Monday, January 23, 2017

Marching and Laughing

I went back and forth on participation in the Women's March for a variety of reasons, some of them terribly selfish.  In the end, expecting that it might be big, that it might contain a number of handknits, and that we as a country might be headed towards a period of increasing restrictions on protests, I decided to go. I went with a knitter, so we had a lot of fun pointing out different hats to each other.  We arrived closer to march time, so the stops nearest the Mall had already been shut down due to massive crowds.  They at least wanted new people to have to join from a few blocks away.  Given the massive size they had blocked off additional stretches of Constitution, so we joined the crowds going that way.  It meant we slowed as we met up with those on the original march route as the two crowds joined. 
Since there's been some discussion if police reaction, I will say that I saw a MPD tank, but the officers atop it appeared to be helping crowd members take selfies. We saw various officers along the way and they were often stationed near a counter protester, I assume to make sure nothing happened there.  I did see an amazing reaction from Metro employees who had to have a cuckoo day, but they were extra friendly, extra helpful, and extra nice to all the folks coming through.  Given the pictures we'd seen of the morning metro crunch, we decided to bus back which worked eventually.  It wasn't faster than walking home but it involved sitting, which after that much extended standing was very nice. 
And then, after food and more tea had been acquired, we went to the "2 Dope Queens" live show/recording at the Lincoln Theater.  Regular host Jessica Williams was not there, but they had brought in Ilana Glazer to assist Phoebe Robinson and I almost don't want to spoil the guests because it was so fun to just have them be like and here's so-and-so and be like what?  Two of the guests had or did live in DC. But it was fun, and funny, and great to see the crowd most of whom also seemed to have marched, if the cheers and general air of exhaustion were any indication. It was a long but ultimately delightful day.