4:00am

There's nothing I love more than a good conspiracy therory, and as someone who often finds herself awake at 4:00am comtemplating the meaning of life or fearing there's an iron somewhere in the world that I've accidently left on, John Rives' saitriacal The 4 A.M. Mystery featured in the 2007 Ted Talks conference, is sharp, satisfying, and makes me wish I was doing something more interesting at 4:00am than eating Nutella straight out of the jar.   

Insomnia and Me: 5 Things I've learned before 5:00am - Part XII

1) Leonardo da Vinci has an estimated IQ of 220. To put that in perspective, Albert Einstein's estimated IQ measured in at around 160.
2) Pirahã might be the world's most unusual language. Possessing just eight consonants and three vowels, it also has no system for counting.
3) Fat talk is a body-degrading self conversation that women engage in. Many theorize one of its causes is the consistent media message that celebrities and models represent the "ideal" or perfect female body. In reality, models are significantly thinner than 98% of the population.
4) In Xanadu did Kubla Khan, A stately pleasure-dome decree.

5) Don't hate the player, hate Unatav the alien overlord from the planet Zarton who started an intergalactic space feud. That guy is an asshole.

Santa Pause

Nowadays, Santa's actions would be classified as criminally insane.

However, as children we're told that once a year—while we're asleep, mind you—a colorful, omnipresent lunatic is welcomed into our homes and allowed to punish or reward us for our actions. How exactly does Santa determine what's considered naughty or nice? And what kind of quality control does he have for this alleged list of his? Checking it twice? That's less than the number of times I checked my cell phone while I was writing this post. 

Why is a poorly dressed, largely unemployed madman with an animal fetish and an elf internment camp responsible for determining the moral integrity of the gift receiving community? This isn't a Christmas Tale, it reads more like the plot of an episode of Investigation Discovery.

Put the Fish in the Freezer

I thought I'd heard every possible break up story my girlfriends could tell.

I was wrong. 

A friend of mine — ah yeah, you don't know her — had a relationship a few years back that she was pretty excited about. On a road trip with her man through the Virginia countryside, talk turned to the idea of buying a dog together. My friend jokingly suggested that they buy a cow instead. A few weeks later, he buys her a fish that he's named "Cow." Adorable right? 

A few weeks after that, seemingly out of the blue, he breaks up with her. My friend is devastated but retains custody of Cow. Fresh off the break-up, she felt she couldn't give Cow the home he deserved and asked her parents to adopt Cow. Soon after, Cow tragically passed away. I suspect suicide, he had a lot of his own stuff going on. Knowing how special Cow was to my friend, her father couldn't bring himself to simply flush Cow into fish heaven. So he puts Cow in the freezer.

Eventually he does break the news to my friend but she just wasn't emotionally ready to deal with Cow's death. So she has her dad put Cow back in the freezer where he stays for the next two years.

Holy symbolism Batman.

In relationships, how often do we put the fish in the freezer? 

From dodgy conversations about a relationship status, to moving in together, to having kids, to problems in the bedroom, it's always easier to simply put the fish in the freezer. And we have a laundry list of reasons for why it's better to avoid the issue: we don't want to start a fight, we need more time, heck, maybe the problem will work itself out, like a bad haircut or the conflicts in Egypt.  

In theory, your respective fish could stay in the freezer forever. In fact, recent studies found that 7 out of 10 households have the remains of a departed goldfish in their freezers. But when said fish is addressed, we all suddenly turn into teenagers caught with a bag of weed, "I'm, uh, just holding that for a friend!"

Palm Pilot

I got a palm reading the other day. I could say it was on a total whim, or that I don't really believe in that stuff, or that no baby I've never tried it before but with right guy I might be open to it, but that wouldn't be true. 

