Free Advice on Lawn Gnomes

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where life without lawn gnomes is inconceivable!

I don't think we're gonna get to see the Monkey Man today, so here's a little free advice.

If you've got one of those low-cost gnomes that isn't made of plaster, and it loses a leg, here's what you do.

Find a solid stick, cut it about three inches longer than the height of the gnome, shove the stick up into the gnome's cavity, and then shove the extra three inches into the ground.

My gnome with a prosthetic limb is standing proudly among the throng, and no one would know the difference.

Never throw out a lawn gnome. We at "The Gods Are Bored" will adopt your unwanted gnomes no matter how pathetic they look.

FROM ANNE

THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS

White Magic Friday: Gotta Be More Hip

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!"

Have you ever had an MRI?

I had one today. It was the first thing in the morning, and I sure was glad I skipped my coffee before I went, cuz caffeine would not have made matters better.

Here are the tactics I used to get through the MRI:

1. I kept my eyes closed the whole time.

2. I thought about a person in my life who would be unable to endure it (Mr. Johnson) and congratulated myself that I would be able to warn him in advance.

3. I thought of a person who would consider it awesome performance art and want to stay in there all day, (daughter The Heir) and marveled that some inventor created something that sounds just like the stuff she listens to on her MP3.

4. I compared it to living with my mother. (This always works, no matter how bad things get.)

Can I have the envelope, please? The results of the MRI are...

I need a new hip.

White magic will not fix this, of course. Back in the day when the Druids took care of things, I would be given herbal remedies and a good, stout staff, and on I'd go as long as I could.

So, what will white magic do?

It will help.

The bulk of white magic consists of the positive feelings we emit towards others. So, dear readers, think kindly on me and let me know when you're doing it.

Tomorrow, if time permits: We'll catch up with the Monkey Man!

Sunday is The Heir's birthday, and I can't avoid it any longer. She will receive her musical saw.

FROM ANNE

THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS

Sex and the Shitty

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," putting on the prude hat today and ranting about something everyone else seems to love.

I am no expert on Sex and the City. I watched two or three episodes and was totally disgusted by it.

Remember, we at "The Gods Are Bored" do not tell you what to think. I suspect opinions on SATC will vary greatly amongst my legions and legions and legions of readers.

Here's what I saw in the little bit of SATC I watched: over-dressed anorexic women behaving like sexual predators.

Why should I pay HBO to watch this stuff when I can see it for free at Snobville High School? The tender young females at Snobville HS are asking boys if they can be "fuck buddies" with no emotional attachment. Word.

This is not feminism levelling the playing field. This is women being encouraged to act like bad men. Most of us don't find it attractive when a good-looking stud shags every pussy he can shag, discarding partners like empty beer bottles. Why should this be attractive in women? In my book, it's not.

Nor did I find particularly poignant the plot device in which the lead character falls for a married man and busts up his marriage so they can have great sex. We never see the wife and kids behind that one. Say what you like about Pagans, but we have moral values too, and this shoe don't fit.

Speaking of shoes, this brings me to my next rant about SATC. Every character is swathed in about $3000 of couture in every scene. Dresses, sunglasses, accessories, shoes, handbags. Never the same outfit twice.

Here where I live, they've been having SATC movie premiere events all week at which women are showing up in all this expensive glam, trying to be more like their heroines.

Gag me with Givenchy.

Why are we honoring women who have so caved to the patriarchy that they act like the worst patriarchs?

Here's a novel idea. Really a novel idea. Why don't we champion the likes of Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice? Instead of women becoming hard and predatory, why can't men become gentle and romantic?

Come on, gals. Given the choice between Mr. Big and Fitzwilliam Darcy, who would you choose?

And guys. Would you really want those overdressed skin-and-bones hardass Sex & etc. etc. women for girlfriends? Two things: How much of that expensive clothing would you have to buy, and (cringe) what do you think those gals look like when they're not wearing it?

It's easy enough for me to avoid going to see Sex and the City. It will be much harder to steer my younger daughter through a high school where having a "fuck buddy" is the latest rage.

Hey, Carrie. Go to hell.

My Fabulous Career as a Water Judge

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" King Triton is here today, joining me to celebrate the world of water!

Last week I taped an interview with National Public Radio on my fabulous and notorious career as a water judge. The program, called The Story with Dick Gordon, aired today (May 28) at 1:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m.

The clip will be archived by now, and you can listen to it from this site. Be sure to check out the truly butt-ugly picture of me, sitting at the edge of the Lord Fairfax Spring in Berkeley Springs.

King Triton is still laughing about how nervous I was during the taped interview. (He's right. I mean, a taped interview! Any time I could have said, "CINDY JACOBS IS THE ANTIDEITY" and they just would have edited it out.)

I also made a mistake that didn't occur to me until I was walking up Market Street toward the El. The host, Dick Gordon, asked me to taste and comment upon the glass of water they gave me so my mouth wouldn't dry out. It didn't taste like Philly tap water. DUH! The technician must have gotten it from a water fountain!

I am not known for quick thinking. But since my duty in life is to entertain the bored gods, and King Triton is cracking up, I guess I did good.

To hear my mellifluous voice, go here:

http://thestory.org/archive

Please don't tell me if I sound stupid. I already know how I sound.

FROM ANNE

THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS

Viva Las Jersey

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" We're thinking outside the box these days. If by box you mean car, we are really thinking outside the box! We at "The Gods Are Bored" are embracing the new, mod, hip, and otherwise cutting-edge concept called:

The stay-cation.

This is how a stay-cation works. You stay home. You pull out the folding lawn chair, whip up a pitcher of iced tea, borrow a few books from the library, and voila. Staycation.

If you're the kind of person who can't sit at your own house without doing the 10,423 things that need to be done, there's a handy solution for you. Take your chair to the nearest city, county, or state park, unfold it, pull out the books and the pitcher, and voila. Staycation.

But what you really like to do is shop. Well, reader, have you noticed how every little town now has the same boring box stores? So why fly to the Barnes & Noble in Milwaukee when there's one in Wheeling? If you like to shop, go to the local mall. Or much better, the local flea market.

But wait. You love excitement and adventure. You want to see things you've never seen before, have all new experiences!

What, are you made of money?

