I left my friend Jake's apartment on Capitol Hill at 8:45am, clutching my hard-won "silver section" inauguration ticket. Hat, gloves, long underwear, wool socks, sunglasses--perfectly equipped for five hours of 32 degrees, mostly sunny. We wound our way around the Capitol, exchanging anti-Bush witticisms with the passerby. At first, there were big, friendly signs: "Silver section -->." The signs happily directed us where we already knew we were supposed to go.

That was before we got to the road blocks. The road blocks kept pushing us south. We didn't really want to go south, south wasn't were we were supposed to be, but it was south or back the way we came. The helpful signs were nowhere to be found now that we actually needed their services. So south we went. But first we had to wait for a ten-minute motorcade of horse trailers to pass so we could cross the street. The people driving the trucks waved at us, but we just wanted them to get out of our way. The horses passed.

We went south and also a little west. But we couldn't get too far west because there was a fence and a road and a bunch of people standing in line to go into a tunnel. We didn't want to go into the tunnel. We wanted to go west. Some other people wanted to go west too. They climbed over the fence and crossed through the line. Then we did too.

A woman stopped me to ask directions to the silver section. I said that I didn't know. When I turned around, my friend Jake was gone. I wandered about for 10 minutes until I found him.

We passed another very long line. The people said that this line was for the blue section. We kept going. We heard someone yelling to tell people where to go for the silver section. We did what he said. There were more silver section yellers. We did what they said too. Then we found a throng of people--the silver section people.

The silver section people were walking slowly towards a big gate that said "SILVER SECTION." We were probably supposed to go to the back of the walkers, but we just fell in with them. But the people stopped before they reached the gate. We waited. At 10am, someone remarked that Bush only had two more hours as President. We laughed. But a half hour later, we still weren't moving. We started to become concerned. There were rumors that they had overbooked the silver section by 50,000 people. Some people gave up and left.

Jake and I decided to walk along up to the front to investigate. When we got there, the security people suddenly let everyone go, so we went. Joyously, we surged across Independence Avenue. And stopped. Jake wanted to wait were we were since we could at least see the capital building, sort of. I insisted on moving forward. The mass of people inched along. Jake and I inched along. It was 10:30. We inched. It was 10:45. We inched. It was 11:00. We inched.

And then we surged again. Suddenly, inexplicably, they opened the barriers. There was nothing between us and the silver section but some tape. We dutifully follow the tape. We found the security entrance. They frisked us and ignored the silver section tickets that we proudly waved. We had arrived in the silver section.

There wasn't much to see in the silver section. A field with a lot of people crammed in to watch a jumbotron. We couldn't see the jumbotron very well because of the big tree in the way. Some kids were sitting in the tree. I wanted to climb a tree too. Jake said no.

Since we couldn't see, we wandered to the back of the silver section. Behind us were all the millions of non-silver-section people who had camped out to reserve their non-silver-section spots. At the back of the silver section, it was possible to cross over to the far side of the field. We crossed. It was much less crowded over there. We walked to the front. Then we realized that we could cross the street into a whole other part of the silver section that was closer. We crossed. Again we made our way to the front. Now we were standing just behind the reflecting pool. We could easily see the Capitol, though the people below it were specks.

The setting was splendid. Millions of people waved flags splendidly behind us. Thousands lined Capitol Hill splendldly before us. The sun shined splendidly. The introducer indroduced people splendidly. The people cheered splendidly. Barack Obama became the President splendidly.

I have to go meet Orlando and AM and California Paige and Zaftig Redhead for dinner. I will write more and attach pictures later. But I just want to note that as I was leaving the inauguration, George Bush's helicopter flew overhead. I reached up and gave the former President the most satifying finger that I have ever given.