Are you proud of who you are?

That’s me on the left in the purple. These guys were so great. We saw a couple of them waiting at a bus stop in the morning, on their way to the parade.

What a flippin’ awesome city. When they saw that I was getting my picture taken with them, they ran up and posed for Mark to get the shot off.

I’m delinquent in updating my photos from Pride ’08 in Portland. Man, what a blast. A friend of mine at work went, and she said she was bored the whole time and couldn’t wait to leave. So, maybe a pride parade isn’t the BEST way to spend a Sunday afternoon for everyone, but I can’t imagine WHY NOT!  hee hee

Please enjoy the photos. I haven’t much else to say except that it was a delight.

I enjoyed especially that I got to meet Larry, another of Mark’s friends from meetings. We couldn’t help but talk about Kevin. Mark kept saying “That fucker. So selfish.” Because Kevin was at Pride ’07 with us, and he recently overdosed and killed himself. That’s part of why I needed to be there, because I needed to remember him, and I dragged Mark along because he needs help expressing his emotions. Hopefully he moved through a little bit more of his pain.

As an aside, we went to a memorial service last Saturday for another addict who died too early. This time, Mark’s friend was Michael’s father, and he had only met Michael a couple times. The service was beautiful, and very interesting because the family is Indian, so we were able to see a lot of tradition that we had not experienced before. Anyway, Mark again was thinking of Kevin. I was glad for another opportunity to work through his feelings. Although, Mark doesn’t like it. He says he doesn’t like remembering someone because it brings up all the pain again. Well, yeah.

I’m beginning to feel that if I remain this close to the AA community, I will have to continue to process loss. Loss in different ways of course, but including death, which is a blow.

Oh hey, this is not supposed to be a downer post!

This is supposed to be about these great photos!

Love and love and love to you.

This Jimi Hendrix imitator was so much fun. He’s spotted around Portland with some regularity. He gave kisses and hugs to everyone. We looked down the street and saw a lovely one prancing around in her teal pumps. Yeeow! If I was a guy with legs that smokin’, I would want to wear a short dress too.

This person is the best!! For some reason he reminds me of the characters from Wallace and Grommit. Wendolene, maybe. Ha.

Those teeth!

And then, there was a woman with the giant hat. Her shirt says, “I just realized I DON’T CARE.”

Ha ha. That’s really funny.

Comments from the old blog:

I am very proud of who I am. I am proud because I know that GOD is proud of me because he wakes me up each morning, and I feel that I have a will to keeping on pushing that wheel.

Yay! Thanks for sharing this, Kiya! Oh thank you for your strength and your will. Sorry for not getting all my photos up before you looked at it, though. I was drawn away by the sunshine… Ok, I’ll put the rest up now!