Pride 2007

This year's Pride took place this past Sunday, June 24.


On June 23, my best friend Mika (with me above) threw his annual Pride Party. Last year, he didn't throw one, which I guess calls "annual" into question, but he's thrown one every other year in the five years I've lived here, so I think I'll let that one slide. Monetary reasons, he sited last year. This year, however, he's back where he left off two years again, only this time, the venue was his ex-girlfriend's house in Bellevue.

The simple noun-phrase "ex-girlfriend" should, in Mika's case, be briefly described. Kate (the girl in this picture with her boyfriend du jour, Charles) and Mika dated for a year and a half a couple of years ago. This is odd only in the sense that Mika is the gayest person I know, and is himself gay. But his longest long-term relationships have been with girls, one with whom he has a son (11) in Kentucky. So this gay gay man has had two girlfriends and has a son. But things get more complicated when we throw polyamory into the mix. Kate is polyamorous. And when Mika was dating polyamorous, he was too. Kate was also dating Chris, whom she had been dating for years before Mika. She was also dating other people on the side.

William found it quite fun describing Chris as my best friends's girlfriend's other boyfriend. Now that Mika and Kate are no longer dating, though still friends, William can describe Chris (in the rare event that he should) as my best friend's ex-girlfriend's husband (since they're now married).

But I digress. So the Pride Party was in Bellevue at Kate's house. It was fun. There was drinking and maybe I made out with someone who is not William. But Pride Weekend is set aside for that. I had fun.

Pride Sunday was pretty low-key. We were going to take a bus, but we missed the one we were gonna take, so we drove. We met a friend, Teague, on 4th and Pine in front the Century Square 1501 building. We often meet up with Teague and his husband, Nick, for the Pride Parade. Nick was out of town this year, so it was just Teague. Another friend of ours, Ian, also came to watch with us.

The Pride Parade was downtown again this year, repeating last year's festivities at Seattle Center, despite how very bankrupt it left the Pride Committee (a new committee is putting on this year's festivities). For the first time, Mark "Mom" Finley (in drag on the right in the pic on the left) emceed the event, adding his/her dark double entendres to gay up an already very gay event. This year's numbers did not mirror last year's, however. Thousands and thousands showed up for the parade, but not as many showed up to the post-parade celebration at Seattle Center as last year. And the odd thing about it is that there was only a portion of Seattle Center partitioned off for celebrating Pride. So the turnout looked kind of small. The weather certainly had something to do with it, I think. It rained this year, which I hadn't seen once in the five years of Pride I've had the great fortune of celebrating here in Seattle.

We reconnected with friends as we often do at these shindigs. We spent the majority of the time hanging out with Mika and some other friends, and also with Teague and some friends, as well as with Ian. When the rain finally came at around 4 or so, we went to Ian's job with him and hung out until the rain passed. Then we took a bus to PacPlace, where we had parked, and drove home.

Originally, we had planned to post-post party at the Cuff, where we ended up last time around. But we were just too tired, as we had gone hiking the day before. We climbed up and down Mount Walker on the Olympic Peninsula. My body is still sore.

All in all, it was pretty fun...