My original January taping date was postponed. Ben chose the Inauguration (attending as a family friend of the Bushes) over working that day.

“What, he’d rather hang out with the President than meet you?” Mom huffed.

The reprieve gave me extra time to prepare. Becky loaned me her excellent Dictionary of Cultural Literacy and I studied it every night before bed. Mom taped episodes for me so I could practice “ringing in” on the buzzer. This was key as I do not have television service in my cabins.

Other friends e-mailed their favorite trivia questions to me. After reading that students who listened to Mozart before an exam performed better than those who didn’t, I bought a CD of Mozart piano duets and taped it.

It wasn’t until the second week of January that my cell phone rang. “Hi Lynn, this is Harv from ‘Win Ben Stein’s Money.’ How are you?”

“Good question, Harv: How am I?” I asked.

He laughed. “Well, probably pretty good, in light of what I’m about to say. Are you still interested in participating in a themed episode?”

I was eager to wear a costume on the show. That way, it would seem more like being in a play and less like me testing my own wits.

Harv continued. “Our writers have come up with a theme episode and I think it would be perfect for you. Are you familiar with film noir?”

“Movies from the 30s and 40s with beautiful, deadly women and the men who love and arrest them, right?”

“You got it. Well, our writers have developed a film noir show and we’d love for you to participate. They’ve written some great bits for Ben and Nancy and we’re filming the entire episode in black and white. Do you have anything in your closet that could suit the theme?”

I made a mental inventory of my closet and hat rack. “Definitely.”

“Super. The taping date will be Thursday, February 8. I’ll send you another contestant bulletin so you know where to park and where your guests should meet.”

“Thanks, Harv. I’m really looking forward to this.”

***
Whenever I have an early morning flight out of San Jose International (airport code SJC), I spend the night at my buddy Steve’s house. Not only is he one of my favorite people in the world, but he lives one block from light-rail and one mile from the airport.

We ate Chinese take-out the night before. My fortune cookie promised future riches beyond my imagination. Good sign. Steve set the alarm clock near the loveseat before going to bed, but the loveseat deemed itself unworthy for sleeping so I pulled the cushions off the couch and put them on the floor, where I slept until the alarm woke me at 5:00 the next morning.

I brushed my teeth in Steve’s kitchen sink and peed outside so as not to awaken him, donned my fabulous lucky panties, my travelling clothes and was at the airport by 5:50.

While waiting in line at the gate I noticed some valentines stapled to the wall behind the counter: “Scott loves the Women of SJC.” “The women of SJC love Scott.”

The Southwest agent gave me boarding pass 23, my lucky number. Woo hoo!

I dozed on the plane ride between pages of A Very Long Engagement, a book that the night before made me cry on page 63.

The plane landed at Burbank, the Lilliputian airport, at Gate A1. Positivity abounding, I had my combat boots shined at the airport for $4, plus a $2 tip. As I rose from the chair another man lingered, considering having his own shoes shined. “He did a beautiful job. Really,” I told the potential patron, “I could eat off of these.”

I called the Cheapy Rental Car counterman from my cell phone. He gave me a Ford Escort. It was pink. Nothing screams “White Trash!” like a pink Ford Escort with somebody else’s Taco Bell garbage in the back seat. I shall not rent from him again.

After putting my bags in the hideous car I returned to the hotel for breakfast, ordering the Burbank Special: an English muffin with Canadian bacon, poached eggs and processed-cheese slices vulcanized on top. I ate quickly, fearing that once the cheese cooled I might break a tooth.

Post-breakfast, I called my wisest client for some last-minute advice. “Just be yourself,” he offered.

I thanked him, and then picked a bone with him over the fact that the book he’d recommended made me cry on page 63. We rang off and I retrieved my bag from my car, to change from modern-woman Lynn Benson to femme-fatale Lynn Benson. This required stripping completely naked in the handicapped stall of the Ramada’s ladies room. My costume consisted of my mid-calf bias-cut Ralph Lauren navy skirt, a long-sleeved pale-yellow sweater with a deep v-neck and the purple cloche hat I bought in Toronto a few years prior. The ensemble didn’t quite match, but as the show would be filmed in black and white I figured it wouldn’t matter.

I chose to wear my super-lucky panties by wearing none at all — it wouldn’t do to get a wedgie on national TV. Once dressed, I ran through my toilette from toothpaste to toner to full TV war paint. Those who saw me enter the ladies room were very surprised when I emerged. I think this had more to do with my costume change than my breakfast choice.

I drove the now-familiar route to the KTLA studios, noticing a movie poster for the upcoming “Sweet November,” which I took as another good sign because November is my birth month. I stopped at Rite-Aid for some last-minute supplies (lipstick, safety pins, water and an eyelash curler) and pulled into KTLA’s “Producer Lot A” 75 minutes before my call time.

Not seeing a parking attendant, I popped my Mozart tape into the cassette deck and read more of Becky’s Dictionary of Cultural Literacy. Another happy coincidence occurred when I glanced at the car’s digital clock and it read 11:23, which is my birthday. About that same time the absent parking attendant returned, and walked around to the driver’s side of my ugly-as-sin rental car.

“Win Ben Stein’s Money,” I answered before he could ask.

“Contestant?”

“Yes.”

“What, are you studying?”

“Yeah,” I said, pushing the button forward to roll up my window and return to the book. Close to noon I left the car, packed the book and my cell phone in the trunk (no cell phones would be allowed on the set) and was preparing to close the trunk when I saw another man dressed in a zoot suit. I smiled at him.

“I bet I know which show you’re taping.”

He smiled back, kind of. We all queued up outside of the guard station and were brought in by some of the same contestant wranglers I remembered from my testing date. They brought us through the parking lot (I hadn’t noticed before that Ben Stein’s license plate phonetically spells “Clear Eyes,” one of the products he promotes) and into the studio building.

We walked up two flights of stairs to a room where we could leave our extra changes of clothes. Then we went to the Green Room where Harv read the rules and regulations to all of us. We signed about 14 forms apiece and were invited to have a Krispy Kreme donut. I ate half of one, hoping the sugar rush would grant me a competitive edge.

“OK, the first show we’re going to tape is the film noir episode.” Harv named me, Terry (the man I’d seen in the parking lot) and the third contestant.

We moved into the hallway to be fitted with microphones. Next thing I knew, a man’s hand was running up the back of my sweater, then around front to pin a mic to my V-neck.

