It's so very odd; queens have all these weird things in common physically, things that make us exactly the opposite of what we want to be. It makes me wonder if gender confusion is a genetic thing, and the tendancy towards being transgendered just tends to come with a certain body type. Or maybe it's not genetic at all! Maybe people just get tired of having a super-masculine or a super-feminine body, and it's a "grass-is-always-greener" situation.

Hm. This situation requires further study. I shall return to the field, and report on my findings in a future edition of this journal. 

4/25/99
K's been having more time off lately, which is fantastic, but since I've been trying to catch up with her I haven't had much time for Miss L, which sucks. Life's never simple, huh? Miss L doesn't have a car while she's here in town, so when I have seen her lately I've mainly been driving her around to various appointments.

K's old pal Linda and her husband Bob dropped into town last weekend, and we had a great time taking them up to Melrose and showing them all the wacky stores. I've seen some articles lately saying Melorse is tired, it used to be a lot more fun ten years ago, it's gotten really scummy, etc. Well, I didn't know the damn street ten years ago, I know it now, and as far as I'm concrened Melorse is just the bestest. It's block after block of funky clothes stores and comix stores and restaurants and nasty punk fetish stores and noisy goth stores and... Well, what's not to love, damn it? Yeah, it's scummy in spots, but it's a good kind of scummy. It's just the right mix of hip and scummy. Bob & Linda were particularly taken with Wound & Wound, a fantastic toy store that has every kind of wind-up toy you could imagine, from Robby the Robot to Mister Bean to little barnyard animals having sex. We also had a gay old time at Necromancy, this store that sells all kinds of bones and dead bats in jars and stuff like that. Necromancy was neat, but it was also where we had the one disaster of the day when K was bitten by a vicious dog! She was playing with this big moody whippet, the store's mascot, and it took a chunk outta her hand! It wasn't a really bad bite, but the store's owner kind've freaked out anyhow, she was really sweet. This being LA, she was probably terrified we were gonna sue.

The whole day, me & K kept struggling not to talk about drag stuff in front of Linda & Bob. I'd see a cute dress in a store window, & I'd have to stop myself from going, "Oooh, must have!" I had to act all butch. You should have seen it, it was hilarious. I've gotten so used to being Ursula that I don't do "boy" very well anymore. 

5/3/99 
I was really looking forward to this month's Makeup. E! was going to be there filming a special (At last, Ursula's television debut!), K & Miss L were both gonna go, there were some performers who sounded interesting... It should have been great, but it ended up being a fiasco. It all began to go screwy a day or two before the show, when my fucking back went out again. Makeup is all about standing around for hours when you're not jumping up and down like an idiot, both of which I really couldn't do now without risking being crippled for life. Well, I was determined to go and have a great time, so that's what I was gonna do, whether my stupid spine agreed with the idea or not.

I was still psyched up to go, but then some stuff came up & K had to drop out. That left me & Miss L to go it alone, & lately things between the two of us have been... complicated. Here's the basic conflict: I adore Miss L, no foolin', but she's had this run of crappy luck lately. I've been trying to help her out in various ways, but I'm really starting to wish she could be more self-sufficient. Lately I've been struggling to catch up with all the stuff I gotta do to keep my own damn life in order, and it seems like every time I see Miss L there's a bunch of favors she needs/wants me to do. It's amazing how many answering machine messages that girl leaves that begin with the words "Hey, I need..." Miss L is a high-maintenance kind've pal, and she seems to expect that I'll just help and help and never say no, and of course I just can't do that, no matter how shitty it makes me feel to turn her down. Jesus, I don't know if I'm a doormat, a bitch, or a little of both.

It's been hard, and the night of Makeup there was a lot of tension in the air, and all these weird little zingers were going back and forth between us. I hate weird little zingers; I either want to like somebody, or kick their ass and be done with it. I'm no good at cold war.

I still hadn't given up hope that me & Miss L could put this all behind us & have fun at Makeup, but then when we finally got to the club the line outside was astonishing, it was like one of those Phantom Menace crowds camped out on the sidewalk. We parked a few blocks away & trudged over, then when we got to the line we ended up waiting with Rev. Dan & Katie, two of my local heroes. Normally I'd be delighted to spend time with these two, but my brain went into a big stress coma and I turned into the most boring, whiny girl alive, & I couldn't think of anything to say that wasn't a gripe. We spent a tense hour and a half in line, and we still hadn't gotten in. It was cold as hell, my spine was killing me, and I no longer cared about getting into the show or impressing Dan & Katie with how cool I was or patching things up with Miss L or getting my gorgeous mug on TV or anything at all but going home. I knew Miss L still needed a ride, so finally in desperation I pleaded with Dan & Katie to drive her home. They said OK, & Dan even gave me a hug before I left to try & squeeze some of the bitchiness outta me. I said my goodbyes, and crawled back to my car. I knew I'd regret not seeing the show, but at the time leaving felt like the best decision I'd ever made.

