She’d been anticipating it since September, when Justin proposed.

"You’re getting your make-up done, aren’t you?" she said at the time. "You’re the maid of honor! I’ll pay. Please just let me see you in make-up before I die…I’m eighty-seven…"

Immune to my protestations, she’s convinced I stopped wearing make-up because I’m gay. At 18, I left a ruralish town—where one didn’t leave one’s bedroom without eyeliner on—for Oberlin College, where one not only left one’s room un-lined, but, often, unclothed. Straight chicks at Oberlin don’t make up; it’s left to the boys—and, frankly, they do a better job.

But after seeing me—newly-out, make-up free—over winter break, Grandmom was heartbroken. So it was good to hear cheer in her voice when she called me that spring.

"Turn on the tube! The lesbians are on Oprah!"

"Which ones?"

"Oh, hurry, hurry, I think they’re called…the Lipstick Lesbians. And they’re wearing make-up. That means you can wear make-up! Turn on the tube!"

She must have thought I didn’t know my options.

Twelve years later, she remains passionately devoted to her cause.

To me: "There’s a lesbian on All My Children! She wears make-up!"

To my partner: "Does Em ever put on make-up for you? Just for fun?"

And, every month I talked to her over the course of Liz’s engagement: "Maids of honor wear make-up. That’s what they do. I’ve never been at a wedding where the maid of honor was not wearing make-up. You’re still doing it, right? I’ll pay!" I began to wonder if she meant she’d pay me.

It’s not like I’m a fierce, swaggering butch. It’s true I long to be, but I am cursed. An ex said I couldn’t look butch if I shaved my head and hopped on a Harley. I shaved my head. Amy was right.

My hair’s long now because I’m too broke to get it cut often. That’s blondish-brown; my eyes are blue, and I have the kind of lightly-freckled nose inevitably described as "pert" by authors without thesauri. As a result, I’m sometimes mistaken for straight and sometimes for Jodie Foster—probably by the same people, alas.

I’d be wearing a dress at the wedding. There was no getting out of that. And I’d already promised to smooth concealer over my "naked, dancing fat lady" tattoo (it’s more tasteful than it sounds). That’s Cover Girl right on my shoulder! Was more on my face really necessary?

The night before the wedding, Grandmom could hardly contain herself. A new possibility intrigued her. "Hey, Em, how do you think you’re going to act when you’re wearing make-up?"

A chasm of uncertainty opened within me. I had not considered this at all. Would I flirt with the officiant? Hump a chair leg? Dance on the altar? Would I finally understand what it means to…sashay?

Sensing my distress, my partner covered for me, assuring Grandmom that I would "probably act about the same."

"Oh," Grandmom said.

As it turned out, the make-up—I believe it was the make-up—made me cry during the ceremony and get a bit drunk on cran-vodkas at the reception, where I also cried. I cried watching my dad dancing a man’s traditional last dance with his daughter before surrendering her forever to the arms of another man. I cried selfishly, knowing that, although he loves Mel just as much as he loves Justin, my last dance with my dad will not be the same. One has to feel differently giving one’s daughter to a responsible gal in her forties. Something primal is missing, something man-to-man.