Legally Red

Last week was to be my big Congressional debut, in a sense. I was given the intriguing assignment of going up to Capitol Hill to cover a briefing by the Human Rights Caucus on the situation in Uganda. Although I had something of an idea of the situation in Uganda (briefly stated, it's bad), I was rather excited to hear a Congressman's take on it, since I usually only hear from humanitarian workers in the course of my job. Additionally, being able to attend Congressional briefings as part of your job is really cool -- especially when you consider that six months ago my main job entailed folding pants.

So I squeezed my size 6 frame into my size 2 suit and informed the receptionist that I was to be on the Hill until four, just in case anyone was looking for me. If she wasn't as polite as she is, I'm sure she would have told me that that's all well and good but you know no one will be looking for you and besides other people in this office go to the Hill every day so it's no big deal you jackass. As it was she merely said, "Mm," which I interpreted as "Go Robyn go."

Our briefing was to be held in the Committee of International Relations hearing room. Other non-profit workers slowly filed in. I wrote the title of the briefing in careful handwriting on at the top of my page, and sat up nice and straight, waiting to journalize with authority.
And then we waited.

I figured the Congressman must be running late. Five minutes isn't so bad, and my watch was a bit fast anyway. I was a bit miffed that someone else showed up to attend the briefing in a sweater and jeans while I was causing significant distress to my digestive system in my merciless pants, but no matter. I would just make that much more of a good impression.
After ten minutes I wondered why the lectern in the room looked so dang shitty. It was terribly scuffed up, and one side looked as though it was pulling away from the others, leaving an unseemly gap. This was the Committee on International Relations, not Richboro Elementary School after all. Jeans girl was now chewing gum.

After twenty five minutes, I had tired of contemplating the lectern, people passing outside in the hall were looking at us with confusion and pity, and it was abundantly clear we had been stood up. There was nothing left to do but drown my disappointment in the creamy gravy of the pot pie at the cafeteria. As is so often the case in Important Buildings, I discovered that the cafeteria was way more interesting than anything else. The furniture was way nicer there than in the hearing room. I thought I saw Tim Russert, until I realized that just about every paunchy white guy in the room looked like Tim Russert. My only celebrity sighting were the "freedom fries" on the menu, but then they're so last year.

So my Congressional debut was a bit of a bust, pot pie notwithstanding. Sadly, I later learned that it's not all that unusual an occurance to have briefings cancelled without warning. It was a disappointment sure, but at least I looked good. Agonized and constricted, but good.

Robyn

"Moby, I'm Sorry I Broke Your Potty"

Jeffrey and I went to New York for a very nice, and very chilly, post-Valentine's Day/President's Day weekend. This visit, we decided to embark upon the East Village hippie experience we always meant to have at NYU, but never got around to it. Yes, there's a fair amount of facetiousness in that statement. Relax already.

How does one go about this? First, one must stay in the reasonably hip Union Square area in a place that's fairly unheard of, fairly reasonable, and very clean (we're bohemians this weekend, not animals). Then one should explore thrift shops that sell a bunch of the same crap I played with when I was four, but is now being resold in dishevled, used incarnations for about twice the price my parents paid for it in 1984 all in the name of kitsch. A stop in an all-British owned chip shop for a deep fried Mars bar is nice. Followed by tea in the vegetarian tea shop owned by Moby (the Mobyteria, in Robyn parlance). Of the 96 types of tea (no hyperbole implemented), I selected a delicate oolong (great words always start with two vowels), which I was told was handpicked high in the treetops by monkeys. I questioned the ethics of a vegetarian tea house that chooses to employ monkey labor, but did not do so out loud, for I desired monkey tea without argument. Those monkeys pick some fine tea. I just hope they get decent benefits. I think I may have broken the flusher on Moby's toilet. Although I was too embarassed to notify the staff, I now tak ethe opportunity to say: "Moby, I'm sorry I broke your potty." We follwed the tea shop visit with a trip to a feminist bookshop that smelled like tasty coffee.

Bohemian Day was brought to a close with the requisite visit to oh-so-mainstream (and oh-so-pretty) Rockefeller Center. The visit lasted approximately four and a half minutes, for it was told as a citch's wit. Following day consisted of a visit to the Met, then home.

Thus endeth the entry that proves that Robyn is indeed "getting out."

Robyn

A Word on Job Hunting

This month I finally was offered a job at InterAction. I'd been temping there for about two months, covering for someone who left rather suddenly, and although I was not offered the job that I was temping for, they went ahead and created a position for me. That makes me feel special. I'll be assisting the President of the organization, as well as various other committess with names like the Commission on the Advancement of Women, Humanitarian Policy and Practice, and Public Policy. I also get to write a weekly article, so all that book-larnin' weren't fer nuthin' after all.

