Pride.

Today was (Gay) Pride Day, a day I have to admit I enjoy because I like the feeling of being honored for, essentially, nothing. All I have to do is stay gay for this 24 hour period—not a particularly difficult task—and I get a day of my very own. Like St. Joseph or The Harlem Globetrotters or tweed.

And this year, Pride Day has the special distinction of being the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots. In the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, the massively corrupt New York City Police Department conducted yet another of their routine spurious raids on bars that served People Like Us. They typically justified themselves with trumped up claims of liquor license violations. Then they arrested the patrons (disproportionately hauling away and humiliating women and people of color-- whomever was less likely to have the resources to do anything about it). This time, though, they fought back in the streets of Greenwich Village.

Oddly, although this used to be mentioned a lot, I have heard nothing this year about the back story: It wasn’t just another ordinary summer of degradation for the gay boys and girls of Lower Manhattan. Judy Garland had just died earlier in the week. Her funeral was on June 27, 1969, a massive event that some consider to be, unofficially, to be the first real Gay Pride parade. And then, everyone retired to their bars after the funeral, to numb their pain with alcohol, as is only right.

When the police busted in, the Stonewall kids were noble in their decision to fight back, to be sure. They were fed up. But they were also really depressed. And really drunk. They summoned the courage to fight back—the courage that only comes from a combination of grief-fueled existential angst and a pitcher of Singapore slings.

So in a way, we might also call it Reckless, Drunk, and Belligerent Pride Day. Another day just for me!

That being said, I haven’t really participated in the Pride festivities for a few years. Somewhere along the line, I got it in my head that pride is a notion bound up with self-respect. And that there are probably other ways for me to manifest that quality besides public intoxication and having sex with strangers. Which, I’m told, not everyone does when they go to the Pride parade. But really, why else would you waste a Sunday morning watching a stupid parade unless public intoxication and the promise of sex with a stranger were involved? For brunch? I think not. This day might just as well be called Three Hour Wait for a Table Day.

There was a time when I wouldn’t have missed the parade for anything. When the partying started early and didn’t end until—well, I’m not sure exactly when it usually ended. I know how it usually ended though: Waking up on my bathroom floor around 10:00pm or so, the cat licking little dried bits of pride out of my hair, peering at me with a vague sense of disgust in his eyes.

Even today, disinterested as I was in the parade, I had an alienated feeling as I walked back from the grocery store. Like I was blowing off Christmas. It made me wonder what the lesbian equivalent of Jewish is. Probably Baptist. I wondered if I should go to church instead today.

But no. The only church I know where the services are short enough for me to tolerate is also a really gay church. They are, in fact, so gay, so proud, so relentlessly empowering and supportive that I’m almost embarrassed for them. Like I’m not doing enough with my newfound spiritual liberation. I mean, here they are, throwing open the gates of heaven for me, fighting to give me rights that I’m not even sure I’m mature enough to handle, and am I out changing the world? No. I can't be bothered.

At least not until Liza Minelli dies.