A Matter of Pride

PRIDE 2011

Day 1
Driving to Toronto with Scott McKenzie's "San Francisco." Belated birthday gifts. Shopping at Forever 21. Dinner in a little diner with my ladies. Starbucks. Getting ready to rock Church Street in their townhouse on Carlaw. Can't decide what to wear. Fluorescent pink belt. Squeeze five into a cab downtown.Meet a large turquoise house, and the party on Church Street. Run into old boss from internship. See boys holding hands, girls entwining their fingers. See colour everywhere. Beautiful. Night starts to fall. Fluorescent orange beautiful. See a boy try to sweep my friend off her feet- amazing. Get into line for a little pub and sit inside. Ice water and sangria from a waiter in a toga. Watch the rain pour on nobody's parade. Laugh. Talk. Drink.
Out into the streets with the rain and the celebration. Drag queens and boyfriends and stickers everywhere. True fact: all trannys have really nice legs and work heels better than I do. Feet hurting, people are tired. Return to the apartment. Talk until 2AM about life and everything else. Conclude things about past lives and revolutions. Sleep soundly.

Day 2
Wake up and dress- slowly. Blasting Lady Gaga at 10AM. Wear rainbow suspenders and walk to Shopper's Drug Mart. Decked out in rainbows, the cashier asks if we're headed to the parade. Buy six 1.5 litre water bottles. 10:30AM and already hot and sweating. Catch a cab to Yonge and Church. Interviewed by CBC News. Breakfast of pancakes with blueberry syrup and bacon. Rush to volunteer check in. Marvel at the masses of people and the energy and joy in the air. Almost moved to tears by it...almost.

Get badge, and t-shirt-- it's pink! End up at wrong information booth, hurry to other booth. Meet Dustyn, begin getting people to sign petitions. Rights for LGBT in Turkey. Abolish the laws that make homosexuality illegal in Cameroon. Protect LGBT activists in Mexico. Temporary tattoos and lots of signatures. Idle chatter and the blistering afternoon sun. Bottles of water, lots of passers by... some completely naked. Totally free. Teenage girl with big brown eyes asks where all the hate for gays comes from. A man tells us about his sexual assault in Egypt. People thank us for doing our work, say there ought to be more like us. Fall more in love with the community as it opens up.My friends stop by the booth twice, but soon leave for other activities. Begin yelling out to the crowd to get their attention and their signatures on the paper. "Support the global LGBT community! Give others the rights you already have!" Feel like a part of something bigger, accomplished. Go on break, wander around. See queens, kings, jokers and super soakers. Return to the booth, beginning to tire out. Double shift is 7.5 hours long. Take down booth, check out at volunteer station. Meet my friends at Church&Wood, head to Fran's for dinner. It's the same Fran's my dad used to eat at when he lived in Toronto. Sandwich dinner, coconut cream pie for dessert. NOM NOM NOM. Change into obnoxiously loud and colourful outfit, and head back to Church. Cruise around. Look at underwear in the Stag Shop. Look at buttons as souvenirs-- buy one for the family at home. Night is falling and dance parties are breaking out in the streets. Our bodies tired but powered by happiness and love and beatsbeatsbeats. We dance too- spontaneous. Walk around a little more. Admire, breathe in the night air. Cab back to the apartment. Pack up and drive home. Stop for caffeine and water on the way.

Day 3
Wake up feeling exhausted despite sleeping like the dead. Wear rainbow t-shirt, see the world in a totally different light. Watch Milk, a post-Pride tradition. Cry at the end, like I always do. Feel happy. Look forward to next year. Write blog post.

Say What?

There are certain things you don't get to do until you're older: your first driver's license, going to college, or getting a place of your very own. I haven't had this pleasure quite yet, but two of my very good friends have, and they threw a little bash on the weekend to celebrate it.
I was pretty excited to go to my first housewarming party ever, as it seemed like a cool, grown up thing to do...or something. Long story short: it was a great night filled with drinks, music, a hairless dog, Laughing-My-Ass-Off and one complete revelation on the behalf of yours truly.
It was only around ten or eleven and I was sitting on the couch, nursing a plastic cup of mango margarita punch the tender way you cradle a premature baby. I looked around the room and I realized that I didn't know anyone. Also, all of the people I didn't know, sitting around me WERE NOT TALKING. Maybe they were just comfortable and they didn't have anything to say to each other, but my awkward meter was about to blow us all to high heaven. It was like the atmosphere was waiting for me to crack. Steve Buscemi in Armageddon. I could hear the high pitched scream of a boiling kettle somewhere in the back of my brain and I found myself spitting out phrases the socially inept rehearse on cue cards before they go out for the night.
"....Did anyone see the game last night?" as well as the dreaded "....So what do you do?" (Side note: telling people you want to be a writer is as pretentious sounding in real life as you imagine it to be in your brain. I have to come up with some other occupation to give people for the next time I go to a party.) Suddenly, it was painfully obvious to me that I was the youngest person in that room and I had the incoherent social skills to prove it.

I have been spoiled by college parties where everyone is a bunch of smashed n' stoned strangers, babbling at each other incoherently about music and movies and blah de blah de blah. Parties where I myself have been messed up and uncaring of what I said or what people thought. The housewarming party is a new breed of get together. Everyone was kind of acquainted. There was French bread and brie and jello shots. (Okay maybe not a COMPLETELY new breed.) The point was, in this smaller, more intimate and mature venue, I was a fish out of water. I was going to have to escape this island on my own, or else start having conversations with a volley ball a la Tom Hanks in Cast Away.

Eventually the awkward got blown away and people began to chat, but by that point I'm pretty sure I was too gun shy to REALLY, REALLY talk to anyone. I guess the point I'm trying to make here is that I've always been better at expressing myself via writing, and casual talking with people has never been my strong suit. In my mind I'm a warm person who people get along with and click with instantly, and the reality is just blisteringly different.

The night was still a great success. Even more because I realize I'm very much a person in progress.
Also, in case you were wondering, here's the hairless dog. He belonged to the boys who lived downstairs. ADORABLE.