A Dahl's House

Back again after another one of those long silences. Not intended, just life got in the way of blogging.

Flew to NYC for a long Fourth of July weekend to visit my girlfriend Kate. While it was great to see her, it was hot and humid, and my allergies went into overdrive. Came back and drove up to Lake Tahoe, intending to stay for a couple days. What normally is a four-hour drive took seven hours, thanks to a truck fire that closed down the freeway and it turn caused me to hit Sacramento at rush hour. All in 105 degree heat…

Lake Tahoe was thankfully cooler, but unfortunately, the smoke from the various forest fires was bad. Really bad. Like 1-mile visibility. Like looking like it was overcast. Which only made my allergies even worse. So I turned around the next day and drove home. My head was so congested that my ears got blocked on the drive down the mountain.

Which in turn led to a nasty sinus/inner ear infection, which the antibiotics finally have put down. So I’m finally getting back into the swing of things.

My drag mother, Nikki, has walking pneumonia, so I drove up to SF tonight to bring her some groceries. On the way back, I was in the far left lane of the freeway when I noticed a motorcycle careening across all five lanes right in front me.

Then I saw it wasn’t turning and was going to hit the center divider.

Then I saw there wasn’t any rider on it.

Slammed on the brakes. The cycle bounced off the center divider. I swerved. It missed me by a matter of inches.

No idea where the rider was, so all I could do was call 911, who already had gotten lots of calls.

Having a very, very stiff drink right now…

It’s 2:30 in the morning after a show. I’m wiped out and would love to head home, but my drag mother wants to get something to eat so we stop by an all-night sandwich joint on a seedy stretch of Market Street near City Hall. As we’re waiting for our food, I notice an sitting by the window, her long silver hair cascading over her shoulders.

“You ladies are so beautiful,” she says, and I go over to talk to her. She’s a bit spacey, but very sweet — and homeless, though you’d never guess it by looking at her; she’s obviously taken pains to keep herself well-groomed. I tell her that her hair is gorgeous.

We chat for a bit, she mentions that she won’t stay at the shelters. It’s obvious that she’s spending the night here because it’s one of the few safe places for her. She wants to know how she can break into show business like Nikki and I—she thinks that might be a good way to make a living; maybe she can do stand-up; maybe she can save up enough to find a place. I don’t have the heart to tell her that there’s no money in either drag or comedy. Let her dream a little.

Our take-out is ready. Nikki, who I know is broke herself at the moment, walks over and gives the woman some money and tells her to get a nice breakfast. I do the same. Then we walk out in the night, my mascara running.

Someone once aptly described privilege as the luxury not to have to think about things. Like the way most men are blissfully unaware of the safety concerns that are reflexive for most women venturing out at night. In a far more minor way, I had a reminder last Friday about how being gender variant means not being able to take things for granted.

It was insanely hot for May here in the Bay Area, with record-breaking heat near 100 degrees. So it would’ve been nice to wear sandals to work because they would’ve been cooler than shoes and socks. One nice thing about working for a tech company is that the dress code is extremely casual and although a guy in sandals is a bit casual even in that environment, a lot of people were wearing shorts or sundresses that they wouldn’t normally have worn because it was so damn hot.

There was just one issue: I’ve got painted toenails.

Unlike a lot crossdressers who “underdress” I don’t wear nail polish because of the feminine symbolism, I wear because I like how it looks. To paraphrase (our patron saint) Eddie Izzard, it’s not women’s nail polish, it’s my nail polish. I guess in that regard I’m just a metrosexual gone too far.

Now most of the company knows I perform as a drag queen, and a smaller number number know that my presenting myself as a woman is more than just for stage, it’s also to express a part of myself that society deems “feminine.” So it wasn’t likely that my co-workers would freak out. Besides, my toes were an almost-sort-of-manly shade of bronze, and outside of work I’ve got no problem with walking around in sandals and shorts exposing my shaved legs and painted toenails.

But still…

There’s always the not knowing how people will react, and if nothing else, I had a lot to do that day and just didn’t feel like dealing with the conversations that might result. So I put on my shoes and went to work. It’s trivial in the scheme of things I know. But it’s another one of those subtle remainders about how I’ve forfeited my “straight” card now that I’m embraced being a gender variant guy.

