I Showed Up in My Good Shoes and There Was Pie
By the time June really gets going I've been to more events than I can count on one hand, which is saying something because I work in events and I actually can count them. But there's something different about these. I don't just work them. I live them.
The shoes first, because the shoes are important. I have rainbow sequin Converse. I also have Betsey Johnson rainbow sequin sneakers. Two separate pairs, both covered in rainbow sequins, worn to different events for reasons that make complete sense to me and would probably not make sense to anyone else. The fun boots come out when it's going to be a late night, which in June is usually always. I've stopped trying to explain the system to anyone. You either get it or you don't.
Multiple events a week means the calendar looks less like a schedule and more like a commitment. A Pride cabaret at a brewery. A Tony Watch Party because of course there's a Tony Watch Party. Broadway Jukebox. A Happy Hour that's really a whole thing. And then Pride week, which is its own category entirely — shows, parade, all of it. I am at every single one. This is not hardship. This is my June.
The Pie Queen sings live. Chocolatina performs and there is also pie and this is one of those combinations that shouldn't work on paper but absolutely does in a room. I have watched people walk in skeptical and walk out converts. There's something about being in a room when the music starts and everything shifts — the whole energy changes — and you think: right. This is what we came for.
My friends are having their month. Not in the abstract way people say that. Their actual month — people I love, being completely and fully themselves in a way that the other eleven months don't always make room for. I've been lucky enough to be in these rooms for years and it still catches me off guard sometimes. Someone will say something or do something or just exist in a certain way and I'll think: there it is. That's the whole thing right there.
I grew up not knowing how to walk into a room full of people. I've written about this. It took me years to figure out that the trick isn't confidence — it's just deciding you belong there. June is the month I watch everyone figure that out at the same time, in the same room, and it never gets old.
Multiple events a week. Every week. Building toward Pride week, which is its own category of everything and deserves its own essay.
The sequins help. The pie helps. Chocolatina singing helps.
Mostly it's the people.
I would not miss a single one.
