INTRODUCTION
SETTING SAIL FOR THE QUEENDOM
I hate cruises. So how is it that I found myself lying on a Swarovski crystal staircase in the middle of the night aboard the Carnival Conquest posing for a promotional photo for a drag performance and surrounded by a small entourage of inebriated drag queens? Ordinarily, I think of cruises as just too many people cooped up on a floating petri dish for a week. No ma'am Pam! But when I found out that there was such a thing as a “drag cruise,” complete with forty of the country's top drag queens and twelve hundred drag aficionados from all over the world, I couldn't wait to sign up! My newfound love of drag knew no bounds. I couldn't find anyone crazy enough to go with me, so I had to book a cabin all by myself.
Every night of this five-night, six-day Caribbean cruise was a themed costume party. As an aspiring female drag queen (yes, women can do drag), I had been learning makeup and wig styling from my drag mother
for a while at this point but still hadn't mastered it when it was time for the cruise. I felt intimidated, wondering about how I was going to do the wigs and makeup for my costume looks when these parties would be full of drag queens who were going to look sickening. I didn't want to go out looking like an idiot. One of the last nights of the cruise was the Black Hearts Party, where the theme, of course, was to dress all in black. I was tired of looking so half-assed in my drag; my costumes were fierce, but my makeup and wig styling were awful, to tell the truth.
On the cruise, I met Phi Phi O'Hara, runner-up to the winner on Season 4 of RuPaul's Drag Race, the cult reality competition television show for drag queens hosted by the most famous queen in the world, RuPaul. Competing on the show when she was just twenty-five, Phi Phi was the young, talented spitfire queen, driven to win at all costs. Of course there is always drama on reality competition shows, and in her season of Drag Race Phi Phi was usually in the middle of it. In fact, she pulled so many shenanigans on the show that the Huffington Post put her on their “8 Nastiest Reality TV Villains” of the year list. Not sure what to expect, I mustered up the courage to ask Phi Phi if she would help me with my makeup for the Black Hearts party. To my surprise, she immediately said yes! I'd remembered that my drag mother had told me I needed a promotional photo she could use in the online flyer for my performance during one of her upcoming shows. I didn't have one. I mentioned this to Phi Phi and she excitedly volunteered to help, saying: “I'll style your wig. I'll do your makeup. I'll direct the photo shoot. I'll Photoshop it. We'll have the photo done by the end of the cruise.” I was dumbfounded. I had just met Phi Phi a few days earlier and here she was volunteering to do all of this for me. She seemed nothing like the bitchy character I'd seen on the show.
The night of the party, I brought my dominatrix-inspired outfit to Phi Phi's cabin: a black studded bra and corset, black high-waisted brief, black vinyl lace-up boots, fishnet hose, and a poker-straight, black shoulder-length wig with bangs. In the cabin she was sharing with her boyfriend Mikhael, it looked like her five giant pieces of luggage had exploded. There were costumes, wigs, high heels, makeup palettes, makeup brushes, eyelash glue, hairspray, and costume jewelry strewn around everywhere, even on the bed. It was hard to find a place to sit down. Phi Phi was in the middle of getting ready herself while at the same time working on another friend's makeup. She stopped to start working on mine. It was an honor to have such a professional beat my face. When I showed her the long straight black wig, she thought it would look better as a ponytail. She put my own hair in a tiny ponytail (my real hair is a short bob), and then worked some voodoo magic on the black wig—and voilà! It became a long ponytail that she attached on top of my own tiny one. Then she whipped out a can of black hairspray and began to spray all of my brunette hair black to match the new ponytail. Phi Phi remarked that there wasn't enough bling on my costume, so she lent me four giant sparkly, rhinestone cuffs, two for each wrist. With the look complete, I caught my reflection in the mirror. I didn't look anything like myself, but I looked sickening! For the first time, I felt like an actual queen. Lady Trinity, my drag alter ego, had come alive. The makeup and hair were impeccable, done by a seasoned professional. There were a number of the Drag Race queens at the costume party, and I took photos with a lot of them. Thumbing through the photos on my phone during the party, I remember thinking I looked as good as they did. All praise goes to Phi Phi!
