a weekend on capitol hill
Hot DAMN what a weekend! Writing from the airport/plane on my way home now. It's weird because I literally cannot remember the last time I traveled alone.
Washington DC is really incredible. I don't consider myself particularly patriotic but I do have an intense respect and appreciation for history and this is definitely a city full of it.
We left Friday morning at 6:55 AM and I slept like a damn rock all the way to Chicago. We then met up with Jess's moms for the last leg of the flight which was full of cheerful queers. :D Got in to Dulluth around 4:30 and snagged a cab in to the city and our lovely hotel. A bit to freshen up and we grabbed some dinner and a few cocktails downstairs. The restaurant was pretty empty but for a few tables we were early though for a friday night. But everyone in the place was queers from around the country. Including, next to us, the directors of the march. We chatted with them briefly and discovered that at the table was also Cleve Jones of all people. We shook his hand and Jess said something along the lines of “It's an honor to meet you, sir.” to which he replied, “Sir? I'm not a sir! Call me Cleve. Or girlfriend. Or just GIIIIIIRL.” Magnificent. I can't believe we didn't get a photo with him, so stupid.
Decent night's sleep followed by OH MY GOD MUSEUMS on Saturday. Let me just say right now that I am a huge museum fag. I love learning, I love science, I love DINOSAURS and history and art. San Diego has somewhat decent museums, not great. San Francisco is pretty superior. But I had NO idea what I was missing until I have now had the chance to visit museums in Washington DC. YES.
First stop was the Museum of Women Artists which Jess and I were prepared to weather through. Unlike Jess's mothers, we are not feminists and have no interest in feminism and were sure that this museum was going to be full of vagina touting propaganda. But thankfully it really was just an art museum with a very broad range, the same as any other art museum except that all of the artists are women. There was a lot of information about the history of women in art that wasn't shoved in your face as though you personally had been holding the female set of the species back for thousands of years and instead was interesting and enjoyable.
HAY GUYS WHAT'S GOIN ON IN THIS LJ?
The next thing we did was go to the Natural History Museum wherein Jess and I had an anyuerism of AWESOME after stepping through the doors. Holy shit there is SO MUCH in that place, we could have spent at least two days in that museum alone. We went through the gem exhibit with Jess's parents and were delighted to find that the Natural History Museum was open until 7:30 so we then split up while Jess's parents went back to the hotel to relax. We went down the street to the American History Museum and spent about four hours looking at thousands of American artifacts, from cars to trains to medicine bottles to guns and war articles, pages of children's books and old protest buttons... it's such an awesome museum and again, we probably could have spent ANOTHER two days there. It was a funny thing being there because you know, being American History, everything there is no more than 200 or so years old. My childhood was spent with my mother toting me around the Napa Valley looking at antiques. She was VERY obsessed with antiques. And I hated every moment of it, completely bored out of my skull. And now I've grown up to be thrilled to spend hours upon hours looking at exactly the kind of things that might be in the antique stores that I spent so much time growing up in. Although I'm pretty sure they didn't have knives and guns and AMPUTATION KITS.
Have I mentioned my love for scaryfuckfish?
We stayed at the American Museum until it closed and then headed back to the Natural History Museum where we spent two more hours ogling their incredible collection of deep sea creatures and extinct monsters from all across the ages and thousands of dead stuffed mammals... WHY must this museum be on the other side of the country oh my god?! It was incredible and I must have taken at least a thousand photos between the two museums. And I'm going to take a moment to say just how unbelievably happy I always am that Jess and I both enjoy museums and learning so much. We had so much fun together, just the two of us like a couple of kids having little spasms over dinosaur bones and hideously ugly fish and comets set out on display to run your hands over. I would be so miserable if I was stuck with someone who couldn't share thought things with me and who could experience that almost childlike joy and to let go for a day of all the stresses of life and find happiness in how incredible the world around us is and has been for millions upon millions of years.
