Subtitles section Play video
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- If it's a studio day,
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and I'm shooting content for YouTube,
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I like to be finished by 6:00 p.m.
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That way I can go home and do some editing
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and pat myself on the back for having done drag today.
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Hi Vanity Fair, It's me Miss cracker.
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And this is everything I do in a day.
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[upbeat music]
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I wake up and get out of bed
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at seven-- at 10:00 a.m.
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I use my phone to wake me up
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and I put it on the most obnoxious setting
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because anything soothing, I will ignore.
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I only set one alarm because I am determined
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and I will get up after the fourth snooze.
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I check my phone, don't tell anyone,
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before I even roll over.
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The first thing I look at on my phone
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is pictures of me.
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It's to give myself confidence.
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I'm drinking coffee all the time,
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like as we're speaking.
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I'm from Seattle, so the most important Part
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of my diet is coffee.
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I have my first cup of coffee
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as soon as I can possibly get to a pot
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we're talking about within an hour
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of when I wake up no matter what,
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no matter where I am in the world.
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I take my coffee however it comes to me
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if someone brings me a coffee
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and they're like I hope it's the kind you like,
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I'm like it's the kind I like the kind of coffee in it
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I don't care, can be cold, can be hot,
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could be ice, could have cream,
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could be black, don't care.
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I am a morning shower person
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because I want to get my day started right away
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and you can't do drugs.
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Smelling like I smell in the morning basically.
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[laughing]
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My typical shower is 10 minutes.
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You know why?
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The environment, I use a hydrating soap
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to moisten my skin and prepare it for shaving.
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Sorry to break the illusion.
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I use the cheapest shampoo I can possibly find
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because that's the way I am
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and I use a dove body soap to make sure
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that my skin is smooth and supple,
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soft and supple
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[laughing].
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I'm a religious toothbrusher.
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So I use a old fashioned toothbrush
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and I brush for three minutes that I carefully time
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on my phone to the second, 15 seconds
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for each surface of my teeth.
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I'm really serious about this.
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And every time the dentist gives me a compliment,
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I'm like, yeah.
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And I did it without an electric toothbrush.
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I floss religiously, like one of those people
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that gets a four foot long strand
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and does like a whole, like I'm toweling off
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between my legs like this much
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[laughing].
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Like this much floss.
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My glam routine if I am a boy
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for the day is putting on hands.
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My glam routine if I'm becoming a woman involves taking
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my shower, doing my morning rituals,
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sitting down in front of a lighted mirror,
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moisturizing and priming my skin,
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going through an hour and a half of makeup,
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putting on a huge wig that I made
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and stepping out into the world.
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The most important part of any glamor routine
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is leaving the house
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and I try to make sure
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to do that every time I glam up.
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Breakfast is as long as I can possibly delay it,
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it's called dieting.
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And then it's like all the carbs I could possibly find.
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[laughing]
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My favorite to go breakfast is eggs,
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and sausage on a croissant.
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And you can tear it up with nails on into smaller pieces.
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And that's the most important part
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because you can get it past your lipstick
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without messing anything up.
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By the time I'm having breakfast,
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I'm usually dressed because if I like gave my to self time
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to have breakfast,
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I would lose steam and never get in makeup.
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I would just spend the rest of the day matching.
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I based my outfits on where I'm going
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and what town I'm going to be in.
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So if I know that the author of Frankenstein
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was born in the town that I'm going to
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or die in the town
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that I'm going to I'm gonna dress like Frankenstein.
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That's what the day calls for.
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A day to evening look.
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[laughing]
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If I am going to be on stage,
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I dress very differently than if I'm going
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to be on camera,
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if I wanna be on stage,
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I know that I can paint bold,
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and I can take risks and try new things
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because it's going to be far away,
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like blasted out by the stage light anyway.
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But if I want to be on camera,
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I do the face that I know is going to work
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and that is not going to fail me.
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And I spend that extra time making sure all my eyes
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are crossed, and my T's are dotted.
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I'd say that it's noon by the time I catch an Uber
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to go to do some work.
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For me work means wandering around whatever town
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I'm in and meeting people that love drag
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and taking photos in front of landmarks,
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and the rest of the evening is of course hopefully a show
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if I'm not lucky, but the real work for me
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is in meeting people.
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I don't take a lot of phone calls during the day
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but I do take a lot of text messages
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from people saying, is this ready yet?
