You can't write this stuff.

Apparently I can't even entertain the idea of giving elderly old men kisses on the lips without my boyfriend finding some fault in that. What is this world coming to? JK. But in all seriousness, I had a bizarro encounter with Marvin when I got home today...

Me: Hey Marvin!

Mar (in warbly old black man voice): Can I have a hug?

Me: Why, sure! *hugs Marvin*

Mar: *keeps arm around Brenna's waist so she cannot escape* Can I have a kiss?

Me: Uhm.....on the cheek? Sure.

Mar: No.

Me: I have a boyfriend.

Mar: Why?

Me: Because.

Mar: I have feelings for you.

Me: Uhm....I'm just going to kiss you on the forehead. *does so*

Mar: That wasn't long enough.

Me: Don't push it....Also, you and Bryan need to give me a new nickname, because 'Hyper' is not working for me.

Mar: I call you 'Beautiful'

Me: Let's see if you can ever get Bryan to commit to that one.

I got 4 hours of sleep last night and had to be to CSPAN by 6AM, which was depressing. As a result fell asleep at the "Distracted Drivers Summit" during the part where they were talking about drowsy driving, ironically enough.

I made $12 tonight AND had to train an overly eager Russian waiter, BUT I got out of cocktail waitressing for "Wicked Wednesday" for GW students. You can only imagine the fun that would have been. On the bright side, I probably drank $30 worth of espresso-based drinks, so it kind of wasn't a bust. The bartender also put about 2 shots worth of vodka into my coke when I wasn't looking...I feel kind of like I'm going to die. Best words of the night: "Baby, you can go home." Creepy because my manager is 37 years old, but awesome in every other way. Also, the new waiter knows every Russian on the Capitals. Score.

Catherine wrote a speech about me, I can't wait to hear it.

I almost wasn't allowed to turn in my bitch of a philo paper yesterday because I didn't have a stapler downstairs AND forgot my key to my room. Thank God for crazy random happenstances.

While I was at work, Nathalie texted me and asked me to bring home TP and by the time I got back the stores were all closed, so Bryan was like, "I'll give you the key to the bathroom and you can steal stuff out of there. If it was later, I'd let you go through the whole storage room." So I got a big industrial sized roll of TP and paper towels. Score.

My Program Director at ND asked me to do a mini-movie about the program. Did she give me any really indication of what she wants? Nope. Creative licensing much? You betcha. They're giving me a camera and everything; I can't wait to see how craptastic it is. I need to think about how to make this totally awesome. Any ideas, cast of "A Very Potter Musical"? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmwM_AKeMCk

I never thought anything remotely interesting or funny could come out of the state of Michigan, let alone its public school system.

You know what I don't have in my life right now? That guy who always wears fedoras...or at least owns one. I need that in my life. Why? I don't really know, but I'm always happier when I have a man with a good hat collection on speed dial.

I got an email today that started off with: "Since you always bitch about your crazy ass name and how it'll never be used in a song or movie or anything, I rewrote the song "Kelsey" by your favorite band ever (Metro Station) for you." The file consisted of a acoustic version of "Kelsey" with my name instead of "Kelsey." How.....creative? Also, not a fan of Metro Station. Just clearing that up. However, he had a point, I do always complain about my name never being used in songs or movies. Life goal: accomplished.

I really want to see Capitalism: A Love Story.

Last night that Alex guy who I wrote a note to in Megan's name (Cirano de Bergerac style) was sent into the room Megan was studying in by Bryan who told him to go get a pen. Bryan then proceeded to try and hook them up. At the end of the night Bryan was forced to tell Alex that I wrote the note and he replies, "I know, I read it on Megan's blog." I DIED. I love how he's more of a creeper than I am.

Bryan called upstairs and told me goodnight. We're pretty much besties.

"Here's 50 pence, now you can say you weren't broke when you showed up in London."

Apparently Brand New's brand new album is on my phone. How? I will never know.

My wall got a sweet new tattoo Friday night. It's not coming off.

I think the worst part of this weekend was the fact that I was sober the entire time, meaning I made every crazy choice with full knowledge of what I was doing.

Today at work I had Europeans give me a $1 tip, some lady gave me a 50 pence piece which I gave to Nathalie so she won't be broke when she goes to England. I got some AWESOME tips. I walked in on my boss crying in the closet. I held my manager's baby. I got yelled at for helping people. I ahd 8 tables open at one time.

Courtney refuses to move into my room. Boo.