If you can tell me that you've seen every sweeping vista, every historic site, every pleasant camping spot, every hip main street, and every amusement park within 50 miles of your home, go ahead and travel! But that $4.00 a gallon you're shoving in the old auto piles up quick. A tank of gas, or a month's supply of wine?

I just flushed my car keys down the loo.

We at "The Gods Are Bored" plan an extensive staycation this summer. (Not that we've ever been intrepid travelers.)

*Daughter The Heir plans to pursue the musical saw. She is busy creating a "Sonata for Saw and Macaw" that she will perform with Decibel the Parrot.

*Daughter The Spare has the sofa molded to her girlish figure and the TV primed to record every episode of "The Gilmore Girls."

*Mr. Johnson is happy with the lounge chair and the book and the pitcher, not necessarily filled with iced tea.

*Anne is going to embark upon a remarkable adventure -- she wants to take courses from Isaac Bonewits's Real Magic School! Why pretend to be an expert about something when you can really learn it? And right in the comfort of your home, with your mildewed towels slithering around your ankles!

The moral of this sermon: Stay put this summer. If you liked your house enough to buy it, just hang out there. My back yard is so small I once mowed it with a pair of kitchen scissors. Then, in search of adventure, I read Into Thin Air. It was fun, and I didn't lose my nose to frostbite.

I'll let you know how I like magic school. Something tells me you haven't heard the last about "Sonata for Saw and Macaw," either.

A Stonewall Jackson Moment

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," saving gas on Memorial Day by staying home and using the El!

Every time the prince of petrol goes up another dime, my native home in Appalachia gets farther and farther away. It's okay, though. The mountains are in my heart. And New Jersey is in my backyard, yo.

This picture doesn't look a thing like Hilary Clinton. But she just suffered what I call a "Stonewall Jackson Moment."

No one will argue that Stonewall Jackson was a brilliant military theorist who excited deep devotion in his troops. But Stonewall had an Achilles heel. He thought he could go without sleep. Sometimes, in the heat of battle, he would go two or three days without sleeping, and then lie down for a catnap.

Eventually this sleep deprivation eroded Stonewall's judgment to an alarming degree. And yes, I'm sure of it, because I read a lengthy biography of Stonewall Jackson. There were several pitched battles where he made stupid mistakes. And then there was the fatal one. He was out wandering around and got shot by a Confederate picket. The shooter wasn't even court-martialed.

When presidential candidates jet around the country, speaking in Oregon at 10:00 in the morning and Florida at 2:00 the same day, when they're up all night crafting speeches and talking points, cat-napping on planes, dropping on hotel beds at 3:00 a.m., they're going to lose it sooner or later. Mrs. Clinton lost it. Big time.

While back, Barak Obama stopped at the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News for a talk with the editorial staffs. Later I saw someone who attended that meeting. I asked her what she thought of Obama close up. She said, "He seemed tired. He had trouble following the questions. He kept leaning forward like he was trying to concentrate. And his answers were sometimes incoherent."

Stonewall Jackson Moments.

No one asks us here at "The Gods Are Bored" to give our free advice in regards campaigning for president. But we would say that William McKinley won the presidency without ever leaving his front porch, while his opponent, William Jennings Bryant, criss-crossed the nation giving whistle-stop speeches in every small town.

Whatever you happen to be doing in life, get your sleep. Your brain needs it. You don't want to wind up like Stonewall Jackson, crossing the river to sleep in the shade of the trees while still in the prime of life. Nor do you want to be Hilary Clinton, making a remark in front of small-town reporters in South Dakota that, in your right mind, you'd never ever make.

Don't be a Stonewall. Rest yourself.

White Magic Friday: 23 Skiddooo!

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Look for our special Memorial Day Weekend Sale: Buy one deity, get another deity of equal or lesser value for free!*

I know exactly who started me down the road to Paganism. It was Robert Anton Wilson. And in keeping with his philosophy that there's no such thing as a coincidence, it was quite by coincidence that I learned of his writing and his line of thought.

Perhaps "line of thought" isn't the right phrase. I think he would have preferred "nebulous cloud of thought." He wasn't a linear kinda dude.

In his book Cosmic Trigger, Wilson talks about the number 23. And I've talked about it on this site before, and I've even run a photo of this guy here before.

EXHIBIT A: MICHAEL JORDAN, BEST NBA PLAYER OF ALL TIME

Here's the magical thing about the number 23. If you haven't noticed it before, after reading this you will start noticing it. Absolutely positively correct. Wait and see. It's gonna crop up all over the place.

There's all this complex numerology stuff about 23, because it's made up of prime numbers, and they add up to another prime number, etc. etc. and so on and so forth. But what Robert Anton Wilson noted (and Anne too) is that the minute you single out any number you're gonna find that number haunting you and taunting you.

Okay, so maybe it won't work for 4,273,849. But anything under 100, just trust me.

But you don't trust me. So here is the very true story of My First Encounter with the Number 23.

The very same day I read about the number 23 in Cosmic Trigger, I came home from work and got a phone call from Mr. Johnson. We were newly married at the time. He was on his way to the convenience store, and he asked me if he should pick up a lottery ticket. (We hardly ever played the lotto then, and we don't play it at all now.)

It was almost time for the lottery drawing. So I told him to plunk down a dollar on the number 023. He said he'd try, if they still were taking bets.

Readers, this is pinky swear truth. I turned on the t.v. 10 minutes later, and the winning daily number was called: 023.

Happy ending? Only in the movies, muchachos. Mr. Johnson just missed getting a ticket by a heartbeat.

It was some time after that, not too long I think, that Michael Jordan asked me what number he should choose for his Chicago Bulls jersey. He wanted to have a stellar career in the NBA, you see. So I told him about Cosmic Trigger, and Robert Anton Wilson, and the rest is history.

All right. All right. That last part isn't true. But the lottery thing is true. And it's also true that Jordan played his whole career as #23. Coincidence? I think not.

Put the number 23 to work in your life. Or don't. We at "The Gods Are Bored" aren't trying to tell you what to do.