So the palm reading was not, in fact, my first foray into the occultic realm. Between palm readings, tarot cards, and aura cleanings I've spend a handful of dollars hoping for a glimpse into what my romantic future might hold. And while my little brother reminds me that this money could be better spent on pretty much anything besides crack, my most recent palm reader had an insight for me that I'd never heard before: she told me I'd already met my soulmate.

There was no need to flip through my mental Rolodex of exes, because everyone has "the one that got away." Not got away due to some sort of epic relationship fall out, or his arraignment hearing, or because he finally found the key to your sex dungeon, but got away because something, something small and nameless, in the relationship didn't quite work out.

Ladies and gentleman I'd like to present my potential lost soulmate:

        
Yeah, I know, you can't tell me anything I haven't already told myself each time I renew my Match subscription. 

Okay, Universe, I get it. He is very handsome. 

We were college sweethearts. He never hogged the covers and let me dance on his toes. He taught me how to how to change a timing belt and I encouraged him to run his first 5K. I made him laugh and he fielded my crazy like Joe DiMaggio. 

But it didn't work out. Looking back there wasn't anything we faced that was so insurmountable that it couldn't have been overcome on our path to soulmatedom.

So maybe he isn't my lost soulmate. Maybe you don't just lose a soulmate like a misplaced sweatshirt that turns up in a Goodwill lost and found years later. Maybe it's sharing our lives that's more important than our souls. After all, if Merriam-Webster doesn't recognize soulmates, I maintain there's no reason for the rest of us to. Except when dealing with angry ex-sex. Obviously.
 

Holidays and the City

I love love love the holiday season. The cooling temperatures, the spirit of giving, being fireman carried out of an open bar office holiday party. It's like DC transforms from November to December. The pace slows, priorities change, even the homeless get festive with their street harassment. "Happy Holidays girl, you look so good I wanna cut you like a Christmas ham."

To honor this special time of year, I present an ode to the Holidays in DC:

When I left my hometown for the law firms in DC,

"Good luck" they all sneered, "We know the tomfoolery you'll see."

All scoundrels and villains and rascals and crocks, 

Who'd shut down an orphanage and cheat the account books.

All tricksters and jokers, whose insides are rotten,

And all of their niceness has been long been forgotten.

But I moved nonetheless, in spite of their jeers,

And my first holiday season, I swallowed my fears.

Would a loving Holiday season be something I'd lose?

To these greedy, back-stabbing, carousing yahoos?

But the city was....nice. A place for Holidays to thrive,

When I'd expected its egos to crush them alive.

People were generous and that's just the start,

It was a city of merit, giving, and heart.

So the season in DC is a time of great cheer,

Happy Holidays to all and a Joyful New Year.

Connecticut Avenue

"I am fighting God. Fighting the limitations he gave me. Fighting the pain. Fighting the unfairness. Fighting all the evil in me and the world. And I will not give in. I will conquer this Hill; and I will conquer it alone." ~George Sheehan

Insomnia and Me: 5 Things I've learned before 5:00am - Part XI

1) Searching for a creative Halloween costume idea? I like the "Freudian Slip."
2) I am not clairvoyant.
3) Why is a raven like a writing desk? Spoiler alert: it's not.
4) I like my sugar with coffee and cream.
5) The Voynich Manuscript is a detailed 240-page book written in a language or script that is completely unidentifiable. It's theorized that the the language is a "peculiar double system of arithmetical progressions of a multiple alphabet" or the author wrote it after I'd had a few glasses of wine.

Debt Feeling

If you're like me, words like "disaster," "crisis," and "fiasco" are only used after I've attended an open bar work function. 

But they've been tossed around a lot this October. So much so, it seems Republicans don't know the meaning of the word fear. But then they don't know the meanings of most words. Sure, they're getting a little carried away, the problem is it's never far enough. 

But I'm not concerned. After all, our founding fathers foresaw an abundance of potential congressional fuck ups and took precautions against them.

It's a little know fact that every statue in DC is subject to a powerful ancient enchantment activated by a primordial spell.

