how saturday became the best pre-anniversary/gay reunion EVER

Remember my bitchy post on Friday? The one where I whined and whined about how Jesse and I would need to share our pre-anniversary celebration with his friend’s birthday? Well, turns out Saturday ended up being all about us (and all of my favorite gays).

We met up with my boys Dave and Enzo for pre-parade food and drinks. We were in the mood for the margaritas so we dined at La Frontera on 17th on the patio. Unfortunately, we were not seated under an umbrella, so we were melting as quickly as the ice in our margarita pitchers. After lunner (lunch + dinner), we claimed a spot to watch the parade. Soon after, we were visited by my favorite party gay, Jason (the friend that brought Jesse and me together), and we settled down to watch the parade.

Jason, Jesse, and me…reminiscing on that fateful day 3 years ago


Mayor Fenty shows his love for the gays (random photog got in the way of my shot)


The be bar school bus seemed to be a popular hangout


The Freddie’s Beach Bar float was soaking the crowd.


Support from the PFLAG-ers makes my eyes teary every year


The Remington’s boys are always a crowd fave.


The Results Gym float celebrated the upcoming opening of their new location on Connecticut and L St.


How cute are the Zipcar peeps?


Speaking of cute peeps…here are Jason and Jesse…


And my boys, cuties Dave and Enzo


Finally, to wrap up my gay reunion, here I am with my boo, Rene, who finally got to meet Jesse


Three years later and we’re right back where we started…

AND he still gives me butterflies!

We didn’t quite make it to the birthday party (which had a little something to do with my tripping on the sidewalk and scraping up my leg pretty bad). Instead, Jesse and I went home and he bandaged me up and took care of me.

Even though I’m still in some pain because of that fall, it was still the most fun I’ve had at the Pride Parade since I met Jesse.

For the full set of pics from Pride, please check out my flickr page.

it’s my pre-anniversary and i’ll bitch if i want to

As the big 3 year anniversary approaches, that means two things—first off, Pride is upon us and secondly, the pre-anniversary is here too. What is a pre-anniversary? A pre-anniversary is this thing I made up when Jesse and I were trying to figure out what date our anniversary should be. Should it be the day that we met, in order to commemorate how special it was to meet during Pride and how it all started when I took Jesse home with me (YES, I took him home with me that very same night and if I hadn’t been a slut that night, who knows where we’d be.). Or should it be the day when Jesse and I had our first official date (which was the following Saturday), a romantic dinner cooked by the future love of my life? Because I did not feel comfortable telling our future grandkids that grandma took grandpa home for some bedtime fun the night we met, I proposed that our anniversary should be the date of our first date.

However, because of the (in my opinion) extraordinary way that Jesse and I met (come on, what straight person meets the love of his/her life at gay Pride?), I wanted to commemorate that in some way. Hence, the Pre-Anniversary was born. The actual pre-anniversary date is the 12th but every year since Jesse and I have been together, we’ve celebrated by going to Pride and watching the Parade (regardless of the date).

This year, I expected to celebrate by doing the usual—dinner and/or drinks at Dupont Italian Kitchen (the site of our infamous meeting) followed by parade-watching fun with friends. It’s almost a re-enactment (yet not exactly because even that would be a little too cheesy for me). But the point is, whether we celebrate just the two of us or with our friends, the day is about us and how that day is our day because it changed everything.

Except this year, it’s not going to feel like our day (and yes, I’m being a pouty brat about it). Apparently, Jesse’s friends have decided to throw a surprise party for one of their friends (don’t worry, she doesn’t read this blog so the surprise won’t be ruined) on Saturday. I don’t really expect Jesse’s friends to know that Saturday is the day of the Pride parade meaning it’s OUR day (Jesse and me, that is). But did they really have to time the party to coincide with the start of the parade? And does the party really have to be in the ‘burbs? They’re making it really difficult to make an appearance at both.

Obviously Jesse is torn. He feels obligated to go to his friend’s party as he wants to celebrate her birthday (which is perfectly understandable). But what he really wants to do is celebrate us and our milestone (just in case you were wondering if I was the only one who was excited about our pre-anniversary). So what do you when there are two obligations going on at the same time? Well, if you’re Jesse and me, you compromise. Boo.

So this means that we have to sacrifice our celebration for this birthday party. The revised plan is to go to the Pride parade for a while and then leave to go to the birthday party. Unfortunately, we won’t get to see the whole parade (which sucks because usually the good stuff is at the end). And we’ll miss the big surprise moment at the party (I’m not too heartbroken about that though). So we’re going to miss the good parts of both of our obligations. AND we both have to sacrifice what we want. Ugh. Whatevs.

