Klautu! Verata! .... Necktie!

Hello lovelies! I know its been a long time since I've been here, but I promise I'm back this time.

I will be back in a few days and I will give an update on where I have been and what the hell I have been doing since last April.

Stay stylish!

Hello darlings, I'm not dead I promise, life just went a little topsy-turvy over the past few months. I'll be posting again soon to fill you in on all the details.

Stay Sweet!

Raison d'être, or Why This Blog exists.

Ok, now I realize that this probably should have been my first post, but oops oh well here it is now.

I decided to write this blog and make the journey to becoming a drag queen that much more difficult because its something that I would have wanted when I first started thinking about this. I've always been told that in order to be a drag queen of any kind of merit you need a drag mother, but after watching 4 season of RuPaul's Drag Race and having a few of those amazing queens say that they were self taught gives me hope that I could perhaps at some point join the pantheon of drag goddesses that this show has brought forward. Sounds cheesy and contrived but I'm seriously not sucking up to anyone, who am I sucking up to anyway?

In all honestly RuPauls has done so much for drag it blows my mind, if you ask anyone to name any drag queens they know almost everyone will say RuPaul, in a manner of speaking she has made drag mainstream. It isn't something that people are ashamed to talk about, not that drag queens were really ever shy about their particular past-time of choice, but I have straight friends that talk about Drag Race whose only real connection to the LGBT community is, well, me.

But I digress, this blog is something that I hope at one point is something someone can look at and actually use, not just me babbling randomly about dressing like a woman. I know that I might be setting my hopes a little high but who cares, remember go big or go home.

To the Beat of My Own Drum.

What do these songs have in common? Besides me, probably nothing, but these three songs accurately represent the extremes that my taste in music tend to occupy. It's not unusual for my MP3 player on shuffle to shift from The Original Broadway Cast of Jekyll & Hyde to System of a Down. I believe my performances will be just as varying.

A lot of queens tend to stick to club music or remixes of pop music intended to be used in dance clubs, in this area of the country it seems to be the popular choice. Not that it's a bad choice, I plan on doing a few songs that fit into this genre myself. Others in this area like to do extremely campy versions of popular songs such as "I Fucked A Squirrel (and he liked it)," these performances are often hilarious and when done well can reduce the audience to tears, in the good way of course. I've yet to see very many queens do non pop ballads, or punk/goth rock, opera (not that I would really expect it, opera isn't really that popular anymore), or even music from Broadway. This could just be this area of the country or it could be that I'm only getting a small portion of the drag community here.

Am I going to shoot myself in the foot doing music that has never really been used in this area of the country? Or am I going to be some kind of unusual phenomenon (doubtful :P). Regardless of where I fit into the drag world, I will perform to the songs that I want to perform, not what conforms to the expectations of what people think is "Drag."

Now I realize that some of the things I say in reference to the drag world sounds very egotistical, very confrontational, even standoffish but I don't mean to be like that. I just have a different vision of myself than what most people expect of drag queens. I don't think I'm better than anyone else, and even if I just have to remember the fact that I haven't even performed at this point and those thoughts would quickly dissolve because it would just be pure ego.

I think that this post can be simply summed up with a simple phrase, expect the unexpected.

Fashion Forward? Maybe not....

A lot of drag queens try to be on the cutting edge of fashion, be it with sky-high shoes without heels, unusual fabrics sewn into equally unusual forms, or as I've heard one queen phrase it "gluing shit to other shit," I doubt I will be one of these queens. Don't get me wrong, I have a serious love for fashion that my everyday style betrays, but haute couture isn't my thing.

My personal aesthetic isn't what people would expect when they first meet me. I like black, I like the darker side of the spectrum, I love heavy sumptuous fabrics, I love embroidery, you get the idea. I have a very Victorian sense of style. If my wallet could support it, I would have a closet full of vests and opera coats, but sadly my dream wardrobe is for now just that, a dream.

I don't really envision myself as a trendsetter and I really don't want to be, too much pressure to continue to impress, but I'm definitely going to go against the drag norm in my area of the country. I live in the Midwest, which means big hair, high brows, sequins and glitter and everything else that comes to mind when you think drag. Now I understand that because of my frame and height, I'm going to need big tits and equally large hair to look proportional, but with heels I really don't want to reach seven foot with my hair, plus that isn't me. I love long hair with some volume that moves naturally, not these rigid constructions some queens wear on their head, no shade honeys just not my thing. I love dresses that flow and move and react to the body, not just hang because of the weight of the beading or sequins or what have you attached to them. I love dramatic but still somewhat natural looking eyes, not the sky high eyebrows that were popularized by Divine, some people like that look and it works very well for some people, but as I've said several times before that's not me.

