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2002-01-13 | 11:40 a.m.

Last night, I overheard Dennis Miller call one of the players in the Raiders-Jets game "insouciant." Naturally I enjoyed that. Dennis Miller must be the anti-John Madden.

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I have friends--lots of them--who say they hate shopping. I don't understand it. I love shopping. Even more, I love picking out things for myself to buy "later." I am a little ashamed of this trait, but not enough, apparently, to stop.

A key component of Buddhism is freeing yourself of desire--or so I am given to understand from a recent Simpsons episode guest-starring Richard Gere. That holds a certain appeal.

I've started receiving the J. Jill catalog. I think Old Scratch himself must be sending it. I can't remember the last time a catalog offered so much temptation. Oh wait, yes I do--Gardener's Eden, circa 1993. I wanted everything in there, and I didn't even have a fucking garden. At least I have an ongoing need for clothes.

Once in a while, I get a catalog that gives me a surprising glimpse into somebody else's life. I got a catalog called The Wooden Soldier (800/375-6002) that features outrageously expensive children's party clothes. If you want to dress your son like Little Lord Fauntleroy, The Wooden Soldier is a good place to start.

Then there is the improbably named Boston Proper, which appears to supply clothes exclusively to trophy wives and other women with waxed pubes. There's nothing particularly Boston or proper about these clothes. A better name might have been "Myrtle Beach Hilton."

I've received two copies of the Appleseed's catalog, which has proved a real eye-opener. It would be too easy to call these Grandma clothes, because my 74-year-old mother wouldn't wear most of this stuff. No, these are the clothes bought by lower-level Republican wives, midwestern schoolteachers, and evangelical Christians. I can easily imagine Laura Bush buying from this catalog. I'm sure she gets it. There are a couple of things I'd like to show you from that catalog, but most of them aren't available on the web site (I guess I got the winter sale catalog while they're showing their spring collection online).

But all that is not to say that I couldn't find anything to love in the Appleseed's catalog. No, I'm too much of a catalog slut for that. They have a Pendleton car coat in Black Watch plaid that I wouldn't turn down. Also, I have always fancied a boiled wool jacket, though to be honest I'd pick one with a little more ethnic flair; maybe some Hansel and Gretel-style embroidery.

I like the whole idea of boiled wool, to be honest.

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