My First Pride-Fest

This won't be that long of a post (I hope), but I did manage to make it to the local Pride-Fest this year. One of my husband's co-workers was singing in a choir at the event, so he managed to talk me into going. It's not that I didn't want to go before this year; it's just that we also have an event called ComFest at the same time and I've been so dumb that I never knew they occurred on the same weekend [My uncle, however, found this out years ago when he got approached by some hustlers while out for a walk that Saturday night].

I had a great time. I took lots of pictures that I hope to get uploaded soon (if I can get them up within a week, I'll be impressed) and I even took a picture of a guy who came over to touch my parasol. I'm not supposed to be out in the sun for too long, so I used my parasol and got many a compliment about it (another reason to love gay men so much). This one guy came over and touched the fabric and said that it was very nice. I laughed (because I laugh in all situations) and he told me that his boyfriend told him not to come over and touch it...but he just wanted to feel it because it looked so nice! He and his boyfriend were really cute, but the fact that I got them on camera was the exception to my otherwise bad-luck on photo-taking Saturday. Every time I would turn off my camera, male hotness would walk by. It was very frustrating (and it makes me feel like I failed a little as a photographer), but I hope that I got some decent shots.

I ran into another of my husband's co-workers who brought his partner. This guy is really into bears and I am waiting to hear how the "Wet Fur" contest turned out that night (my husband will dutifully report this story to me when they meet up again Tuesday). The singing co-worker was the stage manager for a Drag King show at Wall Street (a lesbian bar downtown) and reports are that it was a "fun" show. The reportee said that he had seen better "kings" but that this show was entertaining.

We had a long way to walk to and from the event, so it took a little toll on me for the rest of the day, but we had a great time. I just wish we had had time to take pictures of the restored cars that were on display. There was some great craftsmanship on display, and I'm pretty sure the cars looked great, too.

Funny enough, though, when we went to ComFest the next day, I actually had someone laugh at me for carrying a parasol. ComFest is supposed to be the hippie-commune festival but there were some judgmental people who carted their sorry behinds all the way out from suburbia to park-up the neighborhood and laugh at anything that wasn't what they considered normal (so why come?). We only went for the Catfish Boat sandwiches, but other than that I would've stayed home and not gotten rained on (we missed the rain at Pride-Fest on Saturday, but got soaked trying to get into the car from lunch). Maybe next year we'll spend more time at Pride-Fest and a little less time with the not-so-communal ComFest. I'll probably have more fun that way.