We all need rituals. I decided that putting on lipstick would be one of mine. I don’t know how many days passed, how many carefree days, walking the block and a half to Pangborn Elementary School like a movie star or a morning television star. We didn’t have a color TV at home, but I could tell even from the small black-andwhite set that sat on our kitchen counter that Barbara Walters, co-hostess of the Today Show, was wearing frosted lipstick. So I left the house, an intrepid reporter like Barbara, who had interviewed Fidel Castro, ready to face any tyrant with confidence. Any tyrant but my mother, who one morning intercepted me as I was about to leave the house.
“What is on your lips?” she asked me in what I could only register as horror.
I froze in fear, not sure what to say. I opted for what I thought at the time was the truth.
“It’s my lipstick.”
“That’s not your lipstick! That’s my lipstick. What are you doing with that lipstick on your face?”
“Well, I’m going to school. You don’t leave the house without your lipstick, so I thought I should wear lipstick, too.”
“Boys don’t wear lipstick!” she shouted, as if this were something I should know, and using that word “boy” which grated against the very fiber of my being every time it was applied to me.
“But Mom! I’ve been wearing it every day. No one cares.”
“You’ve been wearing lipstick to school for days? How many days?”
“I don’t know.” I was crying. “But it’s okay!”
“No, it’s not.”
She marched me to the bathroom and wiped it off my lips. I left for school that day defeated, disappointed, and bland. It would take me another twenty years before I realized that it was okay to leave the house with my lipstick.
Now that I’m in my forties, frosted pink seems a little too coquettish for a person of my stature. But looking back, I think that frosted pink is a perfect color for a little trans child in first grade. At that time I certainly wasn’t allowed to think of myself as a trans child, much less decide what color lipstick was appropriate for one. So many of my thoughts and feelings and ideas became fractured when I was young. So much secondguessing informed every decision that I made that I became a paradox in a way, a combination of bravado and insecurity. The scrutiny I was under by the vigilant gender police kept me aware that my first choice should always be followed by a second or third choice before any decision was ever made. That way of thinking permeated my life and has kept me from moving quickly on any impulse for most of it.
RECENTLY, AT THE AGE OF FORTY-SIX, I WAS scheduled to do a series of performances at the Sydney Opera House. In preparation for my trip, I asked a friend of mine for some Ambien for the horrible jet lag I anticipated having after the twenty-four-hour journey. He threw in a few Adderall, which he told me would help me wake up and give me energy during the day. I’ve never really been one for uppers—too many of my friends went crazy in the ’90s on crystal meth so I’ve always shied away from stimulants. But one night, I was expected at a dinner party. Since I was tired and a bit anxious I decided to give the Adderall a try just to see what would happen. I found myself much calmer, and focused.
I was raised that if you have a headache you wait awhile to see if it goes away before you take an aspirin. You only go to the doctor when you are very sick, and you don’t buy new shoes until you’ve worn out the old ones. So even though I felt better on Adderall, I wasn’t sure what I should do about it.
A week later, I was at a party speaking with a friend’s father, who happened to be a psychologist. He told me I should be careful of Adderall because it is an addictive drug and should only be taken when prescribed. He asked me how it affected me. I explained that my usual dithering was diminished. If I felt sleepy, I knew I should take a nap. If it was time for me to go somewhere, I found myself getting dressed and leaving the hotel. These simple things that most people take for granted became less and less difficult for me. After I described my reactions he said, “You probably have ADD.”
Attention deficit disorder. It sounds so strange. A deficit and a disorder. Is that like anorexia nervosa? People don’t think they have that. Or what’s it called when people can’t read or write in the right order? Dyslexia! Cher has dyslexia. So does Tom Cruise. They bonded over this condition during their affair in the 1980s. After Cher broke up with Tom, she hooked up with Rob Camilletti, the Bagel Boy. Is my attention deficit disorder causing me to ruminate about tabloid stories of yore right now instead of telling you what sort of confusion the very idea of having ADD stirred up in me?
There was a lot to think about. First of all, if I had ADD it would mean I would have to get a prescription. I hadn’t had a prescription for anything other than antibiotics for an occasional strep throat or passing nonspecific urethritis since I was a child. Even then, I didn’t have to take anything for an undetermined period of time. Could I afford ADD medication? Perhaps ADD was an affliction to be indulged in by people of a higher economic bracket than mine. Maybe I was just telling my friend’s father these things because I wanted to keep taking Adderall. Maybe I was unwittingly becoming a speed freak. Maybe the romance of being like so many of my fallen idols—Judy Garland, Edie Sedgwick, Neely O’Hara—was getting the best of me. God knows I was tired of the show business slog: trying to come up with new acts and the energy to go to new places, the wherewithal to smile at one more stranger . . . Perhaps Adderall or speed or whatever would lighten the load of my incessant and superficial interactions. Conversely, what if Adderall allowed me to focus on all these people, places, and things? Would I get bogged down in the present? Maybe this disorder had served me well over the years. After all, I had managed to carve out a career as a world-class artist to a very boutique audience. They had seen me rise from postage-stamp stages in the back rooms of San Francisco to the legendary Carnegie Hall twice, all the while performing as a character who would have been my greatest nightmare to consider as a child. If I’d had Adderall and made informed decisions all my life, where would I be now? Most of my work and strategies in life had been about following my instincts. Having been in Jungian analysis, I had become very comfortable with allowing my unconscious urges and desires to lead the way. Sometimes logic and pragmatism had intercepted my path, but in general I’d never been one to make carefully thought-out and considered decisions.
So when my friend’s father said, “You probably have ADD,” I was simultaneously relieved and terrified. I knew he was right, and that I would now be required to take action.
First I spoke to the psychoanalyst who I’d been seeing for the past four years. He is one of the few people in my world who I actually think is smarter than me. Although he is suspicious of using medication to offset psychological or mental disquietude, he encouraged me to see a psychiatrist for further exploration.
I made an appointment to go see a doctor. Psychiatrists, I have learned, can be welleducated, compassionate, and caring people, whose main goal is to come up with a quick diagnosis of your psychological infirmity, be it chemical or emotional. Within an hour, the psychiatrist I visited had determined that I do have attention deficit disorder and probably mild depression, and had offered to prescribe medication.
I refused the depression meds because I was suffering from a mild case of heartbreak, having recently broken up with my beloved traveling companion. I had faith that the depression would pass, given some time and some good sex. And it did.
2
Once I had my prescription