Blow Dryers, Brunch, and Best Friends: Drag Houses Are Communal Living at Its Best

In this excerpt from the forthcoming anthology Living, Together: Reimagining Community in the Age of Disconnection, contributor Jake Montano, a.k.a. the Bay Area drag queen Imelda Glucose, reflects on drag houses as a form of chosen family.I was nine years old the first time I applied makeup to my face. It was rouge that my older sister, who was barely a teen, had somehow gotten ahold of. I was used to hanging out together in her room, secretly getting lost in the dreamy eyes of celebrities ripped from pages of Teen Vogue she had emblazoned on her walls. But, on this day, she wasn't home and I'd been lured into her room by a new gold-foiled stick of makeup sitting on her dresser. Looking in the mirror, I applied the lipstick with amateur enthusiasm while Mandy Moore’s “Candy” played from a compact disc. Mouthing the lyrics, I pranced and swayed, revealing the suppleness of my left shoulder as I pulled the collar of my crewneck to the side — maganda. I imagined myself as a Filipina damsel, like I’d seen in telenovelas: beautiful, mysterious, but captive. This was a special episode in the programming of my preadolescent life. And it was a short one, because without even being seen or reprimanded, I knew the pigment had to come off before I left the room. I’d watched more than enough TV to understand what happened to boys who wore girls’ things. I savagely rubbed the makeup off and joined my family downstairs.Now, I tend to think about things other than the terror of getting caught. I consider whether I should redraw the liner to make my lips comically fuller, or leave them thinner for earnestness if I’m going to perform an Adele or Tracy Chapman banger. Sometimes I fantasize about what it would be like to get “into face,” which is what we drag artists call getting ready, with my sister, who is now a mom and barely has time to do her own makeup, or with my mom, who has never really worn any. As I trace the contours of my lips with gloss or glitter,