FROM ANNE

THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS

5/23

*Offer not good on Judeo-Christian deities or demons, Isis, Sedna, Loki, statues from the Canary Islands, Venus, Pluto, Mercury, Coyote, Anansi, Chac and other Aztec deities, Sacred Thunderbirds, Kali, Krishna, the Salmon of Wisdom, assorted faeries and faerie products, hallucinogenic mushrooms, DC Superheroes, The Green Man, Chaos, Demeter, Pan, or assorted Price-Reduced Tikis. Offer cannot be combined with other coupons. Offer cannot be converted to cash or be used for the remission of sins. While supplies last.

In Which I Violate the First Amendment

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," your front row seat to the comedy of life! Boatloads of mirth, for what it's worth!

In 2004 I lost my job to corporate greed. I decided that one way to recoup a little of the income was to become a substitute teacher. Thus, in the fall of 2005 I found myself climbing a set of concrete stairs into a Vocational-Technical school whose student body is 65 percent Hispanic, 30 percent African American, and 5 percent Asian.

Mindful of the Establishment Clause in the Constitution, I've never confessed to bringing my faeries with me, although I wear one or the other of them to school every time I go. (They travel with me in wearable-sized witch balls.)

A few months ago, one of my students noticed Puck and said, "That's a witch's ball. Are you Wiccan?"

Could have knocked me over with a feather.

I replied, "Actually I'm a Druid." Because I was only answering the question, you know?

He started peppering me with questions, which I demurred because of my faithfulness to the Clause. (And because I was supposed to be teaching them about John Stuart Mill or some other excruciatingly boring dead white guy.)

This conversation occurred during a long-term assignment I had back in the winter. Last week I went in to school on a daily gig, and the student was in my homeroom. He was reading a Goth-looking book about "Night Magick," big Pentagram on the cover. He showed it to me proudly.

There was another teacher watching me at the time, so I didn't say anything. But I've been worrying and fretting about ... emm ... let's call him Orlando, there's only about 25 Orlandos at this school.

See, I wanted to make sure he wasn't boning up on black magic or some other negative stuff. But I couldn't query him about it with another teacher in the room, or even with other students listening. I could only hope that he hadn't gotten his hands on some piece of sensationalist claptrap.

You know, it's funny how the bored gods work. Because I went to the Vo-Tech this week, and I was supposed to cover for Teacher A, but Teacher B didn't like the substitute assigned to her class, so I got switched. Orlando was in Teacher B's class, writing a book report about his magick book.

How's them apples?

So Orlando turned in his book report, and I read it, and it turns out the book was okay, theologically sound where bored gods and goddesses are concerned. In fact his "cast of characters" consisted of a long list of bored deities! (Too bad I'm not grading the thing, I'd give him an A for the year.)

Quickly and quietly he and I went over the Threefold Rule, and I asked him what specifically interested him about magick, and he said he was psychic. I told him I know a medium, and he should work on developing his talent.

Then I guess I broke down and slam-dunked the Establishment Clause. Because I took a sticky note and wrote on it, "Isaac Bonewits." I told Orlando to Google the name.

Okay, okay, I don't always practice what I preach. But there are so few of us Pagans, and it's not like I stood up in front of the class and wrote Bonewits's name on the chalkboard. In fact, the secrecy of the transaction appealed to both Orlando and me. He pocketed the sticky, and no one else paid any attention.

I'm not sure I'll be back at the Vo-Tech this coming fall. I have to drive there, and I live within walking distance of another high school. If I have to give up the Vo-Tech, I sure will miss some of the students there. Especially every one I've ever had named Orlando. There's magic in that name.

Please don't tell the ACLU about this, huh?

FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS

My Very Weird Daughter The Heir

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where the apple doesn't fall far from the tree! Actually, it's supposed to work this way: Each generation builds on the previous generation -- onward and upward we go.

Except if Mama is weird, what does daughter do?

Behold the world of my offspring, The Heir! (I call her The Heir because she's the oldest. Meaning, she inherits. My younger daughter, The Spare, is a backup plan. Well, not really, but I'm not gonna reveal my kids' names and get all their adventures Googled on them.)

For two years The Heir has been begging for music lessons. She wants to play the musical saw.

I'm totally serious. The kid is 19, and she's drooling over a saw that you play by drawing a bow across it.

We did some YouTube of the doggoned things, and they sound like cats in the middle of torture or sex, take your pick. But The Heir really wants one! And she has assured me that she doesn't want to learn to play tunes on it, only to make the worst sounds the thing can make. So it won't matter if she's not proficient.

That will scare away every ghost in the county.

My only consolation is that she'll be going to college in the fall, so the bulk of her practicing will be inflicted upon her dorm mates. I'm sure she'll be wildly popular.

Yesterday The Heir called me from work. She told me she wanted to stay another hour.

When I got to her place of employment, she eagerly ushered me into a basement room. (It's an old school building, no longer in use for educational purposes.)

Spread across the floor were about a dozen big white posters. All of them featured a photograph of some species of salami, stark against the white background. I never knew there were so many different kinds of salami, but each and every one looked so unappetizing that I'll never eat another Italian hoagie in my life.

The Heir gazed about herself in awe. "Aren't these great?" she enthused.

Her task is to organize the posters into sets, so that her employer can sell them. (They're signed and numbered prints.) There are hundreds and hundreds of salami posters, and The Heir is handling each one as if it had been personally drawn by Picasso.

She expressed the fervent hope that none of the other staff would finish the job.

I told her that there are 400,000,000 people in America, and 399,999,999 of them would rather not stand in a cold basement sorting salami posters. Nevertheless, she's anxious that this important task not be delegated to anyone else.

So, what do you do with a 19-year-old who doesn't drink or smoke, who has friends but no particular boyfriend, who has never broken the law or had a harsh word for anyone?

Oh sure, it's easy for you to say I should love her. But what about this salami thing? And the musical saw, for the love of fruit flies!

Where did I go wrong?

What I'm Smoking

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," with Alice for puns and hilarity for all!

Oh, for the love of fruit fies. Will this woman never be serious? She even takes an iconic quote by Abraham Lincoln and rips into it. What is she smoking?

One of my commenters actually asked me that. What am I smoking?

I don't smoke. The stuff I would choose to smoke if I could is illegal, and I don't want to have to pee in a cup and pay a fat fine just to get happy.

But happiness is important to me. I use this web site as my happiness generator. Is it working for you? Do you laugh when you come here? I do, most of the time. Laughter is a tonic approved by the bored gods.