Amici nostri adversarii, insaniunt sicut Republicanas hatters. Habent orationis impedimentum pes eorum. Scio jus non vidi partis ire off hoc cursu cum Shackleton expeditione. Nunc autem excitaret homines et protegam civitatem nostram!

[Friends, our Republican adversaries are mad like hatters. They suffer from a speech impediment, their foot. I know right, I haven't seen a party go this off course since the Shackleton Expedition. But now awaken men and protect our city!!]

They will then fully animate and proceed to rummage through the pockets each WMA resident until the coffers are full.

Since October 17th is really a soft deadline for impending financial doom, it's fortunate we have such an effective back up plan. Like a parachute that opens on impact.

Rule of Thumb

My mom recently lost her half her thumb in a lawn mower accident. 

She still hitchhikes, but she only gets halfway home

Post accident, the entirety of the family descended on Western North Carolina bearing sympathy, food, and an arsenal of thumb related humor, that hopefully my mother will continue to enjoy long after the Oxycontin wears off.

A CSI style recreation of the crime scene determined what had happened: while mowing the field, she slipped on the steep hill and the still-running, blade-swirling lawn mower ran over her hand. At that point, she calmly picked herself up, went into the house, and called 911 as she created a makeshift tourniquet out of a towel and a tie. Following a generous swallow of whiskey, she then walked down our mile long, unpaved, rural driveway to meet the EMTs when they arrived.

As she waited, my parents' dog Lady, a cocker spaniel-beagle mutt whose skittish deposition often leaves her prone to panic attacks, stayed by her side the whole time, even trying to jump into the ambulance with her.

While my parents' other dog Andrew, a Great Pyrenees purebred whose breed is specifically known for their protection and loyalty, immediately fled the scene to escape to the barn where my dad found him hiding hours later.

The breakdown of thousands of years of animal care-taking instincts aside, we've slowly come to accept that the Spicuzzas have dropped below the national TPF average (thumbs per family).

D for doughnut

"I bought a doughnut and they gave me a receipt for the doughnut. I don't need a receipt for the doughnut. I'll just give you money and you give me the doughnut. End of transaction. We don't need to bring ink and paper into this. I can't imagine a scenario in which I would need to prove that I bought a doughnut. Some skeptical friend? 'Don’t even act like I didn't buy a doughnut, I've got the documentation right here. Oh wait, it's back home in the file... under 'D', for 'doughnut'..."

~Mitch Hedberg

Good with Kids

When you've dated a younger guy, everyone is curious about how to the two of you met. Spoiler alert: it wasn't through the Big Brothers Big Sisters program.

At a happy hour one night with my single girlfriend, we start chatting up two cute but baby-faced bachelors. They were adorable diversions from the usual DC bro-man and I'd had just enough glasses of celebration juice to drown my lingering fears that at any moment Amber Alert Agents were going to burst through the windows.

So no one was more surprised than me when a few weeks later I find myself at Junior's surprisingly spacious, well-located, apartment. Of course, there's no food or toilet paper, and his roommate's ex is crashing there, but otherwise it's very comfortable.

We had just ordered a pizza, when somewhere between the couch and door — and completely absent a logical cause such as a carpet nail, warped floorboard, or pile of broken glass — I manage to slice my toe open. Within seconds my foot looks like a cadaver prop they pull out of a swamp on NCIS. In addition, there was a red footprint trail running from his couch to the apartment foyer and back that might draw the police's attention should anyone from his building disappear anytime soon.

How did Junior react to a living room that looked like a crime scene, the inevitable loss of his security deposit to bio-hazard cleaning fees, and Papa John's new, but disappointing, garlic dipping sauce?

Like any former eagle scout, he quickly rigged a makeshift tourniquet, elevated the cut, and microwaved the dipping sauce, which really does improve the taste. God bless the younger guy libido. Well-feed and slightly giddy from blood loss, I was ready to get down to business.

