Better not to wait with bated breath

The report from Robert Mueller’s apparently meticulous, exhaustive investigation of who may have committed what campaign no-nos in the 2016 campaign has had the nation holding its breath for weeks now.

You know what happens when you hold your breath too long? Brain damage.

Here are some things to do while breathing and waiting for the Mueller report:

• Wait for Santa Fe’s George R.R. Martin to finish “The Winds of Winter,” the sixth book in the “Song of Ice and Fire” series that gave us the wildly popular “Game of Thrones” TV series. The series is already way ahead and is likely to be done before the book comes out.

• Take bets on whether Martin or Mueller will publish first.

• Do your income tax. You can de-stress over the suspense of the size of your tax bill, and it may affect your wishes about how Mueller turns out. The new tax code has winners and losers.

• Read or watch “All the President’s Men,” to see the history that might repeat itself with a Republican president, or see “Front Runner” just in case you thought only Republicans get caught.

• See if you can drum up a copy of 1999’s “Dick,” which satirizes the Nixon era, to see how funny this whole Mueller thing will be 25 years later.

• Predict a winner in college basketball’s March Madness. As with the Mueller report, most of us have theories on how we’d like it to come out, but we don’t have a clue how it’s going to end up.

• Catch up on local news. If you’re reading this column, your local newspaper has survived for now. Let’s face it, if you’re reading this column, you already know the value of information in print, even this column. Please help our endangered species survive. Tell a friend.

Breaking news: NBC news announced 26 minutes ago (It’s 3:30 p.m. Friday as I write this.) that Mueller has sent his report to Attorney General William Barr.

There is still going to some waiting while Barr decides whom he wants to see how much of it, and Congress demands to see it, then figures out how much they will release to the rest of us.

I had predicted to myself it would be released on a Friday. That way everyone has the opportunity to continue speculating over the weekend.

I don’t know how much will be released before this column gets published.

In the meantime, breathe.

Steve Hansen writes about our life and times from his perspective of a semi-retired Tucumcari journalist. Contact him at:

[email protected]