“Uh, hi…” I said, making small talk to assuage the awkwardness of having a strange man’s hands up my front. “What’s your name?”

“Mike.”

Heh.

Chris and Harv led us down to the warehouse adjacent to the sound stage. It was the same place I’d taken the entrance exam. Terry told us that two years ago he’d won $10,000 over two nights playing “Jeopardy.” I concentrated on breathing and staying calm. We talked about movies and funny Ben Stein stories.

Upon learning that I live in the Santa Cruz mountains, Chris warned me that Ben was likely to make some sort of marijuana joke.

“Every day Ben sidles up to a staff member and whispers in their ear, ‘Yo, who’s got the chronic stash?’ ”

“Guess that’s why he’s a pitchman for Clear Eyes,” I commented.

She laughed.

Around 1:00 they let us on to the sound stage. The set dressers outdid themselves. I saw a door with “B. Stein, Private Investigator” to the right of the stage, a big wooden desk with an Underwood typewriter, and other film noir-ish props. Fabulous. I was delighted to see the raven that serves as a mascot on the set.

Harv put me behind the center podium and the two men to either side of me. A prop handler slipped each contestant’s name onto the front of our podiums.

It was about this time that the audience started filing in. This was to be the highest point of my day. Mom had told me a couple of weeks prior that it was fine with her if I invited Dad. They’ve been divorced for more than 10 years and it would be the first time I’d been in the same room with both of my parents since my cousin Clint got married in the early 1990s. I saw them enter with John and my friend Nick, who lives in Southern California and had driven up for the day. They waved. I surreptitiously waved back.

It’s true what they say about filming: it’s a lot of hurry-up-and-wait. It wasn’t until 2:00 that Ben Stein himself appeared on the set. He shook our hands and spoke to each of us in turn.

He was intrigued to hear that I lived in the Santa Cruz Mountains and did indeed mention the cash crop that the area is famous for. I didn’t have the opportunity to tell him that he and I are probably the only two registered Republicans ever to live in Santa Cruz County.

“Hey, we’ve got a lot of vineyards, too, don’t forget,” I chided smilingly.

It was a big thrill to meet him — he seems a very genuine individual.

Then Nancy came over to us. She was all dolled up in a nipped-waist coat with a staggering amount of black liner on her eyes and fake eyelashes out to here. Nice lady, charming and very funny. Super slender, too.

The entire audience was in the studio at this point and a not-so-swell comedian was trying to warm them up. “Please, somebody shoot me,” the comedian said after yet another of his jokes fell flat. “You’re already dead!” I heard my dad respond.

Each contestant pulled a Ping-Pong ball out of a bag to see who would get to go first. Mine was not the brightly painted ball, so no love for Lynn.

The make-up lady went over our faces with a powder brush and the show began!

The contestant to my right was questioned and then the camera focused on me. “Lynn lives in the Santa Cruz Mountains. So, Lynn, we hear that’s where they grow the finest pot in the world.”

I just smiled. I mean, I was taping a show for national television, being teased by one of my favorite celebrities. What else was I going to do?

Nancy continued reading from the card. “And it says that you live in two cabins and get your water from a well.” “Yes, that’s right.” “Well, welcome to civilization.”

John told me later that Ben made me out to be a pot farmer who gets her well water one bucket at a time. What do Southern Californians know about water, anyway?

Terry chose the first question but botched his answer. I rang in and answered correctly. This meant I received a follow-up question, one that I answered correctly thanks to Becky’s book.

For one brief, shining moment, it was Lynn: $100, boys: zilch.

Alas, the trend did not continue. The show folks had warned us beforehand that the buzzers aren’t activated until the question has been read. I’d practiced for weeks with videotapes, ringing in the second the question was read.

Unfortunately, I overtrained. Though I knew most of the answers, I rang in too quickly. Maybe my next job will be as the electrician for “Win Ben Stein’s Money,” ’cause the guy they had was asleep at the switch.

During the commercial break I caught Harv’s eye. “I don’t think this thing is working.” We tested it and it was OK.

Too bad for me. Out at the end of the first round. Bummer.

Of course, when one gets out in the first round, one must wait around for the second and third rounds to be done. I sat to the side of the aisle, below the audience bleachers. Mom gave me a thumbs-up and Dad patted my shoulder.

Naturally, during the second round, there were two questions that nobody, including Ben Stein, knew the answers to. I knew ’em both (“Where is the Rosetta Stone housed?” and “Who is novelist Carol Higgins Clark’s mother,” to which one contestant answered “Agatha Christie.” Mom was laughing about that one for the rest of the day).

These two questions would have put me into the third round even though I’d earned only $100 by the end of the first. I would not have done as well as Terry did in the third round, though: He ended up tying Ben’s score and going home with $1400. If you watch the show to the very end when the roll the credits, you will likely hear me calling “Woo hoo!” in the background.

I should have my lovely parting gifts, $205 worth of outdoor gear (probably backpacks), 90 days after my show airs. Hopefully I’ll have them in time for a backpacking trip before the season is over.

I figure that I spent $500 on two plane tickets, two car rentals, and new clothes, so it’s not the worst investment I ever made…

When all’s said and done, though, it was worth it to share a lunch with my Mom and my Dad and John and Nick at Musso and Frank. It was especially worth it to walk up Hollywood Blvd. with the four of them to visit the Frederick’s of Hollywood Celebrity Lingerie Museum, where we saw one of Uncle Milty’s dresses and a tiny doll-sized bra.

“Who’s bra is that?” John asked.

“Calista Flockhart’s,” I answered.

He laughed.

As I left the room I heard him repeating the line to Dad.

It was super-especially worth it when Nick cornered me in the secondhand bookshop we stopped in at. “You looked great… gorgeous, really. I wanted to eat you alive. I told your Mom that I figured by the time they were done with the taping you’d have a show of your own.”

We returned our respective rental cars and hung out at the airport, drinking copious drinks (except for John), talking about books and waiting for our flights. John took a picture with me, Mom and Dad — the first such picture to exist since my Junior Prom in 1988. I kissed both of my parents goodbye and boarded the San Jose-bound plane with John.

I was so high on life by that time, I expect I could have flown home without benefit of an airplane. And I’m not even a pot farmer in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

Becoming a contestant on the TV show “Win Ben Stein’s Money” was more difficult than getting into graduate school. More expensive, too. I wish I were kidding.

