Memoirs

Here’s an interesting article that my friend Tanya told me about. It’s round-up of stripper memoirs.

I agree with the writer, Katie Roiphe, on a few points she makes, but also feel annoyed at the unfair treatment the stripper writers receive.

Are all naked women pretty much the same? Reading stripper memoirs would lead one to think so. It is a surprisingly rigid genre, with a set of rules and conventions as strict as those of sonnets or villanelles.

Of course, there are “conventions” as Roiphe points out, but what books about a certain group of people don’t have conventions? Alas, there are a lot of similarities to some strippers’ experiences.

You would think the subject would have a certain voyeuristic frisson, but something about stripping lends itself to cliché and obviousness, to the literary equivalent of fake breasts and caked mascara and silver thongs. Still a vast number of them have appeared on shelves, including Lily Burana’s good-natured Strip City, Elisabeth Eaves’ journalistic Bare, and Lacey Lane’s ditsy Confessions Of A Stripper.

True, I’ve read these books and there is a bit of cliché laid on, but that just reflects the job. And for there being “a vast number” of stripper memoirs out there, I’d have to disagree. How are a small handful of books “a vast number”? I’d say there aren’t enough (and not just because my memoir hasn’t found a publisher yet).

How many clichéd white male diatribes about the same old business thing are there out there?

We need more tales of strippers and prostitutes and mothers and clerks and waitresses. We need more stories told by women. Perhaps then we will begin to see the true extent of the similarities and differences inherent in women.

....StripXpertease.... The Strip and the Tease.

....StripXpertease.... The Strip and the Tease.

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I just stumbled upon this blog that reposted my Salon article from 2000 with the writer's comments.

She teaches a striptease class.

I've had my own thoughts along these lines...of course, with my own strange twists!

Life is short.

I love it when people take what they've done and find new ways to monetize it and empower themselves and others.

Calling All Mom Writers!

Attention Mom Writers! (Or moms who WANT to write…)

I’m looking for writers for short posts on my blog - strippermom.blogspot.com (and possible inclusion in a book).

Looking for short pieces (25 – 500 words) about what it means to be a “stripper mom.”

It doesn’t mean that you’re out there working the stripper pole at your local “Gentlemen’s Club.” Being a stripper mom is about stripping down to your past, no matter what it may be, and embracing and accepting it, so that you can live more fully in the present. We all have experiences or jobs from our pasts that we view as negative. Instead of letting those things constantly hold us back in life, we can look them squarely in the face and learn from them.

Are you a stripper mom? Are you a woman engaged with using her past stories to create the life you want for yourself now?

Be as creative as you like! What does being a metaphorical “stripper mom” mean to you? What is it like to be a mom writer? How do you make time for everything? What advice do you have for other moms who want to write?

No pay, but good experience and exposure.

Please email your submission in the body of the email along with a short bio and any email or website contact you would like included with your piece. If you would like a photo to appear with your piece, please include that, too.

shageman@hotmail.com