Strip Clubs and Lap Dances: 'Lucky' Writer Researches It All
I am, admittedly, something of a slave to research. That comes as no great shock, I know; we quiet, “bookish” ( ugh! ) folk are just sort of made for spending hours cooped up in libraries or in front of computers, compiling endless lists of data for later tabulation, consideration, and regurgitation. Case in point? I spent two semesters in college-- working for minimum wage, 20 hours a week, mind you --cooped up alone in a glorified closet (okay, scratch the “glorified” part, because it wasn’t), painstakingly wading through roll after roll of grainy, eye-numbing microfilm, trying my best to decipher shakily-handwritten copies of wills, bills of lading, and other documents from the late 1600s and early 1700s, cataloguing each and every single possession of the individual (down to the mended sock or mismatched set of spoons) bequeathed, inventoried, and otherwise mentioned therein... all in the name of research. And the kicker? I. Loved. That. Job. Fortunately for those not so-inclined...