Thank you to all the commenters who wrote in about regretting not having children. Words of wisdom. I appreciate them.

We are both obsessed with the upcoming election. I've got a new word for it: historical intimacy. It means the intimacy you derive from living through an important historical moment with someone. people from the sixties have that with each other. war veterans. even me and my fellow VISTAs who remember the situation in Miami after the Mariel boatlift from Cuba.

In our case, every day we pore over electoral college maps of the country which show the way states will likely vote. We cheer over the states switching from red to pink to light blue to dark blue. If sheer intensity of will could do it, then Obama would be elected right in our kitchen.

Every day the local gas stations drop their prices. I put off filling up my tank for as long as possible, because I know that by next week the price will be lower. Every day the radio says the stock market has dropped another 500 points.

Right now I am procrastinating helping out the painter whom we've hired to help us with the in-law. She and I sanded all day yesterday, with hand-held electric sanders, inadvenrtantly kicking up a huge dust-storm to rival the '29 Depression, and today there are muscles in my back which I didn't even know I had, aching and paining me. I know I should go down there and lay in some primer--all I really want though, is to take a long soak in a hot tub and then crawl back to bed.