From Friday to Sunday there were Pride events. So many it was overwhelming to hear about them all. I went to the Seattle Trans Pride with Dad on Friday. We marched in the parade, went through the booths, and listened to live music.
There were so many people! I thought I would see more people I knew. There were only a handful of them. It was cool to meet new people. One person named Yael marched next to me and chatted. They were probably a little too chatty. They might have been nervous, though.
There was one person who kept telling me to smile just before we started marching. I 'naturally' smile all the time. In fact, my face sometimes hurts from smiling by the end of the day. I don't see how I could smile even more. Another thing is it reminded me of what's expected of women. They're expected to be smiling. If they're not, they're considered to be bitchy/moody. That's so wrong, though. It felt like she was assuming I was a woman, which adds a special layer of awfulness to it. Another side of this is the march is somewhat bittersweet. We're celebrating who we are. However, it's also a march for trans rights and then some. It's understandable if someone doesn't want to smile for it. It seems like something someone outside of the community would say.
I loved seeing the diversity of people there. People of color, those with disabilities, people of different sizes from heavy-set to very thin ones, people of all ages, different styles of dress, etc. The signs were interesting, too.
I waved my genderqueer (or GQ) flag, too. People asked me about it, got it confused with the non-binary (or nb or enby) flag, and some were really happy to see it. The GQ flag is lavender for androgyny or queerness, white for agender and neutrois, and green for all the other genders outside of the binary. GQ is older than enby, and they're essentially the same. At some point, some people had issues with the word 'queer' (understandable), so enby was created as an alternative. A lot of people, including me, like both. I saw a few people with GQ and enby flags. One person had an GQ flag as big as my ace flag. (3' x 5'.) They wore it like a cape. That was cool. Another person had body glitter paint on their back in the enby flag colors. One person saw my flag and told me they walked next to me because they thought it was the enby flag. They had an enby-related sign. I can't remember what it said, but it was something like enby people deserve respect and their lives matter. I think part of it referred to someone who was recently killed for being enby, too. (It was a long sign.) It was nice to hear that they specifically stood next to me because of my flag. Even if they mistook it for the enby one. It still fits.
A couple of people asked me what agender was when I was more specific. Some people looked confused when I said I don't have a gender. When I told someone I'm 3 of the A's (aro ace and agender), they asked: "So you're like grey-ace?" For some reason being all the way on the ace side was harder for her to grasp. How could I never experience sexual attraction to anyone? That was interesting considering so many people don't even think about the grey area.
I think there were more booths than last time. We didn't even peek at the food trucks. (Therefore, I don't know how many there were.) It was great to see. I got so much candy from the vendors. It was like Halloween. Lots of pens, too. The pencils from the PFLAG booth looked cool. They're in Pride colors, but the colors fade into each other and have a metallic look.
There were a lot of pronoun buttons. I got some they/them ones. Right now, my pronouns are she/her and they/them. I don't feel either completely 'fit' me though. I said something similar in the enby group on fb when someone asked ours. Someone commented: "Been there!" Doesn't really help...At least, I know I'm not alone with it.
There were some very informative stuff there. There was an ACLU handbook on trans rights in Washington. I still haven't read through it. Good to have and know, though. I didn't know there was such a thing called Queer Scouts. They're an adult group that gets together to watch LGBTQ+ movies and have events. Gay City had quite a lot of info. Even a list people could look up for their resources and groups. There were some counseling groups. The Seattle library branch had a list of DVDs they have of trans related movies/docs. A lot of stuff.
We were going to eat dinner at Anapurna like last year. However, the line was much longer. They told us it would be 30 minutes. We left at the 30-minute mark. Apparently they were ready for us roughly 30 minutes later. An hour long wait altogether. Too long. We got something from the ferry's galley, and ate there. The sandwich was a little too dry, but ok. The cranberry orange bread was really good. I don't drink soda that often, but I got a Crush. It was packed with sugar, too. Wahoo! I was craving it, though. The shlep there and back took a lot out of me.
