How Y'all Doing? Misadventures and Mischief from a Life Well Lived

by Leslie Jordan

I get my sense of humor not only from my daddy, but also from my mother’s daddy. His full name was Homer Howard Griffin.

I honestly believe if I had not been born homosexual, my experience with the church would not have ended the way it did. I found great comfort in the church as a child and I wanted to be an exemplary Christian. I wanted to follow the teachings of Christ to the best of my ability. I think that if things had been different, I would still be in the church singing hymns. But as I got older, I could not reconcile my beliefs with the religious teachings of the church on homosexuality. So at seventeen years of age, I walked away.

My decision to sing hymns on Sunday was not a result of churches’ closing their doors, but more a result of my mind trying to find a resting place from all the chaos in the world. But the songs were so beautifully received!

When we began working on the gospel album, we started putting together a wish list of who I could sing duets with. At the very top of my list was Dolly Parton. I have loved Dolly forever and ever. Amen.

I almost fainted when I got the news. Was I really going to be recording a hymn with Dolly Parton? If you had told me this news a year ago, I would not have believed it.

Since I was a little boy, I have wanted a pony farm. It’s a dream that has been with me through all the seasons of my life.

I was hooked with the first pony I petted. So the dream began. I wanted a bunch of ponies, not just one.

I cut out photos of barns, pictures of fencing surrounding the pastures and paddocks. I cut out pictures of tack rooms and feed rooms. I cut out pictures of haylofts. I cut out pictures of anything remotely related to horses and ponies.

When I was young, I read every book ever written about horses or ponies. I think the greatest gift my mother gave me was my love of reading.

Sometimes the bookmobile driver would have to run me off, as I would sit there all afternoon.

In my late twenties, I decided to try my hand at making a living working with horses.

“You can always tell when Mother’s drinking. Her butt gets smaller and her hair gets higher.” Well, this particular morning, Miss Cary must have been on a roll. Her behind was ridiculously small and her hair was poofed sky-high. She had a cat under each arm and was holding two Bloomingdale’s shopping sacks as she weaved her way down the shed row of the barn.

“Watch close, darlin’! You must do as I do. You must carry them with you while doing your chores around the barn. Swing them slowly. To and fro. To and fro. Ever so gently. Did I tell you they are inbred and highly nervous? And must be swung daily? They love being swung.” And with that, she handed me two cats ensconced in Bloomingdale’s shopping sacks and headed back up to the big house. I just stood there slack-jawed holding those darn cats. I carried them into the barn office and called Sammy. Before I could even get halfway through my story, he interrupted me.

My job at Old Mill Farm was to help “break” the yearling racehorses to the saddle. This is a slow process; it takes months to get the “babies” ready for the racetrack. You cannot very well just saddle them up, jump on and let them buck till they get used to it like you see in the Western movies.

Since I was so little and weighed just over a hundred pounds back then, I was usually the first one up. It was scary in the beginning, but I got really good at helping “break” the yearlings to saddle.

So, at sixty-five years of age, I decided to begin lessons in saddle seat equitation. The first thing you learn, as with any riding discipline, is the subtle nuances that figure into really good horsemanship. It was the first time I had been on a horse in over thirty years, but it felt as if I were back on my old pony, Midnight.

I think our dreams are what sustain us in hard times. Dreams are what keep us childlike. I love that they can grow and expand as we grow and expand.

In my travels over the years, I have always tried to read books by authors from the area I am visiting. My job has afforded me the best experiences in travel. I am always visiting with a solid purpose, and on a per diem! Voraciously reading the local authors from where I’m working, I always get a wonderful sense of the local culture and history.

It did not take long for me to realize why people would be afraid of Virginia Woolf. But not me. I am fearless when it comes to my reading. I will not let fancy-schmancy authors discourage me.

This was long before I realized what a self-centered pain in the ass I am sometimes.

But Tate took a moment. “Leslie, here’s the way I see your character. Every Southern town has one.” “One what?” I was truly perplexed. “That man who is married with five children, but everybody ‘knows.’” “Knows what?” I asked. Tate looked at me like I should know. He turned away and began to deal with another problem. And then it hit me. The town sissy. That’s what I was playing. The town sissy. Well, I thought, that shouldn’t be a stretch.

