The Multi-pocalypse!

Stay away from Cormac McCarthy/Octavia Butler novels, sharknadoes, anything with a whiff of zombies including corporate bookstores and public or college libraries (remember: zombies CAN sneak up on you! Be vigilant!).

Global Climate Changextravaganza!

Do not: Listen to NPR, perform internet searches re: tomorrow’s weather, go outside when it’s slightly hot or unseasonably cold, drive a car other than a Prius, ride in a car other than a Prius, go anywhere except the grocery store or farmer’s market (preferably by bike or on foot). Do: Let the dulcet tones of Fox news play in the background 24 hours per day.

Existential–what???

Remain on the eight-fold path, while keeping to the straight and narrow. Follow the drinking gourd in the Dark Night of the Soul, but wear diamonds on the soles of your shoes. Do not attend funerals, drive past graveyards, or visit the sick and elderly. Decide on the Last Messiah method or …? Remember, it’s not your thoughts; it’s your attachment to the thoughts, I think. After this, you should be well on your way to limiting that “damaging surplus” of consciousness!

You Have a Face Only a Mother Could Love!

(And a body, too, by the way!) This one is so easy! Cover mirrors with black cloth, wear very dark sunglasses to keep reflections in store windows to a minimum, choose comfortable, yet tasteful clothing (i.e., jogging pants with a sassy stripe down the side and a pair of matching heels), go to the gym just to say hi, take your glasses off so everything is in that lovely soft camera focus when you reach into the medicine cabinet for the toothpaste. Make sure most of your photos on Facebook are from high school or, even better, grade school*. Do not read, glance at, or even acknowledge the existence of Cosmopolitan or any other magazine that does not feature cake or lasagna on its cover. Most importantly, never take all your clothing off at one time, a difficult, but fruitful practice!

*If you’ve already had braces, that is.

A Wealth Gap for the Common (Wo)man!

Buy $3 chocolate bars with cool, Euro-sounding names (how bad can it be if you’re eating such fancy food?), meet your new best friend, a mule named Bob, who will help you with the ploughing or if you need to crush the cane to make molasses, read books on building a fortune that cost at least $25 in hardcover, dream of a house made out of used tires, get swept up in the new American penchant for simple living and flea market shopping! Enjoy the true wealth of human relationships in which you abound since no one has a job and you’re all just sitting around the house arguing over the remote. Try your hand at new hobbies like begging or thievery.
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Jodie Leidecker has the soul of a farmer and the body of a poet. She grew up in Hardmoney, Kentucky, learning everything she needed to know about how to grow tobacco, corn, and soybeans (she did not need to know that much) and went on to become a pretend hippie, riding her bike around town in the cool of an evening.