Valentine's Day is coming up this Sunday – shoot me now – and find myself once again bereft of boyfriend and instilled with an intense desire to watch a marathon of slasher movies where the young hot couple meets an untimely end. Not that I am bitter or anything mind you.

I am actually really excited for this weekend though because A.Love.Nouveau is having their first show of the new year – Saturday at 7pm and 10pm. The second that I heard that it was going to be a Valentine's Day show I immediately went to the choreographer Nayte and said “I need to do bad romance by Lady Gaga” - there were no ifs, ands, or buts about it. I thought to myself, hmm a Valentine's Day show, Bad Romance is totally your jam right now, you have the hottest choreographer in Reno at your disposal, oh and a troupe of ridiculously hot & talented burlesque girls to be your backup dancers ….. ummm holler. I knew that I had to do this number. For whatever reason, I feel like Whitney Houston and Lady Gaga is my crack cocaine at the moment.

I truly enjoy being a part of the show as host and as a performer in this show. I relish the opportunity to challenge assumptions and perceptions of drag queens as entertainers. I want to be able to show that we can do more than just merely lip sync some numbers; we can sing, dance, and be witty articulate and entertaining hosts. Also, working with the girls has given me more confidence as a dancer and a performer. A.Love.Nouveau – a new love – embraces all women regardless of age, background, or experience and shows the beauty that is within all of us. No matter who you are – even a plus sized drag queen – you can go on stage and shake your stuff and feel empowered by your sensuality. The fact that the girls have embraced a drag queen as their host and now is seen as just “one of the girls” is an amazing feeling that I cherish wholeheartedly. In a world that is still often uncomfortable with any non-conformity and drag queens are still scary, it is cool that this safe space has sort of been carved out for me. In some ways, I now have all the girlfriends that I dreamed & wished for growing up. Girlfriends who will go shopping with you, help with your makeup, teach you different tricks about clothes, and how to appear skinnier than you are, etc. The life of women is a complicated tangled mess and it is nice to have a few tour guides along the way.

The show tomorrow should be incredible. Anyone who is in the Reno area tomorrow night and is looking for a fun, sexy, and entertaining way to spend the night drop by Studio on 4^th – 432 E. 4^th Street – at either 7:00pm or 10:00pm for the hottest burlesque show in town. Admission to the show is $12 or $50 for a VIP table [seats 4] and features your own burlesque cocktail waitress. Hope to see you all there for a night of love & bad romance.