Hello my name is Dani and this is my first post.  I’m not sure how frequent I will be contributing to this post, but I am excited that I am doing so. Wow!  I feel like I just attended my first Gamblers Anonymous meeting.  It’s not too bad minus the free coffee and donuts but I do have fruit bars in my freezer so I suppose I am entitled to have one at any moment if my will chooses to.

This is my confession.  I’ve always wanted to be a stripper.  Not just some skanky, dirty, grease ball stripper with a baby and coke and/or meth problems, but a classy gal with a naughty teacher’s costume that moves like a ballerina and a body like Demi Moore from G.I. Jane on a pole with 6 inch pumps…that kinda stripper.  I’ve wanted to live this dream since I was in high school.  As a matter of fact, I once even applied  for a bartending job to one of the local titty bars in town when I was 19…no one called.

I know this sounds so odd and unconventional but it’s the truth.  I’ve always had the tits for it and I always thought I had the moves but never the body.  It was OK.  I had to be realistic and I don’t think telling my relatives what I do for a living would set too easily with them.  I know they would kindly smile but quietly pray that I would have enough self-confidence to make it like a big girl in the real world.  Which is what I do.  But God Damn it!  I want to slip and slide my 210 lb ass up and down that pole like a Flo Rida song with my hair whipping around and being showered with papers of green!

My other is being a hip hop battle dancer.  Clearly, I don’t need to explain why since we all know Hip-Hop dancers are fucking cool and I had all the credentials to be one which is solely me being half Asian, but those dreams were shattered due to 2 patella injuries to the same knee.  When I went to the doctor and asked about my career as a Hip-Hop dancer, he told me it was over.  And like the little Mini Ninja that I am, I cried in my heart.

Here’s the thing, I consider myself a pretty confident YOUNG woman and even though I have lived my whole life being from overweight to morbidly obese.  That’s not to say there was never any insecurities.  Everyone has them.  I know this, but I still remain to keep my head held fairly high if not just above water.  I think deep down I don’t truly view myself as being obese.  Any fantasy I have of myself, it’s always a vision of me as a beautiful, exotic, physically trim vixen with a very nicely manicured ladyscape.  Always.

To add to my boldness, I will occasionally go sing a karoke song in a bar filled with equally horrible vocalists.  My boldness also enjoys letting the patrons at the club know who runs the dance floor. This is why I’m rambling on about my friend, Boldness and her mentally challenged fraternal twin sister, Insecurity.  A few nights ago, my best friend was celebrating her first period so I needed a new outfit.  Well, it just so happen that Insecurity was with me shopping that day and I ended up getting an outfit that was most suitable for a drag queen.  I tried returning the outfits the next day but realized that one of the stores didn’t accept returns and refunds…..yeah, stupid.  Needless-to-say, I, at the age of 31, was dressed like Miss Divine.

The evening arrives and I am with my crew, running this town which consisted us stopping into two bars and me hanging my bare ass out of a Pepto Bismal stretch limo to half of the city including a bum publicly urinating.  The second bar we presented ourselves to had a very small stage and when we arrived there wasn’t many people present while the music was blaring to obnoxious house ‘n’ base music.  The drinks proceeded to have a steady traffic from bar to table to hand to mouth, and I had just the right amount of glistening sweat on my body.  Turns out it’s college night and as more people entered the dance floor, the shorter and tighter the dresses got on the Trannies that were walking in.  At one point I looked up and there were 5 girls on this railing enclosed stage and you could practically see more Side Ways Tacos than a Taco Bell.  (You like that analogy?)  Well I wasn’t going to share my space with them.  Hell No!  I much prefer a good ten feet of dancing room just for myself, which is when I noticed a half hour later, no one was up there, and not much longer after I noticed the perfect song came on.   Before you knew it, my fabulous self just so happened to be up on stage all by myself looking all extra glittery and shit.  I was twerkin’ my flat wide booty, whipping my hair around like a Willow Smith song, and I hear hooting and hollering from everyone in the club…ok, half of everyone…a quarter of everyone.  I felt like a Gladiator whose extraordinary triumphs not only honored his Luneesta, but all of Rome, but without all the blood and it being Grand Rapids. Deep down, my little Mini Ninja heart was smiling.   As a matter of fact, before I left, a young lady…a very young lady, came up to me and said I was a “Damn Good dancer”.  It warmed my heart and I hugged her for all of her praises she was giving me.  I walked out of that bar that evening with an extra skip in my step.

But I have to say, the past few days, with my head held high, I have come to this realization.  My friend, Boldness, has always been a much better friend to me.  She was with me in Boston when I was singing Joan Jett’s “Do you want to touch me” to my platonic girlfriend, not realizing how lesbian it sounded, but the crowd loved it!!  They roared.  They cheered.  They wanted more of me…at least until song ended.  I took over Boston that evening.

Boldness has helped me conquer so many places and has let me accomplish so many things.  Being at the age of 31 and at a weight that I still don’t desire, those too numbers have never been significant at all.  Because, even though I accepted Insecurity, I found that Boldness has been much more cooler to be around.

Holler!!!!