Love and Strippers and Laundry.

I dated a stripper and loved her for a handful of months. Seven or so according to my memory. You might think it was a foolish idea and, looking back, I would have to agree. But if you had seen the way she moved on stage--those big, brown eyes of hers as she looked at you during a lap dance--you'd understand.

Right away, give or take sixty seconds, I knew it wouldn't work out. We were both unemployed, unmotivated, and by no means truly in love with each other. I'm sure she knew it, too. But our loneliness and determination to be unproductive tied us together, thus giving a false impression of liking the other person.

I remember, after we broke up the first time, calling her one afternoon. We ended up seeing each other that night--her, me, and our loneliness sat in a bar eating stale peanuts. Her eyes got me again. We touched each other. It was nice, but I felt empty . . . like before.

In the car later that evening, I remember crying (I did a lot of that with her) and saying, "All I wanted was to be happy with you . . . to wake up and drink coffee, write, and do the laundry without a doubt in my mind that you wanted that, too."

I had no idea what I was talking about.

There's no way we could have been happy together, but I said those words and believed them at the time. The many lessons from that relationship often hit me at the strangest moments--this one being in the employee lounge where I work.


Lesson #8,001: Learn how to do the laundry.