The world is in an uproar. The danger zone is everywhere. There are three choices you have to deal with it. You can:

1. Become depressed

2. Become angry

3. Laugh, because what the hell else can you do?

I'm not a flippant person. I don't sit around watching the news and laughing at poor little kids buried in earthquake rubble. I also don't laugh when the casualty lists come in from Iraq, when people get downsized out of their jobs, when the world starts to heat up and dry out like a raisin.

But when I come here to "The Gods Are Bored," I want to put all that stuff aside for a moment, just in order to re-draw the sanity line in the sand. Dwelling on difficulties you can't control will drive you insane. Whereas doting on faeries you can't control will deprive you of pain.

And with that I say, laugh as much as you can, as often as you can, damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!

The Plastic Paradox

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where today we celebrate that deity of inanimate objects, plastic!

Yes, plastic. Never degrades, never turns to dust. If the human race lasts long enough, there will be veins of plastic in the rock layers 100 million years from now.

So here's my question. If plastic is as immortal as the bored gods, why does everything made out of it break so fast?

I've never met a plastic object that didn't crumble under my touch. I'm just unlucky that way. I was born in an era where, if something didn't work at first try, you just shoved a little harder. Or whacked the thing. And presto chango, it got going.

Just now I've been wrestling with my new printer. The old printer only lasted about 3 years (light use) and had to be ditched because the plastic cover wouldn't shut properly. Now, this new one. The Spare was printing something and she had to change the paper size. Do you think that paper sizer would just shove right back into position with a little old push? Hell no, I had to find a teeny tiny little lever, practically invisible to the naked eye, lift the lever, and then the paper sizer slid back into position.

Now you're telling me to read the manual, right? BAAAAMP! Operation manuals are only good for cleaning out under the fingernails and keeping the table from wobbling. If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we make appliances so simple that any moron can use them without first reading a manual?

And while we're at it, don't you think appliances and stuff should last longer than five years? My husband's grandmother is still alive, and she has a refrigerator from the 1950s that still works. I was told recently that if I didn't change the filter on my five-year-old refrigerator each and every time it needed to be changed, the whole doggone refrigerator will break down. You know -- and I know -- that in about three more years I'm gonna go to Sears and they're gonna say, "Sorry, but we don't carry that kind of filter anymore. You'll need a new refrigerator."

This one really has me steamed. Five years ago, in a moment of mutual insanity, my husband and I decided to get our kitchen renovated. Our house was built in 1927 and it still had the original cabinets. They were the butt-ugliest things you ever saw, but they worked. I decorated them with Loony Toon stickers that wouldn't come off, and as the stickers faded it just added to the ugliness.

I'm wishing those cabinets back now, you betcha. Because the new ones are white, and it turns out they just had a little bit of thin white laminate overtop a flimsy kind of who-knows-what-the-hell, and the bottom cabinets are already flaking at the corners. After five years!

Almost 70 years this house had the same metal cabinets, and now the new ones are looking crappy. So Mr. Johnson went back to the kitchen store and tried to get spare parts so we can fix the cabinets just before we get ready to sell this dump (which now looks sooner than later). Guess what they told him? The cabinets we bought have been phased out.

Everything's made to self-destruct, so that you've got to buy a whole new one whether you can afford it or not. And yet everything's made of plastic, which never self-destructs.

This problem is too stupid even for the most bored of bored gods, so I'll just say we live in the most despicably wasteful and polluting country on the planet. And leave it at that.

Another One Bites the Crust

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" When the going gets overwhelming, the overwhelmed rush to the computer to blog! Dirty house? Why clean it? Just gonna get dirty again.

I have a darling little nephew-in-law with blonde hair and dimples to die for. He likes Star Wars and computer games. He has a dog named Sport and a cat named Queenie. He lives in Baltimore.

Today he is receiving his first holy communion from the Roman Catholic Church. Mr. Johnson and I were reminded to send a card, but we weren't invited to the festivities. Which is just as well, because I'm not gonna let my niece and nephew grow into adulthood without at least being given a teaspoon of the Big, Broad, Flexible Outlook. And Mr. Johnson's family knows it.

Part of first communion is going to confession for the first time. Mr. Johnson is a lapsed Catholic, and he remembers that when his first communion came, he thought up a lot of lies and just let 'em rip.

But my little nephew-in-law has too good of a heart to do that. Once when his stupid-ass school was having yet another fundraiser, he emptied his piggybank and, unbeknownst to his struggling parents, took the money and gave it to the school principal. (I think he was in kindergarten at the time.) To her credit, the principal called Nephew's mom and returned the dough. I guess that's one less stitch that Pope Rat got in his royal robe.

Oh, my heart is heavy, thinking of that poor little sweet boy, ushered into some dark box with some big old man on the other side of a grate, waiting to hear about bad things! I wanna go save him! Let me go in the box instead!

Anne: Don't bother blessing me, father, because my sins are my business. I've never confessed before, and I don't plan to again.

Father X: You will go to hell.

Anne: You know who's really gonna go to hell? Creepy priests who expect seven-year-olds to have sins to report! What could my nephew have done? He even cleans the cat box! Lissen, padre. You leave my nephew alone. If you cause even one dimple to lose its pop on that kid, I'm gonna enroll him in De Molay and pay his dues and take him to meetings!

Father X: Are you threatening to indoctrinate a good Catholic boy with occult Masonic ideas?

Anne: Why stop there? I think he'd make a great Druid. And the Masons would still take him, so we're good to go.

Whew. I feel so much better now. If you can't act out in real time, the computer is the next best thing.

White Magic Friday: Designer Clothing

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" It's White Magic Friday, and we're gonna make a dollar holler!

Are you going into sticker shock every time you go for groceries? Never mind the gas station. Check out the price of apples. Sheesh! Time to cook the parrot. Here, Decibel! Here polly polly polly...

Where's my turkey axe?

In these (or any) might-be-but-can't-be-certain-maybe-who knows-pre-pre-pre recessionary times, it's tough making ends meet. And still you want to look sharp. Like the old ancestral blue-faced mandrills, we humans tend to feel the need to update our wardrobes frequently.

