25 February 2001 ~ Drag and dick...

Surprise, surprise... Who was on the cover of the "Living" section of the local paper yesterday? No, not me. This time, it was Peter's turn.

I thought I was going to choke someone. I made a brief attempt at strangling the paper, then a brief attempt at bludgeoning it by smacking it against Chris's head, which was the closest target.

The article was about some local drag show thing; Peter's image was larger than life, making some ghastly face above a scrawny neck and... MY prom dress.

I'm not actually angry. A little bit pissed off at the irony of it all, perhaps, but not angry. Just a month ago, I was on the front page of the Living section -- the article still haunts me, and maybe always will, if for no better reason than its mention of my age and its preoccupation with my allegedly unstable mental state. And when that article came out, Peter threw a temper tantrum, during which he wrote a nasty letter about me... He had one big bee in his bonnet about me misrepresenting him in my online journal, and he went off on some tangent about "Guiding Light," and managed to throw in some nasty comment about me playing the martyr and making him -- and the rest of the world, because Peter can't bear to be alone on his crusades -- out to be a monster. I was infuriated at the time. Then I stood up, got some orange juice, shrugged my shoulders, and said "fuck it."

...And now, Peter's on the front page. Less than two months later.

The paper was handed to me by my boss, Dave, who said cheerfully, "Helena, it's your boyfriend!" Yes, my "boyfriend." Gloriously decked out, on the front freaking page, in MY prom dress and the ugliest wig known to humankind. Unable to explain so many years of trauma and feathers to my middle-aged boss with his huge espresso grin, I merely replied, "EX-boyfriend."

After many months of attempts to change my life, still, I'm associated with this: an ugly female-impersonator (and yes, "Diva Divine" is ugly, always has been) on the front freaking page. Will it never die? Will I never be separated from this? Will he never just drop off the face of the earth? Will he always be the subject of conversation? Will his nasty little drama-fests always reach me through our silence? Could I move a thousand miles away, take a solemn oath never to look back, and STILL be unable to get rid of Peter? And every time I have a moment of glory, will Peter be right behind to swallow it up, proclaim that he's stood by me every step of the way, that I've abused and misrepresented him, and that he's the one who deserves the honors?

There was a time when I honestly loved Peter. I NEVER loved "Diva." I believe some drag queens practice their art because they enjoy it, because they enjoy the clothes and the performing. I believe Peter does it, has always done it, because he needs a new identity in order to be adored. I always wished he'd understand that he had quite a nice personality, if he'd figure out how to use it responsibly (that probably sounds idiotic unless you know him), and that "Diva," was really pretty pathetic. Yet, now, Peter and Diva are inseparable, and yesterday, I felt the entire world was staring at me, knowing I'd spent a portion of my life side by side with this... this... anyway...

I wanted to say, "I can't believe I once looked at this man and thought he was beautiful. I can't believe we shared my bed for so long. I can't believe I fucking lent him my fucking prom dress." I wanted to tell everyone "It's fucking OVER, there's nothing more to look at, and I have nothing to do with this freak-show on the cover of the newspaper." Perhaps for the first time in my life, I wished I'd never met Peter.

* * * * * * * * * * *

My mother's birthday party was last night. My brothers and I spent the evening eating dinner and ice cream with her and Penny. The event concluded with the five of us throwing away a package of mutilated frozen hotdogs and tossing a handful of knives into the sink. Allow me to explain...

I honestly don't remember what lead up to the conversation of Judaism, but I recall my dear brother John, who is now fifteen, yelping, "I'm glad I'm not Jewish... That must hurt!" and clutching painfully at his pants.

"WHAT must hurt?" I asked.

"Getting your weenie chopped up," he replied, half-serious, half-giggling, because weenies, to a 15-year-old boy, are always a matter of utmost seriousness, but still the subject of a damned funny joke.

"Dude, LOTS of people get circumcized!" I told him. Our mother was stifling a giggle of her own.

"I'm not Jewish!" yelped Joseph, who is 18.

"I'm not circumcized!" yelped John.

"Yes you are!" proclaimed our mother, to which Joseph donned a yarmulka and began chanting "L'chaim" to himself. (Er...)

I will admit that, at John's age, I was still fairly ignorant about the strange subject of foreskins, but then again, I suppose I never had a circumcision problem to personally worry about, being, you know, female and living in the United States.

My mom grabbed a medical dictionary off her bookshelf and read the definition of "foreskin." Then she read the definition of "circumcision." John still didn't get it. Somehow, he'd managed to grow up believing something to the effect of, at your bar mitzvah, supposing you're Jewish, they castrate you. It obviously had never occurred to him that children are born to Jewish fathers every day. Perhaps he thought all Jewish kids are adopted and converted.

"Wait, so *I* got..." He made a chopping motion with his hands.

"Yep," said my mom.

"I will show you," I muttered, pretending to be exasperated. John grinned. "Do you have any hot dogs?" I asked my mom. She brought us a package of frozen hot dogs, a knife, and a box of plastic wrap.

Contrary to popular belief among Freudian vegetarian feminazis, the hot dog does NOT closely resemble a phallus. I had to do a bit of carving before the hot dog really looked like a penis, and it was a rather weak attempt. Still, my brothers got the idea. Joseph, who denied he'd ever had ANY stupid questions about cock or Jews, watched intently as I covered the hot-dog-dick in plastic wrap, and circumcized it. My mom looked partly horrified at our frank (heh! "frank") discussion, partly amused at jokes about weenies, and partly encouraging at the learning experience that was taking shape on her kitchen table. After all, based on her additions to the conversation, I'm not even convinced SHE knew much about circumcision.

"And well, I think they just take it, and roll it back, and it sort of heals that way..."

"No, no, no, they cut it off! I swear!" I said, all the while picking hot dog shavings off my sweater and musing that frozen kielbasa might have worked better.

"How do YOU know?" asked John, just waiting for some incriminating evidence to use against his big sister.

"Well, on guys with dark skin, you can see the scars, sorta... They're like, right here..." (I carved a little line through the middle of my hot dog. Both boys winced.)

"Like, a black guy's weenie?" asked John.

"Yeah, or a Mexican guy's weenie," I replied. I KNEW he was going to sit back and ponder Jewish people again. He did, for about three seconds, after which he picked up the knife, grabbed the makeshift penis, screeched, "Lorena Bobbitt!" and chopped the hot dog in half.

For maybe another half an hour, we sat, carving up the rest of the package of hot dogs. I wondered briefly if there's a mother anywhere else on earth who will sit happily at a table with her three kids as they carve genitals out of frozen meat. My mom is so freaking cool. Happy birthday, mom.

Late last night, I found a drawing of an uncircumcized penis on wedmd.com, and sent it to John, who replied, "that is fucking WEIRD!" Heh! Dweeblet!

~Helena*

"I happen to think dicks are really beautiful." --a co-worker of mine.