Aggravation Station: PRIDE!!

I've decided that going forward I'm always going to make lists of things I want to do over a certain period of time. It's quite helpful actually, I've managed to stay focused and I've been blessed and lucky enough to be able to cross off a lot of the small goals I had on my summer wish list so far.

For many, MANY, years I've wanted to sneak away to Toronto and join the festivities of PRIDE weekend. We have (I believe) the largest gay PRIDE festival in the entire world. We even beat out NYC and San Fransisco. It's a week long thing but the only day I've ever really wanted to get to was the parade. Over a million people come out to line the streets be in gay, straight, transgender, whatever to show their support and encouragement to that community.

I've always wanted to experience it first hand but the stars have never aligned for me. I've either had the kids or been working on the weekend of the parade. This is the first year that I was able to attend. I was totally stoked. Anyone who knows me at all knows how much I love 'the gays'. With my whole heart!! I just love that for the most part these are people who just want to be themselves and not care or have to care what other's think of them. I wish every single homosexual and straight person was able to be carefree about what other's thought of them. Too often we allow other people's opinions of us to control us or inhibit us. I believe that everyone is equal and deserve the same rights. Sadly this still is not the case even in 2011.

Mayor Rob Ford's representative.

Anyway, Eric and I headed to Toronto for PRIDE. We stayed at R & A's house Saturday night and braved Toronto transit and made our way over to "Boy's Town" to start the fesitivities. It was hotter than hell out there. It was crazy busy to put it mildly. We saw every walk of life wandering the streets today. Some dressed, some wearing only what mother nature gave them. I have to pause to do a shout out to those folks. They weren't walking around flaunting their nakedness and being all 'in your face' about it. They were simply doing what the rest of us were doing, wandering around, checking out booths, eating, enjoying the day. Except without clothes. Props to them for having the courage to do that. I simply couldn't even if I wanted to. I'm just too self conscious.

We headed over to Yonge Street to watch the parade from there. It was inspiring, and the number of people both literally and figuratively took my breath away. It was insane. There were people on the roof tops and hanging out of apartment windows. There were no problems that I saw though the irony is the only two people I heard fighting at all on this day was a straight couple! But that's the sanctity of marriage for ya!! I even got free rainbow wrist bands and Eric got a free Gay Dating Site wife-beater. Free stuff and an amazing source of people watching all in one day?? How can this be beat?

Hot gay army dudes.

I was hoping to catch a glimpse of my fellow co-worker and friend Ian as he's been the Junior Leather Boy for the past year. I suspected I'd see him in the parade at some point but I wasn't sure I'd get an opportunity to speak with him as there were so many people there and trying to pick one person out of that crowd would have been unrealistic. Towards the end of the parade we did see him in the back of a SMART car wearing his sash and waving to the crowd. He didn't hear me calling his name though.

IAN!

We watched the whole parade and eventually made our way back over to Church St. to look at the booths set up before making our way back over to R & A's for a BBQ. I was starving and had to snag a sandwich of meat or I was just gonna DIE!! Eric spotted his most favourite gay Star Trek captain enroute as well. We grabbed some condoms for Gage (who really didn't appreciate our thoughtful gift!!). And low and behold! We actually ran head first into Ian coming off the parade route! So yeah!! Below are the rest of the pictures we took at PRIDE. It was loads of fun and I'm so glad we had the opportunity to experience that kind of comradering and coming together as a community. If you ever get the chance to go, you should. Mark it off of your life list of things to experience at least once!