I have always been a late bloomer.
 
I first bloomed when I moved out
of my father's house and influence,
and changed my college major to Theater.
 
I loved being a theater major, and I loved to perform,
but, as an actor, I developed a few idiosyncracies:
 
I didn't like to memorize lines.
 
I didn't like to repeat myself.
"Say something once. Why say it again?"
 
I didn't like to be "in character";
I preferred to be "a character."
 
I didn't like to wear costumes.
Let me qualify that:
I preferred roles where I wore
something other than traditional
modern male attire.
But I liked even more
to be in my own clothes
when I performed.
 
I learned basic Stage Makeup,
but I preferred to do my makeup
so it would be more convincing
up close than under stage lights.
 
So I stopped performing
and pursued writing. When
I began to teach in grad. school,
that seemed to be the perfect
type of performance for me.
 
The last time I put on a costume
and went out in public,
I was about 24 years old.
I went to a Halloween party
as Charles Bukowski.
 
I became an English professor,
but after six years as a professor,
I flunked myself out of academe,
because the outside-of-class
social interactions became unbearable.
 
Words were more manageable than humans,
and I ended up an advertising copywriter.
 
The next time I put on a costume
and went out in public was 25 years later.
 
Halloween 2007.
Another writer at my last agency
was dressing up as the Dude from the movie
"The Big Lebowski" and wouldn't it be awesome
if I went as Walter Sobchak,
the character played by John Goodman.
 
Though I identified totally with the Dude,
and not at all with Walter, I said "Sure! thing."
I was a very accommodating person in those days.
 
I threw myself into the preparation,
bought clothes and props and makeup,
and watched the movie over and over
to get his movements down.
 
When I arrived at the office,
I wasn't a worker in a costume:
I was "in character."
My posture changed,
my voice deepened
to the lowest octave in my range.
I grunted and growled and strutted
and was abrasive and dumb
and spoke in perpetual insults and boasts
for the entire day.
 
One of the first people to see me
was the head of the agency.
He did a double-take that startled me.
At first I was flattered that my disguise
had totally fooled him.
 
But there was a quality
to his realization that left me unsettled
when I stepped out of character
at the end of the day
and continued to unsettle me
until the events of my father's death
two weeks later pushed it out of my mind.
 
Even 18 months later,
when I first told this story
—on-camera for the film Lemonade—
I couldn't make sense of it.
When I was describing my boss's reaction,
I went silent and began to dissociate,
and the director had to prompt me
back to telling my story.
 
But I am beginning to see it now.
It may have been that one glance.
Well, the two glances—the one
he gave to a fellow man,
and the one he gave to me
as a specific human he knew
from five years of working with me —
that revealed how far I had diverged
from masculinity, because I had built
my portrayal of Walter out of the aspects
of masculinity that I personally detested.
 
I saw myself as different from the average guy,
but I still believed I passed in the world as a man.
 
But stepping out of that role to play Walter Sobchak,
exposed it as a performance I had been giving nonstop
for decades, and one I was giving for my own benefit.
 
And that was the end of the performance.