Here's where the sticker shock really sets in. Have you checked out some of these trendy new fashion emporiums? There's one called Abercrombie, and one called Hollister, and a local favorite called Urban Outfitters. You plunk down fifty bucks, they'll deign to sell you a t-shirt with their name on it. A t-shirt that looks like your cousin Jake wore it when he was pulling out a stump.

I've got a clothes horse daughter who attends school alongside girls who wear nothing but these Hollister threads. So here is how my daughter The Spare worked her own white magic and became the trendiest, best-dressed gal in Snobville Middle School:

1. The Spare has a girlish figure. This helps but is not mandatory.

2. The Spare goes to a gigantic thrift store in Camden, New Jersey and cruises the aisles. Into her hands fall cute clothes that we can afford. When your new shirt costs $3.00 instead of $30.00, you can get a new shirt every Saturday!

3. Now here's where the magic comes in. Our thrift store is called Village Thrift. So if someone asks, "Where did you get that cute top?" You can't say "Village Thrift," now can you? So, The Spare calls Village Thrift "VT Outfitters." She has been quicker than most teens to discover that you can buy a t-shirt that looks like it's been used in stump-busting for fifty cents, and no one will be the wiser.

Today my daughter The Spare came out of school looking like a million bucks, but in reality she was done up at about $6.50 from head to toe, including shoes. The trick is giving the thrift store a snobby name.

And be sure the thrift store isn't the one on the main street of your town. Because someone might get wise to you. Go to a neighboring town. (This is easy where we live. We could bike to Village Thrift. But we would be tired when we got home.)

Here's extra magic for you faerie festival fanatics:

Thrift stores are treasure troves of faerie festival attire. If you don't find a suitable faerie gown in a month or two, you can always start snapping up a bevvy of lightly-used prom gowns and re-assembling them in novel ways. Okay, so if you can't sew this can be a problem. Call in those magic mice! Or else just have patience. The right gooey gown will eventually find its way into the racks. (Always look among the lingerie, gross as that sounds. I got me a dazzling nymph gown that way a few years -- and festivals -- back.)

Guys, you too can bypass the useless Abercrombie label. Let some dumb schlub pay $75 for a hoodie. You get yours at the thrift store, whack it with a stick and douse it with bleach, and you've saved yourself $70! Think of all the beer that will buy.

If this seems less like white magic than sound advice, just remember ... most white magic is just pure common sense, liberally applied. Go therefore and do it abundantly!

Shakespeare, Texted

Welcome to "The Gods Art Bored," my ladies and lords!

Hark! What light from yonder window breaks? It is the computer, upon which doth fair Spare send missives to her CD-Romeo! But soft, a moment. A waxen paleness spreads 'cross the cheek of fair Spare. She hath texted harsh words to CD-Romeo. And he, with hiss of despair, hath severed the ties that bind himself to the Spare.

Out staggers fair Spare from the computer's lair, full cursing herself and rending her hair.

From sunrise to sunset, Spare mourns and grieves. CD-Romeo wisheth not to seek her favour anon. Spare doth laugh with hollow shallowness. CD-Romeo doth tread the thoroughfares with his mates. Shall never the young loves resolve their dispute?

Oh, but the play's the thing with which we capture the ... emmm .... something something something. (I forget how it goes.)

O hark ye to the Snobville Middle School Spring Choir Concert! O see ye the wan Spare, bravely singing songs about growing too soon old, wiping the stray tear from the mournful eye! O witness CD-Romeo, all his customary bardic bravado drain'd, warbling with his buddies, yet lacking all mirth!

Has the moment come to summon th' apothecary?

(Exeunt choir.)

Offstage somewhere, confideth the Spare her woe to her friend, beginning to end. CD-Romeo, hiding behind a doorway, hears the strains of remorse, of course. He too feels the fool for having tossed away such a jewel, a fair damsel of little fortune but great wit and stunning beauty who, but for a mouthful of braces, could melt the heart of the dreaded Yeti.

They meet. Set it right. No more to fight. All again is right!

Don't you just love a happy ending?

O, alas and alack! The AIM button is blinking again! Out, out, foul application!

Avoid the Textbook at All Costs!

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," hoping you are healthy and wealthy and wise today! With accent on the healthy.

I've come to the Vo-Tech to substitute today, and my assignment was the nursing care class. I can't help myself. I always have to look at the books on the teacher's desk. Not while I'm trying to maintain classroom decorum, of course, but at odd moments when all the students are working on something.

How did I forget what class I was in and open a nursing care textbook? Every ailment known to the human condition is carefully pictured ... nay, photographed. Oh my. How fragile we are!

Makes me wonder. What kind of Intelligent Designer made us? We should have body armor built in. Limbs that self-correct after an injury. Heck, crabs have those, and what do they do? Scuttle around the bottom of bays. Do they pray to a Designer? I don't think so. Then why do their claws grow back if they lose them?

And while we're on Intelligent Design, I've always wondered why we have sex with the same organs we use to go to the bathroom. That's one of the first things I'd change about mammals. But don't ask me how. I'm no Designer, Intelligent or otherwise. I get queasy when I see photos in nursing manuals.

Puck on Chuck

Welcome to "The Gods Are Boards!" My name is Puck. I'm Anne's favorite, favorite, favorite faerie. Anne has the day off today because it's Mother's Day. Or Smothers Brothers Day. Or Another's Way, or some such.

On her list of "Things to Post About," Anne had "Chuck Norris." Well, I don't know much about Chuck Norris, but his name sounds like "Plucked Carcass." So we'll start there.

Okay, so I Googled and ogled the guy, and it seems he's some kinda face-buster who's popular in Christian circles for being religious, and popular everywhere else as a butt of jokes. Or a glut of Cokes. Whatever.

Anne took me out to Penn State last weekend, and there were lots of Plucked Carcass t-shirts. One had his picture on it and said, "The boogie man looks under the bed to make sure Chuck Norris isn't hiding there."

That was such a fun store, no bore!

Here's a joke about Plucked Carcass that I just found by Smurfing the Web:

When Chuck Norris falls out of a boat, he doesn't get wet. The water gets Chuck Norrised.

I have no idea what Anne wanted to say about upChuck Norris. I'm lost in the forest. With Boris and Morris and Deloris.

Perhaps she wanted to point out, or count out, or just plain pout about how poor a roll model Buck Horace is for Christian kids who oughta be charmed by gentle Gee-wiz. (I think his name is Gee-wiz. Or some such.)

