For this event, I met up with the Chicago AIDS Foundation for the first time to be a volunteer. Do my part, help spread the word on HIV and AIDS. Have something to do. I met up with this girl who was organizing the whole thing, Adrienne, and she kind of gave me the down low on what's going on. We had flyers to pass out to bring awareness to the AIDS Run and Walk. Sounds easy enough.
Side note: Adrienne and I both talked about our uncertainty about getting to the street festival as it was our first time there. We're both new to Chicago! Oh, not only that, Adrienne is from Seattle! Well, Kent, but hey. Same area. Even though it's still Kent.
More people showed up for this AIDS Volunteer thing. At first I thought maybe we would have a booth, pass out some free shit, mingle with the locals, etc. etc. No, we were passing out flyers. So off we broke up to individuals to do our assignment after I got as much info as I could handle about this AIDS Run and Walk thing and started passing out these flyers.
It kind of sucked. A couple people wanted them, but that was after I had to actually go up to people and blurt out the mouthful, "AIDS Run and Walk?" or whatever way I happened to be saying it. It felt more wordy at the time.
Then came the rejection. A lot of people weren't interested. I'm sure a ton of people took flyers because saying no to anything promoting the fight of AIDS makes you look like a dick. It just does.
Eventually I ran into Adrienne and this other girl helping organize this thing, and apparently in the time since I lef them, they had accomplished the beginning of a search for a street vendor cord dog. So I joined them. I was tired of being rejected after going through all the trouble of going up and talking to complete strangers. I just don't do that.
The whole AIDS thing lasted 2 hours and then we were let go. I can say I saw it through to the end even though a lot of us really didn't do anything. In fact, I excused myself for a good 45 minutes after I "wowed" everyone with my camera and realized I left my SD card at home and had to go all the way to Walgreens to buy another one. Everyone was completely understanding.
Too many dogs to take pictures of!
After the whole AIDS thing was over, I got drunk. I met up with someone who I had hung out with before, and I got to meet a lot of his friends. We ended up at a little house party very nearby. A gay house party in my 2nd weekend in Chicago. Not bad!
Everyone was really nice, met a lot of great people who had lots of tips about Chicago and the job scene and the gay scene, and even some plastic surgery stories which were pretty interesting to say the least.
We returned to the festival to what an ABBA cover band perform which was pretty fun, and I later excused myself so I could go home and get some rest.
Gays out in full force in Andersonville
The next day was Andersonville Midsommarfest AIDS volunteering part II. I called in. Yesterday had been so pointless, and I was also pretty much dead from alcohol and sun exposure so I ended up sleeping most of the day. Well deserved, I'd say, as I have been a busy bee since before I landed in this city and I need a nice Sunday full of R&R.
I ended up back at Midsommarfest in the evening so I could join a couple people to watch this local cover band called Rock Candy perform. They were lots of fun. Check them out!
Then the next day I had my first day of work at this new wine and whiskey bar. That will be an entry of it's own. How did it go? Well I guess we'll just have to wait and see!
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