On the west mesa of Albuquerque, dozens of investigators are digging in the dirt and sand. They are uncovering crimes from the first few years of this century. The bones of women, most believed to be prostitutes, keep surfacing. And because a home building company leveled the land a year or two ago (moving the dirt and what the dirt contained), the continuing search will probably increase the numbers of bodies found. Or clusters of bones, since that's all that is left from these crimes. Yesterday the number was 13.

If the home building company had actually built houses, would it have been like Poltergeist? Except in the dead of the night, they'd hear the ghostly girls saying, "Hey baby, you got the time?" rather than glowing, growling TVs.

When bodies start popping up in your home town, you gotta find a good joke to keep it light.

After the burst bubble in 2000, a recession occurred. And then a recovery. Everyone was happy. And then it was discovered that the recovery was only helping the richest people in the country. Wages were not rising as the recovery occurred. Now we see that the recovery was fake. Itself a bubble of fake money (debt) that made a lot of people feel rich. And most of those people, now, are wondering why their fake money isn't worth anything.

As we continue to sift through the remains of the beginning of this rather new century, we're gonna find some ugly stuff.

We became really good at hiding the bad stuff. Sweeping it under the rug. Turning our heads and not looking at the mold crawling up the wall.

Have we had our moment of clarity yet?

I'm a little scattered. Could be from yesterday's wine. Could be the dearth of quality in my recent Netflix deliveries (went through parts of two movies before just giving up on it all). Could be that yesterday was the coldest of the last few weeks...at sixty degrees.

It's still winter, right? Maybe, but I could get a nice start on my summer tan this afternoon.

This weather might be confusing everything. I can't tell if someone is pulling wool over my eyes or trying to be really clear. We're in bad shape, but at least the afternoons are nice.

According to the cops, the person or persons they believe to be responsible for the west mesa bones are dead. This cold case will never heat up in a court room. It's just CSI: Albuquerque. This is better than COPS in Albuquerque, but not as good as NCAA in Albuquerque.

I've got last fall's leaves swirled into piles in my backyard space. It doesn't look like anything big got buried under there. But there are lots of places we've hidden the sins of the fathers and mothers and sons and daughters of this country. It's not that it's going to get worse before it gets better. It's that it was already worse, and we didn't know it.

Don't let it all get you down, though. It probably wasn't your fault. And, most likely, it won't fundamentally change our lives except to hear another story of dark deeds done out of the light of day.

We're in survival mode now. Every day is a push, a continuation of the routine.

Good news, though.

There's gonna be a new dance. A new style. A new definition of cool. And a new way to wear an onion on your belt. Because that's what all the hep cats are doing this week.

Matt Worley fell for the rope a dope last week. He's still a little off.