Free to be ...

There's a quote from the sages that floats across my mind whenever I struggle with the Never-Never land called San Francisco. "Acceptance is the answer to all my problems today."

This weekend was the 42nd annual GLBT Pride Celebration in SF. Saturday was the more  bacchanalian street fest known as Pink Saturday and Mauricio and I walked around clinging to each other in horror. It was the trashiest thing I ever saw and I'm so glad I don't party anymore. We saw young teenaged girls passed out in the street (thankfully with friends watching over them) with all stripes of people drinking, drugging, pissing, vomiting and spitting everywhere. One young girl was even wheeled away strapped to a gurney after having a drug overdose. We quickly fled to the quiet confines of Alamo Square where we both hugged a Monterey Cypress and looked out over the still, quiet skyscrapers of this arguably beautiful city. Jane Austen helped us to decompress with the BBC version of "Sense and Sensibility." We poked fun at ourselves but the question continues to haunt me: God, am I too victorian for this town?



Sunday was decidedly sunnier when we watched the actual parade from the Montgomery MUNI stop. There were many sweet moments like one group called "Bad Rap" marching with their dressed-up and disreputable purebreds. BAD RAP stands for Bay Area Doglovers Responsible About Pitbulls. Other cute groups/participants included:

  • A contingent supporting the adoption of senior dogs
  • Mormons for Marriage Equality
  • A hand-in-hand safety brigade protecting those advocating for Transgender Health Consciousness
  • and all the young kids with their gay parents who seemed to be having the most fun of all.
Free to be you and me includes the freedom to be: tacky, creative, disgusting, naked, beautiful, unique, tasteless, opinionated and (let's hope) shy. This place loves freedom and I have to meditate on the fact that freedom doesn't discriminate no matter the taste level. I'm not giving up on this town, in fact I'm getting the adventure I desired. I didn't come to Munchkinland to roam the streets looking like Wednesday Adams. The freedom to laugh and be silly and happy is the sweetest freedom of all. I sometimes wish I could learn to relax a bit more.

It's time to end this post on a good note:

People from all over the world make a pilgrimage to this city. And the food is some of the best I've ever tasted. The people I've met are wonderful and it's going to take a while to make friends. I've gotten surprisingly lucky with the cost of living and potential employers have been pleasantly responsive as I hit the streets for my next gig. Adventures aren't supposed to be like the comfortable confines of a hobbit's hole. That's why they're adventures.

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