Last night me and Courtney went and saw women's drumming and walked forever in the rain and figured out the bus system....kind of. There was falafel and cake involved as well.

I made a shton of Rice Crispie Treats today.

Megan and I got sushi tonight because we're too lazy to cook.

I haven't talked to Jon Oliver in two days. I hope he is alive.

This weekend was pretty awesome, you wish you were here.

We spent like, 30 minutes stalking our Program Director trying to find out things about him since he never tells us anything. We are calling the ongoing investigation "Kellengate."

Apparently the bus girl at work complains about us as much as we complain about her.

I found a new use for the weird green felt packages my birth control pills come in: all-in-one ID/metro card/Money holder for da cloughb.

I hung out in the CSPAN bus yesterday at the book festival because it was wet outside.

I've started using the term "cha-ching" in my life. The bad thing is that I don't really want to be constantly reminded of where I heard it used frequently.

"Big Bird doesn't make the tough decisions."

I love the song "Do the Panic"

Thursday was pretty much the longest day ever. We had to go to this brunch in Rayburn, which I later found out CSPAN was also in and people saw me, and then we had to go to this law firm and talk about law and then the girls went to take some pretty awesome pics at the White House, then we had to go to the snore-posium. I slept an effing lot.

Yesterday was crazy. Examples in quote form:

-After telling Nathalie the story about last night she said: "You must have been drunk."

-"You're crazy."

-"I'm going to take a bunch of Advil and pass out."

I went to work and then I went out with the interns for a while at Union Station, then I ran back home and got sushi with a bunch of people, then we all went to the cloughb. Interesting things arose.

"You have good reflections."

I love the song "As Tall as Cliffs" by Margot and the Nuclear So-So's. JS.

Today was pretty fun. I got made fun of for saying "whilst" and told I did a good job by the same person in the same hour. I got to play with a computer I wanted to play with anyway. So, that was awesome.

Tonight WHILST waitressing I realized a lot of things:

-my roommate Megan and I are the only people at work who don't fluently speak two languages

-the people who are bilingual don't speak English as a first language (yes, that counts our roommate Nathalie, who is Puerto Rican)

-I caught a plate of food before it fell on the floor and the bartender told me I had "good reflections" instead of "reflexes" which, in her defense, is probably true; my reflection is probably a hell of a lot better than my reflexes.

-EVERY FREAKING TIME I go into the kitchen SOME version of "She Wolf" by Shakira is playing, no matter the time of day, how busy we are, or who's working back there.

-The music we play in the front is like a mix CD of straight score from Ocean's 11-13 and Catch Me If You Can.

-People tip me more when I tell them I don't know anything about alcohol because I'm 18 and then they feel like I'm super cute and innocent and the 1s start pouring in.

I got $60 in tips tonight, which wasn't bad because I had 5 tables all night. However, I got $40 of that in 1s. Mission to one day get all of my pay in $1 bills and making it rain on dem hoes being close to being accomplished: Priceless

"It's because I hate you and Not....I mean, Notre Dame."

So today kind of sucked, not going to lie. I got called in by the assignment desk 3 hours after set up for my shoot began so everything was done when I got there PLUS the event had started so everyone was really busy so I had no real direction or instruction or purpose and the hearing was about healthcare, an automatic snooze-fest if ever there was one. So I sat around until 12:30, walking to the various places we had cameras and watching people use them (riveting), and then we had an awkwardly long break of more than 2 hours and NO ONE TALKED. I read and ate my lunch, but it was just really weird esp since I had never worked with that crew before.

After that, the healthcare fun only got funner. Luckily, a crew that I do know came and relived the one I was already with so I was with them for 2 hours and got spoken to and was given things to do.

Yesterday was really weird. I didn't go in until 11 and I did research for someone at the assignment desk until 2:00 (after actually getting to eat lunch with other interns for once!) and then we went to the shoot, but 15 minutes into set up CSPAN called my crew chief and told him they were sending Andrew to pick me up because we had to do some intern thing....no one really knew what was going on. Andrew came and got me and whilst trying to track down the other field intern we became best friends.

Later, when I was dropped off at the Supreme Court, I was told we were doing promo shots for a docu that CSPAN is doing on the SC, so they wanted the interns to be in the photos. After that, I left and got dinner with Megan before we had class. It was just a weird day overall.

Hopefully tomorrow will be better. *crosses fingers*

"Where in the Midwest are you from?"

"Uhm, I'm from Florida."

"Oh, really? You're just so friendly."

If only they knew.

I made almost $200 on Sunday dinner, a feat almost unheard of in the waitressing world, esp at my work. My customers were super awesome too. I hate bussing my own tables though.

