I only mean to protest for an hour on thursday. really.

I only meant to come out for an hour thursday nite. Really. I was going to go to Powell and Market, cheer at the appropriate pauses in the speeches by the speakers, and then run errands. An hour, tops.

I was in the streets like a woman possessed for over five hours, and every minute of it was fantastic.

It started to get interesting when I got off the bus at Market and 5th. Some woman sitting in the front of the bus started blathering about the protestors, and looking to me for agreement. "They are all just punks, just young punks!" I cheerfully waved at the protestors going by in the street and ignored her. The police showed up and were blocking people out of the street and onto the sidewalk in the intersection. I ended up near the north bound 27 bus shelter and struck up a conversation with another older woman about internet access to international news media. And then, we were off.

The march weaved in and around downtown, back and forth, in an incredible procession of passionate, beautiful people letting loose their lungs to let people know what they thought of this war. A man carried a French flag, he explained that he wasn't french but had lived there and supported their policy about the war. There was a woman dressed up in purple satin and gold jewelry with a sign that said 'belly dancer for peace'-- she had abdominal muscles of steel to prove it. I recognized a leader in the local Islamic community. Apparently very few of the marchers knew him, but Arab/Muslim men who did would run up and pay their respects.

We ended up with part of a group that tried to get onto the freeway, w/ some beatdowns cheerfully administered by CHP. Note to local police reading this account: please don't send CHP out to deal w/ protestors. They were obviously not prepared to deal w/ crowds and it only escalated the situation into something far worse than it needed to be. Lots of loudspeakering and orders to disperse would have done the trick for most of us.

The march came back to market, ended up making our way down market, and my instant affinity group expanded to a third, with an acquaintance that I knew spotting us on the move.

Part of why the marches in SF have been so successful is not only that they are decentralized and spontatenous but that they move really, really, really fast. Faster than the police can move to block people off. Faster than I could keep going for miles on end. My feet started to make their own protest so we paused briefly for rest, sign repair, and some Rainbow Grocery trail mix. When we made ready to head back out on the street, the protest was gone.

I mean, Gone.

How the hell do you lose hundreds of loud screeching people on foot? I don't know but we did it.

We tried to figure out where they had gone by watching the helicopters, didn't work. We saw a bunch of cops hanging out near the Castro, briefly thought about asking them if they knew were the protest was but came to our senses. We thought we caught up w/ the main march but it was a small contingent of young but exquisitely fabulous queers marching in the street on Market, shouting "We're here! We're queer! We're fabulous, dont fuck with us!!" towards the Castro.

One of our group decided to go home, the 2 of us left decided to hit MUNI at Castro and go back to Powell for the 9pm "convergence". By the time we got there the march was there too.

The police were a lot nastier this time. We ended up at the SE corner of 5th and Market and the police were fanned out in front of the sidewalks to keep people from crossing the street.

Now those of you who know that intersection know that all you have to do to cross the street is go underground thru the subway stop and up the stairs on the other side, right? Not sure who decided that was the best way to deploy the police forces. Gotta wonder about that....

People urged the folks gathered *not* to make the situation into a confrontation w/ the police, things were tense but I couldn't see anybody getting dragged off, beatdown, and arrested. A small but vocal "pro-bush" contingent had showed up at the NW corner of 5th and Market by that time too, but mostly they just shouted themselves hoarse and were ignored. Me and my comrade in foot blisters crossed to the NE corner, ended up w/ a group that marched around the block and ended up on the other side of Market and 5th. Then the group decided to make their way down thru Soma towards 850 Bryant (city jail, where a lot of protestors were being detained).

I was so impressed by the folks in the crowd during the whole time I was out there. A lot of younger people, obviously very committed to the action and very conscious, trying to keep the group together, and keep people calm and focussed, and watch out backs for the police. Some black bloc, which I personally don't endorse, but they seemed to keep "direct action" to a minimum, mostly knocking over the random newspaper vending machine. We stopped a few times to figure out which way to head-- apparently the 'mobile advance guard' scoped that there was a huge number of praetorians-- oops, i mean police-- in full riot glad rags by the jail, so they decided to head for the mission instead.

at about 1030 we both decided to head back home. my affinity pal had been out since 9am! We got the bus, and staggered away. Big up to the youth who were able to keep at it!

its 2AM as I write this-- apologies for inconsistencies, typos, grammatical dysfunction.