Pride postgame

I wouldn’t say I’m hungover today, but I am certainly drained. I felt better today during improv, but now I just feel a different kind of drained after attempting performance. My voice is shot, and I told the truth on a work call as to why: screaming too much at Pride. Meera thinks people will interpret screaming as during sex instead of the intended to Chappell Roan and Charli XCX.

What a crazy week. I had two completely opposite experiences for each half. I spent the beginning of my week playing house with Meera in Massachusetts and the second half going absolutely feral for New York Pride. My head is metaphorically still spinning.

I am in one of the best places in the world to be gay. Once SCOTUS and future President Trump decide to continue destroying the legal fabric of our country, rights will allegedly return to the states. I’m thankful to be in one of the gayest ones. I don’t think I take for granted how easy and normal it is to be out here, and I don’t think I can live somewhere with few queers.

Something I’ve always found interesting about being gay is the spectrum of assimilation. When I was just a bit younger I would ask myself which existence is more radical: living a very conventional life while you happen to be queer or fully embodying all countercultural movements associated with queerness?

Being bisexual and probably marrying a woman are two of the most core parts of me, but I think the life I’m building isn’t a rebellious one. I work a corporate job and tend to avoid risky situations. I remember wanting this so badly when I was closeted and in my first relationship with a girl. I could just see the white picket fence, the tricked-out stroller, and floral dresses…a very trad fantasy that I never had previously with men!

I got to live a bit of that fantasy this week. The same way studying abroad made me oddly patriotic, living in New York has my mouth foaming for suburbia. I understand why so much of the New York elite class spend so much time outside of the city. I feel so exposed living here, braving the elements or retreating to my cove. I think this makes me a stronger person and it’s still fun most of the time, but I have a new appreciation for the suburban middle class experience.

Meera’s parents were out of town, and we stayed at their place for part of the week (which I wrote to about to you on the train there). In a word, blissful. We had nowhere to be and no schedule to hold ourselves to aside from the Peter Pan bus schedule. It’s wild to be somewhere that’s two stories tall. I love hanging in Fall River because it has all of the New England whimsy of a small town mixed with the bustle of a port city.

Meera’s mom bought and left us a bunch of food. We’d eat and watch Netflix cult documentaries or our friend Hannah who’s in her first weeks reporting at one of the area’s news stations. We worked on the couch and snacked on plantain chips. Each time I visit, I find new pictures to ask about. Meera was the cutest baby. Being in the house she spent part of her life in, sleeping in her bed, I get to see this window into a version of her I never met but feels all too familiar. I just know we would have been friends in elementary school but gone different paths as we got older. She was definitely cooler than me.

We spent one night with said friend Hannah. Her new apartment is just the cutest, fitting perfectly in its quaint Rhode Island town. We spent another night with Meera’s brother, eating at the town’s favorite diner. I’ve never gotten along better with a cat than his. He’s somehow a huge Pittsburgh sports fan, and I felt so at ease while he explained the Pirates lineup to us. We’d go home and sip a single Narragansett x Del’s Frozen Lemonade tallboy (Rhode Islanders, if you know you know) before drifting off to sleep. Bliss!

It’s nice when things are just quiet. When you can hear the summer bugs. When you have to drive to the convenience store and hear muffled radio hits. Fall River is just across the border from Rhode Island. We woke up one morning and hit a beach near Newport. It was gorgeous but too windy to relax. We walked along the sand wrapped in towels next to all the old people who are lucky enough to walk along the beach instead of walking laps around the mall. I felt the shells scrape my feet and wished they’d latch into my skin and prevent me from leaving. When I eventually had to, I was passenger princess, just like every other car ride here.

I felt like I created my own oasis. To get to a lot of New England’s nicer beaches, you have to drive down a bunch of windy roads or areas dominated by nature. Being in Mass and RI felt like I had made it to a metaphorical beach, a reward for following a path long enough. It made me want to cast a spell on myself, fast forward five years, and move to Rhode Island. I could drink a Gansett every night in New York, but something about doing it in its ancestral home felt so much more special.

I was not fully ready to bus back to New York. I knew I had a crazy weekend ahead of me, but I warmed up to it as the skyline came into view and our Domino’s order came together. When we eventually arrived and took the train home, a crazy thunderstorm had just started. It was so overwhelming that people were crowding at the station’s steps to shield themselves from the rain. We were so close to home and decided to just brave it, and people cheered us on as we ran outside. The cheering was necessary. Even just a few blocks was enough to soak all of my clothes instantly. The wind, the downpour, the lightning. What a welcome back.

Thursday began our Pride weekend. Last year was my first-ever New York Pride, and I had some unfinished business. I did a lot of typical things and found myself stuck in too many crowds, passing around too many lines. I watched the parade and was stuck in the West Village cesspool for too long. Been there, done that, this year should be different.

A large helping of my friends are bisexual girls that will marry men. It’s just who I attract. It’s not good or bad(?), just my life. For a lot of this weekend, I looked toward my friend Nat, who is friends with this huge group of lesbians I’ve met a few times before. I ended up spending almost the whole weekend with them. Something about them reminds me of a modern, younger version of the power lesbian archetype Charlotte hung out with in that one Sex and the City episode. Everyone has a cool job or is creating something cool. Lots of corporate people but more in the way that I’m corporate (read: fun enough). A few of them seemed really intimidating at first, but those are always some of my favorite people.

