Alone and Unobserved

The following events are probably my fault. If I hadn’t stayed up until the wee hours of the morning for the past two days, I wouldn’t have thrown my sleep schedule so completely off that I was tired even when I got up at eleven this morning. If I hadn’t missed taking my pills yesterday, my allergies and my mood might have been stabler. If I had gone to the 8:30pm- instead of the 9:50pm showing of Pirates of the Caribbean 3 last night, I wouldn’t have missed the last train, and I wouldn’t have had to walk ten blocks back home in my flip-flops, and I would have gotten to bed at a more reasonable hour and not have had blisters on the balls of my feet. If I hadn’t eaten such a large meal yesterday evening, I might have been hungry this morning, and I might have eaten more than a donut, a churro and an iced latte before heading over to the Pride Festival. But these are in the past. There’s no use mourning over them now.

As I said, I didn’t eat very healthfully this morning, but at first it didn’t seem to matter. I arrived at Library Square just in time to catch a showing of Fabulous: The Story of Queer Cinema in the Main Library Auditorium. It turned out I had already watched it, but that didn’t really matter, because it’s fairly good, and besides, I got to catch up with some friends beforehand.

After the film let out, I wandered upstairs to the third floor of the library and took some photos of the festival from above, before heading out into the crush myself.

I hadn’t been at Pride an hour before I had a really amusing blood-sugar crash. Chuckling fondly to myself while trying to keep from cussing out everyone who got in my way and/or from curling up into a ball and crying, I exited the festival to find something (inexpensive) to eat. As I left, I asked the guards if I needed to get my hand stamped in order to get back in. The guard waved me through, not even glancing at the handy little self-inked hand stamp at his elbow, saying that they weren’t stamping people’s hands anymore, and to just show my ticket at the entrance when I came back. All right, I thought. I think I can handle that. My stomach rumbled, and my vision wavered, and I started thinking about where I could eat instead.

How I love, love, love Salt Lake City. As Mr. Sondheim notes, “There are worse things than staring at the water as you’re posing for a picture being painted by your lover in the middle of the summer on an island in the river on a Sunday,” but I maintain that there is NOTHING worse than finding yourself hungry and cranky and dizzy in the middle of Salt Lake City on a Sunday.

After staggering around the Main Street area for nearly an hour (discovering that all the good places were closed and that the places that were open were either not good, or only served sugary sweets that would play even more hilarious tricks on my blood sugar levels), I settled on a Latino sandwich and juice place called Güero’s. The only vegetarian offering was the Queso Panela sandwich, which was surprisingly good, with mayo, mustard, tomatoes, lettuce, jalapeños, and (of course) queso panela. I finished eating, and, still feeling the effects of having negative serum glucose levels, I made my way back to the festival venue . . . only to discover that I had left my ticket at the charming little juice & sandwich shop. Thank heavens I got my hand stamped at the exit, right?

Oops.

Well, at that point, I decided there was no way I was going to pay another five dollars to get in when I hadn’t enjoyed the first forty-five minutes, I was in no condition to argue with anyone about why they should let me in without a ticket or hand stamp, and I didn’t have the energy to walk back to the sandwich shop on the off chance they had kept my ticket instead of throwing it away when they cleared my table. So I went home, feeling worse and worse and more and more agoraphobic and awful and paranoid until I almost couldn’t STAND IT—and then I walked in my front door and started to calm down.

My blood sugar has now apparently stabilized (an hour and a half later), but I think I’ve had enough of Pride for this year. I hope everyone else who went had a ton of fun, and didn’t get too drunk or too dehydrated or too sunburned. I’ll see you next year, and I pledge that, next time, I’ll get some sleep the night before, and eat breakfast when I get up. And maybe I’ll stay for more than forty-five minutes.

But maybe not. Maybe Pride just isn’t my thing.