Bye

 Welcome to probably the final installment of The Gods Are Bored. 

I thought I could return to my sassy humor over this past summer, but nothing is funny anymore. In America we have entered a dystopia so deep that satire is in bad taste ... and possibly even job- and life-threatening.

Ten years ago I had faith in the people of this country. That faith was misplaced.

We now have multiple public health crises here: gun violence, vaccine hesitancy and distrust of scientific research, electronic device addiction, and still the scourge of opiate painkillers. Critical thinking is actively discouraged. The environment is so damaged that only a major extinction event could repair it. Income inequality has made slaves of us all.

You might think that the political climate is the reason for my despair. Well, it certainly plays a major role. Fact is, for me, it comes down to insects. The real kind. I do not see them anymore. There are no ants in my kitchen. There are no crickets in my basement. When I turn on the porch light, no moths flutter around it. The only bugs I saw this summer were the greenhead flies at the Jersey Shore. And they did not attack in numbers like they used to. I understand that I am the only home owner on my block who doesn't employ professional pest control services. But that does not explain the scarcity of insect and bird life on my untouched property in the mountains. There are fewer bugs, and hence fewer birds and bats, and none of that bodes well.

My daughters do not want to have children. This is their choice. I say nothing to them, but I think of all the Mothers going back into the mists of time who have led to me and mine, and I grieve. If this blog springs back to life, it will be because one of these two fine, principled, intelligent, sensitive, and learned young women changed her mind. I am living in the question.

I want to say goodbye to you, and to thank you again, from my heart's bottom, for your kind comments and the many gifts you bestowed upon me over the years -- everything from supplies and books for my classroom to vet bills for poor Decibel the parrot. But mostly thank you for making me feel heard and seen. I enjoyed this all so much.

I don't want to leave you with a portrait of aging Annie, crumbling in her dark living room. So here is how I want you to visualize me:

Visualize me doing live action role play in the Pine Barrens, decked out in flowing faerie gear, with young people and their dear children.

Visualize me quietly helping my old friend the Monkey Man. Ten months ago he was hit by a car that broke multiple limbs but not his spirit. Never his spirit. See me doing his laundry and bringing him paper towels and taking him to baseball games. See us laughing over his most recent haiku.

See me at faerie festivals, with my sister who has renounced evangelicalism, dancing in the grass.

See me at baseball games with my peanuts and Cracker Jack, rooting for the Orioles and the Phillies and anyone playing the Yankees.

See me teaching school. I am still teaching school at age 66.

And see me quietly tending my shrines, honoring my Mothers, and Queen Brighid the Bright, and Venus Cloacina, and dear ol' Anansi. I still feel like the Old Gods are a little less bored these days. They deserve all the best.

Take care of yourself, reader. Let your garden grow wild. And may the Bored Gods protect you and keep you, now, tomorrow, and forever.

Anne

The Merlin of Berkeley Springs

I Don't Get These Rich People

 Do you? Like, how can they be so rich that they couldn't spend their money in 1000 lifetimes, and yet begrudge their workers a decent living and seek in every way to replace them with machines?

I'm thinking today of the Bezos wedding that closed the whole city of Venice down for a long weekend and lured the most vapid and wasteful wealthy people to a private celebration mired in excess. This is the same Jeff Bezos who moves heaven and earth to keep his employees from organizing. The same Jeff Bezos who wouldn't let the newspaper he owns endorse Kamala Harris for president.

The same Jeff Bezos who joined Joe Biden for state dinners at the White House. Because, you see, it doesn't matter who is in power, they can all be bought.

My confusion is how their minds work, the rich. Why do they never have enough? Why does it bother them, if some unfortunate Americans get health care? Why don't they want to pay taxes? They wouldn't miss it!

I suppose from our earliest eras as humans on the savannah, we have had self-preservation at the forefront of our minds. This self-preservation instinct evolved into cooperation, which is a benefit to humankind. It also evolved into competition, into taking the other group's harvest when your own failed.

Is that what lurks in the minds of the Bezos and Thiel and Murdoch and Musk scions? Some vague anxiety about an invading horde carting off all their stuff? Because, ha ha! If the Apocalypse comes, their own security details will turn on them.

