Last night I had my first Kiki and Herb experience — and, if this really was their farewell concert, then probably my last. Approximately 2,800 people were in the audience, a vast majority of whom were gay men. I’m not quite the scenester that Sparky and Andy and Charlie and Jonno are; by no means did I see my own gay history of New York City pass before my eyes, as they did. I did see several familiar bloggers and a former Gay Gotham Chorus member. Half the people I knew were the people I was with: Matt and Mike and the other Matt and his boyfriend Marc and our friends Dan and Jaye.

I really enjoyed the show, and that must be the most inane comment ever written about Kiki and Herb. But I did really enjoy it. It’s just that whenever I encounter camp — or maybe it’s not camp, but never mind; whenever I encounter something camp-ish, I feel like I’m getting only about half of it. I’m simulating a genuine response rather than feeling something visceral. My life has been neither tragic nor fabulous enough (aren’t those really the same thing?) to respond viscerally; I’m not worldly enough to be tragic, and I’m not stylish enough to be fabulous. The rest of the audience seems to be tapping into some collective well of personal experience that I just can’t reach, even if I’ve had my own dramatic moments.

Now, I’ve been in therapy on and off for 13 years — do I get a therapy Bar Mitzvah? — and most of my neuroses have been julienned into tiny pieces by now. So I know that I should be content to just be me. And I am, really. But still.

It’s not that I want to be more like them, necessarily. I want to be more like me. I want to be the me-est me that I can be. That’s why I need to get things going for myself, start my writing class next week, learn how to write magazine articles, try to get my name into real print instead of just cyber-print.

I have to learn how to be fabulous in my own way.