People Magazine Article

Many of you have sent me questions regarding the April 14, 1997 People Magazine article, which I couldn't answer. So, I forwarded them to Diana, and she sent me this reply.

Well, it could have been worse. Granted, sixteen hours of my personal life (seven hours of interview and nine of photography) seems a little excessive in view of the result, and I do think it was atrocious of them to have coerced my husband to appear in a kilt against his natural inclinations (very gallant of him it was to do it, too). but--it could have been worse.

As to the specific questions people have asked about the photo:

What clan tartan is your husband wearing?

I have no idea; the photographer brought the kilt, which he'd rented somewhere. The socks were much too short.

 

Does the photo show you in your office?

No, we're in the living room. I don't normally write in the living room (well, I do, sometimes, but sitting on the couch with a laptop), we don't keep a table in front of the fireplace, and I don't write on the computer shown (it's an ancient XT clone that I normally keep connected to my printer--in the office upstairs). The longhorn skull over the fireplace is the only thing that's really there (a contribution by my father-in-law)--everything else was staged by the photographer.

 

Does your husband really wear a kilt around the house?

Of course not. Does yours?

 

What do the words on the computer screen say?

Well, I can tell you, but it won't help much. The photographer wanted it to look as though I were working (ha), but since real words on the monitor wouldn't show up in a photograph (particularly in view of the fact that the computer couldn't be plugged in from the position where he placed it), he took several randomly selected words from the Shakespeare's Wit-Kit of magnetic poetry that we keep on the refrigerator, and pasted them to the screen with small loops of duct tape. To the best of my recall, the words were: SCURRILOUS, SCANDAL, PAUNCH-BELLIED, TRADUCE, SWINE, BOGGLE, and INSATIATE, though I wouldn't swear to it.

In short, this photo bears no resemblance whatever to reality, save for illustrating the fact that my husband must love me very much, or he wouldn't have agreed to be party to this nonsense.