This afternoon/evening Ashley [?] and I are going to a lecture at National Public Radio HQ. The speakers are Danielle Brian, Executive Director of The Project On Government Oversight (www.pogo.org), and Chuck Lewis, founder & Executive Director of The Center for Public Integrity (www.publicintegrity.org). Tomorrow is Ashley's last day working here; she's going on vacation with her family and arrived in DC a week early to compensate. She'll be in New York right on schedule though.

I forgot to mention that on Friday we had lunch with the Senior VP and VP of Content Development at BET. It was really fun and also really interesting. Everyone laughed at how much the content VP, Retha Hill, and I had in common-- weird grammar fixations, vegetarianism, Chicago ties, books we've read... she even had a metal Lenin lunchbox on her desk that I have on my shelf at home. Our odd shared things provided cute conversation fodder over lunch, but I'm hoping in the future they could do more than that; I'm hoping that she'll remember me if I never need a contact from that end for work or jobs or whatever.

Had to bite my tongue this morning when a piece about gay marriage came on the news and Ashley asked me what I thought about it. I explained that I believe gay people have the right to be with the person they love for the rest of their lives, just like everyone else. She basically said that it was "weird" and I thought it better to agree to disagree since I spend twenty-four hours a day with her and would prefer not to spend those twenty-four hours arguing. I also have to keep in mind that no matter how logical my arguments may seem, they probably won't undo eighteen years of religion and small-town Virginia. C'est la vie.