What I've learned since moving to D.C. (some of which should be obvious): 0211

10501.  One of the most important decisions you’ll ever make in life is who you have children with.  Choose wisely;
10502.  When playing games with children, let them win;
10503.  You don’t have to learn everything the hard way;
10504.  One day you’ll need to be forgiven so learn to forgive others;
10505.  Instead of buying your children what you didn’t have, teach them what you didn’t know;
10506.  Never let your inner child die;
10507.  If you care too much about what other people think, you’re effectively their slave;
10508.  Be so busy improving your life that you don’t have time to criticize others;
10509.  Everyone you love will eventually die, spend your time with your loved ones; keep them close;
10510.  No one is a mind reader, voice how you feel;
10511.  Never feel bad about promoting yourself;
10512.  Hang out with people from different races, ethnicities and socio-economic classes;
10513.  Listen to understand not to respond;
10514.  You can’t pour from an empty cup.  Take care of yourself first;
10515.  Spending time alone is one of the best things you can do;
10516.  Remember that 80% of the success in any job is based on your ability to deal with people;
10517.  Compliment the meal when you’re the guest in someone’s home;
10518.  Show respect for everyone who works for a living regardless of how trivial their job;
10519.  The “Club 24” (Championship) Boxes at Nationals Park are nice.  The seats include food options from a high-end restaurant prepared by a chef and dedicated wait staff;
10520.  (I can say) I’ve sat in the “Club 24” (Championship) Boxes at Nationals Park;
10521.  Apparently, the “Club 24” (Championship) Boxes and the “K Street” (Championship) Boxes are the 2 most exclusive clubs at Nationals Park;
10522.  The 1924 Washington Senators won (Washington) D.C.’s first World Series championship;
10523.  The honey ham biscuits (i.e., mini, buttermilk biscuits with smoked Virginia ham) at the Lightfoot Restaurant (LightfootRestaurant.com) in Leesburg, Virginia, are tasty;
10524.  The berry salad (i.e., greens tossed with balsamic vinaigrette set with blackberries, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, spiced cashews & balsamic glaze) (with grilled shrimp) at the Lightfoot Restaurant (in Leesburg, Virginia,) is tasty too;
10525.  Strangely, life gets harder when you try to make it easy;
10526.  Exercising might be hard, but never moving makes life harder;
10527.  Uncomfortable conversations are hard, but avoiding every conflict is harder;
10528.  Mastering your craft is hard, but having no skills is harder;
10529.  Easy has a cost;
10530.  The berry Chantilly cake at Whole Foods (Market) is tasty;
10531.  Jean Louisa Kelly (the actress) (kind of) looks like Robbie;
10532.  Primus is a jam band. . . . Who knew?
10533.  Les Claypool is a self-proclaimed Rush (i.e., Canadian rock band) geek;
10534.  Les Claypool went to (high) school and is friends with Kirk Hammett (the lead guitarist of Metallica);
10535.  Les Claypool auditioned to be the bassist for Metallica;
10536.  Broccoli shrinks a lot when you roast it (in the oven);
10537.  Despite what most mainstream therapists claim, couples with “open marriages” generally rate their overall satisfaction (with both their relationship and with life in general) significantly higher than those in conventional marriages do;
10538.  Many people have sex outside their primary relationships for reasons that have nothing to do with any inadequacy in their partner or in the relationship;
10539.  Charlie (Dog) likes (roasted) peanuts . . . shocker, he loves peanut butter;
10540.  Not everyone handles grief the same way;
10541.  Many men report that they had affairs simply because opportunities arose while women, for whom opportunities are often more plentiful, tend to report a more complex confluence of motivations;
10542.  When Shirley Glass and Thomas White anonymously interviewed 300 men and women about their extramarital affairs, they found that men tended to see their affairs as more sexual while women were motivated more by emotional considerations and reported greater levels of dissatisfaction with their marriages;
10543.  I’m glad to have Rob(ert) Roebuck as a friend. . . . I should’ve seen/texted/visited him more when I had the chance;

