The Pride Parade!

Em and I went to see it today. It was hot, sweaty, crowded, glittery, bulgy, nipple-y, and disco-tastic!

One thing did baffle me, though. There was one float celebrating the fact that gays can now get married in Canada. And when it went past, no one cheered or clapped. I would have thought that it would have been one of the most popular floats, given that this has been a particularly long drawn out battle, and one the gay community has now, unequivocally, won.

This caused me to wonder: Who were the strangers in the crowd around me? Some were gay, some were straight. Were the straights actually anti-gay marriage? Is it possible that there are gays who are anti-gay marriage? Why? How could anyone be at the pride parade and not be excited that gays have finally gotten equal rights in this area?

It’s never been an issue for me, personally. Gay people love just as hard, have just as meaningful relationships, and are as capable of cherishing another human being as straight people. Why shouldn’t they get married? Why shouldn’t we celebrate it? When one human being finds another human being that they want to share their lives with, and commit to, that’s a cause for celebration. I’m not saying singledom is a howling, hostile wilderness to be avoided at all costs. But having someone there ‘no matter what’ is a pretty good deal.

Anyhow, on a lighter note, I thoroughly enjoyed the Oddysey float (human beauty never fails to move me. Actually, let’s cut the crap. They were hotties!), the handsome young guys running around the giant maypole (Hello, messing with traditional gender roles-PLUS phallic symbolism, how cool is that?), the Gay Pilots Association (running around in pink plane costumes, more phallic symbols), the Faery guy throwing glitter on the crowd, and the guy marching with the Aboriginal Two Spirit people, who stopped in the street, threw up his hands, and yelled, “Hey, everybody, it’s ME!” in tones of squealing delight.

I never really care about the floats for the radio stations. Nothing says Gay Pride like…the WX 1130AM van? That’s right, folks. Talk radio and homosexuality. They’re like peanut butter and jelly. (shrug) I know it’s good business to go in the parade, it just seems incongruous. Next year, if they could replace the radio station vans with, umm, maybe more guys in head-to-toe silver body paint, that would be cool.

Things I learned Today

Things I learned today:

Answer the phone, even if it’s stupid-early. It might be my new job asking me to come in and be a substitute teacher, so even though my Telus-issue shit-hang-up-whenever-it-wants phone actually hung up on my lovely, kind new boss, I managed to get an unexpected day’s work. And met some cool new students.

Burrard Street sucks, now that they seem to be doing major construction at every corner, and you can’t even drive onto Alberni Street, so God forbid, I had only 45 minutes to make it to my afternoon job and there I was, twenty minutes behind schedule, embroiled in tar-smelling carbon monoxide laden air, while Vancouver drivers merrily poked at their Blackberries, Ipods and cell phones, instead of letting the goddamned express bus through. When will Blue Tooth technology market a headjack so that these people can beam their inane thoughts directly to their Marketing Managers without having to look at a screen and thus disrupt the flow of my life?

Failing that, can I please, please have a taser?

Dried Squirrel is not the same as Dried Squid, no matter what the little Sanyo electronic translator says.

Coyotes in the UBC area of Vancouver will not respnd to the lure of a peanut butter sandwich as bait. This from one of my summer students, who is a teenaged Korean girl. She loves wildlife in all forms and is excited to live at UBC, where there’s so much of it. She watches every night from dusk to complete darkness, waiting to see a real live coyote, a species she has decided are “Like wolves, only smaller and cuter.” Last week, I had to explain to her that there are no wild animals you can just come up and pet. They are wild. Not tame. The best way I came up wth putting it was , “You think they are cute, but they don’t understand you. They think of things two ways: Can I eat it? or Will it eat me?

I hope I have averted her getting rabies while trying to hug a raccoon.

Bad Behavior has blocked 20 access attempts in the last 7 days.


Warning: Use of undefined constant is_single - assumed 'is_single' (this will throw an Error in a future version of PHP) in /home/gecko/public_html/liz/wp-content/plugins/wp-stattraq/stattraq.php on line 67