Blind Prophecy

Don’t let it end like this. Tell them I said something.
- Pancho Villa, last words

Since I didn’t sleep at all going into our final day of the Summit, it was a good thing it was a relatively slow morning. In fact, my only major duty was the final plenary with Brian Graden, president of entertainment for MTV Networks and president of Logo.

After taking my shower at 7am, I cracked open the OJ and champagne and handed a glass to Abercrombie as he woke up. If we didn’t get our mimosas the night before, we were going to drink them this morning, since we’d both be leaving by the end of the day.

Abercrombie was having difficulty figuring out how he was going to get back to the airport (he flew into Dulles instead of National – a $65 cab ride and he was running out of money) but we got it worked out as we packed up. We needed to check out of the hotel at noon even though our flights didn’t leave until later in the evening.

There was some morning stress getting to the final plenary… requests for a last minute PowerPoint slide and a new statement reiterating our support of a trans-inclusive ENDA, but after my conversation with my supervisor plus the lack of sleep, nothing was going to get to me anymore. Basically, I stopped caring about the little dramas and became very Zen about the whole thing.

Sadly, I think I missed the punch of Brian Graden’s speech. I was half-way alseep for much of it and when I wasn’t trying to nod off, I was running small errands. The audience seemed to love it, though. Brian gave a “behind-the-scenes” account of his career (from South Park to launching Logo) with numerous clips and clever jokes. I actually look forward to seeing in on our archival video to hear what I missed.

At the end of the plenary, we did the “passing of the wand” to next year’s co-chairs for the Summit in Austin, followed by a terrible skit to promote Austin. I’d seen a draft of this skit about a week earlier and I’d begged them to cut, cut, cut it down… but they didn’t listen to me and insisted that an audience who had already been sitting still for almost an hour and a half wouldn’t mind hearing about Austin’s bats. ::groan::

The plenary ended with all the staff, board, and co-chairs coming up on stage with the Lesbian and Gay Chorus of Washington DC to sing an inspirational song none of us knew. It was embarrassing, but we did it last year and now it’s a “ritual.”

After the plenary, we just had a few loose ends to deal with. Once again, we found ourselves rushing to pack up the staff office. Not because our time in the room was up (like last year), but because anything we wanted shipped back to San Francisco had to be ready to go by 5pm.

There was a volunteer appreciation party, which I hung around for about an hour, before getting ready to leave. Since I had a car picking me up to take me to the airport, I found I had time for a last drink with some of the staff in the hotel bar (wow, I did a lot of drinking this year).

I shared the car to the airport with one of our contracted event planners and we had a great conversation about O&E, its future, and the expected staff turnover in the coming months. She’s in a multi-year contract with the organization, so I almost feel bad for her having to work with newbies next year.

The trip home was pretty uneventful. I slept almost the entire flight from DC to Dallas (since I hadn’t slept the night before). Did I mention that this was also Jennifer’s birthday? Apparently I’d left a drunken message on her phone the night before, but I kept trying to touch bases with her to make sure I could meet up when I got into town for the birthday bash.

There was a really awesome thunderstorm going on as we flew out of Dallas, but I soon fell asleep again. My plane landed a few minutes before midnight in San Francisco. Abercrombie’s flight was supposed to be landing about the same time and we’d talked about being BART buddies back into the city. I realized, however, that after waiting for luggage, we’d missed the last train and knowing he didn’t have cab money, I raced over to his terminal to find him. My phone was going dead, but I kept trying to reach him. Finally, at 12:45, I left him a message saying I’d waited long enough and was leaving to get to my friend’s birthday. Abercrombie’s flight had a layover in New York and I was guessing he’d missed his connecting flight (on accident or on purpose I didn’t know) since his boyfriend lives in the Big Apple. I finally did hear from him after 4 in the morning – I guessed right, he’d decided to stay overnight in NYC and catch a morning flight in.

Anyway, I got back to my apartment right around 1 pm, dropped off my shit and threw on some decent club clothes, then caught another cab to DNA lounge. Jennifer’s birthday celebration was still going on (it was nice of all those kids from the Love Parade to come out for her birthday) and our friends Zazoo and Santori were back in town. This time they brought Jojo and Jeanne (who I hadn’t met before). I showed up in time for one drink (dammit, I needed more alcohol) but stuck around for a few hours of after-hours party time.

Eventually, the night caught up with me and I excused myself to get some beauty sleep. After all, the Summit was over and I was home in time to see the Folsom Street Fair!

Filed under: DC, work by Jere Keys