Squashed, but not Trampled

Apologies in advance for the almost guaranteed incoherence that will follow. After a scant few hours of sleep on that shoddily constructed air mattress, I got up at 5:00 this morning to brave the metro and get to the inauguration. I know, I know...I just said yesterday that I wasn't going to get up early to get on the National Mall. Turns out I am a sucker for peer pressure, and also more significantly that there is no point in trying to continue sleeping when the other 19 people in the apartment are awake and loudly jazzed up for inauguration festivities. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

I joined about a million people today all told, and despite my early departure for the mall, I was still so far away from the Capitol stage that I probably would have been closer, distance-wise, if I'd stayed in bed. But it was really fun.

People are still giddy, still polite, and still friendly to strangers all over town. This is pretty remarkable considering the grueling conditions of today. Never attend an inauguration unless you have no problem whatsoever with the following:

• Claustrophobia. Being packed in with hundreds of other people like sardines with no escape route was the default position of the day.

• Sore feet. Even the most comfortable walking shoes cannot offset 8 straight hours of standing and the miles and miles you have to walk in order to get from place to place. This was even worse than Disneyland, what I was doing a week ago at this time, although that was good training.

• Frozen extremities. My nose and fingers are just slightly but nonetheless permanently damaged. Inaugurations are always in January, and until they change that, a little pain is your price for getting involved.

• Cessation of normal human functioning. The Inauguration Committee reportedly trucked in 5,000 porta-potties (from as far away as New England). This sounds like a lot until you compare that number to the million people out here today. The answer is just to hold it.

• Inaccessibility. The cell phone network was spotty at best, strained by so many phones in the area trying to use the same system. I couldn't get any text messages out most of the day, and was occasionally startled by beeping noises signaling I'd received about 20 messages simultaneously, most of which had been sent hours earlier. So if I didn't text you back today, sorry.

• A much worse view than you'd get on TV. I basically plan to watch the inauguration ceremony on youtube at some point. I was way back by the Washington Monument, far enough away that even Aretha Franklin's extraordinary hat was no more than an imagined dot. I had to periodically jump up just to see the closest Jumbotron. But I could hear just fine, and being with the crowd was electric--catching the snippets of excited conversation, the occasional O-BAM-A! shouts, and all the other outbursts. (Particular crowd-rousers included the part of Obama's speech where he spoke about defeating terrorism and the second half of Rick Warren's invocation. During the prayer one woman shouted, "Rick, you're doing a GOOD job!")

Given those conditions, why bother? I can't explain why other than to say nothing could have made me miss it. I'm sure most of the people on the mall during MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech didn't have a great view either, and maybe a lot of them had horribly achy feet. I'm also sure that's not what they remember about the day.

What I will remember about today is laughing a lot (the camaraderie of shared exhaustion), the beauty of a cold but sunny January morning, getting a little choked up at Obama's speech despite my best intentions, and sharing a historic moment with a million or so people who were right up in my close personal space and all the others around the world who weren't.

After hearing of my day, you might well assume I'm off to put my feet up with a cup of hot tea and jump into the sweatpants, asap. That is definitely what I should do. Instead I'm considering going to a Rihanna charity concert or some other musically-themed ball, offers that have popped up in the last few hours. We'll see if I finally succumb to the glitter of tickets after all. (update: 10 pm. Rihanna it is! I'm a sucker for that song where she tells off her boyfriend. The sore feet will have to endure a few more hours.) The city is open until 4 am again tonight, and I can still hear the honks and shouts of happy people outside on this happy day. Hope you enjoyed it wherever you were...