Wow, it's been a while since I wrote last.

Let's see....

Wednesday I think I went to another Senate hearing, so now I'm a pro on the set up at the Dirkson Senate building. I loved the crew I was with that day, the security guard gave one of them a hard time about how ugly his shirt was....it was funny because we were telling him how pissed we'd be if we weren't allowed in bc of his shirt. I went on a late shoot that day and talked about Malibu Shark Attack with KJ (I knew seeing that movie would give me some small talk with someone someday). I also am a pro at shotgun now too. I love riding in the van, it makes me feel official.

Thursday I had to wake up way too early to go on a tour at the Library of Congress, a tour I had already taken. Class was fine. I had to makeup my Political Journalism class that night, but we got a tour of the Post and we got to see the front page of the next day's newspaper. I think my teacher likes me because I'm super sarcastic. I missed the premiere of NBC's fall lineup AND Fringe, so it totally wasn't worth it.

Friday I went to Georgetown which was a total bore, although I learned that I'm well on my way to being readily employed by CSPAN and how to use a mobile transmission van. I bolted to work from CSPAN and worked until 2:30 cocktail waitressing, which was THE WORST. Everyone kept asking if I was Bulgarian and no one tipped (maybe because they were Bulgarian) and I had to sell shots and I narrowly avoided having my tray knocked out of my hand by drunk dancing people. Never. Again.

Yesterday I worked brunch and got to come home early so I went and got groceries. I did homework and watched "All the President's Men" for class and "Charlie Bartlett" with Courtney and Nicole for fun. My roommate's friend was visiting so we all sat around and ate good food and laughed. I was going to try and rebel and stay up late but I fell asleep by 12:30.

I woke up late today and baked for the CSPAN crew, did some homework, watched tv, relaxed, showered, and went to work for dinner.

So that's pretty much it. I wish I had more vivid memories or that I was in the mood to type about them. My life sounds a lot less fun than it actually is, just trust me that it's super cool.

I've started taking the bus or a cab home from work because the neighborhood around there gets sketch really early.

I talked to my dad today and he invited me to Disney while I'm home, so I'm stoked on that.

I have $400 in my dresser.....

I'm going to the bank tomorrow.

I miss Andrew Schelldorf.

My parents told me I can come back in the summer if I want to!!!!!!

I smile a lot, I have learned.

I got to eat a lot of good sushi tonight. =]

Everything about the first part of Wednesday was a lie, I just realized. That day has been lost to me. Ohhhhhhhhh, I remember, I went to the NAtional Archives (in a cab!) with a super cool senior tech and took notes on a presentation. Equally fun.

"If anyone asks, you observed today."

Yet another awesome day in the incredible life of me. =]

Even though I had to wake up at 5:00 AM and get to work by 6:15, I had a pretty amazing day...although I must say it was bizarre to have completed an 8 hour day by 2:30.

Today I....

-had the funniest crew ever. EVER.

-one of the guys was wearing a nautical themed silk shirt his mother got him and the guard at the Senate building, along with every CSPAN person we saw, called him out on it.

-I knew something about setting up AND wrapping cable today so I was one step ahead of yesterday

-I got to OBSERVE the switching of a live feed of the hearing about the reelection of the Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and we were the only ones filming so all footage of it came from us to all of the major networks

-I got to leave at 2:30

-As a result of that, I got to take a nap, do laundry, and hang out. It was amazing.

Tomorrow I don't have to go in until 10, so I'm loving life right now.

Ughhhhh, creepy people grabbing my shoulders

Today was amazing in every way.

-I woke up at 9:00

-I got to go to a senate mtg on the dangers of cell phones, which itself was boring, but I got to do tons of cool stuff.

-I got to ride in the CSPAN van!

-I got to put together a robotic camera

-I got to run sound for part of the hearing

-I got to eat lunch with my co-workers who are the sweetest

-I made brownies for the dept and they all love me now

-I had a ton of funnnnnn.

-One of the senators called out CSPAN

A creepy guy massaged one of my shoulders though. Ughhhhh....

"Because making lattes is similar to giving hand jobs..."

On Friday I went into CSPAN and we were sposed to go over to the Senate and film something, but it was raining (boo), so one of the guys I was sposed to work with was like, "Yeah, so we have a permanent robotic camera in there, so we're just going to do that." So I got to go down to the studio downstairs and he let me play with expensive things, which was freaking amazing. He also let me move the volume switch during the press conference, which was also pretty cool because I'm an intern and I think everything is super cool. He said I could do so any time there wasn't anything going on and at that moment the tech geek in me died. I talked sports with this guy who went to Auburn, because he would know, right? I also learned that I shouldn't have gone down to the studio with that one guy, but I feel like everyone just said that because they like to pick on him....I hope.

