Coming to you live from New York City, it’s me! Julia Watson, girl reporter! I have traveled to the Big Red FrOOt to ring in my 31st year on planet Earth, celebrating in style with my one and only. (That means I just turned 30, for the math-challenged like me.) Lo and behold, I was born the day before the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots and thus find myself here during the City’s annual Pride festivities. Herein I will describe my adventures in the city that never sleeps.

First off, what is wrong with you people? In California, we like to sleep. Sleeping is awesome! Maybe if you guys slept more you’d be less grouchy, which brings me to… My very first real, live New York City subway ride! I received this warning from Gurlfren: “Dude!” (Okay, perhaps I am paraphrasing in Californian, because y’all don’t say “dude” in New-Yorkese, but I digress…) “You can’t make eye contact with people and smile at them like that here. They’ll think you’re being aggressive or crazy, or take it as an invitation to hit on you.”

“Oh?” quoth I. “Mayhap that is why people keep staring back at me like I am one of those ‘crazies’ my Nano warned me about when I was small.” Alas, we tried to play Gurlfren’s favorite on-the-way-home-from-work game, “spot the rat,” from the train, but were unsuccessful.

On Saturday, I went to my first Dyke March. Here, Gurlfren and I met up with none other than our Commander in Chief, Moon — also known as the boss of me. Moon searched in vain for us for a while, as text messages flew back and forth. We finally found each other on the steps near the corner of 42nd Street and 6th Avenue, in a sea of lesbians.


Lesbians. EVERYWHERE! The energy of being in a crowd of a couple thousand queer women was sweet exhilaration, even if the poky pace once we actually got moving made it feel more of a Sapphic Stroll than a Dyke March. At any rate, it was just my speed, allowing for much dyke-watching, people-watching-the-dykes-watching and catching of offhand quotes.

Top Three Quotes of the Day, Dyke March NYC, 2008

3. A cop on his walkie: “They’re coming down 5th Avenue. The lesbians are coming!”

2. Hundreds of lesbians chanting, as sheets of rain began pour down, “We like it WET! We like it WET!”

1. Another cop-walkie conversation overheard along the route: “You gotta spread ‘em out.” “What?” “You gotta spread the lesbians.”

Also among the more amusing moments, my favorite t-shirt of the day, worn by a fetching lass who offered this plaintive request:

There were a handful of supportive gay guys out and about, cheering on their lesbian sisters. My favorite stood in his second floor apartment behind a wall of windows, puppeteering his cat to make it wave to the Lesbians on Parade. Oh, pussy. We salute you! (And we did.)