“Australia was wonderful!” Jinkx Monsoon said and she scooted her chair in and arranged herself at the table. Himself. Whichever. He was technically Jerick Hoffer at the moment, not Jinkx Monsoon, but really, that’s a fragile distinction. They are now practically one indistinguishable entity—although Jerick can seem much more soft spoken than his wild and wonderful drag personae, Jinkx. The whole thing is enough to make one confuse his and/or her pronouns.

I poured him a glass of wine.

Jerick had just flown breathlessly back into Seattle after a stellar nine week run of her show The Vaudevillians in Sydney, and I was eager to chat about her adventures. I was also quite worried about my breath. I’d been munching on those damn spicy peanuts that Cafe Presse always puts on the table before she got there. Gah! Corn Nut breath.

This was the first time I’d sat down with Jerick in what seemed like forever, and I was actually a little nervous. I have the proud distinction of being Jerick’s very first media stalker way before he got so freaking famous. I wrote a fairly hefty and decidedly gushy bio on him for The Stranger back in 2011, before the whole winning RuPaul’s Drag Race thing happened and he rushed off to everywhere else to be a big star—Manhattan, San Francisco, to name but a few, and of course, Australia. He was even on a CBS cop drama with Donnie Wahlberg! Now everybody in the world is stalking her. Him. Dammit.

“It was our first time really doing The Vaudevillians in a different locale. Doing it in Canada is just exactly the same as doing it here, but in Australia! We really had to shift our humor and tweak it.” We “cheersed” and both took nice sized bites out of our wine, a sassy little bottle of Cabernet ($12–a steal!) that I’d ordered for us to share. I just love listening to Jerick’s mouth words. He could read the instructions on the back of a box of Stove Stop Stuffing and it would still be better than a day at Disneyland. Tweak the humor how?

“I had to change my go-to jokes for when something bombs—I always have back ups—something easy like dick jokes or a coke reference or something. They’re my get ‘em laughing again jokes. But in Australia none of those would work! So my bomb-save became making fun of their accents.” Jerick does a mean Australian accent–perfectly Pricilla Queen of the Desert.

“I’d say, ‘You caime in the middoo of a heatwayve but soon it will get much kewwlah!’ and they would just go nuts.”  Adorable. “And they loved it! Everything gains extra syllables with them so I would joke about it and that would win them back over.”

The waitress interrupted, insisting to take our order. I wanted to shake her like a baby. But I guess we had to eat. Sassy cabernet on an empty stomach?

Cafe Presse was a good choice. “It’s my favorite Seattle restaurant!” Jerick said, surprising me. I had no idea when I picked it. “I come here all the time when I’m in town.” Cafe Presse is a French restaurant and is always full of very French seeming people (or people trying hard to seem French) and strange French food like terrine and rillettes, where I once heroically saved the lives of thousands probably by putting out a sudden napkin fire. (Paper napkins plus candles on the tables equals danger, gurl!) The tables were very small and close together, and the place was filling up. Mon dieu! I suddenly realized that Jerick and I together are probably going to be way too loud for this place. Maybe we should have gone to, I don’t know, Red Lobster or something? Too late. I took another chunk out of my wine and ordered a Croque Madame–basically a ham and cheese sandwich with a fried egg on top. ($7.25). Jinkx ordered a salade verte ($5) and a Croque Monsiuer–basically a ham and cheese sandwich with no egg on top. ($6.) “I hate eggs!” Jerick confessed. “I used to just tell people I’m allergic to them.” I hate eggs too. Always have. I’m not really sure why I chose the madame instead of the monsiuer. Weird.  Anyway, back to Australia…

“After I was there for about a month and a half I really started to feel homesick.” Jerick barely had time to take a breath after winning the Drag Race last May. “The Vaudevillians in New York kept us there for a long time, and then Australia, and this summer we’re doing it in Provincetown.  So that’s gonna keep us away again. I was very happy to have a project to start working on like the Vaudevillians after Drag Race, because being the special guest appearance drag queen only takes you so far. But this is gives us a theater outlet and a cabaret outlets and drag outlets.” His salade arrived. It was a giant piece of lettuce with some hazelnuts on top that was roughly twice the size of the table. “My best friend Kenny can’t have this because he’s deathly allergic to nuts, so always get this to rub it in his face!” Jerick says with a wicked giggle, seeming very Jinkx at the moment. I poured us more cabernet. Cheers. Gulp!