This all began because I’ve been e-mailing the show for years: “I would love to match wits against Ben. I would even wear a costume. Heck, I’d wear my nightgown!” It’s been my favorite quiz show since the first season, due to its double-whammy of hard questions and meager prize money. My fandom was such that the people where I used to live began calling me “Lynn Ben-Stein” (this when I wasn’t “LB” or “Bin Lenson” or “Osama Bin Lenson”). How could I not be attracted to that?

So one day last October (y2k) my cell phone rings while I’m serving booth duty at the International Tandem User Group. I stepped out of the booth so as not to be a hypocrite and break my own rule of “no cell phone usage in the booth,” and answered it. “Lynn Benson.”

“Hi, Lynn,” a friendly woman’s voice said. “This is Chris from ‘Win Ben Stein’s Money.’ We received your e-mail and would like to run you through a 10-question phone test. Are you someplace where we can talk? It will take 5-10 minutes.”

“Not really, but I can quickly remedy that. Let me have your number and I’ll call you right back.”

After excusing myself from the booth with muted-but-hyper mutterings, I scooted out the hall’s main doors, sat down on a bench and returned Chris’s call.

“Hi Chris, this is Lynn. I’m calling from the San Jose Convention Center on my cell phone, and if we get cut off I’ll go elsewhere and call you back. I’m ready.”

We talked for a minute about what I do (“Head Honcho, Motormouth Marketing, founded the company more than two years ago…”) and then she asked me the 10 questions.

I said I’d get back to three of them, but at the end of the test Chris informed me that my seven answers yielded a qualifying score. Woo hoo!

My next step: Fly to Burbank for the show’s 30-question written exam. While talking with my friend Becky that week, we happened upon the happy coincidence that my plans and her upcoming business jaunt to Southern California would overlap. She offered the spare bed she’d have in her double room.

I now had corporate sponsorship. Thanks, Siemens.

The Southwest flight to Burbank was just the way I like ’em: uneventful. I rented a car from Cheapy Car Rental at the airport Ramada and drove through the drizzle to the KTLA studios. Figuring that the producers sought people who are not only smart but also kind of eccentric and out-there, I wore my pink snakeskin jacket and my brown fuzzy hat. I smiled at every person I saw working on the studio lot, and just happened to have a brief conversation with the primary contestant wrangler as I walked through the roll-up door. “Nice jacket,” he told me.
“Thanks. The pink snakes are girls and the blue snakes are boys.”

“I always wondered about that,” he mused. “The hat is terrific.”

“It keeps the rain off my glasses.” We waved our good-byes.

About 120 of us filed into a large studio building. I looked around. Darn. No casting couch.

We seated ourselves at the long rows of tables and listened anxiously as the coordinators gave us a run-down of what the night would bring. “First, you’ll all take our 30-question written test,” the man I spoke with earlier, whose name turned out to be Harv, explained to the room. “Short answer, no multiple choice. I can’t tell you how well you need to do on it but… you’ve seen the show. So figure you’ll need to do pretty darn well on the test. When we come back from grading your tests, if we call your name, please stay in the building because that means you passed. If we don’t call your name, well, thank you very much for trying and we’ll hope to see you again next year.”

We completed our one-page contestant information sheets.

“This is where you write your name, address, plus the facts that you’d want to talk with Nancy and Ben about,” Harv told us.

I was amazed that some people hadn’t already thought of two interesting facts about themselves for the application. My problem had been choosing just which adventure to document. I wrote, “I was once fired from a job for being too honest, and during a junior-high youth-group game last year, I became the coolest adviser ever by eating an entire tin of smoked oysters in four bites.”

Finally, they distributed the test booklets. “Don’t turn them over until we give you the signal,” they advised, transporting me back to my AP-exam days in high school. They gave the signal and we began.

Question one: ‘Easy. No problem,’ I thought.

Question two: ‘I know that,’ confidently writing the answer on my answer sheet.

Question three: ‘I don’t remember that right now, but I know I will when I come back to it,’ I thought.

Question four: ‘Uhhhhhh…’

Question five: ‘Uhhhhhhhh…’

It was the most difficult test I’ve taken in 17 years of education.

No cracks about California public schools, please. I can tell you that while I struggled through it, the labored breathing of my tablemates told me that they weren’t doing so hot, either.

“What is the name of the Israeli intelligence organization?” it asked me.

‘Damn! Katherine quizzed me on that, I knew there would be an Israel question… what is it?’ I couldn’t pull it out of my interior monologue and needed to move on. I wrote, “Ishtar.”

I filled in answers for every question, most of which seemed at least pretty close to the mark (though I never did learn the correct response for their question about a specific Indian soup). Mercifully, shortly thereafter the governor called, and we were all asked to pass our answer sheets face-down toward the aisle.

My forehead buzzed as though electrified, and I turned my head to see that the rest of the hopefuls wore slackened jaws and were mouth-breathing from the effort. After a couple of minutes we somewhat regained our composure, and the ones who bounced back quickest started milling about.

A tall Scandinavian man stopped and asked me, “How are you doing?” “Better than I will be in 15 minutes, I bet.” I replied glumly.

When Harv and his proctors returned, some people bolted to their seats while others walked languidly, feigning indifference. I just wished they’d all hurry up so we could learn our immediate fate. Imagine my surprise when mine was the fourth name called. I passed the test!

He read through the names and bid adieu to those who weren’t called. I noticed that the only person at our table who’d thought he’d done well was excused. As the others were leaving, the rest of us had our picture taken by an assistant with a Polaroid camera. I went to the ladies room, jumped up and down and called John (dear friend/other half of Motormouth) to tell him I’d passed the test by the skin of my “Ishtar.”

Harv then corralled us to the other side of the room, where a table had been set up with three dry-cleaners bells, facing a chalkboard. He announced that we’d be playing a mock game, with three of us up at a time. Those of us not playing would be the audience and offer applause and support. I got the feeling we would be graded on this. I went up with the second group and did not exactly cover myself with glory, answering “hockey” when the actual answer was “basketball.” But I did so with a big smile and confident voice, which they said they were going to judge very highly.

“You already passed the test so we know you all are already smarter than the average bear. This is where we see how you’d look on TV.”

