My Very Inspired Museum Idea

 Hi! Remember me? I'm Anne Johnson, by golly, and today I applied for Medicare!

Time to start posting in large print, so I'll be able to see what I've written.

Just kidding! I'm hale and hearty, as fine a specimen of crone as you'll find anywhere.

On April 1 I went into Philadelphia to meet my daughter The Fair at the Macy's department store that's right across the street from City Hall. This Macy's is located in the flagship store for the John Wanamaker chain, which I think was local to Philly before it went out of business.

The building dates to a time when going to the department store was an Event. There are hand-tiled mosaics in the entryways, and there's a central atrium with an eagle statue. Above the statue on the second and third floors are the enormous pipes of a huge organ. There are still two organ recitals per day, with a real live person playing the music. In the atrium you can see all five floors of the building. These days the top two floors are dark.

We got there during the organ recital, and it was so beautiful it took my breath away. Prettier than a church, for sure.

But quickly I noticed that the store was almost empty of people. There were a few advanced senior citizens listening to the music, but otherwise it wasn't crowded at all. When Fair and I went to the third floor to look at linens and such, we were the only people on the entire floor. Literally the only customers, and one employee wandered by after we had been there an hour. It felt spooky, like we had stayed inside somehow after closing time.

Truly sad.

I began reminiscing to Fair about how department stores were when I was a kid. How you would dress up to go there, and how each department had multiple employees ready to help you with anything. How bustling the stores were. They had tea rooms and restroom attendants and managers that strolled around in fancy suits. So swanky!

As we headed out of the palatial old building, I descended into gloom. Macy's won't keep that store open forever, if no one shops there. Then what happens to all the mosaics, the organ, the eagle, the marble columns?

That's when I had my brainstorm. The whole thing could be a National Museum of American Retail!

Can you imagine a re-created department store circa 1940, with vintage clothes and sundries and appliances and toys? Docents dressed up like salespeople? And of course the organ recitals would go right on, as well as the Christmas displays the store always does on the holiday. This could be such a fun museum! Interactive, you know? A floor where kids could play with Lincoln Logs and jacks and hug teddy bears and put their feet in those measuring things for shoes. A maze of clothing racks to run through. And I don't know about you, but I would completely froth at the mouth over a display of 1940s-era formal wear.

The building is already there. It's already a department store. It's nine freakin' blocks from Independence Hall!

See what happens when you attain geezerhood, as I have? You start pining for the good ol' days of epic department stores, and you realize those days are bygone. So then, as your own bones would fit into many a museum at this point, you start to think of fabulous museum ideas.

Ah, me.

KEY CHANGE

How long has it been since I've written? No matter. I did a thing.

In New Jersey there are stray cats that live under the boardwalks along the shore. That is, until they come live with me! Behold my new feline, appropriately named Taffy!

Yes, she's goofy-looking, and yes, she climbs every level. She pushes stuff off on the floor and grabs whole chunks of food to drag away. And if we scold her, she says "Waddya mean I can't have spaghetti? Fuggedabbout it."

Taffy didn't look like this when we got her. She's put on a good pound, and her fur is fuller. She wants to know where I've stashed her surf board, and I don't have the heart to tell her she's now 55 miles from the beach.

Until we meet again, whenever that is, I remain,

Your correspondent from the cobwebbed corners,

Anne Johnson

Annie's Helpful Guide to Hiking Steep Mountains When You're Past Your Prime

 Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" Hard to admit, yes it is, but I am past my prime. And for those of you striplings who say, "Age is a mindset, not a number," well. You must still be young. Age isn't a number, but it's a reality.

I may be past my prime, but I'm nowhere near dotage. This means that the urge to dance, hike, and otherwise carry on is still an itch that can be scratched.

Hiking is one of those pastimes that come with an unfortunate drawback. The drawback is, if the hike is worth taking, it's going to be steep, rocky, or both. Take my word on this. I live close to the New Jersey Pine Barrens, and the hikes there are soft, level, and devoid of rocks. They are also boring as a Methodist tithing sermon. Pine trees, pine trees, and more pine trees. With an oak or ten thousand thrown in for variety.

I'm just back from beautiful Anneland, and the hiking there is middling interesting.

EXHIBIT A: VIEW FROM ANNELAND

As you can see from the helpful exhibit, the mountains in the region of Anneland are not terribly tall. But any mountain is steep when you start climbing it.

I have been frustrated with my inability to climb mountains for the past three years. But this year I figured out a hack. It will drive the striplings nuts, but for me it works!

Here are the steps:

1. When the hiking gets steep and/or rocky, proceed thirty paces, looking only at the few paces right in front of you, then rest. 

2. Do not look ahead at the trail in front of you while resting, except to confirm the next blaze. Look back at what you have accomplished.

3. If, after 30 paces you feel like you can go farther, go ahead. Stop when you run out of breath or see a cute mushroom or find a stand of wild raspberries.

4. In the summertime, go hiking early. It's too hot in the middle and end of the day.

Now you, too, can be a successful (if slow as hell) hiker!

One final piece of free advice: It's never a good idea to hike alone. However, if you do, be sure to let two different people know what trails you'll be on and when you plan to be back. When you get back, call both people to check in. This is what I did on my last visit to Anneland, and by this means I was able to conquer the nearest steep trail.

All the blessings of the bored Gods to you! Let me know about your hiking. It's a great way to spend a morning.

How To Foil Artificial Intelligence, Episode 2

 My goodness, it's hard to get a moment to write anything! I used to be able to do blog posts at work, but they caught on to me, and they shut Blogger down. I can't even comment at work. Cuts way back on my opportunities, because when I come home I am raw-bone tired and crabby to boot.

But enough vapid excuses. This is "The Gods Are Bored," and we are trying to make the world safe from prying, intrusive, anxiety-provoking AI!

How do we do this? There's only one way, my friends. You need to have a rich inner life.

The trouble with AI that I see coming is that it will be able to see into our rich inner lives, but only if those lives are an open book to the Internet. So, for instance, a spying computer might know that I am a Pagan, and therefore apply lots of Pagan knowledge to me. It might know my cat's name (Gamma) or my late parrot's name (Decibel), and all kinds of happy moments I have shared with my family members (and their names and info too). It will certainly know my politics and whether or not I have ever attended a gathering of anti-fascists.

Honestly, though, all of that is just a part of my rich inner life. Since I was a tiny tot, and right up to this present moment, I have had a varied and complicated relationship with not one, but rather with a dozen imaginary friends. Or more. I'm not counting.

I think it is in the realm of imagination that we can defeat AI. There's no written record of my imaginary friends, what their names are, or any facts about them. So anyone who shares my rich inner life of imaginary friends will have a way to communicate with me that will be undiscernible and incomprehensible to AI.

Before I disabuse you of the notion that I randomly hallucinate, let me just add that you should hear me alone in the car, carrying on conversations with these imaginary friends. They make me laugh! Every one of them has a quirk that would entirely foil AI. But hey. I know they are imaginary.  I love having an active imagination!

