I should have posted this on Halloween..

..but better late then never! right?


When I arrived in Lithuania I asked Elena whether there would be some halloween parties by the end of the month. She answered very dryly: "That's an american holiday. We mostly celebrate sad things, like the holocaust."
I insisted "But, when do you have parties were people wear costumes? It's impossible that there's not even one day of the year people dress up as something weird and go out in the streets!! You guys have Erasmus students here! There must be some halloween party!"

She just shrugged, and I gave up.

But a few days before halloween I got a message from her:

Lesbo party next wednesday, 80's music, wanna come?
dress code: slutty

oh my god! halloween lesbian party! I wonder how that goes like..

of course i wanted to go!!

Ceren didn't want to join me because she was afraid of having girls hitting on her.

But I think the truth is that she's saving her energy for the gay club. Our boss is a dj there and invited us to go one of this nights. He said he put us on the list!
It's the first time I'm on the list for something! I don't care if its a gay club that has images of semi-naked man in sexy poses at the entrance, I'M ON THE LIST! I CAN SAY MY NAME AT THE DOOR AND THEY'LL LET ME IN.
 
it feels great.

Anyway, back to Halloween: I didn't dress slutty, and almost no one did. Because ITS TOO COLD FOR THAT. It already snowed and I've been wearing layers over layers.


I'll bring sexy back, in the summer. Now just let me gain weight and wear so many sweaters I can't fold my arms, ok?


The party was weirdly normal. It kind of felt like a party back in my school, for various reasons:

1- There were mostly girls. And the few guys were kind of gay.

2- Everybody knew each other.

3- They played all the 80's hits.

4- There was a performace, and it wasn't very good.

Apart from that, there was also a porn poetry competion, stand up comedy (all in lithuanian, so I didn't really get it) and more women dressed as men than I expected.  (and it wasn't even wearing a fake mustache that unglues itself after a while. It was believable facial hair! I have no idea how they did it!)

What I'll write now will sound very sappy, and I think it's because it's been a month, and I miss my friends in Porto, and my hearth is all mushy and warm! I reckon I should start having a warning for everytime I get all touchy-feely, writting here in the blog...
ok, so, from now on, whenever this Love Muffin appears..

..it means I'm going to be super emotinal and lame. You are warned.
here it goes:

Before coming to work at LGL I didn't understand completly the purpose of having gay parties or bars or meetings of any kind. I used to think: Why would someone want to go to a party or a club where the main thing they have in common with the rest of the crowd is their sexual orientation? It didn't seem like a big reason to me.
Here, I'm starting to understad that not everyone had it so easy and why minorities have to stick together. Looking around to the people in the party, it seemed clear that for a lot of them this was a great opportunity to be confortable about being how they are and not having to feel judged or different. To be reassured that they're not alone, others went through similar things and felt the same way.

And I can relate to that. To that sense of belonging. It's how I felt when I started studying in art's faculty. Before, I had friends and it was ok. But it was once I got there that I met people that reaaally got me and made me feel like I was normal.
The kind of people that I could sing Sesame Street songs in the queue for lunch with,

and get excited about shopping in chinese stores

or with whom I would wear strange things in my head while studying.

They had the same kind of humour and were just as weird and bubbly as me. They were my queer group.




So, dear readers, (if I still have some, I've been so lazy about posting probably no one reads this anymore), did you ever had a moment like that in your life? of suddenly finding a crew that you can say "aaaaww.. this are my kind of people!"?

and did you ever felt like a minority, in some way? and had to go to some restricted gathering to meet other people like you?
I don't mean being gay.. but, for example, last sunday I was coming back from Riga on a bus and there was a group of portuguese guys sitting next to me. One of them was really glad to meet me and said "oh, I love to meet a portuguese person everywhere I go in the world!" 
I thought it was funny that he found that so reassuring, but I guess it makes sense that he would be happy and think that, because I'm portuguese, I will probably have more in common with him then anyone else in the bus. If not, at least for the language..

Also, when I was in Erasmus, I was pretty much just hanging with other Erasmus students. We were all doing exchange at the same time, we were all new in a country and it was much harder to become friends with locals. We were the minority in school and sticking together was the best way to get through it.