And the leafs stay!

This year it takes unusually long for threes to loose their leaves. Because we had such a nice summer. Finland was already getting yellow, brown and golden colors on its threes. Also in London a few weeks ago the leaves were already falling. But now the year will pass by so quickly, with all upcoming events. I will first travel to Budapest tomorrow, where I'll have a short break before a meeting and a conference in Sofia. Hope to see green threes there!

Poverty and Social Exclusion

Tomorrow I leave for Finland, to attend the Round Table on Poverty and Social Exclusion, which is organised by the Finnish presidency. The interesting thing is that the presidency paid over thousand euro's for my ticket, to attend a meeting in which we'll talk about poverty. Anyhow, our aim is to address the link between vulnerable grous /discrimination and social exclusion, which will be a big challenge. My visit to Montenegro gave me good inspiration for this. A Montenegrin boy of 25 told me why he consciously decided to remain closeted towards his parents. Coming out would mean that he probably would be forced to leave his family home, disabling him to finish his university and thus having big consequenses for his further personal and professional development.

And it's the first time that I visit Scandinavia, I'm almost ashamed to say this!

Ramadan

Wednesday I spent a beautiful day in Ulcinj visiting a friend. The weather was beautiful and such a contradiction with the weather in Amsterdam: I got even a bit tanned during my walk along the Adriatic sea. The one-day break was of course much too short, unfortunately I had to hurry home for waiting deadlines .
As I was visiting Ulcinj during Ramadan I experienced how Muslims spent this period. My guest family didn't allow me to join the fasting, as guest I was not expected to do so. This made me feel very uncomfortable, and as a result I wasn't even hungry when my friend's mother prepared me breakfast in the morning...

Millenium

This is the Millenium bridge in Podgorica. It opened last year and the Montenegrins are really proud of it. They even use it as background for their breakfast-show on the television. It was opened together with the new tunnel to the coast of Montenegro, reducing travel time by 60%. The capital also has a new main square with fountains. Podgorica has to look like a real capital! Lesbians are still missing in this city. I have found several gays and bisexual men already, but I am really concerned about the lesbians.

Never ending

These days my to do lists simply seem to be never ending. Most likely because of my biggest handicap - I have difficulties in letting pass by opportunities. Having long to do lists and traveling a lot is not a very productive combination, thus I decided to force myself to finish as much as possible these days. During October and November I'll be traveling a lot.

Yesterday, during the Tuesday table (formerly translated as 'dish', but I know realise this is a self-invented word), we discussed conspiracy theories. Damned interesting! According to a psychologist the existence of this phenomena is closely related to paranoia (which is somewhere at crossing lines between fear and a lack of personal capacity to judge relevance).

Following his explanations I realised that paranoide is something that exists in very diversified gradations. It often has something to do with the burning need to have explanations for anything that happens. "Why did she put the coffee machine off, she knows I always drink coffee in the afternoon!" Those kind of questions annoy me tremendously - the everlasting need for reasoning - thus I am happy to know that they are part of a tiny dissorder.

Me and celebrities

Breaking barriers

I always found it awkward how small things in life can become huge barriers. When I was young it could take me weeks before calling a friend whom I hadn't spoken to for a while. When I started to live alone I could stare at the pile of dishes for days, nothing happened. Today I have to revise a grant budget, I know it can not be much work, but it feels like such a big thing to start with it. So I spent an eminent amount of time behind my laptop today, not working on the budget and doing absolute irrelevant things (such as writing a blog about barriers).

Barriers are nothing more than psychologic blockades I think. Breaking through them gives such a released feeling. And still they remain. And now I'm going to make another attempt to start with my task.

Blue lines

This week road workers painted blue lines everywhere in my window view. The fluorescend lines indicate that you can not park your car longer than two hours, unless you have a parking permission of the city council. The good thing is that we will have less 'wild parking' in our streets of people working in the city centre. The bad thing is that I really don't like to see this blinking lines when I look out of my window.

Skopje

May 2004 was the first time I visited Skopje. I remember one dark gay bar 'Why not' in the cellar of an old flat, probably a left-over from the time that Tito was in power of Yugoslavia. After that I visited Macedonia a few times, the last time spring last year.

This weekend I was in Skopje again, and until my pleasant surprise several new gay bars had opened. Van Gogh café only is a gay/lesbian bar on Sunday evenings. It had big doors which were all open, and many people were talking and drinking on the street. I first couldn't believe that such a progress had been made, so I asked Ana whether it maybe was the case that nobody really knew that Sunday evening was the 'gay evening'. She answered, "Well if I tell my mum something in the morning before I go to work, my colleagues will probably know what I told her before I arrive at work. Everybody knows what evening it is here tonight."

EP says stop homophobic bullying at schools

Yesterday we launched our publication on social exclusion of lgbt young people in the European Parliament in Brussels. The Intergroup on lgbt rights together with other MEP's said it would take initiative for a written declaration against homophobic bullying in schools. Together we are going to look for possible interventions and actions in the coming months, and next year we will evaluate what has been done during a second session.

Many people attended the session and I can not describe how encouraging all the support we received is. In a year time we will know what the direct results of all our investments are. After all the ups and the many downs I experienced with IGLYO this is a great recognition for the importance of our existence.

Eclectic Impressions

During the last weeks a pallete of impressions passed me. The darker and the lighter colours on the pallete didn't seem to match very well. Maybe that's why I didn't write a lot lately.

Some important milestones are coming up now, and I am glad for that. Tomorrow I leave to Skopje to meet with most of the regional partners of the project I am working on. We will discuss the continuation of the program after it has been on hold for some months. Skopje is a nice city, and I heard it's at least ten degrees warmer than it is in Amsterdam, so I look forward to going.

Mysterious socks

After I just sorted out my clean laundry I discovered that I have six dissimilar, single socks. They don't make pairs. Normally I don't study my socks this closely, so apparently I've been walking around with a different sock on each foot many times. On the first sight all of them look identical, black or very dark blue cotton socks in the size 43. But after having a closer look I discovered them some of them have ribbons, some of them have specific seams, some of, them feel smoother than the others, and some of them are maybe one centimeter longer than the others.

I wonder what happened with all my other socks.

Mark Owen (the only person I ever interviewed) once told me that people start wearing more colourful socks once they grow older. All his pairs of socks were identical. Maybe it's better that I grow up too, it would make my laundry so much eassier .

John Blankenstein

Today John Blankenstein was burried on the age of 56. John was gay and arbiter, still a unique combination. He wasn't ashamed of his orientation, even though he randomly received cursing choirs while arbiting important football matches, also on an international level. Great respect to this man whom demonstrated to be a role model for many.

Still he almost had a monopoly on being gay and working on top sport level. John often said he know other gay top sporters, married and having children. Today several speakers rightly called upon them to carry on the torch, to honour John and to be a role model for young people.

Earlier this year he coached our gay team in a football match against Moroccans, Antilleans and lesbians. We lost, but for John it was more important that this game was played in respect of each other. I hope that his torch will be carried on.

Goodbye summer

Today I started working again, knowing that I will probably not have much free time until the end of the year. Even though my holidays didn't exactly go like I thought they would be, I still feel ready for the upcoming period. And I thought it would also be nice to redesign my blog a bit, so here you go dear readers.

To friendship, such an endless longing

The house is empty and I need to get back to work. It feels that I have failed in completing an important task, but I will not stop working on it. Bodymarks and identity we do not choose when we are born, and nobody deserves to be damned for loving who he wants to live.

So I recollect my energy and return to work. The short visit to Normandy helped. It was funny to go camping again, just like in my childhood.