Notes from the Pride Parade:

It was my fourth annual Pride Parade and my first one with a boyfriend. Hooray! My forehead and nose are a little red now from several hours in the sun, but not as red as Matt’s. Poor guy.

We watched most of the parade from the northeast corner of 17th and 5th. I’m short, but luckily, I managed to snag the base of a lamppost, so I watched much of the procession from about a foot and a half off the ground, giving Matt a continuing preview of what was up the street.

There seemed to be many more pro-gay-marriage groups and floats than in years past. Also, many more anti-Bush signs.

My favorite moment happened when the group from God’s Love We Deliver went by. I was standing on the base of the lamppost when one of the guys marching with that group came over to our side of the street. He seemed to be looking at me. I thought I was imagining it. Then he pointed in our general direction, and I turned around to see who he was looking at. Then he disappeared. A minute later, he reappeared behind me and Matt and said hi. It turned out that he’d recognized me from my blog — when he saw Matt, he recognized him as well — and he just wanted to say hi. It was incredibly flattering to be recognized. And we weren’t even marching!

(This was actually the second time in a week that someone recognized me from my blog; it happened a few nights ago at Newport Mall in Jersey City, too.)

People we saw marching: Chris; Chad with the rugby team (he’s on the cover of this month’s Out, too); Barney Frank; Carson Kressley; James from “Boy Meets Boy”; Gifford Miller. No Charles Schumer or Hillary Clinton this year, unless they were at the very beginning, which we missed.

After the parade ended, Matt and I went to Chat ‘n Chew for dinner. Then we went back to his place, where, tuckered out, we took a nap.

Happy Gay Pride 2004!