Four major Seattle Pride 2026 events down, two to go—for actual Pride Weekend, anyway! I still have the Tacoma Pride Festival with Tracy next month, and then Alki Beach Pride with Laney the month after that, after which my Seattle Pride 2026 Collection will have 10 albums, just like last year's did. The one difference is that we won't be able to do Georgetown Pride this year, but the new album from this year was last night's so-called "Pride Match."

Anyway, yesterday had three events for us, two of them having to do with Pride; I'd say we actually succeeded pretty well in being economical with our time management. I had made the plan to meet up with Laney at the north end of Broadway, outside the DeLuxe Bar & Grill, and we would work our way south along PrideFest Capitol Hill. We were going to meet at noon, right when the event was scheduled to begin, which was my suggestion due to the other things I wanted to fit in my day, but also because I figured Laney would prefer it to be at the less crowded time of day.

Even before that, though, Shobhit and I walked down to 20/20 Cycle. After having dropped the bike off here on Thursday, I really had the idea that it would be several days before I could pick it up, both because of the time it would take to fix everything that needed to be fixed (again: more because of the bike's age—18—than because of the crash) and because of how busy I was going to be this weekend. But then, to my surprise, I got a voicemail Friday that the bike was ready to be picked up. I didn't have time to pick it up then, but because 20/20 Cycle opens at 11 a.m., I figured we barely had enough time to go get it right when they opened, before walking the bike back home and then walking further up to meet with Laney.

The entire visit there yesterday was a bit odd. First, we walked in through the open door, and the guy who owns the place was outside setting some things up. I hadn't realized we walked in a couple of minutes before they officially opened, and the guy sort of jokingly said something about how they weren't open yet. Why leave the door open then? And then, when he went back to get my bike, he then had to explain, more than once, that there was something more to do with the brake pad replacements that still needed to be done—something to do with glue needed to keep the brake handles from sliding off the handle bars. I think. I was thrown by the explanation having to do with putting hairspray on it first, something I had never heard of. Shobhit seemed to get it, but when the owner guy could see the confusion on my face, and asked if I'd like him to explain it again, I said yes. He proceeded to say much the same again, only slower and with a lot of miming, in a way that seemed half in jest but honestly I wasn't all that amused. And a couple of other times he literally noted that Shobhit understood so he'd just explain to him. I told Laney about this later and she commented on how women are treated this way all the time.

The long and short of it was, they needed to put some more glue on the brake mechanisms (I think that was where, anyway; I can't really remember, except that it had to do with the brakes) for full safety, and we'd still have to pick up the bike later. I didn't say this at the time, but: why tell me the bike was ready for pickup, then? Now we wasted our time walking down there. Oh well. Shobhit got some of his steps in. And so did I, I suppose.

We walked back, and Shobhit filled up his cup we had taken some chai in with blueberries from the p-patch. He then did some weeding, which I stood around and started to get frustrated with having to stand around waiting. But then Laney texted me, for the second time, that she'd need to meet slightly later, now between 12:20 and 12:25. Apparently she kind of forgot how long it can take to take a spit bath and get ready to go somewhere from inside the van. This worked out well for us as it gave us some extra time to get upstairs and get going too, although that didn't make it less frustrating to be just standing around waiting for him.

Anyway, we walked up to meet Laney, and we went straight through Broadway. PrideFest also has a stage and booths at Cal Anderson Park, and they weren't quite finished setting up when we walked through there, but we arrived at the Broadway entrance at John at 12:14 p.m., and I was surprised how crowded it already was. Had we had time to go back a few hours later (which Shobhit and I likely would have done were it any other year), it would probably have been sardine-packed. I think Capitol Hill figured it out with this event, well evolved since the local businesses were upset 20 years ago about the Pride Parade being moved downhill. Pride Weekend is massive around here; I seem to forget the number of individual gay clubs that close down streets for their own ticketed street or block parties, of varying sizes. (This is why the clubs no longer have contingents in the parade, and unfortunately culled the parade of the number of hot gogo boys it used to feature.) The Cuff, the Wildrose, Unicorn, Queer/Bar, Neighbours, Massive—all of them do this now, and I don't think I've even thought of them all. And these are all parties on Capitol Hill that operate independent from PrideFest or any other event; these bars mostly have these events Friday through Sunday. It's no exaggeration to say that Pride Weekend is basically Christmas for businesses all over the Hill.

