Move; NYT; Nude Republicans

My big accomplishment for the weekend was to move the stacks of "Wired" magazines from nehind my couch into the spare room. (Once upon a time, the room was a child's bedroom. Now it houses an ancient particleboard computer desk, an even more ancient computer, various plastic containers containing various holiday decorations, boxes of comic books, assorted rugs, cat litter boxes and a large collection of magazines.)

As I recall, at some point I was trying to clean up the spare room, so I dragged all the "Wired" magazines into the living room. But I never bothered to take them back.

"Move" is far too faint a verb to describe the undertaking. First off, it was a full run of "Wired" from issue one to the present. Twelve years worth. Second, the mags were slippery and kept sliding onto the floor. Third, they were in no apparent order, and I wanted to sort them by year and month. Fourth, the spare room is not air-conditioned. So by the end, I was drenched in sweat. But there are now tidy stacks of mags with those for one year perpendicular to the next year.

I kept wanting to go back to bed, but I forced myself to go out into the world at noon. For the first time in months, I stopped by "Books A Millions" and bought a copy of the Sunday "The New York Times."

A new restaurant has recently opened, so I thought I'd give it a try for lunch. Mistake! I was promptly seated and promptly ignored. In glancing around, I could see that most of the customers were waiting. After fifteen minutes, I folded my "Times," and headed for the door.

Stop #2 was the Japanese restaurant where the atmosphere was much more civilized. Since I had the "Times," I requested a table instead of the bar.

Reading the Sunday "Times" can be one of life's little pleasures. As long as you stay away from the really "depressing" articles. Usually these are the ones involving incurable diseases; unresolved political turmoil; fixed patterns of long-standing gender discrimination; or examples of mindless stupidity and invincible ignorance. Geeeee! Several of these sound like the Bush administration.

The requests for photos are usually far-flung. But of late, there has been an intense interest in Olympic athletes. Especially the swimmers. Not that that should be of any real surprise.

Most prominent are: actors; guys in print and tv ads; country and western, rock, and pop musicians; comedians; other tv personalities and European nobility. If an author has ever appeared, I don't remember it. Poet, nope. Scientist, nyet. Politician, ever now and then. Young Republicans, I would hope not!

PAX!