Last night was the Academy Awards, which I watched dutifully as a Gay American. Rob was horrified by the successes of Hillary Swank and Million Dollar Baby, but that’s the way it goes. You can’t keep Swanky down in the trailer park. Swanky has wings and a beak and knows what car you drive.

Friday night, my sister-in-law Cate made an appearance on NBC’s “Third Watch” as an extra. She played a waitress in some sort of underground bar where kids pretending to be vampires drank cocktails pretending to be blood. Although she had participated in many scenes while filming, most of her nationwide television debut ended up on the cutting room floor . . . but there is one good shot of her with a fabulous goth hair-do that I believe she should wear every day. It is well within the limits of possibility that one day Cate will receive an Academy Award. Rather than her husband, who she could not persuade to wear a tuxedo even at their wedding, she will take me to the venue as her date. We will parade down the red carpet wearing our finest evening clothes in the high noon sun, and when Matt Damon comes crawling over trying to win me back, I will point at him and laugh and laugh.

Later, we will be caught together in the men’s room during Cate’s gracious acceptance speech.