'I LOVED YO' RED AND BLACK ELECTION NIGHT DRESS!'

This might be the only person who loved that hideous dress Michelle Obama wore election night.

Whatever. If you haven't quite has your fill of annoying inaugural drivel, try this out.

One is signed "with a grateful heart."

"When I look at you, I see me," reads another.

Many in a collection of 100 letters from black women to new First Lady Michelle Obama share a universal theme, expressed this way by Paine College President Shirley A.R. Lewis:

"Thank you for being such a vital part of this dream that I never thought I'd see in my lifetime."

The letters, solicited by two University at Buffalo scholars soon after the election, have been compiled into the book, "Go, Tell Michelle: African American Women Write to the New First Lady," just in time for Tuesday's inauguration.

Women of all ages and backgrounds responded to an Internet call for messages and poems, the editors, themselves black women, said. No surprise, given their own feelings of exuberance through the campaign and election.

"I felt such a sisterhood with Michelle Obama and a kinship," said Barbara Seals Nevergold. "At the end of the election, I started to think, how can we as African-American women share with her our feelings about the new role she's going to take?"

Nevergold and Peggy Books-Bertram, co-founders of the Uncrowned Queens Institute for Research and Education on Women at UB, said more than 200 women responded within the narrow three-week window for submissions. Letters not included in the book will be posted online.

Some read like letters to an old friend:

"I LOVED YO' RED AND BLACK ELECTION NIGHT DRESS!"

Others more reserved:

"It is noticeable that you are a charming, loving and intelligent woman of great integrity who knows how to set her priorities."

Most start simply, "Dear Michelle."

My question would be "Why do you believe America is such a downright mean country?"