Shopping Tips and Guidance by Mandy Claire

1. verb
1. LINE
2. FEED
3. FODDER

1. verb
1. DRAW
2. DESIGN
3. MODEL

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," twelve miles out from Kettle Point, bound for Boston, with ... nothing in particular.

(Every now and then I have to borrow from another author for my opener. I run out of ideas.)

A trickle of news tells us that Jon Stewart is proposing a "Restoring Sanity" march in Washington, DC on October 30. Apparently the target participant for this thing is someone who is sane and reasonable. Someone who doesn't hold strong views on either side of the partisan divide.

Putting aside the fact that I'm not sane enough to gain admittance to this march, I'm not sure I would go anyway. Talk about a boring event! This promises to be a major snooze-fest. A march by Middle Americans who don't feel strongly either way on the issues facing our country? zzzzzZZZZZZzzzzzzz!

How about a "Restoring Insanity" march? We could wave Flying Spaghetti Monster banners, drink Red Bull, speak Klingon, and throw red Fizzies into the Reflecting Pool. Then we could play paintball in the Lincoln Memorial before settling down to a Residents concert, followed by a midnight showing of "Harold and Maude."

Now that's an event I could see myself at!

Seriously. The only people who go to marches are people who feel strongly about something. Can you imagine getting up on the morning of the "Restoring Sanity" march and trying to decide what to wear? Navy Dockers and white button-down, or khaki Banana Republic crop pants with a basic J. Jill t-shirt? zzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZ!!!!!

None of that dull attire at my "Restoring Insanity" march! Come in your faerie wear, your best cosplay get-up, your favorite glistening yellow raincoat! And while we're at it, let's do some cosplay of our own. Travis Bickle re-enactors! Scary clowns! Reward for the best impersonator of Bob's Big Boy!

Boom boom, ain't it great to be crazy?

The moral of this story is simple enough. Sane people don't go to Washington to demonstrate their sanity. They stay home and mow the lawn.

While they're doing that, I say let's march, crazy lunatic people! Remember, our nation's motto is, "Out of many, one." There are plenty of crazies out there, and it's America -- they have to keep us. Let's show our gratitude by reminding America that we're nuts, and we vote in nutty ways, and democracy is the lunatic's best friend!

Who's with me on this? I have to know how much Red Bull to bring.

There's a store over in my sidebar called Woodstock Trading Company. Woodstock is a family-owned business, and its merchandise is teleported straight from 1972 to the present. They don't sell pipes at Woodstock, but everything else is hippie dippy trippy. All of my faerie balls have come from there, and most of my ritual candles and incense as well. If what you want is a Grateful Dead _________ (you fill in the blank, they've got it), you cannot do better than Woodstock.

On Sunday the folks at Woodstock had a Garlic Festival. They have it every year at the moment when they prepare their garden bed (in front of the store). They had a band on the lawn, Grateful Dead covers of course. They also had an old road trip hippie bus called the Sugar Magnolia.

Are you on the bus or off the bus?

Remember that old phrase? It's metaphorical, of course.

People who are on the bus are free spirits, adventurous, risk-takers. No two days are alike, because the bus is always rolling. Enjoy the ride!

Those who aren't on the bus play it safe, keep within routine, and ... well ... let's be honest. They prop up the people on the bus. If it weren't for the "off the bus" crowd, the people on the bus wouldn't have any gigs to play, no destination, no place to crash when they're sleeping off the shrooms. If we're perfectly candid, there wouldn't be a bus at all without the cooperation of people who aren't ever going to get on it.

So, what do the people who aren't on the bus get as a reward for supporting the people on the bus? The off-the-bussers get to live vicariously without incurring danger. They can lie on the grass and listen to the Grateful Dead, maybe get a little bit stoned, then rouse themselves and get back to work on Monday morning.

I'd like to be on the bus, but I'm not much of a risk-taker. It's too easy to sit in the grass, sing along, enjoy the sky, return home and cook dinner.

