Why You Should Never Ever Ask "Are You PMS-ing?"

From out of nowhere, a fight breaks out with your wife or girlfriend. You literally have no idea what's happening. Nothing you say is getting through. Finally you just apologize for whatever random thing you evidently did wrong. And she still freaks out -- she doesn't want an apology. She just wants to use you as a punching bag.

Frustrated and confused, you suddenly understand: it must be that time of the month. Before you can think rationally you hear these words slipping out of your mouth: Are you PMS-ing?

So what exactly is wrong with asking a simple question like that? I mean if she is PMS-ing then you can stop trying to find any logical solution and just tough it out.

Here is why you never, ever ask if your woman is PMS-ing.

What if you are right?

Don't ask, Captain

OK, she actually is PMSing. Then you are in fact dealing with a hormonal lunatic. Take me as an example. I never know when I will turn into a PMS monster and attack my husband without warning.

Many times early in our relationship, we would be in an argument about something very minor, and an hour later that "something" would snowball into a heinous transgression. My poor husband Scotty would be so confused, trying to figure out how his balls got trapped in a vice.

The Game Changer

After a few months, Scotty became an expert at predicting the arrival of my monthly visitor. I was so hormonal, I couldn't even see the monster until it was gone. But Scotty learned how to behave around it...feed it chocolate, stay very quiet. But even 14 years later, he knows not to actually tell me I am PMS-ing. It will send me into an epic frenzy. You cannot know my cycle better than I do...I am not acting crazy...you are a butthead.

When a woman cannot recognize the monster, she doesn't want her husband telling her he does.

What if you are wrong? Scenario two. In mid-argument, you inform her that she's PMS-ing, but her period was last week. Oh snap! You just called your woman a hormonal lunatic. You are saying you couldn't have done anything to make her mad at you, and there's no basis to whatever her grievance is. This will make her even angrier. Forget the original problem -- now she's mad because you think her hormones are the only cause.

Either way, you're sleeping on the couch.

Let me offer some advice: ask her what she wants. No matter what the fight is about, she has a bottom line. There is something she wants to happen. It's usually a simple action on your part...call me if you're going to be late, be nicer to my mother, empty the dishwasher, take out the trash without being reminded 40 times.

Ask her nicely, sincerely, what you can do. If she is able to tell you, say you will do your best to do it, whatever it is. She will have no ammunition after that. You aren't apologizing blindly just to end the discussion, and you're letting her know you've heard what she's saying and why it's making her angry. You're not promising her you will change immediately. You are just saying you will try. No one can be mad at you for that. You have to actually mean it, and make the attempt, or this won't work the next time.

If you succeed in doing what she has asked, then you both win. She has learned to communicate directly rather than starting a fight, and you have listened and acted.

And that, men, is sexy.

Lee Trask
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HOW RICH PEOPLE SPEND THEIR TIME

People invariably believe that money can make them happy -- and rich people usually do report being happier than poor people do. But if this is the case, shouldn't wealthy people spend a lot more time doing enjoyable things than poor people?

Nobel Prize-winning behavioral economist Daniel Kahneman has found, however, that being wealthy is often a powerful predictor that people spend less time doing pleasurable things, and more time doing compulsory things and feeling stressed.

People who make less than $20,000 a year, for example, told Kahneman and his colleagues that they spend more than a third of their time in passive leisure -- watching television, for example. Those making more than $100,000 spent less than one-fifth of their time in this way -- putting their legs up and relaxing. Rich people spent much more time commuting and engaging in activities that were required as opposed to optional. The richest people spent nearly twice as much time as the poorest people in leisure activities that were active, structured and often stressful -- shopping, child care and exercise.

Kahneman and his colleagues argued that many people mistakenly allocate enormous amounts of their time and psychological focus to getting rich because of a mental illusion: When they think about what it would mean to be wealthy, they think about how enjoyable it would be to watch a flat-screen TV set, play lots of sports or get a lot of pampering -- our stereotypical beliefs of how the rich spend their time.