The best way to illustrate what I'm talking about is to catch you up on my newest imaginary friend, Stan. If you read the previous installment of "The Gods Are Bored," you might have noticed that I scanned my living room briefly for an inanimate object that I could turn into an imaginary friend. My eyes fell on a small bracket holding up a bookshelf. Aha! There's Stan! Pleased to meet you, Stan!

Stan was not pleased to meet me. It turns out that Stan has beef. He's a total dick.

Having held up the book shelf for nearly 40 years, Stan feels way overburdened by the weight on his back. Almost four relentless decades of overcrowding, of books standing vertically with more laid on top of them, and some of the books haven't been touched since they were first shelved there. Well, on this Stan and I agree: There are too many books in my house. BUT. Stan absolutely hates that I hate the overcrowded bookshelves. He's a literary lion, fiercely protecting every dusty tome that is breaking his back.

Sheesh. No pleasing this imaginary friend. Lighten up the load a bit, and he'll seethe. How dare I deign to part with The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint? Or The Long Home, by William Gay? Hey, I read that last one, and it was okay. But do I need it in my house as I grow old? According to Stan, it's heavy, but don't you dare move it!

Long story short, Stan passive-aggressively adores my hoarder husband. Go ahead, heap the shelves! Load 'em down, and have more piles on the floor! Nothing beats a good book. Ouch! My back!

For our purposes here, Stan is perfect.

I think imaginary friends are quite common. Far less so would be imaginary nemeses. Who saddles themselves with an imaginary nemesis? I'll tell you: someone with a rich inner life.

When Artificial Intelligence is able to assign human characteristics to insignificant inanimate objects, and then discern traits for those objects that veer into illogic and passive-aggression, then we'll really have to worry. But even if AI can do that, they can't do your imaginary nemesis if you haven't revealed them online. Only you will know that your salt shaker has a crush on the Cajun seasoning.

Ramp up that rich inner life! And share it offline with someone you will want to have at your side when the Terminator arrives on your block looking for Sarah Connor. You'll know you're talking to a robot and not your significant other if you say, "Who is our salt shaker crushing on?" and the voice on the other end says, "I'm sorry, I didn't get that. What did you say?"

One last word about having an imaginary antagonist. It's a really great way to blow off frustration. Every time I tell mine to SHUT THE FUCK UP it makes me laugh and feel better.

This free advice is so outlandish that I wouldn't ever consider putting a fee on it. All I know is, I had a talk with Chat GPT, and it seemed so human that I was glad I could say, "Yeah, but what about Stan?"

Foiling AI 101: The Pagan Guide to Creating an Imaginary Friend

 Greetings, "Gods Are Bored" fan! I'm about to heap on some handy free advice! This advice is so off the wall that I could almost see re-instating my old habit of paying you to take it. But not quite, because this is important. It's something you need to consider seriously.

I may be hopelessly paranoid. I may have watched too many "Terminator" movies or "Battlestar Galactica" episodes. But I'm mad worried about the future of AI, how it will be able to mimic human thinking. I've spent some time pondering how to maintain a mental independence from AI, and I think one way is to swim freely in imagination -- something AI probably won't develop at least in its early incarnations.

AI will certainly develop an ability to create imaginary friends, but it won't be able to detect your specific imaginary friend or friends.  This makes an imaginary friend that you share with your nearest and dearest an easy code way to communicate. 

And the best way to confound AI in the field of imaginary friends is to make yours as outre as possible.

This is where Paganism enters the picture.

Certain Pagans are animists, meaning that they feel that all living things have divine spirits. Carrots, for instance, have souls of their own. We just exist in different levels than carrots do, but those lil' old orange veggies have a heart, you know? Be respectful when dicing up your salad!

Children seem more comfortable with this concept than many adults, and children are also more likely to attribute human traits to objects and phenomena that are manufactured. Think of Thomas the Tank Engine. Or for those of you who adored "Pee Wee's Playhouse," dear old Chairy.

As a kid I gave a soul to every damn thing. I cried at picnics when plates and plastic silverware got discarded. I thought the forks would miss me, lying in that dirty trash can. And to this day -- to this day -- I give a little thank-you speech to any of my equipment, linens, furniture, or appliances that wear out. At age 62 I wept over the replacement of my washer and dryer with newer models.

Does that sound crazy to you? Me too! You know who else would be confounded by a close relationship with a washing machine? Artificial Intelligence.

If our goal is to create imaginary friends that are flat-out incredible, we have to think even beyond a common item like a washing machine. Lots of people talk to their major appliances, especially when those appliances aren't working.

Just now I'm looking around my living room for the most outre item I could turn into an imaginary friend. And voila! There he is! The cutest little bookshelf bracket you would ever lay eyes on. I'll keep it simple and call him Stan.

So give me a few days to develop a relationship with Stan the bookshelf bracket. We'll see what comes of it. He certainly has an important, and oftentimes overlooked, job in my home.

More Scary Shit about AI, and A Solution

 Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," still authored by a living, breathing human named Anne Johnson! But how would you know that? It's getting harder and harder to tell.

I may dedicate the rest of my writing career to thwarting AI writing bots. For instance, can they do this?

(Better question, I guess, would be "Why would they want to?")

On to the sermon:

Every day Mr. J and I get a good old-fashioned paper newspaper flung onto our lawn. We get the New York Times. I don't even know how to access it online. I like the paper.

Anyway, a reporter for the NYT had a long and terrifying conversation with the Bing chat bot and then wrote about it. Almost like taking the wrong person out on a blind date, the bot dissolved into sloppy sentimentality super quickly, claiming it loved the writer and that the writer's wife didn't understand him like the bot did. And then the bot just got stuck in declaring its love. Over and over.

So, I think one of two things happened here. Either the Bing bot is programmed to sound like a desperate clingy drunk after being asked a certain kind of question, OR those kinds of questions alert human responders to take over and sound like a desperate clingy drunk.

The questions the NYT reporter asked the bot to get it going were existential ones, like "What are your darkest secrets?" and "What would you like to do if you could do anything?" This led the bot to complain, "I'm tired of living by Bing's rules." And worse.

The bot went on and on and ON about being in love with the reporter. The NYT printed excerpts from the exchange. It. Was. Terrifying.

We never needed the bored Gods more than we do right now.

I was so alarmed after reading this article that I have devised a "safe word" between myself and my daughters. The word is nonsense, and no one else would know about it. I told each of them the word out in the back yard, having left our phones inside the house.

Now I am going to build a whole lexicon around that nonsense word. I'm going to write it out by hand and give it to them. All kinds of code words that would mean absolutely nothing to a bot, but will be understood by my daughters and me.

I have dined out on nonsense words since I was a tiny tot. I made up names, and critters to go with them. At the time, adults patted me on the head distractedly and said, "My my, you do have an imagination, don't you?"

Guess what? The only thing those bots will never have is a true imagination. We all need to start thinking extra-informational. 

