The one thing I remember ever since I was a child was my dissimilarity to any children my age. Yes, I was young and impressionable and my mother called me �submissive� but I always thought I was different.
I played with my sisters and helped build their doll houses. Loved the frills and laces on my cousin�s 5th birthday dress and secretly desired the pink shoes she�d worn that day. Oh and my mother�s dressing table was a source of perpetual wonder. The lipstick, the mascara, eye-shadows, the silver plated mirror�..each of them intrigued me much more than the chocolate at the Lindt store. I would strut around my sister�s room with her red tote slung around my shoulder and envision myself as sleek as the Barbie that was displayed at Toys R Us. Occasionally, my mother would find me smeared with color all over my face. �Oh honey, this is not for you� she would say in extreme distress and express her scorn over a ruined $25 Lanc�me lipstick. Yet I was so drawn to these little �girlie� things that they were never quite out of my sight much less my mind.
School was a riot with the class bully always picking on me. As a result, I hung around mostly the less attractive girls who merely sulked at their thick glasses and envied Melissa who always had a candy or two from the boy sitting next to her. To add insult to injury, I wasn�t particularly academically inclined but neither was I detained for sub-standard performance. Oh yes I loved my singing and art classes and thought I�d someday visit if not the Musee du Louvre at least an art exhibit of aspiring artists from a neighboring city. I was elated when I landed the part, as one of Cinderella�s ugly sisters in the annual school play, even though Shirley with her golden curls would have suited the part much more than me.
As I grew older, I found myself browsing through piles of Vogue, Elle, Marie Claire�they became my bible of sorts. I would spend hours at the neighborhood bookstore admiring the lovely women who undoubtedly had the �haute couture� physique and looks to boot. �Someday�, I thought, I would buy me that velvet dress and get me those Minnelli shoes. Oh how the boys would swoon at me!!!
By the time I graduated from high school, there was not a feather of doubt in my mind I would major in fashion design. My father the academician could scarcely talk to me in a civilized manner. He thought it was an utter waste of time to invest 4 years to ultimately become a tailor. My mother was at the verge of tears but tried to find solace in the fame of Jean Paul Gaultier and Pierre Cardin. And my brother, we never quite connected�..not with his obsession for those head banging, marijuana maniacs who brutalized music and still called themselves musicians.
When I was 21, I finally moved away from my family. With the money I�d earned working 25 hours at Wal-mart I headed to San Francisco where I met Guy. He was in one word�.Adorable. The friend that I�d never had. He understood me like my own family had never had or tried to. He was so warm, so giving, soooo��.everything that I couldn�t quite explain and express. I wanted to tell the world about him.
My only hesitation---------I was born Tom D. Sherlock, Jr.
