Omigod, speak of "the dead"! Larry and i went to Rutgers today because Larry's brother Barry received an award as the New Jersey CASE Educator of the Year. There was actually a ceremony in Washington DC where the teachers from each state were presented with their citations. But this was a Rutgers reception, so we went....

Prior to that, Larry woke me up so i could rush to Circuit City to try to get the just-released DVD of "The Devil Wears Prada", a movie which my niece Jessica (as well as Barry) loved. I thought that would be a good present. But when i got there (there's a new Circuit City on 86th Street, right near us), it turned out that, today, the shipment was Full Screen only! Who wants that? Hopefully, there will be another shipment before the sale price ends, and there'll be the Wide Screen edition.

The reception was a lot of fun, there were a lot of people there, and we wound up taking home some of the poinsettas which the English Department had bought from the Rutgers nursery in order to decorate the Student Center. The English Department is now inundated with poinsettas! We helped bring some of them over to the offices!

When we got home... here's the freaky thing. When we were at Barry's investiture, we were joking about the fact that it was like his life passing before his eyes, because there were colleagues and students from his 35 years of teaching at Rutgers! So what happens when Larry and i get home? We have a message on our machine: it's from Michael!

Michael. Who is now in Hawaii. (We had been wondering why no one had seem to hear from him in San Diego.) Who was our first "son".

How old is he now? I can't remember. It's been over 20 years, so if he was 15 when we first met him... he must be in his mid-30s now. The message is simply that he wonders what our new address is, because he'll be sending us a Christmas card.

If that isn't our life passing before our eyes, i don't know what else would qualify!

(Just like the crazy thing about Annette Michelson, even after knowing her animosity towards me, was that i saved her life, not once, but three times, so the insane thing is that, after Larry's business in San Diego stopped and he moved back full-time to New York City, Michael didn't want to move with us, because his father was still living in San Diego, and his older sister, so Larry went with him and Michael declared himself an emancipated minor... he was 17 at the time... the insane thing is that, within the year of moving back to NYC fuill-time, we took in Kenny! That was the reason that Gregg Araki screamed at me in Japan: he couldn't believe my stupidity in taking in these children. And just before Kenny died, he said that Larry was replacing him with Carmen. Kenny knew he was dying, and he knew that Larry doesn't deal with grief, he simply makes a substitution and moves on. Gregg said, nothing is more important than making a movie! And of course, i've always wanted to make a movie, it was, for me, the logical next step after my performance work, but my rationale is that, if Larry and i can save one child, maybe that's what we're supposed to do. The thing is: Larry hates children! Of course, Michael and Kenny were teenagers when we met them, but they were still not adults.)

And that's why when i had that conversation with Armond White after the screening of "Rules of the Game", i said that i seriously doubt if anyone that we know really would respect the kinds of choices that Larry and i have made in our lives. And it was a choice.

As Gregg Araki said, if it's a choice between making my movie and letting a kid live, the kid can die for all i care.

And that's the attitude that's respected, not just in Hollywood, but in the indie field. And as that Edith Ann character that Lily Tomlin used to play would say, "and that's the truth."