So, the night wasn't a total bust and the doctors think there's a good chance I'll be able to keep my toe.

Am I really a writer?

"If you find yourself asking yourself (and your friends), 'Am I really a writer? Am I really an artist?' chances are you are. The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death." 

~Steven Pressfield

Rule(s)

There are two rules for success:

1) Never tell everything you know.

~Roger H. Lincoln

Insomnia and Me: 5 Things I've learned before 5:00am - Part X

1) In a deck of cards, the King of Hearts is known as the suicide king or King Charles (named after Charlemagne). It's debated whether the sword striking the king is his own or another's. Suspects include the Queen of Spades.
2) This kitten doesn't want a bath. Been there right?
3) The Taman Shud Case is an unsolved case of an unidentified man found dead in South Australia in 1948. His body was found on Somerton beach with a half smoked cigarette and all the labels from his clothing removed. The phrase "tamam shud" which means "ended" or "finished" was written on a page from a collection of poems titled The Rubaiyat and was found in a hidden pocket of the man's pants.

4) Coffee's for closers only.
5) The Moai of Easter Island are monolithic human statues carved from rock. Archaeologists don't know why the statues were built, what they signified, how they were transported, or why they were abandoned unfinished. 

E-Fail

"Hi Mom!"

"Hi Peanut! Can you help me with the computer?"

"Sure, what are you trying to do?"

"I need to fax something to my Doctor. Daniel said we can fax using the computer?"

"Do you mean e-mail Mom?"

"Yes, that's the one."

"Okay, is the e-mail open on the screen?"

"How do you open an e-mail?"

"In Outlook. Look at the toolbar at the top of the screen and you should see a 'New' icon or you can click on 'File' and then choose 'New' from the drop-down menu."

"How do I open Outlook?"

"Okay, so go to the 'Start' menu at the bottom of the computer screen and click on 'All Programs'."

"Well, I'm not at the computer right now. I'm at the Doctor's office. My Doctor's actually right here, I'll just hand this form to him. You know, all this new technology isn't as great as people say. Love you Peanut, bye."

"You're right Mom. Love you too, bye."

L_VE

I once friend-zoned a guy because his eyes pointed in slightly different directions. Otherwise, he was a perfectly viable candidate: college-educated, well-spoken, decent-looking. But his eyes veered just the tiniest bit away from each other. Like maybe they were having a fight, like one of them had borrowed the others car and didn't refill the tank or told a mildly racist joke at a work function.

Wow, I got an earful from my girlfriends about that one. To hear them talk, you'd think I should've been grateful he even had eyes.

So my unresolved, interpersonal dysfunctions aside, the current national divorce rate still averages in at a heartwarming 40-50%. Let that statistic sink in the next time you find yourself at dinner party or neighborhood picnic. Almost every other couple is just a handful of broken promises away from a total amourous implosion.

A shame really, when nowadays, it seems like the path to everlasting romance is relativity obstacle-free. Star-crossed lovers no longer have to fear being separated by plague, famine, or Hun invasion. But in the calamity of our modern lives, we've grown cynical and closed off to the idea of true love or soul mates. Have we manufactured these self-imposed deal breakers to protect us from contemporary threats like disappointment, emotional intimacy, and heart break?

But I'm taking a stand. Not a literal one, of course — I've had a lot of wine tonight — but a figurative acknowledgement that "happily-ever-after" does exist. Genuine, fairy tale, gooey, true romantic love is laying in wait, like my bookie when I'm late on a loan payment for its moment to strike. If it wasn't we wouldn't have had any reason to question if it was ever there as an alternative at all. 

"Some say that true love is a mirage; seek it anyway, for all else is surely desert." ~Robert Brault

Memorial YAY!

