A Dahl’s House

Friday night was the company holiday party (since we’re an internet retailer and December is crazed we hold it a month later).

Turns out that—after winning this year’s Halloween costume contest in drag (for those who didn’t see it here’s a pic from Halloween)—there were a bunch of people who were hoping I’d come in heels. (I’ve been open about the fact that I do drag and there’s been several co-workers who want to come out see me perform some time.) One of our Sr. VPs had a great time telling his wife all about the Halloween contest, as did several others.

‘Tis a pity, since I had a dress that would’ve been perfect.

The only reservations I had about going to the holiday party in drag were first that it would inappropriate, as in drawing attention away from the festivities, which I think has been resolved. (Probably over-sensitivity on my part. But my thinking was kind along the lines that of not overshadowing a bride at a wedding, if that makes any sense. As in using the occasion to be the center of attention.) And second there’s a lot of people from our manufacturing plant, who might not be as accepting. So we’ll see…

This past Saturday was Transgender San Francisco’s annual Cotillion, a formal evening featuring dinner, entertainment and the contest for Ms. TGSF —who’s the public ambassador of the group. Back in December, one of the board members talked me into running. I wasn’t really eager, since this year looks to be a hectic one with work, but once I committed to do it, I did a bit of talking to various people from the different trans communities to see how I be a catalyst for some bridge-building. (Yeah, I think every Ms. TGSF candidate focuses on building bridges… but that does sort of go hand-in-hand with being a public ambassador.)

To be honest, I’m not particularly thrilled with the “beauty pagent” aspect of the Ms. TGSF contest. If it were up to me, I’d drop the “active wear” and “evening wear” segments—which if nothing else are usually booooring—and keep the pre-Cotillion interview, the final question and the entertainment segment (which at least in theory helps predict how you’ll do in front of crowd.) Then I’d use the remaining time to make the Cotillion more of a party.

The interview, held the weekend before the pagent, went well although I’m not sure I always told the judges the politic answer. But I decided I that they’d have to take me or leave me as I am. The day of the Cotillion itself was hectic. Be at the hall in South San Francisco at noon for a run-through, run home and then back again because no one told me to bring the narrations I’d written for my segments to the run-through, then go up to San Francisco to have my drag mother do my make-up and pick up wigs for the evening. Then back down to the hall again to be there for a final rehearsal just before the doors opened.

The hall was nice—comparable to a hotel conference room—with a nice buffet, although I had to grab food and then go eat backstage. So I didn’t really get much of a chance to meet and greet people, including my friends Marla and Rachel who where there was a large group from the Sacramento Gems group. Back stage, the MC, Tommi Rose who runs a store for drag queens down in Palm Springs, had brought along some jewelry that she was planning to show to some of the queens in attendance. Some of the pieces were gold-toned rhinestone necklaces/earrings/bracelets, which are really hard to find, so I took advantage of the opportunity to spend more money than I care to admit. But I was able to wear one of the sets for my evening wear segment. Once the contest started it was rushing from one costume change to another. Since I thought the active wear and evening wear bits are a bit silly, I wrote a fairly silly—and hopefully amusing—bits for the narration that’s down while you’re posing on stage. I thought I looked far more polished, than the sole other contestent, Lisa, who’s one of the TGSF board members.

For the talent segment, at my drag mother’s (mentor) suggest, I did “Rose’s Turn” from “Gypsy” (it’s the climax of the musical, where Mama Rose, the archetypal domineering stage mother, has a nervous breakdown). I was a little intimidated by the song, in which Rose alternately fantasizes about her own lit-up runway and cheering audience, wallows in self-pity and the awareness she’s driven away everyone she loves, and finally admits that the it was really her dream that she was pushing her daughters to fulfill. It’s a lot of emotion range and definitely tougher than anything I’d done before. And if I say so myself, I abso-fucking-lutely nailed it.

I did bobble the final question, although I drew a question that was a bit out of left-field: what we I do as Ms. TGSF do to help reduce the high unemployment rates among some trans people. Annoying Lisa drew a question about the ENDA debacle, an issue that’s near and dear to my heart, and one I’m sure I would’ve answer better. But still I thought I owned the stage that night and did reasonably well in the interview, so while I was ambivalent about winning, I thought I deserved to win.