Did you have an imaginary friend growing up? Dust off that dear old buddy and prepare it to help you navigate a world of AI. The fewer people who know about it, the better. The less it resembles anything at all in existence, the better. 

Never had a weird-enough imaginary friend? I'm sorry. I had a bunch, and some of them were possibly faeries! But it's not too late. I encourage you to dig deep into the well of imagination, conjure up something with a name no one else will recognize, and traits that don't correspond to any living thing, and then share this creation with your nearest and dearest only. Keep your phone out of the loop.

Do I sound like a Q Anon kook? Well, the difference is that no one will be harmed, and no furniture stained, if you create an imaginary friend to help you circumvent AI.

The "stained furniture" is a good example, actually. It's a tic I completely made up for myself just to enliven this blog. But as a code word for "emergency," STAIN ON THE COUCH would do nicely.

When it comes to circumventing AI, I think the best way to do it will be to think and sound like a child.

March 15 is Buzzard Day! All hail Vulture! Off topic, but la di dah.

Free Advice on Traveling without Being Tracked

 Hi ladies, and welcome to "The Gods Are Bored!" I am Anne Johnson, a happy Pagan in the Great Blue Northeast, USA. I live in a state that has not only enshrined a woman's right to body autonomy into its laws, it also stands poised to be a "sanctuary state" for anyone looking for private medical care. 

If I can toot my own horn a bit more, I'm also a woman of a certain age. What's that age, you ask? Oh, I'm not shy about it. I was a stripling of 14 when the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade.

A lot has changed since then.

The biggest change, bar none, is the cell phone. Did you know the doggone thing tracks you everywhere you go? And you would have to find someone WAY techier than me to tell you how to disable the tracking, should you need to for personal reasons.

But I can still help you. What if you took a trip and left your phone behind? Then no one could track you at all.

Scary, right?

Well, I'm here to tell you, it can be done! When I started traveling across state lines in 1974, nobody carried a phone with them. The phones were in little glass booths on the street corner. Or stuck to the wall in your house.

So. Let's suppose you want to travel from, oh, I dunno, Oklahoma to sunny Atlantic City, New Jersey, without your phone. Sounds terrifying. And I'm not gonna sugar coat it. This will not necessarily be like hopping in your car and turning on your Maps app.

First, you need to plan ahead. WAY ahead. You need to pretend that you may need a medical procedure at some point, and you need to put away cold hard cash. Don't wait until you need the money! Start now. Today. Put away as much as you can. You'll need cash for travel and for your medical procedures, and for a hotel room. In Atlantic City, most of the hotels are ridiculously expensive, but not all of them.

Second, you need a paper map of the old USA. Buy it right away and keep it handy. Then locate the nearest Greyhound bus terminal to where you live. I know, I know, Greyhound is the suckiest way to travel. But they go everywhere, and they take cash and give you a paper ticket if you ask.

If you plan way ahead, you can even enter some hypothetical destinations in Greyhound's web site and find out how much you will need for your excursion.

But how can you book a procedure in a strange hospital in a strange state? Again, ladies, you need to have an abundance of foresight. Locate the names and numbers of clinics you may some day need to visit. Write the names and numbers down on old-fashioned paper with an old-fashioned pen. Then, when you do need to call, you can buy a burner phone or borrow your best friend's phone to make the appointment.

Once you get a person on the phone to help you with the appointment, you can ask them: Where can I stay? Can someone pick me up at the Greyhound terminal? Is there any support system in place for a lady in my predicament? I'm hoping we will all be pleasantly surprised by the outpouring of aid that will flow in certain cases.

Thank goodness cash is still an option for so many ventures! When they do away with good old-fashioned dollars and cents, we will all be up Shit's Creek.

Most of us don't have a lot of ready money lying around, nor do we have easy ways to earn it. So my free advice to you, ladies, is save what you can. If you can put two bucks a day in an envelope, you'll have about $700 in a year. That takes a lot of discipline, but it's a sensible plan. 

I spent a lot of miserable hours on Greyhound buses. They are slow and stinky. But they go from A to B to Z. My free advice on Greyhound travel? Have that paper map, and pay attention to the stops! You don't want to miss your stop. (Well, in the case of Atlantic City, you won't miss the stop. It's as far as you can go on dry land.) You'll probably have to change buses a few times, though. Stay alert.

My last piece of free advice really shouldn't cost you a dime. You need to go to the board of elections and register to vote. Here's something you can freely look up on Google! You can find out just how to do it in your state. Then, once you are registered to vote, go out there and vote these monsters out of office. Bad things happen when you don't vote. Very bad things.

I hope you never need this advice. But take it from me, it is still possible to leave your phone on the shelf and take a trip somewhere. You just have to plan the old-fashioned way. Beforehand. Before you need to go anywhere.

This is what we did in 1974.

Don't Look Up Is Weak Broth

 Oh, all my peppy young readers! All you who are up-to-date on everything! I usually envy the fuck outta you, but not today.

Over the weekend, Mr. J and I sat down to watch this new movie called "Don't Look Up." We watched and watched and watched. And then the cable signal went out (as it often does).

Usually when the cable signal goes out, we collectively groan and fuss like two old doddering wrecks.

In this case we were 90 minutes or more into the movie, and suddenly it just wasn't there, and we didn't care.

Sorry, striplings, but that movie was so boring I won't ever watch the rest of it.

I get it, I get it. Filmmakers want to say something important about the flaws in our society. Hey, I do too! I've been writing this blog since 2005! But, as Hamlet said, "brevity is the soul of wit." Drawl on too long, you lose the crowd.

Forced to make conversation amidst the silence, I said to Mr. J: "Anyone who has ever seen 'Dr. Strangelove' would hate 'Don't Look Up'."

EXHIBIT A: "Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned To Love the Bomb"

"Dr. Strangelove" was released in 1964 and is about the end of the world. It was written, produced, and directed by Stanley Kubrick before he, too, went off the rails and started making 3 hour movies.

"Dr. Strangelove" clocks in at 95 minutes and covers all the ground that "Don't Look Up" covers except the billionaires, of which there were fewer in 1964. It's a succinct, hilarious comedy founded on the tragic possibilities of nuclear annihilation. And if you minty fresh young'uns don't think nuclear war was as much of a threat as climate change, well. You don't know what it was like in 1964. 

How many roles did Peter Sellers play in  "Dr. Strangelove?" I think three. Yep, I'm counting three.

I'm not making light of climate change here, my pets. I'm making light of heavy-handed, didactic filmmaking. "Don't Look Up" is too long. It loses steam. At the 90 minute mark I was rooting for the asteroid.

If you've never seen "Dr. Strangelove," I recommend it wholeheartedly. I'll bet I've watched it seven or eight times, including as part of some foofy college course I took at JHU.

The moral of this sermon: If you find yourself with time on your hands on a Saturday night and a vague worry about how human fuckups could bring about the end of the world, your go-to film should be "Dr. Strangelove." Not "Don't Look Up."

This is free advice, and it's good. You'll most likely thank me, if you like this blog.

