We had eight people in our contingent in the Seattle Pride Parade today: Shobhit and myself; Glynis, his old acting classmate from when Shobhit and I first got together; Ellen, his old accent teacher from his early acting days; Sasha, a kid Shobhit invited from another City Council district campaign Shobhit invited to join our contingent; Alexia, our neighbor; Valerie, my dad's cousin; and Anne, Valerie's visiting sister-in-law.

In the parade, I feel like we all had a good time. I certainly did.

I held one side of the very large (10' x 2') "Vote for Shobhit" banner the duration of the parade. While I did take my phone out of my pocket to take photos a few times along the way, this meant I got far fewer photos of the parade than I normally do—both because I was otherwise occupied by being in it; and because we didn't go back and look at the rest of the parade today, so we were done with it within about eighty minutes, whereas when viewing the parade as a spectator, seeing the whole thing takes four fucking hours. Honestly, although I still kind of hope to get back to being a spectator next year and if so I will still again stay for the whole parade, I wasn't that crushed not to have to slog through that many hours of it—the continuing essential nature of Pride notwithstanding.

In any case, I got a 50-shot photo album out of it, which is a respectable size for any average photo album of mine. Still, by a wide margin the smallest "Seattle Pride Parade" photo album I've managed since 2015, which yielded all of 45 photos of the parade. I wonder what my deal was that year? I can't remember. Oh yeah: I left the parade early to meet up with Laney for drinks. That explains it!

I don't suppose I have to see all four hours of the parade every year. Especially when I am actually marching in it—which, incidentally, I had not done in the Seattle Pride Parade since 2005—eighteen years ago!—when I last marched with Trikone-NW. (Side note: even 2005 was only a partial march, as Barbara and I watched from the sidelines until Trikone-NW reached us, and then I joined the contingent to march the rest of the way. I actually haven’t marched the entire length of the parade with a contingent since 2003, when I last marched with the Seattle Lesbian and Gay Chorys—and that was twenty years ago.) I guess it was long since time for me to mix it up a bit again.

I was especially appreciative of Alexia joining us, as she was the only person from our building to make it; and even more so Valerie—who told me she'd never even been to Pride before, let alone marched in it! What an introduction.

She was very enthusiastic, too, which was fun. She really got into the spirit of not just being in the parade, but promoting Shobhit's campaign, holding up different types of signs at different times. She really seemed to be having a blast.

Her husband Scott's sister, Anne, is apparently visiting from her home in Florida, and she happens to be staying with someone in Seattle, on Queen Anne—this probably was a big factor in Valerie getting another person to come with her. She had hoped to bring Ava, her daughter, and maybe one of Anne's daughters, but they are young and apparently preferred to go out drinking instead.

Regardless of the number of people we had in our contingent, and even though a majority of attendees would have to have been voters from outside District 3, Shobhit's campaign would have gotten more exposure today than probably every campaign event he's done to date combined. What that will actually translate to, time will tell.

We were all of #18 in the parade, and sporadically Gabriel would text me from where he was with Lea in her contingent with Brooks Shoes. I don't know what number they were, I only know that they still hadn't even started by the time our contingent had reached the end of the line at Seattle Center—turning left on Denny Way, and going a lot further west on that street than I remember it ever going. But, again, I haven't actually walked the length of the full official route since 2003.

We all basically disengaged as a group at the end of the parade, as only Shobhit and I spent any time at PrideFest inside Seattle Center. I don't even know if Valerie had any idea there was more inside Seattle Center, but so much was happening that I didn't think to mention it when she hugged me goodbye. Alexia had other plans and walked back home right at that point as well, and we didn't even notice Ellen apparently walk away. Glynis stayed with us for a bit, but ultimately took a bus home while Shobhit and I went into Seattle Center, where he would ask people if they lived on Capitol Hill or in the Central District, and passed out a few of his campaign "talking cards." We did this after taking the wagon full of signs and water and snacks back to the car, which I had quite luckily found a parking spot for on 5th and Battery at 9:50 a.m.

The most significant thing we did inside Seattle Center, really, was get a ridiculously large order of curly fries. Shobhit loves his french fries. We sat in the grass near the International Fountain to eat them. I'd have liked to go see the last bits of the parade, but by this point Shobhit was done and ready to go home, and I was fine with that. I'm honestly cool with Pride Weekend being a bit more chill than usual; in fact, it hasn't been anywhere close to as exhausting as I was afraid it was going to be. I had a good time.

I do, as usual, have a separate, 24-shot photo album dedicaded to Seattle PrideFest at Seattle Center, although only 16 of those are actually from today. The rest are just random, Pride-related photos I also dumped into this album as it seemed a better choice than any of the others. As a result, this PrideFest album is actually larger than any since 2014, although that one combines that with Capitol Hill Pride Festival. That said, only five shots from that album are from PrideFest at Seattle Center!

Anyway. I need to go make dinner now. Seattle Pride 2023 is done. Well, until a couple of other events later this summer that I may also attend (Tacoma Pride in July; Alki Beach Pride in August). The main Pride Weekend is done, in any case. Even cutting it much shorter than I usually do, I'm declaring that it went well.

[posted 6:10 pm]