The Last Sunday in June

That's Pride Day in Chicago, which means that today's the parade.  Expect around 400,000 along the parade route.

I don't know if I'll go -- I'm sort of over spending the afternoon with nearly half a million of my closest friends, and the forecast is leaning toward rain, which I don't believe -- as nearly as I can remember, even when the day starts off stormy, it has never rained on our parade.

I've watched, I've marched, I've ridden floats, and one thing that strikes me every year:  Chicago's Pride Parade is a family affair.  Seriously -- people bring their kids.  Seniors bring lawn chairs.  Straight couples stand there applauding wildly.

Which brings to mind what has become the perennial complaint from the "we're dying to be co-oped" crowd.  Y'know what?  The reason these people come is not to see a bunch of accountants marching down the street.  They come for the leather folk, the drag queens, the nearly naked dancers, the Dykes on Bikes.  They come for the color and energy.  (And I suspect that some of them are hoping to catch a glimpse of a couple of guys doing something naughty in the alley.  Don't raise your eyebrows -- I remember one year when kilts were in, the high-school kid sitting on the curb clutching his girlfriend and trying to look up my skirt as I walked by.)

So all I'm going to say is to quote Joe Jervis:

They're trying to make us invisible.

We're not.

Let's dance.