“We should go OUT,” Legalista says, emphatically.
I smile. “Yes, of course,” I reply. I am certain she is just being polite. After all, why would someone like her want to be friends with someone like me? She’s tall, beautiful, a lawyer, has her shit together.
I’m neurotic, self-deprecating, and positive that I’m obnoxious with my chattiness, random inappropriate comments, and excessive devotion to Skyspook. I’m at a crossroads in my life.
I fall into this trap sometimes, feeling like people are just being nice, that they don’t actually want to spend time with me.
So I’m shocked when she contacts me online, we swap numbers, arrange a shopping trip.
We wander around the mall, completely lost. The maps don’t help at all. I don’t know how to feel about being friends with someone with as little direction sense as I have, something I would have sworn before was impossible. While we’re wandering around aimlessly, we commiserate about being hopeless at “the whole girly thing,” grab a couple of coffees, finally stumble into Sephora. There we appeal to an impeccably coiffed blonde saleswoman for questions about cosmetics. I cheer Legalista on as she picks out quality products including killer brown Dior mascara. I perv over a nice Smashbox starter kit, some Urban Decay lipstain, but waffle and fret about budgetary implications before putting them back.
Then it’s off to the shoe store where Legalista snags an incredible pair of nude patent pumps. She looks like lawyer Barbie. Incredible, leggy, gorgeous. Not that it’s hard for Legalista to look gorgeous. She says she’s bad at being a girl, but she makes it look easy.
I become infatuated with dainty little black and white patterned Chinese Laundry heels that have a distinctly vintage look to them and almost buy them but decide that they’re too similar to other shoes I have to take the plunge.
*
Curse you, Legalista. You’ve inspired me. Now I need a pair of nude patent pumps.
As much as I want a pair of champagne/taupe/mauve lace heels.
*
I often say my gender concept is complicated – much more complicated than people would surmise by simply looking at me, the way I present myself.
For all intents and purposes, I was raised more like a boy in the sociological sense. I was expected to be stoic, never complain, and certainly never cry. When I broke my leg at 8 years old, my parents told me to stop crying, that I was exaggerating the pain, to stop being such a brat. My father even tried to make me walk.
My mother bought clothes from the men’s section herself and would encourage me to buy modest clothes in earth tones, 1 or 2 sizes larger than my actual size, to hide my curves. Even when I was a normal weight, I looked obese.
After doing fun girly things with my 2 older sisters like baking and sewing, my mom was burned out on it and didn’t want to go through the motions with me, so I spent my time reading books, on the computer, or playing musical instruments.
In adolescence and early adulthood, I was a jazz musician who played gigs on the weekends, had mostly open relationships and multiple sex partners with people of both sexes, and fought against my crazy libido pulling me into all sorts of reckless situations – often, I lost.
Essentially, I am a bisexual male drag queen in a woman’s body. And I’m doing what I can to learn how to “pass” as a woman. The curves are there; I just have to learn to navigate them.
Featured image from The Devil’s Panties