Well, the next day I called Miss L, & as it happens maybe leaving wasn't such a hot idea. About two minutes after I left, they finally got in. Miss L danced all night, had a great time, got filmed for E!, and even met Empira's new best friend, Courtney Cox. I don't give two poops about Friends, but I'm such a celebrity junkie that I would've liked basking in Courtney's essence anyhow. Afterwards, the whole gang went out & grabbed a late night snack, and they had such a swell time that they're talking about all going to the next Dragstrip together.

Of course, I wanted Miss L to have a good time. The poor thing deserves it after some of the bad breaks she's had lately. I'm not envious, I'm not bitter. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not.

5/15/99 
Oy. The Miss L situation is really turning ugly. I'm starting to feel like an unpaid servant or something, and I just cannot take it anymore. I've tried to talk to her about it, but it ended up with me saying everything & her going, "Uh-huh, uh-huh..." and nothing really changed.

Lately I've been withdrawing, not calling her back & not seeing her much. I feel guilty, but at the same time I don't see why I should keep putting all this energy into a friendship that I'm not getting much out of anymore. It's sad, because when Miss L first came West we really were having a great time. Her fearlessness about shopping for drag & her sense of humor about things have been really inspiring to me. I know I'll miss her if we drift apart, but I just can't continue with things they way they've been.

Miss L's the closest friend I've made since me & K moved out of Long Beach last year, but this whole experience has got me wondering how well I handle friends anyhow. Really, now that K's work schedule has relaxed, I find myself wanting to just stay home with her to watch bad TV & cuddle. It's too much of a hassle to have other people in my life! I do like to run around & have adventures, & sometimes I wish K was a little more outgoing, but if it comes down to a choice between a night on the town or a night with my sweetie, I'll pick my sweetie!

What I need is a friend who I could ignore until K has one of her awful busy stretches at work & I'm feeling lonesome again, and then, when I call them up, they'd be happy to go out & do something. Of course, I'm way too insecure & needy for the kind of person who could forget about me for long stretches like that, they'd drive me crazy. I need somebody who would be really sweet & thoughtful & fun, but wouldn't be hurt if I ignored them for weeks at a time. I need a fire extinguisher kind of friend; "In case of loneliness, break glass".

My friendships have always been problematic at best. I've never gotten along with boys. I can't take the constant, simmering hostilty of male friendships, and the endless jockeying for the alpha male position. I'm just not that good at sarcasm, either giving it or taking it, and a fine grasp of sarcasm is crucial to male bonding. To me, all those jokey put-downs that men lob back and forth aren't funny, they're irritating. Men are so trained to keep their real feelings hidden that low-grade agression is the only way most of them have to express affection. Yuck! Let me outta this monkey house!

My closest friends have always been my girlfriends. I don't feel truly close to somebody unless I can call them sweetie & pinch 'em on the butt. I've had great friendships with my girlfriends, but when we broke up, the friendships ended too. I wish I could just be friends with a girl, but it's too complicated. If I was really close friends with another girl, K would be really jealous, and I wouldn't blame her! If she became super-close buds with some guy, I'd be pretty pissed myself!

You'd think friendships with other drag queens would be the answer, but so far that hasn't worked out too well, either. To shut out life's pain, most drag queens have cultivated a very superficial, glitzy attitude. Superficial and glitzy can be fun, but a little of it goes a long way. I love to shop & club-hop & all that, but to really bond I need to put down the feather boas once in a while & have one of those raw, personal discussions about life, the universe, & everything. Raw & personal discussions are terrifying to most drag queens. They just want everything to be happy happy joy joy, all the time, and that is obviously not me. Besides, other than cross-dressing I don't have many common interests with most drag queens... They're usually into sports & cars & other yucky boy stuff.

