I am sorry that I have not written in so many weeks, but you would not believe how very busy we have been. You knew that I finally gave in and allowed my parents to plan a debut for me which involved being a Mardi Gras queen. New Orleans makes a big fuss about this kind of event and I guess it was just easier for me to go ahead and agree to play the debutante game as my mother and her mother did. As the queen of the Mystic Krewe of Comus, I was costumed and made up. I wore a "stiff, brocaded gown, with my powered hair and jeweled fan" and my train made "a pink and silver stain" on the red carpet that I walked to meet the king (Lowell, 1). It was a pageant that has little to do with the real world in which we live and yet it is filled with rich symbolism that has been a part of New