Day Thirteen

29 April 2007

Time: 10:33

Task of the day again sounds a lot simpler than it actually is, you must go into a strip club. The catch is that you must sit/stand there without paying the slightest bit of attention to the strippers or any woman there, not even looking at them. To aid me with this I brought along Derren Browns book "Trick of the mind", I don't know what I would have done without this. The trains were not running so had to get a replacement bus service and spent about half hour trying to find the place once there. So, I go into the club and ordered a large lemonade and lime feeling shit scared about what everyone would think of the weirdo I was being. As it was not the typical environment where they come over and chat with you as others are dancing and try and befriend you as well I decided to sit at the very most front point of the place to make it as awkward as possible for me and began reading my book. Towards the start I was only managing to read a couple lines before my thoughts were breaking in imagining all these different scenarios, getting thrown out, being called on by others or the stripper thrusting herself in my face as I try and ignore her and read, hey that one wouldn't have been so bad... As the next stripper came on everyone prepared their pound and so did I but did not even look at her as I gave it to her, just held it up. I completely lost my focus at that point though and became very wary of my surroundings, I wasn't looking at anything but felt very present and very self conscious. Some way through this dance the guy next to me goes "Must be a good book mate" and somebody to the other side of me goes "It must be fcuking brilliant book". My response was to look up and smile and say oh it's fcuking amazing in the most sincere voice I could muster. So this continued and I started to ease into it.

I had set myself the task of staying for an hour or until I finished the book whichever came first but I was completely cut off from reality by about 30 minutes in. I was there in the sense that I could hear people chuckling on the other side of the room "He's still fcuking reading it" and was paying the girls as they came round but no interaction. I must admit there were three times I caught a glimpse of their naked bodies and damn I can remember each exact picture so vividly but I looked away the instant I realised what I had seen. By the end I really didn't care what anyone thought and closed my book, stood up and walked out without a word. Now something unexpected had happened. When I came out I was so tense you would not believe and I felt like sh!t. I really felt awful. I didn't like the feeling I had as I came out there and though I had completed the task felt slightly indifferent to it all. I'm not suite sure what happened really. As I sat on the bus on the way home I listened to a really good jumpstyle set on my phone and my mood started to rise and I felt waves of relaxation running through my body (remembering this is pounding techno music stuff, not really meditation music) and by the time I got off I felt so happy to just be out in the world. I went to meet with some friends for a night out and just felt so hyped up by everything normal that you wouldn't believe I was chatting to everyone and just had a generally great night, best night I've had in a long time.