I spent about seven hours with Laney yesterday. I didn't even completely register that fact in my mind until this morning. We met up at 12:30—more like 12:40, because I was delayed a bit after a big but brief shouting fight with Shobhit, thanks to his very on-brand misplaced anger—and returned at around 7:30, or at least sometime between that and 7:40. I'm able to narrow down this time frame between the text exchanges we had, and my 58-shot
Seattle Pride in the Park 2023 photo album on Flickr.
That'll be the first of several separate Seattle Pride photo albums, as usual. I've already got two working, thanks to seven shots last night being the start of this year's "
Seatle Pride 2023: Random Hot Guys" album. There will likely be more revealing shots from future events, particularly the Pride Parade—but even yesterday there was a
lot of men in short shorts, one of my favorite things in the universe. Hot men in short shorts are just beyond hot to me.
I suppose there is the issue of how much older I keep getting than the average age of the "Random Hot Guys" in
those photo albums, which I have been making now for eighteen years. But, whatever. We all have our interests and hobbies!
Anyway. Shobhit did also join us, but for far less time. He met up with us at about 2:45, and left us at maybe 4:40. I just figured that out also from my photo timestamps, and am realizing he was with us a bit longer than I realized—about two hours. He'll certainly also get a Social Review point for the day, which should make him happy.
Laney parked near my building and we walked to Volunteer Park together, rather slowly to stay at her pace, which was totally fine. She wanted to find a shady place to sit on our blankets, and we found a large area under trees stage-right of the Amphitheater. The ground there was covered in wood chips rather than grass, but we were able to make it work with our blankets. That's where we're sitting in the first photo I took of us with our drinks (eventually the first of three different locations at which I did this), the new Volunteer Park Ampthitheater visible in the background between us. That's the shot at the top of this post.
Shobhit met up with us while we were there, and after some kid went by and knocked over my Yeti mug full of a Moscow Mule with four shots of vodka in it, probably losing somewhere between a quarter and a third of its contents. If only I had kept the magnet slide/lid shot on it, but I didn't. Dammit! So, Laney and I decided we'd move over to the nearby beer garden to go ahead and buy a drink. Shobhit left to pass out some campaign materials, but not long after he met up with us in the beer garden.
At first Laney and I just sat at two unused chairs by the little white picket fence that made the beer garden boundary. Shobhit came back in while we were there, telling us he had forgotten his ID at home but I guess the guy checking IDs let him in anyway, saying "You weren't born yesterday."
This beer garden, quite disappointingly, had only beer, wine and cider on offer—and only two flavors of cider, with the tastier sounding one ("Marionerry") already sold out. I had to settle for e "
Light Cider" by Seattle Cider, which cost me nearly ten bucks with a tip! My statement later identified the purchase as "Seattle Pride" though, so as long as some of that money indeed went directly to Seattle Pride then I'm good with it.
Shortly after Shobhit met up with us, Laney spied one of the few tables had emptied, and so we took our chairs over to it. There were three chairs already at it, and Shobhit took one of those. And then this older couple, who apparently has three sons in their thirties,
shared the table with us. Donna and Jim, their names were, and they were from Dallas, Texas, gleefully defying Texas stereotypes in all sorts of ways: visiting and loving Seattle for three days before going on a very small-boat cruise to Alaska; coming to Seattle Pride in the Park and having a great time; telling us how often they visit gay bars back home; Donna telling Laney she suspects her eldest son is gay but deeply closeted and how she always tells him he can tell her anything. Even though the eldest was something like 37.
Jim, as it happens, spent ten years on the city council of their very small hometown of Dalworthington Gardens (population 2,300), which is entirely surrounded by the much larger city of Arlington (population 394,000) which itself is considered part of the metropolitan population of Dallas-Forth Worth, which is home to 7.6 million people, the
fourth-largest metropolitan area of the U.S., after New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. He had a lot of advice, some of it fairly useful, for Shobhit as a City Council candidate, even though he acknowledged that representing only a few thousand people would be a lot different from representing a city of 750,000.
It was fascinating talking to this couple, who are kind of radically liberal by Texas standards, yet relatively conservative by Seattle standards—when I mentioned Kshama Sawant and how she's divisive even among liberals and progressives, he started talking about divisiveness within "BLM and Antifa," as if the latter is or has ever been any kind of organized entity (it never has been). Even relatively liberal people get conditioned by the local news sources they get exposed to. It was still fun to talk to them, though, and to hear them say how much fun they were having in Seattle, clearly defying the expectations of locals back home who have been misled into believing we're some kind of lawless wild west out here.