But when I got handed the Ms. Congeniality trophy, I knew what was coming next—and sure enough Lisa was crowned the winner. I’ll be generous and assume Lisa must have interviewed better. But it’s the other things that happened that really pissed me off. There wasn’t the usual statement that the runner-up will fill-in for Ms. TGSF if needed, there wasn’t the usual “let’s thank our other contestants” to let me exit the stage gracefully, there was no request to join Lisa in official photos (in fact no official photo whatsoever)—and I haven’t received any sort of formal thank you from TGSF (although I was thanked by individual board members). Needless to say that’s left a bad taste in my mouth.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who thought I should have won—when I went to Marlena’s afterwards, there were a lot of pissed off drag queens (word of what happened apparently spread fast).

On the good side, I really stretched as a performer and apparently impressed a number of people. Plus I got an awesome make-over from my drag mother. The first pic is down in the basement of Marlena’s after she did my make-up—it was mostly so I’ve got a reference to try to recreate it. It’s very dramatic and fabu-licious. This was my hair for the active wear and talent segments.

The second pic is my formal up-doo—taken around 3 a.m. when I got home from the Cotillion, so I was little tired at that point. It shows my formal wear and one of the new jewelry combos I bought from Tommi (that’s actually the more sedate of the two necklaces—the other is far more blingy).

So I guess that on the whole I’m glad I did it, but I’m not sure I’m interested in doing it again.

Had a great time yesterday going “in costume” to work. You can’t really see it in the picture, but I had a boa, so that with the cigarette holder I was nominally ’40s movie star or something. (BTW, I discovered that boas are hot—I mean temperature-wise. Which makes sense, since it’s not that different than having a down sleeping bag wrapped around your shoulders.)

The year before I went as Little Red Riding Hood and would’ve won the contest if I hadn’t been a consultant at the time—so those folks who’d been around then might’ve of noticed a pattern… But there were a lot of people wanting to see how I’d top last year’s costume.

The best part is the number of people who didn’t even recognize me (both years). For example, our HR director told me that when she first saw me, she wondered why there was a new hire that she didn’t know about.

The interesting thing is that one of the two other co-winners was Felicia, who’s a drag king in her spare time—and who came as a British bobby, complete with handlebar mustache, some very furry forearms and a piece of tissue covering a shaving accident (her trademark). Some there was a bit of high-profile gender-bending. Especially since our CEO made a point of having his picture taken with me. (I also had my picture taken with the HR director and one of C-level executives.)

The biggest challenge is figuring out how to top myself next year. There’s some adorable Marie Antoinette costumes (complete with matching shoes!), but not in plus size.

But everyone seemed to get a kick out of it, and a fair number of people in the company now know that I do drag. (A small number know that my crossdresser isn’t just for the stage.)

I finally made my first semi-official appearances as a drag queen the past two Sundays. For me, drag has a different appeal than crossdressing. This column summed it up well:

the drag queen’s message is this: Yes, I’m a gay man, and if you’re going to think I’m a girl, I’ll show you the fiercest, strongest, most beautiful girl you can imagine

OK, so the gay man part doesn’t fit, but being a glamazon does, as does embracing my inner performer. Admittedly, some drag queens can be quite misogynistic, but I haven’t seen that with the queens I hang out with. (Maybe it’s because they’re “glamour queens” rather than “camp queens” for the most part.)

The 15th was a fundraiser for Sister Uma Gawd, of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, who’s doing the AIDS/Life Cycle ride in June. So there were a lot of queens there to help put the penguin on her bike and Marlena’s was packed.

