Post-tour funk (you can’t really dance to it)
Post-tour re-entry has been a little rough, people, I’m not gonna lie. It’s been about 6 weeks, and I’m just starting to wake up again and face the day-to-day realities of doing full-time phone sex: bad body posture from slouching around on my bed all day (damn, and I left my lap desk in Montreal); the self-denial of needing to stay in most evenings and be available for calls; the interrupted dinners and cold pork chops all over again.
I’m living a sedentary life again, and that is a challenge. I didn’t even think about how active my life was on tour while I was doing it, because it just had to be done. And then, boom, 6 to 8 hours a day walking around down to zero again. I mean, never mind all the face-to-face people time that I’m no longer getting! It’s a surefire recipe for post-tour funk.
The late-night hours have taken some getting used to, too, even though I was definitely living the night life out on tour. It’s one thing to be up until 3am because you’re hanging out with other performers at a bar, and another thing altogether to be up until 3am because you’re hoping against hope that you can slip one last call into the pay period.
It’s taken time to let customers know that I’m here again. I knew heading out on tour that I’d be losing some regulars, but I didn’t know how many and how much that would affect my pay. Some have managed to find me again, either while I was traveling or now that I’m back, but most have moved on and found another girl to help them get their rocks off, which I don’t grudge at all. I’m good, yes, maybe even great, but I have no delusions that I’m irreplaceable.
I knew it, but it’s still a hard truth to face: phone work is a totally different venue for my performing skills. It just is. A show has reviews, and blurbs in the program books, and a script that’s all dog-eared, and people who are still staying in touch to find out when I’m bringing Phone Whore back to their city, or what my next play is about. Phone sex is ephemeral, and most of my fans last as long as it takes to accumulate a load of crusty socks and run them through the wash…
So, in case you were wondering where I’ve been, it’s not that I’m not here, because I am. It’s that I’m working on being back.