"In reality," Kahneman and his colleagues wrote in a paper they published in the journal Science, "they should think of spending a lot more time working and commuting and a lot less time engaged in passive leisure."

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Michelangelo 'hid secret code in Sistine Chapel'

By Malcolm Moore in Rome

Michelangelo hid a secret code in the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel made up of mystical Jewish symbols and insults aimed at the pope, according to a new book.

AFP/GETTY

The Sistine Chapel was intended to be decoded, the authors believe

The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which the renaissance artist worked on for four years in the early 16th century, is actually a "bridge" between the Roman Catholic Church and the Jewish faith, according to The Sistine Secrets: Unlocking the Codes in Michelangelo's Defiant Masterpiece.

The book, which is already on the New York Times bestseller list, is the work of Rabbi Benjamin Blech, an associate professor of Talmud at Yeshiva University in New York, and Roy Doliner, a tour guide at the Vatican.

Scanning through the arrangement of figures on the vast 14,000 square foot ceiling, the authors have found shapes that correspond to Hebrew letters.

For example, the book states, the figures of David and Goliath form the shape of the letter gimel, which symbolises g'vurah, or strength, in the mystical Kabbalah tradition.

Kabbalah is a set of ancient esoteric teachings which are meant to decode the inner meaning of the Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, and to explain the reasons for Jewish religious observances.

On the opposite wall, the scene showing Judith and her handmaiden carrying the head of the Assyrian general Holofernes is in the shape of the Hebrew letter chet, which represents chesed, or the characteristics of "loving kindness".

"There are so many layers of meaning on meaning, and most of it is from the Jewish tradition," said Mr Doliner on an American television programme.

Rabbi Blech added that all the figures in the nine scenes on the ceiling are Jews.

"He emphasises only Old Testament figures in the entire ceiling, and what he was trying to say was: Why have we ignored our true roots?" he said.

The book adds that the tree of life in the fresco is not, as usually thought, an apple tree, but instead a fig tree according to ancient Jewish tradition.

The authors believe the entire Sistine Chapel, which they say is built to the same proportions as the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, is a "lost mystical message of universal love" which was intended to be decoded.

The authors believe Michelangelo picked up his knowledge of Judaism while at the court of Lorenzo de Medici in Florence.

In addition, they say there are several attacks on Pope Julius II, who commissioned the work, embedded in the painting.

Disgusted with papal corruption, they think Michelangelo painted the prophet Zechariah in the pope's likeness.

Behind him, one angel is "making an extremely obscene hand gesture at the back of his head."

Critics of the new book point out that there is no record in Michelangelo's extensive and well-preserved writings of any secret code in the ceiling.

Dr Arnold Nesselrath, a curator at the Vatican museums said there was no way that Michelangelo could have painted any of the ceiling without the pope's express consent.

Marco Bussagli, an art history professor at Rome's La Sapienza university, said the revelation of "anti Catholic and anti-Christian" messages on the roof "suggests that the Dan Brown syndrome has struck again."

Mr Brown is the author of the controversial book, The Da Vinci Code, in which he writes that Jesus was secretly married to Mary Magdalene.

The two authors are not the first to have "seen" a secret Michelangelo code.

In 1950, a Venezuelan diplomat named Joaquin Diaz Gonzalez wrote a pamphlet arguing that an outline of the face of Dante, the poet, was hidden in the arrangement of the figures in the Last Judgement. He also "saw" a giant depiction of Jesus on the cross.

In 1990, Frank Meshberger argued in the Journal of the American Medical Association that the central panel, showing God and Adam reaching out to touch each other was in the shape of a brain and spinal cord.

In 2000, Dr Garabed Eknoyan saw the shape of a kidney in the painting, while in 2005 two Brazilian doctors found hidden body parts throughout, including a bronchial tube hidden in the tree trunk in the panel showing Eve's Creation.

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