We start on my birthday weekend, which was actually a week after my actual birthday. Blame my friends for having stuff already planned, and myself for planning things at the last minute. 47 isn’t a number with a lot of oomph, right? On the bright side, it’s just a number, and birthdays are arbitrary dates anyway. I can celebrate anytime, and did.
Sunday was the Pride Sports Day, formerly Picnic in the Park. Not only did they rebrand, they moved it from Brockton Oval to Second Beach. Probably for the best: more accessible, a bit more parking, more shade around the park, more stuff nearby. I kinda didn’t want to go, since it was hot, and I still had beach vball in the afternoon. But, a bit more practice wouldn’t hurt, I felt I should support Pride events, and it would get me out of the house. So off I went.
And it was fun! I ended up not playing much volleyball, instead sitting (in the shade!) in the VGVA booth. And eating popcorn.
Monday I saw pictures of BLM-Vancouver’s March On Pride. It looks like they added brown and black lines to at least one of the rainbow walkways at Bute & Davie, and I got the urge to see what it looked like as soon as I got out of work. Kinda faded now, but someone did helpfully point out that it was Art. And I agree.
Looks like the new 8-stripe rainbow (6 + brown + black) is spreading beyond Philadelphia. I wonder how it’ll compete with the old-school 8-stripe (6 + pink + indigo) even in the same city. That’ll be fun to watch.
Then, a bunch of non-queer stuff during the rest of the week. A little table under Burrard Bridge (do people actually use it? I guess that was queer in the sense of “odd”); a lovely shot of the evening sky from David Lam Park; some random sights and Canadian passive-aggressive graffiti on my evening commute.
On Friday I went to the Pride Premiere party at the Vancouver Art Gallery. It was a fun time, though I got there too late to see the main drag acts. That’s because I was hanging out at a friend’s rented condo in the Sheraton Wall Centre. A deluxe apartment in the sky, you might say. It’s a gorgeous view of both the city and the sunset, but my acrophobia was acting up something fierce. I could not live long with these floor-to-ceiling windows, and the occasional bout of vertigo. No, seriously, I lost my balance twice in an hour. Guess I’ll stay in my 2nd floor apartment a while longer.
Saturday, instead of watching the fireworks I decided to get the hell out of the West End to watch movies. A very good one (Ant-Man and the Wasp) and a very not good one (this atrocity. Wasn’t even the first time I saw it. I regret nothing). Sunday was the last day of VGVA beach vball. That’s… kind of bittersweet. The summer’s not over, but it won’t stay forever. Silver lining: I’ll be grateful when the weather cools down.
More Pride events coming up this week. Vancouver’s only just begun to queer.