One of these days, though, I'm going to throw all caution to the wind. I'm going to climb on the bus, take a long, strange trip. I'll be the one singing for the crowd, living for the moment, raking in adventure like a gardener on harvest day. I'll deal with the hangovers and the crazy fellow-trippers, because it's better to fly than to be rooted to the ground.

Yep, I have definitely not ruled out the long, strange trip. In the meantime, I had Jimmy snap this photo of me as an inspiration. It is never too late to jump on the bus. Don't believe me? Will it change your mind if I tell you I used to spend every Sunday morning in a Methodist church, and now I go to Garlic Festivals instead?

Our bus for the long, strange trip is taking passengers now. And later. Any time. No seat belts. Don't forget your tie-dye shirt! If you don't have one, they've got hundreds at Woodstock Trading Company!

Peace, love, flower power.

In August of 2004, my dad fell and broke his hip. He had, by that time, an advanced case of Parkinson's Disease. Part of the reason he fell was because he was confused.

It happened that my sister and her husband had reservations for a vacation in the Rockies at that very moment. So I had to go home and clean out my dad's apartment, because it was the end of August and the assisted living place wanted to move someone new into Dad's space on September 1.

And so, in the course of seeing my beloved father on his deathbed, and clearing out his belongings, I hardly noticed the email informing me that my services as a writer for Gale Group would no longer be required. The email came the same week I was caring for Dad. I happened to stop by the public library to look up my messages, and that was what I got.

Lost my dad, lost my job. Couldn't get either one of them back. Miss them both, but not the "them" they had become in the end. The "them" in their prime. There's a difference.

Well, there was no replacing Dad. But my stomach gets empty every 24 hours, so I had to find a job.

At first I thought I could get more writing gigs, so I applied to be a substitute teacher. By an entire quirk of fate, I began teaching not at Snobville High (where I thought I'd go, since it's within walking distance), but at an old-fashioned Vo-Tech with classes half a day and "shops" the other half. After working for 20 years alone in a home office, I was suddenly surrounded by hundreds of young people from Camden, New Jersey.

I liked them.

Thus I began subbing at the Vo-Tech regularly, and when an English teacher went out on extended leave, they gave me her classes. Then the business teacher had a maternity leave. I, who hadn't worked in an office since 1986, was teaching "Office Basics!" After that, I taught World History for eight weeks.

Then I took a test, along with about 125 other people. I couldn't believe how simple the test was. I had two hours to finish it, and I was finished in an hour. I literally checked every answer. "I must be taking the wrong test," I thought. But when I looked across the room, many of the other people taking the test looked baffled.

Before the test score even arrived, I got a Certificate of Excellence from the test place. Then I got the score. I completely aced a 120-question multiple choice test.

Last year I became a full-time teacher at the Vo-Tech under a provisional certificate. I had to go to night (and weekend) school, and pay lots of money to various individuals and state entities, in order to get a piece of paper that would officially certify me to do what I was already doing. You see, my degree was in writing, not teaching. There's no state in the union that wouldn't see this as an easy way to grab some ducats.

In today's mail I found my New Jersey certificate to be a public school teacher.

Friends, I never thought I would be a teacher. And candidly, if someone had foreseen teaching in my future, I would never have predicted it would be in a school full of poor urban kids.

Most days I miss my old job. It's easy being your own boss if you're motivated by hunger. But just as often, I look around me at all the fresh faces, all of our nation's future nurses, and plumbers, and office workers, and I'm glad to be out in the world, doing some good. Just a little bit of good, and no harm.

The Vo-Tech building was designed by the same architect who designed Philadelphia's famous Museum of Art (the one with the Rocky steps). Above the Doric columns and the mini-Rocky steps at the Vo-Tech, there's a motto chiseled into the facade:

"HE WHO HATH A TRADE HATH AN ESTATE"

(When the Vo-Tech opened in 1926, it was all-male.)

Often when I go to work I ponder this motto. I was a tradeswoman of words ... and I built a hut. Now I'm a teacher, building a cabin. It's a long push for the estate, but you know what? I'm not hurting anyone, and I'm doing a little good. Let them say that of me, at least.