They are all subsidizing research into longevity too. Heck, if they are going to enjoy the fruits of their exploitation to the max they will have to live thousands and thousands of years. And good luck with that, fly boys! Inevitably your submarines will implode.

I'm not the most charitable person on the planet, by any means. But I pay my taxes, no matter how high they are. I hate the president, but I'm paying the Secret Service to protect him. I'm also paying for the health care of some 29-year-old, able-bodied man who is sitting in his parents' basement. Somehow that bothers me a hell of a lot less than it seems to bother Jeff Bezos.

Fewer and fewer people are standing up to defend the super-rich. I think it's finally dawning on average Americans that they aren't the "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" that John Steinbeck described. Events like this vacuous wedding, set against a backdrop of unrelenting toil at Amazon, will hopefully move the needle another inch or two.

I don't get these rich people, but one thing I know. I would not trade places with them. Not for all the tea in China.

Summer Reading Do's and Don'ts

 Hello to my three "Gods Are Bored" fans! Today I learned a valuable lesson. It's my second day of summer vacation, and it only took me four emphatic removals to dissuade my cat Omega from trying to nap on the laptop. Now she's sleeping in her usual spot. Four seems like kind of a low number for a determined cat. Maybe I got a good cat, or maybe she's just lazy today.

Today's sermon involves my own personal "do" and "don't" for your summer beach read.

DON'T go to Barnes & Noble and get suckered into buying the sequel to Fourth Wing. If you haven't heard of this novel, it's a passable fantasy about a military school with dragons and enemies and whatnot, sufficiently entertaining and meant for an adult audience. When I say "adult audience," I mean that it has a five-page sex scene drawn in precise anatomical and sensory detail, so lurid I can't even put it out for high school seniors in good faith. Fourth Wing was somewhat diverting and ended with a cliff-hanger, so when I saw a big ol' table with the sequel on it, I shoved my fist into my pocket for the ducats to buy it. A big mistake. I should have waited for the community book sale copy. The sequel is dull and uninspired so far, graphically violent and directionless. I will finish reading it because I spent money on it, but when I say I put it down to read a book about how Silicon Valley is altering the creative relationship between writers and readers, I think you get the point.

DO instead consider buying a copy of Whisperlights, by Brendan Myers. Also fantasy, this is a sturdy little story with a nice plucky heroine (two, actually) that does what Fourth Wing does without the slobbery sex and ridiculous length. Whisperlights is by a Canadian author who is a college professor, but the story is not at all pedantic. It moves at a nice pace. The publishing house does work with gamers, and this book kind of reminded me of my LARP -- a good group of heroes and villains, moving from adventure to adventure, with a goal that we all can get behind: asking the Gods why They do what They do. I guess that's why the book resonated with me, since I've been interviewing Gods and Goddesses for 20 years, basically asking the same question.

I put the link to Whisperlights above so that you can order it from a source other than Amazon. Long-timers here know I will dig under a rock to find an item before purchasing it from the evil empire. I definitely liked Whisperlights better than Fourth Wing, and I prefer it infinitely to the Fourth Wing sequel.

And speaking of sequels, word has it that the author of Whisperlights is working on his own sequel, as well as some other projects involving the same characters. You'll like lugging this one to the beach. And I can in good faith put it on the shelf for my students. Good stories don't need to be larded with devious tongues and throbbing man-parts.

Parades and Protests

 Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" There's nothing we like better than a parade. Before this previous weekend, we would have said any parade, anywhere. 

That no longer holds true.

As a kid growing up, I always saw those little clips of military parades from Nazi Germany and North Korea as part of public education's plan to teach us about evil dictators. Who can forget the Nazi-saluting storm troopers passing Hitler's reviewing stand?

Against all odds (not), our current sitting president decided to have one of these military parade shindigs for himself. Don't believe for one minute it was about the Army. It was (as usual) all about him. Which is what makes it so damn funny, how it actually turned out.

