Dear Obama

I'm not sure if it was in that Rolling Stone article or in your book "The Audacity of Hope." I just remember you saying what it was like when you first moved to Washington, D.C. and how you stood in the shower clinging to the shower curtain. I saw a bit of myself in you, it reminded me of when I first moved to Baltimore, Maryland.

My ex lived with his aunt and she didn't want me to live with her too (initially), so he hooked me up with his friends Rachel and James. Rachel was a seamstress and James was a manager of a Discovery Store. (I also ended up working at the Baltimore Inner Harbor Discovery Store while I was working for the Maryland Film Office because I never got a raise. I didn't work under James, he was at a different store I think in Towson.) They could really decorate, I loved their condo on St. Paul at Chase. For the first couple of days, I just sat on my bed looking out the window to the busy street. I'm from a small town and I was easily intimidated then. I didn't really live with them for very long, I wanted to be with my (then) boyfriend and I worked at the Pier 1 around the corner (Belvedere Square), so his aunt caved in and let me stay for a little while. She was a nice, theater loving hippy. She worked on the original production of the Fantasticks.

This is a picture of the two of them at a surprise party I threw for my ex at the apartment on St. Paul Street that Mat and I moved into after moving out of his aunt's house. I also remember one night shortly after we met we went out to the Brewers Art, to kick back a few Resurrection beers.