A Girl...

Proof That Everyone in San Francisco Is Crazy, Part I

Soooooooo. Last weekend we hung out with the ecstacy crowd, the crystal meth crowd, and the pot crowd. We also saw lots of naked people. Lots and lots. So very many.

Friday was the San Francisco LoveFest (our version of the famous Berlin Love Parade), and since neither Simon nor I had attended this particular celebration in the past, we decided to go check it out. Besides, we love love just as much as--if not more than--the next guy, wouldn't you say?

The thing that sets this parade apart from most others is that although there are official floats (i.e., buses and flat-bed trucks decorated with balloons and happy dancing people), there aren't really any official spectators. Everyone in attendance is part of the show, and the whole teeming crowd pretty much just flows through the main artery of downtown San Francisco in their fairy wings and sparkly hotpants skipping and hugging and drinking out of brown paper bags. The parade ends at City Hall, where there are various food booths with a multitude of deep-fried delicacies and at least a dozen stages hosting d.j.s blaring techno explosions of atomic proportions.

This would be the ecstacy crowd--mostly straight college-age kids in their "experimental" phases, as far as I could see. It's pretty easy to tell the real freaks from the fake freaks (yes, I am obsessed with authenticity), and it was really top-notch gawker territory if you're into that sort of thing, which Simon and I definitely are. He wore a T-shirt that said "Rub My Wiener for Good Luck" under a picture of a velvet dauchsand (only one strange woman rubbed his chest, and it wasn't me) and I wore my heart-shaped sun-glasses, as you saw, and also a sensible black tank top with a sensible three-quarter-length khaki skirt and my sensible, dirty, gross, and comfortable tennis shoes. I looked like an Amish girl on Spring Break. I took special care to smear sunscreen on my virgin ankles.

We were so low-key we stood out like nudists at Bible camp, although, thinking back, I don't actually recall seeing any naked people at LoveFest. But that might be because my memory of LoveFest has been distorted by the overwhelming number of bare asses I saw on Sunday, at the Folsom Street Fair. The FSF might be a little over the top for a few of you, so you'll probably want to just stick to the pictures of LoveFest, which can be seen by clicking the link below. The photos themselves probably say more about me and how I feel about people and faces than anything else, but that's not to say that they don't also tell you a little something about San Francisco.

(I just realized that this is A LOT of pictures. I probably should have just Flickered them all to begin with. I hope you like them.)