Holidays make me think of one thing: who died last year, who isn't sitting at the table as it grows smaller. In my case, the dead people were the ones who made me laugh. I had so many funny friends. Now I'm down to 3...other than the random moron...I'm not as unhappy when someone dies that isn't funny. Funny people dying is me dying. I'm one of those people who believe laughter actually is the best medicine...not that I want Robin Williams coming into my hospital room in a clown nose, or diving into 10 thousand pounds of spaghetti, but in my own personal experience I feel one of my friends actually laughed my cancer away...(Readers Digest was one of the few mags my family read.)

I have many more friends on the other side. I keep wondering why it is happening, it came to me, we baby boomers are old boomers now...but christmas passed this year happily for me in Vegas. No Xmas music in my hotel, just the sound of rich Asians laughing and spending. It was wonderful. Now we go into New Years. It doesn't bother me as much because you can escape it...there is only one new years song, and its too sad to play in the stores. I think of New Years as amateur hour for drunks, like Halloween is amateur hour for freaks. Let them have it. But this morning another death, this one made me sad, not because Bhutto was funny but was so beautiful. Death has also robbed us of beauty, second only to humor in my shallow thinking...maybe third after money, and now Bhutto is dead. It's a loss, I wonder who is getting all those gorgeous head scarves. Maybe one will float by Huckabee in his next ad.

Hey, I did learn one thing this year. It's Mitt Romney. I thought it was a typo, but then, who but a rich white kid would be named Mitt? I thought it was Milt. Milt the Mormon. For president. I still like Joe (not Lieberman...cringe...Biden) who called Musharraf twice to tell him that Bhutto needed more protection. Ron Paul is impressing me too. I don't want to vote republican but he doesn't seem to want to declare himself independent this year does he? Maybe Lieberman ruined that word forever. Have a wonderful what's left of the holidays.