What PRIDE is really about.

For the last 4 months of my life, I have been completely consumed by organizing the QueerFest Pride Festival in Capitol Hill. Last year I participated as well but I don't think I was anywhere prepared for how this sucker was going to turn out.

Saturday, I walked into Volunteer Park at 9:45am, I had been at the park the night before when it was pitch dark and crews were working through the night to set up equipment, stages, and booths. In the light of day the park looked immediately different. Vendors setting out their items, volunteers running around setting up last minute tents. Base camp looked like a refugee camp. A good majority of our team had to spend the night in the park providing security we were unable to pay for, in order to watch over the $100,000 sound system we rented. Everyone looked tired, and haggard, far worse than I look when I camp out somewhere. There were no tents, no camp stoves, no camp fire, certainly no sleeping bags. Just a few chairs, some blankets thrown to the side, and massive amounts of take-out boxes, and cups that once held coffee.

I gathered all my supplies and headed out to get familiar with my surrounding and the stages I'd be ultimately responsibly for. The mainstage was massive... I wasn't expecting the lights and towers, and full blown sound system. The second stage was considerably smaller, and run by a union outfit as opposed to the rogue crew of AV Pro which inhabited the mainstage. I set up shop in a little tent opposite the mainstage and was completely unprepared for the choas that was just mere hours away.

My volunteers slowly arrived, and while getting them up to speed I began to familiarize myself with the radio that would become my lifeline for the entire day. I was outfitted with a Motorola radio with this great attachment that allowed it to clip onto my pants, then a cord ran up my side and an attachment was clipped to my collar. I felt like a cop, or a security officer, only without the handcuffs. (Although those may have come in handy now that I think about it.)

Around 11am the call came over the radios, the parade was stepping off. In the background you could hear crowds cheering, and music playing, goosebumps covered my arms, and I was immediately anxious. It could have been fear... We were 45 minutes behind schedule to start, the parade took far longer than expected to make its way through Capitol Hill and into the park.
Around 12:30 we recieved the call "15 minutes until we reach the park!", the crowds were even louder, and you could barely hear the executive director speak... minutes later the crowds arrived and calls of "Here we GO!!!!" and "Standby, standby, the parade has reached the park!" and "Happy Pride everybody!!!" screeched over the radios. I could have peed my pants at this point.

The begining was a little bumpy behind the scenes, but from where the crowd was standing it looked like everything was running as planned and thats how I like it. Speakers hopped on and off the stage quickly, and our first act took over. It wasnt as successful as I'd hoped, turns out some of their practices while on stage were a little vulgar, and irresponsible. About halfway through the set, a very angry Dyke got in my face over the inappropriate behavior of the band, all I could focus on was her horrible breath, and bad choice of outfit. (Leather vest w/ no shirt OR BRA, on a FAT lesbian is NOT cute, nor does it smell good.)

Acts came on, and as the day progressed I think we all fell into a comfortable groove. The once frantic calls over the radio were more precise, and thought out. We had found our rhythm as a team, and by 5pm a call came out... "why are these radios so damn quite??!"

We had done it. We had successfully hosted a festival for 30,000+ people, and managed not to kill anyone in the process. Including eachother. The vibe at the end of the night was a happy one, a PROUD one. I didn't get to leave the stage ALL DAY, so most people say "You didn't get to have any fun"... but it was the most fun I've ever had at Pride. And the fact I ended the long day feeling PROUD and like I had accomplished something, isnt that the whole point of celebrating Pride anyways?

I'm very thankful to my volunteers who worked almost the entire day without one complaint. I'm very thankful to my friends who came out and supported me. Brent for volunteering, and his wife for giving him to me for a whole day. Soo and James for sitting in the grass and being my "volunteer supporters". And of course I am very thankful to Jenny, for supporting me in doing something I am passionate about, something I love, and something I can take great PRIDE in.

Here's to 6 months of peace and quite before the whole madness starts all over again!

(Pictures soon I'm sure...)

Eheeeee... cuuuute....

Beene made a new friend at the dog park today!

This is Maggie... cute little french bulldog.