Yesterday I worked from 9-4 and helped train a new waiter, Jon, who is the NICEST person I've ever met in my entire life ever. It was painfully slow so I only made like $60, but I got to watch a lot of football and ate some cheesecake, therefore it all equalled out. I took the world's longest nap and baked and watched a movie with Nat and Courtney after that, since we're all lame and I was effing exhausted. The Fountain, by the way, is such a weird movie. Rachel Weisz is in it for about 15 minutes and got first billing, but whatever.

Today I worked from 9-6 and felt like I was going to freaking die. I bruised and burned myself a couple times and people were being bitchy all day, plus we were swamped because it was Adams Morgan Day. I did, however, learn how to use the espresso machine....although the bartenders made it so that I felt violated by the time I put the foam on top. I can't really blame them though because you're dealing with an up and down motion of your hand and cream so that's basically an automatic FML moment on my part. I made a lot of money today so that made up for yesterday. I also asked if I could get my tips in 1s so I could make it rain on dem hoes......they politely refused. Fail. I made it out with 30 of them though, so I'll just have to start collecting.

Best moment of my day: Jon asked what we were selling out on the street for AMD and I told him that Gaye, our boss who is Turkish, made all sorts of Turkish delights. He laughs and says, "Haha. Narnia." It makes my day when 23 year old men refer to jokes from books/children's movies.

What am I going to do tonight? Probably read and watch tv or a movie. Yeah, for such an awesome person I can be really lame on the weekends.

"At least you're not the weird intern"

So yesterday I spoke to John McCain and sat in the rain for forever waiting for him. It was cool though, I definitely love my job. The rest of the day was filled by too much homework to understand.

Today my group went on a tour of the Pentagon, which was neat, but they made us walk at like 5 mph through the building, so it was all kind of a blur. We saw some secret service agents getting ready for the President's visit tomorrow for Sept 11. Overall it was pretty neat.

This afternoon we talked about healthcare and trees in class, it was an odd mix. I watched a bunch of Top Model and had a relatively boring afternoon, but tonight I went and got Lebanese food down the street and it was awesome.

Tomorrow I'm going to some Senate thing and I don't have to be there until 9:45. Hooray!

First Day of Work and other tales

So this morning I woke up at the ungoldy hour of 7:35 and got ready for work, deciding to skip the coffee out of fear that I would spill it all over myself and look like a slob the first time I met everyone (luckily for me, we have the coolest coffee machine ever at work).

I wasn't able to squeeze onto the first train that came to my station, which sucked because the next one didn't come for 7 minutes. When I WAS able to squeeze onto that one, this mean lady with a baby in a stroller was blocking the door so I had to hunch over her kid like a creep and she gave me dirty looks and I was like, "Geez, just fold the effing sroller up so it doesn't take up room for two people." After getting off of my train 5 minutes before I was supposed to get to work, I ran the whole way there and made it out of the elevator at EXACTLY 9:00.

The other interns were super nice, I'm the youngest by at least 2 years. The other Field Operations intern is 29 and from Puerto Rico and doesn't speak very good English and he's kind of grabby.....FML. On the bright side, I was given a lot of free things and met a lot of cool people. ALSO, my ID photo is AWESOME, my HR lady should be a photog.

After orientation we were told how to get our schedules every evening for the next day's work and then we were handed off to one of the Sr. Field Operators and he was like, "So I have to direct the White House news briefing like, now. Wanna come?" Yes, please. So I got to see that magic happen, it was pretty cool. After that the guy was going home for the day so since I didn't have any assignments, I went home too.

On the way home though, my train had electrical problems so we had to get off after one stop and wait for the next one. It kind of sucked because a million people were trying onto the same train. No strollers this time, so it was all good.

In other news, our sink is still backed up, so I had to go complain because we now have no clean forks, we can't use the sink or the dishwasher, and no one fixed it today. Here's hoping that we get to use the empty apt down the hall (which we were actually supposed to live in, but it's WAY TOO AWESOME for us or something, I was pissed) because I would like to eat something other than a turkey sammich.

Yay.

"Sweeney Todd? Isn't that the movie with the blood and shhh....stuff?"