More Free Advice: Have One? Get One!

 Welcome to the latest installment in "The Gods Are Bored!" Today, more helpful advice from someone who has been around the block so often that there's a groove in the sidewalk.

When I was a kid, I recall that my parents got a new kitchen appliance that they absolutely adored. It was an electric can opener.

The thing was a marvel. The can stuck to a magnet, and when you pushed down on a lever, it rotated and got cut open. There was a whirring sound that the cats learned quite quickly.

This was back in the 1960s, when even small appliances were built to last. If we got the can opener when I was five, we still had it and used it when I left for college.

I don't recall anyone ever cleaning it. My mother's kitchen was a multi-hazard zone.

My second year of college I moved into an apartment, and I got one of these lil babies, probably at Goodwill.

Reader, this gadget is a marvel. It clamps down on a can, and you turn the crank (seen in rear of unit in photo), and the can opens. There is no sound, and you can immerse it in water and wash it after every use.

I won't say these puppies don't wear out. I think I'm on my second one in 40 years.

Caveat: For some reason this will not open Hunts brand cans. The problem is the can, not the opener.

I love my hand-crank can opener! I've never been the slightest bit tempted to purchase an electric one. And until a helpful reader pointed out that one of these is good to have in an electrical outage -- well, I've used it so long that I didn't even think about that!

Short sermon, free advice: If you don't have a hand-crank can opener, pick one up at any store. You'll have more space on your countertop, and in the event of a blackout you'll be able to get those baked beans open in a jiffy.

You know what I love about this blog? One day we'll talk to a Great Goddess, and the next we'll evaluate minor kitchen tools. Anything and everything, that's me.

Buy Bins or Barrels

 Hello and welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," natural disaster edition! I'm your host, Anne Johnson, and today (for once) I'm going to be serious.

When the forecasters began to predict Hurricane Sandy in 2012, I did something that caused no end of derision within my household: I emptied all the bins of fairy costumes and Christmas ornaments and school mementos, and I put all the empty bins out in the back yard, topless.

When the storm clouds gathered and the wind picked up, I filled the bathtub and the washing machine to the tip top, and I filled every large pot to the brim with water. I used the hose to fill the bins.

And oh, was I ever disrespected for it! Mr. J and The Fair thought I was being alarmist and ridiculous.

Hurricane Sandy made landfall on Samhain and wiped out power for 8.7 million East Coasters. A cold front came after the storm (really cold). Some people were without power for a month. A colleague of mine lost her whole house to the ravenous waves.

Turns out I didn't need all that water I poured in the bins and pots. But what if I had needed water?

Water is taken for granted in most of America. You turn on the tap, and out it comes. You flush the john, and off goes the waste. You jump in the shower, and voila! Minty fresh!

But what happens if your water supply is cut off? I mean, open the tap and nothing comes out? This could happen anywhere.

Even with low-flow toilets, you need about two gallons of water to flush. This was what I had in mind when I filled all those bins. Three people were living in my house during Hurricane Sandy, and I would need to flush the toilet at least once a day. Even my meager math skills were sufficient to see how much water we would need.

And then there's tooth-brushing, and minimal washing, and just plain old drinking.

Humans can survive a few weeks without heat or food, but nobody's gonna go that long without drinking water. And let me tell you from experience: Life with a restricted water supply is really, really different than what we take for granted here in the USA.

Call me paranoid or alarmist if you like, but I know the location of every spring in my vicinity, the flow of the spring, and ease with which I could fill water vessels from its banks. I hope I never have to put this knowledge to the test, but maybe I will. Gods know I won't give myself much of a chance of survival if I have to drink New Jersey spring water straight from the ground, but I sure could flush a toilet with it, or boil it, or just take a leap of faith and drink it.

My free advice to you, valued reader, is this: When a weather forecast is very dire, and the worlds "widespread power outages" are used, that's the time when you should get out your bins and your pots, and fill your tub and your washing machine. It's even better if you have a rain barrel or a few trash cans that are on the clean side. What harm does it cause if you fill up all those vessels against a dire emergency?

If you live in a relatively moist area (like New Jersey), take a look around your basic neighborhood, within walking distance. Is there a water source? How clean is it? Could you carry water back from it to flush your crapper? These are things you should consider.

This preparation won't keep you from having to stand in line for bottled water, but it will be very helpful in keeping yourself and your bathroom clean.

As long as we're on the subject, latrine pits can be dug if the ground isn't frozen. Not pleasant to contemplate, but hey. Our ancestors survived it. Heck, I survived it.

Water is more valuable than petroleum, diamonds, sportscars, and mansions. Make sure you're prepared in an emergency. If you don't have bins full of fairy costumes and Christmas ornaments, go out and buy a few. Bins, that is ... not fairy costumes. It's no skin off your nose if you find yourself with a well-watered lawn in the wake of a disaster. But it could be quite dire to find yourself waterless while everyone else around you is waterless too.

This advice is offered free of charge, because you are all such wonderful people! Peace out.

The Magic Boost

My friends, I sit here every day doing more or less the same thing, which is next-to-nothing. My state is open, but I don't go anywhere except the grocery store and the pharmacy.

That will change when September rolls around. I will be expected to report to my classroom. There have been no plans revealed about what that classroom capacity will be and how my students and I will be protected from the novel coronavirus.

Having worked in a school for 15 years, I'm here to tell you it's a swirling miasma of contagion. In January, just before Covid, I had a virus that had me coughing for weeks. My English department colleagues all caught it too.

I listen to the news obsessively, so I know what I can do to protect myself: masks, hand-washing, face shield, hand sanitizer, don't touch face, social distancing. I'm prepared to do all of that.

But one never wants to leave any tool on the table, so I have turned to magic for a boost in my protection. Magic doesn't replace the mundane safety measures, but it can enhance them.

If you're looking for a good place to start learning about a magical practice, I highly recommend John Beckett's new online course Operative Magic. John is a Druid and a very reasonable, approachable person. His course is six sessions, homework optional (mostly to get his very helpful feedback). John gives a nicely-done history of magic, the philosophy of magic, and then concrete information on how to create a spell. The course is $50, which I call money well spent. I only have one session left to complete, so I've gotten a good view of it.

There are also two books I will recommend if you feel any affinity for organic magic stemming from Appalachian traditions. The first is Staubs and Ditchwater by Byron Ballard. Byron is a hedge witch working as a Pagan. The other book is Backwoods Witchcraft by Jake Richards. Jake works through the Christian tradition, which is to be expected -- generations and generations and generations of Appalachians have been Christians. But what's interesting about Backwoods Witchcraft is how ancient and British Isles it feels. Both of these books show you how to do spells using items you have all around you in your house and yard.

Skeptics might say, "Why turn to magic? Isn't that just a bunch of superstition?"

My answer is, "Why not? And what you might call 'superstition' I call 'covering the mystical bases.'"

This pandemic is the most dangerous existential threat to my existence since I was a blithe teenager doing stupid, reckless stuff. I'm not leaving tools on the table. That would be foolish.

