28: pride

wake up, it's pride day

today was the new york city annual pride march and my first.

the march started at 12 so i went over to anderson's place at 11:15 and we walked over to madison square park where the march started. i knew the crowd was going to be big when i walked to the metro and the streets were ghost towns.

as we got to the main street the march route went down, there weren't too many people so we decided to go to madison square park where it all started. and wow, we found the crowd. we watched the parade from the start and there were swarms of people. it was already 80 degrees and humid, but the body sweat and amount of people all around made it feel like a nonrefresing sauna.

we made our way to the park and out of the crowd where we walked around, went back down the street where the crowds were smaller, and watched the parade. there were lots of people cheering, many djs, and all good vibes.

after watching for about two hours, we went to get overpriced tacos at Los Tacos No 1 in Chelsea. they were good adobada tacos but spending $22 on tacos is cray cray. we walked back towards the parade but ended up parting ways after both of us being tired and sweaty.

this is where i messed up. i had to cut through the parade to get back home and thought i could. boy was i wrong. the parade walked in a j shape and i had to cross both ends of the J to get back home. let me just tell you, that did not happen.

after trudging through crowds and streets that were closed off, walking around like i was in a maze, i finally gave up trying to cross and decided the only way i was getting back was going all the way around the parade. i was hot, sweaty, tired, and tired of the crowds so it was my only option.

i swear i was waiting to cross the street for 20 minutes trying to just get out of one spot. but alas i made it out and had to journey all the way around everything. the walk wasn't the worst but by the time i made it back to the apartment, i had walked 22,000 steps.

it was so worth every step after getting back to the air conditioned apartment, i was in heaven. i relaxed and decided i was so grossly sweaty so i showered and just chilled for a bit. i proceeded to chill out, try some more video things, unsuccessfully study a module, and went to get some more groceries since i was very hungry.

after my grocery trip, i watched some bojack horseman as motivation to fix my bad behaviors, made dinner, and caught up with Marchyboy17 until we both called it a night. it was a solid day and i want to keep a momentum to tomorrow to go out, do tangible things, be on my phone less, and talk to strangers.