IT'S COMIN RIGHT FOR US!
When the security guards started shouting at us that the museum was closing in five minutes, we reluctantly made our way downstairs and met Jess's parents for dinner in very crowded downtown DC on a Saturday night. After dinner we dropped them off at the hotel and went on in the cab to go tour the Mall. The Lincoln Monument was incredible, the reflecting pool was beautiful, the WWII memorial a work of art and the Washington Monument was made of vertigo. Again, I'm not a flag waving, ribbon on my car patriot. I am happy to be an American and for all of the flaws that we may have in our system, I appreciate very greatly the freedoms we have that other countries don't experience and the prosperity we have even during hard times. I also greatly appreciate the history behind that freedom and the price at which it has come and how far our country has evolved even if not all of those evolutionary offshoots are particularly healthy ones. So we really enjoyed seeing the monuments and the night was crisp and gorgeous. We got back to the hotel around 11:00 and soaked our aching muscles in the HUGE bath tub that our room had for a good hour before crashing out hard.
My girlfriend is so fucking cute. LOOKATTHAT.
Sunday: The day we really came for. The march started more or less in front of our hotel so it was a simple enough thing to have some breakfast and make ourselves some signs before we went out. It was about two and a half miles, marching around the White House and down to the Capitol where there was a huge rally. It was nice and crowded and feeling damn good.
So here's something soul crushing and delightful at the same time. Ten minutes within getting down to where the march is gathering, a guy comes up to me and says “We're looking for some people to interview for the Daily Show, would you like to be interviewed?” HOLY FUCKING SHIT. Apparently I grinned rather too big when I replied “Yes I would!” though, somehow, not having a complete fangasm, because director chap goes, “Uh oh, you know the show too well, sorry!” I called after him as he went off for less enthusiastic potentials, “It's okay, I can act stupid!” Nonetheless in spite of missing out on the opportunity to look like a jackass on television, we look up and FUCKING JOHN OLIVER is five feet away. I've met some of my favorite comedians and a few of my favorite actors in getting autographs after shows and whatnot and have gotten rather vechlemt in my overwhelming joy for the likes of Maria Bamford and Patton Oswalt. But actually witnessing an on site filming of Daily Show coverage, my KNEES LITTERALLY WENT WOBBLY. Spoilers for Monday: I did overhear him say “So you're building a gay army?” Oh shit do I want to see that episode now.
I HAVE PHOTOS OF JOHN OLIVER ON MY CAMERA, SWEET CHRIST.
Anyway, on the lines of more actually gay shit... the march went very well if rather delayed in its start. But during the twenty minutes after noon that we were waiting to get going, my god, a HUGE rainbow formed directly overhead. It was sort of crazy. I guess it was technically a sunbow, as it was the sort of thing that'll ultimately circle the sun but it was one of the biggest rainbows I've ever seen. Directly overhead. Even my Christian mom texted me back with “God's looking out for you!”
Damn right.
Didn't see any counter protestors and it was a little weird just how dead the closed off streets really were but I've only marched in San Diego and Los Angeles before. There's plenty of passersby when we've marched there, including the ones booing and giving us thumbs down. But this was pretty much just us and PLENTY of us. I'm looking forward to seeing the numbers. We got to the capitol and sat down in the shade to listen to some speeches... really good stuff. Unfortunately I had to take off not long after we got there to catch my plane. Jess and her parents stayed behind for another night but I have to be back at work in the morning.
All in all it was just an incredible trip and I'm so glad that we had the opportunity to be there, that we'll be able to tell our kids (if that happens) that we were there trying to win the rights for not just us but for our family. Even if I'm not to thrilled about Obama's speech on Saturday night, the experience was a hugely uplifting one and a great honor to be able to be there. Even if I don't have my rights, I'm feeling pretty damn lucky right now.
These photos here are just a few I had Jess send to me -- she still has my camera. So I'll probably post a bunch more later.