Hell, I’d look great on TV. I had control of the board only one time, though. My group’s questions seemed a lot harder than everyone else’s (isn’t that always the way?), so I smiled more than I spoke.

The coordinators must have realized this because at the end of the line, there were only two people left to play a game so they called me back up. I did better this time, answering one question correctly and making a joke answer to another that the other competitors had already missed.

Everyone laughed. I smiled harder.

When our round was over we sat down and Harv told us what the next step would be. “We’ll go over the notes and answers tonight and if you hear from us tomorrow, that means you’re on the ‘Win Ben Stein’s Money’ Active Contestant List. If you don’t hear from us, please don’t call. There’s always next year. Also, being on the List does not guarantee that you will be filmed, as it has more names than we’ll actually need for the filming.”

They let us out into the night. The rain had cleared and when I returned to the car I called Becky, who was just dropping her colleagues at the hotel after their dinner. We agreed to meet at the bar of Musso and Frank, the Hollywood icon that’s been there forever.

I arrived first and noticed that the actor Vincent Schiavelli was at a large table close to the bar. He’s the tall actor with long, dark, often stringy hair and a prominent, imposing forehead.

I spoke with an old lady who had spent most of her day on the bus, trying to find another apartment. She’d recently adopted her deceased sister’s cat, but her building had a “no pets” clause, requiring her to move elsewhere. “What else can I do? I can’t leave the kitty.” She said it as much to her martini as to me.

Becky arrived and I told her the story as she drank a light beer and I drank my cosmo, the color of which matched my jacket. I discreetly pointed out Mr. Schiavelli to her. “Oh, I loved him in ‘Ghost.'” Becky said. “Remember? ‘Get off of my train!'” We laughed.

As we were finishing our drinks he got up to leave and passed by us. We stopped him and said how much we admired him. He handed our star-struckedness with charm. Becky repeated his “Get off of my train” line and he smiled, but she looks like Yasmine Bleeth so most men would smile at her even if she were reading a list of breakfast-cereal ingredients.

We had a great dinner around the corner at an Italian place and then I followed her back to Carson. When I awoke in the morning she and her bags were long gone, and I smiled after seeing the note she’d left: Dear Ms. Test Passer, Hope the rest of your day is fabuloso! It was great seeing you! She’d signed it with a smiley face and “P.S. Get off of my train!”

My Southwest flight back to San Jose was as uneventful as the first. Another prayer answered. When I made it to the curb to be picked up I called voicemail from my cell phone. “Hi Lynn. This is Chris at ‘Win Ben Stein’s Money’ and I’m happy to say that you are now on our Active Contestant List. Congratulations!”

I saw John shortly thereafter and got into the car. “I made it, John!”

“I figured you were going to,” he answered. “They called the office this morning and asked me a bunch of questions about you.”

“Questions? Like what?” I asked.

“Stuff like, ‘What role does Lynn have at Motormouth? Is she gregarious? How long have you known her, where did you meet her? Where do you live? Do you think that she’s funny, can you tell me any funny anecdotes.'” John said.

“So, what did you tell them?”

“Well, when he asked about where we met, I told him about the Spartan Daily and how half the people in the newsroom had a big thing for you, but you had no idea.”

“I still want names for that,” I reminded him.

“But to be fair, I told him that everyone else knew that the girl I was dating was a big ho, but nobody told me.”

“What’d he say to that?” I asked.

“He said, ‘turnabout is fair play, huh?'”

“Did you say anything else?”

“Yeah, the guy seemed interested so I told him about the time at George’s graduation party when George kissed Brooke as she was leaving and we were all around the front porch, and she was so gay and had such a look of revulsion on her face that it prompted you to ask the group if anyone had a toothbrush.”

“… and Don Ritchey pulled one from his backpack and handed it to her.” I said, finishing the story.

We laughed. “Geez, John, anything else?”

“Just your newsroom attitude.”

‘Uh oh,’ I thought.

John continued with his thought as though he hadn’t noticed mine. “…Especially when you’d be waiting for me to finish my story because you wanted to lay out the paper and go home, and the first time you’d be all nice and ask, ‘Do you think… anytime soon?’ and the second time you’d say, ‘We really have to get going.’ Then, by the third time you’d come by and explode, ‘What the hell are you doing? Who are you to hold up the whole production? Finish the freaking story already!'” John laughed.

“Yeah. The guy even asked, ‘What happened the fourth time?’ I told him that with me, there never was a fourth time.”

Ahh, the good old days.

“Nice that you mentioned my nurturing side,” I said as we turned onto the highway.

“Well, after scamming your way through the test I figured I needed to do something to bolster your likelihood of appearing,” John rationalized. “Ishtar, Lynn? I mean, really…”

Alex and I have a houseguest staying with us for a month. His name is Robin, and we met him when we were in France last year.

I know I haven’t written anything about my two weeks in Europe last September, and I’m grievously sorry about that. Of course, while I was on this vacation with my neighbors to watch Dave and Sabrina get married for the second time, I was the only one who faithfully recorded the trip in a travel journal. One hundred and eighty pages later, I wasn’t sure whether I had a Web update or a stage play on my hands. I’m still sorting that one out.

Alex kind of killed my urge to Web-purge by looking me dead in the eye and telling me, “I don’t want to see my trip on your Web site.” Oh well.

If my vacation were a play, Robin would have a very large supporting role as the primary French protagonist. Dave and Sabrina were totally stressed out, having just moved to a new apartment when the American contingency arrived en masse. None of us speaks French and only Nik and Thida rented a car.

Robin was our savior. A true ambassador, he hosted us in his apartment and in his car and around the beautiful city of Bordeaux. Took two weeks off from work so he could hang out with us and drive us around. His presence diffused the stress of being in a foreign country with people bearing high expectations.

A crush developed between Robin and one of the ladies on the trip (not I), which I believe was the primary reason he chose to spend his vacation in California. His insistent manner really scared off the woman in question, though, so I’m not sure this trip is turning into what he thought it would be. It doesn’t seem to have bothered him too much, though.

Stacia, Alex, John Lewis and I drove to SFO to pick him up nearly two weeks ago. Stacia and Alex ran up to the catwalk to look for him in the pre-customs area. They finally returned after John Lewis retrieved them.

“Did you see him?” I asked Stacia.

“Yeah. He’s talking to some girl.”

