Current location:	Charlotte and Ashley's Dancetime Lounge
Current mood:	accomplished
Current music:	"Rhapsody in Blue"-George Gerswhin

Rhapsody in Gay, Part 3: Dancing with Dorothy
Song lyric of the moment:

Sometimes, you need to be around some of your own.

Last week was Pride week for Pittsburgh.  Now, I'll admit that I've been feeling a bit...what's the word...claustrophobic as of late in my closet with my straight friends.  Not that I felt the need to hide myself, it's just that most of them are coupled, and they're being all couply and doing couply things, which means they're not exactly cutting edge.  Having to watch couples of any kind canoodle is gross, but it's extra gross when they do it while blowing you off for watching the game at your favorite gay bar.  The people I used to love for being cool enough to go to the places I was too scared to go to alone have turned into cutesy little versions of themselves.  It's pretty gross.  I needed an escape.

Escape came in a few forms.  First Catie Scudera, best friend of the friends of Dorothy, came back and hung out and was generally the amazing person she is.  Y'know how Joni Mitchell said that you don't know what you've got til it's gone?  Catie's one of those people.  We went with Erika to see this thing on sexuality and religion (where I ran into several members of my choir-awesome!) and then out with our old classmate Deanna to see (I kid you not) banjos.  It was fun and not couply and a great time.

Next came the Pride Pub Crawl.  Thanks to a combination of birthday events, the Pens game, and sheer lameness, everyone bailed on me.  At the last minute I convinced Jamar to go, but that didn't end up working out the way we'd hoped.  Still, determined, I decided that I was going to have the best Pride event ever, so I went from bar to bar, meeting new people and getting my free drink.  While doing this, I met three friends, two a couple, one the employee of one of them.  They were really cool and fun, and I had a great time.  The non-coupled one, she was single, and well, you do the math (although don't do it TOO much.  This is still me we're talking about).  Needless to say, I had a great night.

Sunday was the parade.  We only had 4 people from the church march, but we were strong and had fun.  I sang at PrideFest with some other women from choir as a roaming quartet, and it worked out pretty well.  I wasn't the best, but I held my own and built up some confidence in the process.  Afterwards, ATV and I wandered around and looked at all the stuff.  We saw a silver man and ate some tasty food (I still can't get the cheese fries out of my head).  We ran into Eli and hung out with him afterwards.  It was a blast.

Pride week was the best it's ever been, and I still have NYC Pride to look forward to next week!  I'm super excited about it, but I'm also really happy at what happened here.  I feel much better, much more confident, and far less confined by the world of straight couples.  It's a really great feeling, one that I continue to carry even though other elements of my week have been cripplingly awful (an entry for another time).  I am slowly carving a nitch for myself in the Pgh GLBTQ community.  About damn time!

-Dr. B