10544.  If you want to lose weight, get Invisalign.  They’re so annoying/difficult to put in and take out and you have to brush and floss after eating that it’s just not worth snacking;

10545.  Apparently, Ajay is immune to mushrooms;

10546.  If you want to get COVID(-19), stand in line to get into a Dave Matthews Band concert (at Jiffy Lube Live in Bristow, Virginia) without wearing a mask . . . stupid;

10547.  If you’re out of milk for your cereal, coffee will work;

10548.  Post-COVID lethargy is a real thing;

10549.  Charlie (Dog) likes doughnuts (in particularly Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnuts);

10550.  Guac(amole) on a (ham)burger is pretty good;

What I've learned since moving to D.C. (some of which should be obvious): 0210

10451.  We can tap into the unconscious processes that help us connect with our innovative ideas and solve problems more efficiently simply by decreasing visual input;
10452.  Neuroscience researchers find that daydreamers actually score higher on creativity scales;
10453.  For best results, approach your daydreaming session with intention: You must be able to notice when you are in this state and pull yourself out at will.  This requires some practice;
10454.  Psychologists Joey Sprague and David Quadagno surveyed women from 22 to 57 years of age and found that among those under 35, 61% of the women said their primary motivation for sex was emotional rather than physical.  But among those over 35, only 38% claimed their emotional motivations were stronger than the physical hunger for contact;
10455.  At face value, such results suggest women’s motivations change with age.  Or one could also argue that this effect could simply reflect women becoming less apologetic as they mature;
10456.  Apparently, “heaven trap” (EDM music) is a thing;
10457.  EDM concerts/festivals are some of the most welcoming places.  You see all kinds of people at them;
10458.  First-time travelers to Istanbul, Bali, Gambia, Thailand or Jamaica may be surprised to see thousands of middle-aged women from Europe and the United States who flock to these places in search of no-strings sexual attention;
10459.  An estimated 80,000 women fly to Jamaica looking to “Rent a Rasta” every year;
10460.  The number of female Japanese visitors to the Thai island resort of Phuket jumped from fewer than 4,000 in 1990 to 10 times that just 4 years later outnumbering male Japanese tourists significantly;
10461.  The strongest explanation for the prevalence and intensity of the Coolidge effect among social mammals is that the male drive for sexual variety is evolution’s way of avoiding incest;
10462.  Our species evolved on a sparsely populated planet never more than a few million and probably fewer than 100,000 of us on Earth for most of our evolutionary past.  To avoid the genetic stagnation that would have dragged our ancestors into extinction long ago, males evolved a strong appetite for sexual novelty and a robust aversion to the overly familiar;
10463.  When a couple have been living together for years, when they’ve become family, this ancient anti-incest mechanism can effectively block eroticism for many men leading to confusion and hurt feelings all around;
10464.  Men’s testosterone levels recede over the years, but it’s not just the passing of time that brings these levels down: monogamy itself seems to drain away a man’s testosterone;
10465.  Married men consistently show lower levels of testosterone than single men of the same age; fathers of young children even less;
10466.  Men who are particularly responsive to infants show declines of 30% or more right after their child is born;
10467.  Married men having affairs were found to have higher testosterone levels than those who weren’t;
10468.  Most of the men having affairs have told researchers they were actually quite happy in their marriages, while only one-third of women having affairs felt that way;
10469.  Researcher, James Roney, and his colleagues found that even a brief chat with an attractive woman raised men’s testosterone levels by an average of 14%;
10470.  When these same men spent a few minutes talking with other men, their testosterone level fell by 2%;
10471.  William Master and Virginia Johnson reported that “loss of coital interest engendered by monotony in a sexual relationship is probably the most constant factor in the loss of an aging male’s interest in sexual performance with his partner;”
10472.  This loss of interest can frequently be reversed if the man has a younger lover even if the lover is not as attractive or sexually skilled as the man’s wife;