Well, that's just a girly way of looking at things. How are you gonna keep your manly men interested in a religion if you don't have any tough guys in it? They gotta have someone to look up to as they barge off to target practice with their fun guns and stun guns and automatic piffles. You won't get anywhere in the Red Scare States if you tell the menfolk they have to solve their problems by loving their enemies and allowing any old foreigner to walk all over them without putting up a flight.

So I guess that's what this Chuck Norris does for his god. He lets it be okay for you to scare the boogie man, when really you should be loving on the boogie man instead. (The boogie man's real name is Fred, and he wants you to dust under your bed.)

I hope this has been kelp-filled. Or helpful. If you want to see Chuck Norris jokes, the Warred Wired Web is chock-a-block with them.

I wonder if Chuck Norris has a sense of humor? I clout it.

FROM PUCK

White Magic Friday: Besting Barbie

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored" on White Magic Friday! We've just inaugurated this new weekly series in order to assure our legions and legions of anxious Christian readers that Pagan magic comes not in black, but in all the lighter shades of pale! Ask Sherwin Williams. We know our eggshell whites.

The year I was born, Mattel, Inc. introduced a new doll called Barbie. Here is how she looked at her birth.

I was about five when I got my Barbie. I say "my Barbie" because in the day you only had one Barbie. She was your Barbie, and you knew not only her but also all of your friends' Barbies. You never changed Barbies, you only changed their clothes. And if your mama could sew, you were the envy of the neighborhood.

Barbie always made me nervous. I didn't like her body. I thought her boobs were too big and her waist too small, and those perpetually pointed toes just bothered the hell out of me. I pinky swear this is true. Even as a kid I had Barbie issues.

My mom couldn't sew a lick, but she noted my Barbie issues and bought me a gorgeous blue velvet Guinevere gown for my Barbie. It covered Barbie's toes. And if I'd kept the damned classic Barbie and the dress, they would cover my daughter's first semester of college.

My sister loved Barbies and was also very fussy about her belongings. So when my daughters came along, Sis had all this vintage Barbie stuff in mint condition. She gave it to me. Did I put it on ebay like a smart person? Nope. Handed it over to my kids, who played it into the ground and then some. Not a piece left.

I have changed a great deal since 1959, but look at Barbie. She's not only prettier, she's still got those whopping gazongas and that wasp waist. And I can state for a fact that her feet still hold the high heel pose, because when The Heir and The Spare were little, I stepped on about 1,283 Barbie high heels in the dark of the night.

The Barbie culture changed a lot between my Barbie days and my kids' Barbie days. By the time The Heir was about 12 and The Spare about five, we had a whole bin of Barbies, most of them naked. Oh yeah, and we also had Sis's classic Malibu Ken. (I saved him, but he's naked. He used to have a leather leisure suit that really buttoned.)

It irked me that humans grow old, die, and decompose, while Barbie stays forever young and doesn't even fall apart in the landfill. Not that I'd want to be an immortal, big-boobed, wasp-waisted zombie who can only walk in high heels, but I got tired of staring into that bin.

What does this have to do with white magic? Well, I just made a wish. I wished someone would do something about the Barbies in my house to make me feel better about them.

Some time later, I heard the unfamiliar sound of my daughters playing together amiably, up in the room where the Barbies were stored. I guess The Heir was about 14 and The Spare was about 9.

I went upstairs to lurk.

The Heir had put the whole force of her artistic abilities to work on the collection of Barbies. She had drawn dark circles under their eyes, given them bad haircuts, punked their clothing, and splayed their limbs in grotesque poses.

The Heir was entertaining The Spare with a show about Barbies Gone Bad. Some of the Barbies were on drugs. Others had gotten bad boob jobs. They were all malajusted, except for Malibu Ken, who was attired in the prettiest dress in the bin and flirting with a picture of Charles Barkley. (This photo illustration is not one of The Heir's efforts. Her Barbies had varicose veins from shooting up.)

The Spare was wide-eyed throughout the exhibition. She was a tad young to understand the whole plot The Heir was crafting on the fly. But she got the jist. The over-arching theme, so to speak.

When playtime was over, the Barbies Gone Bad were flung back into the bin. They looked about 50 times more horrific than the Transylvanians in Rocky Horror Picture Show. As time went on, The Heir and The Spare competed to see how low they could get their Barbies to stoop. Malibu Ken was the only one who retained a shred of dignity, because The Heir loves drag queens.

Sorry, but I found this refreshing. Barbies Gone Bad not only looked frightful, they imparted wholesome messages about avoiding drugs and unneccessary plastic surgery. And they also said that The Heir and The Spare would never buy into Barbie as a role model. Can I get a yee-haaa for that? Thanks!

White Magic Lesson: Keep your wishes small and harmless, and you'll be happy whether or not they come true. And if they do come true, you'll be even happier. Until you remember that leather leisure suit and how well it would have done on ebay.

FROM ANNE

THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS

Me and My Big Fat Mouth

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," parenting without enthusiasm since 2005! I had a lot of fun in my 20s, and then I settled down to procreate. Now I'm old and weird and a fair target for two peppy young daughters.

Today I went to teach at the Vo-Tech. I'm a substitute teacher until something better comes along. And trust me, I go to the edge of my property every day, searching the horizon for that better thing ... or even a hint of its approaching dust in the distance.

When you're a long-term substitute teacher who has to replace some outgoing mommy-to-be, it's inevitable that some of the students will resent the disruption of their happy routine. I had one such student this past winter, and she did her level best to make my life heck. Didn't work, because she isn't family. Only my family can make my life heck. Read on.

It's been about two months since the long-term job ended, and I've been doing some other things for awhile. But I've returned to the Vo-Tech, and today I had that student who hated me. I hadn't seen her since March.

I've got a bum hip. This morning during class I had to get up from a chair and walk across the room. Observing my gait, the student in question murmured, "Weebles wobble, but they don't fall down."

She was almost wrong, because I could have fallen on the floor laughing. This kid is way too young to remember Weebles. I have no idea where she got the illusion, but it fit perfectly.

EXHIBIT A: WEEBLES

Then I made my GREAT BIG MISTAKE.