Shobhit did come along with us when I suggested we check out the other beer garden, which I had noticed on an earlier trip to the Honey Buckets was set up over in the grassy area by the Volunteer Park Conservatory—this had been the mainstage area when I came with Alexia last year. I thought maybe they'd have mixed drinks offered over there, and Laney agreed it was worth going over to find out.
Shobhit stood in line with us for just a few minutes at this third location, in the drinks line, but then he decided to head back home before we even reached the front of the line. And this is no reflection on Shobhit leaving—in fact I think he also would have had just as good a time had he stayed—but this way by far the most fun portion of the day, both Laney and I commenting more than once on how much fun we were having. And this was largely because, more than once, Laney suggested we get up to dance, in front of the stage, where a DJ played house music and two women and/or drag queens (I honestly don't know which) danced on the stage.
First, though, Laney and I ordered our drinks—and, thankfully, this beer garden actually had mixed drink options. The options were limited to like five or six drinks, but that was five or six more mixed drink options than were on offer at the beer garden by the Amphitheater. I had a "tequila and pineapple" which proved to be very tasty, if not all that strong, and it was my third drink of the day.
The glass of wine Laney ordered was technically her fourth. This will come up again momentarily.
With our new drinks in hand, we made our way to a grassy area next to this beer garden's white picket fence, and I just spread out my own blanket tote and we shared it. This was where I took my
third selfie of the two of us with our drinks. I'd actually taken two shots at the first beer garden, before Shobhit returned to meet up with us there; at Laney's suggestion, we did our first shot there
with very serious faces, and then I suggested we still take
another with smiles. That therefore made a total of four drink-selfies with Laney for our first June "Happy Hour," so I also added those to my
Happy Hour with Laney photo albums.
Even before we were done with our final drinks at this new beer garden, Laney suggested we get up to dance. I didn't want to leave my blanket tote unattended, so I actually folder it up and wore it as a shoulder bag, along with my other tote bag I had used for bringing my lunch (a bagel sandwich). All the dancing I did yesterday I did with totes hanging over my shoulders. But whatever, we made it work.
We actually got up to dance two different times, and after the first time, we went back to sit on the grass again, and this time didn't bother unfolding the blanket tote, just sitting directly on the grass and leaning back against the fence. We spent a lot of time observing and remarking on both the hot young men in short shorts, and the young people Laney largely assumed were there from further outside of town. She may or may not have been right about any given person she observed. Either way, we did both comment on how we felt part of a community there, a communal celebration, and what a beautiful experience it was. We saw a lot of people with varying examples of self-expression, whether it be gender expression or sexual expression or otherwise.
As wide as the age gap is between Laney and me—19 years—we are now both well above the average generation of attendees at an event like this. I mean, don't get me wrong, we did see plenty of other older people there, but younger people, the ones who were likely in diapers when I was in my twenties, still made up at least a slight majority. It made both Laney and me kind of "observer elders" off to the side, except when we got up to participate in the dancing.
Anyway, during that period in which we returned to sit on the grass, we were surprised to see Cavin, who came right up to give Laney a hug, as there was no telling how long it had been since they had seen each other. It's occurring to me now, even as I write this, that it's possible they haven't seen each other since around 2010, the last time there was a period when he and Charlie, plus Laney and myself might relatively commonly be hanging out all together.
They were both delighted to see each other, and I took
a fantastic picture of the two of them embracing. Interestingly, Cavin was there with David, the guy who used to be Cavin and Charlie's "third" but I guess(?) is just friends with Cavin now; Charlie was not with them. I can't really keep up with the evolution of all their relationships—not necessarily because they change frequently, as opposed to just how many years go by between times that I see any of them anymore. Shobhit and I actually saw all three of them just this past April when we went to their town home to get campaign contributions from all three of them. Charlie and Cavin still live together, but there seemed to be some suggestion yesterday that maybe they aren't as romantic with each other as they once were? I truly have no idea.
I did discover, when Cavin came to say hi—and he did also give me a hug—that he was part of a group that I had already
noticed earlier, sitting on the grass just a few yards from us, evidently before Cavin and David came along. The others were much younger.
