Living Out Your Inner Vernon Hoff

There's not much more to say about the literal Vernon Hoff, female impersonator. What can I say?

As much as we would wish for biographical details, etc., it seems they are not to be had. And anyway, what is a biography, except just a collection of ultimately unsatisfactory details? Every time you read a massive biography, what's the one thing you think of when you get to the last page? So what.

But I know I wish I had more details about Vernon Hoff's life. But looking at it in terms of a biograph, I already know I'm no worse off if I don't have them. If I had them, I'd diligently study them, collect them, put them in order, and archive them. And it'd be a biography. Then what? I'd sit back, look at it, and say, So what.

And what good does it do us to archive things? We're just looking for more things to archive, sometimes just for the sake of archiving it, and it all falls short of real life.

The key to real life is to live it now. And the key to really living it now is to have some inner impetus, an inner drive, hat longs to come forth, and does come forth. Whether you call it your inner Vernon Hoff, your inner Elvis Presley, your inner piranha, your inner gypsy, your inner whatever, it's the real you -- or the you that is real at any particular moment -- that makes life what it is, an experience.

Today I'm thinking of my potential inner Vernon Hoff. Which is nothing extensive, because it's not even Vernon, it's me. Everything I know about Vernon Hoff's biography is in these few little snippets. Big deal. But I know that what resonates in me with them in even a surface way is the key thing.

Every flashy thing you do, every glimpsing of whim and verve, every fanciful thought and flash of the joy of living -- whether it's conventional or unconventional, authorized or unauthorized, boundary pushing or not, transgressive or not -- can come forth.

When you hear of those who are transgressive, in the sense of crossing boundaries, usually you think of those who are flagrant about it, flamboyant. But it's surely just as satisfying, in some sense, to be quiet, sedate, modest, prim, proper, and withdrawn. One size doesn't fit all.

Sit in front of your mirror and look at your sweater. That's fun too, an experience.