I came home from work, and over dinner I told my daughters, The Heir and The Spare, about "Weebles wobble." They've been singing the ditty ever since, and it's clear they plan to put it in their permanent repertoire. The Heir is old enough to remember Weebles, and she quickly clued The Spare in to what they're all about. The Spare, a quick study, ran with the Weeble epithet all evening and clearly has plans to rinse and repeat.

By the time I get wise to my shortcomings, I won't be a Weeble, I'll be a Feeble.

Did I discipline or write up the student who called me a Weeble? Are you kidding? We at "The Gods Are Bored" worship wit! The kid got extra credit on the day.

FROM ANNE

WEEBLE OF BERKELEY SPRINGS

Blue Meanie

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," talking politics and religion! Gosh, no wonder we don't have any friends!

I've been mulling this one for a while now, but I can't sit by and let it pass:

Reuters News Service, April 22, 2008:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton warned Tehran on Tuesday that if she were president, the United States could "totally obliterate" Iran in retaliation for a nuclear strike against Israel.

Yes we could. We really, really could. We've got the goods to do it, just sitting in bins out in New Mexico or wherever.

And, depending on the school you go to, this kinda talk works wonders. Think about how your guts turned to goo when the biggest, toughest kid on the playground threatened to fuck you up. Whatever you were doing to piss him off, you probably stopped doing it in a heck of a hurry.

Statements like this have a uniquely American ring to them. One thinks of Teddy Roosevelt, and JFK declaring himself a Berliner, and Ronald Reagan intoning, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall!"

And the wall came tumbling tumbling down. So there's historic precedent for making use of threats of O -- BLUE -- teration.

Candidly, however, I expected a more reasoned response from a female presidential candidate, one who is usually so well-informed in her remarks.

We know from having obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki how a small nuclear strike looks before, during, and after. And we know from the Chernobyl meltdown how a radioactivity leak looks before, during, and after. The thing about this obliterative weaponry is that it is non-discriminitory and can waft on the prevailing winds hither and yon.

Iran nukes Israel, the fallout streams westward. The U.S. nukes Iran, you'll likely have dead babies stretching all the way to Myanmar ... where ... unrelated, I guess ... we're all wondering what we can do to help???

Grand talk of wars and rumors of wars is the hallmark of the Republican Party. Is there any way that a Democratic candidate can get the job done in a different way, perhaps without resort to words like "obliterate?"

I'm sorry, but when I hear that word, the image that comes to mind is Auschwitz. "Obliterate" is a Final Solution kinda word.

As for the possibility that Iran will nuke Israel, we at "The Gods Are Bored" feel pretty strongly that the average Iranian is probably as astonished at his or her bad leadership as many of us are here at home. We can only -- and always -- hope that cooler heads prevail.

Voter in search of a cooler head, I remain,

ANNE

THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS

A Quick Theology Lesson

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," coming to you from an unstable planet!

I'm sitting here today thinking about the disaster in Myanmar, mindful that such disasters happen with regularity in almost every part of the globe. Can I get a witness, Kansas?

Natural disasters are often called "Acts of God." As if God happened to be sitting out on his deck, sipping a martini, and he just decided to fling a badass cyclone at a nation in Asia.

The fact is that natural disasters are not "Acts of God." They are, in fact, proof that we live on a random planet where anything can happen to anyone at any moment.

Please follow my logic.

If one particular god happened to be better than any other god or goddess, then the followers of that god or goddess would most certainly be spared the random carnage that dogs the human race.

Illustration of main point: My Mennonite friends back home have never quite been able to rationalize the senseless death of one of their own. He was a young man of 23 who had just been ordained and was on his way to his first job as a pastor to drug abusers. As he was driving there, he was hit head-on by a drunken driver who walked away from the crash unhurt. The newly-minted pastor was killed.

Okay, your atheist would say that this proves God doesn't exist. I say no. It just proves that many deities exist, none of them any better than the others, all of them hoping we'll carry our beliefs in them through natural disasters big and small.

So, random bad shit happens to followers of all religions. What happens when we bump the reward system up to a higher plane? We all die eventually. So, is the afterlife as random as the one here? Or is it after death that the best god sorts out the best souls and leaves the rest in some celestial Gitmo?

We at "The Gods Are Bored" submit that any deity in whom you believe has an equal ability to guide your spirit to the world beyond. We feel that any other theological system would be grossly, unspeakably unfair to the vast majority of humans who have lived and died on this rock. And just as one size does not fit all in shoes, one god does not fit all in souls.

When disaster strikes -- and it will -- ask the deity of your choice for salvation. Despite the propaganda disseminated over the previous 2000 years, there's not a deity out there who can't dole out a decent eternal bliss. They all know how to do it. Every last one. Hooray!

Sorry You Can't Reach Me, Trinity Evangelical. Leave a Message.

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" A chicken in every pot, a cat in every lap. Life is good!

Jason at The Wild Hunt publishes an excellent web log of Pagan news and philosophy. He's as serious as I am frivolous, so I therefore visit him often just for a reality check.

On May 3, Jason wrote a post about an upcoming evangelical conference being held at Trinity International University. The title of the conference is:

"Trinity Consultation on Post-Christendom Spiritualities: The New Unreached People Groups."

Here's the description, in case you want to make a reservation:

"The conference will be a gathering of practitioners and scholars addressing the decline of Christianity in the West and the concomitant growth of new unreached people groups expressed in religions and spiritualities such as modern Paganism, New Age, and other alternative spiritualities. Plenary sessions and parallel workshops will address the topics of the future of religion in the West, the make up of the alternative religious marketplace and approaches in engaging adherents of alternative spiritualities."

I've had some pejoratives hurled at me now and again, but I don't think I've ever been as insulted as to hear myself styled a member of an "unreached people group."

Well gee. This is the 21st century. "Unreached people group" sounds so user-friendly. Pagans are only "adherents of alternative spiritualities" because they're unreached. If you just reach them, they'll jump on the Jesus train, glad to have been reached, just as some poor miner stuck in a collapse would be glad to be reached. Just as some dear granny stuck in a burning rowhouse would be glad to be reached. Just as you can't wait for your destination to be reached after a long road trip.

