INFECTION\

My worrying about the Gulf -- it's a fever. I don't have any medicine, that helps me get my temperature back down to normal.

The wars -- I keep trying to understand the mountain of decisions that force us to stay in Iraq, and continue fighting in Afghanistan. And this is a heavy burden I'm carrying around all day in an invisible knapsack that's strapped to my frame. I didn't put the knapsack there. I'm not carrying books to school. I just go upstairs to do upstairs-chores, and come back downstairs to write on my computer. But I can't get rid of this burden. It's weighting me down.

Yes, really, it is. I like my work -- I'm not enjoying my work -- yes, I'm the boss, but I can't go to my idea list where I put down subjects to examine and write about.

Why, because every day, almost every hour, I am aware of soldiers with guns and knapsacks on the march, stepping over objects that could explode and kill them, but they're doing their job. What is the job? The only sentence I can muster is -- "making life dangerous for the Taliban guys who want us -- America, my country -- off the face of the earth."

Do I let that sentence stand? I have to. It's them against us, so I support us, and this job the soldiers are doing.

These young people fighting the war are more in my thoughts than the ideas on my list -- the deadly chemicals in woman's makeup -- the barefoot burglar (Colton Harris-Moore), finally caught -- the comic Al Franken working well, working "seriously" on getting laws passed -- and oil.

Oil, oil, oil -- I keep seeing the black oil-covered pelicans, the cap that's working today but might not work tomorrow -- the surreal, solid-colored smoke billowing out of something that I can't picture though they say it's as tall as a five-storey building -- the white-sand beaches with guys picking up blobs of viscous stuff, putting it where?

I can't stop wondering what happens to the oil that BP salvages in its billion-dollar processes. Is the "fixed" oil sold to people with oil burning furnaces? Is it canned and sold as oil for our cars? Are they working on using it, selling it as fuel for our fuel tanks?

My number-one worst, most-diverting, most-sickening thoughts? Numbers were mentioned today: 43% think Obama is doing his job; 46 % are now favoring Romney -- oh-my-God --are they forgetting, burying, actually considering a Say-No-Republican for president in 2012 -- oh no, oh yes, oh gee -- is Romney better than Sarah Palin?

I'm telling myself it's just the numbers game. The media's tired of Mel Gibson's cuss words. Selling us numbers helps sell the guys who hate the idea that a black man is trying to clean up the Bush-Cheney messes.

Recently a Facebook friend wrote me and said why do you have to keep mentioning that Obama is black? How can I not mention it when I feel race prejudice in the air like humidity -- it's like those billowing clouds of oil that's there, still there, lurking in the water.

STOP. Today's news says the leak has been stopped. Clap your hands; click "save," and write about Chelsea's wedding plans or Bristol's. Or Kate Gosselin's new show ...

I can't. Maybe tomorrow my immune system will be back to normal.