Knee Deep in Lesbians

In an effort to relieve some of the boredom that comes with being stuck in the house too long (an offshoot of trying to save our money) the Partner in Crime and I went down to Charlotte last weekend for their local Pride activities.
I found it particularly subdued. As near as we can tell, they don't have a parade like other cities do-- thereby reducing the photo-opportunities. The one decent picture we got was in front of the Fagbug:
And no, that is not an excuse to start throwing around the f-word.
While the crowd was probably pretty evenly mixed between men and women, my own bias picked up on the sheer numbers of women there. While the older women pretty much fit the mold of short hair-comfortable shoes that I'm used to, I was struck by the number of younger women who were trying to look like thugs. They've got the whole droopy pants, slouched shoulder thing going on. Come to think of it, I've noticed that some in some of the other places where I'm likely to come in contact with younger lesbians. Much more though here than up north. I don't get it. But, I don't have to.
Otherwise, as I said, the whole event was pretty subdued. It's centered around the courtyard of a business-park/complex/whatever downtown. I swear, these cities down here seem as though they were constructed out of some computer program design. Very little character, they're all interchangeable, and bland. What ever happened to the thriving downtowns of my youth? Oh well.
There were many booths set up, most of them socio-political in nature, with a smattering of tchotch-for-sale. Blown glass this, hand-woven that. Yawn. We did manage to pick up a bear cooky from the local leather crowd. All sugar. After that, we went out to see the new Batman movie.


which we both agreed was pretty good (and well worth seeing on a big screen) but waaaay too long. They could have chopped out a significant bit of it and you never would have missed it. The first half of the movie was much better than the second and I can totally see why they're talking Oscar-nom for Heath Ledger. (He creeped me out!) Does he deserve it? Eh. Will he get it? Probably, the Academy tends to play catch-up with their awards. Namely, the person who deserves it usually is passed over for "the favorite" and that deserving person is usually rewarded for a later (lesser-quality) performance. (Think Whoopi Goldberg-- she totally earned it with The Color Purple and got it for Ghost. Go figure.)
After that, in our continuing effort to meet cool, like-minded people, we went over to The Woodshed, our favorite little country/dive bar. We stayed a little late, drank a little too much, got to know some people who live a little too far away to become good friends, then crashed at the motel-down-the-road that had a little too much water on the bathroom floor. I've noticed that a lot in our travels. Granted, we tend to stay at lower-end places in our efforts to save a penny or two (after all, when we travel we're not there for the hotel room, we're there for what ever it's in the middle of).
All in all, a good Get Out of Dodge episode.