Seville Minneapolis fired me on a Tuesday night, the night after Labor Day, in 2016. I drove to Perkins in Roseville that night, where I made a list of possible strip clubs to work at next, scanning TUSCL.net for leads. I tried to sleep in my car for a bit, in the Red Roof Inn parking lot where I usually slept if I didn't have enough money for a room. I definitely didn't have enough money for a room that night. I was expecting to make my hotel money and check in after work. I did not expect to be fired. I barely slept on my tiny Toyota Camry seat, and in the morning I headed to the Roseville Caribou Coffee across from Perkins, which opened at 6 AM. Minnesota is so dead and cold and strange in the early morning, and the people are icy nice. I went to the bank that morning after Caribou, to get my money out of savings and pay for a Motel 6 room. I auditioned at Mettler's on that following Thursday, after a good Wednesday night's sleep in Motel 6 and an afternoon audition at Deja Vu.

An hour and a half away from the twin cities, I vaguely knew about Mankato. I had passed through it during country drives, and I had an awareness that an animal rights activist professor, Carol Glasser, taught in the town's university. My GPS was unable to locate the address of the club, so I had to stop at the Perkins in North Mankato, a restaurant I now know so well, to call the club and ask where it was. Jan answered the phone.

“Yes dear, it's right by the City Center Hotel. Just pull up to the Walnut ramp and you'll see it.” She was sweet. She's how I'd imagine one of my late rabbits would be if they were human. I parked on the Walnut ramp and went into Mettler's around 3 PM.

“Oh dear, it's too early to audition,” Jan told me, “Come back at 4:30.”

I returned to Perkins in North Mankato, drinking coffee mixed with vegan protein powder and surfing the internet, for several more hours. Despite irregular sleeping patterns, stressing and worrying, I made sure to look my best in the mirror of the Perkin's bathroom, and returned to Mettler's. I was hired, but Deja Vu also called me by then to tell me I was hired, and I chose to stay at the Vu because there was more money to be made. In hindsight I was better off getting fired from Vu, suing them and returning back to Mettler's, where I stayed until the following Spring.

I was homeless in Mankato. By homeless, I mean that I slept in a few main places-- my vehicle, weekly motel suites and camping grounds. I kept my legal residence at a friend's apartment in Illinois and drove through Wisconsin to check the mail every month or two. I desperately wanted my own apartment in Mankato, and could have afforded one. At various times since 2015, I have suffered homelessness. I have terrible credit and not a lot of proof of income, so it is difficult to rent an apartment on my own. I never know when I am going to be fired from my latest job, so I have been extremely hesitant to sign a binding long-term lease in an area where there are no other strip clubs to fall back on. Searching for month-to-month room rentals on craigslist has usually been the only option for me, and that also has problems. In the past, those problems have included having roommates with a perverse interest in what I do for a living, an insistence on discussing my night work with me and a general lack of respect for my privacy. The flip side to that are people who hate sex workers and would never want to have one as a roommate, or roommates girlfriends who come over and want to kill me for being sexually attractive. All of these factors cause homelessness. I told almost nobody.

The Budget Host Inn and Riverside Suites were right across from one another on highway 169. Riverside was more expensive than Budget, and stank like semen. I hated Riverside and only went there when Budget was full. Budget was run by a kindly Indian couple, who kept their children playing in the back, safe from view or contact with the lunatics who stayed in their rented quarters. I cherished my Budget Host rooms for the safe havens that they were-- cozy and warm and affordable and almost always vacant, waiting for me to enter and stay for a night, a week, a month, watching CNN on a big screen TV and having a maid come in once or twice per week to clean my room and change my linens. There was a one-dollar pop machine in the lobby, and the Perkins where I first stayed at in Mankato was within walking distance of Budget Host. I searched around for other weekly suites in Mankato, but nothing compared to Budget Host Inn, so that is where I spent the majority of my time. Why would I want to go anywhere else? At first I didn't pay the weekly rate, and waited at Perkins until the motel’s audit time had finished at 7 AM and I could check in for two nights, paying only the price of one. In my deranged, early AM, post-work, witching-hour mind, this made complete sense, and the fatigue was totally worth it to sit around at Perkins drinking coffee for hours upon hours after I got off work. I cannot believe I did that, looking back on it. I learned how to wait for the early AM audit at a Motel 6 location in Roseville. Being a homeless stripper is expensive during an unforgiving Minnesota Winter night.