Short: Purim cross dressers
Abhorrent or chic?
Every single year for Purim and Halloween I do the same costume of plastic surgery bandages. Except one year I was a sexy widow. I was nervous about dressing in drag and walking in heels and it was raining outside. I clomp-clomp-clomped from my nasty studio apartment at Parc Lafontaine to Saint Laurent in my thrifted Steve Madden pumps until one of my shoes completely disintegrated. The heel cracked off and pulled the sole with it, and my basically bare foot touched the wet pavement. Figuring I could probably fix it with some duct tape, I walked into a furniture store and asked the person behind the desk if they had any. Keep in mind, it was like early March and a weeknight, and I looked like this:
The French Canadian normal person behind the counter was like, um… no… so I hobbled out the door all the way to the burlesque bar, where I arrived in time to watch some guys carry my friend’s sister who uses a wheelchair up a very narrow staircase. A man outside wanted to take a picture of me.
It wasn’t my first time cross dressing. Every year I would go to Rocky Horror dressed like Magenta. I wore the same black heels and the same versatile little black dress as a base and threw on an apron. My wig was cheap and looked horrible, and when I did my makeup I looked very severe and more like a man than I usually did. In other words, I wasn’t trying to pass. As a sexy widow, I went blonde with a wig I scored on Bunz that smelled like smoke, and did my eye makeup running down my face to look like I had been mourning. When I looked in the mirror I thought I kind of looked like my mom.
Now that I’m older, purim feels different. I haven’t clomped in years. The last thing I did before lockdown was go to a purim party, get enormously shitfaced, and then walk into work the next day hungover in time for all of us to be sent home for good. I’ve worked from home ever since.
In a lot of ways, my life has become much more domestic. The seudah at our shul is a far cry from the queer Plateau burlesque bars of my youth. My husband and I are feeling very competitive about our mishloach manot, for example, and we carefully curated a selection of anchovies and salty snacky things (yes eye roll we get it) that tie back to our costumes. And yes – we’re doing a couple’s costume. I won’t spoil it, but let’s just say we’re skipping the last minute plastic surgery bandaids and going back to our roots. And this year, it’s a lot less chush*.
chush (also choosh) (adj.)
Pronounced: /χʊʃ/
Lacking style or effort; exhibiting a nebby, loserish quality.
Characterized by an unrefined or unintentional lack of taste.
Example: "Those socks and sandals are so chush."