Robert Manners

OUCH!

So, I just had a root canal. If the discussion of dental work makes you cringe (as it does me), then skip this paragraph, please. It was very quick, which was nice, but perhaps a little too quick... I felt the whole thing, since the novocaine did little but muffle the sensation in my teeth. The endodontist decided, I guess, that it was easier to just do it quickly and get it over, rather than go through all the trouble of numbing me up some more. It never ceases to amaze me, how much pain a person can experience and still live. But at least when I go back to him for the finalization of the operation, he will understand what I mean when I say I am resistant to novocaine... he made my next appointment an hour early so he can get me good and numb, in stages and with lidocaine standing by just in case, before he whittles my tooth away to make room for the crown.



Well, $715 and two hours later, I am back at the office because I do actually feel fine. I usually feel pretty groggy after seeing the dentist, probably because of the amounts of novocaine they have to use, but today I just feel fine. So I figured I'd come back to the computer and have a lovely chat with you-all.



I have found a lot of websites lately that are devoted to male models... and they're just jam-packed with yummy men! Some even have interviews with said men, wherein the twenty-year-old pretty-boys discourse on the nature of fame and beauty and tell us all about how they were discovered and what they eat for lunch. It's just riveting, I have to tell you.



You can ogle, too... here and here.



I am finding myself rather disturbed, for some reason, by accounts of a murder case in Florida that caught my attention. I was logging in to AOL one morning (as I do every morning when I come into the office) and saw a thumbnail picture of an absolutely gorgeous little boy... wondering what it was all about, I clicked on the little picture and waited an interminable amount of time (AOL on a dial-up line runs slower than anything I've ever seen), and read the account. Then this morning, as I was flipping through the current issue of People magazine, I encountered the same picture of the same beautiful little boy and a longer article describing the whole thing, accompanied by pictures of the other people involved.



You can read about it here, here, and here.



I'm not sure why I find it so disturbing... partly amazed that such unattractive parents could manage to sire two children of such startling beauty; partly dismayed that these two beautiful creatures will be spending the rest of their youths, and probably a goodly portion of their adulthoods, in prison; partly frightened that such apparently remorseless violence lurks behind such pretty facades; disturbed to feel such sympathy with the boys, as well as with the pedophile who abused them. The whole thing leaves a bitter taste in my mouth and a sour feeling in my stomach. This is why I avoid the news.



And, to round myself out, I have discovered that you can buy old Abercrombie & Fitch catalogs at eBay. I swear, someday I'm going to want something that eBay doesn't have, and the world as I know it will come to an end. But in the meantime, I found this A&F Models website which is helping me decide which catalogs I want to bid on first. God bless the queen who decided to take the dullest of ancient WASP clothiers and turn them into a sex-symbol factory for the new millenium! And God bless Bruce Weber for knowing how. And God bless God for making so many beautiful people for me to ogle. Like this one: