My trip to the inauguration

Inaugaration blog!

Well, I'm home from my venture downtown...what a historic day (or "an historic day" if you're A. British and don't pronounce the "h" or B. just stupid). It was exciting to see so many enthusiastic and idealogical people all in one place!

4:35 am - I pull into the Shady Grove metro station to meet a nearly-full parking lot. The line to get in the station is backed up by tourists standing at the gates discussing where to put their fare card...some are also watching an abortion. I briefly join in the "Yes, We Can" chant as the woman's rights are so awesomelly realized as a bloody fetus is removed. (Notice that my "Yes, We Can" has an appropriately-placed comma!)

4:50 am - the platform is crowded! Metro was smart and imported some of those Japanese subway pushers with the white gloves. Here's my picture. The index finger on one of the gloves, however, is brown. I don't even want to know.

6:35 am - Gallery Place/Chinatown metro stop - the train runs pretty smoothly until Tenleytown when a group calling itself "Democrats Instigating Crass Kicking and Wanting A Demonstration" (DICK-WAD) smashes some windows on the train and we have to offload. I ask why they are angry and a spokeswoman says they're not really sure, but anytime there is a large event in DC they have this primal urge to rally and protest and they're drawn like moths to a flame. When I explain that moths only go to light because they think it's the moon and then ask if she thinks it is an appropriate metaphor to say that DC (where "DC" is synecdoche for the people in power, running our country) is like the moon in that it doesn't produce any light of its own, but only sends out light that it collects from another source, she thinks for a moment and then asks if there is anyone I know who wants an abortion.

6:40 am - I leave the metro station and walk into Chinatown and notice a big, big mistake. Huge logistics snafu, with an emphasis on the last two letters. Turns out January 20 is also Chinese New Year. So not only are the streets packed with inauguration people, but also Chinese New Year people. The place is a madhouse (but with good dumplings). But wait...it gets better. This upcoming year is "year of the monkey" and there are lots of Chinese people carrying signs with ugly monkeys on them, yelling and marching....and the way a Chinese person says "happy monkey new year" if you were to sound it out is like, "hay -toh - ba - ma." The inauguration crowd is not happy and have threatened to take their laundry and carry-out business elsewhere. DICK-WAD is now crassly kicking in all directions and in addition I have seen several stabbings. The Chinese seem genuinely confused and keep making disjointed Chingresh references to the Olympic opening ceremonies, seemingly as a panacea for a wrong they don't understand they've committed, saying things like, "Sports party open you no rike???".

7:00 am - For the homeless this is a bonanza, with a bunch of bleeding hearts in an upbeat spirit wandering the streets. My guess is that on their own most of these people wouldn't give a crack-whore their spare pocket-change, but the peer pressure in front of fellow patrons-of-hope and change-the-worlders runs deep and strong. Many give, but a lot use their many layers of clothing as an excuse of not being able to reach their money. I cut through an alley as a shortcut where I see a a shaky, skinny lady who tells me that $20 will get me a blow job. I too use my many layers of clothing as an excuse to keep walking. But mostly I just didn't have $20.

11:00 am - I have now stood in a packed line for over three hours and it's moving nowhere. People are cordial but pushing and shoving has happened a little bit, with many people cutting in line. I see a couple of lipstick lesbians wearing "Lesbian Avenger" sweaters. I slide over to them and tell them that I remember being at the Promise Keepers rally on the Mall in 1997, where a bunch of Christian men met to discuss being better husbands and fathers and how a group of Avengers decided this was an awful agenda and to disrupt things they walked through the group topless. I lie and tell them how awesome I thought that was, to earn their trust. Then I tell them that it would really be a show of support to Obama to do the same thing as they stand in line. They call me a pig and excuse themselves, saying they had some abortions to attend. As they walk away I yell out that I'm transgendered, hoping to lure them back as a kindred spirit, but they keep going. I look to my left and see my boss.

11:30 am - News reports flow through the crowd that both Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd have had to be removed from festivities due to seizures or some other sort of ailment. Nothing like sturdy men running this country who have a little trouble with....cold.
Spurred by this and boredom I have an impromptu quiz with some people in line with me.

Me: The game is "Byrd or Kennedy" - I burned over 1,000 crosses as a member of the KKK. While with them, I had the way cool title of "Exalted Cyclops."
Guy: Byrd!
Me: Good. I swam away from a drowning woman, who was drowning because I drunkenly drove her off a bridge.
Different guy: Kennedy!
Me: Right. In 2001 in an interview with Tony Snow I made reference to "white niggers."
Woman: Kenn...wait, Byrd.
Me: Yep. Once in a letter to another Senator I wrote: "I should die a thousand times than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds."
First guy: Byrd. This is kind of easy.
Me: Don't play then. Next - I was my dad's ninth-favorite child (out of nine), even ranking below the daughter they had labotomized, and I was the only one who was a mistake, as evidenced by the fact that I'm the only one who wasn't part of an Irish-twin set. For the last forty years I've had to live with the following thought in my head: Jack, Bobby...it should have been me!
First guy: Kennedy.
Me: Yep. My gin blossoms are -
First guy: You know, I think those lesbians have taken off their shirts.
Me: Where?

But clearly he is just bored and is trying to divert my attention, as they are nowhere to be seen.

12:15 pm - So, we haven't gotten in and I can barely see any screens...I hear Obama flub the oath and then "Hail to the Chief" starts up. I turn around to head back to the metro, step over some aborted babies and pieces of the broken Starbucks window, courtesy of DICK-WAD, and contemplate this historic event. Like all of us, whether or not I want Barack to be president (and I didn't vote against him), we can only hope that he'll lead us properly. I get to the metro platform and am surprised to be directed to the rear cars, toward the back of the train and I think this is another security measure of some sort. Then I notice that everyone else back there is white also. So it begins. Turnabout is fair play, I guess.