THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF GEORGE WASHINGTON

This morning, as happens many Saturday mornings, the Baslow family conducted a confabulation in the Baslow parents' bed. This will not happen very much longer; the kids are getting too big for all of us to fit.

The conversation turned to Rulizow's current assignment to write historical fiction set in the American Revolution. Rulizow has chosen to write the story of Paul Revere from the point of view of his wife. We look forward to reading it.

This morning, however, she told us about a friend who was writing about George Washington from the point of view of...George Washington.

" 'Hi,' " she quoted from the story, " 'My name is George Washington' ".

The story, she told us, pretty much delivered the facts of George Washington's life in the first person singular.

It ended, she informed us, with the sentence "I died on December 14, 1799."

Rulizow tells us that at this point she advised her friend: "People don't live to tell you when they're dead. You have to figure it out for yourself."