I swam 1.7K and all is right with the world. Another perfect day. Up to now, the Denver summer has not been what I have been accustomed to, and it surely is nice to come home to Right weather. More dazzling blue with occasional strands of white cloud, strong sun. We swimmers swam and greeted each other and discussed other pools to use over the winter, since Cook Park closes this week. If I swim any more laps this year, it will not be in the open air.

I forgot to mention this incident from a couple of weeks ago:

After my swim, I was showering in the locker room when a woman came in with a little boy, maybe four. I made no more effort to cover myself than ever as I got dressed, and I could barely restrain myself when the boy exclaimed loudly to his mother, "Mommy, that lady doesn't have a penis!" I had no idea I was so deformed. I looked down and around as if I'd maybe just dropped it on the floor, but I think I amused only myself thereby. The woman probably thought I was insane.

Before I left for my swim, RDC and I switched the computers. When we moved into this apartment we bought two computer desks (really just tables: no drawers), one short and one long. The short one fit the wall with the window, the air-conditioner, and my corner, and became my desk. The theory was that it would a laptop station for us to share. The long desk would host the Mac and all its peripherals and officially be RDC's.

We gave up on that fantasy. At home I use the Mac almost exclusively, or have this summer. In winter, as my slothfulness burgeons, I am sure I will cuddle on the couch with a laptop again. Meanwhile RDC did use his laptop at my desk, which he was taking over with various papers and this and that.

So now I have the big monitor on my desk plus the other bits. I have less physical but more mental space, surrounded as I am with all my talismans. My collages and my Pooh pencil box in my peripheral vision instead of behind me. I like it.

In celebration of room to work, RDC wanted desk stuff, plus a new pillow, and I can always amuse myself in Bloodbath & Beyond, so off we went, shopping on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon. I had had my dose of sun already, I consoled myself. We got rid of recycling and gave some stuff to Goodwill, as well, so we got tidied up and organized in one fell swoop.

RDC wanted input on his pillow choice, which I refused to give. I like a big firm pillow and he wants some kind of dual arrangement that he can read on (overstuffed) and pummel under his head (squishily flat). He did find one to keep, and after one night realized that he needs to keep both available. So we need another pillowcase, which is easy.

We found desk accessories that stack. RDC stacked a divided tray and a set of drawers and I got one set of drawers. They're little, like Baby Bear's chair, and thus Just Right. Just over 11" long and 5" high, with one long drawer the full length and two half that size above it. Mine is to the left of the monitor and much more polished looking than the two plastic mini milk crates I had before, even though the same stuff adorns it. One new thing: the Mac speaker (now with a sun-and-moon candle perched on top). Next to the speaker, a gold box from the Metropolitan Museum of Art store (I'm so pretentious) that William came in (William lives amongst Christmas stuff), with old sets of magnetic poetry in it. On top of that, in a sun-and-moon Kleenex box holding pens and pencils and markers. Then the palm-sized book of American Impressionist paintings (some painted in Old Lyme);a totally obsolete, yellow plastic, 3.25" floppy case plastered with NOW and NARAL stickers, now filled with business cards instead of disks; and a couple of Zip disks. Also scattered around, a little pewter knight, a pin from Boys' Town ("When you help a child today, you write the history of tomorrow"), bottles of ink (not that I ever write with a fountain pen), a shell from Delray Beach (where DMB lives and they grow more interesting shells than occur in Old Lyme), and a Pooh pencil box KRE gave me.

The first bookcase to the left is the larch one RDC slapped together to fit a specific spot in the old apartment, and on top of it is the 1'x2' bookcase I picked up at a tag sale for two bits. Next to the little bookcase is my asparagus pencil box (a gift from a weird Phoebe patron), which I only keep because Madeline is a pole-sitter and this is a convenient height for her, a pink ceramic elephant DEW made, a Thai charm SEM gave me, a Tropicana Orange radio DEW got in the mail, positioned so that Opus on his slinky can drink from its straw, and rocks and shells from assorted beaches. On top of the little bookcase is my Lego castle. To the left of the larch case is the cherry laminate we bought from Hold Everything with a wedding gift certificate, and on top of it is my paper model of Caernarvon Castle. That bookcase shares a corner with the huge oak laminate thing we found at Home Despot for about as much money, and much less griping, than we were going to build one for. On top of that is the 3D puzzle of Camelot. All my castles are in a row.

Swing to the right again, over my desk: the seventh Unicorn Tapestry, the famous one, "Unicorn in Captivity." A wax plaque of St. Mark the Lion (a gift from RJH). ZBD in her birth announcement. A sheet of paper with all my talisman sayings on it, decorated with a self-portrait I photocopied out of a letter to DEDB, a magazine photo of Mr. Moose and Bunny Rabbit, and a bookmark commemorating the new Denver library with this Borges quote: "I had always imagined paradise as a kind of library." My card collage. A feathered mask from a Colorado-NARAL auction benefit. A photograph of my babysitting victims, all grown up. Then three photograph collages, from 1990, 1993, and 1996, which should mean it's time for a fourth.

With the monitor and the scanner, I don't have room on my desk for much else (and oh! how tiny the scanners in Office Depot are! With perimeters not much bigger than their 8.5x11" platens, and less than an inch tall!)--the drawers, a glass of water, the keyboard, trackball, and my journal. Hmm. Maybe I should have put the scanner to the left, so I could write on the right side. But its cable isn't long enough, so I should learn to write left-handed or better yet, to compose on a keyboard.

It is a lot less classy a desktop than Sara's. That setting complements her, though, elegant and very Park Avenue. I belong here, under the protective gazes of my iconic beloveds. I am content.

A fly in the ointment of contentment: sorting out papers when we got home, RDC found an announcement about an Impressionist exhibit coming to Denver in the fall. We knew there was an upcoming traveling Impressionist exhibit but didn't ascertain the name; we could have done something else that Friday or at least seen other parts of the museum. Idiots.