Robin passed through the Customs gate and attempted to sneak up on Alex to wrassle. They caused a bit of a scene at the airport, but I’m accustomed to such things with my exuberant housemate. He shook hands with John Lewis and Stacia gave him a kiss on the cheek.

“I’m so happy you’re here,” I told Robin when it was my turn. Work notwithstanding, it’d been a pretty crappy month and I was looking forward to having a distraction around.

We got him to our street and he pretended to go to Nik and Thida’s house, which used to be Dave and Sabrina’s house and also where he stayed last time he was in California. His previous visit coincided with the visit of his ex-girlfriend and also Sabrina’s best friend. That was also right around the time when Sabrina thought she was pregnant. So we all weren’t spending much time together. Foolish of us.

Robin not only brought us himself, but he brought us a houseguest — a 25-year old Frenchwoman named Cecile, who was to begin at the California Academy of Arts and Crafts the next week. We hit our first communication snag when trying to determine what exactly he wanted us to do with her.

“Robin, do you want her to come to our house?” I finally asked.

“Yes, sure, I think it’s better,” he responded.

I called my mom that night. “Our houseguest brought us a houseguest!”

She laughed.

We drove Cecile to school on Monday, and reveled in the quiet on the drive back.

Anyway, his visit has been going really well so far. He’s sleeping in the office on the futon I scored from Brandon, so he sleeps when we’re not working.

He wasn’t feeling well last week — I think he had the flu. The day he had it the worst, he napped on the sofa, then went over to the side window, peered out, and shook a cat toy on the end table. Then he rolled his eyes in disgust.

“Lynn. I am the same as the cat.”

Yes, it’s going to be a fun month.

It’s true, hating Microsoft Word is kind of like hating your toaster, it’s so ubiquitous. But I’m so tired of it trying to second-guess me, an intelligent woman with a college degree, by making its own changes, none of which I was after in the first place and all of which require a Ph.D. in sub-particle C++ to change it back to the way you wanted it in the first place.

I remember the glory days of MS-Word: Version 5.1 for the Macintosh. Ahhhh, memories. It allowed you to move paragraphs around but didn’t automatically take over your document. It was small and sleek, like my neighbors’ Burmese cats. It helped you when you wanted it to and left you alone the rest of the time. Plus, it ran like a demon on my Powerbook Duo 2300c.

Dad laughed at me once when I said I’d be happy running Word 5.1 for the rest of my life. Who’s laughing now? I’ll tell you: Bill Gates, and he’s laughing all the way to his underground 10-car garage.

Personally, I’d be happy if the only “feature” they kept on the next version was the one that changes “teh” to “the”. Of course, I won’t be able to purposely misspell that word until I paste it into SimpleText for HTML coding.

And when it’s not capitalizing letters that you didn’t want capitalized or changing *this* into this or turning your emoticon into an actual right-side-up smiley face, that damn paperclip pops up and insinuates that you don’t have the faintest idea of what you’re doing, that it’s smarter than you ever possibly could be and you’d be better off by just going away and letting it finish the job for you, thank you very much.

Wirecutters, anyone?

And don’t even get me _started_ on the grammar check, which underlined the entire above paragraph in green, suggesting that it is a long sentence but offering no suggestions as to how it could be improved. When did my seventh-grade English teacher get a QA job up in Redmond?

Apparently the MS engineers aren’t satisfied with their jillions of dollars worth of stock options, but prefer to increase their personal satisfaction by making you “ignore” anything they believe is an error again and again and again, which is really starting to have an effect on my internal confidence that my writing is un-ignorable.

In the interest of truth-in-advertising, I think we should start a petition to change the name of the program from Microsoft Word to Microsoft Turing. Who’s with me here? To the barricades!

I sent an e-mail invitation to my friends today and I would like to extend it to you:

****

Hi everybody, Hey, it’s nearly Easter! Here’s my church schedule in case anyone is interested in joining me for Holy Week services:

Tonight (Thursday) at 7:30: Maundy Thursday service at Trinity Presbyterian Church. It’s on the corner of Alameda De Las Pulgas and Brittan Ave. in San Carlos. Maundy Thursday is the celebration of the Last Supper. This will not be your standard average church service.

Tomorrow (Friday) at 12:00 noon: Good Friday service at St. Matthias Catholic Church on Cordilleras off Edgewood in Redwood City (near where you turn for Edgewood Park). This will be a multi-denominational service with many different priests/pastors presiding. I’ve never attended a multi-denominational service and think it will be pretty terrific (and probably very intense, as Good Friday is the day Christ was crucified). Trinity’s sanctuary will also be open from 12-3 for meditation and reflection on Good Friday.

Easter Sunday: Trinity Presbyterian will have Easter services at 9:00 at 10:30 a.m. I have a speaking part at these services, my first time participating in a Sunday-morning worship (woo hoo!). All of the services will last about an hour. My first real church experience was a Good Friday service while I was in high school, and it touched me deeply. You are all welcome to join me in celebrating the death and resurrection of Jesus. OK, that’s all. Happy almost Easter! Love, Lynn …who sincerely hopes nobody is offended or put-out by this message.

****

Anyway, I would love it if you felt drawn to join me at one of these services. My office will be closed tomorrow for Good Friday.

Today is Maundy Thursday. Tonight I went to the World Internet Center, drank a glass of wine, swapped some business cards. After that I drove to church. Maundy means commandment, a fact I didn’t know until tonight. This evening signifies the beginning of the end, the night that Jesus was betrayed by Judas and arrested. It’s been 2000 years since that happened. I sucked in my breath at Pastor Mary’s words. 2000 years and He hasn’t come back yet. What is He waiting for?

I sat next to a with-it, together young woman (well, she’s younger than me). I’d co-advised Quest, Trinity Presbyterian’s junior-high youth group, with her for more than two years. We looked at the cross, wrapped in black and purple net, on the altar, especially when Pastor Bob told the congregation to intently focus on its powerful imagery.

I leaned in to my friend. “Remember when we each carried it?”

She nodded. “I was just thinking about that. Wasn’t that weird?”

We had used the cross last year as part of a meditative exercise with the Quest kids. You haven’t lived until you’ve done contemplative religion with 10- to 12-year olds.

After the kids were gone, she and I had the responsibility of bringing the cross from the fellowship hall up to the sanctuary. I bore it, t-square on my back, my wrists dangling over the horizontal beam.

“Oh my… Lynn, that looks so freaky.”

“It’s pretty heavy. And it’s only six feet tall. Do you want to try carrying it?”

She eagerly affirmed and we switched places. I watched her walk in front of me. “Wow…” I said at the sight. “What do you think?”

“It’s really something. You’re right, it’s heavy.”

“And it’s nowhere near as big as Jesus’ was. And His back was laid open.”

We carried it the rest of the way in silence, taking our time to position it in its original spot downstage of the choir, which was both rehearsing and watching us bemusedly.

So anyway, I know that religion is a touchy subject. But sometimes you just gotta put something out there when nobody else thinks speaking would be appropriate. Pastor Bob characterized Peter as “the disciple with the foot-shaped mouth,” this evening. My friend and I stifled giggles.

Last summer I led a Christian leadership camp for incoming sixth-graders. My intentions weren’t entirely honorable – I wanted them to get to know me so they’d be more likely to come to Quest. We had a great time talking about everything from how to solve problems to bibliomancy to “The Blair Witch Project.”

The second-to-last day of camp, I was talking to my group of nine when Pastor Mary (who is a Ph.D. and the senior pastor of my church) entered the youth room and sat down on the floor. I introduced her and went on with my subject.

“What can we do when we’re facing a problem?”

“We can look at the ways it can be an opportunity,” Sterling replied.

“And why do we have problems sometimes?”

“Because we need to look at something a different way.”

“So who makes all this happen?” I asked.

“Jesus.”

“Why???” I asked them, prompting them to call out my favorite Scripture verse: “I SHALL FEAR NO EVIL, FOR THOU ART WITH ME!”

I took a breath. “Remember what we talked about the other day? About how some people shut Jesus out of their lives? How they build a brick wall around their hearts to keep Him out?”

They nodded.

“Why is that a stupid thing to do?”

“Because he’s already there,”  a kid replied. Magic.

From those words, we launched some other subject, but I couldn’t tell you what it was, and I don’t recall at what point Pastor Mary left, either.

So go to church tomorrow, even if you sit in the back and don’t talk to anyone. Just listen to what the priest/pastor/reverend/elder has to say with an open mind. You might be surprised at your reaction to what it is you’re hearing.

And then come to Trinity Presbyterian Church at 9:00 this Sunday morning to hear me proclaim the good news: Christ is Risen! He is Risen, Indeed. Alleluia! Let the People Rejoice!

Even better, on Ally McBeal tonight, Calista Flockhart looked fat. I’m taking my joy where I can get it these days, thanks.

My beloved grandma died on Leap Year’s Day. Even now the thought immediately summons congestion to my sinuses.

“Hi Grandma!”

“Hi Honey!”

“I love you.”

“Love…”

“I’m praying for you, Grandma.”

“Pray…”

I looked into her face and hugged her.

That was Sunday. She died Tuesday, Leap Year’s Day. It is a testament to her perpetual ladyhood that her family will only have to commemorate the day of her death every fourth year.

Everyone’s been really nice about it. I heard from a lot of people in my church. My senior pastor’s sister used to live in the same apartment building and it was nice to meet her.

With funerals come family, too. I had the opportunity to acquaint myself with my uncle who works at the Grand Canyon National Park, and a schoolchum of his who now writes for the Oakland Tribune. I even got to celebrate Grandma’s remaining living sister’s 94th birthday, complete with yum-yum cake and bingo.

But oh God, I miss her so much. So much that even my first-serious and only-ever live-in boyfriend sent me a sympathy card that was so sweet, so heartfelt that it made me cry.

Crying has been a big theme of this year. D and I no longer speak to each other. Ending our 5-year friendship and most of our professional association left a void, but it was time.

Robin’s visit coincided with the initial month of separation, which helped immensely. I think I miss the French one more than the American. Whatever.

I did have a fun day last Monday, though. My friend Katherine’s cousin was in town so the three of us did something I’ve never done — we went to Alcatraz! The audio tour was terrific, lots of cell doors clanging shut in your ears as you wander the block.

Then after I got home, John drove me to Watercourse Way for a massage.

So I’m back. No permanent damage, though I’m still a little tender around the edges and am sniffling a bit more than usual. But that’s OK. Winter is gone — the winter of nature and the winter of spirit and experience. I welcome the spring, with the promise of more guitar playing and sailboat lessons and sun until late in the evening.

I sent Virtual Flowers to a few special people today and would like to share the Scripture portion of my messages with you: “for lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.” The Song of Solomon 2:11-12

I wish you all a joyful, renewing, song-filled, healthy Springtime.

Work till your eyes are bleary. Eschew assignments for mp3 hunting. Play the same 10 tracks from your collection of more than 200. Turn up the volume so nobody hears you sniffle at your desk. Sleep incessantly. Watch all the late-late shows that you’re usually asleep for. Step over your suitcases rather than unpacking them and putting them back in the closet. Scrub the front door’s threshold. Convince your housemate that rearranging the furniture would be a good idea. Wish you could call everyone you know. Opt instead for eating Easter candy. Don’t have lunch until 4:00. Instead of eating lunch, go for a run. Lie around the sofa imitating the cat. Breathe. Drop your shoulders down from your ears. You might ache for a while, but it will be all right.

Someday.

07/03/1999, Dateline: Summer Home Park — Usually, the Summer Home Park Independence Day Canoe Race is something that Debbie and Mike do. They’ve only won it once, though — the first year that a trophy was involved. Good timing.

There’s a picture of Mike and Deb holding the trophy at Snug Harbor, the family compound where I spent my summers every year of my childhood. Every other year they’re on track to win, but get tipped by self-appointed race-fixers. Bastards!

So we all toddled down to the beach but Deb wasn’t with us, as she needed to pick up her boyfriend at the airport.

“You know, Lynn,” Mike said to me, “if Debbie doesn’t show up, it’s you and me in the canoe race.”

“Looking forward to it, Mike.” I replied.

We watched the swim races — always boys first, then the awards for that race, and then the girls. When the announcer called the “Girls 18 and under” race, Mike headed towards the canoe. “C’mon Lynn, let’s go.”

We walked towards the boat. A woman sitting with her feet in the River heard me ask Mike, “OK, so the plan is for me to stick to one side and paddle like hell, right?” She laughed.

We entered the canoe and paddled toward the footbridge that would serve as the starting line. Mike clued me in on our strategy — line up closest to the rocks (farthest from the shore) and make a tight turn around the rowboat. And forcibly dissuade anyone who might try to tip our canoe.

