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

Writer Anne Lamott cheered me up considerably when, during her talk here last night, she asserted that librarians and teachers will have the best seats in Heaven, "right next to the dessert table."

Color season is a week or two behind schedule this year, or so the locals say. But if the occasional impatient leaf is any indication, it's going to be glorious.

I feel like I'm missing a limb. The PC caught a virus and has been at Microtek for a week; they tell me it will be a few more days until I can get it back, healthy and with more memory.

I've become one of those people who pour into the public library when it opens so I can snag a computer. In the evenings, Jim lets me borrow his laptop, which is kind, but makes me feel like a poor relation. Meanwhile, my camera is full of photos waiting to be downloaded.