The Colosseum

 I stopped into the Colosseum Thursday night. It was once a sister club to Penthouse, owned by the same person back in the day. The Colosseum is where they filmed the short-lived Showtime show Topless Prophet. The city decided to clean up the strip clubs. They shut down Penthouse and forced the owner to sell Colosseum.

I arrived before eight. The dayshift girls were still lingering, and the night-shift girls were slowly starting to mingle. I texted Tinkerbell, "It's full of black chicks and fat chicks so far."

It's been almost ten years since I was a regular at a strip club. Several things have changed. Some are easy to point out, but others are more elusive. The girls are bigger and less attractive. The customers do not dress as well. I saw one guy wearing cut-off sweatpants and a t-shirt with his belly sticking out. He would not have made it through the door in the old days.

Overall, the clubs are changing with the times in a desperate effort to survive. The girls carry buckets with them on stage. I noticed this in the two other clubs I've visited recently. That was never the case in the old days. Seldom did a customer "make it rain." They tipped girls on stage. These young guys have seen too many music videos. No girl wants to sweep up a wad of singles thrown at them while they are on stage.

I witnessed one guy get up from the bar, throw three or four singles at a dancer on stage, and walk back to his seat. He didn't talk to her. He barely looked at her. His whole demure showed a certain lack of respect. I went to the dancer after and slipped a dollar into the band of her g-string on the side. "Feel out of place. Am I supposed to through this at you and walk away?" I joked.

Later, while we talked at the bar, she commented that I was more of a gentleman. I said, "You don't throw your money at the gas station cashier. Why would you do it here?"

The girls don't do extras in the back at Colosseum--not anymore. The curtains are gone, and the backroom is one ample open space. When I went back for a dance, the room was empty. The dances were not worth the money.

It is too much effort to work myself back into a club and become a regular. I don't want to spend the time, the money, or drink the alcohol it would involve. None of the clubs I have visited lately and none of the dancers have changed my mind.

Still

So I guess the fortune teller's right.
Should have seen just what was there and not some holy light
But you crawled beneath my veins, and now
I don't care. I have no luck
I don't miss it all that much
There are just so many things
That I can't touch, I'm torn...Torn, Natalie Imbruglia

Saturday afternoon, I drove out to Novi to pick up Tinkerbell and her boyfriend. We didn't plan a bike ride. The weather report was sketchy. We meet up with Teach and one of their other friends at The Landing Strip Lounge. A different strip club in Romulus. Both Tink and Billie spent time dancing at The Landing Strip. It is smaller than Flight Club. I never spent much time there. 

Tink and her boyfriend knew the manager, the DJ, and one of the bartenders. We had a few drinks. There was one dancer out of about eight that I thought was attractive. I talked to her briefly while she was on stage but didn't end up spending any time with her. The rest of the day shift crew I didn't find interesting.

I've decided I like going to strip clubs by myself. Being a part of a group off in the corner does not help you meet any of the dancers. Walking out spending only $20 was nice, though.

We didn't stay at the strip club for long. We went to an Italian restaurant for dinner. The food was delicious, and I eat more than I wanted, undoing all the work I put in during the week losing weight.  After dinner, Tink wanted us to join Teach at Flight Club. I didn't want to go. I think Tink was trying to get me out more than out of any desire to go. I appreciate her efforts, but I was not in the mood. I knew it was not what I wanted to do.

These places stir up the desire to so Billie. A fixation I cannot shake lately even though I know the reality of such a meeting would not be anything like the fiction, both good and bad my mind has conjured. With Firefly away, I've been lonely. Yet, I don't have much of a desire to put in the effort needed to remedy the situation. I feel like when the government money dries up in September, prospects will be better.

We got caught in a downpour on the drive home. When it rains here, it pours lately.  I know other places around the globe are experiencing flooding issues too. Ours is limited. The Gladiator has no issues with standing water.  

Here comes the rain again,

Falling from the stars

Drenched in my pain again

Becoming who we are

As my memory rests

But never forgets what I lost.

Wake me up when September ends...Wake Me Up When September Ends, Green Day

Spaceman

I'd like to thank all the small companies I put out of business, all the people working in my warehouse making sub-subsistence wages, all the Chinese taking advantage of the postal rules to send their goods to the US for making it possible for me to stroke my ego, spend ten minutes off the planet and give myself a place in the billionaire astronaut club-- Jeff Bezos.

That's not what he said? Really? Guess I miss quoted him.

Now back to the normal content.

Motivation

Sunday I received a call from Firefly. We spoke for twenty minutes. She is still in rehab. She was on virus quarantine but that was due to be over Monday. She sounded in good spirits. I am not sure if it is a false front she puts on or if she is making the best of it. She is over the worst.  She said the current group of women is all being discharged soon. She would be in with a small group until it fills up again. 

Max came over Sunday. We discussed his plans for college. There doesn't seem to be any now.  He has changed his mind for whatever reason. He mentioned thinking about looking for a new job. Plenty of places are hiring. I told him since he has a job, it would be a good time to increase his pay. He has been talking about doing this for several weeks. I hope he gets motivated and does some looking. It wouldn't be hard.

Things are shaking up at my office. Someone got fed up with the drive and put in their notice. I am not sure if it will create any changes. Short term, I will be getting a better office but it comes with an increased workload. You can imagine how happy I am about that.

Art Fair

 Friday, I received a text from Sam, "I told my niece not to come tomorrow because of flooding on the freeways. Do you want to go to the art fair?"

