Sadie the Intern (IN DC)

This weekend, I am back in NYC for the second time. This time around, two of my roommates came with. We're staying in Amanda's apartment while she is off seeing Europe. 

I don't actually have anything to say about New York yet for this go seeing as we got off the bus and immediately headed out of the rain underground to get here, grabbed take out, and came home for the night to plan tomorrow. But I do want to say something about staying in Amanda's place.

First of all, it makes me wish very very much that she were here. My roommates wish it too; both keep saying, as they look around the room, that they like her already just based on her apartment. Aside from wishing she were here in the space, living for a tiny bit of time in someone else's space is one of my favorite things to do. It feels like an active way of putting yourself in someone's shoes. You wake up to the world they wake up to every day. You see their personality splashed across a few rooms. It's like learning someone's personality by surrounding yourself with it.

And I should note that Amanda has the classiest kept and best organized apartment I have ever been in. I just hope her class rubs off on me a bit this weekend.

So in the Capitol Complex, there are a group of people that are essentially the construction workers/ maintenance people/ organizers of the Hill. I am sure that most of these people are great human beings. I have had some very pleasant interactions with a lot of them. But my co-intern and I have also had a lot of very unpleasant interactions with a number of men in this job. Including but not limited to: whistling, gawking, winking, catcalling, "Hey beautiful, how you doin?" and a particularly disturbing encounter on a long elevator ride in which two men talked extensively to our male coworker (who was repeatedly trying to end the conversation) about both of us as though we weren't standing right there.

We've just sort of joked about it to each other. Talked about being disgusted. Tried to laugh it off. We're just interns; what can we do? 

But then today, I was walking back from a briefing with one of our male Legislative Correspondents. (twenty-something, in grad school, married, republican) Somehow the topic came up, and I ended up sorta trying to make a joke out of telling him about the encounters we had had.

He was quiet for a minute, and I felt uncomfortable. When he spoke, he was incredibly angry. "If something like that happens, you need to tell the Capitol Police. God knows we pay them enough-- and provide countless sexual harassment prevention trainings for those assholes. This should not be happening. You guys should not have to deal with this. Next time it happens, just tell (our executive director) or one of us, and we'll take care of it."

His anger startled me at first-- made me feel uncomfortable, like he didn't get my joke. But then I felt angry too, partially at myself for just shaking it off for so long. It was empowering to be reminded that people actually care, not just on the internet, not just other girls, not just close friends, but actual decent human beings in real life.

The weather in DC keeps changing it's mind. I've been okay with it up til now, but this last switch has had me under the weather.

Today I took a sick day from work. I woke up at 7am and one of my eyes was so itchy and puffy that it was almost swollen shut. I texted my boss, took more Benadryl, and passed out. I did not rise from my Benadryl-induced coma until around one. 

In my sleep, I dreamed that I was sick, but there was a nice person there that kept bringing me orange juice and tea and watching netflix with me.

When I woke up, I was sick and alone and had to get my own orange juice.

So I went downstairs, ate a lunch of strawberries, cereal, a cookie, and lots of OJ.

This week was uneventful from a Capitol Hill standpoint, but ridiculously eventful from any other. I got to see, in person, the Dalai Lama say the prayer on the Senate floor. We had Laredo Day, which hosted tons of Texans, lots of friends/coworkers, and TONS of free, delicious Mexican food. I gave several tours.

And now, my parents are here for the weekend. Yesterday, my coworker and I got lunch with them at Union, then my roommate and I met them for dinner at Good Stuff and took them to Walmart. Today, they got to my office around 1:45, and I gave them a tour of the Capitol, and then brought them back to the office to meet some of our staff that wanted to meet them. I left work a few minutes early to meet them and my mom's former boss at Ted's Bulletin, and then headed home for the night. 

I pretty much intended to spend the night in my jammies, on my bed, with a tv episode and an early bedtime, but I ended up hanging out with my housemates and then watching Catching Fire with them. (Still in my jammies though.) 

Now time for sleep. Meeting up with my parents at 11am tomorrow for some adventures before meeting my roommate, her family, and our housemate/friend at District Taco at five.