Was I actually considering doing it again? After my one drag experience, I’d vowed I’d never do it again, but could I muster up the audacity to change my own mind? Could I ignore the horrible memories? If my life were a musical, this particular moment would’ve made a really good character-driven ballad about hope and fear that would come back as a reprise in the second act to mean something entirely different. The kind of show tune people would sing, most frequently off-key, in auditions. Also there was the matter of originality and pride. I was far from original, and the last time I’d actually felt proud was when I first saw myself fully in drag. Before the competition, before the humiliation; I felt wonderful, but not for long. And the last time I remembered feeling proud before that was when I went to a sleepover in fourth grade and didn’t wet the bed. My curiosity was getting the better of me, so later that night I Googled more about the pageant. The information online made it clear that while it was a “beauty pageant,”
