My Big Gay Life....

...or, can a Real Girl be a Drag Queen....?

I'm thinking of using that title--or some variation thereof--for some sort of autobiographical (yet funny/comedic) solo performance-type theatrical piece yet-to-be-created.

I think--no, scratch that, I know--I need to create this, because first of all, if I don't some other straight-yet-fabulous chick will, and I'll be sitting there fuming and kicking myself, wondering why I didn't strike while the iron was hot and creatively exploit my status as a Fairy Princess (of which, I might add, I am fiercely proud).



I also--most importantly--have the experience of a Life Lived Gay. Or Gay-ish. Or Gay-like.

I mean, how many 42-year-old straight women celebrate their birthdays at a gay club (having eaten sushi beforehand with primarily gay attendees--to whom my father fondly refers as "my court") in honor of World AIDS Day, get spanked by one of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, and win a raffle prize consisting of a Christmas Crafts Kit and an Anal Bumper ass dildo?

Together?

And who is now considering joining the Sisters in some capacity as a helper (apparently, straight women can do this)--if only to put my helpless energy around HIV/AIDS to some practical, altruistic and pro-active/productive good use??

I recently saw "The Nutcracker" and during the "Mother Ginger" scene, my mind drifted briefly but deliciously to an idea for a fantasy sequence in the piece I want to write wherein I am Mother Ginger, my face made up in heavy drag, and when I open my voluminous skirts, instead of a gaggle of merry children, out run a gaggle of Queens clad in tight leather shorts, harnesses and Doc Martins.



It would be so, so appropriate, you do not even know.

Well, certainly some of you do.

I'm sure one could go to town with a Freudian Analysis of such a scene, or of the very desire to create such a scene. That's okay. I'm used to the perplexed sidelong glances and random lifted eyebrows associated with my Haggish proclivities (from both straights & gays), and I no longer feel any compunction to explain myself. I had a friend in Minnesota say to me, "I hate to break it to you, but you're really not a gay man. You're an ally, and we need our allies."

My dreams of Honorary Queen-dom were smashed to bits; I was heartbroken and crestfallen. All this time, I'd really thought of myself as a gay man in women's clothing. In so many ways.



But then, I came back to Portland, and just last night, one of my friends said he totally disagreed with that assessment. He said, "You're not an ally. You're family. You get it."

I was flattered and touched and took it for the truly heartfelt compliment I knew it to be. This particular friend of mine would not say anything merely for the sake of filling dead air. He is not a gushy, superficially complimentary sort; that's why it was so meaningful to hear.

So I think it's time this Real Girl writes a piece about her exploits as honorary "family."

Starring, of course, ME.

Work it.

Am I Blue

I finally did it.

I finally got it about the phrase, "Someday, I'll.....[insert elliptical subject here, i.e., skydive/get a tattoo/find a date/write a novel/visit Tut's tomb/quit my job, etc...]" with the help of recovery, in that "some day" is not tomorrow, or next week, or next month or next year, but right now.

Cause who knows what might happen in 24 hours. So if all the elements are right, if the planets are aligned and God is smiling on you and the opportunity for whatever you've been craving yet studiously avoiding exists, right here, right now, in front of your face, then grab it. Do it. Go for it. Don't pussy-foot.

Carpe Diem. Seize the Day. You know.

Case in point: I've always wanted to see Blue Man Group. For years and years. In fact, I'd wanted to see them in Las Vegas when I turned 40, but for numerous reasons involving my lack of recovery and the assembled mostly-resistant attendees, that didn't happen.

I told myself that patience was a virtue, and in the interim, I contented myself with a Netflix DVD, though I get the distinct feeling a Blue Man performance would be vastly improved not viewed on a 13-inch color TV.

Recently, tickets went on sale for the Blue Man Group "How to be a Megastar" tour in January '08.



And I realized that here, in front of my face, at the Rose Garden Arena in Portland, Oregon, was my right now.

Birdnerd and I will be enjoying the Blueness together, and I can't wait. Patience may be a virtue, but the time is nigh. I get to party with The Men. Finally.

Carpe Diem.

A Can o' Whoop-Ass

I have been dressed-down.

Dressed down in a way that was--oddly--flattering, because it had to do with putting out.

Words, that is.

The other night, over sushi, a friend of mine who reads this blog regularly looked at me over his relatively untouched mound of Volcano Roll and said, "Why do you have a blog?"



I fidgeted with a hangnail on my thumb.

I'm a writer. I have an MFA in playwriting. My family plays joyfully, indulgently, with words (and we all suck at math, badly). I have written plays, I have written short stories, I have written impassioned, emotional over-the-top fuck-you letters to former friends (many of which were used merely as therapy and were never sent, mind you, although the temptation to stamp 'em and drop 'em in the nearest mailbox was enormous). So it makes a certain sense that I have a blog. In hindsight, perhaps a better inquiry would've been, "How come you don't update your blog regularly?"

Well, oy vey. What can I say? Laziness? Some, but not just. Perhaps an overall momentary lack of creativity....it's like the whole Facebook thing: do I rate--and is it interesting, but really?--if I don't have, you know, 500 friends in 25 different networks and constantly post every little thought, twitch, burp, fart and bowel movement? I mean, must I? And does anyone really care that much?



Can there be such a thing as too much narcissism?

Well, you know. Yeah. But that's how this 24/7 online look-at-me-cause I-matter, Madonna-as-Eva-Perone-singing-You-Must-Love-Me low self-esteem-isolated-virtual-culture of ours works.

Anyway, it was weirdly flattering, albeit a mite confrontational, because the message was: my writing, my thoughts, my take on my life or life in general is actually interesting enough to check up on fairly regularly and I actually have fans and God knows one mustn't disappoint one's fans....



Okay, forget the navel-gazing deconstruction. Actually, I think it's cause I'm still recovering from having been spanked by a drag nun on my birthday. Ha.