Taos is full of long term couples who aren’t married. They seem to do better than most of the married ones.

One of my favorite jokes around town was about one such couple — Joe Hoar and Peggy French. I think most people in town have heard the joke since the couple’s been together as long as I can remember. It’s the kind of thing that makes you believe in love. Together forever not for the sake of the children or to protect some silly piece of paper signed by the county clerk but because they want to be.

Joe’s the father of one of my friends, Alicia. We had a metaphysics argument one drunken poker night that nearly put Barnaby into therapy. Alicia had my back once when it was really, really important. And I helped her one night her world came undone.

I’m only gonna tell the joke one more time.

There was speculation in town that Joe and Peggy might finally wed.¹ Presumably, she’d take the name French-Hoar.

I’m never going to tell it again because it’s not funny anymore. They got shot to death yesterday by her son.²

Miss me? Give it some time. That is what we call “foreshadowing” in the literary biz, kids. Not to be confused with foreshortening. Oh, dear.

Between the detritus and over-caffeinated, bullying peer pressure there are quite a few things here worth reading. More than not. So I say.

Statistics

Entries proper: 290, inclusive ¶ Word count: 88,708 ¶ Visitors over last 12 months: 903,172 ¶ Page views: 2.2 million ¶ Top 100 Devil’s Dictionary X for 2005 ¶ Quotes in the margin: 259 ¶ Ad revenue: enough to buy a Playstation 3 but not enough for an hour with a $10,000 a night hooker (they simply will not haggle) ¶ Site sections we pretend don’t exist: 7 ¶ Online: 2,656 days (7.27 years)

Worth reading; so you probably won’t like it

Something a bit more about writers ¶ Genocide is a cheese sandwich ¶ Faulty Fuel Gauge Delays Shuttle Launch ¶ The tarantula in the can ¶ Managing nature right over the cliff ¶ 10 steps to solve the problems with America

Race relations

Blog against racism day ¶ Rosa Parks and “what really happened” ¶ To live and die in the real LA ¶ An incident at Santa Clara Hall

Mean to celebrities

Dear Halle Berry, ¶ Chelsea Clinton ¶ Christo’s contribution to art ¶ 12 oz. Mouse is the worst show ever made (goes great with Tom Goes to the Mayor) ¶ Ann Coulter’s “Tripe” ¶ The 9 Circles of Hollywood Hell ¶ Grabbing Dilbert by the tie

In defense of religion; I mean indefensible

Ten Questions to Ask Your Pastor, Reverend, Minister, or Priest ¶ The virgin Mary before and the virgin Mary after ¶ Anti-Christian is Anti-American ¶ Intelligent Design proves Penn and Teller are God ¶ The anti-Christ, the anti-Christ, the anti-Christ … the anti-Christ ¶ 40 acres and a ploughshare ¶ Okay, all kidding aside ¶ Sunday school supplements ¶ The End: an April goodbye ¶ I have a theory

Political

Modest proposal for legalized torture ¶ How to destroy America; step by step instructions for Al Qaeda ¶ The argument’s over, jackass ¶ Benito and Clara hanging in a tree…

Must reads

An excerpt from my latest romance novel

Photographs & insects

Index to the insects ¶ This is my yard, suckers ¶ Magnolia

Parenting

PBS Kids ¶ Baby “Einstein” ¶ why are some kids smarter than others? ¶ Your parents are gay, dude ¶ Prenatal diet: they told us not to breast feed too

Story time

Six sets of my suicide note, please ¶ You’re not as well liked as you think, Tim ¶ What I said about his sister ¶ How to be supportive, lesson one ¶ Why I hate Barnaby (Jones) ¶ The most painful goodbye of my life ¶ The Narc and Lawrence Chavez ¶ Winter rain Friday ¶ Sleep is for pussies

Not very good but won’t be withdrawn

There are a handful I could mention but if I linked to them I’d just be repeating the original offense.

Popular

The 12 biggest problems with your blog ¶ 10 things I wish someone had told me so I’m telling you ¶ How to write a suicide note

Most popular

You guessed it: Young nude girls

The American Precedent

My Lai versus the world ¶ Americans are better at everything ¶ Dear George, ¶ Building Nuclear Weapons for Dummies ¶ If they were up your ass you’d know ¶ Don’t blame me, I voted for Kerry and I’m positive you missed the point ¶ Bush is not Hitler but you are

Terrah!

Index to the terror/threat level widgets

One more for the fans who made it this far and for those hiring a hit man out of the back of “Soldier of Fortune”

What I look like in Italy.

So now you have something to read, in the bleak and hollowing hours you wait to go back to school or work. See you in a few days or maybe even weeks. Did I say months? I meant months.

pop quiz today

#1, What is wrong with this picture?

If you said, “It presents a fantasy land where polar bears, restricted to the northern hemisphere, coincide with penguins, restricted to the southern hemisphere, and, further, that teaching a poor little kid this will only serve to humiliate him later when he gets into an argument about it that goes ad hominem and is only ended with stomping to retrieve an Encyclopedia,” you were right.

#2 (extra credit), Who is to blame — the artist (Nadeem Zaidi) or the writer (Julie Aigner-Clark)?

Hint: puffins do live in the same hemisphere as polar bears.

I know I did.

If someone had told me when I was 10 that the only present I would care if I got 25 years later would be a letter of acceptance to my settlement proposal with the IRS, I would have politely asked to be shot.

PS: If you happen to do business with Smith Barney citigroup I’m just gonna say, you might look around. There are lots of brokers out there. Some of them even file the appropriate and legally required documents for their clients each year.

Oh, all right, I did get the goodies too

That’s right. A trilobite my grandfather found as a boy and a bottle of 20 year-old bourbon, suckers.

PPS: Jody, the only reason I didn’t post my hate-on-Santa piece was because you’re a sap. Putting out carrots for the reindeer with your daughter? They’re caribou. And, ask any Fin, they’re delicious.

3 year-old: Why does he need a new diaper?

Dad: He needs a new diaper because he pooed.

3 year-old: That’s not the right answer.

Dad: He needs a new diaper because he pooed, honey. It’s the right answer.

3 year-old: No it isn’t.

Dad: What’s the right answer?

3 year-old: Till dinnertime.

You know, I was about 2 or 3 days away from getting around to finishing a diatribe about how totally and completely asinine the concept of “comfort food” is. Till I went shopping yesterday.

You won’t hear a squeak out of me now.

1.11.96

The good rains came one season too late. Oh, you know, so stop this charade. The references were made and now how to live them up? You tell me; I’m tired of telling you. Masking colors of rain and nonsense — We held hands and ran in the streets with the children of the land of mists and misses. We played their games and our games by their names and we loved so the plurality that everything went side by side w/ it; happy like the kingdom of of me — the land called we, the place I am still waiting for the plural of you.

lines drawn from languages gone into the long penny lidding. we were we once now there no sense in talking @ all about a union (so permanent) lasting long enough to warrant a pronoun…

All the symbols corrupt and all the art abrupt I dare science to return to the table so we can sup.

22.11.96 Iran cat priest greased the pan for a dish of a sundry Asian girl from her love of somethings English — she got a taxi from Heathrow & met her destiny @ where the the bridge burned down — her fate was something crushing the hate of her a saving sound.

— The Land of Perfect Scarecrows —