"They're users. They're cruel, and they're certainly no better than I am," Paula Parkinson, 30, told the Washington Post. The 5-ft. 2-in., 100-lb. former Playboy pinup and Capitol Hill lobbyist denied rumors that she had video-taped 17 trysts, or that she kept a list of D.C. luminaries with whom she had sported. Well, one video tape and a short list of names, perhaps, none of which she would dream of using to blackmail nervous Congressmen, who have been busy pointing fingers in other directions while waiting for Parkinson to go public. Says Paula: "They did it to themselves. I didn't do anything to let the cat out of the bag." No votes were traded for sex, she claims.

"I've never wielded any weapon but my typewriter," Colombian Author Gabriel Garcia Marquez (One Hundred Years of Solitude), 53, complained after a hasty departure from his basement apartment in Bogota last month. Fearing a secret warrant for his arrest, the novelist and journalist fled to Mexico after Colombia had broken relations with Cuba and his personal friend Fidel Castro. The regime claims that the leading surrealist was merely trying to embarrass them by seeking refuge in the Mexican embassy in Colombia. But Garcia Marquez says, "I am shy and I look aggressive." Some countrymen offer a more illuminating possibility: He's got an electric typewriter, and in his Bogota apartment they turn off the power at 7:30 every night. Next book? One Hundred Kilowatts of Solitude?

What to wear to the investiture? Maria Lea Pedini, 26, first woman Captain-Regent of tiny San Marino (a country 24 miles square perched on a mountainside in Italy), shunned the flat hat and knickers demanded by tradition last week. The pretty wife and mother chose a skirt and more feminine chapeau from a Milan designer. La Capitana wants reform in the world's oldest republic, where women were barred from voting until 1960, and where even today women lose citizenship if they marry foreigners. One obstacle to change: her term lasts only six months.

Twenty-four hours late, the show went on. Old Trouper Ronald Reagan opened the 53rd Academy Awards ceremony via video tape (recorded a week before) and got off the night's best line, a takeoff on Oscar's theme this year, "Film Is Forever." Quipped Reagan: "I've been trapped in some film forever myself." The evening's 114 thank-yous included heartfelt ones from Robert De Niro (Best Actor in Raging Bull) and Sissy Spacek (Best Actress in Coal Miner's Daughter). The class entry was Ordinary People, which copped the top awards: Best Picture and Best Director for Robert Redford. Mr. Novocain Jaw, attending his first awards bash, was bursting with directorial pride but not ready to give up acting: "I enjoyed sitting back and not suffering the pangs of being on the other side, of the camera. My future may be in directing, but I think I'll keep wearing two hats for a while." Lillian Gish, 81, grande dame of the screen, who presented the award for Best Picture, remembered switching hats in a 1920 film she directed: "I also designed the costumes and the sets." Old film clips, glitzy production numbers and the rumor that the Best Animated Short award had been glommed by an impostor (the man was a legitimate but unknown Hungarian film official) could not raise the 3 1/2-hr. evening above the humdrum, however. M.C. Johnny Carson quipped off-camera, "We need Michael Cimino [Heaven's Gate director] to edit this show." Asked if he would repeat his stint as the event's producer next year, Norman Jewison balked: "Doing this show is like dragging a dinosaur around behind you. Never again!"

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