punctuation in the title--something's up.
"This is French republican thinking."
(Don't send me your answers. This is just a little way to expand your horizons. Honest.)
Perhaps that Grand Cross or the eclipse or whatever is paying off for me.
I made the semifinals of the Nicholl Competition!
I was on the phone with my sister when I went out to get the mail and saw the envelope. Oh well, I thought, and I opened it up. I read the first line--"Congratulations!"--and shrieked into the phone, which my sister appreciated not at all. I had to explain to her what the competition was, and then she congratulated me heartily.
After getting off the phone, I immediately posted this news everywhere I could think of.
So. I am one of 112 writers and 115 scripts, out of 4150 entries. It now gets winnowed down to 8 to 10. I am still pretty psyched.
Darin and I have a very complex trip coming up, and I knew exactly how to handle it: call Lucy at her office, give her the details, and pay her to figure it out.
She figured out Darin's part of it (he's going to a wedding) fairly easily: LA to Tampa to NYC to LA, no problem, a reasonable amount (about $400).
Then she was presented with mine (which starts earlier and has me staying several days in a city before moving on). And despite all the parameters I gave her, the best she could come up with (including buying a roundtrip ticket that I would use as a one-way) was $850. Which was better than where she started: $2000.
"How about we try again in a few weeks?" she said.
"That sounds good."
It's an arcane science, one that supposedly is now in the hands of us lay people via sites like Travelocity. And I guess if you're doing something easy (LA to NYC and back), that's true. But when it gets to the tricky stuff, you call in the professionals. They can worry about it.
There's a very good article in this week's New Times (an LA alternative paper) about the coming battle against homosexual marriage in California. I found the piece interesting because it details, as I assume probably many of these types of stories do, the benefits of marriage that are routinely denied homosexuals because they can't marry.
Stuff that I would take for granted, and not even think of as a benefit. When I think of marriage benefits, I think
- I got to throw a swell party.
- we get to file one tax return (though I think we might have a marriage penalty).
- I get to refer to Darin by a handle ("husband") rather than a pointer ("Darin").
But there are lots of other things I wouldn't think twice about: hospital visitation? home ownership? property? And yet gay couples have to jump through hoops to make sure their rights are protected in these areas. It's sick. It's wrong.
What I love especially are all the attempts nation-wide to pass "We won't honor gay marriage" legislation. Like no state legislator has ever heard of the "full faith and credit" clause of the Constitution. Oops. Once a state--Hawaii? Vermont?--legalizes gay marriage, then the real fun begins.
The answer to Wednesday's question: Why, Fidel Castro has been ruling longer than anyone else in these here parts! He's seen a lot of US Presidents come and go. They don't scare him.
|
|
|
|
Copyright 1999 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com