My Memorial Day Weekend Plans:

1. Organize closet

2. Clean apartment

3. Catch up on laundry

4. Read Cloud Atlas

5. Eat a full jar of Nutella 

That smarts

ge·nius noun \ˈjēn-yəs, ˈjē-nē-əs\
a : a single strongly marked capacity or aptitude
b : extraordinary intellectual power especially as manifested in creative activity
c : a person endowed with transcendent mental superiority;especially : a person with a very high IQ

Maybe it sounds strange, but growing up, having a genius dad never really seemed like that big a deal. 

I mean, I knew he had a PhD in atomic physics from the University of Connecticut. 

And that our deep thoughts differed in their respective complexity:
Me: "Whatcha thinking about Dad?"
Dad: "Quantum entanglement. Whatcha thinking about Deb?"
Me: "If Penny [our cat] would change the color of her fur if she could."

But it wasn't until I was older and stumbled across his thesis defense while cleaning out a closet—Inelastic Energy Loss and Charge State Measurements of Inner-shell Excitations in Xenon Ion-atom Collisions...yeah, that's what SHE said—that I began to realize, and appreciate, the man who'd set a standard of intelligence for me so high that for the first two years I lived in DC, I thought the law firm I worked for was actually a non-profit organization specializing in helping paranoid and homicidal lunatics suffering from delusions of grandeur.

And while personally, I may have misspelled the word genius on four separate occasions in the first draft of this post—which is weird because I only used the word twice—my top-shelf genetic stock does make me curious about how my own head smarts stack up. 

For a mere $18, Mensa's online test offers insight into your synaptic workings. So during a particularly slow day at work, I figured why not check it out? A decent IQ score might even make my parents proud enough to finally tell their friends that I work at a law firm and not as a grave robber. 

WARNING: Mensa's timed online timed test is...timed. Should you run short on time during this timed testing process, because you started the test, got distracted by something shiny, and forgot about it until you had two minutes left to complete it; stop and restart the test at a later time. Do not select all (C)s like they told you to do on the SATs. They lied to you, it does not work. 

Lack of mindfulness to the timing process may result in one or more of the following: 

• comically low test scores; 
• future mistrust of cognitive function; 
• uproarious laughter from friends and family; 
• shame-based hallucinations; and
• an erection lasting longer than 4 hours. 

The Charge Of The Light Brigade

Half a league, half a league,
  Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death,
  Rode the six hundred.
'Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns' he said:
Into the valley of Death
  Rode the six hundred.

'Forward, the Light Brigade!'
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldiers knew
  Some one had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
  Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
  Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
  Rode the six hundred.

Boston

On April 15, 2013, two bombs exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. My heart aches for the city, the victims, and the race. I pray that whoever is responsible for the attack will be found and brought to justice. 

If only they had known that there's no way to extinguish the spirit of the marathon. If only they had known that behind every Boston runner is a path of a thousand obstacles so much greater than this that have already been overcome. If only they had known that you don't fuck with Boston when it comes to their sports.    

"I am fighting God. Fighting the limitations he gave me. Fighting the pain. Fighting the unfairness. Fighting all the evil in me and the world. And I will not give in. I will conquer this Hill; and I will conquer it alone." ~George Sheehan

Doors

“close some doors today. not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because they lead you nowhere”

~ Paulo Coelho

Every Thing on It

"She had blue skin,
And so did he.
He kept it hid
And so did she.
They searched for blue
Their whole life through,
Then passed right by-
And never knew."

~ Shel Silverstein, Every Thing on It

Insomnia and Me: 5 Things I've learned before 5:00am - Part IX

1) The Talented Mr. Ripley is an incredibly under-rated movie.
2) Spooky action at a distance occurs faster than the speed of light.
3) Looking for an interactive cute cat picture website? Kittenwar might be the site for you.
4) Ever felt like you're not doing enough for the greater good of the world? You will after you read these 10 inspirational stories.
5) Spoiler Alert: I don't actually have insomnia, I'm only up because I'm getting over the flu and am coming off of 72 hours of straight sleep. Well, 50 hours of sleep, 22 hours of vivid hallucinations.