Gail Collins has replaced Maureen Dowd as my favorite humorous/satiric columnist on the New York Times Op-Ed page. In her picture, Gail looks like someone I could go out to lunch with. At the end of the meal, we'd both order dessert without ever uttering the words, "I feel guilty, but . . ." Maureen Dowd, on the other hand, looks like she would eat me for lunch and then regurgitate a neat little pellet with my non-digestible remains.

Gail's post-election column was classic Collins. Our daughter attends school in and voted (for Obama, duh) in North Carolina, so I e-mailed her this paragraph from the column:

By the way, I believe that during the campaign McCain’s great friend Senator Lindsey Graham said something along the line of promising to drown himself if North Carolina went for Obama. I believe I speak for us all, Senator Graham, when I say that we are feeling extremely mellow today and you do not have to follow through.

Read Gail's entire column at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/06/opinion/06collins.html?ref=opinion

I was too superstitious to include this quote in Monday's blog.

What Obama said about the race during his conference call to the campaign field offices late Saturday night: "We've got John McCain on his own five-yard line."

Unlike our beloved Michigan Wolverines this football season, Obama's team pulled off the win.

In an attempt to curb my election anxiety ("They've stolen it before, they can steal it again"), I'm planning to spend part of the day with the pit bulls at the shelter where I volunteer. My job there is "dog enrichment," which means taking individual dogs outside to run, chase balls, and exchange love--I give them belly rubs, they give me kisses.

I spent nearly eight hours over the weekend (including a 7 p.m. to midnight shift Saturday) at the small, local Obama office entering voter data gathered from the massive phone and door-to-door canvassing effort into the campaign's database. The staff--paid and volunteer--are a mixed bunch, ranging from a young campaign field manager who used to work at a PR firm in Manhattan (he plans to backpack around the country after the election) to a middle-aged character in cowboy attire to retired couples who dote on the younger workers as if they were their own grandchildren. A couple of volunteers are Californians who flew in to help with the last weeks of campaigning in Colorado; "It's so much more exciting here than in California," one San Franciscan told me last night.

The highpoint of the weekend came late Saturday night when Obama phoned in on a (nationwide? swing states only?) conference call to thank his field office staffs for their great efforts and to encourage them to hang tough for the next 72 hours. He acknowledged their shared exhaustion, adding, "Listen, no one needs sleep [right now] more than I do."

By the time Obama called, there were probably only a dozen or so people left in the office. The regular staff gathered around the speaker phone, but turned it up loud enough so that the volunteers, spread around the office on computers, could shyly listen in. Even though I had seen and heard Obama in person the week before in Denver, hearing his disembodied voice rallying the troops in that quiet little office in a suburban strip mall was pretty magical.

And one more thing: Obama used a football analogy to describe his position--as of Saturday night--relative to McCain. I won't repeat it, because I'm overly superstitious about jinxing the election, but I found it pretty hilarious that even a guy who's already made history and may be on the verge of making even more history still reverts to that Y-chromosome-generated tendency to explain the world in sports metaphors.

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

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.

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

During our stay in Belgium, the only American TV programs that we really missed were MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews and Countdown with Keith Olbermann. So when we read that the MSNBC team at the Democratic Convention was broadcasting outside, we headed downtown to see if we could catch a glimpse of Chris, Keith, and Rachel Maddow, the network's newest star. (I love to see brainy, funny women like Rachel--who was a Rhodes Scholar--on the air. It's a vindication for all of us girls who were too smart to be cool in high school.)

Even if we didn't see our faves, we figured that it would be fun to see a TV broadcasting setup. We're Midwesterners and easily impressed by the slightest whiff of New York or Hollywood.

I'm happy to report that we had a blast. We gaped at the shorts-and-T-shirts tech crews and all the equipment--cameras, lights, teleprompters, even the teetery-looking two-story broadcast center. (Chris and Keith had the upper level to themselves; everybody else was on the lower level near the common folk.) We mingled with the crowd, which included convention volunteers, protesters, and "Grandparents for Obama." We happily took any NBC/MSNBC tsotchkes that were handed out. (The NBC "Decision 08" baseball caps are totally tasteful and to die for. Thank you, MSNBC staffer in the green dress, for coming out to the back of the crowd with those hats!)

And the faces we watch on MSNBC every night? Saw 'em all, although Keith only stuck his head over the balcony railing for a few seconds, when I didn't have my camera in hand, and David Gregory was on his way out just as we arrived. Best inside scoops? Pat Buchanan needs more hairspray than Nora O'Donnell to keep his combover in place. Nora's high heels looked like they were giving her blisters; she needs to take a fashion hint from Rachel and wear comfortable shoes, particularly since TV viewers can't see her footwear anyhow. (Crocs or hiking boots would have been very Colorado, Nora!)

Pictures from the MSNBC broadcast center:
http://picasaweb.google.com/Katharine.Gillette/MSNBCAtTheDNC