PUT THAT IN YOUR PRIDE AND SMOKE IT

this post planned on being short: "learned that one of the queerest things i could do was dance with a girl" -- or something sort of pithy in that vein that would write itself quickly but intentionally and then make me worry that too much dance pop had turned all of my potentially compelling sentiments into crappy song lyrics. maybe, if i'd written this last night instead of just saving a title so that i could be sure to get a post up with yesterday's date stamp* if i wanted to, the triple threat of rain, hangover nausea and post-event melancholia that kept me on the couch would have also kept me within twenty words. but now that you're to sentence three (the first two both long-ish ones), you'd better just join me in the sinking feeling that this post isn't going to succeed by virtue of brevity.

every year, pride weekend seems to rear up out of nowhere (not surprising in a place where it's so easy to forget it's june), and every year i insist that i'm not going to do anything special. and maybe i never do anything special. but i do end up doing something(s). and i usually have a fabulous time. but every year it's like new year's all over again, and in the lead up i get so anxious that there will be something else more fun with more interesting and attractive people happening the somewhere i won't be as soon as i commit to anything that it's easier just to imagine myself at home or out doing something decidedly un-gay. then i remember that although a night to myself could involve just as much alcohol as any pride party, it certainly never got anyone laid -- nor did it an outfit excuse make. but then i also remember that pride is supposed to be a protest and remember how many times i was reminded of that in the week prior and wonder if going out for the same reasons that get me to do the gay stuff on any other night are worth it. but visibility is a kind of protest, right? maybe i'll meet someone sexy who wants to make out and talk about judith butler? so finally i tell myself that i can always go out and come home if i'm not having fun or if all the fags hate me or if i get sad drunk enough to really believe that it's all just "too commercial."

and so, i went out and did pride, both friday and saturday nights. not surprisingly, i had fun; and not all of the fags hated me; and i just got regular drunk. queers have amazing parties. you know them from the tv. we look good, and we talk good, and we dance...if not good, well, a lot. but pride is the only time that we smile and apologize when someone spills a drink on us. and i don't think that's just me. or maybe it is. and maybe it's just because, but the community seems especially validating. and then somehow i'm talking and dancing and i barely even care about getting laid anymore.

then it's early sunday morning, and i'm walking home from blow pony and get spare changed on martin luther king near the max stop. michael needs money to help get his passed out buddy somewhere. he looks to be in a bad way himself. i haven't any cash so i don't have to lie. plus, i'm walking home too. michael wants a hug. i'm full of positivity so i give him a hearty one. "you gay?" michael asks me. "yeah." "i thought so. i'm a bisexual. i mean, i'm gay too. i saw a bunch of people out today." michael wants to make out. michael will be able to go back to the treatment facility tomorrow if i make out with him. i'd already had one awkward kiss earlier when my friend caitie and i got put under the "gay mistletoe" -- which you can imagine to be whatever you'd like. but, even having done far more suspect things when drunk at the end of an evening, i can't make out with michael. i wonder if he'd asked many other boys. in any case, he has to settle for three more hugs and a cigarette. and i'm sure those didn't get him off the street.

dancing with girls wasn't the queerest thing i did at pride. i don't know if i did anything particularly groundbreaking in the performative sense. but not writing anything about pride weekend would have been too glaring an omission for this blog; and some rakish offhand dismissal, though definitely in character, would only have captioned that one shot in which i'm looking completely at ease in my pretty little bubble. i'm at the end of episode nine of brideshead revisted and can't help stealing its close because i can't help wondering if i set out to write any certain opinion in the first place. "can we have our happiness in spite of them? here and now? ...for how many nights?" thanks again, charles.

*for the record, it's now just before midnight 6/21.