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God, this whole year is just so fucking weird, all the fucking time. And today I'm not even talking about my probably-soon-to-be-dead mom. (I'll get to that momentarily.)

If this were a normal year, I'd already have made plans for every single day this weekend, not only to attend Pride events, but to go with people. I'd for sure be seeing Gabriel at Trans Pride this evening, but instead I'll be at home, seeing what I can see virtually. I don't even know if Gabriel will be in any way part of it, or if this will become the first year in like six years that I won't see him during Pride at all?

Shobhit has work shifts all three days this weekend. That would likely be the same no matter what. Last year he actually had Pride Sunday off. And, at the very least, Shobhit and I did go earlier this year to the truly spectacular Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade—we'll always have that memory from 2020, and it's something Seattle Pride could really never have competed with anyway.

That said, I still intend to participate in all the virtual Pride events I can, this evening for Trans Pride; tomorrow for what basically replaces the Capitol Hill Pride Festival; and Sunday for Pride Sunday when the Parade would usually be. I consider it of vital importance, especially since the massive crowds that usually attend in person will be reduced to a fraction of that for the virtual events. They need all the people they can get. The parade tends to get something like half a million spectators every year; this year online participants have to register, and when I last looked at the Whova app being used for the entire weekend, there were about 5,000 having registered. (Even the "Together for Pride" Facebook Page" has all of 981 people having marked it as "going," but roughly 4700 marked it "interested.")

Anyway, also under normal circumstances, I would have spent most of the past week filling up my DLU posts with photos of Pride events from both previous years, and other Pride events that may have already happened this year. I only managed that today this year, after having taken Monday and Tuesday off for an anniversary trip that was delayed a week after Shobhit's and my actual anniversary (but hey, we are gay, so I guess that's still Pride in a sense!), and then using photos from that trip to Long Beach, WA both Wednesday and yesterday. I'm hoping I can get some DLU-worthy screenshots from virtual events over the weekend, but that part remains to be seen. We're talking about a hell of a lot of uncharted territory here.

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— चार हजार सात सौ छियासठ —

There's really nothing new to report on Mom's condition, at least as of this writing. I suppose there is just one detail to report on Bill's condition, as I messaged Christopher to ask if the PSR agency had indeed sent someone out to check on Bill. Christopher responded, and was rather brief: Yeah, he's doing okay.

I'm still a little skeptical of that, as I know Bill has mentioned wanting to kill himself during phone calls with both Shelley (Mom and Bill's old PSR worker, who hopefully will be visiting this weekend) and with Mom's biological sister Cyndy, who messaged me yesterday that Bill had called her and that it was the first she heard the news about Mom. Both of them, as well as Mom's old school friend Karen, have talked to Bill about doing what Mom would want—which is to take her off the ventilator. At this point I think Bill is stalling until at least this weekend, when Shelley will be around. It will probably be good for her to be there if and when Bill finally makes the call; I need to confirm with Shelley that she's still going over.

Otherwise, we're still stuck with Mom just being, well, frankly, brain dead—and on a ventilator, indefinitely. Until Bill gives the go-ahead to take her off the ventilator. I get how hard a decision it is. I don't know what else I can do. It's still frustrating to think of Mom just being strung along so pointlessly. I'm ready to grieve, and I don't think I can do it properly until Mom has actually passed.

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My lunch break had to be delayed slightly today, due to the latest office-staff Zoom Town Hall. This one had Brad as the interim CEO, and we haven't seen Cate for really any reason since she announced her departure last time, even though we were told her actual last day is not until July 3. They did talk some about how the CEO search is going, and a commendable push to get more diversity in co-op leadership roles.

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