You decide to have a photo shoot with a co-worker's diamond ring, wear it on your engagement finger, send the photos to your friends and family saying that you had a shotgun wedding, and deliciously wait for the responses to come rolling in.

.... oh don't act like you have never done something like this before.

I must say as a drag queen I am used to the gaudy. trashy, and inexpensive jewelry of Claire's and Icing - the stores for pre-teen girls and drag queens. I am use to the jewelry that will invariably turn my fingers green and break after one show. When I wore this diamond ring the world had transformed itself. The colors were brighter, the sounds sharper, and no task was boring or mundane as long as I had the ring on. It become a competition for me to cleverly showcase the ring to my co-workers thus prompting them to ask me if I was engaged or married. Before this experience, I was always baffled by peoples' obsession with what their engagement ring looks like, how many carrots it is, if you used a birthstone or not, if you have note engraved into the band etc. Now, I understand, and immediately began planning my engagement/wedding rings. So between the photoshoot, giving my mother a heart attack with my wedding, and researching different ring styles and options 4 hours had gone by, bringing me ever closer to the end of the day and a 3-day weekend.

I love Halloween because as I drag queen I naturally always have a backup costume in my closet.

"I'm a drag queen .... I mean I'm a dead drag queen ... I mean I am a evil undead succubus drag queen"

However, the part that can sometimes be incredibly frustrating is the pressure put on you to find a ridiculous and outlandish costume. I am not one of those people that has their costume figured out months in advance and annoyingly tried to bring it up every second in polite conversation. I usually wait to the last minute and then attempt to hap-hazardly put something together.

I think people have expectations of drag queens on Halloween. Especially my co-workers. They kept wanting Ginger to appear at the office and make an appearance. Ummm excuse me, I wake up at 6:30am in the morning as it is to get ready for work. I am not waking up at 4 and attempting to apply liquid eyeliner to my eyes - it sounds like a disaster. Similarly, I am not about to show up to the office in fishnet tights and a corset and attempt to have a conversation with upper level management. Either they will be freaked out, run away, and fire me or they will be turned on, freak out, run away, and then fire me. Either situation does not thrill me. This scenario was lost on my co-workers who I think envisioned me dressing as some undead glamazon that would jump out of a cake and tumble into a Broadway number right there in the lobby of the office. Sorry ... I ain't going out like that.

Best part of Halloween though was being voted at the QUEEN of the Freaker's Ball. I promise to rule with a fair and just hand .... or at least attempt to. ;)

Much has happened since my last entry - which I will get into later posts - but I find myself looking at my little computer calendar and seriously questioning whether or not it is September 6th .... when the hell did September happen. Summer seems to have come and gone with little notice. I remember hot days, I remember trips to Tahoe, I remember drunken nights at the bar ... well not really remember ... but remember the stories that were related to me the next morning, and yet summer passed by ridiculously fast.

Of all of the things that I have experienced over the past month, the most significant of which is my change in profession. I quit my old job ... mainly because I just couldn't take it anymore. There is not enough drugs or bottles of Diet Coke that could have kept me sane in that place. I appreciate my time there and some of the people that I met, however being trapped in a small office space with a sexist, homophobic tool managed remotely by an incompetent boss, left very much to be desired. I thankfully got hired at another non-profit in town that is literally minutes from my house by bike. The fat girl in me danced with elation at the thought of no longer getting my ass out of my bed at 6:00am so I could traverse the hot, barren landscape of Reno on my bike for 35 minutes. I now roll my ass out of bed at 7:30am and take a nice "driving-miss-daisy" stroll downtown to my work.

I now work for a non-profit in town as an Administrative Aid. I have a newfound respect for AAs and secretaries. The work is hard and time consuming and sometimes I have the strong desire to break out my big blonde beehive wig, pump up my breasts, and start singing "9 to 5" by the glorious Dolly Parton. I enjoy it though. I love copying, laminating, faxing and do other generally menial tasks. Unlike other non-profits, I am not expected to work nights or weekends,  THANK GOD!!! I also have a boss that worked on domestic partnership benefits here in Nevada so during the interview I was definitely playing the gay social justice card.

"OMG you like working on behalf of underrepresented populations and minority communities against the tyranny of bullshit majority politics .... OMG ME TOO!!!!"

For where I am at right now in my life it makes perfect sense. I am not quite sure what I want to do professionally ... but this job will allow me to continue to act, sing, and dance which at the moment are my true passions in life. I'm not really quite sure where they are going to lead me ... hopefully a guest spot on Ellen and a tour deal with Lady Gaga ... but until that happens I'm pretty happy with where I am at.

Oh and here is my office space tip for the day: DON'T PISS OFF THE AAs - the AAs know everything, have access to everything, manage all the leftover food from board meetings, and with one phone call can make your life hell. :)