The norm here is glam mixed with campy, a little serious blended with a little silly, which is extremely entertaining but that's not me. I love watching the queens lipsync to parodies of popular songs, and just camp the hell out of that performance, it makes me happy and we all need a little happy now and then. But on that same note I love the queens that will come out and perform a heart-wrenching ballad that makes me want to cry, because like I said just a moment ago we all need a little sad too, just for that release of emotion if nothing else.

I want to be something else entirely, I want to be announced as "Our own queen of darkness, Aria Nicholas," I want people to look forward to my performances not because they want to laugh or cry, but because they want to see what I've come up with this time. I want to be the queen at a pageant that while standing with the others looks like I'm going to a high class funeral, or pulled out of a Sherlock Holmes movie. I want Aria to have many faces, the rocker chick that would sooner punch you in the face than kiss you, the sophisticated grande dame of the brothel with that sparkle in her eye that makes you come back for more, or the cabaret performer that just sits on a stool singing but you still just can't take your eyes off of her. A tall order, I get that, but anymore its go big or go home, and I have no intentions of hiding in my home any longer.

A little inspiration, A little history

"Mama told me not to waste my life, she said spread your wings, my little butterfly. Don't let what they say, Keep you up at night. And if they give you sh, Then they can walk on by."

This particular lyric struck a chord with me, granted my mother never actually used these exact words, nor did she ever call me her "little butterfly," but the message was always similar. Do what makes you happy, regardless of what other people think.

I've always had an issue with that from the time that I was little, I never fit in with the boys and because I was a boy I didn't fit in with the girls. I was never really good at sports, like everyone else in the midwest I did my stint on a tee-ball team, but as you can expect by the theme of this post so far I was never very good. When it came to activities of the athletic variety I wasn't exactly an all-star.

Things thankfully turned around when it came to middle school, I joined concert band and found something that I was good at.  I continued with concert band all throughout middle school, which moved seamlessly into marching band in high school. I LOVED marching band, I cannot stress that enough, I loved marching band, it gave me confidence, it got me in shape, garnered me a swarm of loyal friends, and took me places I never could have imagined.

My junior year one of my friends encouraged me to audition for the show choir band, which then opened me up the the glorious world of musical theater. The next two years went as well as can be expected as a sexually conflicted teenager surrounded by temptation.

But enough of my childhood and to get to the point. I've always had an issue with self-confidence, whether it came to my musical ability, my social charm (lol), or my body. But recently something clicked in me that made me realize that I just don't care. I think the fact that I've worked retail for going on 8 years now, put off the things I want to do, but more importantly put off my dreams for fear of failure and disappointing those around me. But if you don't fail you don't learn, not that you have to fail to learn mind you but it's a great motivator.

Something about the lyrics of the song posted above made made my brain finally realize that I've waited long enough, and that the people around me, whether they be positive or negative, help me grow as a person and help Aria be the fierce bitch that I need her to be.

To quote the great Rupaul, "What other people think of me is none of my damn business." 

The Closet Door

I am, or will be eventually, Aria Nicholas. No, I'm not confused about my identity, quite the opposite actually. I am secure enough in my masculinity, what little I claim to possess, to wrap myself in the persona of what the world refers to as a drag queen.

This blog is my journey, my thoughts,  my rantings, my opinions, and many other things that I haven't truly discovered yet. This blog is the closet I once had to hide in to protect myself from the spiteful place that is the world, and it is the closet where I shall reinvent myself. This blog is the venue by which my ideas will be exposed to the great big monster known as the internet for all to see, critique, ridicule, absorb, listen, or whatever else that individual may need to feel good about themselves.

I feel that this post so far has been very poetic and deep in meaning, I wouldn't expect that to be a constant. I have my moments of fluid poetic eloquence, but in the same breath that moment may switch to "Bitch, don't make me rip out yo weave!" Like everyone I have my moods of lucidity and moments that are as clear as mud. I hope to keep this blog on the side of clarity, but knowing myself the way I do, and I think I know me pretty well, I wouldn't hold my breath.

On that note, this blog is going to house my foray into the fabulously insane world of drag, the makeup, the wigs, the fake tits,  the heels, the rhinestone, the uncomfortable things we men must do to mimic the female form. Some posts may be a video or a picture of something that inspired me for either a look, or a performance. Some posts may be product reviews of things that drag queens use on a regular basis: makeup, wigs, corsetry, jewelry, or anything else I may think is relevant to the topic at hand. And, as it is a blog, some posts may just be the fevered ranting of a retail employee gone mad.

That being said, allow me to welcome you to Aria's Closet.