PRIDE: Los Angeles

The one place where you can rest assured that they want you to shine bright like a diamond.

So I had been to pride before in Olympia which was a great, albeit smaller, experience. There was the typical flamboyancy--the glamour, the nakedness, the colors, the beautiful boys. But this was forever ago in high school so I've been a bit out-of-touch with the scene. But after getting an email from my new boss over at the Feminist Majority Foundation that tonight was the kickstarter lesbian Purple Fest night of pride, I knew I would have to go again. However since this was a major US city I knew I would need to step it up.

My comrades in crime for this adventure were Matt and Jess--two of the greatest people/friends I've had up to this point in my life. Lucky for me they are also down in Azusa for the summer so we decided to meet up and do West Hollywood. Having no idea how lesbians partied in relation to the gays I love so dearly, I decided I would rather be over-prepared for the magic (which included a LOT of glitter and general LOOK AT ME attire) and we headed out to brave the Los Angeles traffic Matt insisted would not be that bad (fool...utter fool).

Obviously, there was traffic around the Hollywood Bowl with a concert on tonight, but since we were able to find free parking at a grocery store near the venue it was almost worth it to suffer through a bit of traffic. Get out of the car though and immediately realize that I'm the only one who wanted to go balls-deep in party attire, but luckily people are complimenting me on my wings and such so it's not that awkward. After entering the park with the performance stage we hear that it's time to go on the march down the street so we immediately start off walking with a throng of other loud and proud lesbians. A few people shout out to me that they love my wings, and we end up talking with this one guy who is promoting this lesbian archive with articles about prominent lesbians throughout history who have helped the movement. Pretty cool experience.

After the march the party continued back at the park with some girl-punk bands including 'Uh-huh-Her' where I discovered Alice from 'The L Word' who has apparently been in the band since forever. Was kind of trippy recognizing her. Their set was followed by a succession of live djs, though we only stayed to dance to one (fearful that we'd get towed for parking...strategically in the parking lot). The mixer was good, especially liked the remix to "My Goodies" which brought back SUCH strong memories of middle school (which most times I'd rather not relive). Loved just being outside with my gays dancing, though I did notice something drastically different about the ways Americans dirty dance.

It's sex. It's straight up sex.

No class, no suave. Women just bend over, touch their toes, stick their ass out and twerk it. I've never come across anything quite as vulgar as that in any of the countries I've traveled to before. Not to say there isn't dirty dancing, it's just that in Europe at least they DANCE. I have no problems with more sexual dancing, lets just make sure there's some kind of movement/skill and not just a mass orgy session. Because at the party, it was straight up cheap pornography on the dance floor which I thought kind of distracted from the otherwise great vibe. Took me back to sweaty-high school dance days awkwardly standing in the corner trying to have a good time but feeling ostracized for not allowing myself to be raped on the dance floor.

Arrived back at home with enough time to get all domestic making scottish shortbread cookies while waiting for Sean and Ashley Oborn (more friends from Hawaii) to finish their ride down from Northern California for  another Hawaiian friend's reception tomorrow in San Diego. Overall, a great evening catching up and being social and spreading the love to all people. Looking forward to continuing the good times down here in SoCal this summer :)