Yes, yes, I did. So we made plans to meet at noon and drive out to the Ann Arbor Art Fair. Ann Arbor is about an hour away from our location by the freeway. Luckily, the flooding the night before was not as bad as before. We didn't run into any standing water.

We parked at the Briarwood Mall. They were shuttling people from there to the downtown for $5. I dropped Sam off so she could get in line while I found a parking space. That saved us some time. Then we realized we were in the bus line and that there was a separate line for buying tickets. So I told Sam to stay in the bus line while I stood in the ticket line. We meet back up just in time to enter the bus. The process was quick and efficient. It was less hassle than trying to find a parking space downtown.

The fair stretched out over several streets. It was a lot of walking. Sam suggested that the exhibit was not as large as past fairs. I don't know. This is the first time I have been to the Ann Arbor Art Fair. Billie and I always talked about going, but somehow plans never worked out.

The fair was crowded, but not as bad as I have seen at similar smaller events. The temperature started in the low seventies but climbed into the high seventies by mid-afternoon. The sky was clear, and the sun beat down on the crowd. Fairs are great people-watching events. Upwards of 400,000 people visit the fair over a three-day period. Friday was a bust because of the rain, but Saturday's crowd look large. 

I scanned the crowd as much as the artwork-- looking for needles in a needle stack. The vendors ranged from high-end paintings to glass and metalwork. Some tents housed low-end displays hustling, gutter guards, and God. Get your free plastic rosary, "Jesus, loves you."

I saw a few pieces I liked but nothing I wanted to purchase. I did get a couple of ideas for projects of my own. That is usually how it works; art fairs inspire me to get off my butt and create something. Two bins are full of thirty years of lego literature, model directions, catalogs, and magazines. I would like to use them to create some pieces. What else am I going to do with them. Once upon a time, I thought I would be saving it for my grandchildren. Now, I am not so sure.

I am glad Sam decided to change her plans. Like I stated in my last post. I think she needs time to relax and decompress. It was an all-day event for us. We spend three hours at the fair then stopped to eat on the way home. I was exhausted by the time I got home.

Deluge And Things

There is freedom within

There is freedom without

Try to catch the deluge in a paper cup...Don't Dream It's Over, Crowded House.

The rain continues to fall, creating giant puddles and boggy ground. Steady showers have fallen all day, flooding freeways in Detroit again. "Don't drown. Turn around," is the slogan for this season. It has been a wet summer.

This weekend is the Ann Arbor art fair. Back in June, Sam and I discussed going, but her niece is coming into town this weekend to help her clear Sam's dead dad's house. The project has been going on for weeks. Sam is doing it at a therapeutic pace. I would have had the clutter dumped in the trash or sent to the Salvation Army long ago.

Sam's mental health would be better served by going to the art fair. She took every weekend during the summer off to enjoy the summer, but she has been spending most weekends clearing his house. She has forgotten how to have fun. Often something that happens with women her age. Especially single women her age whose idea of fun involves a lot of alcohol in my experience.

CBD

 Sunday afternoon, I received a text from Alexis, "We are ready when you are."

Alexis, Sam, and I had made plans to go to a psychic fair. I was hoping the rain would change their minds. It didn't. So, I put down my book, crawled out of bed, and to a quick shower.

I got to their house before 1:00 in the afternoon. The day was overcast at the best of times, and it drizzled rain on and off all day. We piled into the Gladiator and headed for St. Clair Shores. The psychic fair was outside of a VFW hall a few miles from the twin's house.

Alexis started drinking before I arrived at her house. She also happily admitting to taking an Adderall pill. It was going to be one of those trips. 

The fair consisted of thirty tents lined up in three rows on a patch of lawn outside of the VFW hall. Several food trucks sat on the pavement in front of the lawn. Most of the tents contained vendors selling crystals or jewelry. Five or six house various types of psychics.

Alexis and I stopped at a tent. The woman was selling various CBD products. When she saw that I was vaping, she handed me a free sample of a vape cartridge filled with CBD oil. Yes, I am still occasionally vaping, but only non-nicotine products.

The woman started espousing the differences in CBD. Alexis got bored and decided to stir the pot. She broke into the woman's monolog and asked, "Yeah, but will any of it help with his impotence issues." 

The woman was not sure how to respond. With a smirk, I rolled my eyes and shook my head, "Just ignore her."

We didn't stay long. No one from our group got a psychic reading. We went to a nearby restaurant and had lunch. Sam started drinking, and Alexis continued. I didn't. Later, when we returned to their house, we spent some time sitting in their garage and watching the rain. The drinking continued. That is another story I don't want to get into right now except to say they drink too much.

When I got home that evening, I tried the CBD vape. It had a strong weed smell to it. It didn't take many hits. I wasn't sure what it would do for me, but I didn't like the effect. CBD tends to mess with my emotions. That is part of the reason I was so down in my last post. Drugs and alcohol tend to have a strong depressive effect on me.

I am not saying I don't have thoughts of Billie or that the events with Firefly aren't stirring my head. It is just easier to handle most days. No, I don't want Billie back. That is a dead-end. I know it.  As for Firefly, she was a nice distraction when things seemed mutually beneficial for both of us, but that hasn't been the case for a while now. I am not attached to her.  I think I use her as an excuse not to find someone else. I find dating or looking for someone new difficult and time-consuming. 

For every Gymnist or Firefly, I go through at least 4 or 5 I am not interested in. Find someone with true dating possibilities or long-term relationship potential is like looking for the right needle in a needle stack.

Firefly did make it to the Rehab Tuesday. We will see how long she stays.