Stripper minister....

Now this is pretty cool. Something in line with what I'M hoping to do. I LOVE HER! You go girl!

Death comes in many forms....

So I've got to fly to North Carolina tomorrow to see my friend who's been put into the hospice.  God, this is awful.  I was NOT focused on my shift last night.  Though I will say the world's creepiest guy was focused on me.  He paid well, I'll give him that.  And he wasn't a grease ball.  He had money, gold watch, nice clothes...and he was alone.  Just sat there next to my station and paid for a few dances.  He smelled like fucking Ax Body Spray or something.

The creepy part about him was his staring.  Cold, calculated eyes.  Dead eyes.  I'd rather have a nervous drunk any day...

Back to my friend...if any of my new minister friends have sage advice in how I can best be there for him as someone who wants to use all her life experiences to start her own ministry, then please email me or leave a comment.  I'm nervous about seeing him, but I've been through a lot of bad things in life...so I'm not naive.  I lost my husband and I never thought I'd get over that, to be honest.

But I'm too young to be losing friends.  Aren't we all? Death comes in many guises.  From the guy last night inhabiting a living body to the specter knocking at my friend's door.

Life is short...so I gotta find a date

ok.  I'll admit it.  It's hard keeping up a blog.  I don't have to be at work for a few hours and it's hot as fuck out right now, so I'm pecking away at the keys now.  I like this keeping a diary online bit because it does remind me, day to day, of what I think I want to do....  And what I've actually done.  Yeah...

Anyway, I just found out my friend is gravely ill.  and it's really thrown me for a loop.  He was fine until a month ago.  then he lost all this weight (like 30 lbs) and had trouble breathing.  He wrote me a few emails talking about how scared he was feeling and I wrote back saying I was thinking about him and I was sure he would be fine.  Then they got him to the hospital and he was put into the ICU.  I didn't know this and just thought he was recuperating.  I called his wife yesterday asking how he was doing and she said he'd gone to the ICU.  And that he has Lou Gehrig's diesease.  Fuck!

They are moving him to a hospice to die on Wed.  How has this happened?  This also challenges my whole approach to wanting to minister to people.  I got this minister's handbook from the Universal Life Church, and in it there's a chapter on "The Minister Serves in Time of Illness, Trouble, or Sorrow."

There's this bit about what to do and say (mostly prayers) when someone is in the hospital, but it's really geared for Christians, and my friend isn't a christian.  So I don't know.  Perhaps the best thing I can do is visit him soon...  That's so hard though, you know?  But I wouldn't want to be in an hospice knowing my time was up and not say goodbye to people.  It affects everyone differently though.

I feel like I should write my OWN prayers and whatnot.  But I don't know if I'm a good enough writer for that sort of thing.  Thinking about all of this and my friend is depressing, but it needs thinking about too.

On another note...  I've decided that while I'm alive, it's time I got back out there and met some men again.  I think I mentioned I was married once before, but he was killed a few years ago.  I've been gun shy ever since.  I know the assumption is that since I'm a stripper, dating ain't no big thing.  But that's not true...  We do meet a LOT of creeps though.  I'm looking not to meet a creep.  Maybe I'll get lucky like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman...hahaha!

What a weird day.  I just hope my night isn't.

Business Plan...

So I worked hard all weekend...which is to say I was asleep by four or five and woke at noon each day.  I'll admit that thinking about leaving this life behind for my ministry business scares me.  I was thinking about all this when I ran across this article on someone who started a similar enterprise in California.

It's different from what I'm hoping to do with my ministry program.  I want to be able to marry people and offer solid advice based on a lifetime of experience with the darker underbelly of human nature.  In other words, I've seen some of the bad people are capable of and I can at least help people be good, can't I?  Do I have to have Jesus to do this?

I've been participating in some discussions with other people who got ordained through the Universal Life Church like I did and it's a mixed bag of opinions.  There are a lot of Christians over there and they are trying to educate me about Jesus and his purpose.  But, I'm still not sure if I get it, or if I will.  I guess, I'm not going to worry about it too much right now because it doesn't change the fact that I'm an ordained minister and that I'm sincere in wanting to marry people, baptise folks and all that.

As I've mentioned, i live among rednecks here in Panama City, Florida.  and one thing they hate are the gays around here.  So I'm wondering if I should start advertising my stripper ministry services within the gay community first.  Like would someone pay me to travel to states where it's legal so I could marry them?  that would be cool.

I'm not doing this for the money though.  trust me.  Stripping pays more than most will ever make.  But let's be honest, I won't have these looks for life....

Here's an excerpt from that article....sounds like I should get in touch with these ladies to see what challenges I'm gonna face doing this whole thing...

THERESA BROWN HAS SEEN the American experience from both sides. Growing up in Clairemont, the brunette with dark brown eyes was attractive and alert. She had two older sisters, a kid brother, and she did well in school. In many ways, she was the prototypical California girl.
But behind the cheery veneer lay a childhood scarred by her parents’ broken marriage, alcohol abuse and codependency. The future became less a dream and more a plan for escape. And then, when she was 21, an unexpected pregnancy.
“It wasn’t planned,” Brown says with a smile. “But then, you never regret the kids you have.” Her son is now 9 and one of the foundational elements in her life——along with God and her work at the stripper ministry.
At its etymological level, “ministry” is derived from “minister”——to give aid or service. Brown defines the stripper ministry as an organized group of people with a common goal. It comprises more than 150 women who reach out to other women in the adult-entertainment industry. The target group is strippers and dancers, but outreach is widening to those in the escort and soft-porn industries——populations that have intimate ties to stripping, Brown says.
The 30-year-old launched the San Diego chapter of JC’s Girls (JC is for Jesus Christ) through the Rock Church last year. She was drawn into the underbelly of America’s thriving adult-entertainment industry 11 years ago through what appeared to be a benign introduction to striptease dancing. It’s almost impossible, however, to stay in the industry without being drawn into an associated profligate lifestyle, Brown says.