I think I might have a solution to my friendship dilema: I need to hook up with a butt-ugly lesbian who's really femme, but who is only attracted to really butch girls. That way we can shop & do girly stuff, AND have heavy discussions about life... and since the girl would be a lesbian, I wouldn't have to worry about her being attracted to my boyself, and since she only likes butch girls, I wouldn't have to worry about her being attracted to my girlself, and since she's butt-ugly, I won't have to worry that I'd feel attracted to her, and K won't be  jealous all the time.

So... any sweet, funny, smart, arty, butt-ugly lesbians who read this, email me, and we'll set something up! Come on, girls! Maybe you've always seen your hare-lip and your hunchback as liabilities, but as far as I'm concerned, they're a positive boon!

Hmm. On the other hand, if my butt-ugly lesbian femme friend is really into butch girls, she'll probably fall head over heels for K, which would have complications all its own. Sigh. Back to the old drawing board.

5/25/99 
Miss L's gone. She went back East. Our friendship turned so sour that she never even called to say goodbye. It's funny, I got so used to her being out here that I still can't quite believe she's not still staying at that cruddy hotel in Culver City. I go back & forth from feeling devastated to not caring much about the whole thing. I don't understand myself at all, sometimes.

We've been seeing a lot of movies lately; The Phantom Menace, The Matrix, Austin Powers. The Phantom Menace was a beautiful bore (Mr. Binks was way more annoying than the Ewoks), and Austin Powers was funny, but not nearly as funny as the first one. Of the three pictures, I liked The Matrix the most, which I certainly wouldn't have predicted would be the case. It was some fucking Keanu Reeves kick-boxing movie! It was exciting and it looked nice and everything, but if you liked The Matrix, go see Dark City; it's basically the same movie, but way better. And it has Jennifer Connelly. Purr.

Jesus, can you believe I actually do film criticism for a living? You can tell, right? You don't get this kind of piercing analysis from just any shmoe. 

5/27/99 
The new site's up (Note: Ursula's referring to the very site you're reading)! Hopefully this thing'll make me rich, so's I can quit my crappy day job. Everybody else is getting rich from online smut, so why shouldn't I? I've really slaved over this site, trying to make it interesting. Now I just hope you little fuckers click on some of those ad banners, so I can make some dough... Um, I mean, I hope all of my darling, precious fans enjoy this site as much as they enjoyed my former one! Kisses!

6/7/99 
We went out to the last Makeup, just me & K, and while we did have fun, it was complicated by my dopey back. I could feel it tensing up while we were dancing, and then, bingo, it went into a spasm that just about killed me. We had to go home early. Whee! I adore my body, I really do.

Don't go away, I ain't done whining, yet. The other day I checked out Miss L's website, and she'd posted a bunch of pix we took while she was out here. There was one interesting detail; I'd been rather strategically cut-out of a couple of pictures, and in the one crowd shot in which I could actually be seen, I looked awful, and I wasn't identified.

Golly, whatever was I thinking to have given up a friendship with such a warm and considerate girl? The regrets, the regrets...

(Hm. Maybe I'm a little better at sarcasm than I thought!)

6/7/99 
We've got an o'possum living under the house! We're offically white trash. We've named him Scratchy. He's just a pup. It's nice to hear bumps in the night and not worry about burglars or monsters or anything; it's not a rapist, it's just Scratchy! The landlords keep saying if we see any possums we should tell them, so they can come and kill them all. We've been leaving peeled bananas out for Scratchy instead. He seems to appreciate them, but it's tough to tell with a possum, they don't really wag their tails or anything. He just radiates this contented marsupial glow.

6/20/99 
The last Dragstrip had a 60's theme, and we went all out. I wore this crazy, skintight, shocking pink dress with a gross sixties belt (I looked better in pink than I would have thought, although it's NOT one of my favorite colors!) K was a stunning, shag-a-delic '60s babe with a tight, baby blue boobie shirt, a fuzzy black miniskirt, and lots of glitter. YUM! We had a groovy time, but unfortunately something crappy happened that I still haven't completely gotten over. We'd just met up with a drag queen friend of ours, and he'd been hitting the sauce a bit (at least I assume he had; I'm trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, here). We were sitting around talking, when out of nowhere he said, "God, I just gotta say that your girlfriend is way too good-looking for you. There's a real discrepancy here, I can't get over it". Um, hey, thanks. This would've been annoying if it had come from somebody who was normally bitchy, but this was somebody I've always liked (and no, I'm not gonna name names). It was also somebody who knows exactly how insecure I am about my appearance. I didn't know what the hell to say, so I just said what I really felt, which was, "Gosh, that's a really awful thing to say". He elaborated by saying that I really need to work on my eyebrows, which only made me even more pissed off. Drag queens have this whole weird obsession with eyebrows; if you haven't plucked yourself raw, they act like you're Groucho Marx or something. I do pluck, but I don't go crazy about it because I happen to like my brows. You've seen the pictures on this site; I'm not a big brow-monster or anything. I think my brows have character. God damn it.

