One Good Sentence

If I had to choose one word to describe me as a writer, I’d go with fabulous. I love the sound of it; its dramatic flair — the way you can exaggerate the “a” and it becomes faaaaaaaabulous.

I am a fabulous writer.

People often use the word fabulous without knowing its true dictionary meaning. For the record, it means
almost impossible to believe;
having no basis in reality;
purely imaginary.

Perfect.

When you are a writer living in San Francisco, you can’t help but be fabulous. We’re enveloped in a special kind of magic here.

Fabulous weather and fabled history, stunning scenery spread across a true foodie’s paradise. On days when I feel like I have nothing: no job, no money, living off my credit cards (this happened more recently than I like to admit), I often feel better if I take a bong hit and go out for a walk.

Because this setting is everything.
I have to remind myself.
Stop, and inhale all of it.

Do you smell it? Yes, you do.
That’s Karl the Fog, wildly spraying FES. It’s the signature scent of nerds, misfit dreamers, and attention-seeking artists everywhere.
The Freedom to Explore in Safety.

FES is like fairy dust. The more it gathers in concentration, the more life becomes a little more magical. In San Francisco, it cumulates into a thick blanket of fog. That fog envelopes the city, day in and day out, with an intoxicating scent of yes.

yes
Yes!
You have permission!

GO DO YOUR ART.

Make our world a little more fabulous.

My name is Eddie Jen.

If that sounds too pedestrian, I’ve gone by more fabulous aliases in the past.
The first year I competed in a drag beauty pageant I was Jenn U.N.
Get it?
The next year I competed as Jenn Ital Wurtz.
There’s a picture of me at San Francisco Pride one year in a one-piece woman’s bathing suit, walking the entire parade on 7’’ platform stiletto heels.

My knees were better then.

However, I don’t know if you can truly call me a drag queen. I really hate wearing high heels. And if there’s one thing a drag queen can never do — it’s being seen in flats. 

I’m more of a gender bender. I did drag for the first time when I was sixteen. I grew up in Bountiful, Utah. I didn’t have friends at school. My first real friends — the kind where I slept over and laughed until six in the morning — were transgender sex workers. They told the best stories. They loaned me their Payless pumps and did my makeup for the first time so I could sneak into gay clubs.

Drag queens don’t have to match our photo IDs.

Later on in college, when I learned about gender as performativity, it confirmed a lingering suspicion I’ve always known on some level. My teenage experience, as ostracized and lonely as it was, was pretty kick ass and original.

I have stories to tell.

Now is the time to tell them.

We have to spread FES.
We have to evolve to the best of our humanity. Failure is not an option.
We have to spread FES because everyone deserves a safe and dignified life. 
It’s the only way we will survive as a species and save this planet.

I’m here for it.

I write fabulously.
I write bigger than life.
I dress bigger than life.

Because I have just one, one life to save my planet and my country and the human race.
One life.

Of course the narration is bigger than life. It has to be fabulous.

I was not prepared for the rejections.

I don’t think any artist is. It’s so demoralizing. They’re literally nonstop. Rejection upon rejection, with some of them actually thinking it would serve me well to let. me. know. how. much. they. hated. my. piece.

My inner drag queen, the one that was raised by transgender sex workers, has her heel in her hand, screaming, hold me back!
Hold Me Back!!!
I’m going to cut some bitches…

Eventually, the writer in me wins. I calm down and save myself from committing a felony.

Because to write is to be innately optimistic. I write with the hopes that my words might elicit a LOL, or a sigh of recognition. I keep writing because writing makes life a little more manageable.

I’ll put a period on a sentence, and I’ll say, It ends here. 
This train of thought ends here. 
I will begin a new sentence after this. 
A new paragraph, even. 

That’s my writing philosophy. It may be my life philosophy as well.
To be fabulous. To be a fable. To write until I find the moral of the story.

When you pause to break life down into sentences, you see the humor.
You see the light.

You see how life, like writing, turns on one good sentence.