A Thank You Note ...

to the people who came to my show, the people who texted or direct messaged because they couldn't come to my show, the people who listened to me talk about this show for the past few months (and longer), and to the person who provided the very first kernel of inspiration: my heat-rash mottled, sun-sick, angry girlfriend.

For those of you who didn't see the show, you all know the name of its title character by now: Graham Canyon. It's really just a sound-alike joke, a typical punny drag name I said while hiking through the Grand Canyon in the summer of 2018.

We've all been there. No matter what the activity, no matter what the relationship. We've all been in a position where a friend wants to stay longer at a party where you don't know enough people and the ones you do know aren't so compelling. We've all been on a too-long drive or a winding hike with the end never quite in sight, while our travel partner seems totally unfazed by the meandering, or worse, enjoying it. And if you've never been there, maybe you've seen it: a couple at the batting cage or the mini-golf course where one seems to be an infuriating combination of adept and peppy while the other whines and drags a bat or club across the plastic blades of astroturf.

In the summer of 2018, my girlfriend and I took a road trip through the southwest. Both outdoorsy types, we decided to hike from the North end of the Grand Canyon down to Ribbon Falls and back. It is and always will be one of the most beautiful hikes I've ever been on. And in all honesty, I felt one hundred percent great in my body one percent of the time. My girlfriend, on the other hand, got so hot on the way back that dark red bloomed in circles on her ankles and calves. She got so hot that her whole face, normally a complexion I'd classify as "milky vampire," turned closer to one of those honeybaked hams you find at every holiday party. She got so hot that when I asked her some inane question, trying to keep her spirits up, she said, "I can't talk right now, I just need to keep going."

Sometimes you're too hot to talk. I get it. I mean I don't really, because I'm never "too" hot. And while "too cold" is something I am frequently, the solution for that is usually to chatter constantly while jumping up and down, so it's more of a celebratory, if not manic, situation.

I happen to love hiking in silence, so I took the cue and let things be quiet for a while. But at a certain point, when we started to climb back out of the canyon, and the air got thinner, and the dirt got looser, and our feet were starting to feel like wet sacks of flour, I figured I better think of something to say to keep up morale.

Another twenty minutes of silence and climbing passed before I mumbled, "What do you think of a drag king named Graham Canyon?"

She laughed softly, still not turning around. And that, ladies and gentlemen and neither and both, is how the character was born. And on Saturday night, almost two years later, Graham got to meet Santa Monica.

I still have one week left at the Beach House, so if you were at the show and would like to come and chat about it, I'll be at my office hours next Sunday. And as always, I'm here and here and here (that's twitter, ig, and my website, respectively).

There will be another, proper thank you coming soon. For now, I have to get to sweeping all the bits and pieces of papier-maché in my studio.
best,
analisa