I was so wrapped up in the business of trying to figure out who my character was supposed to be and what a newspaper editor should be doing, I had not noticed that Emma Stone is an incredibly gifted actress. I feel honored to have worked with her.

I mainly said it because Wes Chatham was so damn good-looking. And Tiffany was real pretty, too. But mainly because Wes Chatham was so damn good-looking. “So, I guess I’m renting a minivan,” mumbled Allison under her breath. “Hush. He’s cute,” I said. “They will pay you back from petty cash.”

Well, Bryce Dallas Howard took one look at that poor creature and took charge. She’s a take-charge kind of gal, and thank goodness for that. The rest of us were so befuddled about what to do next. Right away, Bryce located a local vet that could take the puppy the next day to give it a good examination and shots.

There is a real art in learning how to give a beseeching look as the plate is passed. It makes folks open up their pocketbooks. We hit pay dirt, as the whole cast and crew had gotten their per diem that day and everyone had cash. I think I collected almost four hundred dollars.

Skip E. Lowe was a D-list celebrity who acted like he was on the A-list. I suppose you could call him a gossip columnist. He had been something of a child star and had written a book called The Boy with the Betty Grable Legs. I thought the whole thing was creepy.

I used to see Mr. Lowe parading around Hollywood like a D-list Truman Capote. He wore hats and flowing scarves and flounced all around—snappily dressed, but if you looked closely, you realized the clothes were from the thrift store instead of a designer boutique.

So, when Lee Daniels told me he wanted me to resemble Skip E. Lowe, I did a little bit of research. As I was reading about him, one thing jumped out at me. Skip E. Lowe was from Greenville, Mississippi.

Why this little town keeps popping up in my life is a mystery to me. But I suppose we should hoist one for Greenville, Mississippi. A place that grabbed ahold of me and has not let go.

Being queer is such an integral part of who I am and why I am who I am. I can’t imagine myself any other way. And I don’t want to be any other way. And I certainly don’t think playing with dolls is why I’m gay.

I remember my sisters got a Tressy doll. You could push a button on Tressy’s stomach and her hair would grow. I kid you not. She had a long ponytail that stuck out of the top of her head and when you pressed that button, the ponytail got longer and longer. I wanted to get my hands on that doll so bad. I did not want to play with her or dress her up. No, I had constructed some big plans for Tressy. One day, in a fit of inspiration, I took a pair of scissors to the Tressy doll. I cut off her long, flowing ponytail and cropped her hair into a stylish pixie cut. Then I took a black ink pen and gave her Twiggy lashes. It did not turn out as I expected. She looked god-awful and real scary. Shorn of all her hair, with black circles around her eyes, she looked like a drug-crazed mental patient. I knew I was in big trouble.

I asked my grandmother Griffin, who was my mother’s mother, if she would teach me how to sew an apple-print sheath for a doll. She readily agreed.

It’s odd; I remember sewing it, but I don’t remember showing it to anyone. I suppose I knew I was supposed to be ashamed of sewing a dress for a doll. I think I left the sheath in a drawer at my grandmother’s house. I always think about how remarkable my grandmother was. She never, in any way, questioned why a little boy like me wanted to sew a dress for a doll. When I told my mother I was gay, one of her concerns was that she did not want her mother and daddy to know. They were old and she felt they would not understand. I found out years later from a cousin that my grandmama and granddaddy had suspected I was gay since I was two years old. And they loved me all the more for it. Having had seven children, they were blessed with lots of grandchildren. But I think I was their favorite. * * *

The American Girl store. I walked in and all of it came flooding back, my love of dolls and doll clothes. I realized I could spend hours in that store. And remarkably, I did not feel one ounce of shame for loving everything in that store. I suppose it was the work I had done in my recovery programs about ridding myself of shame. No shame in my game.

Most people think recovery is about quitting all the alcohol and substances. Well, that is the hard part. But recovery is really about learning to live, one day at a time, without the use of anything that affects us from the neck up. To be happy and content.

I had seen Don Norman around the rooms of recovery for years and loved the way he “walked the walk.” He was not one of those people who could only talk a good game. So when I had three years clean and sober, I asked him if he would work with me and help me. His answer was immediate and finite. “Oh, no, no, no, honey. I can’t work with you. Too much drama, honey. You’re always wrapped up in the drama.” I can honestly say I had not one idea what he was talking about.

