So I thought I’d give everyone a little insight to the woman behind the facial hair.
For those of you wondering, yes… I am I natural red head. Strawberry-blonde if you want to get nit-picky, but there are days when it goes especially red for no particular reason. And I apparently have a patch of very red hair at the top of my head that most people think I dyed that way on purpose. Which is funny because up until last year, I didn’t even know it was there.
I’m not an Arizona native. I’m not really an anywhere native. Born in Michigan, barely, back in 1979, I should have been birthed in Indonesia. It’s where my parents were teaching at the time, but my mom lied to the airlines and flew back to Michigan anyway. After I was born, they spend the remainder of their summer there, then flew back to Jakarta for the start of the school year. Then it was on to Medan, Indonesia for a couple years. Tunisia is where we went after that, til the middle of my kindergarten year, then back to Michigan til the end of 4th grade. From there it was on to Sri Lanka for 3 miserable years (there a was volatile civil war going on at the time, complete with curfew, bombs and bodies… ugh), then Bangkok for an incredible 5 years, which is where I graduated from high school. In 1997, after graduation, I threw whatever I could into 2 suitcases and moved to Hawaii for university. I spent four fabulous years there, spending most weekends at the beach, and in the summer of 2001 I ended up in Tucson. I’ve been in Arizona since. Sometimes it’s hard to believe I’m going on 10 years. Crazy.
Freddy made his first appearance *as* Freddy about 5 years ago, but I’d been involved in theatre and performing for years before that. All through high school I was like colleges like to call “well rounded.” Theatre, dance, choir, band, basketball, softball, student council; you name it, I did it. But theatre and music were always where my heart was. I made my stage debut at the age of 5 as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer in my kindergarten Christmas spectacular! (Technically, I guess that could be considered drag… he IS a boy reindeer, after all.) I went back to Bangkok for my high school reunion a couple years ago and there are still kids there, who were little at the time, who came up and said, “Wow. I still remember you as the Lion in the Wiz!” (still technically drag, since he was a boy lion haha!) At Hawaii Pacific University I got into the community theatre there that was run by my drama professor, but once I moved to Tucson there really wasn’t much of an outlet for my performance cravings, so eventually drag became that outlet.
I am currently partnered with an amazing woman, and am slowly but surely falling in love with her two boys (sssshhh!!). I don’t have any kids of my own, at least of the two-legged variety, but I do have 2 dogs (Dragon and Chloe), and 3 cats (London, Athena and Disco). And a cockatiel named Simon, though I guess technically he’s my partner’s, though I’m the only one he talks to.
I read a lot, have been known to write some too, I hate it when people use big words incorrectly, and it drives me crazy when people use the wrong “they’re,” “their,” or “there” in a sentence. Or “you’re” and “your” for that matter. One of my biggest pet peeves, that I only started noticing after moving to Arizona, is the word “height.” For some reason, everyone and their mother pronounces it heigTH. There’s no TH at the end of the word! It’s a T, not a TH. Drives me up the flippin’ wall.
My father put me in every type of dance class imaginable when I was little, as well as gymnastics (I can’t even do a cartwheel anymore), swimming, violin and piano. I’ve also been known to pick up a guitar, a bass, a tenor sax and drum sticks on occasion.
My previous work experience includes grooming, production coordinator at an LGBTQ independent film company, marketing director at a development firm, “romance educator” at an adult store and the only chick in the computer department at Circuit City, among other things. I am the epitome of the “jack of all trades, master of none” saying. I can do a lot of things, but there are only a few things I do REALLY well.
So there you go. Me in a nutshell. I think sometimes we forget that behind the makeup, duct tape, panty hose, and facial hair we are all real people, with lives outside of the bars, histories and herstories. We should try to connect on that level more often, because it will make our professional relationships that much better.
I will NOT tell you what the name on my ID is, but my friends call me JC and have since I was 13. J It’s a pleasure to meet you.