Teeners isn't the only one doing cool stuff

I do things too...sometimes...

It's been so long that I posted, so I'm just going to share photos of stuff I've been doing and comment on them:

These are my coworkers at happy hour. We went to the bar that is literally underneath our building. It's German themed kind of like Heidelberg, but they actually have a woman walking around with an accordion. Accordion is far from my favorite instrument, but she's really sweet and makes up funny songs about who is in the room. Also, we always get kind of too drunk when we go there. It's German magic.

I saw Love and Mercy with Brie. There's this theater here where they sell alcohol while you watch! I realize now that the first two "cool things" I said I do involve drinking, but I didn't actually drink at the movie theater. But it does seem like movies are more fun knowing I could drink. Instead I just ate way too much popcorn.

Love and Mercy was actually a really great movie that I wouldn't have seen without Brie asking me to. It's about Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys. The only thing I knew about him before came from the Bare Naked Ladies' song, but apparently he had like a complete mental breakdown and an almost complete recovery! And I guess it was pretty close to his actual life story, which was kind of a gripe I had with A Beautiful Mind.

I also ate maybe the biggest piece of carrot cake I've ever seen in my life right after the movie. It went with my huge bag of popcorn. It was at this really cool bar called Ted's Bulletin. They sell homemade poptarts too and a bunch of signature cocktails. If you guys ever come back/visit with me, we should definitely try to go here!

 

I went to Drag Brunch at the gay sports bar in town! It was definitely worth the money! It's $35 all you can eat with one drink, and a whole drag show. I went with Zack, my coworker Stephanie, her sister and her boyfriend. It just sort of ended up that Zack and Steph's boyfriend sat on the inside table, but I think that was for the best--the drag queens danced up on a lot of the men who were on the ends of tables and Steph's boyfriend for sure wouldn't have been okay with that. I think Zack would've been fine, but didn't NEED that kind of interaction. 

The food was pretty good, if maybe a little too varied. Like, who wants hummus, fajitas, grits and bacon all in one meal? The only other sad part was that we forgot to stock up on dollar bills to give out! They definitely deserved dollar bills! They were so great and beautiful. Also the MC of the whole thing told us how she volunteers with a bilingual multicultural LGBT shelter called Casa Ruby, which seemed like a great cause, and kind of brought a more real side to drag brunch. Like, it's one thing to enjoy all the fun stuff that the gay community brings, like drag queens, dancing, fun entertainment, but I do feel like it's a little too easy to forget about all the real issues a lot of people face.

Lady Gaga Realness.

Another arguably cool/fun thing I did was Convention. It was actually really terrible in preparation for Convention. Everything I needed to do was dependent on someone else's work/approval/input and everything was super behind schedule. So I ended up having to do a ton of work at the last minute when I would've gone a much more reasonable pace if I'd been able to. But whatever. I did it. It worked out.

Mostly once Convention started I just had to sit at the help desk and reprint name tags for people who lost them. That should've been low stress but someone took my box with all the supplies I packed myself! Like it literally just disappeared. And then my printer broke. So I really wasn't very helpful at the help desk.

Christen and I matched one day. That's a big deal in our office, so we had to take a picture together and sent it around so people could marvel at it.

One of the receptions was at the AFL CIO and they have a really great view from their balcony. This is a picture of my boss there. It was great, but super muggy that day. But more importantly I got to meet three Cornell Law Students! They were all super nice! And two were from the Midwest, which was kind of something I was worried about--that everyone at Cornell is from New York or New Jersey and that they'd think less of me for being from the Midwest. That was super nice. 

This is Max. He's a good dude.

Wendy Davis spoke at our Convention. The video is pretty interesting. She seemed really chill. No security detail or anything. Also, some law student really geeked out when she saw her and pulled out a pair of pink tennis shoes and rushed up to get a picture with her.

One of the two panels I actually broke away from the health desk to see was about reproductive rights and how poorly that fight has been going. Wendy Davis didn't actually speak at that one, but it was a very informative, if a little bit depressing. I did tweet a lot and got a few new followers! So I guess that's a success.

I also went to a panel on the death penalty. That had a way different tone. That's definitely a battle "we" ("progressives") are winning. It was mostly the speakers guessing when capital punishment will be fully abolished.

Also I got to meet another Cornell Law grad. He's also a Michigan grad and is an anchor on MSNBC. His name is Ari Melber. I only talked to him for a few minutes, but he was very nice, and willing to take a picture with me--and I'm pretty much no one!

I tried to organize an all staff picture. People acted like that was an insane request. It was surprisingly harder than I thought.

The highlight was definitely seeing RBG speak! She's very funny in person. And also so tiny! One of our former board members clerked for her so he interviewed her and they talked about feminism, gay rights, rap, and a ton of other stuff. Everyone at work was really nervous we wouldn't have a full house for her because she wasn't scheduled to speak until the very end of a three day conference. SO WRONG. It was so crowded! 

They told us that we definitely would not be able to take pictures with her, which was kind of a disappointment, but understandable. Not everyone can be like Sotomayor and take tons of pictures with staff. In the end, we got one single picture with her as a whole staff. Which, I mean, is pretty much good enough.

I was SO tired after convention. It's like working around 40 hours in three days, so it super sucks, but it's only once a year and is for a good cause, so you can make yourself do it. Plus I got Monday off.

On Sunday we went to Pride! It was really fun! We went last year too and that was also fun. Zack did not try on undies this year though. He just took a picture with the Shalom Felicia sign. I almost had to join a Queer Drum Troupe. Just like how I almost joined a sorority. The guy in the booth asked "Are you gay? Do you live in DC? Can you spin a flag?" And even though I answered no to all three, he still said I should come to try out. I def thought I had struck out. Other highlights include: A guy offering Zack many of the gold (big) condoms, seeing a Taylor Swift impersonator, and getting pretty bad tan lines.

On Monday I took it easy, watched 50 shades of gray while drinking sangria with my coworkers and played trivia at a bar. My team won though! There were 10 people from work, and they're all kind of used to me bossing them around, so no one noticed when I made myself a dream team! The only kind of sad thing was that the prize was $100 off your bar tab, which would've been great, but I had already closed my tab so I didn't get any of the money! I guess knowing we won is enough. Or something.

Now all I have left to do is 1) move into Steph's apartment for 10 days 2) send all my stuff back with my dad 3) fly to Japan 4) enjoy my last real summer, like ever.