We paddled under the bridge and practiced turning around. I didn’t quite get it — although I’d grown up canoeing, it had been many years since I’d sat in the front seat of the cabin’s aluminum canoe.

“How about when it’s time, I’ll just yell ‘back! back! back!’ really loud until it’s time for you to stroke forward again?”

“Good plan,” I concurred.

Others were converging and we jockeyed for position. The swim races wrapped up and we paddled under the bridge to line up. The judge approached us. “Closer to the other boats, please.”

“No thanks, we’re fine where we are,” Mike said.

“No lead-offs,” the judge reminded us.

“Of course not,” I huffed.

JT and his female partner were in the canoe next to us. He’s about eight years younger than me and has been a pest for as long as I’ve known him. So it shouldn’t have surprised me when, after the gun went off, JT held on to the back of our canoe. Mike extricated us from JT’s grasp and we began to paddle wholeheartedly. We were fourth, then third, and then second only to JT in his stupid yellow canoe.

I wasn’t wearing my glasses, which wasn’t that important since I wasn’t responsible for the steering (if I had been, we probably would have ended up in Santa Rosa or Seal Rock or somewhere). The emcee had said that the turn-around point would be Highcroft, a beach two beaches down from our starting point, but the rowboat was parked closer to Badman’s Beach, 50 yards from the end of our beach.

The boat ahead of us splashed us with what felt like a cubic ton of water. I heard my father hollering encouragement as we paddled furiously past the sandy side of the beach.

We were the first to reach the rowboat, and the only ones to make a counter-clockwise turn.

“Back! Back! Back!” Mike hollered. I dug in until I heard him call, “Forward! Around the boat! Around the boat!”

We were first coming out of the turn and easily put a canoe length or two between us and JT. I stroked on the other side for some yards to let my other arm rest for the sprint to the bridge.

That is, until I peered ahead and saw heads in the water.

Uh oh.

Let me get this straight right now — I was *not* going to allow us to get tipped. Neither was Mike, who said later, “Sure, you can tip a canoe — just make sure it’s not mine.”

Two ruffians took hold of our canoe but Mike beat ’em off of the side with his paddle. They slowed us, though, to the point where JT took the lead. I switched my paddle to my stronger side and stroked mightily.

Two other fellows swam to our canoe. The one closer to the bow went to put his hands on it. I raised my paddle menacingly and stared him down. I may even have growled at him. He backed off quickly, cowed by my ferocity.

JT was still ahead of us. If this were an epic poem, this would be the crescendo:

The race was swift,
the current mighty,
we’d not give up
without a fight-y.

We were a mere 15 yards from the bridge when the heavens opened, the angels sang, and ruffians got hold of JT’s canoe. Tipped it clean over. I saw his head emerge from the water to late to warn Mike to steer around. Bonk.

Our competition vanquished, Mike and I paddled to victory. I threw back my head and let out a victory yell.

“OK, and we’ve got some very happy winners,” the emcee announced to the crowd.

Arms and lungs burning, we turned around the canoe and shouted our names to the statistician. “Mike Martin and Mari… uh, Lynn Benson.”

“Who?”

“Lynn Benson.”

“What’s the last name?”

“BENSON.” I bellowed. Did I mention I’ve been swimming at this beach since I was four years old?

We paddled back to the beach to collect our trophy.

“That canoe’s greased lightening! That’s what you should call it!” the girls on the shore chattered excitedly.

We walked up to the bridge to collect our trophy and champagne.

“Where’s the cup?” Mike asked.

“We don’t have it. It’s at the Lodge.”

“What about our champagne?”

“Not this year,” they told us.

“Well, then I want to emcee this next year,” Mike announced.

We walked the canoe back along the shore, accepting congratulations. JT met us and rubbed his head. Mike didn’t even know we’d hit him.

The other canoe tippers grumbled that we ought not to get the trophy since we’d done harm to those who’d tried to tip us. We laughed off their complaints.

“It’s not like we drew blood,” Mike philosophized. “If there’s no blood, it’s a fair fight.” Which sounded reasonable enough to me.

We made it back to the sandy side of the beach to the huzzahs of friends and family.

“I didn’t think you were going to win,” Dad said. “Figured you were too out of shape. At least you can say you didn’t overtrain.”

“Screw off, Dad,” I riposted, imagining the taste of victory champagne from a trophy engraved with my name. My name. Ahhhh, victory is indeed sweet.

This review contains spoilers (i.e. stuff you maybe shouldn’t know until you see the movie). The movies and this review contain adult themes that should not be read by children without an adult guardian in the room. Kids, get your folks and make an evening out of it!

If you don’t want to know what happens in “Austin Powers:TSWSM,” “Happiness,” “The House of Yes” and “The Ice Storm” before you see them for yourself, then bookmark this page and come back to it after you see them. S’alright? S’alright.

It was Friday morning (06/11/1999) and I called Dean to find out what time the first “Austin Powers: TSWSM” showing was. He told me that he’d read some about the movie and it didn’t sound like something he would like to see. Tease.

John tried to get Christy to come but they decided they’d go to Santa Cruz after, instead. Alex had to work, Abby had the day off but was thinking of going to Sacramento.

I called Jim. He had to finish up at a job but would be available for the 1:55 show. I bought three tickets for John, me, and Jim.

John was running late so I paged him and told him that I’d tape his ticket to our office door. There are few things I dislike worse than hanging out front of a movie theater waiting for someone.

I scored us a row of five seats in the hidden balcony I like. There was a father and his junior-high aged son sitting behind me. We talked about the first “Austin Powers,” about “The Phantom Menace” and the Quest junior-high youth group at Trinity Presbyterian.

I called Dean on my cute new cell phone and offered him a last chance to sit in our only available seat. Abby and Jim showed up with refreshments.

The movie was pretty funny. Thankfully, John showed up before the first Jerry Springer bit. John loves “The Jerry Springer Show.” We laughed as Dr. Evil called Jerry a mother**** and attacked.

“John, where are the lesbians?” I asked.

The answer is: Sitting on Frau Farbissina’s side of the table. The German commandant has “learned to embrace the love that dare not speak its name.” That leads to a pretty funny Dr. Evil line later on (well, if you go by the year, I guess it would be “earlier on”), one of the better set-ups of the film.

