The Inauguration, Day 1

First, I haven't been to DC in a bit. Actually, I've only been to DC twice in my life, once for Peace Corps training before we left and then for my cousin's wedding. I've always liked the city, although I'm not a fan of East Coast weather: summer time stickiness, winter time freeze. And they are having record cold and I just left a place with record heat. I'm miserable.

As soon as I arrived, many of my friends hit me up to tell me they are in town--the homies from grad school at UCLA, my cousin from NYC who does non-profit work in education, my cousin's, where we are staying who got his MBA from Harvard, the other homie doing her PhD at Chicago, and my former classmate working for the Treasury Department--and I realized, we're the 2009 edition of the Urban League with Barack Obama as our fearless leader. We are somewhere between the Claire and Cliff Huxtable with a little Denise and Sandra mixed in. All in grad school or holding those ivy league and advanced degrees in hand. All having traveled for miles and miles to see the epitome of Black, urban and education officially become the president. This revelation is new to me although labels like Buppy (Black yuppy) are not. In our defense, we aren't your typical Black elitist: conservative and in love with Jesse Jackson. Rather, you'll see us at a march, a museum, and the mall: liberal and the farmers' market, Sankofa and bohemian, natural hair and The Boondocks. Well, at least that's me.