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2001-02-15
Hallelujah, the cable is out! This gives me an opportunity to write my latest ode. Time Warner blessed me with enough hours of service to cover Martha Stewart�s White House Tour (granted on the eve of moving day, her first invitation�clearly Martha will not meet extortionate demands). Hostessing duties were shared by the (nevertheless) senator-elect, and her assistant, whom I used to speak with on the phone when I worked for H.R.C.�s old Wellesley College roommate.
This assistant�s name I would always repeat to myself with wonder at its aptness to the peculiar tone both roommies seemed so bent on setting in my workplace and my nation; but I could never memorize it! Not Charisma, not Candida�ten minutes later I�d go to tell people about her and I�d just have to give up in the middle, it was annoying. And I never wrote it down, except on those pink WHILE YOU WERE OUT slips when she�d call my boss on H.R.C.�s behalf and miss her; and I never saw it written down except when I�d have to get something at my boss�s desk and I�d notice that she�d saved every slip that said�
Capricia!
From Martha�s lips I finally hear this name again. I turn from the computer and see her talking to pleasant-looking dark-haired person. Not at all what I�d imagined: of course, my effete mental Capricia would never have lasted so long. Eight years as that woman�s social secretary�from day one, down to the furniture-packing. Did Capricia get some furniture too? Even if she did, I wish her well. But as for the former first lady:
Pardon me
Senator Clinton
for carrying a vial of antivenin in case I ever accidentally cross your cordon at Lutece;
pardon me for noticing that your cheek pouches are stuffed with safe deposit box keys;
pardon me while I go put on blackface so as to be able to worship with you on the news;
pardon me while I go help Martha Stewart into one of the armchairs you haven�t already stolen before she faints in horror at your choice of fabrics for the Blue Room�
she�s barely managing to brace herself on the edge of a table�
pardon me for using your unauthorized likeness in my Powerpoint presentations when I seek venture capital for the development and manufacture of miniature electronic fetal ear filters which will block out the sound of your voice from birth.