Even at 3:30 a.m., after cocktails galore and a ton of dancing, Phi Phi hadn't forgotten about the photo shoot and was ready to go. She corralled a small crew of now sloshed people from the party and we made our way to the main lobby of the ship, where there were two stunning, curved, open-air staircases: one was made of clear steps filled with shimmering Swarovski crystals, and the other had shiny black stairs trimmed in sparkly white lights. At the top of the Swarovski crystal staircase, Phi Phi directed me, “OK, go down and lie on those stairs.” Um, what? I made my way to the vertical center of the staircase and awkwardly tried to strike an attractive pose, legs outstretched and crossed, my left hand on my hip. The whole crew hung over the railing above, just looking at me. I tried another pose, putting my hand up by my head and pinning what I hoped was a seductive look on my face. But I felt like I just looked stupid. All of a sudden I felt stone-cold sober, so instead of experiencing an alcohol-induced brazenness, I just felt really insecure.
I was intimidated by Phi Phi because she is a master at modeling for photos, as many drag queens are. She knows how to pose. She knows angles. She knows lighting. Phi Phi again tried to direct me, “No, softer face. Softer face!” I didn't even know what the hell that meant! She tried again, “Just open your lips a little.” Dammit! I felt so inept. I'm sure I looked like a dork. Then Phi Phi directed again, “Grab your ponytail and hold it straight out to the side, real sexy-like.” Real sexy-like? Was she kidding? I felt so vulnerable with everyone above the railing staring down at me. At that moment, a ship maintenance guy who was walking by started catcalling. Oh great! Exactly what I needed.
Phi Phi wasn't completely happy with the shots from this staircase so she suggested we go to the black staircase nearby and start the whole process all . . . over . . . again. It was all so awkward. I had no experience with modeling like this. I felt so dense and self-conscious because I didn't know how to pose. It was really nerve-wracking. Somehow we completed the shoot with no one in our crew guffawing at my awkward poses or faces. At 4:15 a.m., we all headed to our rooms for the night with my early-morning drag queen supermodel photo shoot complete. OK, well, maybe not so super.
I ran into Phi Phi at lunch the next day and she told me she was already done with the photo. Apparently she had stayed up until 5:00 a.m. to pick out the best shot and Photoshop it. Wow! I went back to her room after lunch to get a copy of the image. When she showed it to me, I was dumbfounded. At first, I couldn't find any words. The photo was just stunning. I couldn't believe it was me. In it I'm a vixen, posing seductively on the black stairs, looking hot as shit. Holy hell, I looked amazing! Especially for a forty-eight-year-old woman. I mean, hot damn!
Lady Trinity's first promotional photo
(Photo by Phi Phi O'Hara)
This became the promotional photo I have used for all of my drag performance gigs. In fact, I blew the image up into a 3′ × 4′ poster, framed it, and it's hanging on my bathroom wall right now, so I can see it every single day. I use it to remind myself of how awesome I am. I don't say that with arrogance; I say it with pride. That photo reminds me of the first time I was able to see an image of myself as a powerful woman. I know that if you want this feeling, that moment will come for you too, when even if you aren't doing drag, you will realize that you can pull off big changes within that reflect your fiercest self. I guess you could say that cruise was my coming out in drag. It was the first time that Lady Trinity had been fully realized as a character, an alter ego. Phi Phi O'Hara made Lady Trinity come alive, and I will always have her to thank for this. I like to think of her as my “drag aunt,” though we have never formalized the role. Honestly, I'm just grateful to be able to call this sweet, generous, sarcastically funny, extremely talented, and hardworking person my friend.
Before this cruise, I had lived a so-called normal life. I was an ex-IBMer, ex-corporate executive, author, and middle-aged woman in her late forties. But my love and reverence for the art of drag and the performers who are transformed by it has changed my life. And choosing this path to become a female drag queen has been one of the most terrifying and rewarding choices I have ever made. I learned how to do drag from some of the best drag queens on the planet. From these queens I also learned how to be the most fabulous and confident version of myself in everyday life. Doing drag has bestowed upon me strategies to manage my self-esteem issues, helped me to take myself less seriously, and enabled me to live my life more boldly. In short, I now own my own power. And I love it! You too can feel this amazing and fierce, and you don't need to do drag to do it. All you need to do is just think like a drag queen in your everyday life. OK, well maybe wearing a few more sequins wouldn't hurt either.