floating in a tin can

March 4th, 1969

Despite Lee's well-known distaste for parties, she has been looking forward to this one for a long time. Purim is her favourite holiday and all the people here are people she already knows, even if only as passing acquaintances; if there are strangers to deal with, they'll be there with someone she knows. This significantly reduces her anxiety, though it's not gone entirely. It is never gone entirely, she just worries less.

Also, one is religiously obligated to get roaring drunk, so nobody is allowed to judge her when she does exactly that. She's going to have the world's worst headache in the morning but does she care? No.

It's a costume party, of course. Lee agonised forever over what to be — she thought about Daisy Buchanan from The Great Gatsby but worried people wouldn't recognise it. She ended up in Marilyn's iconic pink gown from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, having managed to tease her hair into approximately the same shape. The jewelry is borrowed from a friend. Michael as James Bond is slightly less convincing; Lee had left it to him to acquire his own costume, optimistically assuming he would find a tuxedo that fit. Oh, well. She still thinks he looks handsome, but Lee is a little biased.

All that said, this is certainly one of the more unusual gatherings in New York — which is saying a lot. Lee did not exactly explain to Michael what this is all about, only said they were "people like her," and there are indeed several people "like her." In 1969 getting hormone treatments is not impossible but it is a challenge and Lee's androgyny is a bit of an aberration — most people do not pass as easily as she does without help and don't have the resources to get that help. Most of the people here, though, aside from a couple of drag queens, are just gay (the word they are increasingly coming to prefer), both men and women, slightly more women couples than men. In a couple years this group will go on to become Beit Simchat Torah, the first all-queer Jewish congregation in New York, but in '69 they're mostly just loosely organised friends and acquaintances.

They're well into the night, everyone is drunk and happy, and the noise level is teetering on the edge of 'public nuisance'. Lee flops on the couch next to Michael and narrowly avoids spilling red wine all over herself. "Cursed is Haman. Oops, I'm not drunk enough," she says cheerfully before taking another enormous swig. Her head lolls onto Michael's shoulder; for all the good-natured complaining she does about him and his clothes she sure spends a lot of time rumpling him further.