Futurists predict that in 30 years many of us will have robots as our best friends. But I believe it's already the case that machines are our boon companions. You may not have a name for your computer or iPhone, but you interact with it as if it were an animate and intimate assistant. Music or TV or talk radio might be turned on in your home around the clock, providing a constant flow of comforting noise. I know people who derive a sense of coziness from the hum of the refrigerator or the rumble blowing through the heating vents. Have you ever talked to your car? Kicked a temperamental appliance? Used a sex toy? This is the best week ever for you to acknowledge your symbiosis with the alien life forms we depend on. Now go kiss your laptop. Caress your toaster.

Want to get an idea of what my EXPANDED AUDIO HOROSCOPES are like? Tune in to my latest free podcast, "Fear Versus Intuition." My approach there has a close resemblance to the style of my weekly pay-for-view offerings.

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"The more accidental, the more true," wrote Boris Pasternak in his poem "February." Scholar Mikhail Epstein expanded this observation: "The more accidental the phenomenon, the more divine its nature, for the divine is what has not been envisioned, what cannot be deduced from general rules, nor irreducible to them."

If we pursue this line of thought to its logical conclusion, we may decide that the most useful sources of illumination are not always holy books, revered dogma, and great truths that everyone has heard. They might also be serendipitous anomalies that erupt into the daily routine and break the trance of ordinary awareness. "The tiny spark," Epstein writes, "is the precise measure of the holiness of the world."
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The preceding oracle comes from my book, PRONOIA Is the Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings. It's available at Amazon or Powells. Go here to hear my podcasts, in which I deliver material from the book.