First an apology: if you can’t live without Capitol M (and if that’s the case, I worry about you) and missed last week’s column, I was confined to bed, battling the Capitol Crud. Take your Vitamin Cs and your other immune-boosting agents, please.

Unveiling: the Capital (with an A) M. I’m scouting people and places around the capitol to show off the capital. Corny? Absolutely.

This week’s Capital M is Molly Otto, our dear legislative librarian, who is retiring at the end of this month after 17 years in the basement. Molly’s job has changed a lot in the advent of the internet since she took the job in 2000, when if you wanted to listen to hearings you had to go to the legislative library to do that. She’s gone from helping people find printed materials to helping people navigate the legislature’s website. Your call on which is the bigger challenge these days.

Before working in the library, Molly was at Trinidad State Junior College for five years. She’s not from there, but just wanted to see what the area was like. Best wishes to Molly on her retirement (February 28, in case you want to drop by and bid her a fond farewell).

It pays to have friends in high places: Colorado Commissioner of Agriculture Don Brown got to do something last week that even his boss, Gov. John Hickenlooper, has never done: attend the State of the Union address.

It pays to know people, or as Brown puts it, “Us Yuma guys stick together.”

Brown happened to be in Washington, D.C. last week for discussions centered on the North American Free Trade Agreement. And that opened the door for him to get the hottest ticket in Washington, when Republican Sen. Cory Gardner of Yuma invited Brown to be his guest at President Trump’s first State Of the Union address.

Brown has lived in Yuma County all of his life, and said his and Gardner’s families go back more than 100 years. Gardner’s family moved there in the early 1900s, starting the farm implement business that Gardner still runs today. “My grandfather bought tractor parts from his grandfather,” Brown said.

Congressional guests sit in the gallery of the U.S. House; even First Lady Melania Trump was seated in the gallery, Brown pointed out. Unfortunately, Brown has no pictures of the address; cell phones and cameras were barred from the House chambers.

“It was a great experience, getting to see the address live,” the often “aw-shucks” Brown said. “It doesn’t matter who gives the speech. It’s a big deal.”

The word around the Capitol is to share your most embarrassing photos. I admire your courage. Really. Good luck living this one down.

It seems that people’s hair is getting the most attention To wit: Lobbyist Danny McCarthy’s photo, which drew this comment: “You could land a B-29 on that flat top!”

State Sen. Andy Kerr of Lakewood got into the act, too, with this submission from his wedding 18 years ago this month. Happy anniversary and glad you got a haircut.

Former state Rep. Mark Waller, now an El Paso County commissioner, had this to say about Kerr’s styling: “The only things missing are a sword and a hat with a feather in it.”

Word around the Capitol, part two: fussing from lobbyists (mostly men) that they have to remove their belts when they come through security. Some do this several times a day, and one source told me it’s reaching #OMGCRISIS proportions.

Rep. Tracy Kraft-Tharp of Arvada even opined to the Denver Post that “now we have all these men walking around without belts.” There are men who are not wearing their belts because they have to come in and out all the time.”

Of course, this doesn’t affect A) women (belts aren’t exactly a daily thing for some of us) and B) members of the press who have offices at the capitol (ahem) because we’ve already been through security clearances and can bypass the checkpoints.

Payback’s a’comin’…Rep. Dave Williams of Colorado Springs, one of the legislature’s most outspokenly conservative members, is usually on the losing end of the Democratic-led House State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee, known under the gold dome as the “kill committee.”

So when House Speaker Crisanta Duran of Denver had two bills that were unnecessary after the committee passed her first one (to allow parents to freeze children’s credit reports) Wednesday, Williams, a committee member, seemed surprised when he was called on the make a motion to kill one of the two.

“I was happy to give this to Rep. Williams, because it’s not every day you get to postpone (indefinitely) the speaker’s bill,” said another committee member, Jovan Melton of Aurora.

Williams responded, “That wasn’t lost on me.”

Chairman Mike Foote of Lafayette forecast, “Somehow I have a feeling the favor will be returned.”

Capitol M has the same feeling.