We actually started with Under U For Men, which always has stuff on sale Pride weekend, and they have a bunch of hot guys modeling their briefs. Laney was going to stay sitting where she was waiting for us while we went over there, but because the concrete barrier she was sitting on was so hard, she decided to walk over too. Shobhit was the most into it and even bought a pair; I almost bought a pair but since nothing truly spoke to me I decided not to spend $18 on a single pair of underwear, and that being at 50% off. I sure liked looking at the models, though; one of whom wore mesh briefs you could see through and another had an open back, both of which I found incredibly hot.

Soon enough we were making our way down Broadway, and toward the north end, Laney spied a string of small Progress Pride Flags, which she thought would make a great backdrop for a group selfie. She was right!

We then meandered down the street, each of us stopping here and there at different booths. Laney was looking for the GenPride booth, and never found it; Shobhit and I later found it among the booths outside the Light Rail station, by Cal Anderson Park—where the Capitol Hill Farmers Market happens. Laney never went down there, and she broke away from us shortly before the south end of the Broadway section of the Festival because walking slowly is too hard on her thighs, and she needed to move ahead while Shobhit and I were stopped at one of the booths. I took a photo of the GenPride booth and sent it to her.

We did stop briefly to rest at a place called Taqueria El Pastorcito, the latest in the string of businesses in the space that used to be the Broadway Grill, and we really liked how it was set up. Shobhit wasn't that impressed since they had at most two vegetarian options on their very small menu, but that's something I could make work, and Laney noted they had a full bar; we decided we should come back here for Happy Hour sometime. And then we moved on again.

It was close to 1:30 by the time we finished walking the Festival on Broadway, and Laney had peeled off shortly before that. Shobhit and I decided to walk down to Walgreens to pick up a prescription—which in the end he wasn't able to do because the pharmacy was closed for lunch—and then walk back through the booths at Cal Anderson Park before getting on Light Rail to Westlake Center downtown. On the way we ran into Renee, publisher of the Seattle Gay News, and I got a great picture of her just before we passed the light rail station on our way to Walgreens.

We walked the booths at Cal Anderson Park, and were loaded onto a Light Rail train at about 2:10. My original intent was to be down to Pier 62 for the Indigiqueer Festival a bit earlier than that, but this worked out fine; I hadn't realized the Indigiqueer Festival didn't even start until 2:00 anyway.

I also knew we wouldn't need to be at Pier 62 for long, as the Indigiqueer Festival is a much smaller affair. They do have a main stage as well, and dance parties and such, but that doesn't start until later, and one of these years I'll have to try and get down there when it's a bit more happening. I just think events like this are important, and I want to go to them in support.

Granted, the support doesn't mean much, aside from adding to attendee numbers, unless we spend some money, which we did not do. Shobhit was very tempted at one booth, manned by an incredibly cute and also very talented young man, who made both earrings (none of which spoke to me) and necklaces with stunningly intricate bead work. There was one in rainbow colors that Shobhit really liked, but it cost $165. We both agreed it was more than fairly priced, we just couldn't justify the spend. I might have been tempted to buy it for him, if not for the graduation gift we just gave Tess (I'll get to that in my next post).

There was a drag performer on the stage when we arrived, doing some kind of drumming, and I missed only the very last bit where she said something about being sorry to end on such a down note, so it must have been something sad. She said she'd be back later in a wig, so presumably something more fun was coming up. Shobhit loves to walk the floating dock next to the pier, and it was open, so we did that before we headed over to catch the RapidRide G back home.

We got to Pier 62 at 2:35, and headed out again by 2:50, but not before Shobhit saw another drag queen who happened to have rainbow earrings on, so he immediately asked to get a picture of her with me, since I had my rainbow LEGO earrings on. It was indeed a fun picture. Anyway if you could when we got to the Overlook Walk, from which I got photos of Pier 62 from higher up, we spent a grand total of 20 minutes at the Indigiqueer Festival. But we went! And I got a 20-shot photo album out of it.

We took the bus back and then had about an hour to rest before we needed to head out for Federal Way.

[posted 7:52am]