My darlings!! How was your Pride?🏳️🌈
I’m trying to come back to life today, as yesterday was entirely given over to mainlining water, blinking slowly without comprehension during zoom meetings, and making soft croaking noises off-camera like a homosexual crow near death. The day after Pride weekend should be a paid holiday for all employees who’ve ever been casually asked to “offer their perspectives” during required DEI trainings!!!
This year, at events for Minneapolis Pride, I saw:
A poodle with a rainbow manicure
A muscley queer wearing a fitted navy three-piece suit, a drawn-on mustache, and 6-inch lucite platform heels that flashed when they walked
Someone ~sensually~ applying sunscreen to the ass of a person who was crouched on all fours in a swimsuit made of spandex string and arching their back in a way that could only be described as “you think they know we can see them? wait, oh, i think that’s the point”
A baby wearing a homemade onesie that said, “Ask my moms about IVF!”
A flier my sister showed me that she got from a queer event I didn’t attend, look at this, she said she saw hundreds of these being handed out:
Someone wearing a bigger!!! hat!!!! than me!!!!! at Gay Beach (in a rage, I marched out of the water and immediately googled “largest possible hat” on my phone, i will not be outhatted)
Davin smoking from his annual pack of cigarettes (he buys a single pack, once every summer) while closing his eyes in the sun and swaying to “DO YOU BE-LIEEEEEVE IN LIFE AFTER LOVE” playing from a nearby radio🌈
The weekend was as close to perfect as you could ask for. It was warm and sunny, and it only rained at night on Friday, which happened to be the ideal time for everyone dancing outside and wearing small amounts of thin fabric to get sexily drenched.
Davin’s little sister watched our dogs so we could stay up in the Cities, there were zero drama moments, I ran into every queer in Minneapolis I only see once a year, and I did not witness a single fight, or even one person weeping in a corner because their ex just walked in, which has never not happened in the history of going out for Pride.
It was glorious. I had a wonderful time. Seeing that many queers out at once, dressed in their finest? It’s therapy!!!
But am I able to leave the weekend without offering notes for next year’s Pride?
I am not. Humbly, and with extreme(!) gratitude for the weekend that was, here are the newest additions to my ongoing mental list of How to Have a Fun Pride:
1. It is illegal to play music that we, the collective gays, do not know well during the last half hour of a sweaty Pride dance party.
Listen, I’m old, and I just learned from my friend Claire’s excellent (and free!) gay-music Substack that the person behind all those songs I like is Charli XCX, but if I look around at 1 AM in the middle of a throbbing queer dance party and the 20-somethings have stopped moving and also look confused about what song is playing?? Send the DJ to a deserted island where the only song that plays is JoJo Siwa’s “Karma”!!
2. If someone says, “Ew, do you know what’s in that? My god, I haven’t had Taco Bell since I was in high school” when the designated driver stops for emergency fast food at 3 AM, their seat in said car is immediately forfeit.
Babe, remember having fun? We’re stopping, you don’t have to order anything, and you also don’t need to say a word!
3. DJs may not interrupt, end, or fade out of Robyn’s “Dancing On My Own” at any time, but particularly during the climax of the song.
This happened on Saturday night at 12:30 AM – at the the height of the song, the DJ CUT OFF ROBYN to play UNKNOWN TECHNO, and the collective gasp that went up from the dance floor removed all traces of oxygen from the room.
4. Uber drivers asking, “So what is that, like a gay bar?” while half-naked riders in said Uber exchange nervous glances in the backseat will have their licenses revoked.
Hey Mike? Driving the black Chevy Suburban Uber XL? We don’t know if you’re asking because you’re gay and want to go out later or because you’re an ally and friendly or because you just like to know what’s going on or because you’re going to kill us. Thanks! We’re locked in your car, hope you’re just being friendly! :)
5. Next year will be the year we all finally remember that certain substances hit differently when one has had dinner vs. when one has not.
It would be so cool if we could learn!
That’s it for notes, though! What a monumentally excellent Pride. If I saw you out, I loved seeing you! If I didn’t, I wish I had!!
Time to go hang my handwashed slutty Pride clothes out in the sun to drip dry. Wishing you all a life where slutty Pride clothes are just your normal clothes!! 💋💋
I haven’t finished the article yet but “STRAIGHT KING” sounds gayer than anything else.
It sounds so fun!! I even saw an accessibility guide for Twin Cities Pride on IG, completely at random! It sounds like there were maybe a lot of disparate events happening that weekend though? I would be interested in learning how to sniff out the best ones in one’s given city.
You’re so lucky that there wasn’t any drama; Boston Pride was full of it (and rightly so). There’s also been drama among Dyke Marches across the country this year. (Idk if the Twin Cities has a Dyke March?)
Happy recovery from Pride!! This month is Disability Pride month, so time to keep celebrating!