Volunteering: The Poor Woman's Ambien

I've been sleeping very restlessly lately, and I think my slow-motion freakout over Palin is partly to blame. So this evening, I went to an organizational meeting for the other guys. It's not like I really have a lot of free time these days, but I keep saying how this election is a major historical turning point.

I don't know if I'll really sleep better tonight, but it felt wonderful to be with other people who also see what's at stake. More wonderful yet, several of them are my friends and neighbors. We didn't plan to find each other there - we just all showed up.

Ohio could go either way. I'm not going to be the one person who sways the state into Obama's column. But I also don't want to be the person who failed to act if we wake up on November 5 to find McCain and Palin measuring the Oval Office for new drapes.

As Monk might say: Living in a battleground state: it's a blessing ... and a curse.

Today's heavy-handed gardening metaphor for hope against the odds: I grew these wave petunias from seed and they survived a hot, dry Ohio summer without irrigation while I was away in Germany for five weeks.