As I stand in the small parking lot behind Positive Energy’s solar electric systems on a recent Friday morning, I begin to feel guilty about laughing as hard as I am.

More than 27,000 New Mexicans work for state government, according to the state’s sunshine portal. Those state employees are required to give a portion of their paychecks to a pension fund run by the Public Employees Retirement Association. When an employee retires, the pension is repaid.

Of the 16 states that allow medical marijuana, New Mexico is one of only three that haven’t experienced federal government crackdowns, according to Washington, DC-based National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. Medical marijuana advocates cite the state Medical Cannabis Program’s stringent rules.

On July 11, the Santa Fe

In 1991, at the suggestion of his wife Peaches, Eddie Gilbert moved to Santa Fe. A man once labeled as the boy-wonder of Wall Street, Gilbert had served two separate prison terms for financial crimes. But he found a less lawless life here, having established the BGK Group, which became the largest holder of commercial real estate in New Mexico. The twice-befallen financier reinvented himself in Santa Fe—the capital city of a state an 1876 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel editorial called “the tag end of all that is objectionable in an imperfect civilization.”

On an unseasonably cool mid-July morning, Max Lovato is sampling a pocket-sized meatball next to a mobile grocery truck parked on the west bank of the Rio Grande. The evening before, several of the truck’s volunteers handed out approximately 100 flyers advertising free samples in San Felipe Pueblo, where he lives. The beef Lovato is eating is grass-fed, which is leaner and lower in calories than traditional beef.

Can the electromagnetic fields associated with cell phones cause physical pain and memory problems? Or is Arthur Firstenberg’s claim that cell phones have caused him nausea, vertigo, diarrhea, insomnia and a host of other ailments merely the baseless complaint of a hypochondriac?

If you haven’t been to a Fuego game, you’re missing out. Living up to the City Different’s reputation, a baseball game in Santa Fe is unlike any other: there’s the drinking section that caused such a hullabaloo—which is the closest you can get to a modern-day internment camp; some of the best people-watching around; and in-house snacks like the fiery Frito pie that will have you grabbing onto the towel rack later, screaming “Oh, Doctor, you can hang a star on that one!”

Pooh, a Long Beach transplant to Albuquerque and later Santa Fe, claims to have been in a gang since he was six years old. With a voice more mature than his years, Pooh, a high school dropout, claims to have broken into 11 houses in a single spree, been the victim of a failed drive-by and witnessed a cousin dying after being shot in the face. Twice.

“Your note below says toiletries only. Is this one of those clothing optional, naked babe weekends?” So wrote Patrick Rogers—Albuquerque power lawyer, lobbyist and member of the Board of Directors of the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government—in an email to the private account of Ryan Cangiolosi, deputy chief of staff for Gov. Susana Martinez, and the professional account of Stuart Feltman, president of Coca-Cola in Santa Fe, on Aug. 30, 2011.