So, I have no tickets to anything. I showed up in town, per usual, with no prep work put in and very few specific plans. I didn't pester my congressman for inauguration tickets, and I have no plans to attend a fancy state gala in a party dress. I know a couple dozen people who have also come to town for the week, and if I can get together with half of them while I'm here, I will consider my inauguration experience a success.
I'm pretty okay with not having tickets: in the case of the actual inauguration ceremony, having a ticket means getting the privilege of queuing up at the gate starting at 4 am to be let onto the mall at 8 am so you can stand in the cold for another 3 1/2 hours before the ceremony begins. I love Obama, but I would only do this sort of thing for Green Monster tickets (March 10, 2003, Fenway Park, 22 degrees Fahrenheit for 6 hours, part of which time I spent curled up in my sleeping bag like a homeless person.) Nonetheless, ticket chatter is all over town. There are "orange" tickets for the important people, "purple" tickets for the regular people, and maybe a few other colors I don't remember.
I'm pretty okay with not having tickets: in the case of the actual inauguration ceremony, having a ticket means getting the privilege of queuing up at the gate starting at 4 am to be let onto the mall at 8 am so you can stand in the cold for another 3 1/2 hours before the ceremony begins. I love Obama, but I would only do this sort of thing for Green Monster tickets (March 10, 2003, Fenway Park, 22 degrees Fahrenheit for 6 hours, part of which time I spent curled up in my sleeping bag like a homeless person.) Nonetheless, ticket chatter is all over town. There are "orange" tickets for the important people, "purple" tickets for the regular people, and maybe a few other colors I don't remember.
Another thing people have tickets to is one of the inaugural balls. Some of my friends headed off for the state of Texas inaugural ball this evening, an intimate soiree attended by 10,000 people and named, fabulously, "Black Tie & Boots." The tickets are very large, as befits a proper Texas shindig. Some of the Parma staffers are going to the "Youth Ball" tomorrow night which is not, as it sounds, a party for third-graders, but in fact an event for people aged 18-35 and rumored to be one of the "hipper" balls. I don't know that the words hip and ball go together, but it has promise.
I also have good news in a different kind of ticket department. I did a little internet research to find out that the meters are shut off for tomorrow and I just might be parked in a place where I won't be towed. I have to admit that at this particular moment, this is the ticket situation I'm most excited about.
So I'm going into tomorrow with no tickets, no privilege, and no perks. I'll just be soaking up the atmosphere, being bombarded by Obama tshirt-sellers on every corner, darting into bars for a warm-up when it gets too chilly, and getting swallowed up by the heaving crowd of happy people on the mall. I couldn't be more excited.
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