cold day, warm hearts

Today was an absolutely wretched weather day. The sky vomited rain like there was no tomorrow, and I could barely make my way through the wind without getting somewhat blown away at certain points. I almost didn't go to the International Women's Day celebration/meeting that I had been looking forward to all week, but in the end, I dragged out my trusty new umbrella (and myself, of course!), and I'm so glad that I did because it turned out to be an absolutely amazing experience.

To be completely honest, though, the event didn't start off so well for me in the very beginning. After missing the initial rally and march, I walked into a set of speeches that made me really uncomfortable with their reductive, second-wave rhetoric (a lot of emphasizing "women" as if it was a monolithic category, or worse still, throwing around lines about "minority" and "immigrant" women in terms of "they" this and "they" that). Luckily, my friend and I stuck it out and stayed around for the small group discussions, which were divided up by interests. After a small debate over whether to join the "international" or the LGBTQ group, we decided to go for the latter.

Beyond the really stimulating dialogue and incredibly positive and supportive interactions that were had during the conversation, we ended up getting connected to an amazing woman who's setting up a group for queer and trans women of color (I think I've decided to volunteer with this organization), as well as another woman who told us about a popular hangout for qpoc (and where, incidentally, I'm going to tonight!).

Afterwards, as I was sitting at the train station, I got accosted by a drunken twenty-something for having the amazing foresight to wear a green dress. Apparently some bar has its Saint Patrick's Day bash a week in advance, and this particular man was convinced that I was there (or at least should have been). Luckily we just ended up bantering about random things (including the number of "trust fund babies" at my graduate school that I can take advantage of come fall) for the fifteen minutes that it took my train to get there, and what could have been a bad or uncomfortable situation ended with me walking away with a big, silly grin on my face.

All in all, I'd have to say it was not a bad time for a rainy and dreary Saturday afternoon. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say it was not a bad time for any kind of day at all.