and other ways to raise my famously low blood pressure.
President Clinton assured the nation that the country's systems are ready for the year 2000 and we don't have to fear planes falling out of the sky or the power grid shutting down. Bill Gates, still smarting from last week's court decision, said, "Don't be too sure about that."
Why does the US want the National Transportation Safety Board to turn the investigation of the crash of Egypt Air flight #990 over to the FBI?
(Don't send me your answers. This is just a little way to expand your horizons. Honest.)
I know the true meaning of sorrow now.
No, no: Darin's fine. No, the baby's fine too. The house still stands around us, and we haven't bounced any checks. At least not that I know of.
No, I reached a low point today when the barista in the coffee joint referred to me as "Ma'am" in passing.
I'm sure I've been referred to as "Ma'am" before. It just never hit me this way before. Ma'am. As in, "You're dangerously close to the precipice of not being noticed at all." Women d'un certain âge in American society simply do not exist, which is why you see women dressing way younger than is otherwise good for them: to get the attention they once got.
Part of the problem is that I, like most people, have a mental picture of how old I am, and it's not whatever my chronological age is now. It's much younger -- I'm not sure what age it is, but I'm quite sure it's somewhere in the teens. I can't possibly be called Ma'am when just the other day I surprised my father by wearing nylons to the Father-Daughter Dinner Dance (an annual bonding ritual put on at my high school).
(Of course, I once dated a guy who knew what age he thought he was (15) and considering what age he was (28 years older than I was at the time), that should have told me everything I needed to know about him. Live and learn, I say.)
The other part that really bothers me about this is that I've been flattering myself that I look younger than I actually am. I figured this was fair considering that for years I looked older than I actually was (and got served alcohol at the Top of the Mark when I was 14). And maybe I am just kidding myself. Or maybe it's just that I've been putting my ridiculously long hair up in a clip.
I have mentioned that I've already begun lying about my age, right? Yes, if pressed, I am going to be that mythical 29 years old. I could never understand why women did it. Until I found it hard to admit to my current age.
For years I'd figured out how old I'd be at the turn of the millenium without ever believing I'd actually get there. Now I'm here and boy, is it harder than I thought. I know, I should be happy and proud. It just doesn't seem to work that way.
In other news, I tried to write a little today. I knew how I wanted the new script to start off, so I decided to write those scenes down, just to see how they played on paper. I hoped that simultaneously I could find out a little bit about my main characters, see if they came to life at all.
Not a successful experiment.
I still have not found my characters' names. Names tell me much about a character, even if they have different connotations for you. (Imagine the somersaults naming a baby is putting me through.) I have the wrong names currently attached to these characters, which is possibly worse than not having names at all, because I'm trying to work with the personalities I associate with the placeholder names. I have to find names. I'm spending a lot of time reading through name books these days.
One fun astrology-type name book I found is The Name Book by Pierre Le Rouzic (which is being updated as The Secret Meaning of Names), which gives personality descriptions for names, some of which I agree with for the people I know and some of which I think are so amazingly wrong it's not funny. But it's fun to look through, just like any fortune-telling book is.
I gave up trying to peck away and spent the rest of the afternoon reading An Improper Proposal by Patricia Cabot, one of my ubiquitous Regency romance novels. I've enjoyed all three of Cabot's novel (the first two being Where Roses Grow Wild and its sequel Portrait of My Heart). I clearly must have enjoyed them if I'm willing to actually name them in public.
I'm still embarrassed by this little reading quirk of mine--I can admit that. And I haven't the slightest idea what to do with my collection of Regency romance novels, which is now taking up the entire shelf at the top of the baby's room's closet. I assume I'll have to find boxes to pack it in. Or perhaps I can find a shelf or two to store them on when I refit my new office with better bookshelves.
Of course, I have nothing left to read tonight, so I'll probably have to finally give in to Darin's desires and read the Harry Potter books. (What did you think I was going to say?)
So, I called a friend of mine to tell her that I was having a baby (hey, it slipped my mind, okay?), and before I did she told me how exhausted she was from spending the weekend chauffering her two boys around, from Cub Scout meetings to soccer practice to birthday parties.
I mentioned I was having a girl.
One of her reactions was, I kid you not: "At least you won't have to drive her to soccer practice."
What a thing to say, this year of all years. I wondered if I should say the name Mia Hamm to her but decided against it.
She then added: "Well, I guess you'll have ballet lessons instead."
I can't make this stuff up.
She lives here in LA. No, really. Not on another planet, but right here.
No, Darin and I have not seen Who Wants to be a Millionaire? and we have no intention of watching. Ever. Okay?
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Copyright 1999 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com