In the end, Cavin was the only other person at Seattle Pride in the Park 2023 that we knew, at least that we ran into (besides Shobhit, of course). Well, also David, I suppose, although it was kind of unclear whether Laney had ever actually met him before. Cavin and his friends kind of moved on, and soon Laney and I got up to dance some more.
In any event, as I said, I had a blast yesterday, even when I was helping Laney stay standing upright as she was surprisingly stumbly once we decided to start walking 14th Avenue back to her van parked near our condo building.
Earlier in our time at Volunteer Park yesterday, we saw the same PRIDE sign used
last year in the grassy section over by the Conservatory, which Alexia and I took pictures in front of: this time it was smack in the middle of the larger grassy area in front of the new Volunteer Park Amphitheater, complete with a stage for people to take their photos from. This time there was a long line of hopeful picture-takers at it, so I settled for the from-the-side shot you see above, while walking by, (You can kind of barely see the sign and line if you scroll to the bottom right in
this shot.)
Normally, if I'm at an event like this with Shobhit, he and I would walk making the rounds by every single booth, mostly to see what free swag there might be. I did get a
paper rainbow crown from the QFC booth, along with packets of gummy fish and goldfish crackers. We didn't walk all the booths this time, though, for two reasons: Shobhit would more than once break away from us to talk to people about his campaign (younger people in particular would often listen to him intently), plus Laney and I were there more for our first "Happy Hour at the Park" for June. So, the visit was largely focused on us hanging out and drinking together.
Which brings me back to the drinking. I might have actually gotten more buzzed than I did, if not for the aforementioned kid who had knocked over the Yeti mug drink I had brought. And then the Seattle Cider I had in the first beer garden had very low alcohol content. And then the tasty cocktail I had in the second beer garden wasn't especially strong either. But, Laney had quite a bit of wine over the course of the day: two cans worth poured into here metal tumbler on the blankets under the trees; two 8oz glasses at the first beer garden; another 8os glass at the second beer garden. It didn't even fully register until after she had gone home that she had basically five separate glasses or cups of wine, which in retrospect explains how hard it was for her to walk straight once we decided it was time to head back toward my place.
I won't say it was alarming to see Laney like this, probably drunker than I have ever seen her (which may not actually be true; my memory is crap and for all I know, for instance, she could have been just as drunk at her 60th birthday party in 2017, or any number of other times). I suppose the key difference now is that Laney is getting older, so it was somewhat difficult to parse where her bad knees that already often necessitate walking sticks ended, and her intoxication began. There was a moment on a walking path in the park on our way out when she actually stumbled backward a couple of steps and I quickly went to take her by the arm, and I involuntarily said out loud, "Jesus." She laughed and mimicked me: "Hahaha, 'Jesus!'"
We very much took our time walking home. Her being noticeably intoxicated brought to mind a Dire Straits lyrics from their 1985 album
Brothers in Arms, which we both really love. I took out my phone and played the song I thought it was from, but I was wrong, but it still made a great song to walk to down 14th Avenue on Capitol Hill: "
Ride Across the River." I had to Google to figure out the song I really wanted, though, which turned out to be "
Your Latest Trick." So, I played that one next, because it had the lyric that Laney was making me think of:
Now it's past last call for alcohol.
We actually passed a concrete bench while I played "Your Latest Trick," and Laney asked to sit there for a bit. We basically just sat there listening to that song through to the end, occasionally commenting on the yard sale happening across the street, which included a washing machine so beat up and broken that I could not understand how they thought they had any chance of selling it.
When the song ended, Laney was ready to get up and continue walking. We paced ourselves and walked pretty slowly, and once we got to the block where her van was parked, she said she was going to sit an wait maybe twenty minutes while drinking a lot of water before she drove home. She wasn't stumbly anymore by this point, but I was still concerned. I asked her to text me both when she left, and when she got home. She texted me she was leaving a bit earlier than I expected, and then texted again exactly half an hour later that she was home. I still think she probably drove sooner than she should have, but she says drinking a huge amount of water while sitting in her van really made a difference. I guess I'll take her word for it.
In any case, yesterday was a truly great kickoff event for Pride Month. There aren't any more major Pride events until Pride Weekend itself, the last Friday through Sunday of the month, in another three weeks. There's a lot going on between now and then. But yesterday was super fun, often crossing right over into the magical. It was wonderful to be able to recognize that even while it was happening.
[posted 6:03 pm]