So the first thing you see in the good ol' Nazi parade Hitler clip is the precision of the marching. Those troopers, impeccably clad, are absolutely in lockstep. North Korea goes even further, making their military parades pageants, no doubt a cheap way to entertain the starving populace. 

This past Saturday afternoon, my curiosity warred with my disgust. Curiosity won. I pulled up a livestream of Trump's parade. And my jaw just about hit the floor. Platoon after platoon of soldiers, in their baggiest fatigues, not even particularly trying to stay in step. Group after group after group, all looking the same. The only other attractions in the mix were military machines, which -- face it -- after you've seen one tank, you've seen them all. But it seemed like there were at least 125,000 in this parade. At least that's how it felt after I watched about 30 minutes.

Then an even funnier thing happened. Somehow the cameras stopped showing the parade and started showing the reviewing stand exclusively. Trump was on camera, next to his stone-faced wife and his chisel-chinned moron secretary of defense, for at least 15 minutes. What a character study! He glowered, he pouted, he stood occasionally and saluted like the decorated war veteran he is ... oh, wait. Scratch that last part.

Hey, I understood. I would have pouted too. That parade was mad boring. And the weather sucked. Never mind that Washington didn't get the torrential downpours that were forecast. That city is a swamp on a good day. This was not a good day. Not raining hard, but just misting. You know what I mean -- that type of mist that, when you're driving, you keep having to adjust the wiper setting. So annoying!

It's not like I was just sitting in my house all day waiting for the Trump parade to start. Oh no, I had to go to another goddamned protest march. Sweet Osiris, it's endless.

I had to make another dumb sign.

Might have been better with a color printer.

Then I had to interrupt my busy Saturday of laundry and doom scrolling to leave the house and drive a half mile to the El station, where I joined a local "No Kings" group to walk 1.5 miles to Collingswood, New Jersey. We had to use the sidewalk -- they didn't even close the street. Joke was on the cops, though, because you never heard so much sympathetic honking in your life. Most drivers just laid on the horn and didn't let up.

Sheesh. Another slog holding a sign. More chanting "this is what democracy looks like." Ironically, I was walking with the same friend who I ran into by chance at the 2017 Women's March in DC. At least this "No Kings" march was local. I didn't have to drag my tired teacher ass into Philadelphia for the 10,000th time to protest. Don't ask me why, but being a Mummer hasn't gotten old, but being a protester has.

Actually I do know why protesting has gotten old. It's because it's not helping. I was one of a cool million women who converged on the nation's capital back in 2017. Look how well that all turned out for us.

Yes, it's nice to get together with old protesting buddies, and sing songs and carry signs. But it's not enough. I want it to matter. And with this creature Donald Trump in the White House, the only thing that matters is, are there cop cars burning? Then, great! Send in the Marines!

Here in my little nation, the Independent Republic of Johnsonia, I certainly have disgruntled citizens. The possums haven't forgiven me for putting bricks on the trash can lid. I know they're pissed. But if they took the time and trouble to make signs and plan a march, I sure would watch them and sincerely consider their demands. This has never happened with our sitting president. It's like he makes a list of what we're demanding and then does exactly the opposite. The more we march, the worse he gets.

So I spent as little time as I could at the "No Kings" protest on Saturday, just so I could be part of the national headcount. Excuse me if I'm cynical, but when Trump got elected a second time, I lost complete respect for the United States of America. Thank goodness for dear ol' Johnsonia!

I do think it's funny, though, that Trump thought he would get a spiffy, precision parade full of fancy weapons just by wishing it would be so. Take it from someone who knows her way around an intricate parade routine, involving impeccable costumes and timing. It takes practice to get it right. Those poor North Koreans probably practice that shit endlessly. Nobody practiced for Trump's parade. Nobody worked out a showy routine. Almost everyone looked bored, from the chief spectator to the robotic dogs.

In closing I offer up a little patriotic routine my Mummers group did back in the day. Just to show Trump and the U.S. Army how it should be done.

Summer Reading! Fever Beach, by Carl Hiaasen

 "Gods Are Bored" fans, I have to work until June 24. That is a late, late, late end date. It has to do with how long our Xmas vacation was, I guess. Administration always has its rationale.