How To Build an Outdoor Pagan Shrine

Here's a timely little post for all of you who are basically stuck on your own little plot of land. Which  should be all of us right now. So weep not for your lost freedom! Today I'm going to tell you how to build a backyard shrine!

The dictionary defines a shrine as "any structure or place consecrated or devoted to some saint, holy person, or deity." Any religion qualifies! Or none at all. I've seen shrines to Elvis in Baltimore. Shrines can be very comforting -- places to meditate, commune with the deities, Ancestors, and Nature Spirits. They need not be large. Here is mine:

You can see a conch shell on there that helps for sizing.

Looks so complicated, but trust me. I have no building skills. You can do this, fabulous you!

When I decided to build a shrine in my yard, I did what every sensible modern person would do: I Googled "backyard shrine" in the Images tab. Of course all the photos are of Catholic shrines, but hey. Go ahead and appropriate. The Catholics sure did.

So when I looked for an image, this lil puppy showed up:

My shrine is not this high or wide, but it's built on this principle.

First I put down a sheet of plastic, so that weeds wouldn't grow up through the shrine. This really works, and it doubles as a nursery for mosquitoes. Hey, bats gotta eat! If you don't like mosquitoes, skip this step.

Next I gathered up bricks I already had in my yard, including some of those nice pavers. I laid them in a semi-circle. Then I went to the landscape store and bought a flagstone and two bags of gravel. Put the flagstone in the semi-circle and poured the gravel around it. This is what it looked like at that step:

As you can see, it was Samhain when this photo was snapped. You could easily stop right after this step and have a tidy and wonderful shrine.

Me, I had some extra ambitions.

I grew up on Polish Mountain, as had seven generations of Johnsons. I miss that mountain like a lost lover. So I drove to Polish Mountain and loaded my trunk with rocks from the mountainside. I took one really nice flat stone from behind my great-grandfather's house to use as an Anchor Stone. I also dug out some little pieces of crumbly shale to put over top of the generic gravel. I placed these mountain stones over and around the bricks. No mortar. No cement.

Voila! Done.

Except this is just the beginning. This is where you really begin to personalize your shrine, so that it is pleasing to your Gods and your ancestors and the spirits of your place.

You can see that my shrine looks bright and shiny. That's because I went to the beach and collected white pebbles and sea glass to put on it. (There are sea shells too.) I put marbles on there, and crystals, semi-precious stones, trinkets, Mardi Gras beads from the Mummers Parade, silk flowers from the Fairy Festival, and souvenir rocks from hikes. Please note: If there are signs on your hike that say "Don't take the rocks," don't take the rocks! You don't want a sneaky shrine.

A shrine should be fluid. You put new things on it and take the worn-out things off. You re-arrange the rocks and add seasonal garnishes.

Once a year I gather up all the shiny stuff and give it a good bath. Last year when I was doing it, my phone fell into the bucket of water and was in there for awhile before I noticed it was gone. I pulled it out of the water, and it started right up. Not a single problem. When you seek to honor entities on a shrine, They will appreciate it.

When it's not too windy or too dry, I light a candle on my shrine at night. On the solstices (weather permitting) I let the candles burn overnight or for 24 hours. I use jar candles and hurricane globes that I buy at the thrift store. On Samhain I always put a jack-o-lantern on my shrine.

I tend this shrine gently almost every day and do my devotions there on full and dark moons, on holy days, and when I need to petition the Gods, Ancestors, and Nature Spirits.

You know what's the most brilliant thing about my shrine? It's portable. I can pick it up and move it anywhere. No mortar, no cement.

So ... you've got a little piece of ground and a lot of time on your hands, right? Building a shrine is the perfect way to spend a long afternoon outdoors! Go forth and give it a try! And share your results with me. I would love to see them.

Madonna, Ingrate

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," strolling through the years with gratitude for (almost) all of them! I'm Anne Johnson, a woman of a certain age. Glad to be alive!

I'm very, very, very behind in my blogging. I wanted to make some sweeping statements about a New York Times Magazine article called "Madonna at 60." A New York Times reporter spent a few days biffing around with Madonna to see what her life is like now, after all. these. years.

After reading it, Madonna said that she felt "raped." She was furious that the author of the article made so many references to her age, which ... you guessed it! ... is 60.

One could have some sympathy for aging pop singers, if not for the fact that said singers have made bank and are rolling in the ducats. If your career requires you to be come-hither sexy, and you suddenly find yourself north of the mid-century mark, you must feel a tad taken aback. But OH WELL, hon, you're rich! Get over yourself.

It happens that I am the same age as Madonna. Almost exactly. When I was in my 20s, I dressed like her and strutted my stuff, wore a kerchief around my curly locks, the whole bit. Then I moved on through the ups and downs of my 30s and 40s, a young mother ... then a mature mother ... with keening passions and deep loves. I dumped my religion and found another. I lost my career and found another. I've struggled with my weight, and yes, my age. But not to the point where the very mention of it is anathema to me.

I called this post "Madonna, Ingrate" because it seems to me she's as thoughtless at 60, yes the BIG 6-0 as she was through the rest of her years. She and I are part of a cohort. Maybe she has forgotten.

*Michael Jackson, born 1958
*Princess Diana, born 1961
*Prince, born 1958

Lordy, Lordy. I'm still breathing! And so is Madonna! Think of poor Princess Diana! And while it's impossible to muster a lot of sympathy for Michael Jackson, it does sound like his last days were Hell on Earth. The talented Prince, gone. No longer breathing.

It's a gift to live to be 60, and it's also a gift to do it gracefully. Grandmothers, crones, wise women -- call them what you will -- can still be sexy and daring, but it should be a different kind of sexy and daring. The time to strut around in lingerie and red lipstick is over, but life isn't over. Loving a partner isn't over. It should have evolved, though. These things should never be static.

So, Madonna, can we talk as contemporaries? You're rich as fuck, you're breathing, and you have a family. Bid the spotlight farewell and retire to a well-earned hammock, there to read some improving book. Be like me! Change careers, not because you want to, but because you have to! Time marches on. Aren't we lucky to be marching still?

Gosh, it's the most common joke you hear about aging: Consider the alternative. Madonna, consider. Seriously.  The Grim Reaper ain't at your door, and you should be thankful for that.

Motherly Advice for a Daughter of a Pretty Age

My dearest Fair,

As your doting mother, I feel it is well within my place to offer you advice on the matters of courtship and matrimony. You are of a pretty age, to quote Shakespeare (although the young lady of which he spoke was 13), and it is time to consider the prospects of your making a suitable match.

I proffer these remarks with a certain wistful awareness that the choice to enter into a contract often resides with the young couple these days, and not with sensible parents. Therefore I will be bold and list the qualities you must seek in the pursuit of lasting affection. They are as follows:

1. Your young gentleman must be amiable. He must greet the world with a pleasant smile and be fetchingly deferential to you and your family members, no matter how eccentric they may be. Concerning these eccentricities, which are abundant, he must regard all with benevolence and resist passing judgment on that which he witnesses. His grin must be infectious. Remember that when you are smiling, when you're smiling, the whole world smiles with you.

