1. Lie down with the purple woman until her dolorous haze cloaks your shiny humor.
2. Collect five fresh hairballs from your cat and arrange them symmetrically around your futon.
3. Quit your job on one day's notice and move to a village where a baobab tree can be sighted in the four cardinal directions.
4. Dream of swirling snowflakes, each identical to the other.
5. Fly a kite with the face of the green woman embossed on its crisp, silvery surface.
6. Drink a pint of pomegranate juice squeezed by the well-worn hands of a barren woman.
7. Learn to play the accordion or the bagpipe; play only dirges and sea shanties.
8. Lie down repeatedly with women of non-green hue until your stripes are blurred.
9. Laugh no more than four times a day, no less than twice; you may cry, but only if your stomach is full.
10. Tell the truth exactly 50 percent of the time.
11. Write bad poetry about artichokes and displaced horizons.
12. Never, ever, turn around if you hear a whisper uncovered momentarily by a lull in the winds.