7) Slow, 2016
In 2015 I'm asked to go work in a different town ten miles outside of Glasgow in a different direction from where I am. I leap at the chance: it's a really nice team and I get a good vibe from it. My instincts are completely right, and even though it's not at all the work I ever thought I would fall into as an adult, it fits with my priorities - steady income, people I can easily get on with, no pressure to take it home with me, and it allows me to get back into having a proper social life. D is staying with me all the time already so we decide to rent a flat nearer the city where we can both get to work easily and it takes the pressure off financially.
The novelty doesn't ever wear off. I've never been able to just jump on a bus and be where I want to be in fifteen minutes. I'm able to go to things I would never have been able to before, all kinds of experimental gigs and performance shows that would previously have been off-limits to a working class guy from outside the city.
Free Pride is a now-annual event that positions itself as a riposte to Pride and its commercial capitalism. Pride has never appealed to us - too basic, too tacky, too in thrall to brands and sponsorship, too white and cis-male and middle-class. In 2016 they hold the first Free Pride and we decide to go out of curiosity. Because it's just the two of us, we get really drunk really quickly. Drinks in the house, cans on the bus, drinks at the bar.
I don't know what we expected Free Pride to be like. Inclusive, safe-space policies, gender-neutral toilets, a ban on drag queens (some claim they're troubling for trans people, I respect the decision) - we knew it would be serious and slightly academic but would it be fun? The DJ is a local guy and he's playing vocal house and soulful r&b remixes. Lots of Rihanna acapellas and jazzy chords. Fun enough but not exceptional, and in our drunk, open mindset we hit the dancefloor hoping it picks up a bit. It doesn't quite take off - most the crowd seem a little too po-faced to have proper fun. Not even the C+C remix of Mariah Carey motivates this crowd into a bit of life.
He's obviously worried about the lacklustre reaction. So it's time for a crowd-pleaser - Kylie's "Slow." It's one of my favourite Kylie hits - it makes me think of a Kompakt record played at the wrong speed, the tempo not quite catching itself, with Kylie herself being commanding and sexy and enchanting.
One of the most under-rated pleasures of dancing is the physicality of it. Your own movement, the movement of people around you, the casual and not-so-casual brushes against each other. Sexual and emotional subtexts burning underneath. Watching people dance, matching them, interpreting sound through yourself. Here I am, in a place that feels particularly safe, very drunk with my excellent boyfriend, and a great pop song becomes even greater, a tool of expression, disco as a language of giddy thrills, skip a beat and move with my body.