The first time I dressed in drag, I was in the seventh grade. I was at my neighbor Elena’s house for a Halloween party, and I didn’t have a costume. Elena took me into her room and painted my nails black. Then she applied eyeliner, mascara and lipstick to my face. Finally, she put me in this tight-fitting dark-blue dress and, voila, I was in costume. I washed most of the makeup off and put on my regular clothes before coming home from the party, but I left the nail polish on. I liked the way it looked.
The next day was Saturday, which was the day my dad took me to my weekly tennis lesson, followed by lunch and whatever other errands he had to run for the week. Before we left the house in the morning, my dad asked me, “What the hell is on your nails?”
My tennis instructor was a mustachioed man with gray hair and pink, leathery skin. I stepped onto the blacktop and he asked me the same question my dad had in the car. I told him I had painted them the night before as part of a Halloween costume. He told me I “looked like a fruit.”
After the tennis lesson, my dad took me to the store to buy nail polish remover.
I painted my nails periodically throughout high school, but it was during my freshman year of college that I started painting them regularly. The first few times I went home for breaks, I would stop at the drugstore for nail polish remover before entering my house, but eventually I felt comfortable enough to be around my parents with my nails painted.
My mom would give me a big hug, then look at my nails and ask me why they were painted. I would reply by asking her why her nails were painted, and she would say something like “Yes, but I’m a girl. Nail polish is for girls.”
I had the same conversation with my mother numerous times after that. Eventually she got used to my nails being painted and stopped asking me about it.
My dad never said much about my nails being painted, unless I was going to a family function with him. He would calmly ask me to remove the nail polish on these occasions, but I never did.
This dynamic went on for a while until last Thursday. My dad and I were driving to the liquor store for a bottle of wine to bring to Thanksgiving dinner at my aunt’s home. He asked me once again whether I would remove the nail polish before dinner. We got into an argument.
“Dad, it’s been three years. Everyone has seen me with my nails painted. You need to stop asking me to take off my nail polish. It’s really annoying, and I don’t think it’s such a big deal.”
“But it is a big deal, Jeremy. I know you’re doing this to be rebellious. I know you think you’re cool and edgy because you’re breaking the rules, but every normal person is looking at you like you’re a freak.”
“Grow up, Dad; ‘normal people’ need to stop being so judgmental. You’re my family, and we’re visiting family. Just accept that I like the way painting my nails looks. It doesn’t matter, and I think you are so close-minded for not accepting this. I paint my nails; get over it.”
“No, Jeremy, you need to grow up. Maybe you want society to not care about the way you present yourself, but they do, trust me. If you keep dressing like you dress, you’ll never succeed in life. Functioning members of society don’t do what you do.”
We were yelling at each other at this point, and my father pulled the car up in front of the liquor store.
“You’re miserable, you know?” I said.
“I know,” he said.
I went to Thanksgiving dinner that night with my nails painted.
Jeremy Haas is a UF English junior. His column appears on Wednesdays.