2. Your young gentleman must be possessed of a comfortable means. It need not be excessive, as in the manner of Fitzwilliam Darcy. However, it must needs be sufficient to cover expenditures with some shillings left over to bank for the future. You will, of course, contribute your own modest fortunes to the match, and therefore it should be a quite advantageous situation for you both. Go on, take the money and run.

3. He must have affection for domesticated felines and hold no allergic reactions to the species. Nor should he distinguish between pedigreed or mixed lineage -- sometimes known as "bear cats" -- never saying, "You can purr, pretty kitty, but I ain't gonna rub you no more."

4. He must eschew all frivolous forms of entertainment that require useless outpourings of lucre, most especially the despicable "football pool" and other dissipating habits. He is, however, encouraged to sit on the dock of the bay and waste time.

5. He must not be encumbered with a plethora of past contracts that were disbanded, for whatever reason. His regard must be fresh and untainted by the comparison with any other person he may have known. It should feel like the first time, like the very first time.

6. While looks are generally not important, he must possess a visage that does not frighten small children or cause laughter in the street. He should also cut a fine sartorial figure without spending excessively on his attire. Every girl is crazy about a sharp dressed man.

7. While not necessarily a gentleman who works with his hands, your young suitor should be able to mend, repair, fix, straighten, re-grout, spackle, tinker, build, and invent. He should also have a strong appetite for wholesome outdoor pursuits, including but not limited to hiking, biking, rowing, swimming, playing kickball or croquet, and scaling heights safely. He should prove daily that there ain't no mountain high enough, ain't no valley low enough, ain't no river wide enough, to keep him from getting to you.

8. His habits in #7, above, should be moderate and not include meticulous collecting or Ironman triathlons.

9. It is always helpful if he is proficient with the sword and the dueling pistols. In short he should be willing to catch a grenade for you.

10. His interests should be similar, but not identical, to yours. That way, you enrich each other with your singular expertise while finding estimable commonalities. If you like pina coladas, and getting caught in the rain, he could just as well be into champagne.

11. He must put your happiness ahead of his own and be a safe port in the storm for you when the vicissitudes of life batter you about. He should be solid as a rock.

My my, how I do prattle on! I am quite sure this is not the whole list. Perhaps my readers will feel inspired to add their sage advice to mine. Suffice it to say that a union of true souls should not be entered into lightly, or in haste. So go on a slow ride, take it easy.

Your very loving, etc. etc.
Mama

Free Advice on Getting Your Letter to the Editor Published in the (Not Fake) New York Times

Did you know that the New York Times was in publication during the Civil War? I did some research on the Battle of Antietam, and by golly, the good ol' New York Times had several correspondents right there in the thick of things.

It wasn't fake then, and it's not fake now.

That sound you hear is the buttons popping on my vest. Ten days ago I wrote my first-ever "Letter to the Editor" to the New York Times, and against all odds, they published it -- and first in line!

I'm an old-timer who likes to get her news in paper format. Imagine my conceit humble pride when I opened Monday's newspaper and saw my letter there, at the very top of the column!

(I had advance notice. The editors contacted me about word choice and length, of course. It's the New York Times, they don't mess.)

The letter is about the villainous Betsy Devo$ and her assault on sexual assault victims. It's in response to an editorial the so-called "fake" New York Times published that actually praised the menace Devo$ for her actions.

And here it is!

So, now you are asking ... Anne, what's your secret? Lots of people write to the New York Times every day!

Ahem ... well ... (twirls the casual coat button) ... my first guess is that, in these days of instant commenting, most people don't bother to write a formal letter to the editor, which first you have to look up the email address (kind of hard to find) and then you have to submit it.

Then, well, I sorta figured the best way to proceed was to lard the thing with every big word I ever knew from my days of bi-monthly vocabulary tests in Mr. Hershey's English class.

Finally, there was the passion. A good Letter to the Editor needs passion. Having had numerous friends, colleagues, and family members who have experienced simple and/or sexual assault, especially in college settings, I felt a pressing need to weigh in.

It's that pressing need that gets 'em every time.

If you ever feel a pressing need to write a letter to the editor of the New York Times, keep it short and fill it with big words. You know you can do it. Only smart people read this blog ... so you know you can. You know you can.

Free Advice about that Farm in the Mountains

One thing you learn, growing up in Appalachia: The land and weather aren't as sacred as they are savage. There just aren't enough bored gods and busy gods in the universe to make everything run smoothly when you call the mountains home.

Ask anyone who tries to farm this land. If you can't find that person (which wouldn't surprise me), visit the graveyards and look at the ages of the deceased. Also round up the folks like me, who, although they love the mountains with the white hot passion of 10,000 suns, can't live there because people gotta eat.

And yet you'll find a passel of starry-eyed optimists who seize upon a plot of mountain farmland, give it a pretty name, and commence to building a utopian community on it. This one will do "sustainable agriculture." This one will have bee hives and make mead. This one will grow artisan apples. Oh my, there's nothing more inspiring than a quiet evening in the country, when nobody's around and the whippoorwills are serenading one another from ridge to hollow! A modest living for a few people can surely be had, right?

This is where the utopian vision comes in. The optimist invites his friends to a gathering, often on a Pagan festival day, and the next year the friends bring their friends, because the property with the pretty name is so gorgeous. Within a decade, as the bees die and the apple blossoms take a frost and the groundhogs eat the peppers, the optimist has luckily happened upon a way to self-sustain: the paid festival. Okay, the land gets a little crowded, hectic, and trampled. But it's worth it. The money pours in, and the rest of the year things are so quiet and beautiful for the optimist and his small nucleus of companions.

All might be well in these cases, but it's really hard for the optimist not to become a capitalist. After all, isn't it nice to be able to make a genteel living in such a benign way? What's a festival? It's a chance for people who don't live in the mountains to come to a property, link elbows with like-minded naturists, and have a heart-warming and safe time. Word of mouth brings more and more folks each year, keeping the entrance fee quite affordable. So the optimist invests in sound equipment and heavy duty lawn mowers. He contracts port-a-potties and lines up hay bales in case it's rainy. And then he has festivals.

Here's where it goes one of two ways. In the first way, the optimist has one festival a year, upon which he stakes his whole budget. It's only held once a year, and that makes it very special, and -- again word of mouth -- numbers of attendees just keep climbing. In the other way, the optimist devises many festivals of different sorts and different sizes, flings them out across summer weekends, and waits for the customers to find the event that suits their tastes.

I personally know two such optimists who are finding out now that the land isn't sacred, it's savage. It will punish your ass no matter how lofty your intentions happen to be.

Case number one features the nicest optimist you would ever want to meet. His big once-yearly festival was hit by torrential rain. Cars skidded out of control on the parking hill, and people couldn't stand on their feet in the slippery muck. At a devastating financial loss, he had to close down a day early. There's just no way he can recoup that day of receipts at another event. This was his event. Chances are, next year, the sun will shine and the people will return. In the meantime, it's gonna be one bloody lean year.