I lucked out the day before and found a brown satin dress with beading at Ross, and I’d hit the MAC Pro store for a new drag look. Unfortunately, even with the write-up from the artist and some photos, I couldn’t quite replicate the eye shadow. Sigh. Rushed to get out of the house and up to San Francisco, only to discover that things were running on drag time— we didn’t actually get started until an hour after the official start time. My first number was Rickie Lee Jones’ “Danny’s All Star Joint,” a wonderful jazzy piece. For my second number, I supposed to do “The Adultress” by The Pretenders, but the DJ cued up the wrong track. Thankfully, it was “Message of Love,” which I knew equally well so the show was able to go on. All-in-all I had a blast, and even had some adoring fans who wanted their pictures taken with me afterwards.

This past Sunday was the birthday for someone who’s active in the Imperial Court, a local charitable group. The crowd was pretty light compared to the previous Sunday, mostly a lot of the Marlena’s regulars. I was wearing the dress in the photo and was hoping to have the actual drag hair as well. (My friend Patsy was going to style one of my wigs—hairspraying it within an inch of life—but unfortunately she wasn’t able to finish it in time.) I even had a new drag name: “Joy de Vivre.” There was only one problem: Miss Galilea (last year’s Empress of San Francisco), who was MCing the entertainment, couldn’t pronounce the last name. Not sure if I’ll need to go back the drawing board.

I finally got to do “The Adultress” and had a good reception from the crowd. I even picked up $14 in tips. But by the time it was time do my second number, things had thinned out and it was real challenge to try to play to a distracted room. In part, I realized that the song—Joan Osborne’s “Right Hand Man”—wasn’t quite right. On paper it seemed good: a rollicking number about just having had some really good sex. But the lyrics get bit repetitive toward the end and I was starting to feel like I was on stage for a loooong time. Not sure whether it would’ve work better had there been a full house, or whether I’ll need to edit it down a bit. (There’s a real challenge in finding good songs—the tempo has to be right, the vocals need to start fairly quickly, the instrumental breaks can’t be too long. Fortunately, I’ve got the software to edit tracks as needed.)

But with every performance I get a bit more experience. So now I’m keeping an eye out for more benefits—which often will take whoever wants to take the stage. And I’m hopeful that I may occasionally get to do an unpaid number for the Hayes Valley Follies (Saturday nights at Marlena’s). While I wouldn’t want to perform every weekend, I’ve definitely gotten addicted to the stage lights.

Standard disclaimer: Going out of the house was right for me, it may or may not be right for you. If you’ve got no desire to leave the house, that’s fine, I’m not trying to push you out the door. But for those who’ve been yearning to do so, I just want to let you the world may not be as scary a place as you think.

It was fun getting glammed up for the TGSF Cotillion.

You can’t really see it (since black velvet hides any detail in photos), but there’s a bow at the bustline. That’s because it’s really a dress with a black velvet stole I found, which does a good job of hiding my shoulders. Not bad for $60 total—eBay is a crossdresser’s best friend.

Took advantage of a break in the rain to take some photos.

I look quite demure in this one, although Helen later pointed out the angle isn’t particularly flattering, since it makes my shoulders look huge (well they are huge…)

It’s funny, I didn’t particuarly like this shot (flash photography and I aren’t great friends), but since people have liked it, I’m adding it. My eyes do look really blue in it.

OK, it’s months late, but here’s one of my favorite summer outfits.

Update: When I recently showed my photos to my nail techs they were sort of amazed at the cleavage in this photo. I did use a bit of make-up (shadow and highlighter) but I think it was mostly fortunate lighting. It’s funny which photos people seem to like. This was the favorite of one of the tech, but I’ve never really liked my expression in it. Go figure…

Thanks to my makeover at MAC, I’m quite the glamour queen in this picture. Too bad I’d forgotten to reset the camera to shoot in indoor lighting—it took quite a bit of work in Photoshop to get rid of a nasty color imbalance.

This was with one of my first wigs—I like being a redhead. Unfortunately, since the wig is a solid color (not a blended color) it’s not the best for going out in daylight, since it looks a little “wiggy.”

When I was shooting in the office, every so often I got a nice backlighting effect from the French doors.

Too bad I can’t figure out how to do it intentionally. And I’m also just annoyed at the hand position and cutting myself off at the knees, since it could’ve been a really nice photo. Ah well, the difficulties of self-portraiture…