be the girl

we all go girl crazy at some point.

and i don't mean you gotta have that thing...necessarily.

what i mean is, (and any drag queen or closet cross dresser in america will raise hands and testify to this) we all want to be the girl, once in a while.

even big hairy dykes like yours truly.

sometimes i succumb to the siren-like wail of a party dress and lipstick in a tart shade of red. and as i shear a year's (give or take) worth of body hair from all the requisite parts, an image of myself emerges from the sea of my many incarnations, a veritable 1950's venus on a jello mold clam shell, martini in one hand, a clutch of pearls in the other. i can dream as great as any man, gay or straight.

it is an image i cannot resist and so, visa in hand, i head to the nearest fashion hotspot for something a tad more feminine than my workboots and cargo pants.
it takes a while to shake off my discomfort while i paw through the clearance racks at marshall's. i mean, face it. an evening gown for a girl my size is really just a fairly large sack made of quality rayon. i start to believe that somewhere, in idaho, a potato farmer is missing his designs.

but that is not the whole truth.i am part of the problem, part of my own uneasiness. it ain't just the dress. it is just that i cannot imagine myself in anything form-fitting or colorful, something that takes a risk with my neckline or isn't afraid to reveal the secret scars on my back and shoulders. so i remember why i am here, why i am doing this: i want to be the girl. i want to challengemy own notions of sexy, crazy, beautiful and dangerous.

so i breathe. relax. i start to enjoy. i flirt back with the skirts and blouses that have shamelessly been cat-calling my name. i start to seemyself in those heels, in that shade of green, with that sassy flip to my hair. it is not so ridiculous, is it? no more than say, my cowgirl days or my years as a gospel singer or even the time spent in lace-up deerskin boots. i am always reinventing my own self image. a little bit of god-play in a little bit of a vamp.

and showing off never really hurts anyone. the trick is learning to never believe your own mythology. that is for everyone else to buy. no one ever died from a little bit of snake oil.

so this friday, i will begin to be the girl. i am off to cruise the mexican riviera and attend formal galas with hundreds of other people pretending to be the guy or the girl they always imagined themselves to be. there is power in numbers. i will be among my own strumpeting kind.

i can't wait. i am going to take pictures. i am going to place them alongside the photos of me as a cowgirl and in deerskin boots and say: "yes. that's me. now tell the truth: would you rather be me or do me?"

either way, i win.

and i become a legend.