But weep not! I teach seniors. As far as they are concerned, it's already summer! Can't say I blame them. Feels like summer to me, too. Nap time!

Summer wouldn't be summer without beach reading. And we are in a world of good luck this summer, my friends. Carl Hiaasen is out with a new novel called Fever Beach, and it slays.

I read all kinds of stuff, from Great Classics to self-published friend fiction. Hands down, Carl Hiaasen is my favorite modern humor writer. He stands alone. His novels are all set in Florida, and most of them feature at least one Florida Man. (For those of you who don't know, Florida Man is what you Google if you want to see the most ridiculous things on the Web.)

Fever Beach is this author's best effort in a while. It has a great, grand cast of loathsome miscreants, a hero who has featured in other books, and several scrappy heroines.

Anne loves her a scrappy heroine.

Carl Hiaasen offers up the best escapist fiction around. Every one of us would just love to punch a Neo-Nazi. Yes, I am speaking for you. Admit it. You would love to punch a Nazi. Well, in Carl Hiaasen's books, Nazis get punched. Repeatedly. But in story after story, it's the villains' own stupidity that finally does them in. This, too, is rewarding.  It's quietly satisfying, and it seems perfectly plausible.

I'm sure there are many sensitive Floridians who have watched the state get slathered in asphalt and high-rises and just wept quietly into their hankies. Carl Hiaasen rages against the machine. In his fiction, greedy developers get their just desserts. And politicians? Whoa, baby, they get roasted like a rump of fine Angus beef.

Fever Beach has all those good things I gobble up. There are knuckle-dragging Florida men, the aforementioned scrappy females, a strong leading man, and a satisfying plot. I didn't just read the book, I wallowed in it. Before summer's end, I will read it again.

In order to enjoy Carl Hiaasen, you have to have a fairly sick sense of humor and not get rattled by sex toys and perverts. Sometimes I don't like such things in my fiction, but Carl does it right. So, the book is not for prudes, but for those of us who like our smut to be funny, it's the champagne of the genre.

So if you're looking for a great beach read, I heartily recommend Fever Beach. If you've already read Carl Hiaasen, you're probably as excited as I am. If you haven't ever heard of the guy, start with his classics: Stormy Weather and Sick Puppy. Native Tongue is also a side-splitter. You can get all of those in cheap paperback. But if you are caught up on this great humorist (as I am, alas), go plunk down your ducats for the hard cover of Fever Beach. 

Carl Hiaasen makes me laugh. And I need to laugh right now. We all do.

Lawson

 This morning I woke up around 6:15, and the first thing that came to my mind was, "Oh no. I forgot Lawson!"

Lawson is a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient who is buried in the nearby cemetery in Lawnside, New Jersey. He was long deceased when he received his award -- the commendation came around 130 years after he pulled a dozen fellow soldiers out of the bottom of a burning ship during the Civil War. See, Lawson was African American. To me it's a miracle he ever got the citation at all.

Lawnside is an African American community. During the Civil War, Black soldiers were not buried in official government cemeteries. So the community of Lawnside agreed to take any soldier of color who needed a respectful place to rest. There are well over 100 Civil War soldiers buried in the Lawnside cemetery. The exact number is unknown because every time the community clears more brush, they find more stones.

America, picture Arlington in your head, and then look at how this veteran of color is remembered.

Kind of sums up our nation in a nutshell.

That is not Lawson's grave in the photo, but this pictured stone is close to Lawson's. 

Every year, prior to Memorial Day, I take a bouquet of silk flowers -- red, white, and blue -- to Lawson's stone. I respectfully acknowledge to the other soldiers there that the bouquet is for them as well. I do this anonymously, in time for the services that the community performs in the cemetery.

This year I made it in the nick of time, about 9:00 a.m. Usually I do this the day before, or even earlier.

I forgot Lawson this year because I am heartsick. It's all well and good to live in the Independent Republic of Johnsonia, but I still see and hear what's happening in the USA. It's tragic. 

