Washed The Hell Out

Tropical Fruits! Yes, yes ... we rang in the New Year in the midst of lights, cameras, fireworks, drag queens, bad music and DJs who forgot their universal duty to lead a countdown to midnight. Oh but it doesn't start with yesterday.

It's raining. Not right this minute, but just give it some time. It feels like it's been raining since I was born. I think I saw Noah walking around with a bundle of lumber flanked by two magpies. For the better part of about three days, the sky has been full of clouds, sometimes unassuming and white, and others menacing and ready to dump. When it finally dumps, all you can do is watch, hopelessly, from your dry place inside. Then, about ten minutes later, the clouds plug up and the rain ceases. And if you're of the naive sort, you'll believe it will be this way forever. You'll believe that no more rain will fall and that, perhaps, New Year's Eve will be a dry celebration to be had outside, under no need of cover.

But that wasn't to be.

Meredith and I headed to Tropical Fruits, an annual end-of-year gathering for gays and any interested friends. There are stages, dance floors and bar tents. And dirt paths, which had been battered for a few days. We went. I wore flip-flops. I am of the naive sort.

Each step we took on our long walk to the main event was steeped in mud. We slipped a bit, we bitched and moaned a bit more. We went in search of coffee, which can make anyone feel better, and settled in our sheet-covered haystack seats for the first-ever cabaret show.

Some highlights:

I always enjoy a drag queen. Usually doesn't matter whether they're good or bad.

We pulled up a good haystack. Convenient. This butterfly had some issues with the rafter things above her head. But she worked it.

The best part; Meredith said he had a good point. I believed her.

I'm sure the crowd would have been worse without the rain, which continued throughout the evening and into today. I'm pretty sure it will be raining until at least early February 2010. But a crowd, with all the mud, might not be a worthy crowd to find oneself in the midst of. So Tropical Fruits. A first and last time. I came, I saw, we're moving out of Lismore in two days.