I joined them for Futch Night, which is a traveling lesbian party that attracts long lines and TikTok comment controversy. Tons of influencers go to this and make it seem like some big event, while regular people post videos and say it’s the manifestation of why white lesbians are so annoying. I was excited and interested in this event before knowing about its odd vibes, so I was a bit embarrassed by the time I actually went.

The key to this whole weekend was going to these fabulous pregames. These girls are all event planners in their own right. These are the kinds of girls who either were in sororities in college or just had a lot of fun watching their mom decorate. You’re at someone’s apartment but they have all sorts of fun decorations and loud enough music that you forget you’re in someone’s house. It gets you in the mood for a great night.

The Futch line was absolutely bonkers, rounding the corner and multi-layered. The event was at House of Yes, which I ended up really enjoying. We cut the line and endured dirty looks. I usually am not this kind of person. It’s nice to not be the mommy of a group for a change. We danced until the thought of a Slack notification became too frightening. The music was better than I thought it would be, but the event certainly wasn’t beating the Too White allegations, although I feel like it was probably better here than in other cities.

It’s so interesting to see how lesbians and queer women present themselves. It’s been a few years since a whole tide of women’s pandemic For You Pages helped them figure their sexualities out, but there’s still these certain fashion tells people use to show who they are. I do think I spent a lot less time observing this week and more time experiencing (even though the people watching was fabulous).

I recovered well from Futch and spent Friday watching my friend Allie’s comedy show then going out in Bushwick. Hilariously, my brother was in town and I got to meet his new girlfriend (just the coolest girl) for the first time. They stayed with us for the night before parting in the afternoon. It was nice to mix all sorts of people that night.

Saturday was intense. After getting food with our babies (Ben hated his crepe, but that’s on him for getting a weird crepe at a place with a big menu), we went to yet another elaborate pregame. Every detail was perfect. We were in this backyard with tons of seating, a life-sized, inflatable rainbow unicorn, and cups with different colors based on your relationship status. You could choose single, it’s complicated (in Brat green), taken, or straight. It was funny to see the small straight cohort, many in relationships, decide which one to take. There was also a Seven Minutes in Hell hallway decorated all red that led to a Jojo Siwa sticker book. Just too much fun in the sun.

We caught the tail end of the Dyke March, which is a protest every Pride Saturday championing all kinds of equality…but not after refueling with some otherworldly 7th Street Burger. I’ve learned that the best time to eat it is right after you get your bag and you stand along the counter, chewing in silence. I hate going to Washington Square Park because it’s just too overwhelming, and this was no different. A lot of people in this larger group ended up jumping in the fountain. They had fun, but there was no way I’m poppin’ in the piss pool. I ended up holding someone’s shoes. Someone’s gotta, I guess.

We spent the next few hours dancing in a few different West Village gay bars. One played music through YouTube music videos, which I think is the perfect thing to dance to. I told someone at the party that when I get married, I’m either gonna curate my own Spotify or YouTube playlist. She said I definitely won’t want that. I’m not convinced!

Going to another bar, we had to stop into a CVS to get cash for a cover. I tried helping a wayward lesbian get cash for her cover. The ATM was not working. We tried cashback at the counter, but my card got declined (not sure why; I didn’t spend THAT much on the weekend). Anaïs pulled through and got enough cash back from decoy purchases of a gum pack and a White Claw tallboy to get all of us into the bar. The CVS random said she’d see us in there while the three of us passed the drink around and rain started trickling down on us. Once we got in to meet our friends, we saw that the CVS lesbian was in this group. Fun coincidence. The day was so long but that meant we got to end it at a reasonable hour!

Another night of dancing the night away took a toll. I was exhausted, and my feet were sore from standing and moving all day. But what did we do? Rally again. We grabbed breakfast at a diner with some other drained friends, but this was not enough to wake me up. We thought we’d just pop by this pregame and go home, especially after a harrowing walk in the unrelenting sun. But we didn’t. We had so much fun and decided to continue the day. This whole group ended up going to this massive outdoor lesbian party in Williamsburg. This part was a bit blurrier. I peed in Port-a-Potties. I met a lesbian that runs a cornhole league. I was too distracted to watch what ended up being a twerking contest on stage.

A lot of people in my group ended up on this stage at different times of the night just being silly. It’s interesting to be in a large enough group that people are empowered to just get up and let go. I took off one moment to eat dinner and realized sleep was necessary. I wanted to meet up with my friends visiting from NH that weekend but realized I spread myself too darn thin. Meera and I went home, ate chips in bed, and passed out.

I was going to write about how this week I did both sides of the gay spectrum: assimilation (Fall River domesticity) and rebellion (partying for the sake of gayness). But I don’t think I did anything particularly radical. I went out and bopped to Kehlani every single day. This isn’t a radical act. It is fun, though, which is radical enough. It’s crazy to be in the most exciting place in the world, and that’s what New York gives, especially at Pride.

Whether on different sides of the spectrum or not, I definitely felt a mix of adult woman x little baby the whole week. This is what being a secure adult is, though, is knowing when it’s safe to be silly. I love my little gay life and where it’s been taking me. Closeted Syd would be in disbelief! I live in the best city, but I could use another Fall River weekend right about now.