I was told once, long ago, that the political battles in organizations where the officers had so little real-world power were the fiercest. Consequently, you'd think I wouldn't get involved in such battles. You'd be wrong.

There's a gay group I belong to which will be holding elections for officers soon. I volunteered to be on the election committee (there are two of us on the committee). The committee, according to the group's bylaws, is charged with running the election, preparing the ballots, receiving nominations -- the usual stuff involved. Most years, this job is a no-brainer, since there's usually only one person running for each office.

This year, there are three candidates for president, and two for one of the two vice-president seats. Normally, this is a healthy sign -- more candidates means more people with an interest in how the group is run. The flip side to this is that those who expected to run for office with no opposition now find themselves facing a campaign in which they might lose. And when three of the candidates mentioned above are also current members of the group's board, there's a potential for, shall we say, wanting to make sure the election is under control.

The election committee has found itself in a struggle with the board over election procedures -- those things that say just when and how the election will take place. The board feels that, in the absence of procedures in the bylaws, they must approve the procedures created by the election committee, making sure they conform to the bylaws and Robert's Rules of Order. Not a bad idea in and of itself -- except (1) the parliamentarian (the officer charged with interpreting the bylaws and Robert's Rules) is a candidate for office, and (2) the president (the officer upon whose request the parliamentarian does his work) is a candidate for office. The result is that some (but not all) of the candidates think they will be writing the rules for the election.

The election committee came up with a set of procedures and sent them to the board for comment -- but not approval. The board, through the president, sent back a set of comments. While the committee was working with the comments to alter the procedures, the president asked the parliamentarian to compare the procedures to Robert's Rules and list all discrepancies -- which he did, in a four-page report that failed to take into consideration (1) the bylaws (which trump Robert's Rules), and (2) items that did not fall under either the bylaws or Robert's Rules.

The election committee now has to decide what to do. The election is one week from tomorrow. Stay tuned...

My goodness. Or, put another way, terms that describe types of goodness. It was a topic of conversation with Bill-the-Honeybear yesterday during a coffee break amidst rounds of Saturday errands. My overly fertile mind came up with two types of goodness: lemony musical comedy goodness, which describes sensual pleasure (that is, pleasure gotten through the senses); and honey beary goodness, which describes pleasure derived from one's partner. Both of them describe pinnacles of goodness -- which I guess in this case should really be called bestness.

Something different with Christmas cards this year: Instead of purchasing new boxes of holiday cards (which means, with the different religious/holiday traditions of my friends, finding something that doesn't either look or sound Christmassy) or digging through the boxes looking for leftovers from prior years, I indulged myself. In New York, I bought two boxes of Playbill note cards -- blank inside, with the outside showing a scene from a Playbill of the 1920s or 1930s (on the front) and giving information about the show and the theatre (on the back). Then I wrote a simple "happy holidays and happy new year" message inside, signed them, sealed them, and stamped them. They'll certainly stand out in anyone's collection of cards this year -- and for those who know my love of theatre, they'll be cards that are unmistakeably Allen's.