When I was 16 my dad took me to see a drag show.
A solo performance in a basement room in the Castro in SF. 16th St, just south of Market near Noe, across from Cafe Flore.
We stood in line on the street, walked down the steps, and sat in folding chairs with 50 other people. I don't remember much else.
Other than wondering if the performer was a man or a woman. Or a man dressed as a woman?
I vaguely remember telling my dad that I enjoyed the show. That it was funny and interesting.
My dad had told me he was gay two years previously. Right before his partner died of AIDS. Taking me to a drag show was another way of introducing me to a world I never saw back home in the suburbs.
I didn't tell my friends about the drag show (or that my dad was gay, or that his partner died of AIDS). I was too embarrassed to be associated with any of that around them.
They wouldn't understand and the teasing would have been relentless.
But internally I was excited to have been introduced to this new world – a little secret my dad and I shared. To know that "normal" could be more than playing soccer, listening to Jane's Addiction, and eating rolled tacos at Roberto's.
One of the many events that changed me.
That gave me an opportunity to experience that vast dynamism of the human condition.