10473.  For most men and many women, sexual monogamy leads inexorably to monotony.  It’s important to understand this process has nothing to do with the attractiveness of the long-term partner or the depth and sincerity of the love felt for him or her;
10474.  As their testosterone levels decline with age, many men experience a diminishment of energy and libido, an intangible distance from the basic pleasures of life.  Most attribute this blurred distance to stress, lack of sleep or too much responsibility or they just chalk it up to the passage of time.  True enough, but some of this numbing could be due to ebbing testosterone levels;
10475.  Once the transitory thrill of an affair passes, men are left once again with the realities of what makes a relationship work over the long run: respect, admiration, convergent interests, good conversation, sense of humor and so on;
10476.  Researchers have found that men with lower levels of testosterone are more than 4 times as likely to suffer from clinical depression, fatal heart attacks and cancer when compared to other men their age with higher testosterone levels.  They are also more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia and have a far greater risk of dying prematurely from any cause (ranging from 88 to 250% higher depending on the study);
10477.  Most women’s sense of smell is significantly better than most men’s so there’s probably going to be evidence you can’t even sense, but that she’ll pick up on;
10478.  Love is an ideal thing; marriage a real thing;
10479.  A confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished;
10480.  By insisting upon an ideal vision of marriage founded upon a lifetime of sexual fidelity to one person, a vision most of us eventually learn is highly unrealistic, we invite punishment upon ourselves, upon each other and upon our children;
10481.  The French are much more comfortable with the idea that their affair partner is just that an affair partner writes Pamela Druckerman in her cross-cultural look at infidelity, Lust in Translation;
10482.  Understanding that love and sex are different things, Druckerman says the French feel less need to “complain” about their marriage to legitimize the affair in the first place;”
10483.  The expectation of lifelong monogamy places an incredible strain on a marriage.  But our concept of love and marriage has as its foundation not only the expectation of monogamy, but the idea that where there’s love, monogamy should be easy and joyful;
10484.  Toe-curlingly passionate sex can be an important part of marital intimacy, but it is a grave mistake to think it’s the essence of long-term intimacy;
10485.  Thinking of marriage as an enduring romance is unrealistic: “It’s not like you want to rip your clothes off with somebody that you’re sleeping with for the thousandth time.  We should know going into it that the nature of love and sex changes from what it began is and that a great love affair doesn’t necessarily make a great marriage;
10486.  So-called polyamorous families are thought to number about ½ million in the United States, according to an article in Newsweek;
10487.  “Since Darwin,” Sarah Hrdy writes, “we have assumed that humans evolved in families where a mother relied on one male to help her rear her young in a nuclear family; yet . . . the diversity of human family arrangements . . . is better predicted by assuming that our ancestors evolved as cooperative breeders;”
10488.  It seems that the original modern American swingers were crew-cut World War II air force pilots and their wives;
10489.  Joan and Dwight explained to Gould that these warriors and their wives “shared each other as a kind of tribal bonding ritual with a tacit understanding that the two-thirds of husbands who survived would look after the widows;”
10490.  The crab cake sandwich at Café 44 (Cafe44.com) in (Old Town) Alexandria is tasty;
10491.  No one has it all figured out;
10492.  Being nice is overrated, be kind, be fair, be understanding not “nice;”
10493.  To love is to be vulnerable; let your guard down;
10494.  Good or bad, you can learn from everybody;
10495.  Embrace all of your emotions, don’t ignore them, don’t mask them, embrace them;
10496.  Traveling alone is better than with bad company;
10497.  Unlearning is just as important as learning;
10498.  Maturity is accepting you won’t get answers to the things that hurt you the most and heal anyway;
10499.  No one prepares you to watch your parents grow older;
10500.  Own up to your mistakes; do what you say you’ll do;