Which brings us back to our diet program. Rule No. 2: Don't eat shit! Just for today, when someone is dishing it out, you may say nicely, and firmly, "Oh, no thanks, I'll stick to water."

And it seems like everyone is dishing it out -- Rove, Rumsfeld, Bush, even nice old Wolf Blitzer. Some Democrats are dishing it out, too. They're mocking people like me, who were pretty worried there for a few days. "When did you become such worrywarts? When did they start acting like such losers?" Well, I'll answer that another time because rule No. 2 only addresses that you must not eat anyone's shit, even when -- especially when -- it is being served in your own family.

Rule No. 3: Get out of Theater A. In fact, run for it. What, you may ask, is Theater A? Well, a big lusty hilarious Christian Science healer told me years ago, when I was toxic with the anxiety, narcissism and self-loathing of a book tour, you always have a choice of being in one of two theaters. In Theater A, the management is showing a violent and sarcastic, overwhelming movie that makes you cringe with its brutality, and fills you with fear and paranoia, and deep shame. And it's mesmerizing. Plus, you still have some popcorn left, a bag of M&Ms, and you've paid the admission. So you end up staying way too long, even though right down the hall is Theater B. There, management is showing a movie that is funny and sweet and intelligent, and therefore inspiring, of people banding together, on a search for the truth deep within themselves, or outdoors, in the beauty of nature.

This kind of movie fills you with the water and air of hope, not Hallmark-running-in-slow-motion hope, where assault weapons disappear from the face of the earth, and there is dancing and tie-dye and Soy Moo, and Dick Cheney is on trial at The Hague. No, real hope, the kind Vaclav Havel described: "Not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out." The hope of fellowship, and kindness, and service.

The fourth and final rule of our diet program: Walk. Walk to the TV and turn it off. Then walk outside. Night, day or even in the desert -- you can make do with an extremely inhospitable landscape and it forces you to ask yourself, "Where is my place in all this?" And answering that question is why you are here. So it's like the monologist David Roche saying that his facial deformity is an elaborately disguised gift from God, and that is how we can choose to see the Bush administration.

Today, I walked to the post office and sent some money to MoveOn.org. Then I called a few people and convinced one person to adopt a swing state with me, at Mainstreet Moms Oppose Bush. I convinced a family of five to go see "The Story of the Weeping Camel," which lifts your spirits for three weeks afterward. And I persuaded another person to sponsor an American child through Save the Children, because this person trusts Save the Children. Just find one group of people you trust, to save one suffering child in the world. Sam and I adopted a boy named Jamanadas 10 years ago through World Vision, but they are a Christian organization, and we at DSRBD&E understand that C.S. Lewis was right when he said: "Of all bad men, religious bad men are the worst." So find your own agency.

Anyway, after I had done all these things, I rested. And it was good. Or, at any rate, it was better.

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