[Ed Note: Yesterday, Hope showed us what happens when people stop being polite, and start getting real. Today, she offers some solutions. Check out yesterday’s column here]

Here is what I am going to do to pass the time while we weather this storm:

1) Meditate - My anxiety-ridden friend Pablo is going to start going to meditation class with me on Thursday nights at the Unitarian church. Instead of pounding aloe martinis (love), we’re going to grab our mats and visualize good things and talk to people that we are told to imagine. We’re gonna get some spirituality! And meditation class is way cheaper than going out for cocktails; you just give a donation at the door. (I hope Pablo gives a donation. He was cheap even in the good times.) I’m so into the meditation thing that I’m Type A’ing it and going to a real ashram. Ashrams, my friends, are the new spas - sans the elegant soap, fluffy towels and private showers.

2) Giving What You Can - I’m going to donate some clothes to the church I never go to but belong to but it’s okay because I’m getting my spirituality now through the Unitarian Church lady who tells me to listen to the man whispering in my ear about compassion and acceptance. And I gave a full Metro card to the nonprofit I volunteer for. In the past I would help by holding fundraisers at posh boutiques where I used to shop … but that trite maneuver aint gonna fly during the world financial collapse, so I’m giving subway tokens instead. Give what you can. You may feel broke, but there are a lot more people who are more broke than you. And save your receipts. Charity a good tax deduction, and everyone is going to be audited this year. Treasury aint going to give us a bailout or even a return - that’s all went to AIG.

After the jump, more hope from Hope.

3) Work on Something You Love - My mom always told me when I got into trouble that idle hands are the devil’s workshop. We all have to find our bliss somewhere. We all need a project. Given that my novel is in the hands of the New York City agent who cannot sell any book proposals due to the world financial collapse even though such book would have gotten published if I had just finished it in August as I had planned, I have given up writing. (Except this blog. But that takes like ten minutes.) I’m going back to my organic tee shirt line avec poetry that my left-coast hippie friend Holly and I developed when the markets were healthy. I still think people would buy them for birthday presents. I mean there are still birthdays ….stay tuned. We’re going to have a website soon. And I’m working with George on a gay organic tee shirt line. The gays always have money to burn. In fact, speaking of the gays, during the Great Depression, I say, glom on to a gay. The gays are recession proof. There won’t be any of those crock pot Swedish meatballs on a toothpick appies at their parties; they will have the warm dates with goat cheese parties we had in 2007 (even though we were in a recession … we at least didn’t know about it). But seriously. Get with those gays and fast.

4) Experience Art: It’s Free — Whenever I feel morose, I go to an art museum. And now, I’ve decided I’m going to be a docent just like Charlotte York without the impotent bald husband. I mean what’s not to like about an art museums? Hot cops, lots of nudes, and cheese and wine that easy to abscond for free in the café.

5) Watch HBO — Again, do not watch the news. Especially gloom and doom Lou Dobbs on CNN. He makes me want to slice my wrists. Watch True Blood on HBO - it’s about vampires. So cool. Much better to watch someone get all his blood sucked out of him than to watch the Dow plummet. Or watch The Wire - nothing like a good smack of crack and crime to take your mind off the economy. Watch anything on HBO. I mean even Oprah’s going to HBO; ABC is so 2003. You can pass the black hours and hours away here. HBO has the best stuff on TV period.

6) Exercise - I know. I hate to go to the gym during the winter or during the summer. It’s just always either too cold or too hot. But going to the gym forces me to get out of my bed where I could sleep, eat and write the days away. We all need to move. And if we’re going to be in an old school Depression, you might as well start looking like Skeletor. So stop eating, and start working out. People become concerned you’re looking anorexic? Great! Three more laps! Get thin. I mean soup kitchen thin.

7) Screw Around on Facebook — Now this is my all-time favorite Depression activity. Join the free but highly addictive social scourge of the 21th century - Facebook. Cancel your Times subscription and surrender to your inner avatar. Create virtual friendships with absolute strangers. See your boss sauced and shirtless in Cancun. Find your ninth grade boyfriend who you could be with now if you hadn’t kissed his brother at Joey’s party. See your darling teenage niece declare she is in an open relationship with a girl. Stream your sex life with live videos on your “Wall.” There’s no depression on Facebook. On Facebook, time stands still. And you can be whoever you want to be. “I want to be Farrah Fawcett! And I want it to be 1976! I hear the 70’s were really fun!” I told my friend Eli. “Do it,” he said. “You so can be Farrah. And I will be Leif Garrett. My hair will look awesome.” There’s also no humidity or below zero days in Facebook. You will never have a bad hair day there. And the people we don’t know just seem cooler. As such, I think it’s best we all go underground now and slip into the virtual world. It’s so much better than the real one.

Are these times contagious?
I’m never been this bored before.
Is this the prize I’ve waited for?