Beene doesn't usually like other small dogs, she is very discrimiating when it comes to other canines. She favors large dogs mostly, the ones big enough to eat her are her favorites. Last summer, Jen and I house sat and she made nice with a Newfy, Jake. It was cute, she had to be about 1/18th his size....

Beene likes dog parks though, not for the dogs, just the people. Her peer's owners... I know no other dog who gets such a kick out of the PEOPLE at a dog park. Leave it to her to find a chubby lady on a bench, climb all over her with her muddy paws and get fawned over. She's a whore.

I'm kind of not so much blah today as I was yesterday, just kind of bored I suppose. Hopefully we get a little sunshine this weekend so I can forgo making another tanning bed appt. and just sit in the real sun instead. 10 days until Pride, and I'm tired... the day of is going to most likely kill me... or I will kill someone else. I hope there aren't any sharp objects around.

Currently Needing: MONEY. Ive been broke for a week and Im getting dangerously close to an overdraft. Sad...
Currently Reading: "High Maintenance" sassy, tounge-in-cheek girly novel. Typically of what Ive been reading lately. Maybe thats why my brain feels like soft serve ice cream.

Words On A Page.

Eh... nothing is really happening here at work, might as well type a short blog recap of how uneventful my life is... if anyone actually ends up reading this I'd be thoroughly surprised.

Pride planning has been trucking along for weeks now. I'm still enjoying the work involved although balancing that and home life gets hard. And I can't blame Jen for being pissed when I have 2 meetings in one week. So, Ive tried to cut back, successfully so, as I haven't been to a real "committee" meeting in weeks. I can't really stomach sitting through 2 hours of people twice, almost three times, my age bickering over how the meeting is run and who gets to talk. Never really succeeding in getting anything worth while accomplished. Seems like a blatant waste of time. So, I'm boycotting. I'm still productive during the week, and my end of the festival is running smoothly and on plan, so I'm happy. And semi-sane... always a plus.

Since I've defected from all things "committee" related Jen and I tried to go camping this last weekend. Only to be met with rain, and wind in Bellingham. Definitely not the way I usually prefer to camp. Friday was clear when we arrived after I got off work. We quickly set up camp, I'm an expert at the tent (broken pole, no problem!), and Jen made dinner on the camp stove. The weather was clear, and we enjoyed a camp fire, marshmallows and beer for a couple hours before slinking into our tent with the dogs, and under our new sleeping bag, curled up on our blowup mattress. Not a bad way to camp if you ask me. The bathrooms (fully stocked, clean, and had lights) were one campsite over from ours, super convenient at 4am when you need to pee. We got up and had a great breakfast of blueberry pancakes and faux-sausage (meatless--yum). I managed to spill hot chocolate on myself before 8am, no easy feat... and just after changing clothes, it started to sprinkle. Luckily, Jen had rigged a tarp over our table and we had some cover, so what to do... Well being the drunkards we are, might as well start drinking Gin. We beat our personal record for drinking in the AM... it was only 9:30am, narrowly beating out our 10am record set at the cabin. A few rounds of WAR and quarters later I was bored, buzzed, wet and cold, and the dogs were wet, smelly, tired messes. We trudged into Fairhaven 10 minutes away to get warm, and decided shortly thereafter to pack it all in and go home with our tails between our legs. The weather wasn't letting up, so we called it off, and went back to the camp site... WHICH WAS DRENCHED. Ick. We made excellent time packing, only took 20 minutes and got the hell out of there and on the road home, sad, defeated, and cold.

Bummer... but, the weekend felt really long coming home Saturday afternoon, we still had plenty of daylight left, and all of Sunday. So unpacking went slowly, and easily. And we even took a little trip down to the Fremont Sunday market. All that "fun" and I came into work Monday feeling dizzy and almost nauseated, not a good way to start your week.

Anyways... Currently I'm on a reading binge... that's all I've been doing in my spare time. I'm running out of books... I've read 4 in 3 weeks. I just finished my fourth book, and decided to waste some time blogging since I now have nothing else to read today. Man my life is exciting.

I can't seem to find a decent way to end this blog, it could be never ending, so I guess you don't get something pre-packaged and pretty. Stop.