Amongst the bears (again)

I had forgotten all about it until a guy at Peet's asked me, on Friday, "So, are you going to the Harrison Street fair on Sunday?" Oh, right, that. I'd avoided it in the past, as I'd avoided all bear themed events, but the year before, after becoming friends with a bear enthusiast, I had discovered that the bears are actually FUN, so I'd attended Harrison Street with two friends and had a great time. So the debate: do I go again this year? My friends that I went with last year have since moved away, and I no longer have friends here to do that sort of thing with, at least not on short notice.

Today I thought, well, maybe I'll go, but I'll walk there and bring my camera, and take pictures along the way, so if it's too much for me to be there by myself, I can always retreat behind my friend the camera, and if the whole thing turned out terribly lame, I could justify the trip as a walk with my camera into a neighborhood where I rarely take my camera. But at two o'clock, with the winds already gusting outside my window, I thought, well, I'm not sure, especially after getting the news about Salvatore. Marcio encouraged me to go, so I decided to go to Peet's, and there I ran into a friend who lives in that neighborhood and although he wasn't planning on attending, he assured me it would be warmer down there. (God bless San Francisco's micro-climates!) So I went, and he was right.

I wasn't there long before I ran into Tony. Tony lived down the street from me in Brooklyn, but moved here recently. Although we'd barely known each other at the time, we'd shared a room at IML in 2002, and had sort of permanently bonded as a result, so it was great to see him, and it turned out that he is now living right around the corner from me. I hadn't intended to drink, but he bought me a beer, which I wanted mostly to get a bad taste out of my mouth. (Maybe gum would have been a better idea, but I didn't have any.) And once I started drinking, I was pretty much assured to spend a good long while there. I stayed with Tony for a while but we got spearated when I ran into other friends... and then other friends ... and then .. you get the idea. I always forget that this is a small town and I've lived here more than half a decade and despite being quite shy, I seem to know a lot of people. Some I hadn't seen in a while, others I'd hung out with just this past Friday, and I even met a few new people. I only had two drinks, and turned down an opportunity or two to go to the Eagle afterwards, so hopefully I won't be hurting tomorrow.

In the past, these sort of events always left me feeling inadequate: not hot enough, not cool enough, whatever. But today I had the opposite reaction; just enough affirmation from strangers (some who were quite, um, friendly!), just enough pleasant interactions with people I know and enjoy, all without needing to get hammered (or worse) to feel okay about myself., all without needing to embarrass myself for the sake of further validation (don't ask), and I managed to keep my spirits up despite running into my ex. (More on that, perhaps, another time.) A good day, and a surprising turn from a morning that saw me unable to finish my breakfast because I couldn't stop crying. Yes, a good day, and the only bad part was that Marcio wasn't here to enjoy it with me.