Day 39: Gay Days

I spent nine and a half hours today attending the San Diego Pride Leadership Academy. The entire day included presentations and ice breakers all involving leadership training in association with the events held all year that Pride San Diego sponsors. This includes volunteer events, walks, clubs and of course Pride.

Somehow I influenced the entire day! During the morning we went around and listed all the things that inspire us or we love about Pride. People talked about the community, the altruism, sense of inclusion, education. All of these were put on poster paper that was stuck to the wall for the entire day. When it came to me I said "I am really inspired how every year I look around and see the efforts people put into their hot underwear." Hot Underwear was put on the list. Every time a speaker came in they all made a comment about the Hot Underwear, to which everyone pointed to me!

In another activity we listed the things we feel are needed for good customer service. I read off the answers in my group which included the last one which I included - "Sexy voice." The leadership directors asked me about my sexy voice and for the rest of the day everyone asked about my sexy voice!

There was a lot of information and of the 18 participants, I caused laughter throughout the day even when I didn't say or do anything. I had a couple of people show off their hot underwear.

At the end of the training we all went around and said something we learned and something we would take with us. Each person held on to a piece of yarn from a ball and then threw the yarn to the next person. I heard one memory after another. I just didn't feel like I had anything that I really felt so wonderful about. There were some really good techniques I picked up but I couldn't think of anything specific. I was second to last picked. When I was thrown the ball of yarn I understood what I took from this experience. I looked at everyone and basically said that after thinking about the entire day it was really a great opportunity to have all these people come speak who were all part of the GLBT community. It was a great opportunity and resource to have for us. It also was great because I felt that the activities and everything we didn't wasn't just about being gay or part of the GLBT community. It made me feel like everything we did was completely normal. This included every speaker talking about their partners (spouses for those that are part of the many in California that did manage to get a wedding license) to jokes about having "gay" disabilities. For once I didn't feel like being gay meant being abnormal.