The time has come to publically acknowledge the other Sara Nichols. I’ve never met her, but she’s increasingly becoming a factor in my life by being in slightly overlapping circles, and generally more high profile than I.
I am an attorney and am politically active and progressive. The other Sara Nichols (spelled exactly the same way) is an environmental attorney and is also politically active and progressive.
For most of the time that I lived in Washington, DC this other Sara Nichols lived in Philadelphia. She ran for Congress in like 1994 as a sacrificial lamb candidate against some suburban Republican congressman (took like 38 points off him–I think it was the election where the Republicans took the House). I was in the media a lot more than I am now, and it was understandable that we would occasionally get mistaken for each other in print.
To make matters even more confusing, around the same that I moved to Sacramento, the other Sara Nichols moved to California too, Los Angeles, to be precise!
Then for a long time, nothing earthshattering, although it would occasionally come up and once my husband met her at an environmental meeting in L.A–I can’t remember whether he said they talked about me, or whether he confirmed that she is aware of my existence.
But now, with me pretty much out of the limelight for a time, laying low, all of a sudden there’s a spate of mix-ups.
Recent instances of Sara Nichols mix-ups:
1) At a dinner party of progressive legislators at my home, Senator Liz Figueroa (running for Lt. Governor of California) takes me aside. “I understand we have a mutual friend,” she says conspiratorily. I give up, “who?” She says a woman’s name. I stare at her blankly. “The fundraiser in LA?” she says. Again, I stare at her blankly. “Liz,” I finally confess, “I have no idea who or what you’re talking about.” She sweetly explains. Long story short, it turns out that this fundraiser told her that Sara Nichols endorsed Liz’s opponent, Senator Jackie Speier. And Liz was baffled and little hurt by this.
At once, the light dawns, “your fundraiser contact must mean the other Sara Nichols,” I babble excitedly. “She’s in LA, she’s a prominent environmental lawyer, something of a sought after endorsement. It wasn’t me.” (I then hastened to point out how grateful I was that Figueroa even cared who I endorsed and that I would never endorse Jackie Speier over her. This is true–I think that Liz Figueroa is a fabulous public servant who really cares about the right things and I wholeheartedly do support her for Lt. Governor).
2) A candidate for Assembly in LA recently asked me to add my name to a letter vouching for her environmental credentials–I suspect that she wanted me because she had my credentials confused with those of my doppelganger.
and
3) today, probably the least interesting, but just to show you that the incidents are increasing in frequency, a LA-based statewide organization whose board I recently got appointed to recently informed me that the reason I wasn’t getting key emails was that they had me confused with Sara Nichols.
I don’t blame them. I have me confused with Sara Nichols too….
To: The real Sara Nichols
If you’re in the mood to read something fun, you could do a lot worse than Jasper Fforde’s Thursday Next books. Thursday Next is a liter-a-tec: a detective who investigates literary irregularities, such as someone kidnapping a minor character out of Martin Chuzzlewit, someone claiming to have found a lost collaboration between William Shakespeare & Kit Marlowe, etc. The books are set in 1980’s London, and they are sci fi in the sense that they represent our reality but with a few minor changes in various historic contingencies. My favorite is the fact that in *this* reality, literature has the cache that sports have today. There are literary themed bars, gangs that battle over who really wrote Shakespeare’s plays, a Rocky-Horror-Picture-Show type midnight performance of Richard III every Fridy at midnight, etc.
In the second installment Thursday becomes acquainted with the laws of coincidence–a time travelling detective friend explains to her that there’s nothing bizarre about coincidences. Rather, what’s really weird is that they don’t happen a lot more frequently. I’m guessing there are actually four or five Sara Nichols out there–which explains in part how you are able to get so much done.
Liz Figueroa is my pick too, you can sign up for her campaign email here.
senator Liz Figueroa for Lt guv, all the way!