What a gay day

Here's a thing - I got in the lift today, headed out for some internet-based fun, and was confronted by one of the campest little men I've ever seen. He immediately asked me if I was 'here for the parade', which I took to mean one of two things:

1) I was a gay man

2) I was a gay woman

Ruling out the latter as simply conjecture, it seemed obvious the little chap assumed I was a member of his gang. A bit perturbed at the presumption, I answered a little too quickly that, 'no, I live here', but that did little to quosh his enthused banter and once he got started about all the 'hot guys' that were about, there was literally no stopping him. After revealing that he hadn't done anything with any of them yet, but was obviously very keen to get started, he turned his attention back to me. Nodding knowingly he chanced, 'Australia?' in my direction. Bloody Australia?! I'm not sure I could sound more English, but sadly this was far from the first time this confusion had arisen. 'No', I said. 'I'm English - I live in London, but everyone always says Australia or New Zealand to me.' He asked why I thought he had reached that conclusion. 'Cos there's so many about?' I ventured. 'No', he said. 'Cos you're so rugged and butch.' I'll take a moment now so that you can take that in. Rugged AND butch. Even I laughed at that one, and I'm me. I'm the guy whose friends affectionately (at least I think it's affectionate) refer to my clenched fist as the 'paperclip'. At least it's laid my mind to rest about one thing - this guy's first impressions were way off on every count. Bollocks, if you like. I'm pretty sure he did. Anyway, that signalled the start of one ultra-gay weekend.

I suppose it was muttering expletives under my breath while scraping handfuls of glitter down the sink that I realised we were right in the middle of the much celebrated and anticipated Pride week here in Toronto. I should explain, of course, that although four of the five rooms in my dorm are filled by my Irish chums and I on a semi-permenant basis, the fifth is a double room set aside for regular hotel guests (who are doing things on a budget, I guess) and we usually have couples from all over the world swapping around after a few days stay. The latest couple are Adam and Steve (I kid you not) who have come specifically for the Pride festival and are a couple of odd shaped drag queens in their late forties.

This morning, gasping for the loo, I opened the door to see the pair of them glamming up (using both the sodding toilets) in preperation for today's parade. There was a surreal conversation which then took place - me in my pants and t-shirt, them in their hot pants, heavy make-up and not a lot else - where we discussed the need to fix one of the toilets which had 'mysteriously' broken 'overnight.' Which I took to mean, had been crammed full of make-up pads and glitter this morning and was now suffering from having its pipe overstuffed. A problem, I suspected, that was not entirely alien to Adam and Steve themselves. Sorry, I had to. So there I found myself in our one remaining good bathroom, grumbling about having to clean up after some middle-aged queens when it hit me - this is why I went away in the first place. Not to become a glitter disposal expert, but to experience something different to what I was used to - and you can trust me on this, it was certainly not the kind of thing which occurs all the time in Streatham. That's not to say the Pride festival is unique to Toronto - these go on around the world all the time - but Toronto embraces its inhabitants of all racial and sexual persuasions and that, unfortunately, is something very different to where I live in London. Is it not the purpose of travelling to see and experience the exotic, new and different? I'll help you here - it is. It might not be everyone's cup of tea - my Irish flatmates, who are also having a ball this week, tell me that the Cork version of the Pride parade is less a march and more a sprint - but I'm having a great time, as you'll be able to see from the photos I'll be putting up very soon, and as for Adam and Steve and all the people of the happy persuasion, we salute you, sir, madam, or whatever you want to be called. Happy Pride to one and all.