Pride (San Diego 2017)

Happy Tuesday everyone,

I'm going to split this post into three parts.

What is Pride?

What is it like to volunteer for Pride?

And

What free stuff did I get from Pride?

This is my second year (the red shirt is from last year and I don't know why I didn't blog my first pride) going to the Pride festival. I have yet to see the parade so I'm afraid I don't have much insight on that.

The festival is a closed-off area with several stages for concerts, food trucks and many many many many many booths which I talk about more in the free stuff section. This year it was called the music festival but I don't remember that from last year. Unlike the parade, it is not free. You have to buy tickets to enter.

But what is Pride?

Pride is where you are accepted and loved no matter what. It doesn't matter how you identify. You are loved for who you are. You are free to be whoever you want. For a lot of people, pride is the only time they get to be themselves. Teenagers are often forced into closets or else they get kicked out of their house or worse. At pride, you don't have to hide. You get to be loud and proud. You gather with people who are like you and you celebrate not just what makes you the same, but what make you different. Pride is the place you get to be proud of who you are and celebrate. You don't have to be afraid. For many people, it may not seem like this matters. It is true that the world is more accepting than it uses to be. But every person walking into pride has a different story. Some don't have it as easy as say I do. I have never been told there is something wrong with me for liking both boys and girls. I wasn't kicked out of my house. I have never been attacked in any way. I'm lucky. Not everyone is. That is why pride is so important.

Shift in tone.

Walking around the festival is a great time for people-watching. You see people decked out in every rainbow thing they own, including wearing a rainbow flag as a cape. You see men in nothing but speedos and women in bottoms and nipple stickers. The rule it seems is if you have a penis it needs to be covered (they weren't out but the underwear was very tight and the person wearing them was often dancing) but the butt it seems does not have to be covered. I saw two men in some sort of buttless underwear. It seemed like a thong that covered there penis. And woman have to have their vaginas (I didn't see any butts but I don't know) and nipples covered. *When I say men and women I mean a person with a penis vs a person with a vagina. I say this because gender is more complicated. Anyways, I saw three pair of boobs, I believe. One of the booths had body glitter so there was a lot of that. There were a couple people with animal costume heads. One of my favorite attendants of Pride are the fierce drag queens. They do themselves up in full glam and it gives me life. One of the drag queens was wearing a victorian dress made out of fabric with trumps face as the pattern. And you also see completely average people with no sort of decoration. You come as you are. I would also like to say that I saw at least one confirmed straight cisgender man as he was wearing a shirt that said, "Straight but don't hate". Pride is a place for everyone to come as you are.

This is my second year volunteering for the Pride festival. I started volunteering because I wanted to go to Pride but the tickets are expensive and if you volunteer you get in for free. There are many different positions to volunteer for. I signed up for what is called the A-Team both years because it's the best position for someone with no work experience. A-Team just basically sends out volunteers wherever they're needed. In my opinion, it gives you the most direction. I volunteer Saturday and Sunday as I have to watch my sister during the week. You get a five or six-hour shift with plenty of breaks for free food and drinks in the "Volunteer Village". This year they had me at water and ice sales. We had a big truck full of ice and over one hundred cases of water that was distributed throughout the festival. I claimed the ice truck position as my own because it was a hot weekend and the ice truck felt amazing. Pure bliss. And after my shift, I checked in with the A-Team leader and got to be free in the festival.

I'm trying to get all of my friends to volunteer with me because it is so fun and so worth it. Someone asked if I got paid and no I did not. I still think it is worth it. The shifts aren't long and the work isn't hard then they give u as much free food as you can eat and you get all the free stuff from the booths and you don't have to buy tickets. In my opinion, that's worth it. I hope to volunteer at least until I get all the shirts in the rainbow.

A big part of the festival, at least for me, is the free stuff from all the booths. You walk around this big loop that is lined with so many different kinds of booths. You have everything from food to people selling products such as rainbow flags, pins, shirts etc and there are companies giving away free stuff for advertisement as well as organizations for things like sexual health, mental health, there were several churches and people from the army and police force. Honestly, everything was there.

