Jan 18th, Inaugeration week

At 6am in Boston, it was snowing. My flight had been cancelled the night before and I had made immediate rearrangements to catch another on AirTran. I wheeled new bright red luggage down my lonely snow-dusted street, blemished with the marks of one early-risen driver, and toward the train station. I got to the airport early, and was expecting to camp out for several hours during the morning snow storm, but everything went remarkably according to schedule. My window-seat was waiting for me, next to 2 sweet middle-aged black women with american flag painted fingernails. they asked me what I was doing in Baltimore, as if they didn't already know my answer. "On the way to D.C.," I said, "How 'bout you?" Throughout the 40 minute delay these women told me all about the plans they had not yet made. They, like many Americans, were winging it. The important thing was just to be in D.C. for the moment; everything else would fall into place.

As it snowed, Airport attendants sprayed green and orange Nickelodeon fluids on the airplane, getting ready to de-ice us for takeoff. I looked down at the armrest where the XM radio receiver was. The channel was left on Lithium 54. Somehow they had known I was a closet 90s grunge fanatic. REM was on. I waited a few seconds to see what song would scroll by. "It's the end of the world," it read.

Oh great. I buckled up and went to sleep. In a little over an hour, I'd be in DC.