Anna Nicole Smith is dead, according to the news. Bloggers all over the country are pausing at their keyboards, pondering whether to meditate on the tragedy/waste-of-life angle or just go with the cheap joke. And having decided, they’re trying to keep the option they chose from bleeding over into the alternative.

I know what to say. I knew a woman once, a relative, who was caring and giving in every way. She hated herself utterly and used various kinds of chemicals to kill the pain. She didn’t die young, but she died long before she had to, as a result of a life-long effort to get this torturous business of living over with, without actually committing the sin of suicide.

I don’t know much about Anna Nicole, but I suspect some of the same dynamics were at work here. So I say rest in peace, and pray she found it in the only place where it’s available.

I feel like I have a cold in my brain. Not in my head, except insofar as my head contains my brain. I’m not physically stuffed up, but my brain feels like it’s congested in a couple layers of cotton batting. I don’t have a headache but my thoughts hurt. I’m not coughing or sneezing, but that little guy with Tourette’s who lives in my skull is doing his Bobcat Goldthwaite imitation a couple clicks louder than usual.

And yet I persevere, because that’s the kind of mug I am.

Here’s a suggestion, for those of you who share my skepticism about Global Warming. Next time you get in a fight with a True Believer, ask them why they’re afraid of change.

“For years you liberals have been telling us that Change Is Good,” you can say. “The only reason anybody could possible resist any kind of change is because they’re bigoted and cowardly. So how come change became a bad thing all of a sudden?”

I offer you this gambit free of charge. Use it as you will, with my blessing.

Not that it will help. The argument will end with your opponent calling you a Nazi, because that’s how these arguments always end.

But at least you’ll have added a little variety to the script.

Unless you thought of this before me, of course.

This woman and I would understand each other completely. In any language.

Because I’m in that kind of mood.

I have to go back in to work for a meeting tonight, and on top of that I’m 56 years old, and a single guy can’t expect to live much longer than that, but that’s probably just as well because I’m likely to lose my home anyway, because my ad for a roommate has been out for two whole days and I haven’t gotten a single bite yet.

So I’m not capable of much more than rudimentary thinking. Therefore I’ll just share something I think I posted before, but that was long ago on the old site. I think it was one of the better quotations I’ve ever heard (or read).

It comes from Newton Minnow, who I’m pretty sure is no longer living. He was famous for having a very silly name, and also for being the chairman of the FCC long before you were born, back when Kennedy was president (but I was already old). He famously called television “a vast wasteland,” back then, and was remembered for it ever after. But this quotation is better. It’s a description of Europe back when it was Europe. Which it isn’t anymore.

I quote from memory.

In England, everything is permitted except for that which is forbidden.

And in Italy, everything is permitted, especially that which is forbidden.

That’s all I got, folks. Go read Lileks.

Because I’m in that kind of mood.

I have to go back in to work for a meeting tonight, and on top of that I’m 56 years old, and a single guy can’t expect to live much longer than that, but that’s probably just as well because I’m likely to lose my home anyway, because my ad for a roommate has been out for two whole days and I haven’t gotten a single bite yet.

So I’m not capable of much more than rudimentary thinking. Therefore I’ll just share something I think I posted before, but that was long ago on the old site. I think it was one of the better quotations I’ve ever heard (or read).

It comes from Newton Minnow, who I’m pretty sure is no longer living. He was famous for having a very silly name, and also for being the chairman of the FCC long before you were born, back when Kennedy was president (but I was already old). He famously called television “a vast wasteland,” back then, and was remembered for it ever after. But this quotation is better. It’s a description of Europe back when it was Europe. Which it isn’t anymore.

I quote from memory.

In England, everything is permitted except for that which is forbidden.

And in Italy, everything is permitted, especially that which is forbidden.

That’s all I got, folks. Go read Lileks.

Had a disturbing message on my answering machine when I got home tonight. I heard the voice of an older woman, very muffled, saying something incomprehensible about snow, and being late for work, ending with “Help me out, here.”

I think.

I don’t know who she is, and I don’t know who she was calling when she accidentally dialed my number. Whatever help she wanted she didn’t get, and it’s all over by now.

But I still feel guilty.

It was almost as cold today as yesterday, but it didn’t feel as bad. That’s one of the great things about cold weather. Even a small improvement registers palpably. I remember a year when we spent several days around 20 and 30 below, and when we got back up to zero it felt positively spring-like.

It also snowed a couple inches, which pleases me because it protects the roots of my sick tree. (Yes, hard as it may be for southerners to believe, snow does actually protect the ground from hard freezing. It has an insulating effect).

I’m in low spirits tonight, and I have a dentist appointment coming up, so that’s about all I’ve got.

I’ll share this link for adult footy pajamas, shared with me by an online friend.

I could go off on a rant about the infantilization of our culture, but…

They look kind of neat, really. Especially on a night like this.

You want to talk about cold? It clawed its way up to 1° F. today. That was even colder than yesterday, when I had trouble starting my car after it had sat for about three hours in bright sunlight while I was in church.

And yes, I did go all France on the Viking Age Society on Saturday. I hope the guys are still alive.

I even lowered my sartorial standards today. Instead of a hat I wore a stocking cap, along with my faithful Air Force surplus arctic snorkel parka (the undisputed finest winter coat ever designed, imho). Instead of a coat and tie I wore a sweater and tie (a Norwegian sweater, of course). The sweater has a nice collar with a zipper. It converts into a turtleneck, and I made use of that option.

Man alive, it’s cold.

The air sucks the moisture right out of your skin, freeze-dries it, jets it into the stratosphere, and blows it to Greenland, where it falls to earth with a gentle tinkle.

And yet the days are getting longer. The sun shone cheerfully as I drove home from work.

They try to make us believe that this isn’t suspicious—this counterintuitive annual pattern where the sun shines more but the air gets colder anyway.

I know the truth. Haliburton conspired with the oil companies and the international bankers to artificially import cheap Canadian air, in order to raise oil and natural gas prices, swelling their obscene profits.

You can’t pull the wool over my eyes.

Actually, you can.

In fact I’d be grateful. Wool is nice and warm.

You want to talk about cold? It clawed its way up to 1° F. today. That was even colder than yesterday, when I had trouble starting my car after it had sat for about three hours in bright sunlight while I was in church.

And yes, I did go all France on the Viking Age Society on Saturday. I hope the guys are still alive.

I even lowered my sartorial standards today. Instead of a hat I wore a stocking cap, along with my faithful Air Force surplus arctic snorkel parka (the undisputed finest winter coat ever designed, imho). Instead of a coat and tie I wore a sweater and tie (a Norwegian sweater, of course). The sweater has a nice collar with a zipper. It converts into a turtleneck, and I made use of that option.

Man alive, it’s cold.

The air sucks the moisture right out of your skin, freeze-dries it, jets it into the stratosphere, and blows it to Greenland, where it falls to earth with a gentle tinkle.

And yet the days are getting longer. The sun shone cheerfully as I drove home from work.

They try to make us believe that this isn’t suspicious—this counterintuitive annual pattern where the sun shines more but the air gets colder anyway.

I know the truth. Haliburton conspired with the oil companies and the international bankers to artificially import cheap Canadian air, in order to raise oil and natural gas prices, swelling their obscene profits.

You can’t pull the wool over my eyes.

Actually, you can.

In fact I’d be grateful. Wool is nice and warm.