What a great gay weekend.
Saturday night I was a VIP at Pride in the Streets. Yesterday I walked in the Pride parade and then hit up the beer garden, consumed way too many free beers, met new friends and also got to know some coworkers better. It was an all around awesome time. And I mean, AWESOME.
The best part was the people I was hanging out with. Great, fun, fantastic people. I have many new Facebook friends.
And! I got hit on by a girl! But I didn't actually realize it until she asked if I was gay. When I said no and showed her my wedding ring, she said, "Damn. I'm always attracted to straight girls." I was flattered and thanked her anyway. Who knew. I just thought we were talking.
I also got to see my first drag queen show, but I don't count it because it wasn't in a bar. It was just at the Pride stage where Patti Labelle played the night before (WHO, by the way, was an HOUR late to her own performance. Such a diva move. She does not endear herself to me with those kind of shenanigans). So I told Yvonne, next time she goes to a real drag queen show, I'm totally in, camera ready.
Speaking of which, I have some great photos from the parade, but you know, overall, the parade was a disappointment. It was mostly just a bunch of people walking around. There needs to be more music, more drag queens and kings, more glamor and pizzazz! Yvonne and I have discussed this and it's agreed - we're taking our suggestions to the committee. Still, I have some good photos of baton twirling police men and a Mad Hatter tea-party float.
One thing I noticed is that the gay community really is a community, a very strongly bonded community. I felt it as I was walking in the parade. There was just so much goodwill and support - it felt like they were all family. I was happy to be part of it. And even though I'm straight and happily married, everyone I met still made me feel not only welcome, but like I belonged there just as much as anybody. It was nothing short of heartwarming.
Monday, June 13, 2011
Saturday, June 11, 2011
You're gonna think I'm gay, but I'm just really happy
It's Pittsburgh Pride weekend this weekend, which is basically a giant street festival in downtown Pittsburgh celebrating and raising awareness of the LGBT community (that's lesbian, gay, bi and transgender for the layman). Officially, "Pride is a celebration of diversity in the Pittsburgh region … a celebration of who we are, where we have been and, most importantly, where we are going," according to pittsburghpride.org.
From what I hear, 35,000 people showed up for this party last year. This year, they expect about 40,000. It's HUGE. I will be one of those 40,000 people going this year. And not only am I going, but I'm going as a VIP. BOOYA suckers. And I'm not even lesbian, gay, bi or transgender! It's just because I'm such a stellar straight person. Or, one could argue, it's because I got lucky.
As I've already mentioned, my employer is a corporate sponsor for Pride Pittsburgh, and so me and my coworker and friend Yvonne signed up to walk in the Pride March on Sunday afternoon (it's an LGBT awareness parade) which made us eligible for a company raffle to win tickets to the VIP lounge at Pride fest on Saturday night (tonight).
Tickets for this lounge thing cost $300 ($200 is donated to the foundation that puts Pride fest together), and you get your own special entrance to the event, food, adult beverages and and and! priority seating for the Patti Labelle concert! GAH!
And guess who won two tickets to the VIP lounge in the raffle. I already gave it away - it was totally me. I have been listening to Lady Marmalade all morning.
But that was all I knew about Patti Labelle. So I did some Googling, and turns out, I'm not actually a big Patti Labelle fan. Well, no, that's not what I mean. Here's what I mean: she has great songs and she's immensely talented and apparently a great business woman too because she also has this whole line of spices and also online videos on how to make various foodstuffs. But I only watched the video about mac and cheese. She scared me. She struck me as... I don't know.... mean or something. I can't explain it. I just know that if I was cooking with her, she would have chewed me up and spit me out because I would have not been able to do anything right for her, no matter what. I was intimidated by her. Despite the fact that she was wearing a black tutu while she made her mac and cheese.
But I'm really curious to see her perform live tonight. She's pretty much a living legend, and I just wonder: will it live up to the hype?
Either way, I have a lot of respect for the woman, and not only because there is a small part of me that fears she will somehow find this on the intrawebs and have me destroyed. But because, if I was 67, I'd be in bed and sleeping before her show would even start.
From what I hear, 35,000 people showed up for this party last year. This year, they expect about 40,000. It's HUGE. I will be one of those 40,000 people going this year. And not only am I going, but I'm going as a VIP. BOOYA suckers. And I'm not even lesbian, gay, bi or transgender! It's just because I'm such a stellar straight person. Or, one could argue, it's because I got lucky.
As I've already mentioned, my employer is a corporate sponsor for Pride Pittsburgh, and so me and my coworker and friend Yvonne signed up to walk in the Pride March on Sunday afternoon (it's an LGBT awareness parade) which made us eligible for a company raffle to win tickets to the VIP lounge at Pride fest on Saturday night (tonight).
Tickets for this lounge thing cost $300 ($200 is donated to the foundation that puts Pride fest together), and you get your own special entrance to the event, food, adult beverages and and and! priority seating for the Patti Labelle concert! GAH!
And guess who won two tickets to the VIP lounge in the raffle. I already gave it away - it was totally me. I have been listening to Lady Marmalade all morning.
