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Last song: true story from my stripper days (and a poem that was born)

It was roughly two o’clock in the morning and I was high on cocaine. I had just arrived home after working a double shift at the club. After twelve hours in my six-inch stilettos, I was a zombie on stage as the last song played. My feet throbbing and longing for a hot bath, I was in a trance with each flash of the stage lights. All I could think about was the cab ride home, a hot bath and my bed.

The cab arrived shortly after I shelled out my tips to the crew (bartenders, servers, door guy, bouncers) and I was on my way home.

Before long I was in a tub of steaming water and bubbles; I couldn’t help but shrug at the irony that was my life. Just a handful of years earlier I used to sit too close to the television watching my favorite dance program, Solid Gold, dreaming of strutting my stuff as one of their performers.

After drying off and tucking myself in to bed, the cocaine had run its course and my high was leveling. I grabbed a pen and notepad from my nightstand and began to write.

Last Song 

The music engulfs her
Her eyes begin to close
The beat goes boom bada boom
No one really knows

As she stands there, beside herself
Inside that fishbowl of smoke
She is just a ballerina
Trying not to choke

Her eyes gaze into the crowd
Beyond the blinking lights
Her body goes through the motions
It’s just another night

She’s just a ballerina
Tip-toeing through the show
An angel with a broken wing
Trying to make it through the snow

She dreams of the quiet ride home
The moment she slips into bed
Visions of Sugar Plum fairies
Still very much alive in her head

She’s just a ballerina
Trying to survive
With a blanket of hunger surrounding her
It’s a wonder she’s still alive

~ ~ ~

In reading this poem after so many years I still connect to the young woman who wrote it. I understand feeling amused by the irony that after dreaming of becoming a professional dancer on television shows like Solid Gold, I wound up working as a stripper.

I wasn’t so much sad as I was numb. There was a void in place of where my passion wanted to be, and I felt stuck. I was living in emotional cinder blocks, my choices being the cement.

I had yet to learn so many things about myself. If I could speak to my younger self, the gal who wrote this poem – I would tell her that changing the course of our life starts with deciding we are worth it.

And we are.

 

Christine Macdonald
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Lost, Found, London

 

 

I recently opened a box mailed to me from my mother back home in Hawaii that was sitting in her garage since the late 80’s. I was more than a little nervous thinking about what was inside but I had an idea; memories I wanted gone but wasn’t ready to abandon completely.

Once I finally made the decision to leave the Waikiki stripping life after nine years, moving off the island wasn’t just part of my plan – it was my only plan. I was an exhausted shell of a woman with dark circles under her eyes, over-processed burgundy hair and serious baggage – stuff that no twenty-something ever thinks of as real problems at the time.

My predicaments included snorting excessive amounts cocaine, washing down handfuls of Molly (ecstasy) with vodka and a 300 calorie-a-day meal plan (on purpose). I was oblivious to the cloud of despair circling me like Pig-Pen’s shadow in Charlie Brown.

And those were the good days.

I hadn’t given this cardboard crate of history much thought as the years passed. Then Mom called. She was planning a garage sale and my stomach turned a bit, remembering what was stashed behind the lawnmower and potting soil. Upon her discovering my stash, she gave me two choices: toss the box or have it mailed to California, where I was trying to build some sort of a normal life.

“Just promise me you won’t open it.” I asked as she confirmed my zip code over the phone. Mom is aware of my past, but her reading my old journals was nothing she ever needed to do (journals are hand-written notes before blogs were blogs, and the internet was just the inside of a basketball hoop).

After a few days, the box arrived. I ignored its existence for a week until curiosity unraveled my fear.

Upon each new discovery, I vacillated between shock and amazement that I dared to live such a life, and gratitude wrapped with joy in that I survived.

A little advice: If you have personal items from years ago tucked away somewhere, dust them off and buckle up. The memories are incendiary – in the best of every way.

One of my favorite artifacts was a poem I wrote while traveling through Europe. Nineteen and elated to be so far from home, I marinated in the moment while scribbling on a piece of notepaper from Horniman At Hays.

How amazing, to unfold corners of my mind after all these years:

Never think
Before paper meets ink
Just let it go
Don’t have to know
Begin
at the beginning
and all will come out beautifully

Christine Macdonald – 1987

~ ~ ~

Sometimes the answers live inside the person we were long ago – we just need to accept who we are now to fully appreciate who we were then.

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“If you don’t get lost, there’s a chance you may never be found.” ~Author Unknown
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 *Originally posted March 2008; edited 4/4/18.

Christine Macdonald
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Walk of Shame

lovelinejocks1

I knew this story had some legs. I just had no idea they’d take me twenty years down the road, to a phone line with Dr. Drew Pinsky, Mike Catherwood and comedian Greg Fitzsimmons.

How it went down: I was tucked in bed last night about ready to log off my Twitter account, when the hilarious team at Loveline sent a tweet asking for the most embarrassing “Walk of Shame” stories.

What’s a “Walk of Shame”, you ask? Oh, so many things… but in a nutshell, it’s the walk home (or to your car, or cab…) after a night of naked play time with someone you just met at a club or party (or grocery store, if that’s your thing). If you want a visual example of one, NO ONE does it better than Madonna at the end of her Justify My Love video, as she scurries down the hallway, shit-grin and suitcase in hand.

I’m no Madonna, but my story is good, so I tweeted it to Loveline and they replied immediately.

“Please call in with that. It’s so good.” was their response. So I did.

Here’s the audio of the call.

~

A fun chat with Dr. Drew, and a website plug to his audience? That’s what you call: Spontaneous Win.

Christine Macdonald