Blind Prophecy

The last two weeks have been fun and full of excitement.

This is the part of summer that seems to be filled with happy hour mixers.

The weekend before last our office had a ballgame outing. We went to the Cyclones game at Coney Island. I didn't pay much attention to the game, but had fun chatting with the other ACLU interns and staff. After the game, we grabbed some food on the boardwalk and walked down to the beach to see the fireworks. 

Then I went to see Happy Potter 7.2 on Saturday. There were more than a few tears. And cheers. The crowd at the theater went batshit for the final scene with Mrs. Weasley and Bellatrix.

On Sunday I went and sat in the sun at the Great Hill in Central Park. Lots of hot guys wandering around but sadly no photos because my camera phone decided to start malfunctioning that day.

I went to see Harry Potter again on Monday, this time with friends from work. And in 3D. The movie didn't suffer from a second viewing.

On Tuesday my summer job with the school as a tutor with AEP (which I also did last summer) started. That's going to eat into my free time a bit, but I need the cash flow this late in the summer.

This weekend was also action-packed. On Friday I went to see Captain America. I liked it a lot. More than Green Lantern, maybe not quite as much as Thor. Although the Avengers trailer that played after the credits was pure joy.

On Saturday I went to Central Park again and had a picnic of grapes, sushi and stuffed grape leaves.  Because of the heat wave there was almost nobody in the park this time.

On Sunday I got up early and headed down to the City Marriage Bureau. The ACLU had us come out to celebrate the first day of marriage for all. I got there a bit before 8:00. The Westboro Baptist Church was one one corner and across the way diagonally were hundreds of couples already waiting in line. The WBC bigots left around 8:30. They had to get to the bigger hate rallies in the other boroughs. 

I also saw The Daily Show's Samantha Bee and Jason Jones wandering around filming. Samantha Bee had amazing shoes.

They started letting people into the bureau a little after 8:30. Around 9:30 or so the first couples emerged from the other end of the building, happily married. That's when things got really exciting. Some observations:

• There were probably 4 photographers or journalists for every couple.
• I've never been in a gathering of so many gay people where everyone had their shirt on (especially considering the heat). As one guy commented "It's like gay pride without the vodka commercial."
• Speaking of gay pride, because of my clever sign I felt like a walking photo op. I imagine that must be what fantastically dressed drag queens feel like at Pride.
• Speaking of my clever sign, the trick to drawing a good Beyoncé is the use of negative space.
•  The marriage of the puppets from Avenue Q was cute. The actors playing the puppet characters were cuter.

As my twitter friends and facebook friends probably already know, my picture has shown up in quite a few news stories about the event. (That last photo was on Queerty and was taken by a photographer with name that sounds like we ought to be related if he didn't spell his last name wrong.) Having a big poster strategically blocking my gut is probably the best outcome I could have hoped for when ending up in national news coverage.

After a few hours of marriage madness I left to go to my friend Lee's birthday party at this cute steampunk bar near Union Square where I chatted with fellow nerds about comic books and movies.

Anyway, that's what has been keeping me occupied this summer. 

p.s. If anyone is a fan of Drop Dead Diva, yesterday's episode was about a lesbian couple who wanted to go to prom. The court that hears the case is presided over by Wanda Sykes and the bailiff is played by ACLU's client Constance McMillen, who had to sue her school for the right to attend prom. It was a cute episode that also included Clay Aiken and Lance Bass and (as always) Margaret Cho - it was a gaysplosion!

Filed under: movies, personal, queer rights by Jere Keys