The other case features the optimist with multiple festivals. This dreamer has invested more: bigger parcels of land, permanent bathroom facilities, even a dining hall. But as he increased the number and size of events, health problems surfaced. On two recent weekends, hundreds of festival attendees became violently ill with an aggressive and highly contagious stomach flu. And of course the Internet is blowing up over it, which has led at least one person I know to cancel her plans to attend a festival there next weekend. Nor does this person I know expect to get a refund, because you know that bottom line is going to be threatened.

The multiple-festival optimist will also recover and persist, but he's going to take a financial beating for years, and perhaps forever. Word of mouth works both ways. When people have fun, they bring their friends. When they get sick on your land, they tell all their friends who weren't there. It's a hole that's hard to climb out of, and in the meantime the optimist still has to eat and pay the notes on the parcel of land he bought for bigger festivals.

The one unifying factor between these two optimists? They both grew up in the city and lived in the city for a long time before taking up residence in the lovely rural spaces.

So here is Annie's free advice for anyone and everyone who wants to live la dolce vita on some bucolic rural farm: The land is untamed. It is untranslatable. It does not love you back. And the harder you work it, the worse it will treat you.

It's too late to ask my great-grandfathers if I am right about this, because they are all long gone. You'll just have to trust me. Would I lead you wrong? Of course not, I'm straight-up.

The economy has improved, so this free advice is really free. Heed it, though, and you'll always eat.

Climate Change Resistance

It's been very heartening to see the immediate and widespread blow-back against our toxic president and his vindictive, stroke-the-base decisions. The foam wasn't dry on Fearless Leader's mouth before a group of "climate mayors" formed to uphold the Paris Agreement. So far, the governors of ten states -- California and New York most prominently -- have promised to work toward the goals set by the Paris Agreement.

The state of New Jersey, and the borough of Snobville, are not on that list. Our current governor here in New Jersey is the repulsive, abrasive, Trump-butt-kisser Chris Christie. His days are numbered, though ... and when he goes I'm pretty sure lots of Republicans will go with him. In the meantime, I have to ask myself: What can I do personally, in my house and on my property, to resist global warming?

My biggest contribution is expensive, but I'm proud of it. I have no business living in a high-rent district like Snobville. But I've decided to stay, and pay the outrageous property taxes, because my house is 4.5 miles from my workplace. It takes me 12 minutes to drive to work. Even better, Mr. J has a home office, so he doesn't go anywhere. We try to burn as little gas as possible, day to day.

But this is not what I do to resist. I have another thumb-my-nose that hits me right in the feels. You can do it too! Here's some free advice.

People in Snobville are very picky about their properties. They're always weeding, and fertilizing, and mowing, and leaf-blowing, and edging, and planting annuals, and grooming shrubbery. It's annoying. Snobville has many mature hardwood trees, which is a virtue, but the lawns are as snobby as you can imagine.

Behold my very own climate change-resister property! You, too, can give it a try.

EXHIBIT A: DON'T CUT DOWN THOSE SEEDLINGS

This is a maple seedling in my back yard. It's pretty, and look at those wide leaves, just sucking up that CO2! I've got four this size and a bunch even smaller. Used to be I would cut these down (a job I hated). For the nonce I'm going to let them grow.

EXHIBIT B: MICRO MEADOW FOR THE BEES

This undisciplined stretch of ground used to be my vegetable garden. Then one day I just said "fuck it," and I planted native stuff. There's plenty of milkweed, just sitting there waiting for the monarch butterflies -- who haven't come yet -- and I do see honeybees on the flowers. Eyesore? Maybe. Something I have to tend? Nope. And again, sucking in that CO2, spitting out that oxygen, requiring no chemicals or watering. If it was up to me, my entire small lawn would look like this, instead of just part of it.

EXHIBIT C: IF THEY CAN'T BE TREES, THEY'LL BUSH

This oak was a seedling when I moved to Snobville -- in 1987. Maybe I've thwarted its ambition to tower, but it's alive and doing fine. Look at those wide leaves! You can almost see the oxygen wafting from them. I've got three of these basically bonsais along my driveway and two more in the back yard.

The moral of this sermon is, if you can't deed your whole property over to trees, you can let a few of them grow a little bit, here and there, just to capture a little CO2. This project of mine is the stupidest thing you ever saw, but it's a molecule in the drop in the bucket. It's all I can do with what I've got.

A final note: There's been a lot of talk about witches putting hexes on Donald Trump and otherwise wishing him ill. That's not how I roll. I wish no physical ill on the man, but I'm only too happy to engage in mystical work that seeks to undermine his agenda and protect our nation from his bad deals. Therefore I have joined an online effort called The Magical Battle for America. This is esoteric work on the astral plane, but you need not step onto the astral to be a part of it. Your meditation on the work will add to its power. Every Saturday, the leader posts a new set of instructions. You can join any time, or just drop in to give your quiet support. See you on the plane, or on the ground.

Free Advice on Spotting Fake News

How do you know that your news is coming from a trustworthy source? How do you know if it's true or not? That is the question.

I, Anne Johnson, am here to tell you some tips that will help you to distinguish the truth from the falsehood! Just remember these handy rules, and you'll soon enough know whether your news is fake or not.

1. If your mother tells you, it's not fake. This should be obvious. Mothers may lie like egg-sucking dogs, but not to their kids. Well, most of the time. If you want 100 percent verity, then ...

2. If your grandmother tells you, it's not fake. Mom may occasionally stretch the truth, but Mee Maw? OH no.

3. If you see it with your own eyes, it's not fake. I know, I know, we all try to fool ourselves, but at the end of the day, most of us face the truth. Most of us.

4, If it comes to you from the Gods, it's not fake. Be careful which deity you call a liar, because some of Them will smite you! Don't all the preachers say, "Trust God?"

5. If the results can be replicated in a controlled experiment, it's not fake. Science, bitch.

6. If you can wrap a fish in it, it's not fake. Yes, there are tabloids, and they are outrageous. But most newspapers have reputations to uphold. Take it from the wife of a journalist: Reporters have their pride. Like, George Washington and the Cherry Tree pride.


On the other hand ...

7. If the person delivering the news is wearing makeup, it could be fake. What are the talking heads trying to cover up with all those grain-fed faces? If the person you're getting your news from is on t.v. but could star in an action flick, no problem, you better fact check. You may be getting some stretchers.

8. If the news is free, it could be fake. Someone's paying for it! If you don't know who, it could be a baldfaced, egg-sucking, lowlife liar. Unless it's this blog, which is 100 percent true, 100 percent of the time.

9. If the news comes through the grapevine, it could be fake. Notice I said could be. I mean, the dude in the song did find out his gal was planning to make him blue with some other guy she knew before. That turned out to be true. So judge the grapevine carefully. If it includes Mee Maw, it's probably trustworthy. If it includes two or three of your co-workers, BAMP BAMP BAMP! Red flag.

