Becoming Duchess Goldblatt

by Duchess Goldblatt

Travis nodded. “I can see why you’d be flattered. Drag queens have a very high standard for humor.”

Slide a piece of waxed paper between the left side of your brain and the right side to keep them from squishing together and confusing you.

Duchess doesn’t give the prize to nonfiction—she says nonfiction is only for sociopaths, children, and the criminally insane—that’s her having her little sly fun at my expense because I’m a nonfiction writer.

I think it was a Sunday afternoon, or maybe it only looks like a Sunday afternoon in my memory. (It’s hard to tell. Our memories are some shifty sons of bitches.)

he still hadn’t been able to make me understand what it means to love somebody without any hope of reward.

Duchess would always find some way to get people to respond to her, usually at times that were hardest for me: the middle of the night, big holidays, Sundays, dates that had special meaning to me. Duchess came to life to save me, and I wasn’t writing her for anybody but myself.

When someone you love dies, you lose them in pieces over time, but you also get them back in pieces: little fragments of memory come rushing back through what they cared about, what brought them joy.

Other people have it worse than you. Chew up your sadness and swallow it. Smile. Bring a dish to pass. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

If you have the education, wits, and leisure time to pursue your own interests, you have it better than 99% of the people who ever lived.