I'm not really sure how to feel about the whole thing. Every day I change my mind about my looks, and just when I'm finally starting to think I'm maybe not a total beast, I get some shitty little comment like this. I've always worried that I wasn't cute enough to deserve K, and now, without my asking for it, I've got objective verification that, yes indeedy, there is a WIDE DISCREPANCY between our levels of attractiveness. On the other hand, K seems to think I'm cute enough, and this WAS just some offhand, possibly drunken comment made by some queen who was probably just being catty because I have such a hottie girlfriend. Maybe I'm not gorgeous like K is in the Cover Girl kinda way, but I got a young Barbra Streisand/Bette Midler thing going on, the kind of exotic sensuality that you can only achieve by being a big giant gorky girl with strong eyebrows and moles and a nose out to there...

That settles it; I'm never leaving the house again.

7/1/99
Well, there's been some good news and some bad news in the last few days. The good news is that the person I wrote about in the Brow Incident entry called & apologized. He said all the right stuff, & was so nice about the whole thing that he made me feel guilty for having held a grudge. I could tell that he was kind've shocked that I'd written about that stuff in my online diary, but I recently decided that I've been holding back too much in here. If this thing is going to be worth reading, I gotta deal with the reality of my life. So from now on, it's no more Mister Nice Girl! Well, I'll still be nice, but I'm not going to worry so much about what people think of me. Trying to keep everybody happy only gives me tummy aches, and besides, it doesn't work. Somebody's always gonna be pissed at me, no matter what I do.

Case in point: Miss L, the East coast queen I've written so much about lately. When I wrote those entries about her time out here, I wasn't trying to be nasty. It had been a big event in my life, and I was trying to write about it in a fair but entertaining manner. Unfortunately, Miss L was quite hurt by what I wrote. I'll spare you the gorey details, but suffice to say that you could basically go line-by-line through everything I wrote about Miss L, and she'd have a conflicting version of events. There are two sides to every story, and I'd never claim that the unpleasant turn things took between us was entirely her fault. We both made mistakes. She's asked me to remove as much personal info about her as possible from this journal, and out of respect, that's what I've done. I've even changed her name. Maybe I'm a dope, but some part of me STILL hopes we can work our way through this mess and be pals again someday. I ain't holding my breath, though.

Oh, that special about Makeup aired on E! the other night. It made feel so hip! This was "my" club, I'm a jaded regular there, and here it was being touted as like THE hippest place on Earth. The special also made me really sad. That night that E! was there filming was the night when things between me & Miss L first began to go really sour. We'd had our problems before, but that was the first night when I didn't care about working it out, I just wanted to go home & forget about it. It was this awful experience that dragged on & on, and when I watched that special it all came back in a rush. Brr.

I thought the special was OK, but I was really puzzled by some of the stuff they chose to include or exclude. Some of the really colorful creatures there (like Empira, my bearded, tights-wearing tranny pal) only got a few seconds of screen time, while some folks I was much, much lss interested in were on forever. Why did they decide that the guy in the bad Gene Simmons makeup was more fascinating than Empira? Christ, Empira's a show all by himself! There was also one moment that made me want to chuck one of my high heels through the TV screen. There was this part where somebody mentioned people who show up in "bad drag," and to illustrate the point E! cut to some poor old tranny hobbling around the club. Christ, that was just so heartless. You know that poor tranny watched the special, and she must have just about DIED when she saw that part. Well, if that old tranny happens to read this, I want her to know that I thought she looked way more glamorous than the Gene Simmons wannabe E! was so obsessed with!

We haven't seen Scratchy for a few days, but we still hear mysterious bumps in the night, and the bananas are still disappearing at a comforting rate.

7/3/99
Tonight's Makeup was a mixed bag; we had fun, but both of us weren't feeling very well, so our energy was a bit down. K was a little rockabilly boy with her Elvis 'do and a spectacular hot-rod daddy-o shirt. I didn't know what the hell to wear, so I threw on my black velvet bustier and a velvet mini. I've worn it out a lot and I'd wanted to do something a little more extreme, but the bustier does really show off my cleavage. Because of my height, everybody's at eye-level with my tits. It's so cute watching them try not to stare when we talk! Hey, at least if my conversation's boring, they've got something to look at.

