I took my dad to pride today. After asking him and saying what itt might entail, I made him a free dad hugs sign:
While walking there, a lot of people pointed at him and said it was a cute idea. They were right.
My (and his) personal highlights were:
A guy hugging him and saying something in Ukrainian (bc of the flag, probably)
Someone asking him if they can call him “daddy” (I had to explain to him why I started laughing. He now knows.)
Someone giving him a rose
Someone kissing him on the cheeck
A lot of people seeing me standing around awkwardly while there was a line forming in front of him and hugging me too
A guy my dad’s age hugging him with tears in his eyes
A kid my age shouting “I don’t have a father!”, Running towards and almost tackling him
A guy in a fetish-related dog mask hugging him and clinging to him like a lifeline
Two children between eight and ten initiating a group hug with him and giggling the entire time
Everyone thanking him afterwards and a lot of people saying he gives the best hugs in the world. One guy said he’d never been hugged like that before
This guy in a moving lorry shouting and making the lorry stop driving to get a hug from my dad:
My dad said that the majority of people hugging him were either older (25-60) queer men or younger (15-25) trans people. He really loved the experience and felt like a lot of the people, especially the older guys really needed it.
Anyway we’re definitely doing this again next year
Reblogging again because I just realized that if I had this advice in high school I would’ve never made a tumblr account.
Also works for most of those news sites like WSJ or NYT that only let you read a little bit, or block adblockers. Also some disable the scroll bar but if you go to the right side of the console after hitting F12 and look for the CSS element “overflow” and change it from “hidden” to “visible” then you can continue scrolling for free. Might have to click around on different parts of the page to find it, but it should work.
There’s also a Firefox/Chrome extension called Behind The Overlay that does all that with one mouse click. Used it for years; what a time saver.
And if you encounter a true paywall, use Archive.Today to bypass it. Just paste the paywalled url into the blue “search archived snapshots” box near the bottom:
“Many people seem to think it foolish, even superstitious, to believe that the world could still change for the better. And it is true that in winter it is sometimes so bitingly cold that one is tempted to say, ‘What do I care if there is a summer; its warmth is no help to me now.’ Yes, evil often seems to surpass good. But then, in spite of us, and without our permission, there comes at last an end to the bitter frosts. One morning the wind turns, and there is a thaw. And so I must still have hope.”