I was able to soldier on until the president started targeting Harvard. That was the final straw. I guess it's because I attended a similar elite university. Yes, there are many foreign students at our top universities. Some of them can't even speak much English. But they are the creme de la creme of their nations, intellectually. They come to study at the best universities in the USA, and then they either return home to become the leaders of the future, or they stay and become part of the nation's brain trust. If that process ends, it will be the nail that seals the coffin of America's future.

I don't find it a reach to think that this is because the president's son wasn't accepted to Harvard. Or the president himself. It's also a performance for his uneducated base, the ultimate owning of the libs. Whatever. It's a self sabotage ... the likes of which no one has ever seen before. 

This Memorial Day, my mind wasn't on Lawson. It was on the ravages of the New Gilded Age. 

In today's baseball standings, the Baltimore Orioles are 18-34, buried in the basement of their division. There is no port in the storm.

My Neighbor Channels His Inner Trump

 Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" New pope? Just say nope! Choose a deity who won't be hitting you up for tithes so his priests can wear expensive dresses.

Different topic: We're quite upset here in Johnsonia. I guess it's bound to happen when houses are built too close together. In short, despite the five Harris signs he put on his lawn last fall, my neighbor is straight up a Trump wannabe.

Look at how he has marked the boundary between his regular old New Jersey property and the Independent Republic of Johnsonia!

EXHIBIT A: THE BIG, BEAUTIFUL WALL

A few weeks ago, our next door neighbor told Mr. J that a fence update was in the works. Previously, the fence was a little picket unit, about up to my navel. You know the type. Well, look at what replaced that little picket fence! On the neighbor's side it has decorative planks. On ours, zilch. Neighbor didn't even ask the construction worker to inquire if we wanted decorative planks on our side.

Admittedly, Johnsonia has allowed some emigration. Specimens of common milkweed, for instance. It's native to New Jersey, and it will grow even amongst grass in the lawn (especially if you don't mow your lawn but once a summer, as this neighbor has done in the past). And granted, we have seen mint crossing the border, but come on. Mint! Put it in your iced tea! It's a gift.

About ten years ago, when some kind of critter took my first ripe tomato, snapped a bite out of it, and discarded it, I gave up on gardening. Instead I sowed the garden patch with native plants, like milkweed, goldenrod, and asters. The patch doesn't get a great deal of sun, so these natives do flourish, but they grow tall and rangy. They aren't well-groomed shrubbery.

But when Mr. J apologized to the neighbor for the wildness of our yard, the neighbor said he didn't care about that, it didn't bother him. Why, then, did he pay someone to construct such a monstrosity?

To clarify, fence zoning in Haterfield says that he who fences first fences last. When Mr. J and I moved into Johnsonia, we had fencing on every side, none of it in our control. It's still like that. We can't put up a fence because our neighbors already did, before we even moved in, closing in on 40 years ago.

Who builds a 7-foot wall between themselves and their neighbors, knowing what it will look like on the neighbor's side? My daughter The Fair says she thinks the neighbor is trying to hide something. I'm not going to argue the point. This family used to be sweet and friendly, and we socialized from porch to porch with them. But the dude in particular has gone from chummy to peculiar. The wall is the result.

In contrast, Johnsonia's neighbors on the other side worked with us when they updated their fence.  We even offered to help them pay for it (they never billed us). It looks the same on both sides. Pretty.

EXHIBIT B: JOHNSONIA'S OTHER BORDER

That is also a tall fence, but it's civilized. Neighborly. And yeah, that green mess is what passes for a garden in Johnsonia. I can't bring myself to try to eradicate the wisteria. It was here when I got here. Like the fences.

Reader, I do actually feel like Canada or Mexico. I feel like my next door neighbor has acted in bad faith.

But time is on my side.

This wall is going to look like the rim of Hell for about two years. After that, the abundant Virginia creeper that swathes everything it can crawl onto will have a field day (!) with it. Virginia creeper is also native. I'm constantly pulling it off the sides of Johnsonia's garage. Well, I won't have to pull it off the wall! It will be an improvement.

I do honestly want to hear your opinion on this matter. Why did my neighbor do this? He who has a Pride flag by his door? I don't get it.