Lesbian
Trans
People of Color
Drag Queen/KingBeing that the times are what they are, I want to start by saying that right about now I’m ready to jump into a job like a lady praying mantis upon a one night stand. “YOU SHOWED ME YOUR ‘O’ FACE AND NOW WELL HERE’S MINE. CHOMP.” Like that. It’s been almost six months since I got laid off and it’s putting a strain on our relationship, especially considering that Dick has three jobs to my zero, so every time I look for work I broaden my search a little further. At this rate, I suspect it won’t be long before I’m overcharging for happy hour specials and spilling hot plates of food onto Philadelphians’ laps.
In the meantime I’m sending out resumes and cover letters like a caffeinated zombie, hoping that someone somewhere will believe in my ability to do whatever job it is they pay people a living wage to do anymore that hasn’t been replaced by robots or outsourced labor. And these cover letters, I hate to write them! It’s like they have to have to contain some magical combination of assets, like basic likeability, descriptions of skills specifically tailored to the position, and… I don’t know what else! – Three paragraphs of the most benign things you can say about yourself without bragging or looking desperate, basically. Sometimes I find myself wanting to mix things up and pepper my cover letters with phrases like:
“Perhaps you have an ethnic minority quota that I can fill.”
Or:
“Allow me to diversify your workplace with my gayness.”
Or, sometimes when I want to be more authoritative:
“Listen, jackhole. Whatever you’ve got going over there, I’m sure it’s not fucking rocket science.”
But, no. Instead I end up overusing words like “a great addition to your team” and “search engine optimization” and “Microsoft Office Suite” and “branding” and sometimes even “social media integration” and whatever remnants of a soul I’ve held onto after already putting myself through the corporate grinder twice before, they sort of flake away and drift through the air, where they poison local birds and insects with melancholic daydreams and a craving for vodka.
Kip, a friend of a friend of Dick’s, posted some eye-catching pictures to Facebook the other night. Hey, I thought, that picture looks an awful lot like he’s – and then I clicked and there Kip was: Naked, sitting up on his bed, legs akimbo, with one hand wedging itself into his crack and the other – look, honestly, you’re reading PhillyGayCalendar, take three guesses about what he was doing with the other hand and then select the euphemism of your choice. Anyway there he was, eyes closed, lips parted, areas of the photo blurry with … movement, and then he was gone. No more than two minutes later, the photo was deleted and Kip was posting embarrassed OMGs about his computer’s photo software.
His photo titillated me, sure, but his perfectly man-scaped torso also made me jealous. When you’re single, and maybe just slightly slutty, you just never know when opportunity is gonna knock (them boots! Uh-huh that’s right! This is 1998 and people still say “knocking boots,” okay?), so you keep your body hair maintained at all times. Since I’ve been with Dick, I do not do the full grooming so much these days, and as a result I don’t always feel ready for action. Not to mention, my body hair lacks natural symmetry, so I can’t just let it grow and then be all, “Hey I’m 1970’s lumberjack porn or a BUTT magazine spread” I have two hair spiders around my nips, a patch of fur that grows on the right titty but not the left, a curly mop around my belly-button, two or three mutant hairs on my back at any given time, and from the waist down I am the Greek god Pan. If my body were a John Mayer song, it would be less a “Wonderland” than a “Wildlife Refuge,”or a “Safari,” if you’re feeling adventurous.
I dunno. Maybe I was a little quick to do away with all of the trappings of vanity upon entering long-term relationship territory. One of my hetero soccer buddies recently went on a tirade about his new girlfriend. When they met, she was in training for a marathon, and then the marathon came and went and she stopped training and started putting on weight. The way he sees it, you make some sort of unspoken pact with the people you meet romantically, that involves you looking just as you looked when you met for the duration of the relationship, and to do otherwise is this sort of deception. I’m not sure if I agree with that completely, but he does have a point.
I always say that I was at the top of my game when I met Dick, but there’s no reason why I shouldn’t have kept that going. “Hey, now that you love me unconditionally, I’m going to go ahead and find out what I look like with a neck beard. Continue to love me and I will reward you by letting myself go in new and fascinating ways.” It’s like, sure, Tom Hanks was still Tom Hanks when he was all weird-beard and talking to that volleyball in Cast Away, but we still like Tom Hanks better as a [your favorite Tom Hanks character here]. We’re all too happy to enjoy the odder aspects of our friends and lovers as we get to know them, but at the core of those relationships are the two people who met once upon a time and decided to join forces for good, and we want to be reminded periodically that those people still exist.
So flaunt it while you got it, Kip! Because you won’t always got it! And for my part, I’m going to unpack my clippers and make like Edward Scissorhands on a misshapen shrubbery, because you never know when opportunity’s gonna knock (them boots).