Then when I was five years sober, I hit a wall. I realized most of my problems stemmed from my own internal homophobia. I had fallen out of the womb into my mother’s high heels and been ashamed my whole life. I was once told that I was a “fag-hating fag.” It’s an awful way to put it, but it seemed to sum up that horrible feeling.

But I dialed him up the next morning promptly at ten minutes after eight. He answered on the first ring. “What you ’fraid of, baby?” “Um . . . heterosexual men. Um . . . getting sick with AIDS . . . and um . . . that I sound like a big sissy when I talk . . . and um . . . heights.”

Don Norman also had me write how I thought I had acquired each fear. I wrote for days and days, years and years. Slowly, I began to realize how much my imagined fears and how much my shame had hindered me throughout my life.

So when I walked into the American Girl store and felt no shame at my love of dolls, it was a milestone moment. Not one with trumpets blaring and angels singing, but a nice quiet realization that I had changed.

Maybe it wasn’t a traditional gift for a shower, but I bet you money that little girl will love her horseback-riding doll. I know I do. I saw her in the window of the American Girl store recently and she looked great.

But at that very moment, the organ swelled, everyone stood and the bride swept down the aisle. Mother said I froze like a pointer dog. I stood stock-still, with my eyes glued to the bride, as she floated by in a cloud of white tulle. I remember its being the most thrilling pageantry I had witnessed in my three years on earth. I was breathless. Afterward, it was all I could talk about for days. In celebration of it all, I made up a game called Bright and Goon, my three-year-old way of saying “Bride and Groom.”

That Christmas, when they took me to Loveman’s department store to sit on Santa Claus’s lap, I proudly announced I wanted Santa Claus to bring me . . . a bride doll!

Christmas Eve, it was all I talked about. “Santy Claus is going to bring me a bride doll. And I am going to play wedding and brush her hair.” My childish enthusiasm must have really affected my mother. She went to Daddy in tears. “Allen, are you going to explain it to him in the morning when there is no doll under the tree? I will not know what to say.” Still upset, she went into the kitchen to start cooking the Christmas feast. In a few minutes, she heard the front door shut.

Now, please bear in mind, in 1958, my career-army daddy scoured Chattanooga, Tennessee, in a freak snowstorm, to find his beloved three-year-old son a bride doll. Okay, full disclosure. I made up the snowstorm. I have no idea why I felt the need to add a snowstorm to embellish this story when the story is a big deal on its own! A man’s man like my daddy hitting the toy stores looking for a bride doll for his son in 1958! No snowstorm needed.

Thank you, Daddy. For having enough love for your son to buy him a doll. And thank you, Don Norman. For helping me live a joyful, shame-free life. I hope the two of you have met in the sweet by-and-by.

When my dad’s plane went down, I was eleven. That is a terrible time for a boy to lose his father. Especially a little boy who fell out of the womb and landed in his mama’s high heels. From the day of his funeral on, I was haunted by the feeling that perhaps I had been a disappointment to my daddy. He was such a sports fanatic and I had failed at T-ball.

That belief in his disappointment was my secret shame, one I carried into adulthood. Why is it that we love to drag all that baggage from childhood with us? We heave it dutifully. We haul it everywhere we go. And we pull it out at the drop of a hat for all to see. Nope, we are not going to let go of all that baggage.

That was the summer they decided to send me to camp at the Baylor School. It was exhausting. So many activities I had no interest in. Archery? No thank you. Dodgeball? No thank you. Nature hikes? No thank you. A big bonfire and wiener roast? Must I? My only big interest at that age was horses and ponies. I had my own pony, Midnight, whom I missed during camp days. I just wanted to be riding Midnight. But the camp was situated on the campus of the Baylor School. Back then it was just for boys but now it is a school for boys and girls.

Honey, I won a trophy. No tacky little ribbon for this boy. My dad was jumping up and down. He was so proud. But here is the kicker: I do not remember much about the camp or the trophy. But I can remember my failure at T-ball like it was yesterday. The thing about shame is that it is so selective. I knew my dad loved me. He showed it daily in a million different ways. So why remember failures?