5) Are you able to call a poker bluff? This test reveals that reading peopleis far more difficult than we assume. 4) You can't triple stamp a double stamp. 3) Ron DiFrancesco was the last person to make it out of the South Tower of the World Trade Center before it collapsed on September 11, 2001. One of only four people to escape from above the eighty-first floor, DiFrancesco described feeling a presence that guided him through the fire and smoke consumed stairwells. 2) Exhibiting even one of these 29 Life Signs means that things in your life are going far better than you think. Have you made the best of a tough situation? Overcome the judgment of others (or yourself)? Gone out of your way to help another? Then don't worry Rock Star, it turns out you're killing it. 1)
5) "No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear" ~C.S. Lewis 4) The 1908 Tunguska event is generally agreed to have been caused by the air burst of a large meteoroid but other explanations include time travel, alien attack, and the testing of Nikoli Tesla's Death Ray. 3) Your Life Path Number is determined by your date of birth and purportedly reveals a person's nature, talents and true calling. Like Alec Baldwin, Alfred Hitchcock and Fidel Castro, I'm a 3. 2)
1) What's the right amount of pie to eat when you wake up in the middle of the night in the mood for a midnight snack? All the pie.
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 misunderstandings away from a total amorous 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 ourselves 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'd have never suspected there was any alternative.
"Some say that true love is a mirage; seek it anyway, for all else is surely desert." ~Robert Brault
It's incredibly common for dyslexics to second guess ourselves. How could we not? A substantial portion of our academic life was spent realizing — or being told — that our perception of a word, number, or sentence was wrong.
I'd always figured a college degree would be my dyslexic checkmate. We'd shake hands on graduation day and part on good terms. I'd look back that one last time and think "You know, I'm really going to miss that sumbitch."
I didn't anticipate it turning up outside the lecture halls and classrooms of my academic career. The realization that dyslexia had tagged along to adulthood felt profoundly unfair. If everyone else was able to outgrow their respective childhood Achilles heels, why couldn't I? Imagine discovering that, regardless of the field you went into, each work day began with rigorous game of dodge ball.
Those first post-graduation experiences felt like a series of awkward encounters with an ex. Heated and bitter. "What the hell are you doing here? I told you it was over!" But once I took stock of my situation, I realized I was armed with more resources than I realized: a supportive family, social and educational programs dedicated to shining a spotlight on this misunderstood disorder and student loans that would be due in six months whether this little existential crisis was resolved or not. It was time to accept that despite all the court ordered eviction notices, dyslexia wasn't going anywhere. It's simply a part of who I am.
Setting the dyslexic record straight:
Truth: Each dyslexic is different and dyslexia manifests itself in a multitude of ways
Myth: Dyslexics are stupid or slow. Most dyslexics are very bright, our brains simply process information differently
With its dating follies, lowered standards, and that drunken 2:00am phone call to my ex-boyfriend, there’s a lot of things that aren't so great about being single.
But if dating is a battlefield, your Single Girlfriend is your Major Winters. A stylish symbol of sisterhood, she'll guide you like a beacon through the trenches. This wondrous wing-woman can be counted on to spot a wedding ring from 50 yards, flirt with the bald friend, or put you in a cab at the end of the night with strict instructions for the cab driver to take you to your apartment and your apartment only.
While your coupled girlfriends circulate complaints about their relationship (which you'd best not have an opinion on) unsolicited dating tips, and those fun-free dinner invites with her and her guy (when you prayed the sangria was strong enough for you to drink yourself into a blackout,) your Single Girlfriend is a tough love distributing bestie who will be honest about your career; why not to invite your boss to Happy Hour; and how no one has really gained weight on the Pill since 1967. She'll touch up your eyeliner, wash the wine stains off your shirt, or field a phone call from Gram-Gram when you’re loaded.
So raise a glass, send a text, and thank God, Allah, or Ilaha the Syria mountain god, for your Single Girlfriend!
An undisclosed number of years ago, like all spirited young college graduates, I felt my education was an unique contribution and one that society would immediately recognize and compensate accordingly. Two weeks later, I realized that my B.A. in English was the economic equivalent of Monopoly money and with $60,000 in student loan debt, there was little more I could do with it than die of starvation. But where could I find a financial future with quelled standards and a limited skill set?
