Last month I created a new guide to San Diego gay nightlife. This month, I've decided to move across country to our nation's capital, with my latest such guide, on Washington DC's top gay bars.

I've long been impressed with the sheer variety of styles and interests served by DC's gay nightlife scene - here you'll find old-school gay restaurant bars like Annie's Paramount Steak House and Dupont Italian Kitchen; predominantly African-American hangouts like Bachelor's Mill and Lace; throbbing dance bars like Cobalt and Town Danceboutique; and all sorts of other interesting places. Banana Cafe cultivates a Latin scene, Phase 1 is one of the oldest lesbian bars in the world, Freddie's Beach Bar brings camp-drag fun out to the Virginia 'burbs, Nellie's and Number Nine or favorite happy-hour hangouts near Logan Circle and the U Street corridor, Remington's ranks among the nation's most esteemed GLBT country-western bars, and Ziegfeld's/Secrets is justly famous for its all-male nude revues and over-the-top drag shows.

Much of the city's gay bar scene is concentrated around Dupont Circle and Capitol Hill, but you'll find a number of other bars in different neighborhoods. In fact, you'd need a long weekend to try visiting each of these places - I've managed to visit all of the ones I covered on this list over two or three DC visits during the past few years.

This is a great time to visit Washington - the city's hugely attended DC Black Pride is coming up soon, over the weekend of May 24 to May 27. And soon after, Washington DC Gay Pride takes place the weekend of June 8 through June 10. Expect just about all of the bars in this guide to be packed with revelers over these two weekends.

A handful of Gay Pride celebrations have already taken place this year, and several more prominent ones are set for the remaining weekends in May, starting this weekend with the increasingly well-attended Belgium Gay Pride held in that country's charming capital, Brussels, and featuring a Pride Village with different themed communities (Leather, Bears, Latinos, families, and so on); and Northampton Gay Pride, which takes place slightly later than in previous years in the ruggedly beautifully Pioneer Valley of central-western Massachusetts, in a bustling college town that also abounds with fun shopping, hip restaurants, and gay-friendly bars and music clubs.

The following weekend, May 19 and 20, sees the largest such U.S. celebration of the month, the famed Long Beach Gay Pride, which I blogged about recently in relation to the big GLBT party taking place on the city's historic Queen Mary ocean liner. This weekend is also the first time that Oklahoma City Gay Pride will be taking place in May, having moved to a new time this year and forming an entire Pride weekend with the Oklahoma Gay Rodeo Association's annual Great Plains Rodeo, held the following weekend.

Another spring-time event that's smaller than some but has become extremely popular with folks from New York City to Philadelphia to Washington, DC, the friendly and fun New Hope Gay Pride, in the leafy Bucks County, PA town on the Delaware River, holds its celebration on May 19. For links to other Gay Pride Festivals taking place the rest of May (including Dusseldorf, New York's Hudson Valley, and Moscow), check out the spring Pride calendar.

During the week just after Chicago Gay Pride in late June, the legendary Second City Chicago is offering a week-long immersion course at its acclaimed Second City Training Center that aims to teach aspiring comic scribes the fine art of gay humor. This new course, "Writing GLBT Comedy," is led by the head of Second City Training Center's writing program, Andy Eninger, whose developed a following for his work with GayCo Productions--this summer he's also appearing in a cheeky new production, Steamworks! The Musical, at Chicago's Annoyance Theater. Eninger's course runs from June 25 through June 29, 2012, from 10 am until 1 pm each day. This is a pretty cool opportunity to train with the improv-based sketch-comedy company from which such talents as Joan Rivers, John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Chris Farley, Steve Carell, Amy Sedaris, Stephen Colbert, Jack McBrayer, and Tina Fey (to name just a few) have graduated.

For more on Gay Pride weekend in Chicago, read my preview of this hugely popular event. Second City is located in the Old Town Triangle neighborhood, a couple of miles southeast of the city's most celebrated gay neighborhood, Lakeview, and about 5 miles south of hip and GLBT-popular Andersonville - check out our guide to these two lively neighborhoods, as well as the more general Gay Guide to Chicago.

You can view a carefully curated collection of some 200 garments designed by legendary fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent at "Yves Saint Laurent: The Retrospective", running now through July 8 at the highly regarded Denver Art Museum. Saint Laurent, who died in 2008, reached the height of fame during the '60s and '70s, as his daring creations of haute couture dovetailed perfectly with the Sexual Revolution. The designer made up half of one of the most celebrated gay couples of the era, with romantic and business partner Pierre Bergé. This critically acclaimed show at the Denver Art Museum presents designs spanning his entire career, from the late '50s to the early 2000s. If you're in the area this spring, also check out a couple of additional notable exhibitions at the museum: "Focus: Robert Motherwell" is on through May 27; and "Read My Pins: The Madeleine Albright Collection" runs through June 17.

A couple of gay-popular Denver hotels are offering special deals in conjunction with the Saint Laurent Retrospective. The funky Curtis Hotel-A Doubletree by Hilton, which is within easy walking distance of the art museum, has created the "Curtis Couture - Make it Work!" package, which includes accommodations, a bottle of champagne and a fashion mag on arrival, buffet breakfast for two, self or valet parking, and two VIP "break the line" tickets for the Saint Laurent exhibition, all starting at $199, and available through July 8.

A short drive from the museum in the fashionable Cherry Creek retail and entertainment district, a hub of high-end shopping, the elegant JW Marriott Denver at Cherry Creek is offering the "Cherry Creek Couture Getaway". Beginning at $359 per night and also running through July 8, the deal includes accommodations, two VIP tickets to the exhibition, a $100 gift card for shops at Cherry Creek North, free valet parking, and a $25 credit at the on-site restaurant, Second Home Kitchen + Bar. For more ideas on where to stay in Denver, visit my Denver Guide to Gay-Friendly Hotels and B&Bs.

Spring and early summer are beautiful times to visit vibrant Denver, which hosts its huge Denver Gay Pride celebration the weekend of June 16 and 17. Check out my Denver Gay Gallery for advice on gay bars, cool restaurants, and top attractions.