I needed to vent, so what better venue to do so than my weekly visit with my shrink extraordinaire, Dr. W. I preempted my story by telling her, “Look, I know that it’s incredibly selfish and self-centered of me to feel this way, but…” Dr. W patiently listened to my story and when I was done, she said, “Well, it’s completely understandable that you feel that way. All you wanted to do was dedicate the day to celebrating your relationship.” She gets me. She really gets me. I told her, “Thank you so much for validating my feelings.”

It’s great that Dr. W told me that it’s ok for me to feel the way I do, but it still doesn’t make me feel any better. Oh well. Looks like I’m just going to have to make the most of it.

how I almost fired someone over black pride

Awww…Pride. I'm a big fan of Pride. In fact, it was at Pride almost 3 years ago that I met my boo and it was a night I will never forget, despite my high level of inebriation. I heart Pride so much that it’s strange how I often forget that there’s two—DC Pride and Black Pride.

Black Pride is traditionally on Memorial Day weekend, which is usually a big retail weekend so I wasn’t always lucky to get it off when I worked at the Crap. However, neither were some of my employees at the time, a couple of which were not-so-closeted homophobes. Apparently, the homophobes griped about getting hit on by people they wouldn’t want to go out with (black gay men, oh my!) and tried hard to get those days off. They weren’t successful and they had to work.

On one particular Black Pride weekend a few years back, I had to work late with Homophobe and Idiot (the distinction will become apparent shortly although the descriptions were interchangeable). Homophobe did his job and complained quietly about getting hit on. Idiot wasn’t doing his job and complained loudly about getting hit on. Needless to say, by the end of the day, Idiot was getting on my nerves.

After closing, the staff would play the radio and talk about whatever they wanted to while straightening up the store. I encouraged this because (Lord knows) I didn’t like to work in silence. The topic of Black Pride came up. I knew we were about to tread on troubled waters. Homophobe started talking about how uncomfortable it made him to get hit on constantly that day (from what I remember, Homophobe wasn’t hot or God’s gift, but he was charming I guess and that’s what made him an excellent sales person). Idiot agreed and went on about how all gay people in general make him uncomfortable. Before I could say, “Idiot, please keep those opinions to yourself,” Idiot continued talking about how homosexuality is morally wrong and that God said that marriage should be between a man and a woman and it is against all religions to be gay. My jaw dropped.

I am not surprised that anyone feels this way. But I am surprised that he had the stupidity to actually say those words in front of a closing staff of 10, half of which was gay including my fellow closing manager. I’m not gay and I was thoroughly offended. I looked at my fellow closing manager and noticed that he was about to flip his lid. To prevent a major catastrophe, I told Idiot that it would be best if he changed the subject and pulled my fellow manager into the office to calm him down. As the week went on, all of the gays I worked with that night came up to me and told me how uncomfortable it was to work with Idiot and how they didn’t want to be scheduled with him any more. It broke my heart to listen to them talking about their feelings. What’s worse is how they all felt that work wasn’t a place of comfort for them any more. They no longer felt free to be themselves. The last straw was when the one closeted gay who was there came and talked to me about it. At that point, I was the only person he had come out to. He told me he didn’t want to work for the Crap anymore. I knew then that something had to be done.

The Crap has a zero tolerance policy for discrimination, racism, and sexism. I saw no difference between his comments and that of say someone who hates Mexicans and says, “All Mexicans are fat, stupid, and lazy.” I decided to use the zero tolerance policy as my weapon to fire Idiot. I pulled the management team together and we all agreed to it. I consulted Corporate about the right steps to take in order not to get sued (the Crap is very litigation-phobic). In the end, my district manager was too scared to fire him because she was certain Idiot would sue. I was livid. So much for “zero tolerance.”

The management team decided to go with Plan B—fire him the old-fashioned way. Idiot wasn’t known for his timeliness so we wrote him up on three different occasions for being late (three strikes and you’re out) and he was fired because of this technicality. Idiot didn’t sue or try to fight it. In fact, he probably knew the real reason why he was fired.

But I really wish he had been fired for the right reasons.

"Pride--bringing straight people together"

The lovely Capitol Pride parade was Saturday and it didn't disappoint. The "floats" were awesome! There were drag queens, 1/2 naked men, men decked out in all leather, and cowboys...lots of cowboys.

Jesse, Dave, me and Enzo's friends had dinner and drinks at Dupont Italian Kitchen. While there, Dave was telling Enzo's friends about the story of how Jesse and I met. Dave nicely summed up my feelings about Pride when he said, "Pride--it's about bringing straight people together." Hear, hear.






Adrian Fenty appeared to campaign. Chances are, if you think he's cute, you're gonna vote for him for DC mayor.





Men in leather...and men at the "beach"--Freddy's beach bar, that is.







The gym-perfected bodies from the Results Gym "float"






My favorite, the Dancing Cowboys, which came before Remington's cowboys. Their synchronized dance moves were definitely better than Remington's vogue-ing.