Not going to lie, the beginning of my day was tres' normal (boo). I did normal things like cleaning the apartment and going to get groceries, but only because I was out of everything but Ramen. Also, our sink is so effed up, I can't wait until Tuesday when they'll hopefully fix it. I felt like I was going to die walking back from the store with all of the shhh I had to buy. They tried calling me into work but I didn't have my phone on me.

After taking a three hour nap, I went out to the living room to find my roomies talking about out friend Pavielle's birthday and how we were invited to join her at Friday's for her birthday dinner. With all of the tips I made yesterday, I was SO there. Rain in large cities is the worst idea ever. We had to slosh to the metro and slosh the six blocks from our stop to Fridays and then several of us were soaked, but overall it was a great time. After sloshing all the way back home, we all dried off and changed and watched "Juno" (after much deliberation where I raised my hand for every movie we suggested and got told I could only vote twice in the next rounds of elimination) and baked a cake, which was quite delicious.

Tomorrow is Labor Day, and hopefully the people traffic will lighten up as the day goes on; there are SO many people here. Although, when it was raining, there was no one to be found. Go figure.

I'm signed up to check things out from the NDtv studio even though I'm not there. Whatever.

"What are you, 23?"

So today I worked from 9-4 for brunch, and it was a pretty amazing day. I...

-made more today than I would in a week at the toy factory

-got to card someone

-got asked if I was 23

-learned what goes into bloody mary mix the hard way (I think they add alcohol just to get rid of the horrible taste of the mix)

Afterwards me and some of my friends went downtown and walked around A LOT before we decided to sit down and people watch (and buy mashed potatoes?) at a restaurant. Then we went to Barnes and Noble for forever and on the way home the AC in the metro was totally out so it was nearly 100 degrees down there. Way to go, DC metro system. Holidays weekends are the best times to have major malfunctions.

I was super sick yesterday, and I slept from 4PM-8AM, but luckily today I feel a lot better. I was even able to "cook" myself dinner. Thank God Kate is sending me a cheap cookbook, one can only live off of chicken, pasta, sammiches, and eggs for so long.

Holiday weekends here are worse than summers at Disney. Here, the whole city is a tourist attraction and I live 2 blocks from the Zoo so every tourist with a kid under the age of 8 has been parading between the metro and the zoo since Thursday. It didn't make work any busier though, which kind of sucks because I did make some good money, but it would have been more awesome if I had made better money. Oh well, I made enough to pay for my food and metro fare for the week, and next week I'm working during the neighborhood's street festival so it's going to be crazy.

Apparently USF is playing ND in 2011, and they won their game today. woo-freakin-hoo.

My apt kind of sucks. We can't run the dishwasher until after we've run the garbage disposal because they share pipes and the garbage disposal is broken, so we have to wash the dishes by hand and the water backs up pretty quickly. Oh, and the building is "shifting" which explains the uneven-creepiness of the floor. Boo.

"Heyyyy, sexy ladies!"

So a little bird named Blogspot told me I haven't blogged since May. Mostly because I don't like people knowing my whereabouts/how awesome my life is while I'm home, and partly because I'm too busy having fun to write.

I've begun the adventure that is living in DC until December. And what an adventure it has been.

Highlights:

-rooftop lunches overlooking the sites

-going on the metro 5 stories underground

-having the best security guards ever (one of them offered to buy us alcohol, which we declined.)

-having approx. 1 foot of counter space in the kitchen and pushing a desk over there to make up for it

-the amazing museums

-ice cream socials at Megan's building and getting to partake even though I don't work there

-random do-gooders on the street

-lying to people about my major to fit it to me surroundings (ex: architect at the monuments, art history at art galleries)

-going on a tour with a grown up, art loving version of JO

-holocaust museum (so sad)

-having class at the Post

-Starbucks fights resulting in police being brought in

-making friends with a loan officer and learning how much we need to make to buy a $750,000 house

-sushi

-getting a job as a waitress

-meeting people NOT from ND

-hookah bar (and not smoking)

-making friends with security guards at every museum I go to

-seeing all sorts of historical things

-getting asked to lunch by some random guy

-getting a library card at the Library of Congress

-seeing secret things at the Folger Shakespeare library

-seeing the city from the top of the old post office

-having some random guy sing "Hey sexy ladies" at me and my roommate

-Larry the ice cream creep

-DuPont circle

-"cooking" for myself

-Farmer's Market

-Chinatown

Yep, it's been pretty fun. Jon Oliver is coming up to visit in October too! I start my internship at CSPAN on Tuesday, I'm pretty stoked. =]