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Today, in true Apple formality, I received my blue t-shirt.

The (current) blue t-shirt is the shirt worn by all Apple employees in the store. As an employee that has been shadowing for the last few weeks, this is a big deal to me. I’ve had the lanyard with my name on it for some time but the customers coming always wouldn’t recognize that because I wasn’t dressed like all the other employees. There would often be a question of “oh, do you work here?”

So tonight I was finished up with a customer setting up their iPad and Andrew, who has been so very kind and welcoming to me since day one, motioned me aside and said he needed to speak to me. We started discussing aspects of introducing our MobileMe service to customers and how I had approached the different elements this service had to offer. The conversation seemed a little strange, but I presented how I had delivered the different elements of MobileMe to different customers. Then Big Tony (who is a mentor at the store) came along up beside me, mentioned in a booming voice “Can I have everyone’s attention?” to, literally, employees and customers in the store. (So of course Andrew was the fall guy to keep me distracted while Big Tony could getting everything set up. So clever.) He then proceeded to announce to everyone that I was a new Apple employee who had just, basically, earned his stripes and that we should all give me a round of applause. And with this, he handed me the company-issued iPad-branded blue t-shirt that all the other employees were wearing. It was at this point that I’d not be wearing street clothes with the lanyard, but that I was one of them, an equal, someone who would interacted with customers solo without any kind of supervision. Needless to say, I was beaming smiles and gave a gracious bow as the claps from employees and customers alike abounded. Co-workers that either weren’t on the floor at the time or that were out-of-sight of the main room that I had shadowed with had big, beaming smiles on their faces and gave me high-fives or fistbumbs the next time they saw me.

Wow.

I felt so appreciated, so respected for the work that I had done and the interactions with customers that employees had watched me perform during the reverse-shadowing sessions. It was a strike of confidence and acceptance that I carried with me all the ride home.

I am official. Officially Apple.

How can I help you today?

Do you know what happened 40 years ago today? You should.

Here are some extra shots of the Pride street festival on Sunday and the pool party afterward, hosted by Chris & Jeff. I wanted to see Martha Wash and RuPaul close out the festival but they weren’t scheduled to go on until 5:30 or so, and getting to the pool while there was still sunlight was the best idea. It was a great day at the pool, most of the folks who were on the float in the parade were at poolside, plus residents of the pHierce School.

Wow so fun!

My assignment for Evolve’s parade float was to pass out beads towards the front of the three-car float. The first truck played the sound system and the second truck was the float with the constructed apartment building. The third truck a vintage truck from the 50s, nicknamed “Hank” and was a repository for more beads.

The staging area was a very vibrant area, everybody playing their music and getting in a good mood and walking around and taking pictures. It was a great community.

Once the parade started, it was on. The people screaming and yelling for beads in Dupont Circle and also on 17th Street was amazing, and the feeling of euphoria felt while passing these beads out was absolutely incredible. I couldn’t throw beads to everyone who was yelling for them but it was great to sail them to those that you could pick out of the crowd. If you didn’t scream or yell out, then you didn’t get beads from me! Being a participant in the parade was so much more fun than being an observer on the sidelines.

I tried to connect with friends along the parade route, they let me know where they’d be. Some I couldn’t find (too bizzay throwin’ beads) but some I did have a quick chance to run over and say hello to. Other friends I found along the way was a great surprise, the biggest being Joe.My.God, whom I did a blargcrawl with a couple of years ago. Joe remembered me, even knowing my last name, which was a great honor coming from only the biggest and best blogger from NYC. His slideshow of the parade is here, giving me a shoutout by name. Joe, when is the next blargcrawl in NYC?

Pride Week is here again! Yay! For this year’s Pride Parade, I am again going to be involved in Evolve’s float and hopefully it won’t end up being a fiasco like last years. I doubt it will: the pool party is being held after tomorrow’s street festival instead of before the parade. That way I won’t end up lost in Dupont with no keys, no cash, no ATM card, no phone, no dignity, etc.

Yesterday I went over to Jeff & Chris’s house to do a little decorating. Jeff had seen some of the restaurants on 17th St put up these huge rainbow flags using plastic tablecloth covers and he wanted to wrap the School’s metal fence in them. Surprisingly it didn’t take us nearly as long as I thought it would. I thought we’d fold the table clothes and weave them through the fence but Jeff’s idea was to bunch up each color which made much more sense and allowed for tweaking the spacing of the stripes once they were put in place.

I think it turned out looking pretty great! Neighbors and passersby were making approving comments as we were putting it up, and one person even asked if there was a new bar opening up. They apparently don’t know about Dick & Kitty’s upstairs!

Last night I went with J & C, Eddy and the gang over to the (newly renamed) EFN Bar for a Pride happy hour that had $5 half-pitchers of Blue Moon Hefeweizen and free pizza. Not a bad deal at all. And here’s Jeff, beaming with pride at his new fence and happy with his Coors.