We were anticipating a massive turn-out after the big E! special, but if anything the place seemed a little less thronged than usual. Maybe all of the local trendy people have decided the club's gotten too trendy now or something. The bands were fun, but I'm sorry, some of these girls just could NOT sing. There was this one giant queen from San Francisco who came out topless, showing off her weird little boobies. She was like seven feet tall, with this big mane of blond Sammy Hagar hair, and she had big boy shoulders and stiff little boobies like Ms. Manson in the "Dope Show" video. She looked kind of cool and kind of frightening at the same time.

Watching these bands made me really want to get on stage again. It's been years since I was in a band, and I've never performed in drag, but I've always been, uh, interesting onstage. I'm a good shrieker. I get so terrified about being in front of a crowd that I regress to this seething, shivering animal state. It's not pretty, but it's very punk! Ah, forget it... I'd probably get up there and totally freak out, I'd puke all over the front row. At least they'd never forget me.

The best part of the night was probably when we went upstairs and we were hanging around the bar, and "Bang A Gong" started playing. This was the designated hanging-out area, it wasn't meant for dancing, but "Bang a Gong" is such a silly, sexy song that we just couldn't help ourselves, and we started dancing anyhow. Dancing can be really hard for me sometimes, I get self-conscious, but we totally ignored the puzzled frowns of those around us, and had a blast. I felt so dirty and sweet... I was a hub-cap diamond-star halo! I was dirty and sweet... and I was K's girl.

7/5/99
This site passed its one month anniversary a few days ago, and I never even noticed! Happy Birthday to me! I'm pretty happy with how the site's been going so far, but there are still some things I want to change. I want to start including my artwork... the real stuff, not them doodles that showed up sometimes on the old site. I also want to do more interviews. I've met so many fascinating deviants, and they deserve a showcase. I'm disappointed that you visitors to the site haven't taken more advantage of some of the features. The personals section is still sitting there gathering dust, and I'm hardly getting any response to my Ask Ursula advice column. From the stats counter that web1000 sends me I can see that my picture pages are getting more popular all the time... It's flattering, but please don't tell me you only love me for my looks!

Today we were down in Long Beach visiting my folks, and I'm afraid I traumatized a little boy for life. We were in a restaurant, and I overheard some guy mention that the special of the day was "Jungle Hot Dogs". It took a second before I figured out that he'd really said JUMBO hot dogs, and I thought it was so funny (I'm easily entertained) that I began to sing "Jungle Hot Dog" to the tune of "Jungle Boogie"... Well, at that very instant, a little black kid walked by. He heard me, and he turned around and gave me this look I'll take to my grave. He thought I was calling him a jungle hot dog! I just about died. It was like one of those moments when you're sitting in a class, and your chair makes a sound that sounds exactly like a fart, but it wasn't a fart, so you start moving around in your chair so it'll make that same sound and everybody will see that it wasn't you, and of course now the fucking chair won't make the fucking sound, and the more you sit there wiggling around trying to make the chair fart, the more you look like a nut. That's what the look this kid gave me felt like. I frantically tried to think of some way to explain to him that I wasn't calling him a jungle hot dog, but he ran out of the restaurant before I could do anything. He probably ran all the way home, and cried himself to sleep. Christ. I suck mule balls, man. Now this kid will probably grow up to hate all white people, and it's all my fault! He'll become some homicidal maniac, and he'll kill white sorority girls and carve the words JUNGLE HOT DOG into their skin as a kind of grisly signature. I can't bear to think of it. On the other hand, maybe the trauma induced by my dopey remark will inspire this kid to become a great civil rights leader! I can just see him thirty years from now, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, giving a rousing speech that begins with the words, "Once, this was a nation where a little brown boy could not walk into a restaurant without fear of being called a jungle hot dog..."

When we were done with my folks, we went out to see a fireworks show at Veteran's Stadium. We didn't pay for tickets to get INSIDE the stadium, we just parked our butts on the lawn outside, with all the other white trash bastards. It was sort of neat, but we were downwind, and all this fireworks garbage came raining down on us! No shit, there was all this cardboard and glowing little red embers falling on our heads. I suppose it was thrilling, but frankly it all made me want to hide under the house with the possums. I don't really like fireworks, it's like being shot at. If you haven't figured it out by now, I'm a delicate creature.