-- Thursday, February 17, 2000 --

1:15 a.m. Tonight we have to talk. I have a problem and it's not going to go away on its own. It's not a big problem in the greater scheme of things, but rationalizing about its insignificance still won't make it go away.

The truth. The shiny, shiny truth. You're looking through a window here into another window, and another. You're reading this page and looking at this photo I took two summers ago and seeing in the reflection on the chrome pot an elliptical image of me taking the photo. The truth is in there.

This was to be one of my more valuable items for sale on eBay. I'd done my research and I discovered that I owned not just a cute Art Deco 1940s coffeepot, but a specific desirable brand -- a pristine set of something collectors were happy to overpay and madly bid for.

I was so excited. I lovingly shined the three pieces with chrome paste and oiled the wooden handles with lemon balm. I took an artistic photo and did some further research so that my selling blurb would nicely elaborate this set's pedigree.

As I was putting it all back together and checking the spout for lime deposits, I noticed that the swivel handle was a little stuck and I oiled up my soft cloth and gently rocked the handle back and forth, back and forth ... and unfortunately, the handle shredded into three distinct pieces in the soft folds of the cloth.

In a nanosecond, the value had just plummeted from a lot of money to -- what would you pay for a used 50-year-old coffeepot? And I had a decision to make. I could glue the wood back together and no one would know -- maybe. Maybe not.

Let the quibbling begin.

I knew the ins and outs of the buyers of that particular item on eBay and I knew there was a chance that it wouldn't matter. I could always say it got damaged in shipping ... and so forth and so on.

But you know what I did, right? I told the truth and the buyer told me later that he'd just scored the bargain of the month for $12. Since I'd mentioned it was damaged, no one bid against him and he got out some glue and resold it in a flash.

And now we have another coffeepot to deal with. This time it's between me and you, my reader. It's about those lovely, shiny Diarist Awards that have recently been bestowed.

One of them is for "Best New Journal" and I have received a nomination in that category. Boy oh boy, did I want that nomination. But I wanted it last quarter, when I was eligible.

In fact, I went completely out of character and actually talked about it in my journal entry on October 7, 1999. You see, there was a big fat old error on the nominating page -- the dates for eligibility had never been updated, so voters going to the site would have no idea what the magic window of opportunity was.

It was so frustrating. Here was the one nomination I thought I might have a chance for because the pool of new journals is necessarily smallest. And the all-important dates were screwed up. Ack. What to do? I wrote some emails, but the dates were never changed. So I devoted an entire entry to pointing out that I was eligible.

Well, guess what?! I did get nominated for the award.

But not that quarter -- when I was clearly eligible, but this quarter -- when I am clearly ineligible. When I got the happy news on Sunday, I had a sinking feeling that it was a mistake, but I didn't do anything about it. I just basked in the good feelings.

When Monday morning dawned and the nominations were posted, the mistake was promptly pointed out and the debate about what to do was begun. And the debate raged on for a day or two and the final decision was handed down: the award was going to stay.

My journal is 9 days too old to be in this quarter. My two pals in the nomination group are great, great new journals. They are both favorites of mine, and they are so deserving -- and eligible.

Dana's Bobofett is so funny you won't believe it. You will be aghast, in fact. Saundra's Headspace is so multitalented, you will check and double-check to make sure there's only one Saundra in the web cam. These two sites will work their way to the top of your bookmarks, and you will wonder how you ever lived without them.

But there's more. There's someone out there who is not on the nomination list, who should be. I'm taking her spot. I know it's a she, and that's all I know ... except that she was asked if she wanted to be the fourth nominee, and she said no. This is both breaking my heart and driving me mad because I know there's got to be something I can do about it.

Isn't it ironic? Things are never as simple as their surface would indicate. I know how to present the facts, but I don't know what to do ... anybody have any suggestions?

To tell the truth, I really don't know what to do.