The XX Factor: What women really think.

What'd I Miss?

To Eve and the others who were there: Tell me everything! Did you make, like, a million friends with fellow inauguration observers? Were there sweet-faced octogenarians telling you about how they never thought this day would come? California hippies who had driven across the country in the same beat-up VW bus they took to Woodstock, just to be there?

I had told myself it would be too chaotic and cold and crammed in D.C. to be worth making the trip down there, but from my silent office desk right now I can't help but wonder if I made a mistake. I already missed the glowing camaraderie of election night—I was working at Newsweek then, and I knew when I received the e-mail about the Nov. 4 food schedule (dinner at 7 p.m., sandwiches at 1 a.m., breakfast at 7 a.m.) that the night wasn't going to end as I had pictured. For me, there was no hugging strangers in the streets of Brooklyn, no stopping traffic with our impromptu dance party. Just fluorescent office lights, crusty early-morning sandwiches, and the faint screams from Columbus Circle wafting in the open windows.

As it turns out, that's basically what I got today, too. A small gathering of co-workers watching the screen, trying to ignore the sounds of the printer (what could possibly be worth printing during a moment of freakin' historic proportions?), each other's frantic BlackBerrying, and the TV in some office down the hall that broadcast everything about three seconds before ours did, resulting in a dizzying echo, especially during what were supposed to be dramatic silences. So please, give me something I can vicariously hold onto, that makes me feel like I am a woman of the people, not a slave to my office building.