Happy Pride!

I celebrated LGBT Pride season fully this year.

I perused my catalog to the Frameline Film Festival and bought tickets to six programs: two documentaries, two groups of shorts, and two feature films. I arranged to sit with a friend at five of the six shows, and had lunch with that friend before one of them. The films were absorbing, informative, and thought-provoking. I also caught some LGBT films for free on TV.

I was watching films at the time of the Dyke March, so I missed that this year. But I went to Dolores Park the day before for a youth/senior lunch, and battled my introversion enough to have a few conversations with some of the young'uns there.

On Gay Day itself, I donned a "GEN OUT" T-shirt and rode in a trolley with other elders at the front of the parade; Openhouse LGBT senior services organization was contingent number 5. I really enjoyed waving a rainbow flag out the open window and yelling "Happy Pride!" to the onlookers (some of whom responded in kind) until my voice gave way. Best of all was hearing my name called by a friend in the crowd and remembering his name in time to call it back to him.

After leaving the trolley, I saw some wonderful Pride T-shirts on sale on Market Street, and am kicking myself for not buying one or two. Maybe they're on the web somewhere . . .

Earlier that week, I did buy and wear a rainbow decorated leather bracelet and a rainbow bowtie. And got a rainbow-dyed fluffy foxtail keychain that's decorating my shooting stick/cane seat.

Seriously, though, we're going through hard political times where we need to celebrate our freedoms while we have them. And we need to nourish coalitions with all other groups who are under threat, and do all we can to preserve those freedoms.