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24 December 2020

No. 5,985 (cartoon)

No one could have predicted this.

Unless they knew what a branding iron does.

It’s beginning to smell a lot like Christmas!

25 December 2020

Haddy Grimmble!

Cicely only has one annoying trait: she can be quite annoying. She demanded that I put an end to my “tired holiday schtick” and send her a thoughtful note about how I really feel about Christmas. Instead of doing that, I sent her the most blasphemous, profane, and sacrilegious rant I could come up with in a few minutes.

. . .

Once upon a time, God impregnated Mary, a Jewish newlywed who claimed she’d never had sex with anyone, including her husband. (That’s her story, and God and Joseph ain’t talkin’.) She purportedly gave birth on 25 December, a date seemingly chosen at random by cult leaders who had a one in three-hundred-and-sixty-five chance of being correct with their guess. The kid only lived a few decades before being crucified, then rising from the dead. Contemporary cannibals celebrate his birth today because they believe that they’ve achieved immortality by eating his flesh and drinking his blood.

I’m no anthropophagite, so I’m ignoring this superstitious holiday and having pesto pasta with lots of cheap red wine to celebrate science, reason, and sex. I’ll never understand why so many people commemorate a mythical birth that didn’t even involve perfunctory bad sex; where’s the joy in that?

. . .

Sometimes one has to fire with fire or, in Cicely’s case, annoyance with annoyance. I’m sure she won’t mention the word “Christmas” to me again.

Ever.

Hallelujah and Haddy Grimmble!

26 December 2020

New Year’s Eve Party!

It’s new year’s eve and everyone here at my studio is having sloppy Saturday night fun!

I know some killjoys are going to get all technical on me and point out that 2021 is days away. The spoilsports will insist that 2021 ain’t here yet, and the wet blankets are correct. The poor buggers are shackled by conventional thinking that a holiday can only happen once a year.

Smart people are grateful and give thanks every day of the year, not just on the fourth Thursday in November. And fools are constantly foolish, not just on the first day of April.

This is the very last day of my life, until tomorrow (if I live that long), so this is no time to sit at my computer. Tomorrow is also the first day of the rest of my life, so that makes tonight and every other one new year’s eve. Having made my case, it’s time to get back to the party before all the guacamole is gone.

27 December 2020

Into the Abyss

Hugo announced that he’s decided to have a more adventurous life and become a base jumper.

“It seems a shame to let all those deep, empty canyons go to waste,” he reasoned.

“That sounds stupidly dangerous,” I opined.

“I haven’t told you the best part yet,” he beamed, “I’m going to do it at night!”

“How often does someone die from that?” I asked.

“Just once,” he explained.

Well, okay then!

After wishing him good luck with his bold new adventures, I sheepishly asked him to confirm that I’m still listed in his will to inherit his prized baseball from the 1968 baseball championship—signed by Al Kaline, Mickey Stanley, and Willie Horton!—in the entirely likely event he ends up as a meaty piñata splayed and deflated by multiple cacti punctures on the desert floor.

I’m happy that others are experiencing the adrenaline rush of donning a wingsuit and jumping into the abyss. I’m quite satisfied to observe that with a glass of bourbon from the sidelines and pen the odd obituary as needed from time to catastrophic time.

28 December 2020

No More Camera Shop

The only camera shop in Santa Fe has gone the way of the buggy whip maker.

No, wait; that’s a bad example. Sans Frisco has a thriving cottage industry of skilled artisans making exquisite whips that will never touch horsehide. Oh dear, please allow me to start over ...

A year ago I was loping around La Villa Real de la Santa Fé de San Francisco de Asís when I slipped into a minor time warp and spotted a camera shop. Even then, I could read the writing on the wall, scrawled in bold brushstrokes of invisible ink.* And sure enough, when I returned today, the obvious was obvious: it was gone.

The shell was still there but its innards were empty: the calendars, postcards, and tourist crappe were gone. I’m not sure if they even offered photographic equipment in recent years. Since almost every phone features a good enough camera, that’s a tough sell.

I took a second and final snapshot of the dated facade. I used a serious camera, my Nikon, to document the storefront on 5 December last year, but today I was traveling light so I used the camera inside my “phone.” I think that was a fitting visual obituary.

# # #

*Attention judges: that’s my winning entry for Worst Sentence of 2020.

29 December 2020

IT’S THE LAW

The plaza in the center of Santa Fe appears to be abandoned. There’s a large, empty plinth in the center of the square. The hundred-and-fifty-two-year-old obelisk—featuring a dedication to “heroes” who died in wars with the “savages,” known as Native Americans around these parts—is gone. Activists bypassed the reams of paperwork needed to modify a National Historic Landmark and simply toppled it a couple of months ago.

The town square looks like it took a direct hit from a low-yield neutron bomb: the buildings are still there, but the people are not. The locals that usually hawk their crafts as well as the tourists who buy them are gone, leaving the usually claustrophobic plaza deserted.

Workers from an anonymous government agency have placed a flashing, illuminated traffic construction marquee there and removed the wheels from the previously mobile warning sign. Every four seconds, the glowing admonition reappears: “IT’S THE LAW.”

I appreciated the ambiguity. Laws are meant to be broken, and I have no idea whether or not I did.

30 December 2020

Running Over Five Kilometers

I have a friend named Quasimodo.

No, I really do!

No, of course I don’t. Anyone who thinks there’s a living person named Quasimodo has bats in her belfry.

I’m calling a therapist friend of mine “Quasimodo” to protect his identity. As you know, all interactions between therapists and clients are completely confidential. And as I know, he tells me some great stories on the condition that I never share them. And I never will, except for the one I’m going to repeat now ...

Joe Dough, one of Quasi’s clients, was miserable for all of the obvious reasons: never left the house, overweight, lonely, hopeless, et cetera. (Quasi said his most lucrative clients are, somewhat paradoxically, those people who know exactly what their problems are.)

Joe said he was considering getting a dog, and Quasi encouraged him. He suggested naming the cur Five Kilometers, so he could truthfully say that he walked Five Kilometers every day. Joe loved the idea, and everything worked out well.

Until it didn’t.

Joe was almost too upset to speak when he made a video call to Quasi this morning. Between sobs, Joe wailed that he ran over Five Kilometers.

“Sheesh,” I interrupted. “What did you tell Joe?”

“You really haven’t been to a therapist, have you David?” he asked. “I put on my deeply concerned face and asked him how that made him feel.”

“That’s hilarious!” I replied.

“That’s why therapists charge two hundred dollars an hour,” he continued. “Very few people have the ability and discipline to keep a straight face for fifty minutes at a time.”

31 December 2020

Nothing to See Here

This concludes twenty-five years (or a quarter-century, if that sounds better) of these daily notebook entries. I started twiddling out this twaddle in my thirties to prove to myself—and no one else—I wasn’t over the hill when I reached my forties. That seems pretty funny in retrospect, but then everything from so long ago seems either humorous, tragic, or, much worse, nostalgic.

And speaking of twenty-five, I confided to Matilda that she’s the twenty-fifth fictional character I’ve created this year, after running through my entire cast of a hundred and fifty-some odd dramatis personae who have been regulars for decades.

In conclusion, there is no conclusion. I’ve been making these entries daily for nine thousand, one hundred and thirty-two of the twenty-three thousand, seven hundred and thirty-four days I’ve been alive, so no big round numbers there. Nothing to see here; move along ...

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©2020 David Glenn Rinehart