After 10 minutes I lost count at eight blatant product placements. Elizabeth Hurley offers her husband a post-shag Smint.

For the third in the series (you *know* there will be a third), Number Two should orchestrate world domination by merging the Evil-led Starbucks with the Gates-led Microsoft.

Oh behave!

I bet it’s exhausting to hang out with Mike Myers. Heather Graham is anatomically impossible — she really ought to think of having her body bronzed while she still can. And the size-conscious folks who threw such a fit about 24-Hour Nautilus’s “When Aliens Come, They’ll Eat the Fat Ones First” campaign will be absolutely livid about the Fat Bastard character.

The convertibles were amazing: Jaguars, ‘Vettes, even a convertible new-school VW bug, tripped-out and psychedelic. (I wonder if Volkswagen had something to do with that?)

The names were amusing (Ivana Humpalot is a personal favorite) and the acting was harmless.

So the movie was clever enough and I had a number of belly laughs, but it’s been only seven hours since I left the theater and I can really only remember two or three worthwhile quotes. That will probably improve after I see it again. My favorite was, “I put the ‘grr’ in ‘swinger,’ baby!” Rowrrr….

Lynn’s Rating: Great matinee, would even maybe pay full-price to see it again.

After we left the theater and I did some more work and Abby and Jim ate dinner, we went to Jim’s house to watch “Happiness,” the movie Abby had rented. It’s a 1998 film directed and written by Todd Solondz, who also wrote and directed “Welcome to the Dollhouse,” the saga of a picked-on girl and her hellride through junior-high school.

I tried watching that one once and couldn’t take it — turned it off after less than 15 minutes.

I brought along a book to Jim’s in case this movie was the same way. But the fact is, I can’t imagine *anyone* losing interest in this film. It’s a deep look into the intertwined lives of these horribly pathetic yet believable people, some of whom are related by birth, blood or marriage. The perfect family is anything but: the psychiatrist is a pedophile, the sisters are either self-involved or horribly destined to loserdom, and things are done and said that I don’t believe that have ever been committed to “respectable” celluloid.

It’s brilliant.

The way that the pedophile talks to his son, the way that the fat, hyper-alone character played by Camryn Manheim adoringly strokes the face of the passed-out drunken obscene phone caller, who’s providing the successful, selfish poet (“Everything I write is so shallow! ‘Rape at Twelve,’ ‘Rape at Eleven.’ I’ve never been raped. How can I write about it?”) her first alternative view of life, the way that Marla Maples consoles a woman facing divorce after 40 years of marriage (“Divorce was the best thing that ever happened to me”). Most of these people are rotten. Really rotten. The nicest person in the film also has the most depressing, pathetic life, which snowballs after Jon Lovitz cuts her to the core in a speech I wish I’d made at least *once* way-back-when while dating members of the lower links of the food chain…

This is a movie that gives us a sympathetic glimpse into the lives of monsters. Even Dr. Maplewood, the pedophile brilliantly portrayed by the unassuming-looking Dylan Baker, supports his family, holds down a job, teaches and reassures his son through his pre-pubescent anxieties, albeit sometimes in a borderline, “did-he-really-say-that?” fashion. It’s the callously rotten characters who are more unlikable than the monsterly rotten characters. I was most repelled by Helen, the pretentious poet, who whines, “It’s just I’m… I’m so tired of being admired all the time. All these men I mean… they’re all beautiful, artistic minds, great sex, the whole package, but hollow, you know what I mean? I feel nobody’s really honest with me. Nobody wants me for me.”

Yeah baby, I get you. Loud and clear. Bitch.

The Internet Movie Database lists “Happiness” as a comedy. I’d like to know which sick person is getting a laugh out of that one. It’s black comedy, sometimes ham-fisted to make sure you’re understanding that some of these scenes are unbelievably amusing.

Todd Solondz has a great interview at Nitrate Online that explains quite a bit. But the movie is visually clever, an easier sort of gag to laugh at. Toward the end of the film, Dr. Maplewood drives past a “Watch Children” street sign on his way to tend to his second young victim. It helped my comfort level that the only boy Dr. Maplewood has on-camera physical contact with was the child who played his son. I’d like to know how that kid was affected by playing that part.

But frankly, I was more physically repulsed by the language and visuals in “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me” than I was by anything in “Happiness.” Were I back in the dorms at San Jose State and in charge of an all-night movie marathon, I’d kick-off (in order) with “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” for historical purposes, followed by “Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery,” ending with “The House of Yes,” “Happiness,” and “The Ice Storm” for its death-to-rebirth theme.
But I’d probably pour champagne throughout the night, just to keep things lively, baby.

The yin/yang of comedy and drama each offer valuable lessons: * Comedies: We can’t think too much and make life too serious, because thinking *too much* messes with your thinking. * Dramas: No matter how bad we might believe our lives to be, things are actually quite peachy, comparatively. I mean, but for the grace of God, we could be sleeping with our twin sister or molesting little boys or shoplifting in the corner drugstore or something. Yikes!

Graham and I were at In’n’Out Burger, a dinner stop on our way to Tahoe, when he noticed a small reference printed on the bottom of his burger’s packaging: Revelation 3:20. He pointed it out to me.

“Mine has it, too.” I said. “Is it the Book of Revelation or the Book of Revelations?”

“Revelation — it’s singular,” a voice behind me said.

I turned to see a large bearded man.

“I missed it on a test once and have remembered it ever since,” he explained.

“Funny how you can remember the few things you got wrong, and yet forget all the things you get right. At least, that’s how it is with me…” Graham said, as much to himself as to me and the bearded man.

I asked, “So what’s Revelation 3:20?”

Bearded man shrugged, but the young Asian guy next to him piped up, “I know. Revelation 3:20, right?”

“Well?” we all asked.

“It’s the one with ‘Knock and the door will be opened unto you.'”

“That’s perfect!” I cried, delighted. We all went back to eating our food. Once finished, Graham and I stood up as the Bible scholar was also leaving.

“God sent me here all the way from San Jose to answer your question,” he said, smiling. “God bless you.”

“God bless *you*,” I replied.

He left, and Graham turned to me. “That was cool,” he said.

Upon returning home, I looked up 3:20 in The Student Bible (New International Version): Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and him with me.

So, not only did I have a great road trip to Tahoe, but I have a newfound respect for In’n’Out Burger. Hallelujah!