Judges on the dance floor?

Thursday was the LGBT Lawyers Assn of Greater New York Foundation (LeGaL Foundation) Annual Dinner, Dance, Art Show & Sale at the Ritz-Carlton downtown. This was the second one of these I've been to, my first as a member of the board of directors.

Things started out much better for me this year--my cab driver knew where he was going. Last year we had to wander around Battery Park City for a while, until he found it.

On my way in I saw my friend Ivan Dominguez, the chair of the New York County Lawyers Assn (NYCLA) LGBT Issues Committee. He was walking in, as he works (and lives) nearby. No cabs necessary for him. We went in together, and a hotel staffer directed us to the second floor, where we were given our name tags. I got two: my regular one, which indicated I was seated at table 21 (in the teeniest type), plus a second one identifying me as Foundation board member. I stuck the first one in my purse, and clipped the second one to my blouse.

Ah yes, my blouse. It was this nice multi-colored print overblouse that I've had forever, which I wore with my good old black-on-black embossed paisley pants. And even with maybe 150+ gay guys there, you have no idea how much my blouse stood out. They may have been gay, but they were still lawyers, coming from work--it was a sea of grey and black suits. A few had colorful shirts. (Of course there were a good number of women there also. But lesbian lawyers dress even more conservatively than the gay male ones. There were two that wore red sweaters.)

We were pretty early, and there wasn't much of a line for drinks. I got one and strolled around, looking at the artwork being auctioned (the only thing I really liked were these very small oil paintings of various views through windows in Europe. But at $400 minimum each I thought they were way overpriced.) The hors d'oeuvres were served frequently, but I stuck to the bite-sized ones--trying to eat chicken on a skewer is quite hazardous to my make-up.

I said hello to a number of people I knew, mainly from the board, but a few others--unlike last year, when I knew only about two. I caught a brief sight of Congressman Rangel, who I think was the only high official to actually show up, if only for a few minutes. (At the dinner we were read a long list of officials who had accepted invitations, but outside of the judges I don't think anyone but Rangel and a City commissioner representing Mayor Bloomberg actually attended.)

Eventually they opened the doors to the dining room, and I went in and found table 21--at the outer edge near the far wall. I was the first, chose the seat most directly facing the dance floor, and started glancing at the program. Just as some other people arrived at the table, Ivan came and invited me to sit at the Cadwaladar table, where they had an empty seat. His firm, Cadwalader, Wickersham and Taft, was one of the "Platinum" sponsors of the event, so their table was one of the best, closest to the center. I accepted this "upgrade"--though I had to assure one my now former tablemates that it wasn't something they said. (I found out later that one of the former tablemates was Tom Shanahan, who has represented a number transgender people in high-profile cases. It may have been he whom I had assured.)

But I went off to the Cadwalader table, where everyone except Ivan was a very young associate at the firm--one had just started a couple weeks ago. We ate the dinner (a nice salad, decent chicken, a good chocolate tart), while a short presentation was made. We heard a letter from Mayor Bloomberg read by one of his commissioners (with jokes about it not being a proclamation), and awards were presented to all of the past presidents of the organization. Ivan excused himself right after the meal--he had to get up for a breakfast meeting with Mayor Bloomberg at Gracie Mansion the next day.

Eventually people were encouraged to get up and dance to the disco music that had been playing in the background all evening. There were male couples dancing, female couples dancing, even a one or two couple of opposite sex! I recognized two or three of the dancers were judges. Now I know that there are human beings under judges' robes, but somehow seeing one doing the frug just destroyed my image of the profession (can anyone imagine Ruth Bader Ginsburg doing the frug?)--very much like how my image of teachers was destroyed when I joined my wife and her former colleagues at a bar where they had been TGIFing for a couple of hours (not to mention an end-of-term party we went to).

No one enticed me to the dance floor, so after a little while watching I left. There was a nice line of cabs waiting, and a hotel doorman to call one and handle the door, and I went off to Lips for a nitecap. I sat down at the bar next to Stephanie of MyFemSpirit, and we had chatted. Frankie Cocktail, the bartender, asked if we knew each other. Did we know each other? For years and years--I got measured for my first custom corset in her apartment. I was too late for Jesse Volt's show (though I did get to say hello to her), but Ginger did a couple of special numbers for some friends there: Good Morning, Baltimore from Hairspray (one of the people was visiting from Baltimore), and Talk Dirty to the Animals. She was great.