The time has once again come. The final day of the solar year that is the clock to which my life is set. A time to reflect. A time to observe. A time to be thankful for another turn around the track.

The homunculus who uses the inside of my skull as an amusement park is quick to point out that all the reflecting, observing and thanks giving are no match for the true misery that life delivers and that in the end I will grow bitter and lash out at bad drivers and small yipping dogs carried by large yapping women. That I will start talking out loud to inanimate objects and barnyard animals as I make my limping way toward the crematorium and at best get to be potash,  bone meal, cannabis residues and trace minerals for some mango tree. Will the fruit taste of me? I think not. Will one hear violin strings tremble when they take a bite? Heavens to Betsy no.

I scoff at his doom and gloom stance. His denial of the joy. His disdain for life's true meaning.  I face off with him inside my skull and wag my finger as I read him chapter and verse on the wonders of discovery and tell him that his only reason for existence is to create the polarity necessary to embrace and transcend the cycle of doubt and fear that so haunts us all. I tell him he should have taken music lessons as a demon tyke.

He looks and moves like Charles Laughten in the Hunchback of Notre Dam, only he's about two inches tall and with a bigger forehead and shorter legs. Mostly he sleeps the sleep of the drunk, but at times like this he is strangely engaged in the process of attempting to break down all that is good and true and beautiful.

"Why don't you throw the I Ching, you dumbass", he oozes. "That should give you some groovy insight into your ridiculous quest for meaning". " I really can't believe you haven't just hit the sauce and gone into the kind of alcoholic stupor reserved for burned out visionaries. You and Alan Watts could share a suite in the Penthouse Towers of Hotel Getagrip." He's on his back now, laughing so hard that he squirts a little poop on to my medulla oblongata.

"Now see here, you little toad. I will not countenance your pooping on my brain. Keep it clean or return to the realm of the Rakshasa's from whence you came, and always remember that you are a fragment of My imagining and not vicey versey." He demures, "just kidding", and with a shy smile recedes into the folds of my frontal lobe.

There is no rest from the conflict. It is an addiction of sorts. The sport of humanity. How far left, how far right? We find no middle ground until the posturing passes. Until the ego agrees that enough is, in fact enough. Until eyes open to the connection that links us, to the surrender that informs us, to the work that enlivens us.

"What a pile of horse hockey. Dontcha watch the news, numbskull? Its all about opposing forces and polemics designed to daze and confuse. Its like a moment of projectile vomiting spewing forth nascent chaos to a public too apathetic to do anything but chew it up and spit it out again at the water cooler during lunch break at the factory of life. Thus has it always been and so shall it always be."

I must admit that for such a shrimp of a homunculus, he makes a good argument for deep despair. He is, in so many ways my dark little joy. My passport to the purgatory in which the hungry ghosts conjure up one dreadful scenario after another and cheer for the ultimate demise of the human race. A demise so irrevocably caught up in our own actions that it is increasingly difficult to see any meaningful solution on the event horizon of this rapidly failing experiment.

I take a puff off the wonderful Corona that the beautiful elfin Natalie got me for my birthday and follow it up with a swallow of Patron silver on ice with a splash of tangor juice. It is, after all the eve of my birthday and any right of passage should be enjoined by the sacraments that make it all better. By the things that beat back the nasty little fucker inhabiting the folds of my frontal lobe, creating fire storms in the corpus collosum capable of ejecting any sense of hope into the cold dark space between galaxies where one gets to be amused at the passing of the occasional hydrogen atom. Whoopdedoo.

On the other hand, when I awoke this morning, I had the choice of five varieties of mango to mix with my morning yogurt. With such ease comes the end of outer darkness. Has anyone tried injecting mango stem cells into the spines of those with political aspirations? My feeling is that it would create a shift in perspective tantamount to the difference between the slow descent into ever more noxious and sociopathic behavior and behavior given over to the idea that multiple orgasms should become a national priority.

Speaking of which, "what did the egg say to the pot of boiling water? Give me a minute to get hard, I just got laid by that chick over there."  Thanks Dinah. I needed that.

So you see, when it all comes down to it, we are here to keep each other amused and stir up the creative juices that are the only tonic to this veil of tears. Of course, a little gin with that tonic never hurt.

You will all be pleased to find out the Smarty Pantz has transcended her need to be broody, coincidental to her being sprayed for the mites crawling gleefully through her feathers and no doubt driving her cookoo. She has resumed her perennial stance as the sight challenged alpha female and continues to provide a presence which reminds us of how stupid we can be when we fail to notice the small things.

We are now all but fenced off from the insidious attacks of starving deer. Our benevolence knows no end as in doing so we have ended the cycle of violence and taken one more step toward a meaningful relationship with the fauna of the area. In other words, thank God you aren't destroying our trees anymore, go bug someone else and thanks for inhabiting our freezer from time to time. I really should be thanking the dept of land and natural resources for providing us with this "resource", as it is they, who in their wisdom decided to import the cuteness for the amusement of the hunter classes.  Seriously, will the stupidity never end?

So I'm heading up the road to the farmers market the other day to load up my stuff and head home. Josh and Lynsey are looking after the stand while I pull up and realize that the spot I was going to take was taken. Now I have a choice, either circle until a space opens or pull into the space in front of the driveway, load up and head out. I opted for the latter. In so doing, I grazed the left front end of a classic maui cruiser and managed to tear the bumper off. Shit. Now as I survey this situation, I realize that the bumper was actually attached to the front end of the car with two lag screws screwed into a couple of blocks of wood attached to the bumper frame. As I'm checking this out, this kid about five or six saunters over to me, looks at the bumper laying in the road and then looks at me and with a deadpan expression says, "duct tape'.  To my dying day I will never forget that moment.

I ended up finding a crescent wrench in my truck and with the help of Josh, re-attached the bumper, left a note of apology and offer of further assistance with my phone number and headed home with laughter overcoming me every time I saw the face of that kid saying duct tape. No calls yet.

The more you show, the more we'll grow. Peace out, Jp