There is a bit of a dilemma in explaining what InterAction actually is. In casual conversation, the description of "a coalition of US-based non-governmental organizations specializing in international relief and development," tends to make people glaze over about three words in. "The United Nations of American International Non-profits" is a bit lofty, but seems a bit more direct. Plus "American International" is understandably awkward. "International relief" also tends to rub some people the wrong way as being too Commie-Pinko-Lefty. This is not the desired effect, nor is it entirely accurate. I shall puzzle it out in due time. Meanwhile, suffice to say that I'm quite happy. And I get my name on the door. I'm a grown-up, I am.

Since I am no longer utilizing this site for the sake of prospective employers, may I offer a word on job-hunting? It's miserable. It's humiliating. It's a soul-crushing, heart-breaking, hysteria-inducing, relationship-damaging mind-boggling stupid stupid stupid awful process. I am not engaging in hyperbole for effect, people. I don't recommend it to anybody, and I'm damned glad it's over.

Robyn

Saddam Hussein

Like everyone else, I woke up to the good news today that Saddam Huseein had been caught. And it is good news. It surprised the snot out of me, to be sure, but on thins particular issue it felt kinda nice to be surprised.

I still think it's premature to backpedal on anything I've previously thought or said about te war, but I do think the next few months should prove very interesting in light of this weekend's events. Most immediately, it should enliven the current election campaigns of the various Democratic candidates. At least it will give them new things to yell at each other about. Lately they've all bored the hell out of me. Maybe they'll be a bit more amusing for a few weeks anyway.

But I digress.

Like I said, it's still to early to see whether or not this justifies the whole effort in Iraq. I'll admit that it's nice to see that something seems to have gone right. I said it before in the spring, this is one case where I'd be more than pleased to be proved wrong about a lot of different things.

Robyn

Jonathan Brandis

I received some distubing news yesterday. Not the kind that will fundamentally alter your life, but the kind that will definitely put a damper on the morning. I read that an actor who I once adored in the bygone days of junior high school took his own life at the age of 27, and it bummed me out a bit.

For those of you who never committed the filmography of Jonathan Brandis to memory at any point in the last ten years, his most standout role was in the oddly capitalized seaQuest DSV.
This was a show that was basically Star Trek underwater -- with a talking dolphin. It was terrible. I taped every episode. I also had my very benevolent parents schlep me to the Philadelphia Convention Center to stand in line for 2 hours for thirty seconds of contact with Mr. Brandis at the car show. My 13-year-old friends and I had a secret society called the Brandettes. And I've officially said too much.

It's easy to assume that Jonathan Brandis killed himself due to a failure to come to terms with fleeting celebrity, but nobody seems to know (or, sadly, care) what the reason was. It may have been for any one of the other completely retarded reasons that people usually choose to snuff it. Whatever the case, it's a sad story and I figure that if I could devote a good year or two of my pre-pubescent life to this poor guy, I could give him 15 minutes of mention in my post-collegiate website.

Robyn

Tokyo

I saw the movie Lost in Translation today, and it was very good. It stars Bill Murray as a guy having a midlife crisis in Tokyo, and it features some very nice post-punk, new wave songs from the late 70s and early 80s, which is always a nice thing.

One thing I took away from it was a confirmation of my feelings about Tokyo. I tend to think of Tokyo the same way as a lot of people think of New York. It's the kind of place I'd like to visit for about a day and then want to leave immediately due to sensory overload. Jeffrey said it looked like Times Square on speed, which is fairly accurate. I imagine that living there would be akin to having a syringe of adrenaline injected straight into your brain.

Anyway, Lost in Translation is a fine funny movie. If you can find a place that's still playing it, I'd highly recommend seeing it.

Robyn

Alex Halderman: Scourge of the Personal Technology Industry

It's not every day that one of your good friends gets his name thrown about in the national media and causes a rather large company to lose $10 million. But that's what happened to my pal Alex. I couldn't be more proud.

For a few years now, Alex has been working one way or another with anti-copying technology for the music industry. Recently, he discovered that a highly-touted technology available from SunnComm Technologies can be bypassed by simply holding down the Shift key. SunnComm was among the first to introduce CDs that they claimed could not be copied. Alex found otherwise, and published his report on his site. Someone from Reuters found the report, published it, and before you know it Alex is on the front page of CNN.com, the company's stock goes down 36%, and lawsuits are threatened. It's fun to watch the progressions. Here's a few links for those who are curious:

Alex's report