But that was all I knew about Patti Labelle. So I did some Googling, and turns out, I'm not actually a big Patti Labelle fan. Well, no, that's not what I mean. Here's what I mean: she has great songs and she's immensely talented and apparently a great business woman too because she also has this whole line of spices and also online videos on how to make various foodstuffs. But I only watched the video about mac and cheese. She scared me. She struck me as... I don't know.... mean or something. I can't explain it. I just know that if I was cooking with her, she would have chewed me up and spit me out because I would have not been able to do anything right for her, no matter what. I was intimidated by her. Despite the fact that she was wearing a black tutu while she made her mac and cheese.
But I'm really curious to see her perform live tonight. She's pretty much a living legend, and I just wonder: will it live up to the hype?
Either way, I have a lot of respect for the woman, and not only because there is a small part of me that fears she will somehow find this on the intrawebs and have me destroyed. But because, if I was 67, I'd be in bed and sleeping before her show would even start.
Friday, June 10, 2011
Alcohol is clearly the answer
I've been thinking: this whole 15-Minute Mission thing might be easier if I was drunk. I mean, all the great writers are alcoholics, right? You've got Hemingway... and some other guys...
Anyway, I know for a fact that journalists are a bunch of drunks. I never drank more than when I was a reporter and a copy editor (except for maybe now, as a customer service person). Deadlines and the fear of empty holes on the page if you don't get the story can easily drive one to drink. Maybe that's why my journalist friend Bill Toland calls me a "recovering journalist." I always thought he was referring to the fact that I no longer worked in newspapers. Huh.
I remember my copy editor days, working the 4 p.m. to midnight shift. Tuesday was taco night at Hucklebucks. We'd go down there after the paper was put to bed, and we'd drink cheap beer and eat free tacos. My coworkers would sometimes say the taco meat was questionable, but I've never been picky when it comes to food.
I think it was probably a taco night when I hit that mail with my car on the highway. Yeah, I hit mail, as in U.S. Postal Service. It was a big old pallet of credit card offers, sitting right there in the middle of the highway, all nicely stacked in those little plastic-y mail bins. Until me and my rusty Honda came along.
It was raining and it had to be about 2 a.m., so it was deeply dark and suddenly there was something in the middle of the highway and I didn't have time to swerve around it. So I hit it. I thought I was going to hear this huge CRUNCH as my car crumpled before me. I braced for impact. Instead, these little white things went FLYING out in front me and my car just continued to roll over what felt like a huge bump in the road. I pulled over, completely confused by what had just happened. I went out in the rain to see what I'd hit, and realized the little white things were envelopes and the bump in the road was the wooden pallet they were stacked on. It must have been thousands of credit card offers, now scattered all over the wet highway. It must have fallen off a bulk mailing company's truck.
Damn mail damaged my radiator. I called the only person I could call at that hour - my sister - and my brother-in-law came and picked me up, God bless him.
I've never told anyone this, but the reason I never called the police is because I smelled like a bar that had just had a free taco night, and I didn't want to have to take a breathalyzer test. I would have passed, I think. I'd actually only had, like, two beers over the course of a few hours. But I did not want to go there. And it would have gone there. Because what sane and sober person hits mail?
Besides me, I mean.
Anyway, I know for a fact that journalists are a bunch of drunks. I never drank more than when I was a reporter and a copy editor (except for maybe now, as a customer service person). Deadlines and the fear of empty holes on the page if you don't get the story can easily drive one to drink. Maybe that's why my journalist friend Bill Toland calls me a "recovering journalist." I always thought he was referring to the fact that I no longer worked in newspapers. Huh.
I remember my copy editor days, working the 4 p.m. to midnight shift. Tuesday was taco night at Hucklebucks. We'd go down there after the paper was put to bed, and we'd drink cheap beer and eat free tacos. My coworkers would sometimes say the taco meat was questionable, but I've never been picky when it comes to food.
I think it was probably a taco night when I hit that mail with my car on the highway. Yeah, I hit mail, as in U.S. Postal Service. It was a big old pallet of credit card offers, sitting right there in the middle of the highway, all nicely stacked in those little plastic-y mail bins. Until me and my rusty Honda came along.
It was raining and it had to be about 2 a.m., so it was deeply dark and suddenly there was something in the middle of the highway and I didn't have time to swerve around it. So I hit it. I thought I was going to hear this huge CRUNCH as my car crumpled before me. I braced for impact. Instead, these little white things went FLYING out in front me and my car just continued to roll over what felt like a huge bump in the road. I pulled over, completely confused by what had just happened. I went out in the rain to see what I'd hit, and realized the little white things were envelopes and the bump in the road was the wooden pallet they were stacked on. It must have been thousands of credit card offers, now scattered all over the wet highway. It must have fallen off a bulk mailing company's truck.
Damn mail damaged my radiator. I called the only person I could call at that hour - my sister - and my brother-in-law came and picked me up, God bless him.
I've never told anyone this, but the reason I never called the police is because I smelled like a bar that had just had a free taco night, and I didn't want to have to take a breathalyzer test. I would have passed, I think. I'd actually only had, like, two beers over the course of a few hours. But I did not want to go there. And it would have gone there. Because what sane and sober person hits mail?
Besides me, I mean.
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