quick LJ update

It's the early hours of Wednesday morning, and I still haven't sunk back into depression after talking to Ralf on Friday. Haven't got any work done either, but that's been at least in part due to the earache from this damned cold-thing. When I woke up today my ears had stopped hurting, but as the day's gone on the pain's returned. I don't usually get earache (this is the first time I've had it since I had glandular fever 3 1/2 years ago), and so I have no coping strategies for it. Ugh.

I suppose I should be pleased that earache is the worst of my problems at the moment :)

No interesting news to report. I've spent the night going through all of my friends' LiveJournals to mark posts as memories. This didn't take as long as it might have done because most of my friends here started posting after I did - however, some journals go back months and months. In those cases, I've only looked at entries made since I started posting, so far - I'll look at the rest later, when I have more time.

Here's my memories page. Why not take a look?

Pride stress.

I'm stressed. This Saturday (30th June) is the London Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride event.

The idea of GLBT Pride means a lot to me. Partly because I'm something of an activist, partly because my queerness is hidden a lot of the time, and partly because I feel the need to pay tribute to my queer history. It's still not that easy to be openly gay or bi, but it's a lot easier than it was 30 or 100 years ago, thanks to the efforts of other people who've gone out and made a protest through sheer volumes of numbers.

I don't think I'm feeling healthy enough to do the march (I did it two years ago, and it's a long walk), but I would very much like to watch, and cheer, and blow bubbles at the parade with the most excellent bubble blower that Marcus and Cath got me for my birthday. But if I stand on the sidelines with Richard, I get mistaken for a random straight ally - or even a random straight passer-by - and that's horrible. I'd like to find some other queer folk to stand and cheer with.

None of the Friday night folk seem to want to go. This is because most of them are older than me and many of them have been involved with the politics over the past few years. Pride used to involve a big parade and then a free festival - now the festival is called Mardi Gras, costs £15 to get in, and seems to be solely about providing Top Ten boy-bands for the middle class gay white male to scream at. People feel ambivalent about attending the London Pride when it's been commercialised and there's other Pride events around the country that they'd enjoy more. Which is fair enough. I feel differently. I live in London and I identify strongly as a Londoner. With rumours around that our Mayor of London wants to introduce a partnership register that will be available to both opposite-sex and same-sex couples, I'd like to go out and show myself as a statistic.

Tomorrow I'm going to go and pick up queer papers and try to find out what's going on, and I'll get some t-shirts and things so as to be demonstrably not straight. I hope I'll be able to find other people to stand with as the parade is a lot of fun, but if I don't, never mind.