I’d meant to get caught up on a number things I’d been meaning to post about… but it was close to 100 degrees today — and like a lot of folks in the Bay Area, I don’t have A/C. Now usually there’s only a 2-3 weeks out of the year where it’s uncomfortable… but those days can really suck.

The good news is that the installing soffit and roof vents, plus replacing the skylights so that they open now does seem to be making a big difference: the house is about 10-15 degrees cooler than the outside temperature and cools down much faster at night, when things cool down rapidly. But it still would be nice to install central air (although not A/C) since having a fan to move air around inside the house would make a big difference, plus the air filter would be better for my allergies compared to throwing open the windows.

My good friend Erica was supposed to be in town on Wednesday — and was finally got to see me perform, which she’s wanted to for ages. But the airlines had other ideas, leaving her stranded one day, in turn forced her to rejigger the rest of her business trip.

I’m scheduled to fly to Miami Friday — on America Airlines….

O you who know what we suffer here, do not forget us in your prayers.

I’ve got a show at Aunt Charlie’s tomorrow night and I realized it’s been a year since I first took the stage as a dewy-eyed drag-princess-in-training. I’ll have some Deep Thoughts about drag in the near future, but tonight I just wanted to say thanks to all the singers whose songs I perform.

Special thanks to those who make up the core of my set list:

• Candye Kane – “The toughest girl alive” whose voice is as big and beautiful as she is.
• Joan Osborne - Best known as a one-hit wonder, she’s actually full of blues and soul and rock and sheer passion.
• Grace Potter – A singer of near Joplinesque charisma who also plays a mean Hammond B-3 organ.

As well as to:

• Shirley Bassey
• The Be Good Tanyas
• Bonnie Bramlett
• Exene Cervenka
• Wendi Colter
• Martha Davis
• Geri Halliwell
• Chrissie Hynde
• Deborah Iyall
• Angelique Kidjo
• Jill King
• Lisa Koch
• Rickie Lee Jones
• Miranda Lambert
• Annie Lennox
• Courtney Love
• Luscious Jackson
• Allanah Myles
• Bonnie Raitt
• Susheela Raman
• Dusty Springfield
• Margo Timmins
• KT Tunstall
• Gretchen Wilson

I may mouth the words, but you came up with them. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

OMG… what a difference a week makes. Before I picked up the CPAP machine for my sleep apnea a week ago, the doc said using it could be life-changing and she wasn’t kidding. (I’m fortunate that I was able to adjust to wearing the mask easily, so I’ve been able to wear it all night.) For the first time in year, I’m not feeling zombied all day. In the past I had chalked it up to severe allergies, getting older, having recurrent colds, etc. But now it’s like… OMG, this is what it must feel like to be “normal.”

Well it’s official… got back from the doctor’s to review my sleep study and I have very severe sleep apnea.

Essentially it means I stop breathing for 20 seconds more than 80 times an hour, and probably had it for years, since I only looked into it after my girlfriend spent the night and (after being woken up by my snoring) noticed it.

Apparently it’s bad enough that my doctor mentioned the possibility of surgery (where they break and reshape your jaw to prevent your soft palette from closing off your throat). My oxygen levels dipped as low as around 60% — 90% is normal and below 85% is considered problematic. It’s really bad for your heart (which has to work harder to try to keep oxygen in your blood stream), as well as potentially causing high blood-pressure and weight gain (which can worsen the sleep apnea).

But the first step is a breathing mask, which uses air pressure to keep your airway open. It usually takes a week to get one, but since they’re putting a rush on it (yeah, it’s that serious) I’m hoping it’ll come before Friday — since my girlfriend and I are going out of town for a romantic weekend (and while the CPAP mask is utterly unromantic, it means she’ll get a decent night’s sleep).

The good news is that the doc says the CPAP mask worked extremely well during the sleep test — and that resolving the sleep apnea can be “life changing” in her words. I certainly hope so… I’ve felt low-energy for years, which isn’t surprising after being chronically sleep deprived.

Anyway, just wanted to say if you suspect a loved one might have it, it’s definitely worth getting checked out.