With the arrival of Pride Weekend this year I was planning on writing a post looking back at my shenanigans during Pride 08. Last year I was helping out Derek’s Two Spirit’s LGBT Native American Group during pride. This year, with Derek out of town, I had no such duties and was planning a relatively low-key weekend.
That was until last night.
But before I get to that, let’s take a walk down memory lane…
Pride 2008
As I mentioned, last year I was helping out Derek’s LGBT group for the Pride Parade. One of their members (the busty lady with the red hair– no not me, the other busty redhead) was crowned something like, “best Charo drag queen look-a-like” or something like that (honestly I don’t see the resemblance), and with such an honor they had a special position in the parade, next to the grand marshall’s car. I was called on to be a safety monitor.
So the Friday before the Parade, I was required to attend a special safety monitor class. They explained what to do if someone got drunk and fell down, how to handle crazy gays running through the parade with used syringes and that we should not touch anything “wet”. Basically, assume everyone at Pride has AIDS and is trying to give it to you.
While at the training I was sitting next to an older gay gentleman, and began chatting with him about his life and at some point just asked completely innocuously if he’d ever been with a woman. (Honestly, don’t ask me why I went there. I was on a roll I guess). Well he seemed to misunderstand my statement and thought I was propositioning him for sex, at which point he responded,
Well she’d have to be positive. I can’t be with something whose not positive.
To which I reply:
Well I only like to surround myself with positive people. Why would you want to hang around any kind of negativity?
This man looks at me, like the idiot that I am and replies,
HIV positive
Oh. So yeah. My bad.
Anyhow, I end up leaving the training session and meet up with Derek’s husband, Lucius, who is on his way to a Native American talent show that Derek is running at the LGBT center. I agree to go, but we both realize that every event Derek’s group puts on is an unmitigated disaster and we can’t show up without have a drink. And that’s where things go horribly wrong.
We stop in at Martunis, and in the course of… oh I dunno, in 20 minutes? have 2 martinis each. With no food. So I, in short, am a complete mess, and with that head across the street to the LGBT center.
When we arrive, they have buffet set out of all kinds of middle eastern food, to which I grab a plate and begin slopping enormous amount of food onto my plate. Like a crazy woman. The MC of the event is the “Charo sortof look-a-like” who I am in awe of. The event begins with some person getting on stage to sing, but the cassette tape they brought to play the accompanying music doesn’t work, or the sound system is broken or no one bothered to put batteries in it. Who knows. In any case, it’s not a good situation.
I get distracted and end up striking up a conversation with a very peculiarly dressed black man who has made his way into the event and has on fatigues and a giant (I mean GIANT) rimmed hat with mesh and grass coming off of it and dangling about his shoulders. (Sidenote: about three months later I saw this guy dancing in circles in a very expensive looking superman costume waiting for the bus at Haight and Fillmore). If I didn’t know better I would have thought he had just come back from fighting in Vietnam. I quickly assess that he is completely insane, and in fact, homeless.
The first act finally ends, and the Charo look-a-like comes back to introduce the next act. I however, am enthralled by her total fabulousness, and before she can continue, I scream out from the back of the room,
You have amazing styrofoam nipples!
It was only a couple minutes later that Derek found me, escorted me outside the room and asked me to go find him a diet coke at a store 10 blocks away. Obviously that was my cue to leave (but not before I found a table filled with condoms and stuffed fistfulls into my pockets, Chrome bag, pants, hoodie, etc etc).
Sunday came, I walked in the parade, monitored for safety and all was good.
End of story, right?
Pride 2009
So this Friday before Pride was much different. I spent the evening being treated to a 90 minute full body massage and made my way through Dolores Park and towards home where I was supposed to meet a friend for dinner and a movie. No Pride preparation, no gays in town, no plans to even attend the Parade on Sunday. Just a nice, relaxing weekend.
As the night winded down, I found myself at home around midnight and tucked myself into bed, looking forward to a very relaxing morning of sleeping in.
Off to sleep I go.
Several hours later (4:30am to be exact), I hear the creak of my bedroom door open. Someone is in my bedroom.
“Arwen” I call out, assuming it’s my roommate who has something to tell me. What do I know? I had been completely asleep and wasn’t really processing what was happening.
“Yes,” she responds. And gets into bed with me.
So imagine my state of mind. I am not awake and my roommate gets into bed with me. This is kindof weird I think, but maybe something happened or there was an accident and she had to talk to me.
And then I realize the woman in bed with me is completely nude and is trying to cuddle with me.
Alright… so I turn around in bed and look at her to see what the heck is going on, and I am so incredibly exhausted that I can’t even tell if I’m looking at Arwen or not. And so I keep staring at her, trying to remember Arwen’s features and voice all while attempting to understand why her hand is on my breast. I realize this is a straight guy’s wet dream come true, but I am beyond confused.
As I continue to gaze at her, trying to wrack my brain and understand whose face I am looking at, she begins to ask frantically, “Are you OK, Are you OK, Are you OK, Are you OK, ARE YOU OK, ARE YOU OK”, over and over and over, the stale smell of alcohol on her breathe. And I say that yes I am OK.
I am just too asleep and too confused to figure this out.
So I close my eyes and think about it and finally begin to wake up and realize this makes ABSOLUTELY NO FUCKING SENSE. And that, in fact, this can’t be Arwen. This has to be someone else.
So I begin to calmly ask her about herself: What’s you name? How much have you had to drink? What drugs have you taken? Where were you last sleeping? She responds to all my questions, though her answers don’t make any sense really, other than learning her name.
I get out of bed, throw on my robe (because yes, I too was completely naked) and begin walking around the apartment trying to understand where she came from.
Finally I realize that Arwen was going to have a friend staying with us over the weekend and this girl must be her friend. I wake Arwen, who upon learning what’s happened is beyond embarrassed for her friend and we begin to try to rouse the girl from my bed. She doesn’t want to leave and when we finally cajole her from my sheets, she tries to carry them with her. A moment of clarity finally overcomes her and she says, “I’m so sorry”, and extends her hand as if to greet me.
I shake her hand and reply, “It’s nice to meet you too; you better get some rest.”
And that, my friends, has turned my completely innocuous Pride 09 into one of the strangest and most hilarity filled events of the weekend.
