Two marathons to discuss with you guys: one, the NY Marathon, run/walked/wheeled yesterday. The other, of course, this Presidential campaign. I AM SO NERVOUS!!! So many years of such hard-won cynicism down the tubes, replaced by actual hope, which of course comes joined at the hip with fear. Are we going to be Charlie Brown with the football again? Can we really do this? I'm going to be phone-banking tomorrow, calling swing-state voters. You have to understand how much I HATE phone banking to understand what this election means to me.

The other marathon, tied in to the election in my mind, was the one involving 40,000 people who ran, race-walked, limped, and rolled their wheelchairs 26 and a half miles through all 5 boroughs because they wanted to. I always go watch. My favorite spot is in Manhattan, just a few blocks before the 24-mile marker. There's a little hill which gives me a great view as I look down it at the hordes of runners coming up; and it gives the runners a sense of despair as they realize that after 24 miles they have to go uphill again. A number of people stop there, and almost everyone slows down, and you cheer them on based on what's on their shirts. Come on, Warren St! You're real close! Come on, Mexico! You're looking bueno! Come on, Number 302, that's my address! And they respond. They pick it up: if they were walking they start to run again; if they'd stopped completely, as some of the wheelchairs do at that point, they start rolling.

So come on, Pennsylvania! You're a great state! Come on, Ohio, I used to live there! Come on Florida, where my pelicans are! Let's pick it up! We're almost there, let's bring this thing home!