Thank you President and Commissioners for the opportunity to speak tonight. My name is Christina McKinstry and I’m 30 years old. I am an athletics coach/faculty lecturer at San Francisco State University. My degree is in environmental chemical engineering.

I have been attending raves since college, about ten years. I enjoy the light shows, the colorful people, the peace and love vibes, and the original and inspiring music. I love to dance and share that joy with others. It’s important to recognize that not all rave goers are irresponsible drug users, or drug users at all.

The city’s recent actions against safe and permitted dance parties are unjustified and are going to backfire. This affects more than just San Francisco’s youth. I attended a wonderful New Year’s party that was perfectly permitted, peaceful, and safe but officers shut it down before midnight seemingly on the basis that electronic dance music was being played. It was an exclusive well-planned party attended by mostly 30to40 year old professionals. Instead I ended up moving to a fun but less safe house party.

My understanding and concern is that the proposed CA legislation and unwritten city policies do not have any provision for safe, private, permitted parties, which is only going to result in more unsafe, underground parties that fewer responsible adults and role models will have interest in attending and traveling to our city for.

I want the city to recognize that people from all walks of life enjoy this music scene and to agree to provide safe opportunities for us to meet with our friends at large outdoor public venues or at small private parties to enjoy the music we like.

Thank you.

Found myself at an organizing meeting against a city ordinance proposal banning electronic music parties in the city tonight. It was interesting hearing the perspectives tonight of DJ’s, party promoters, underground DJ’s, and later a security guard (my housemate) who’s had to deal with drugged out teenagers at a dubstep rave, and a 40-year-old whose fully permitted NYE party (I attended) got shut down because of ELECTRONIC MUSIC.

Then found myself at a swanky financial district singles mixer, where I somehow managed to purchase a perfectly-fitting wedding dress from a charity “The Princess Project” so that I can wear it for the Brides of March (www.bridesofmarch.org) or for some other future artsy reason. LML

I was wearing a totally funky long green dress with a tight black sweater cardigan with skulls and tattoos, a purple beret, and black boots tonight. It was so colorful and awesome, and really VERY unique and so different from anything the corporate clones were wearing all over downtown. I really felt like playing a colorful character tonight, and it was a blast. So many curious looks and smiles warmed my heart while walking around downtown. Love spreading the love!

I can’t really tell if my daily low-dose testosterone shots or my heart bursting with love is creating the awesome magicalness that has been this past week. I have noticed that I have been incredibly attractive, in every sense of the word: all sorts of good things and people and opportunities are finding me. I have been meditating/thinking a lot about how it feels to be in love, with the heart just pried open and pouring forth its gifts and gratefulness (recreating how I feel about someone I’ve been seeing). The longer I can stoke that fire and keep it going, the more magic I experience. By magic I mean good things materializing not long after a concept is created. I went on Craigslist on Sunday night, totally broke, and by Monday morning had $50 in my bank account and an unrelated new job opportunity. I’m getting 3-4 times the hits/mail from dating websites, every day. I thought about how nice it would be to go out to eat at a restaurant and someone bought me a dinner just for my company and knowledge of the oil industry. This weekend I got a free massage, a free ticket to an international film. One of my athletes just told me in an email how much she appreciates me! It’s just all been crazy good. Or maybe the universe just knows I’m trying to bring another life into the world this month so it is pampering me for my efforts, haha.

Will keep posting as my more intense medications will start on Friday, hormonal shifts will get very interesting then…