Pride Day
Well, we managed to pull together our little pagan contingent, although "little" is definitely the operative word here! There were only eight of us. But we still had fun.
The biggest surprise was that Richard, the high priest of the Wiccan Church of Canada, showed up -- in lime-green-and-black cycling shorts and a flowered T-shirt at that, I'm not sure I could have envisioned him wearing that particular combination of clothing if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes! :-) He's not gay, but he seemed to have a great time. We were right behind the float of HOLA, the gay Latino group, so they were blasting really loud Latin dance music, and Richard was dancing all over the place. I'm not sure I've ever even seen him dance before, and I've known him for 20 years!
So definitely, a good time was had by all, although one of my friends who'd wanted to be in our contingent got there late and couldn't get through the crowds to get to us, so we didn't hook up with her until after the parade.
Afterwards we wandered around to all the community groups' booths -- my favourite was the Bisexual Women of Toronto/Toronto Bisexual Network booth, where a woman was selling cat-shaped shortbread cookies by calling out "Cheap pussy! Only a dollar! If you've never tried pussy before, now's the time!" :-) I also got a "Bi Pride" fake tattoo put on me there, which, as I told my friend Darl who was working there selling stickers and T-shirts, was a historic moment because I'd been kind of resistant to letting myself be labelled as bi before, and now I was quite literally getting labelled! Unfortunately it got all messed up when I reapplied my sunscreen...
And speaking of sunscreen! As much as a I generally like my pale complexion (goth points and all that), it's a real bitch on occasions like this. I made sure before I left the house that I slathered myself everywhere with SPF 45 sunblock and also wore a hat that shaded my face, chest and shoulders a bit. And after the parade when we were up checking out the booths, the gay and lesbian doctors association had free sunscreen (SPF 30), so I put on more there, much to the amusement of my friends, who think I'm ridiculously paranoid about sunlight. I put the second coat of sunscreen on everywhere except my face and chest (I was wearing a fairly low-cut bustier), because I figured the hat shaded them enough.
Wrong! My face didn't get burned, probably because I was wearing makeup as well as the hat, but when I got home last night and got undressed, my entire cleavage area as exposed by the bustier was a lovely shade of fuschia. It's faded a little now, but is still quite noticeably pink. Which is especially silly-looking given there's still a lot of silver glitter all over it too... So now I know: hat or no hat, SPF 45 is not enough for cave fish like me! I knew I could burn through SPF 30, but apparently that's not all. Next year I bring an extra bottle with me, and reapply every couple of hours.
Oh well. It was still a good day.
The biggest surprise was that Richard, the high priest of the Wiccan Church of Canada, showed up -- in lime-green-and-black cycling shorts and a flowered T-shirt at that, I'm not sure I could have envisioned him wearing that particular combination of clothing if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes! :-) He's not gay, but he seemed to have a great time. We were right behind the float of HOLA, the gay Latino group, so they were blasting really loud Latin dance music, and Richard was dancing all over the place. I'm not sure I've ever even seen him dance before, and I've known him for 20 years!
So definitely, a good time was had by all, although one of my friends who'd wanted to be in our contingent got there late and couldn't get through the crowds to get to us, so we didn't hook up with her until after the parade.
Afterwards we wandered around to all the community groups' booths -- my favourite was the Bisexual Women of Toronto/Toronto Bisexual Network booth, where a woman was selling cat-shaped shortbread cookies by calling out "Cheap pussy! Only a dollar! If you've never tried pussy before, now's the time!" :-) I also got a "Bi Pride" fake tattoo put on me there, which, as I told my friend Darl who was working there selling stickers and T-shirts, was a historic moment because I'd been kind of resistant to letting myself be labelled as bi before, and now I was quite literally getting labelled! Unfortunately it got all messed up when I reapplied my sunscreen...
And speaking of sunscreen! As much as a I generally like my pale complexion (goth points and all that), it's a real bitch on occasions like this. I made sure before I left the house that I slathered myself everywhere with SPF 45 sunblock and also wore a hat that shaded my face, chest and shoulders a bit. And after the parade when we were up checking out the booths, the gay and lesbian doctors association had free sunscreen (SPF 30), so I put on more there, much to the amusement of my friends, who think I'm ridiculously paranoid about sunlight. I put the second coat of sunscreen on everywhere except my face and chest (I was wearing a fairly low-cut bustier), because I figured the hat shaded them enough.
Wrong! My face didn't get burned, probably because I was wearing makeup as well as the hat, but when I got home last night and got undressed, my entire cleavage area as exposed by the bustier was a lovely shade of fuschia. It's faded a little now, but is still quite noticeably pink. Which is especially silly-looking given there's still a lot of silver glitter all over it too... So now I know: hat or no hat, SPF 45 is not enough for cave fish like me! I knew I could burn through SPF 30, but apparently that's not all. Next year I bring an extra bottle with me, and reapply every couple of hours.
Oh well. It was still a good day.