Love will make a person do some very strange things. Love made the warrior Paris run off with the fair Helen, and love made King Menelous level the city of Troy to get her back.
What would make a straight male dress in women's clothes and parade around onstage in front of several hundered strangers you may ask?
Posted below is a story of the lengths one man will go to please the woman he loves.

My wife, Claudia has been having her birthday parties at a local nightclub called Darcelle XV for the last several years, and we have come to be friends with the owners. Claudia has been well known and well loved within the local community of performance artists/female impersonators and usually several performers show up to do special skits just for her. After last year's abysmal attempt on my part to provide a suitable gift, and taking into account my track record so far of my doing my part to ensure Claudia's birthday is a memorable one, I thought to myself "Why don't I get into the act?" Literally.

Several years ago, I was doing some computer consulting for the jewelry company where Claudia works. But before I was brought in to do some answering of emails, post items on ebay, ect. an email account was set up on their mail server with the name "Angela", as well as an account on Ebay.
"OK,..." I said to myself. "I'm Angela now. Yah. Right." After a time, the other office personnel (including Claudia) took to ribbing me and calling me "Angela". (No, I never wore a dress to work!)
Then two years ago, we had the crazy idea to go to a Halloween party dressed as each other. She went dressed as me, wearing my tuxedo and a fake beard and mustache, and I shaved my beard and mustache and wore her cocktail dress and a wig. The effect was tremendous. Claudia looked like a Mafia Don, and I looked pretty much like a lady. The costume was enhanced by Claudia's Grandmother's prosthetic breasts, which really freaked people out because they really looked real. They felt real too. The only thing that threw the whole thing off was the tufts of hair poking up from under the neck of the dress. (I had forgotten to shave my chest for the occasion. Probably the most amazing thing of all was that Claudia's cocktail dress fit me as well as it did her!
So...
When Claudia's birthday came and went with so little success, I had an idea...
What if I dressed up in drag and performed on stage as a surprise present for Claudia? First thing I needed to do was find out if Darcelle and Roxy would even allow such a thing. I asked them if that was something they would be willing to let me do. Much to my surprise they said yes, I could. I spent the next year contemplating what I was going to do onstage. Claudia's favorite song is "Respect" by Aretha Franklin. That part was easy. The rest, like being very excited about the whole thing and not telling her, was a bit of a challenge.

As Claudia's birthday approached, I spoke with Roxy a couple of times when we happened to see each other and Claudia was starting to suspect something was up.
I took some time out to explain to Roxy and Darcelle that this was going to be a surprise for Claudia, and that while I had some experience in Theater in high school some 20 years ago, I meant for my performance to be invisible to the audience. Only Claudia and our friends would know. Roxy was a little apprehensive at first, but seemed to think that maybe I would do all right.
A couple of days before her actual birthday party Claudia very nearly correctly guessed what was up. I was telling her how excited I was about her birthday party and she said "Let me guess, you're going to dress up in drag and sing me 'Happy birthday'." Close, but not quite. lol
The next day, Claudia was having a bad day and sent me an email imploring me not to embarass her or myself for her birthday. I assured her I wouldn't.
The day of the party I had arranged to take half the day off work, and as I would have normally not have had time to go home before showing up at the club, I was to meet Claudia there. With my stepdaughter Haley's help, I got my face, chest and back shaved. Again with her help, we picked out a dress and a pair of shoes that happened to match. Grabbing our digital camera and Claudia's birthday cake, I set out for Darcelle's. One of Darcelle's longtime performers Celeste, agreed to make up my face. By the time we were done, I could hear Claudia upstairs laughing with her friends and whooping it up. Soon our friend David Hamilton, aka "Mame" came down to visit and told me Claudia was frantic. The show was about to start and I hadn't arrived yet. To make matters worse, Claudia couldn't find the dress she wanted to wear that night (I had it.), she couldn't find our camera (Again, I had it.), and she couldn't find her birthday cake we had bought. (It downstairs in the refrigerator in the club's kitchen.)
The other performers were very nice to me. I knew a couple of them, and chatted with them a bit before the show. I was concerned that they would think "Ok, straight boy over there thinks he can do this...." when I know that there's a lot of hard work and practice involved in putting on a show like this and making it look easy. I meant no offense to anyone there, I just wanted to surprise my wife.
When it was just about my time to come out on stage, Tiara wished me luck, and the opening riff to "Respect" blared out over the sound system.

"Play to the back row" was something I picked up in high school theater class, and I had put quite a lot of thought into what gestures I was going to use, and what I was going to do onstage. Unfortunately, the one thing I hadn't rehearsed over the last year was walking in high heels. I did stumble a couple of times and forgot most of what I had planned to do, but I passed it off and went on to give Claudia the best birthday present she ever had. Ironically, I appearently my performance made an impact on more than just Claudia and our friends, since Darcelle and Roxy have been talking about inviting me back to perform again.....
 

	In this picture Bobbi-Michelle and I are chatting before the show.
AN-A-ONE-AN-A-TWO! Here I am prancing around and shakin' it in front of several hundred complete strangers and a dozen of our very best friends.
	If you look at the bottom left of this photo, you will see Claudia, dressed in blue, standing absolutely stunned by the spectacle she's witnessing.
This is a much better shot, and the crowd is really getting  behind me here.
	Veteran performer "Penny Michaels" was kind enough to come out of retirement to perform as the "Fairy God-Mother" for Claudia. You go, girl!