rolling stones...

my adventurous life really picked up since i started traveling. it's wearing me out, but i'm still not quite ready for it to stop.  as soon as i got back from Spain, my old college roommate (i canNOT believe that I can say the sentence "my old college roommate") was coming through Amsterdam after an 18 month excursion on this side of the world.  Kim graduated during the winter of my junior year, and went to teach english with her finance' Tyler in China for a year.  They left China sometime in March, and have been touring all over the world, you know, BEFORE they return home for their wedding July 26.  They left China and visited our other roommate Brad who has been studying in Thailand for the last year.  Then they made their way west, and Amsterdam was their last stop before heading back to good ol' Wisconsin.  It was strange to see Kim-bo after so long, mostly because my mind could NOT comprehend that it had been 18 months since I had seen her last.  Kim and Tyler left before I got into my stand-up career, so when they came to the show that Chris and I were in on Saturday night in Amsterdam it was the first time they had seen my new life!  They loved it.  The show was a queer-gendered drag show (of sorts).  It was very strange as far as drag shows go because "Drag Queens" and Transgendered individuals live in two completely different worlds. Nonetheless, Chris and I performed in the fundraiser, and it was a really good performance for both of us.  It felt SOOOO good to be funny again, especially after the last time I flopped. It was also really fun to have Kim and Tyler in the audience, and I must give them props for being such good sports about it :)  I started my set like this: "After performing for a variety of Dutch audiences, I have learned that it is a good idea to reveal my identity before I really begin, and I feel that this atmosphere is perfect for that, so, I'd like to take this time to go ahead and 'come out' to all of you......my name is Jes....and I....am an American."  There was a lively amount of laughter, and then a Dutch woman in the audience shouted "Don't worry baby! It's not your fault!"  To which I replied energetically, "I KNOW! I CAN'T HELP IT! I WAS BORN THIS WAY!  It was not a choice!"  The queer crowd LOVED it. This was probably one of my best openings yet. The rest of the show wasn't flawless, however, since a lot of my lesbian humor wasn't as well recieved as you would imagine, stressing once again that Transgender issues, however queer they may be, are not issues about sexuality, but only about gender.