Acceptance Speech
ARLENE GREEN

My fellow drama queens and sympathetic readers,

I give you my most heartfelt thanks for selecting me as your new Drama Queen. You have given me something I have sought after for many long years. It is not the title or the prize, though those are also greatly appreciated. You have given me something far more valuable -- namely, an answer!

From now on when my puzzled friends ask me, "Why on earth does this kind of thing happen to you?" I can answer them with something better than "I think I did something really terrible in a past life" or "Murphy is my patron saint." Now I can tell them it is all part of my destiny to be the Queen of Drama.

I can now explain to them that I have been allowed to speak for other women like me, to share my life so that a little understanding might blossom in those who have never had "those kinds of things" happen to them, to tell the women in my court that they are not alone, that I too have lived a life of drama and that it is nothing to be ashamed of.

I will always look back on this day as the day that everything finally made sense. And it's thanks to you all. Now if I can just figure out where all my lost socks have been disappearing to and why my children have the ability to get dirty just standing around, my life will be complete.

Your Drama Queen,
Arlene Green
SALON | May 20, 1998

Drama Queen for a Day + Marilynn Bachmayer + Arlene Green + X. McClure