Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio

I luv bones. A cow's skull is trussed up on my wall, another displayed on a bookshelf. That one features a bullet hole right between the eyes. I bought it from a farmer, and soaked it in bleach for days. Sometimes, I cover it up.

The cow, of course, is one of the more mundane creatures of Earth.

I also have an African water buffalo's head, its great, rounded horns perfectly mirroring the span of my arms when lifted to the ceiling. It's too heavy to hang, and sits silently on the floor.

I dream of a full human skeleton, a purchase beyond my means. They're hard to get, anyway, what with worries over ethical harvesting. (How's that, Orwell?) And a specimen's unlikely to be welcomed to the homestead by my sweetie. I may go for a bull frog, instead.

Skulls are very big right now, everywhere emblazoned on running shoes, bags and shirts, becoming a pop culture cliché. But these days camp and irony have become parodies of themselves (twist yer brain around that one, eh!), so the merch (let's call it the Boney M) isn't my upended cranial cavity of tea.

My love predates the hip, she types in haughty grandeur.

Why do I adore skulls so? I'm not obsessed with death, nor dying. But there may be something to be said for this old custom: "Plutarch says that toward the close of Egyptian banquets, a servant brought in a wooden skeleton, about 18 inches long, and cried aloud to the guests: 'Look on this! Eat, drink, and be merry! For tomorrow you die!'"

Certainly atheists can't look forward to an afterlife. There's nothing but living for today, and -- for some -- the hope of making a difference. Yet few make a mark on the world; few manage to be noticed beyond immediate friends and family.

So what's with this skellington thing? A reminder of mortality, perhaps. The brutally honest acceptance of one's place in the world, and of what I'll leave behind.

Or maybe bones are just damned pretty.