EXHIBIT A: UNREACHED

One of our pet peeves here at TGAB is the untiring Christian missionary who ventures to the far corners of the globe to bring the message of Jesus Christ to the "unreached." Where have these missionaries not gone? Who in the Wide, Wide World of Sports has never been reached by the information on Christianity?

With all due respect, Trinity Consultation, I am indeed a member of an alternative spirituality. But I find it hard to consider myself unreached. I was baptized a Christian (by immersion), I spent the first 40 years of my life a Christian, I led my children to Christianity just as my parents had led me. It's not a reach to say I got reached.

Then what happened? Other deities proved to have a better reach, at least for me. Do you want to hear about my deities, Trinity Consultation? Why? Could it be that you're trying to figure out how to make my faith more compatible to your One and Only Yahweh business? Don't waste your time. That's how you got Christmas and Easter.

I think there's one possibility we can rule out with the Trinity Consultation. They aren't trying to understand alternative spiritualities as viable alternatives to Christianity. Otherwise they wouldn't call people "unreached."

If you folks at Trinity truly wanted to open a dialogue with the Pagan community, you sure dropped the punt. What's the difference between calling me "unreached" and calling me a sinner? Trust me, I find the former more offensive than the latter, especially considering how "sensitive" it's trying to be.

One final rant to Trinity: Your book of revealed religion specifically warns you not to engage in any dialogue with any other religious group. Now, don't try to tell me that Jesus was more touchy-feely about this sort of thing. Here's your New Testament Chapter and Verse:

"But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed."

(Galatians 1:8)

So Trinity, save yourselves from being cursed! Give up this dialogue stuff before you piss off your deity! He's afraid you might find out that he's got worthy competition on many fronts, and some of that competition doesn't like being told their praise and worship teams are "unreached!"

Unreached. Twelve churches in this town of mine, and I'm unreached. Sorry, I can't get over this one, because even the people I owe money to can reach me if they keep trying.

If you want to reach me, I have an email. See my profile.

Can you believe it? That Cindy Jacobs book on the occult was helpful! I got the Bible quote from one of its chapters!

An Act of Submission to the Faeries

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," recognizing that faeries are not to be trifled with since ... forever!

Today I missed the fabulous Fairie Festival at Spoutwood Farm. I missed my Druid Grove's Beltane service. And the event I had missed both of these other two in order to attend -- a Maypole at Woodstock Trading Company was cancelled due to rain.

Except it didn't rain. It's been a drop-dead gorgeous perfect day since about 10:00 this morning. Mad, bad faeries run amok, making Anne pay for poor decision-making!

And so, in an act of contrition and submission to the faeries, we at "The Gods Are Bored" would like to introduce a wonderful UK faerie artist, Myrea Pettit. The artwork above is Myrea's. Isn't it swell?

Here's Myrea's mission statement:

"One of my tasks the fairies have set me is to create awareness to the plight of the world and to try and instill those thoughts into the youngest of children so they will carry them and action them and go and teach others how precious the earth is and teach that to others throughout their lives."

This is Myrea's picture of a faerie trying to turn an endangered poison dart frog into a prince. We at "The Gods Are Bored" had no idea that poison dart frogs were endangered, but it doesn't surprise us.

However, we think Myrea has a first-class idea: Ask the faeries for help saving the planet! I happen to know that if you assign faeries or elves to a little spot of ground, they will protect and defend it. So let's do it!

The only warning I'll give on this is you have to make the faerie want to help out, rather in the manner Tom Sawyer got his friends to whitewash the fence. But once they're on board, they're on board for eternity.

You can check out Myrea's web site by clicking her name above. Also, I've added her to my sidebar for all your faerie artwork needs.

If you attended the Fairie Festival at Spoutwood Farm, please do not tell me. I have gnashed my teeth to the roots.

FROM ANNE

THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS

White Magic Friday #3: Sometimes Explanations Are in Order

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where we're considering quitting the day job in favor of being a professional poet! As you can see in the post below, we rank with the Yeatses and Whitmans of this world. Why not make a living at it?

We've started a new feature here at TGAB: White Magic Friday. In this way we hope to allay fears that all magick is dangerous, evil, and demonic.

(I know my readers don't feel that way, but some people do, and this is the world wide web -- a great teaching tool, for better or worse.)

Lesson #3

Sometimes you have to tell a person that you've worked white magick for them.

Illustration:

About a month ago, an iddy biddy gymnast spent her final day in physical therapy before returning to her grueling round of competitive gymnastics. This darling youngster couldn't have been more than 11, and already she had been hurt several times doing vaults and floor exercises.

(Don't get me started on broken bones in 11-year-old gymnasts. I think I've already ranted about that anyway.)

It is customary at this therapy site to give each "graduate" a t-shirt. So the therapist picked out the smallest size t-shirt she could find to give to the little girl.

Before the little girl touched it, I asked her if she would like to have it infused with good magick. She was rather surprised, but she said yes.

So I took the t-shirt, and I said a little prayer to the bored gods that went something like this:

Dear Bored Gods,

Whatever you did to keep my mom from getting injured back in the day when she was a gymnast and acrobat, please now do for this sweet little girl. Mom never got hurt, and she did some risky shit. So kindly watch out for this youngster so she doesn't have to come into this ugly room with the mustard-colored walls anymore.

What I like about the bored gods is that you don't have to watch your language or anything. They're grateful for the attention. Expletives don't bother them.

So, I handed the t-shirt to the little girl, and I told her it was now her "magic t-shirt" and that it would keep her from getting injured if she listened to her coaches and kept her form correct and didn't take unneccessary chances.

Notice that caveat there at the end.

The little girl went dancing out, proud to show her mom her "magic shirt." Oh, she was a darling! I miss seeing her at rehab.

Lesson Learned: Go ahead and admit to doing magick, mindful that subliminal messages are an important component thereof.

FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS

Beltane Blessings

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," composing on the fly during substitute teaching break! It's part of the burden of being a Pagan. You always have to work on holy days.

Let us make merry
Cavort with the faeries
'Neath blossoms of cherries
Or bushes of berries!

Oh what a fine day
The first one in May
And so we will say
May joy come your way!

Now we must get paid
Though we'd rather get laid.

A BLESSED BELTANE TO YOU
FROM ANNE
THE MERLIN OF BERKELEY SPRINGS