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Are you gonna have this submitted?
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What time is it where you are?
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And those are the things that take up the bulk
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of my life and they have gotten me so addicted to my phone,
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I should be ashamed, my old self that refused
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to have anything but a sidekick
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would be so ashamed of me right now.
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I tried to stay off social media,
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so I don't have the Twitter app or Instagram.
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I spend all my time on safari,
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looking at Twitter and Instagram.
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[laughing]
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Like To be honest,
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I tried to keep myself out of social media,
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but where there's a will there's a way
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and I found my way back in.
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By the time I have to do a show at the end of the day,
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I have already fully been in drag.
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[chuckles]
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For like, five or six hours.
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So all it takes for me is just putting
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on some dancing heels and putting on a leotard
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and saying okay, we have made our transition
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from gay to evening.
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Before I do a show, I always do like 30 minutes
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of rehearsal to make sure I know my numbers.
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But if I'm gonna put together a brand new show,
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we're talking like a week of rehearsal time,
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with two to three hours every day
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where I'm working through everything I wanna say,
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and making sure that my numbers are tight.
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From then on, it's only
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like little touch-ups every day just to say,
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okay, what have we discovered?
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And what can I do that's new?
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Usually for me, a show starts at like 6:00 p.m
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with a meet and greet.
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And then I say hello to everyone
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that I know and love, because I see a lot
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of faces returning, and then I go
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and I do a little Switcheroo with my outfit,
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and the show itself starts at like eight o'clock.
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To get ready for a show,
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I always try to hype myself up.
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So I put on my headphones and I listen to my tracks
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and I breathe deeply,
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and I'm just walking around like a monster
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because the most important thing for
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me to do is sort of embarrass myself
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in front of the stage hands.
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Because if I can do that,
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then I can get in the mood for a show.
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But if I stay shy
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and little backstage,
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that's how I'm gonna perform on stage two.
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So I try to bring that stage five up
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while I'm while I'm getting ready for the show.
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Oh, I always have outfit changes during the show
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because think kids expect production these days.
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We're talking reveals, we're talking backstage switcheroos.
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If I don't catch my nail on something,
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and almost yank it off by the end of the show,
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I know I'm not doing enough with my outfits.
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On a typical work day where I'm not gonna do a show,
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but instead shoot something for YouTube.
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I come to my studio in the Bronx,
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and it's this big open space that has everything
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I love all of my fan art
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and all of the clothes that I've worn over the years.
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It takes about eight hours to shoot a 10 minute episode,
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you have to prepare the outfit,
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then you have two to three hours
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of getting dressed that's four right there.
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It takes an hour to shoot
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the thing, takes an hour to take it down,
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then it takes three hours
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to get everything transferred and edited.
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So yeah for those 10 minutes, you have a lot of work.
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And if you have a really complicated show,
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it can take like 20 hours,
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I finished work at like 10 o'clock after a show is done.
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Let me tell you about when I get out of drag
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as soon as the curtains like, boom,
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I'm like slam and we are out of drag.
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[laughing]
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Unless there is an opportunity to be seen one more time.
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Like if I think that people might see me walking
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from the gig to my home,
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I will definitely stay in drag
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because these heels were made for walking
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and they deserve to be seen.
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After I leave the studio,
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after I leave the stage, the first thing I do
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is feed myself because it's the biggest means
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of self care and it's also the best way
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to celebrate with people.
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So whoever has been helping me all day long,
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we're gonna sit down together
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and break bread and enjoy that feeling
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of having done something beautiful
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for the world today hopefully.
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And I always tell people if it is cheese on carbs
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then it is a go, it can be lasagna.
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It could be Fettuccine Alfredo, it can be pizza,
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as long as is a cheese on carbs.
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That's all I require, no matter what I'm doing,
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it takes me like 10 minutes to get home.
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Because if I'm at home in New York,
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my studio is 10 minutes from my apartment
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so it's like nothing.
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And if I'm on the road, it is definitely 10 minutes
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or less between the theater and the tour bus,
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so that is a blessing.
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As soon as I am out of my drag, I am into my PJs.
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I have a lot of silly socks.
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I have kangaroos in space
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and two cans and grapefruit
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and all that kind of stuff on my socks.
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You know, when I'm in the socks
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that the day is done,
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I like to unwind with a nice binge-worthy show .
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I tried to only watch a binge show
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until I pass out.
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And then no more because I don't want to wrap