Pride weekend

Most of this weekend doesn't mean much. The things, in my opinion that have more substance and meaning happen during the week. Although, I'm sure some of the festival booths probably had meaningful ideas behind them. I did check out Latino pride Friday night and it was pretty good, even though it started late.
What this weekend means for me, is an excuse to see and hang out with all gay-friendly friends. The parade or festival give people a common place to go to and the power of luck, fate and SMS give you the chance to see them. What pride means for me is to bring people together to celebrate, better yet affirm, who we are. And to spend good times with good friends. That goal was met with relative success, I tried to bring people together, and told people where we were gonna be, or at. And some came, some didn't. Their loss. I think back to previous prides and all the running around I did. And I almost did that again, but realized its not always my responsibility. Afterwards, we eventually got to the BYT closing which was amazingly big, but I was not really into it. Cool for what it was, but definitely not my style-ish. Like I could have made it worth it, but other stuff on my mind(to be mentioned later) were distracting, and I wasn't up for the proactivity. I even did the unthinkable . . . I put my camera in the car. A few drinks later, running into a couple random acquaintances, losing the group, phone dying, walking back to V's car only to realize it was gone, then walking to Tim's place in Adam's Morgan, callin Freddy/Vernon cuz my wallet & camera was in the car, then eating grapes and fallin asleep awkwardly on the love seat in preparation for Sundays trip to NYC...

Funeral Thoughts

Wow, a funeral seems to be the only way to catch up with certain family these days. It is also the only time I wear my black suit.

 

Being there and actually hearing about my grandfather's life was interesting. I learned he was fully dominican, and that he played the harmonica. Sitting there I looked across at my own dad, and began to see parralels, and somewhat greater insight into their lives and somewhat my own. They were both into realty as a career and enjoyed going out see movies. There were also interesting stuff about his love of music, soft-spokenness and his parenting style.

 

Hearing everything truly made me think more about my dad. I've talked more to my dad in the past year, than most of life put together. And 99% of what we talked about was me giving him help with math problems for his step-daughter. But hearing my aunts talk about him, thinking of past experiences with him, and thinking of past experiences with my own father, it really showed how traits/characteristics can be passed down from one generation to the next. This goes for both the good and bad qualities in people.  

 

In thinking about the entire weekend, my life, friends' lives and people situations I wonder how much of our personalities are results of our parents. What things good AND bad, have we picked up and held on to?  Can/will we look into ourselves and see where the potential negative aspects are coming from and actually try to mitigate, or at least understand) their effects in our lives?

 

#tobecontinued...