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When I was a kid, more specifically as a teenager, sometimes my mom would say, "I think you need an attitude adjustment."
This could apply to Shobhit and his campaign, but far more to the point for my purposes here, it absolutely would have applied to me, and my expectations for Pride Weekend. I don't know what I was thinking, expecting to be totally exhausted by all the commitments I had. Granted, we broke down earlier than expected at the Capitol Hill Pride Rally on Saturday, but it wouldn't have been too great a difference if we hadn't: I was no more tired than I would be on Pride Weekend any give year. And, more to the point: I actually had a good time. This was especially the case marching in the parade.
I just had to edit
yesterday's post, as I kept saying I hadn't marched in Seattle Pride since 2003, but that wasn't entirely accurate—2003 was the last time I marched the
entire route; but in 2005 I did join the Trokone-NW contingent and marched with them the rest of the way to Volunteer Park. So, it's really been eighteen years since I last marched (in Seattle), not twenty. Although it's been twenty since I marched the whole route. Ugh, hair splitting! It's a passion of mine.
Anyway, the point is, yesterday was probably the most fun day of all, after three days of events, and being less exhausted probably had a lot to do with our decision to into Seattle PrideFest at Seattle Center as soon as we finished marching, rather than going back to watch the rest of the parade; and then only walking around Seattle Center for a few minutes before deciding to go home.
I was just talking with Andrew from IT here at work this morning, about how the parade takes four hours to finish. That alone can be exhausting; I really wish the Pride organizers would put a cap on the number of contingents and just tell people they have to register within a certain time frame, first-come first-served, if they want to make it in. A two-hour parade is a lot more manageable for spectators than four. But, for us this year, we just marched through it, which took us about eighty minutes, and we bailed. It actually worked out well for us.
Andrew did tell me he saw us in the parade, and was excited to see us. I didn't notice him, but he said Shobhit saw him and waved back. I have no idea if Shobhit even knew who he was (I doubt it) or was just waving at someone waving at him. Andrew said he pointed us out to his daughters, one who is 13 and one who is 10, and they asked if he was going to vote for him. Andrew had to explain that he can't vote for Shobhit because he doesn't live in Seattle, which would have been the case for a lot of people in that crowd, a majority of them, even. (Only people in District 3, out of 9, will be able to vote for him.)
I'm a little bummed that I missed him in the crowd, but to be fair, the crowd was huge. I did have one guy say hi to me as we passed by, and it was pretty clear by my face that I wasn't recognizing him until he took off his sunglasses. It was Scott, also from Seattle Lesbian and Gay Chorus, who has had drinks with Laney and me once or twice over the years since. I was the only person I knew, who I noticed, among the spectators.
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— पांच हजार चार सौ पच्चीस —
I had exchanged texts with Gabriel a few times, as he and Lea were in the Brooks Running contingent (where Lea works now), but so far back in the parade that they still had not even started marching when Shobhit's contingent was done. Gabriel called me at one point, and said some people in the staging area were already going home, after a couple of hours waiting: "Happy Pride! We're heading out!" was kind of the vibe, apparently.
Gabriel said they were going to go get some beers afterward, but didn't know where. I got another call from them later, after Shobhit and I were home, and Lea was evidently a little tipsy.
I had texted Gabriel that we were headed home, once Shobhit and I decided to call it quits at PrideFest. Shobhit wasn't going to be up for going out, and he certainly wasn't going to like it if I left him to go out with another friend, but I was also totally fine with heading home at that point as well. I can spend more time engaged with Pride next year if need be. (Besides, it's not like I wasn't far more engaged with Pride all month even this year: I went to
a lot of events both this month and this weekend, from Pride in the Park to Trans Pride to PrideFest Capitol Hill to the Pride Parade. I think I went to more than my fair share.)
I did tell Gabriel when I texted him that there was still too much campaign-related stuff to do, which was true. That doesn't mean we actually did it: Shobhit and I went home, I made us a couple of cocktails that saved us the money we'd have spent on them at a bar somewhere, and we wound up catching up on TV shows: the latest episodes each of
Silo and
The Other Two; then we binged six of the ten episodes of the recently-released season two of
The Bear on Hulu, which was just as excellent as it was before.
I edited and processed and uploaded photos on my Macbook Pro during a lot of this. And we took a break when Shobhit kept falling asleep, which worked out well for me as he napped for a while as I then wrote up
yesterday's post about the Pride Parade. After that, I made us veggie burgers for dinner, had another drink, and we spent the rest of the evening on
The Bear.
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[posted 12:20 pm]