I was still tired the next day, but went to the Bainbridge Island Pride Picnic anyways. It wasn't like the Kitsap one. More like a Pride fest. However, they have one next month. There were vendors, but most weren't LGBTQ+ related. It's good they were there in support, I guess. There was live music, too. The was a food truck for Wok n Roll. I got pot-stickers and a strawberry mint lemonade. Those were good. The Papa Murphy's Pizza booth were just selling soda. There was a local bakery booth. Their display looked enticing. I got their brownie. It was amazing! More like actual fudge dusted with powdered sugar.
Yesterday was Seattle Pride. Both our local Pride org and the Seattle Aces wanted me to march with them. I can't be in 2 places at once...I was still tired from Trans Pride. Plus, it gets incredibly crowded. It was the first time the Seattle Aces were marching in it. They know I'm interested in the group, so they invited me to everything they had related to it. Even their afterparty. This year the local Pride org had a float that looked like a ferry. (I think it was only their 2nd time in the parade.) Dad and I watched most of it through Kiro 7's live-feed. (They're a local news station.) I think I heard that it ended up being the largest Pride parade in the country. A lot more people watching on the sidelines than last year, too. I'm glad I wasn't actually there. I did see the ace group, but didn't see our local Pride org. Saw pics afterwards, at least. The next Pride thing I might go to is marching with the Pride group in a local 4th of July parade. I'll definitely get my aro ace Pride shirt before then. Not sure if I'll wear that or this year's local org's shirt.
I went back to writing Alliance 3 today. Didn't get much of it done, because Word was being really slow. It was frustrating.
Went through the Food unit for Chinese. Half the time I went through their review. If you don't do anything in the app every day, the plant starts to die and the leaves next to the completed units turn brown. I hadn't been on it for 3 days. It looked sad. Also, my pronunciation seemed worse. Probably because I hadn't done it for 3 days, too. I still passed all the new stuff. I find it's fun and addicting to learn. German was fun too, but this seems more so. Their h's seem close to the Hebrew ch, too.
Finished reading the manga, +Anima. It was surprisingly good. I wasn't expecting much from it. I feel bad for what Cooro had to go through now. He's the main character who befriended 3 other +anima, and they traveled together. There was even less info on him than the others for most of it. He apparently was born a +anima. There was speculation that he was 'artificial', created in the research center. Instead, his mother died while giving birth to him. As a newborn, he wanted to survive so much that he saw a bunch of crows gathering around him, reached out to them, and became a crow +anima at the moment. He obviously didn't remember this. Towards the end, he went to the place where his mother died, and the crows were gathering there just like before. Even though he had his +anima surgically removed, as soon as he saw them something clicked and he gained it back. He became emotional, like on some level he knew what happened. His mission was to gather +anima so Fry could research them and steal their +anima. Cooro never wanted to go back to the research facility. Fry gave himself Cooro's +anima, but he lost it when Cooro got it back. It's implied that he died. I'm not sure I like that or not. I think he was misunderstood.
I mostly just got to the miscellaneous cleaning stuff. I did finish drawing Doina's head from Alliance. Took me a while to get it decent. Might be because I haven't been drawing on a regular basis for a while. Next, I'll ink and post Tzvi, Antonio, and Doina's heads to dA and Instagram.
Went back to watching Bad Guys on Netflix. It's a Korean detective series. There are 3 convicts asked to help solve cases in exchange for shorter sentences. All of them, including the lead detective, seem damaged in some way. The only one that might not be is the female assistant to the lead. She's really tough herself, though. The convicts methods are ruthless, but they don't seem 'evil'. Just horribly misunderstood. The 'scariest' one is the young psychopath. He doesn't remember any of his murders. He supposedly blacks out during them. In fact, he hired a pi at one point to keep an eye on himself to see if he really does kill people. He may have been set up just because of who he is. Another one kills any man who abuses women. The other one seems to just be caught up with the wrong people. They're all strong. The psychopath is also incredibly bright and tends to solve big parts of the cases that others just can't see. The lead detective hates following the rules, and is pretty violent himself. He refers to himself and the convicts as wild dogs that have been starved and beaten by society. It's interesting to see their different perspectives on the cases. It's really interesting. The cinematography is gorgeous. All the main actors are incredibly attractive looking, too. There's a lot of dark humor.
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