The Bungle in the Jungle: An infamous Thomas-hosted blowout which culminated with a festival of naked drunkenness in the Adams House pool, and which in turn resulted in the closing of said pool. ("Ooh, I was so bitter...")

The 69th Annual Adams/Dunster/Eliot Disco Masquerade: A Thomas retro spectacular--dance platforms, disco balls, The Wiz, the works,("Three crazy houses, each insane in their own way. Everybody came. I was so happy..")

Chocoholiday: Another Thomas brainchild that became an annual Adams House tradition.("It's all about chocolate. And it's all about eggnog.")

The 1992 Waltz: Fog machines. An orchestra. And a seven-foot ice sculpture of St.Sebastian.

The list is endless. Thomas takes his fun very seriously. You can tell, because he uses even more italics than usual when he talks about it.

"People here are desperate for fun," he says, "I know so many people at Harvard who wouldn't know fun if it sat on their faces.Well, my parties are fun, and they're accessible, too."

"Look at the Hasty Pudding's parties," he snorts. "God, those are the most boring parties I've ever seen. Why would anyone pay huge amounts of money to join that club, to go to bad parties with bad music, watching people who can't evendance? There's bad lighting, badatmosphere, bad crowd.Blecchhh. It's justpathetic. walk in and think 'God, I could have had a V8. God. I could have done anything, I could have stayed at home and watched Sally Jessy Raphael.' It's just plain boring. And I want you to put this in your article, OK?"

OK, OK! Jeez..

WELCOME to a legendary Harvard attraction: Thomas's closet. To your right, you'll see a startling array of headgear: a cute blue fez, a polo helmet, a sharp Jackie O pillbox number, white bunny ears. Straight ahead, you'll find a mountain of ties--most of them wide, all of them loud. On the floor, there's a fog machine and a stack of the official Adams House "We're All Gay and We're Coming to Get You" t-shirts Thomas designed. On the left, Thomas hang his dresses--a clingy purple Betsy Johnson, a turquoise suede Halston circa 1972. Everything in the closet is distinctive ("I love wearing things no one would think of wearing."), comfortable ("It's all about comfort.."), and cheap("..it's all about discounts.").

But most of Thomas's dresses are, fittingly, out of the closet. At this moment, he has dresses living in New Hampshire, New York, San Francisco, Hawaii, Paris and God knows where else. Thomas enjoys wearing them, but he really enjoys letting his friends--especially his male friends--wear them. "It's all about accessorizing other people's closets," he says, giggling devilishly."I love that."

Thomas still thinks cross-dressing is wonderful, but he doesn't do it very often anymore. He's never liked being stereotyped as a drag queen and, well, he just doesn't feel like wearing women's clothes these days."Ultimately it's just not me," Thomas says.

THE ME that is Thomas Lauderdale has changed quite a bit since he came to Harvard.

He says the turning point came during winter break of his sophomore year, when he came out to his grandparents--"sexist, racist, homophobic people," according to Thomas--in a mobile home park in Anaheim, Calif. His grandparents were horrified. And Thomas was glad.

"There I was, the overachiever of the family,there last hope, telling them I was a faggot," Thomas recalls. "It was their worst nightmare, and I was thrilled to give it to them. Because people need to be honest, and people who hate have no place in my life. I'm learning to be stronger about that, to insist on that. I don't accommodate people who hate anymore."

Homophobia used to send Thomas into spasms ofdepression. Now, he fights back. A few months ago, two guys from the Law School screamed about "fucking faggots" while taking a leak of Adams House. Thomas and a friend chased the men down Plympton Street, catching one of them and holding him for the police.