ON CHANGE:

Today Barack Obama was inaugurated. Before I get to actually speaking about change, let's look at how terrifying the word "inaugurated" is. Doesn't it seem like it would involve some terrible death by augur? Like you accidentally stood in front of one of the drill-vehicles from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle cartoons.

ROOKIE CORONER: There's blood everywhere! What happened here?
GRIZZLED VETERAN COP: Looks like someone got inaugurated.

But I digress. One of President Obama's themes was change. And, as a brilliant man I improvise with said: "Change - things won't be the same." It's difficult to explain how gratifying it is to hear someone speak not only of change, but who also has a plan to implement said change. Will I agree with everything President Obama* says and does? Of course not, it would be foolish to think so. But will our country start to move in a different direction than the past eight years? Probably. The fact is that SOMETHING needed to change in Washington, either for tangible benefits to the country or even so Americans FEEL like things are changing (it's a self-fulfilling election).

Change is often frightening, and can be overwhelming. I just met with a student who is leaving school to go work in Boston in order to save money. (ME: You're moving to Boston...to SAVE money?) And he seemed overly anxious about the move, but also excited for the possibility of amazing things happening. You know, Boston things. Marathons and Tea Parties, I guess. But I think that's where we are as a country. We are all ready to move to Boston and encounter financial uncertainty. We're nervous and excited and ready to improve our own situations instead of having our situation dictated to us. We're ready for things to not be the same. We're ready for change.

* I really enjoy typing that.