(Well, other than the obvious reason that it is not the Fafblog... speaking of which, thank goodness the Fafblog is back! Lordy, how we missed you. We tried to keep a light on for you, Fafblog. Sure, it was a 10 watt bug bulb with a blob of paint on one side, from that summer Grandpa tried to paint the back porch after he quit drinking, but still. We did the best we could.)

I dread this... but it is necessary.

And let me first say that I, for one, appreciate some of you either stepping up and taking responsibility for the unseemly tone of this blog, or dishing the blame out and throwing your loved ones under the bus. You're troopers. Stalwarts. Princes and/or Princesses among Men and/or Women. You really are. But it's time to pay the piper, my friends. It's time to give the devil his due. Time to clear the air... fry the bacon... rinse the vegetables... raid the medicine cabinet. Time to slice the fruitcake, and face the music.

It's my fault. Yes. I'm the rotten apple, the bad seed. The Judas, if you will. Well, the non-flowering Judas. But Judas, nonetheless. I'm the reason why this blog is not the best blog!

I suppose I should just go ahead and say it.

I've always been a gymnosperm.

When I was a kid (or more accurately a smallish tree), while all the popular angiosperm kids (likewise trees... don't get bogged down here, gentle reader) were budding and flowering and smelling nice and forming their various types of edible fruiting bodies -- there I was... all green and sappy and woody and prickly. Standing in the corner, usually. And while they swayed lithely in the breeze... well I'd just sort of rustle a little. Sometimes I'd drop a few dry needles, and hear their hushed snickers. I still hear those snickers today... oh, how they echo in my dreams. My nightmares!

Then later -- in the winter, when all the popular kids (trees again) had shed their brightly colored leaves and were standing there, beautiful and slim and naked in the silvery light and cold air of morning -- well there I stood, squat and frumpy in my corner, still just as green and sappy and woody and prickly as I'd been in the spring. I never fit in! I never changed! I felt like a freak I tell you..... a changeless, evergreen freak!

There was only one thing that got me through those years. I had a secret... a small, happy secret... and somehow, it helped me to endure all the ridicule, the ceaseless automotive air-freshener jokes and not-so-subtle pine-sol references. It's a secret I've never told anyone. But I'm going to tell it to you... because we're friends here, aren't we? Aren't we?

This is hard.

Sometimes... sometimes..... yes! Yes! Sometimes, in the silent darkness of the blackest moonless winter night I would do it! Er, you know.... DO it.

Spontaneously, and with wild abandon, I'd go into a furious cone-forming frenzy! I would! I would cone-form to beat the dang band! And I liked it!!! It felt GOOD! And I still do it! I did it a couple of months ago! And I'll do it again!

There! I said it. Now you know the truth.

Judge me if you must.