When I

When I put my new clogs on, I feel like a drag queen. It's like in Dead Poets Society when they all stand on the desk to get a different perspective. I'm standing on the desk, walking around on the desk at five feet, five inches; let me tell you, things are different from up there. My usual lumber across campus turns very deliberate. My big steps, used to keeping up with my long-legged father, are shorter and louder as the heel of the thick rubber sole hits the pavement or carpet or linoleum. They are my Serious Business shoes. The kind of thing that I am supposed to wear to my first job interview. They are something, I guess, that says, "I am Gretel, kinda butch lesbian with a very expensive pair of nice-looking, sensible shoes. I am almost comfortable."
When I get back to my room, I take them off and and remember what it is like to stand, again, amongst the peons. When you are shorter and outspoken, people use their size to intimidate you. It is why, when I was a lifeguard, my (male) boss would make me get down from the observation chair to tell me that I was doing something wrong. It is why, when he was up in the chair, he would yell at anyone and everyone. It is why, when I speak up, people call me a bitch.
When I raise my hand in class to answer a question, the blood raises in my cheeks and my heart races in a way that only happens when I am truly scared. According to every biology textbook, this is called "fight or flight." It is the feeling you get when the dude you were trash talking at the bar pulls a switchblade. Because I don't trash talk at bars, this is the fear-raising activity. I raise my hand and say something that could make me look stupid. Because what scares me the most, more than the police, more than the fact that we are slowing slipping into a sweet death, is that to feel smart, to feel loved, to feel good about myself, I have to take that risk of seeming dumb, seeming overly eager and vulnerable, seeming overconfident when I shouldn't be.
When I meet people who have only met me in the past year and a half, they are amazed that I've only been out for a year and a half. They look at me incredulously and say, "really?" because I am am confident. I have my hair short, flipped up sometimes when I take a shower and it stays that way. I want to tell them that they wouldn't have talked to me two years ago. I would have been another wide-eyed, quiet straight girl. I want to tell them that everything they see is hard sometimes for me. I psych myself up before I leave my room. I pretend I am the queerest thing to hit Miss America. Smile, shoulders back, ignore the fact that you sound like a phone-sex worker. Ignore the people who stare at you like they are trying to look right through you.
When I put my new clogs on, I feel like a drag queen.