Pride Redux

Last night, me, my partner Raquel and daughter Luca were doing what we often do on a summer evening: sitting on the front steps and watching the world go by. As we sat there, drawing fairy princesses with sidewalk chalk, a neighbor (hi Leigh) stopped by with a gift for Luca. It was one of those plastic microphones that, through the magic of springs and spacing, turns your normal voice into a tinny projection without the use of electricity. Luca was enthralled. And she got up, walked over to our small square patch of grass - about the size of a stage - turned around to face the street and started to sing. "Look mama and mae," she said, "we can be drag queens."

And so there, on a fairly busy street fronting a public park, we shook and shimeyed and sang old favorites while giving each other dollar bill strands of grass. And we said thank you, and when we were holding a bucket because the money had turned from grass into pieces of sidewalk chalk, we mouthed our lyrics and then held out our buckets saying, "come on baby, fill it up" and "thank you, baby." And the audience rose to their feet.