Something like half of the population of D.C. are transplants. I can't speak for everyone, but I didn't come here for the fantastic winters, effortless commutes, or that special sweet talk I get from Stabby the homeless guy who lives outside of Farragut North.
And while the D.C. ratio of lawyers to, let's say, mathematicians, is slightly unbalanced, it still deserves a hat tip as one of the most economically and politically relevant cities around. Not just because it's the Capital—I mean, look at Islamabad or Ottawa—instead it's like the entire city keeps itself from sinking into its swampy foundation by sheer will or ego alone.
It could be the exact environment for my own big dreams: that one day I can support my entire family with a thriving career, a savvy investment, or the court settlement money from a congressman linked to my disappearance.
In 2013, modern medicine confirmed what many of my exes had long suspected: I have an atrial septal defect, otherwise known as "ASD" or a hole in the heart.
When faced with this potentially life altering medical condition, there was only one course of action I could take. Fly to France, forge the required medical certificate for the Paris Marathon, participate in said marathon (which I only ran 13 miles of, I mean, let's be practical, I did have a hole in my heart) and then travel on to Amsterdam.
Amsterdam was an easy destination match for an ASD diagnosis. With its cannabis coffee shops and red-light district, the Dutch seem like the sort of people who are likely to appreciate my genetic inclination to pass out in bars.
Modern romance is riddled with causal flings, on-again/off-agains, and half-hearted commitments. Call me old-fashioned, but I'd always thought that a monogamous relationship meant that one man, one women, and their sex dungeon were ready to settle down and spend the rest of their lives together. But ask the average couple a question about their relationship and......
These days, couples are charting a far more perverse new territory of relationships: the Bermuda Triangle. Just what is the Bermuda Triangle? And why does it doom so many relationships to its murky depths?
Studies have shown that when choosing a paint color if given five color options to select from, people tend to make the decision faster and more confidently than people who are given twenty color choices. The theory is that an overabundance of choice leads to fear of "missed opportunities and unrealistically high expectations". It's the worry that we're settling, that we could do better, or that we’re missing out. By allowing a relationship to remain undefined, we avoid choice (e.g. "the talk") as a way to prevent ourselves from experiencing regret.
While Gulf Streams, Violent Weather, and Methane hydrates will seal a mariner's fate in the actual Bermuda Triangle, interpersonal instability poses the greatest threat to otherwise seaworthy relationships.
So is there any hope for a couple who has navigated into this watery relationship graveyard?
Ever since college where we learned fundamental life skills like living away from home, choosing a non-Liberal Arts major, and how to shotgun a beer, I'd resigned myself to the notion that the English major's lot in life was to see the nuance and beauty in an otherwise mechanical, left-brained world, and not perhaps drive economic trends, truly understand what a hedge fund is, or say things like: "Divide my assets between my 401k and my Roth IRA," or "We don't need to find a different ATM. My balance is high enough to cover the foreign ATM fee."
And I was okay with that. Truly fine with the notion that what I lacked in capital, I made up for in my ability to shotgun a beer. Certain that society needed both sharks and sheep. Career-driven capitalist every bit as much as hippy humanitarians. The "Type-A" predators with their smart, aggressive life and career decisions, and those of us content to bumble through job and relationship choices with all the calculating ruthlessness of a nurse shark.
But then the universe, who'd always been up for shotgunning a beer with me, handed this sheep a series of personal, professional, and medical misfortune.
Anyone who's experienced any type of adversity wants to feel there's a deeper meaning behind it all. Like a Super Mario Brothers game where of course it's hard to get through the Mushroom Kingdom but you can take pride in your collection of coins, Fire Flowers, and ultimately saving Princess Toadstool.
But sometimes it seems like the empathy, altruism, and social awareness I've accumulated from my hardships have the real world worth of Fire Flowers. And, at times, that can be difficult to reconcile. Like a t-shirt that reads, "I've Been To Hell And All I Got Was This Stupid T-Shirt".
But unlike sharks, that's when sheep [who are very deep thinkers, no citation] remember that there's significance in both our failures and our triumphs. How are we certain? There has to be.
“If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning" ~C.S. Lewis
