I’ve done drag — real drag, with a bra and all — a handful of times. Generally speaking, it was awful.

Sure, I enjoyed the makeup and the false eyelashes and the heels — who wouldn’t? But the wigs were hugely uncomfortable. The wigs and the shaving. I really hate to shave.

Until recently, I thought I could overcome those hangups, and I stockpiled a stellar list of potential drag/stage names for my alter-ego.

Alas, it’s clear that I’m never going to have enough time/patience/Barbasol to use them, so I’m releasing them into the wild. Hopefully, someone with a lighter beard, a softer jawline, and a greater tolerance for polyester wiglets can use them. Maybe you?

As an added bonus, some of them will work as band names, too. You’re welcome.

1. Nosegay Pantysniffer (Technically this one belongs to Jonno, but the copyright has probably run out.)
2. Wendy 2000 (She’s dated, not expired.)
3. Ovarian Thrombosis (This may be something horrible in real life, but the cadence is good.)
4. Transvaginal Messiah (All those mesh commercials finally got to me.)
5. Pussy Terwilliger (It’s like poetry.)
6. Cookiepuss McGruff (If you choose this one, your signature song becomes the best Beastie Boys tune of all time. And you get a signature dessert, too.)
7. Tundra Thundercunt (The loud, lewd lady from Lapland.)
8. Estrogenia McGuyver (Oh, what she can do with two bottlecaps and a maxi pad.)
9. Miss River Bridge (It’s funniest if you live along the Mississippi.)
10. Maxine Poutine (Girl likes to eat.)
11. Chanelvis (Which I stole from a co-worker at Lucky Cheng’s)
12. Chainsaw Guevara (She’s never heard the term “bloodless revolution”.)

I never played with action figures. I never saw the point. Acting out scenarios with tiny, plastic dolls? I preferred acting with my whole body. At recess, I recruited friends to become fellow jewel thieves or jungle explorers or doctors on desperate missions to halt raging epidemics of cooties.

I was even better at scenarios that played out in my head, scenarios I enacted alone, scenarios I never told anyone about. In one recurring fantasy, I was a cat burglar. (To younger readers: cat burglars were once a thing, though no one speaks of them anymore.) Every time I visited a mall or a department store, I’d note the location of the air vents, service doors, and other ways I could use to break in later — though sadly, later never came, because I was also a massive goody-goody.

In my other favorite scenario, I played a kidnapping victim. When my parents dragged my brothers and me on weekend errands, I’d lie face-up on the Naugahyde back seat of our hulking Oldsmobile station wagon, following the trees, trying to count blocks, and making note of telling scenery. I committed that information to memory so that when I picked the lock on my imaginary handcuffs and found my way to a phone in the kidnappers’ lair, I could tell the police where to find me.

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It’s so, so easy to take things for granted when the going is good. I have a hunch that’s what keeps us going, us humans. There’s something deep in our DNA that wants us to wear blinders, wants us to chug along believing that since we’re not sick, not in pain, not desperately sad, not running for our lives, everyone else in the world is fine, too.

That makes sense, I guess. If we dwelled on that too much, we’d never get anything done. We’d die of worry and guilt.

(Side note: it may be part of our DNA, but it’s not innate. It’s something we learn as adults: worry about what’s in front of you, worry about the things you can change. Six-year-olds terrified of atomic bombs or bad guys in the night haven’t perfected this skill.)

So, it’s rare when everything’s going fine — so fine that you can’t imagine a time when things would ever not be fine — that you stop and think: “Now. Right now. I’m very lucky right now. I’m more fortunate than many people on this planet. Possibly most of them”

It happened to me this week, driving home after a long day of work and errands. For some reason — I still don’t know why — I took stock of my life. And I realized how very lucky I am to have a job and a husband and a boyfriend and loving hounds and loving friends. And it’s all because of an accident of birth: American, late 20th century, middle class, male, white.

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In Louisiana, Martin Feldman has become the first federal judge to rule against LGBT marriage equality since last year’s twin Supreme Court decisions overturning California’s Proposition 8 and the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

You might’ve missed that, though, because when news outlets heard the details, most just shrugged.

That’s because an old, white, male, Reagan-appointee in the Deep South ruling in favor of bigotry is not news.

Despite the dozens of court victories we’ve had at the federal and state level since (and even before) Hollingsworth v. Perry and United States v. Windsor, Feldman chose to break ranks with his estimable, equality-minded peers. Not only that, he did it in the most bigoted way possible: in his decision, he called homosexuality a “lifestyle choice”; he compared same-sex marriage to incest; he insisted that marriage is all about procreation (thus assuming that gays and lesbians can’t procreate); and he said that states have the right to discriminate on the grounds of “any conceivable basis”.

Really, Mr. Feldman? Any basis?

What’s more, Feldman went over and above the call of duty.  The case before him only involved the recognition of same-sex marriages conducted outside Louisiana. But Feldman expanded his ruling to affirm Louisiana’s sovereign right to prevent same-sex marriages from happening on its own turf. You know, just for kicks.

My opinion? Look, I’ve said before that I’m not a perfectionist. I’m not a detail person. I prefer working with chainsaws, not mitre saws. To keep the construction metaphor going: I’m like the guy who gets all the right permits from the city and bulldozes the condemned house. I’ll let detail-oriented folks come in and put up the new building.

Which is to say: it would’ve been nice to have a perfect record for LGBT rights in federal court as marriage equality cases work their way through appeals, all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. But even with Feldman’s misguided, off-tone, antiquated ruling, we’re still batting pretty near 1,000. I’m fine with that.

My only regret is that I’m not a fly. If I were — well, I probably wouldn’t live long enough to see the inevitable SCOTUS ruling, but on the off-chance I did, I’d love to perch on the wall of Feldman’s office as his decision is being overturned. I might even smile a fly smile as he sighs, realizing that times have changed, and he hasn’t adapted, and like a good loser in the Darwinian struggle to evolve, he should just give up. And then, he dies, with only his gay legal clerk for company.

P.S. I love the law, but I’m not trained in it. For a more detailed analysis of Feldman’s George Wallace-esque ruling, check out Ari Waldman’s take.

I used to love David Sedaris. I mean that as literally as anyone who’s never met the man can mean it.

A decade ago, I even wrote an erotic short story about an orgy in which Sedaris played a central role. (Edmund White, Tony Kushner, and Langston Hughes were there, too. It was like the answer to a college admission essay question no college would ever ask: “If you could nail four gay authors from any time and place…?”)

Sadly, it’s now clear that Sedaris wasn’t suited for such fan fiction, because he recently told the world that he’s a bitter, jealous, sex-phobic prude.

In an article published by The Guardian, Sedaris recounts a recent conversation with his partner of 23 years, Hugh. He asks how many people Hugh had sex with before they were together.

Sedaris tops out around 28 or 30. Which I find a little surprising because even in Mississippi, I’d fooled around with that many people by the time I graduated college (if not before). Maybe Sedaris isn’t a very sexual person, but I’d think that he might’ve been a little more adventurous before he hit his mid-30s, met Hugh, and took himself off the market.

After Sedaris tallies the notches in his bedpost, he watches Hugh count higher and higher. As though that’s surprising. As though having sex is a bad thing. As though it’s a moral failing.

I know what you’re thinking: “Sedaris is a comic writer. It’s clearly meant to be humorous.” I agree, except the way it’s written, we’re meant to be on Sedaris’ side, not Hugh’s.

That’s driven home when he gets to the really offensive part, the part about HIV and AIDS.

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