Today was a gay festival called Movingonup! in Waterloo. Twas fun, and strange, for several reasons. Namely, because I was meeting up with Alice the first time since Christmas, the fiasco and the breaking up, so it was a shot of reality. Mainly because I wanted to kiss her and I knew I couldn't cos we were friends, and Al acted as if nothing had happened - because loads of lesbian couples break up and become friends - in lesbian culture its perfectly normal to be best friends with your ex. And it's not as if I had a problem with it, so its a problem about not having a problem. Jesus. Anyway, her friend Nadia was supposed to come, whose been brilliant about Al coming up, but she just didn't come, which I thought was really lame, considering Al was trusting her into this whole new world.
So we got to Waterloo, and it turns out I know half of the people there, cos of NRG and my first ever gay group from two years ago, Mosaic - I met N-something who remembered me as 14 and disturbingly shy, not this bouncy girl in a pink top making jokes. I saw Rachel and Antoni, then Sanjeev and Daniel - no Janet, which sucked but I think she's visting her ex and her new girlfriend in Leicester or somewhere (see what I mean?). I think what I loved more than the free muffin and coke, the badge making machine from college which I'll be using from now on, but meeting everyone and me and Al using the playground. I swear, its the playground dreams were made of. It has this really cool wooden sitting area of dark oak with the three bears. They have those really cool hopscotch symbols in the ground with pictures of leaves or stars or trees. There's the most elaborate see-saw ever - it reminds me of sci-fi monsters gone child-friendly with its primary colours and its swing round notion. It has the coolest adventure thing ever with its high, safe heights and this weird jumping thing - I just can't explain it, sorry. Anyways, Al was scared, and I could tell cos I've known for almost a year and I can just tell when she's nervous or overanxious or serious, and it's strange cos I see it as power and I definitely haven't got power over Alice; not that I'm obsessed with it... Even so, I helped her through the course, with eye contact as her reward. The swings, really my favourite playground object of all time was really weird - it had tyres on it and you had to do a really dodgy rocking motion to get it swinging, so we left it and shot some hoops - I'm not as bad as I remembered. I do remember sticking up to bullies for the first time, during a basketball match, so I had to be decent...
Anyway, inside we met with these two drag queens. One was dressed like a character from Final Fantasy nine or ten, long strips of white cloth (mock wedding dress) and had a cher wig, or just showed off his gorgeous blond locks (Simon). The other one was in a white afro, with a silver mock PVC dress and lace detail sewed onto the ends, which looked really good and reminded me of Dusty Springfield or Dolly Parton(Jonno). The day was a gorgeous 20 celsius, and dust was everywhere, the little squares of light multiplying like friendly bacteria and I felt really safe, so today was really fun. Also, there was this really cool guy who showed us from our own ideas on how to intervene with homophobia, as homophobia is now more about keeping our gayness a deadly secret, more than anything else. So it was hilarious to watch Simon really unleash his stuff on the mock homophobic teacher, which was funny as it he was really camp himself anyway. I hate when people assume camp men are weak - you gotta remember they are dudes with the strength of any man, and they know how to use their words better, so watch out - the 'gayer' they are, the more confident they are in their sexuality, so don't cross them! Afterwards we had a debate about:
- how much do you really want people to be open (everyone should, but who really wants to hear the gory details about anyone on the bus near children?)
- whether education really is a cure all (you need legislation, policy, attitude changes. It's hard to remember that for people have to want to learn to get anywhere...)
- And...whether I should recite poetry for their poetry, song and dance section. I wouldn't have minded, but all I had on me was depressing stuff and old love poems about Alice, so I had to decline, which was annoying.
Hmm, one of the great! bits was the free photos, courtesy of NRG. It was a good photo, actually. Me, Alice, Sanjeev, David (Simon or Jonno's other half, who were also in the photo.) I looked decent for once, and I was proud for being a gay black confident woman, especially after this speech by this lady who was the first black lesbian to a leader of a council, who filled me with sha-paz *snaps fingers* and good posture. Me and Al left for Waterloo, and different destinations, different lives. We hugged, saying we will see each other again. And I will, but I just won't be kissing her again. Rights for all...
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