When I was living in LA, I was a founding member of a singing group – The Hot Cross Nuns.

I was singing with the MCCV (Metropolitan Community Church of the Valley), and every year they put on a variety show.

Being a gay church in LA (okay, Burbank), you know the show was always amazing.

Three ladies wanted to put together a quartet.  They asked me to be the soprano (because, as you may or may not know, soprano lesbians do not often occur in nature – at least they were few and far between at MCCV).

And thus, the Hot Cross Nuns were born.

We dressed as nuns (I made the costumes – which were later upgraded by Linda Dodson).

We were me – Sister Tittalus Buttox; Sue Abitanta – Sister Clitteruptus; Laura Sheriff – Sister Flagrante Delicto; and Linda Dodson – Reverand Mother Arletta Fart.  (Later Kathy McGinty joined the group as Sister Dietus Perpetua, and Rene Burkett joined – but I don’t remember her nun name). And we were from the Moister Cloister.

In our first performance we entered with the Rex Admirabilis and Alleluia from Sound of Music; and then sang “How Do you Solve a Problem like Dan Quayle” and ended with Sisters (lyrics slightly modified – “When a certain gentleman arrived from Rome, he wore the dress and we stayed home”).

We appeared in every Christmas Concert and annual variety show thereafter; and eventually, even put together our own two-act shows as fundraisers for the church.

We had so much fun writing our material.

And the thing was, we were good.

We did some gigs, but it was never about the money.

Would have been nice for it to be about the money, but the fact is we all had our own (well paying) professions already in place.

Eventually the group broke up; and we all went our separate ways.

But, a part of me will always be a Hot Cross Nun.