“The airport,” said Jerick (salad chomp), “is one of the craziest places in the world (salad chomp). Kenny would be in real danger. And where the hell’s my ham sammich, Frenchy? (Cheers! Gulp.) “There is no better example of gender discrimination in the world especially The American airports. (Chomp, chomp. Run Kenny, run!) “If you are dressed in any other way than the way they expect you to be for your gender, you get looked at like you’re an alien. I don’t really mind it, but sometimes it makes it hard to get through quickly when you’re in a hurry.” Jerick is always in a hurry. Oh America! Why you gotta suck so bad?

“Well it’s easy to say that until you’ve been anyway for a long time and all you can think about is going home!” Jinkx said. “Nowhere in Australia is there reliable internet, and it was driving us NUTS. Like, NUTS! It was like The Shining! ‘No Facebook and no Youtube makes Jinkx go crazy!'” I laughed and dropped my knife. Whoops. We were giggling again. I note Jerick’s smile and his signature tooth-chip. “I thought about having it fixed, but I have to keep it now because I had it when I got famous.” Who knew a chipped tooth could be so glamorous? Our main courses arrive! Finally! Why the hell did I order the thing with the egg? A mystery. I gave my madame a sex change by scooting the egg off. Now it was a proper monsieur. I was beginning to sense a theme here…

Somehow eyebrows came up, as they do. “Rather than tell people that I shave my eyebrows off,” Jerick confided, “sometimes I just tell them I don’t have them. And they believe me!” Wicked giggle. Jinkx is rearing her head again. “I just say, ‘You’ve seen Whoopie Goldberg! Sometimes people are just born without eyebrows!” I think Adore from the current season of Drag Race has Spock eyebrows. Adore annoys me. “She shaves them, but it works for her. I think she’s a little cutie as a person. I like them all! I think the only one who’s ever thrown any shade my way is LaGanga. It’s cool, we’ll just smoke together, then she’ll get me.” God bless Washington State. “And her drag mother is Alicia Edwards, and Alicia Edwards and I are Ki-Ki-Ka-KA sisters!” Jerick said with a cackle and a flourish. Jinkx. Whichever.

“Everyone from my season of Drag Race I get along with now. I think some of them are crazy, but you love them for it, you get over it.” I resemble that remark. Who is her favorite this season? “That’s hard to say without thinking of my friends. If I don’t consider friendships, Milk is entertaining me the most, and Ben and Courtney are playing it smart—they are maintaining themselves and not becoming wretched bitches.” Jinkx knows them all of course. “Oh! And Bianca is doing an Amazing Job.” I think Bianca is going to win. But we toast to our homegirl, Ben DeLaCreme! Gulp.

“And neither of us is originally from Seattle! Ben is from Chicago, and I was born in Portland. But nowhere makes me feel like Seattle does. With the one exception of Amsterdam.” I concur heartily. We discuss our deep mutual love of Amsterdam. We both think it’s magical. Personal reasons. “I am very interested in learning about other cultures, but I’m also very much addicted to my brands! I’m like; I just want the things I KNOW, please! Once we all talked about how frustrating it was that you can’t just go into any old drugstore and find an enema!” I laughed so hard a bit of croque came up my nose. I think the tables around us were getting nervous. “When you’re on the road as much as me, you learn to be less picky about things! I gave them the tip to look for those sinus irrigation things. They’re basically the same thing! It’s kind of like an anal netti pot or something. #bottomproblems!” So Jerick is a bottom, huh? “I go through phases—I consider myself a power-verse! I’m like a coin; just flip me, I’ll work whatever way I land.” Jerick Hoffer is the funniest human alive.

The bottle was empty, our stomachs were full, my face hurt from laughing, and the evening came to an end far too soon. And the check! A mere $40 with tip! Jinkx Monsoon is a remarkably cheap date. I threw a couple of twenties on the table, we hugged each other goodbye, and Jinkx faded off into the cool night of Capitol Hill. Jerick. Whatever.

But, damn! The wine went to my head, and I forgot to ask the most important question of all: has becoming famous made it easier or harder to get laid? I guess we’ll never know.