the fabulous life of a queer femme in action
When I’m writing this I’m on a well deserved vacation in northern Italy. My choice of where to go when I finally have time off from work is usually very functional. A five week trip through south east Asia is simply not gonna happen. Something I talk about, yes. Something I would actually plan, pay for and do; nope. I go to California because things have to be done there, Chicago or Barcelona to see friends and this time to Meran to see a friend’s parents and where she grew up. Every bloody year I tell people that I will go on a last minute trip to a Mediterranean island by myself to just relax and write. Never happens. Said it last time yesterday and already I know; fat chance.
One specific thing that has been topping my list of “ but this year I will REALLY go there!” is a good ol’ lesbian holiday. I even made a drunk promise last week to go and perform at Femö this summer … Femö = the Danish island where dykes from all over the map gather in the summer to join each other in ancient sacred sapphic rituals such as workshops, collective cooking and being naked on the beach. And for fuck’s sake; I still haven’t managed to get my flamboyant ass to Lesbos.
However, dears, your favourite columnist had yet another one of her legendary epiphanies today; EVERY holiday is a queer holiday! Each time I go on a trip I google “gay bars and clubs”. If I’m going anywhere, it SHALL be gay. And although I didn’t find many queer places on the Estonian country side or in Monaco, the intentions were always good.
My solution: tireless queerspotting, like counting cows on a five hour drive to nowhere. At the end of the day my first sentence to sum up my experiences is rarely about the beautiful basilica, but to proudly announce how many queers I saw walking the streets of Firenze. On this trip it already started when we changed trains in Innsbruck and a dyke was eavesdropping on us talking about Rita Mae Brown. I KNEW that she was listening to our conversation, totally lesbian style, while the others said that she was simply a German teacher, alas the dyke-look. But what do they know. They don’t have the same queer travelling experience that I do. And for the record, no. I haven’t learned nothing since my last column.
Denice hopes that her precious lesbian mafia crew won’t un-invite her to Femö after having put them in a quite prejudice dyke cliché context. She means it with love.