El Dorado Ballroom LA

A Divine Evening

My late adoptive grandmother Solange used to tell the same story about me every time we were in the same room. She’d get this look of haughtiness on her face and she’d say to everyone “You know we rejoiced in Jerusalem the day she was born.” The story is that they were in a pilgrimage (back then she went to places like Yugoslavia and the Middle East with the Catholic Church) and they got a phone call at the hotel that I had been born a girl. It’s story that I’ve heard so many times and still can’t fully believe. It’s 100 percent true but over the years I noticed she usually told it when she felt I had strayed from that religious foundation in some manner—which to be clear was every single time I saw her because I’m a troll.