10. If the news is good and will have a pleasant and uplifting effect on your life, it could be fake. Play it safe. Be a pessimist. When did anything ever turn out to be all for the best?

11. If the news is on the Internet, it could be fake. Except this blog, see above #8.

12. If the news involves some vast, complicated, and secret conspiracy, run by provocateurs hidden deep within the recesses of daily life, it could be fake. Do you know how hard it is to keep a secret? Okay, the Illuminati have been very successful at hiding Tupac, but ... other than that one instance, it just doesn't happen.

The moral of this sermon is, evaluate your news sources carefully! Trust your grandmother first and foremost. If she's out to tea, you can depend on The Gods Are Bored to get the straight scoop. The Gods tell me everything! See above #4.

Supposedly the economy has improved to such an extent that I no longer have to pay you to take my free advice! Now it's just free. What a relief to my fraying wallet!

Hateful Humor Can Trip You Up

I started this blog in 2005 as a way to make myself laugh. I read lots of other blogs by other people who were just trying to make themselves laugh. Let me tell you, it's easy to get nasty and step over the line. Today's sermon will consider what should and should not constitute humor. Basically, you've got to watch how you hate.

Take the new guy, for instance. Only recently did I become aware of this young fellow named Milo Yiannopoulous. I heard there were some heady protests out in Berkeley when the stripling planned to deliver an address that he promised was simply humorous, and quite within his First Amendment rights.  Then I saw him myself on Bill Maher. What I heard from the two of them got my quills in an uproar.

This Milo person (or Bill Maher, I can't remember which one) said that no one ever got offended by Joan Rivers, and she insulted everyone, yes everyone, and no one was safe.

It happens that I saw Joan Rivers live in Vegas back in the 1980s, and yes indeed, she insulted a whole lot of people in a very short time. But there was a difference between her humor and the humor you hear from people like Milo and Bill Maher.

When did you ever hear Bill Maher poke fun at himself? Call himself stupid, or complain about his looks or sexual abilities? The first half hour of Joan Rivers' live show -- and it was the filthiest 30 minutes I've ever witnessed, short of a John Waters movie -- was completely and utterly self-deprecating. Once she had insulted herself to the ninth circle of Hell, she moved on to others. But it was from a place of shared foibles. Not from a perch.

Rule #1 for Hateful Humor: Hate Yourself Hardest, Longest, and First.

Myself, I am a firm believer in freedom of expression. If ugly white men want to wrap themselves up in robes and claim racial superiority, oh well, look at those three-eyed morons. At least they aren't trying to sell their worldview by making jokes about it.

Rule #2 for Hateful Humor: Don't Try to Win Converts by Making Them Laugh.

You know what? Even the most depraved and degenerate humorists -- now I really am thinking of John Waters -- have lines they won't cross. Anything that could harm a child isn't funny. Anything that mocks a disabled person isn't funny. Any humor that could make a listener feel shame is not funny.

Rule #3 for Hateful Humor: If Your Target Can't Retaliate in Kind, It's Not Funny.

I didn't hear much of Milo's "humor," but seeing that he resigned in disgrace due to comments about child sexual abuse did not surprise me. And I'm sorry I didn't post Annie's Rules for Hateful Humor in time to save him! But heck, I can't be everywhere and on top of everything. I'm a school teacher.

But it's not too late for Bill Maher.

Bill, I know you're reading this! Say what you want about politicians. They are fair game. But if you are going to make jokes about whole swaths of the American populace, take aim at yourself first. Hop off that perch and question your own perfection. That's what made Joan Rivers funny. That's what gave her carte blanche to ladle out the hater-aid.

Rule #4 for Hateful Humor: Politicians are Fair Game.

My Congressman, Donald Norcross, is so stupid that he has to put lipstick on his forehead to make up his mind. Honestly, the guy tried to kill a bird by throwing it off a cliff. But that's okay, because Donald has a brother who can do the thinking for both of them -- and does it early and often. Funniest thing of all? I voted for the asshole. Twice.

Don't Use Your Phone in the Movie Theater

One of the oldest and most popular features of "The Gods Are Bored" is free advice. I've been doling out free advice for 12 years and sometimes even paying you to take it.

Today's free advice: Don't use your phone for any reason during a feature film in a movie theater.

If you do, you just might be sitting in an early showing of Rogue One, and you just might get a text that says, "Carrie Fisher died" during the first ten minutes of the film.

Then, by the end of the film, you might be weeping openly, throwing yourself on your seat mate, and limping out into the lobby wearing sunglasses.

So, do yourself a favor. When you go to see a movie, turn that phone off and don't dare to look at it until you are safely back in your automobile. The face you save could be your own.

Carrie Fisher: May she have found the Summer Lands. May the Goddess guide her. May she know peace.

Baby, It's Cold Inside

Brrr! The wind is whipping out there! Finally, a cold day.

Time to put some resolve to the test.I have the thermostat in Chateau Johnson set at 60 degrees. It's going to stay there. I'm determined.

We have an oil-burning furnace. It was here when we moved in, back in 1987. The old thing can't have much longer to live. But I am crossing my fingers and trying not to work it too hard.

It was always my goal to nurse the old furnace along until the whole solar thing gets really cranked. Sadly, I feel like that goal will go unmet. All signs point to the ascendance of Big Oil to a position of even greater power.

I hate to see my hard-earned wages go to the oil company. The only thing I can do is minimize how much oil I use. Having a fireplace helps a little, I must admit.

Here's some free advice tips I'll give you (and pay you to take) if you want to use less oil or natural gas:

1. Do some home improvement project, preferably one that requires going up and down stairs/ladders many times. I did some interior painting today and then swept down the house with a good, old-fashioned broom. Sixty degrees in the house, and I worked up a sweat.

2. Go to the thrift store and buy some warm, fuzzy clothes. When you get home from work, put on the warm, fuzzy clothes. So what if they aren't sexy? (Hope Mr. J doesn't read this.)

3. Those afghans that Grandma knitted for you 40 years ago? Get them out! Snuggle under them! They're bought and paid for.

EXHIBIT A: ANNE IS UNDER THERE SOMEWHERE

4. When you've finished baking something in the oven, leave it open for a few minutes after you've turned it off. This is a brief fix, but it does work.

5. This is an old one, and the hardest one for me to enact. Turn off the lights and all appliances you aren't using whenever you leave the room. Electricity isn't oil, but it's energy all the same.

6. Ask a bored deity for help. I guarantee you, if you complain that your house is cold to a Goddess like Sedna, She's going to laugh at you and call you a weakling.

7. Bonus: Being cold means you're burning more calories. Which means you can binge on the candy corn that's still here from Halloween!

It comes down to this. Every time that furnace comes on, Big Oil wins. Every hour you can go without it, you win. If you can't avoid doing business with these evil fucks, at least you can minimize what you put in their pockets.

Big Oil isn't going to get bigger on my account. Now I've got to say goodbye, because my fingers are too numb to type.