THE SKY IS FALLING

A lot of people tend to make jokes or play pranks or post fake journal entries about a crisis or problem that really isn't happening today. A lot of other people invariably get really pissed when they get taken in by the jokes and find out they aren't true, feeling manipulated and taken advantage of. Friendships have ended or backslid, and there've been a lot of hard feelings created because, well...not everyone takes being pranked very well.

Just in case you don't know, it's APRIL FOOLS DAY.

Instead of playing pranks on people, perhaps it might be a good idea to take this in consideration: what is the function of the fool in the first place? Personally, I've come to view the Fool archetype as a catalyst for changes in perception and, eventually, action. The Fool, by making fun of concepts long held dear, or exposing the nonsense in paradigms that have been generally accepted, by questioning *everything*, forces people to look at their positions in life and seriously view things they would otherwise take for granted. By saying 'nothing is sacred,' what you're really saying is 'nothing is set in stone,' and that everything, and I do mean *everything* could be questioned.

So! Why not pay homage to the questioning nature of the Fool today in some respect? Take the piss out of your habits and idiosyncracies. Or pretend to be someone antithetical to who you are. Are you a hard-core liberal? Read Ann Coulter and find places where you two agree. Are you a chatty little extrovert? Spend the entire day actively avoiding people, and only say what you absolutely need to get your point across. Take the time to shake yourself out of your box by doing something unexpected, extraordinary and frightening.

This way, you can still be in the spirit of the holiday and not potentially lose any friends.

Happy April Fools Day!

Where Everything Was Exactly As It Seemed

Last night I had the strangest dream...

I was hanging over at someone else's house, but it wasn't like any house I'd been to (or dreamed about) before. The living room and bedrooms and bathrooms were all upstairs, and the only thing that was downstairs were the entrance hall and kitchen. The stairs connecting the two floors were very narrow, and so were the rooms downstairs; everything was cramped and you were constantly bumping into furniture and knocking stacks of letters off the kitchen table. Somehow, this was very cozy and appealing.

Anyway, a few friends come up to the lawn screaming bloody murder, and I start freaking out on them. Milla Jovovich, they say, is in our car and she's ODed on something. And from there we start re-enacting that scene from Pulp Fiction almost verbatim until I break it off and promise to get get help, or at least look for a nearby hospital.

Suddenly, I'm wandering the streets of suburbia at dawn, looking around for a hospital I was sure was there, somewhere. Eventually I make my way to this busy street (that reminds me of Baltimore for some reason) and I walk into this urban church where, lo and behold, Barbara Walters is giving a sermon. (I'm pretty sure this is an Episcopal church.)

I ask her to help my friend Milla Jovovich (this name is so fun to say :D), who's ODed a few blocks down and needs serious medical attention. She says no and goes back to the sermon. I interrupt her again and ask if she knows where the nearest hospital might be. She excuses herself, takes me to a side room and asks me when I would stop bothering her. It's at this point that I start crying, because my very good friend Milla Jovovich is all alone in a car on the side of the road, probably breathing her last even as we speak. I say, "When I know that my friend is going to be OK, she's dying!" And then Barbara Walters dries my tears and agrees to help me.

So now we're driving through a city in the early morning, watching people deliver newspapers and drink coffee while waiting for the bus. We're talking about the way the city has changed from her childhood and mine, and how the plight of people like my very best friend Milla Jovovich is tragically common.

And just like that, I'm awake, with sunlight streaming through my blinds. To this minute, I'm trying to think what I might have eaten to give such a vivid, random dream. The best I can think of is the combination of broccoli, chicken, fetuccine alfredo and breakfast coffee taken at 11 p.m.