![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Friday: hit Trans Pride at the Volunteer Park amphitheater. Attendance was at least as big as last year, but the folks running things seemed to have done a better job of laying out all the booths so that I didn't have to elbow my way through. I also liked the performers that I heard better. The Tickler and I observed independently that Trans Pride is turning into quite the fashion show. It feels weird to say it, but Trans Pride seems to have come of age. (Arguably, it already had in its pre-pandemic march incarnation. That isn't happening anymore because the organizers don't want cops around.)
Saturday: hit the street fair on Broadway, the historical main arterial of Seattle's gayborhood*, Capitol Hill. Went on a successful quest for pasties. Saw Vienna La Rouge, Burner buddy J, and fellow Merc regulars J & K. For me, that's the best part of hanging out on the Hill on Pride weekend.
Tacoma Girl was volunteering at a booth until 1700, at which time we jumped on a train to the U-District, reasoning correctly that eetz would be much easier to obtain there than on Broadway, where the fair was still nearly in full swing. After devouring dinner and perhaps a beer too many at Big Time** we shopped for Korean instant ramen at H Mart. The U District does have its charms.
I took the train down to SoDo and got rained on as I walked to Orient Express, a Chinese restaurant in train cars. And why in the hell would I do a thing like that, you ask? Because a venerable house music monthly, Train Car House Party, was having its very last night. I'd been meaning to go for many years and just never got around to it. So, it was my first & last TCHP.
That venue is so singular that it deserves its own paragraph. The cars TCHP used were basically a dive bar, and I'm not talking the gentrified version of a dive bar that you see elsewhere in Seattle, either. We're talking frank alcoholics, overly strong drinks, some kind of porn on a monitor at the bar (?!), and literal funk; SoDo is still pretty rough around the edges, and I hope it stays that way. The original brass luggage racks were (just barely) still attached in the train car that housed the naturally long and narrow dance floor. I think the house music crowd drove out the down-and-outers at some point, and I'm conflicted about that, boy howdy. I overheard one woman describe TCHP as a soft option, but that option is now gone. Le sigh. I actually liked the choonz, which were supplied by Riz & Rob.
Possibly for the first time in SoDo, I party hopped to the Monkey Loft because promoter Ramiro Gutierrez put me on the guest list! I figured I couldn't refuse an invitation like that. (Or the house music mafia might funk me up?)
Sunday: I didn't even make it out of bed until after noon because I woke up at 0630 and just couldn't face life without more sleep.
SFDs: black Stetson hat, black leather harness, blue silk plus-shaped pasties, my silk-and-leather Pride stripe skirt belt from Astral Chrysalis, leather thong undies so I don't get arrested, black patent Docs, Trans Pride socks so I can say I'm transsoxual, and a whole lot of queer and kinky accessories. Oh yeah: I tied black and gray hankies to the right side of the back of my harness.
Made it to the Seattle Center. Walked and walked an walked, which I figure makes up for the lack of bike ride today. The only person I ran into who I know was, unbelievably, Vienna la Rouge, looking totally casual and makeup-free as I'd never seen her before. Yeah, she's still devastatingly pretty that way. I asked her if there were any sunscreen globs on my back, and she smoothed them out for me. It didn't occur to me until several minutes later that this could be construed as flirting with the most physically attractive woman I know, who happens to be conveniently gay. Aw mayunn, that wasn't what I meant to do.
Went grocery shopping on the way home. Yes, in my hat, harness & pasties. I did laundry, made beans & rice, and took out the bins as usual on Sunday, and I'm still wearing my hat, harness & pasties. I'm really liking them. Happy Pride!
*Pike and Pine streets, which are parallel and one block apart, are perpendicular to Broadway are sort of the secondary main drags. There's actually more gay stuff on or near these two streets. They're collectively called the Pike-Pine corridor. The director of Lambert House once described them to me as a decades-old "shitshow". I know what he means, and he's not completely wrong.
**I used to go there all the time in my student days. The menu has changed a little, but the food and the beer, which they brew, is still right on. Totally a blast from my past.
Saturday: hit the street fair on Broadway, the historical main arterial of Seattle's gayborhood*, Capitol Hill. Went on a successful quest for pasties. Saw Vienna La Rouge, Burner buddy J, and fellow Merc regulars J & K. For me, that's the best part of hanging out on the Hill on Pride weekend.
Tacoma Girl was volunteering at a booth until 1700, at which time we jumped on a train to the U-District, reasoning correctly that eetz would be much easier to obtain there than on Broadway, where the fair was still nearly in full swing. After devouring dinner and perhaps a beer too many at Big Time** we shopped for Korean instant ramen at H Mart. The U District does have its charms.
I took the train down to SoDo and got rained on as I walked to Orient Express, a Chinese restaurant in train cars. And why in the hell would I do a thing like that, you ask? Because a venerable house music monthly, Train Car House Party, was having its very last night. I'd been meaning to go for many years and just never got around to it. So, it was my first & last TCHP.
That venue is so singular that it deserves its own paragraph. The cars TCHP used were basically a dive bar, and I'm not talking the gentrified version of a dive bar that you see elsewhere in Seattle, either. We're talking frank alcoholics, overly strong drinks, some kind of porn on a monitor at the bar (?!), and literal funk; SoDo is still pretty rough around the edges, and I hope it stays that way. The original brass luggage racks were (just barely) still attached in the train car that housed the naturally long and narrow dance floor. I think the house music crowd drove out the down-and-outers at some point, and I'm conflicted about that, boy howdy. I overheard one woman describe TCHP as a soft option, but that option is now gone. Le sigh. I actually liked the choonz, which were supplied by Riz & Rob.
Possibly for the first time in SoDo, I party hopped to the Monkey Loft because promoter Ramiro Gutierrez put me on the guest list! I figured I couldn't refuse an invitation like that. (Or the house music mafia might funk me up?)
Sunday: I didn't even make it out of bed until after noon because I woke up at 0630 and just couldn't face life without more sleep.
SFDs: black Stetson hat, black leather harness, blue silk plus-shaped pasties, my silk-and-leather Pride stripe skirt belt from Astral Chrysalis, leather thong undies so I don't get arrested, black patent Docs, Trans Pride socks so I can say I'm transsoxual, and a whole lot of queer and kinky accessories. Oh yeah: I tied black and gray hankies to the right side of the back of my harness.
Made it to the Seattle Center. Walked and walked an walked, which I figure makes up for the lack of bike ride today. The only person I ran into who I know was, unbelievably, Vienna la Rouge, looking totally casual and makeup-free as I'd never seen her before. Yeah, she's still devastatingly pretty that way. I asked her if there were any sunscreen globs on my back, and she smoothed them out for me. It didn't occur to me until several minutes later that this could be construed as flirting with the most physically attractive woman I know, who happens to be conveniently gay. Aw mayunn, that wasn't what I meant to do.
Went grocery shopping on the way home. Yes, in my hat, harness & pasties. I did laundry, made beans & rice, and took out the bins as usual on Sunday, and I'm still wearing my hat, harness & pasties. I'm really liking them. Happy Pride!
*Pike and Pine streets, which are parallel and one block apart, are perpendicular to Broadway are sort of the secondary main drags. There's actually more gay stuff on or near these two streets. They're collectively called the Pike-Pine corridor. The director of Lambert House once described them to me as a decades-old "shitshow". I know what he means, and he's not completely wrong.
**I used to go there all the time in my student days. The menu has changed a little, but the food and the beer, which they brew, is still right on. Totally a blast from my past.