Day 1: My bag was huge and actually heavy by the time I finished the loop. At the end of the walk I missed a couple booths because I was done and so tired that I just wanted to go home. And I didn't walk the loop until after my five-hour shift so I was very tired. The next day I walked the loop backwards to make sure I got the booths I missed.

Bags: 4 (Which was very surprising as last year I got like 20. But it's fine because I still have all the bags from last year. Also, I don't bring a bag to Pride because they give you several. I just walk the loop holding my stuff until I get one.)

Shirts: 2 (Colgate was there last year and I actually got the same shirt in a different color and I cut the Colgate part off.)

Wrist bands: 9 (I realized I still have all the bracelets from last year in a pile on my bookshelf and I never went through them or wore any of them.)

Sunglasses: 2 (Even though I can't wear non-prescription sunglasses I still get them for my few friends who have 20/20 vision)

Stress balls: I got one rainbow stress ball, one stress fish and a stress panda (my favorite animal!) (I love stress balls but I've never actually bought them because I'm a fiend for free stuff.

Snacks/candy: 5
Chapstick: 3

Pins: 6

Condoms: 9

Lube: 10

I also got a ton of post cards (that I'm only keeping because they're cute and I want to put them on my pin bored), stickers, bubbles, dental hygiene stuff from Colgate, a water bottle, a water bag, a beer cosy (to which I said, "I'm underage, but thanks"), a magazine (that seemed to be for gay men), a planner (happy I don't have to buy one!) two lanyards, two notepads, two fans (one has a cat on it that looks like my cat), a bottle of lotion, a  lion key chain and a wallet key chain.

I also bought a couple things from the booths. I tried not to because I didn't want to spend all my money but then I decided I'm really only around this much rainbow stuff once a year so I should stalk up.

I bought two little flags; one is a rainbow and the other is the bisexual flag which is pink, blue and purple. I don't have any bi themed stuff so I bought a bunch that day.

Five pins; three rainbow and two bisexual themed.

Two bisexual flag sticker and two rainbow stickers.

A rainbow flower crown).

A coexist bumper sticker (I've always wanted one I'm so excited!)

A rainbow sweatband (I bought this at the first booth I came to because my forehead was sweating so bad.)

And a little red lollypop necklace that is so cute! It's not gay but it's adorable . . . It was 20 dollars.

Day 2:

Bags: 3

Bracelets: 6

Snacks: 4

Magnet clips: 2

Beads: 4 (One of them are fishies! I'm really excited about these because I have a pin board that's organized by color and has my other beads hanging in the designated color. I'm also excited about the fishies because it's different and I also have ducky ones from like the fifth grade.)

Condoms: 6

I also got a hat (It has a foam front that a needle easily goes through so I stuck all the pins I got on it and it looks really cute.), a stress ball, a rainbow flag (The free ones are plastic. I think I have three in all.), one pair of glasses, a stick of chapstick, a flashlight, hand sanitizer, a key chain, and a portable charger that I got for getting an HIV test.

- Pride has free, quick and easy HIV testing that takes less than ten minutes (Waiting in line and the actual test) and then you get a really cool free
prize for doing it. They have the best free stuff of all of the booths honestly. It was funny because you have to fill out a form and one of the questions was when was your last test. And I wrote down the same day last year. I mean if they have it every year might as well do it every year. I am sexually active and although I trust him, it doesn't hurt. After I tested negative I texted him saying, "We tested negative!". Because if I'm negative so is he. And even if you aren't sexually active I would do it for the free portable charger. You sit in an air-conditioned bus, you flip a doctor off, he gives you a very small prick then squeezes a couple drops onto a thing and they immediately tell you your results. Now if you're afraid of needles or especially blood I wouldn't do this as you watch your blood drip onto a stick thing.

That is all I got for day 2. I didn't buy anything else and I didn't get as much stuff but that's typical day two.


Oh yeah and I also stole a beach ball from the concert because it's on my bucket list.

Thanks for reading, (I don't know what my outro is anymore)
Totally Ky

P.S. The pictures of me against the white background and the last two pictures with the beach ball were taken by Ana G. aka @anabanaphotography on instagram.