University Girl

So I went to my first ever Washington DC-style cocktail party last night, a launch party for the Center for American Progress. For those of you who don't care, the CAP is a new progressive think-tank headed up by John Podesta, President Clinton's chief of staff. Its purpose is to provide research, critique, and progressive ideas to balance out the overwhelming amount of right-wing research that finds its way into the media and into politics. It's a good idea, it's well-implemented, and it's long fricking overdue.

Anyway, the party was relatively awesome. But I quickly realized two things when I arrived: 1) my knee was fucking killing me, and 2) I was probably the single least important person in the room. I mean, sure, I'm quite powerful, and at least municipally famous -- I mean, don't these people know that I've led several Ultimate Frisbee teams to compete at the Sectionals level?? But WHATever, I can live with it, they'll all be crowing about how they knew me before it was cool someday.

The party was basically a room full of media personalities, senators, congressmen, and other people who were associated with the Center in some way. It was pretty cool, they had a martini bar, and vegetables. I didn't do a whole lot of mingling, mostly because i realized that my hurty leg and the hot lights was making me start to perspire, and I was all self-conscious about it. Hillary Clinton was there, Al Franken gave a not-so-short speech, and Tucker Carlson had his back to the wall the whole night.

So what happened? I met Al Franken, and I tried to tell him that I liked his book and had recommended it to several people; but in mid-sentence, he gave me the Fade-away Jerk Handshake, excused himself, and moved on to a group of people more important than me. Now, I've been a smart-assed jerk to the few celebrities I've met in my life, but come on -- I wasn't trying to engage him in a deep political discussion on his way to the martini bar, and I wasn't trying to get him to sign my boobs or anything. There's really nothing more humiliating than getting the Fade-Away Jerk Handshake, especially when you're just trying to say "hey, that book you wrote, i liked it." What a prick! In the interest of being a catty bitch about it, I should go on and say that his speech was shit -- he basically just recited from rote a section of his book -- which he plugged repeatedly -- and said virtually nothing about the Center for American Progress that had invited him.

Tucker Carlson, it turns out, is an alright guy. My original plan was to jump his ass with my friend JJ and take his wallet; but it turns out he's suprisingly down to earth, and quite different from the arrogant little jerk he plays on TV. Plus I think his girlfriend carries his wallet for him. The whole Al Franken Incident sorta took the wind out of my sails anyway, so i felt that beating up Tucker Carlson would have been classic anger displacement.

Hillary Clinton gave a great little speech; she was funny, intelligent and engaging, and on point. She was totally checking me out. That's a no-brainer, obviously, but she seemed too afraid to approach me. What up, girl? Why you gotta be like that? OK, so actually I was too chickeny to go up and meet her, and by the time I thought of a smart-assed question to ask her she had already left the party. I was considering asking her if she was aware of my WANHG Measurement Project, and whether or not she thought I had a chance of scoring Congressional funding for it. Oh well. Next time I'm definitely asking.

Other highlights included my friend MJ thinking that he recognized someone, and me walking around the party for an undetermined amount of time with a huge, food-stained napkin stuck to my shoe.