Anne and I went to hear David Sedaris read last night in Boulder. It was the perfect medicine for my pre-election high anxiety levels. I laughed so long and so hard that my ribs hurt, and if you ever want to watch me shoot liquid out my nose, try whispering "slave monkey" to me when I've just taken a drink.

Sedaris opened with his current piece in the New Yorker, which wanders back and forth from what he really, really thinks about undecided voters to his experience as an 11-year-old voter in the 1968 presidential election. You'll have to imagine his wonderful voice, but you can read it yourself at:

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2008/10/27/081027sh_shouts_sedaris?yrail

" . . . I went out as a chicken pot pie. Mama wrapped me all up in silver foil and she stuck feathers in my hair and hung a carrot and a celery from my ears and she wrote 'Heat at three thousand degrees for twelve hours' across my forehead. You know, I'm real lucky I didn't run into one of those psychopaths because I think he would have had a defense . . . "

Nancy Clark
The Hills at Home

This morning, I took advantage of the opportunity here in Colorado to vote early. It was my first experience with touch-screen voting. The last time I voted in Michigan, we were still using paper ballots, which I have to admit feels more reliable. I like the idea of a paper trail.

CNN is reporting that, as of yesterday, 31.3% of active registered Colorado voters have either early voted or returned their mail-in ballots. That's over 800,000 swing state residents (in a state whose "official" total population estimate is just under 5 million) who wanted to be certain that their voices were heard.

I contributed money to the Obama campaign. I volunteered for the Obama campaign. I voted for Obama. Now all I can do is pray.

One of the things that I love about Colorado are the ubiquitous "Share the Road" signs, reminding drivers and cyclists to play nice with each other. (We could have used a few of those signs in Brussels, although I suspect that the Belgians would have ignored them.)

Hikers, cyclists, and horse riders also share many of the dirt and paved trails out here, generally with good humor and manners worthy of 18th century European aristocrats. ("You first." "No, no, you. Please, I insist." "Why, thank you. Enjoy this beautiful day.")

When we hike at the base of the mountains, as we did yesterday, we sometimes see signs such as this one:

Which is how we found ourselves sharing the trail--which, after all, crossed their grazing lands--with a small herd of cattle. Hana completely ignored the cows--even the huge black one, who trotted right out in front of the dog's nose--and they paid no attention to her. Apparently even the livestock in Colorado are easygoing about sharing open space.

On a related note: Hana and I recently spotted some livestock just off the paved trail that winds through our neighborhood. I had to rub my eyes to make sure I wasn't hallucinating, but sure enough, there they were, a trio that I can't stop thinking of as "Llamas for Obama."

Being flatlanders, we were awestruck by the tiny figures inching up the canyon walls. (When the only thing you ever "climbed" in Michigan was Sleeping Bear Dune, and your two-year-old son went up and down it twice in one morning, you realize that there is climbing, and there is CLIMBING.)

Eldorado Canyon also offers a bit of historical color. In the early 20th century, a luxury hotel perched at the edge of one of the cliffs. Although Crags Hotel burned to the ground less than five years after it opened, you can still see the skeleton of the main fireplace. You'll also see a lot of hikers standing around that fireplace scratching their heads, trying to figure out how anyone ever managed to haul guests and their luggage, much less building supplies, up the mountain.

More pictures from Eldorado Canyon:
http://picasaweb.google.com/Katharine.Gillette/EldoradoCanyon

After 12 years in Catholic schools, I can feel guilty for just about anything I've ever thought, said, or done, even decades later. At the moment, I'm feeling guilty for voting for John McCain in Michigan's 2000 Republican primary.

The Michigan Republican primary was open that year, meaning that even registered Democrats (e.g., me) could cast a vote for their favorite Republican. ("Favorite Republican" would be an oxymoron these days.) Since I thought even then that George Bush was, as one columnist delicately put it, "a high-functioning moron," I wrote John McCain's name on the scrap of paper that served as a ballot.

When I see John McCain now, I'm ashamed that I ever voted for him. The malice and lies emanating from his campaign make me nauseous and terrified for my country. And Sarah Palin brings back nasty memories of Melinda P., a "mean girl" whose name proceeded mine in the alphabet in our high school homeroom. Every time she turned around to say something to me, I shook in my desk.

Sometimes I wish that there was a human equivalent of prairie dog holes to hide in until the election is over.

Prairie Dogs, Flatirons Vista Trail, October 5