how to fake it

heather mallick makes me laugh especially when she takes such a rambling yet manic path - it's a meandering stream of consciouness!

"Only very dim people, who have clearly failed to grasp the situation we're in, aren't depressed. So good for you. Intellectually, you're in good nick.

Here's a list of reasons to be cheerful; no, scratch that, ways to trick yourself into laughing. Other generations have managed it. The Lost Generation barnstormed through the 1920s to slam, full speed, into the Great Depression. But some had the wit to move to Paris to write novels, sleep around and, okay, drink themselves to death. It may not sound uplifting, but it's better than doing what we're doing, moaning that the polar bears will be extinct by the time we get off the couch in 2008, by which time the rising waters of global warming will already be lapping at the porch door.

You had four years to make sandbags. Hessian was cheap. Sand was free. Your job had been outsourced by globalization; you had nothing better to do with your hands.

But no, you were numbing your mind with the worst Idol This, Idol That television ever made while the years leaked away. Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, Andrea Dworkin and Susan Sontag died and Abu Ghraib wasn't levelled. All plastics were revealed as poison. One of my favourite websites, the witty, fearless and lefty rabble.ca, explained to me that my moisturizers are killing me. Yes, phthalates are leaching into my brain. That explains a lot.

Here's what helped: books, music, friends, friends' children, food, laughter."

oh, and i bought a very pretty dress that makes me want to learn how to dance the oldie- timey dances. do you think i can convince dillie to come out and swing me around the floor? or maybe move to europe with me while i drink myself to death? i can trick myself into laughing along with the best of them.