Men, what I'm about to tell you is Top Secret, and I'll be kicked out of the International Woman's Collective if they ever find out, so let's keep this strictly confidential.

Here's the thing. It's that time of year again, and I've just been asked for my List.

But it's a rock-and-a-hard-place situation for women when it comes to gift lists. Men ask us for them, but they miss the point. It's basically one of those "if you have to ask..." kinda things. You guys already know that despite all the years of evidence to the contrary, most of us do, to some extent at least, expect you to exercise a modicum of "mind-reading ability," as you call it. And here's the season when those expectations can most often come to grief.

With the goal of helping you to navigate this particular relationship minefield, I'm revealing the following.

When we make lists, when you ask us for them, and when (or if) we give them to you, they probably don't include the things we'd REALLY like. Those items won't appear on any list. (And please know that this is not entirely just to be oblique and mysterious; it's partly because many of us are still saddled with that whole "everybody else's needs come before mine" crap.) The Official List items are likely to skew way more toward the "needs" category vs. the "wants." Things that would make life a little easier; things that would upgrade something we already have; things for the house.

What I'm trying to say is, and I know this is Unfair, but The Official List is not really going to help you if your goal is to wow us, and it certainly won't help if you want to surprise slash delight us. For starters, here's a helpful hint: unless specifically requested, gift cards fall under the Complete Cop-Out category, and chocolate, jewellery, and skimpy lingerie (which is really for you, not us), though lovely, generally doesn't cut it either. As well, store or on-line gift guides are themselves well-nigh useless, I hope you realize, unless you spot an item that twigs you to something your Significant Other has already mentioned.

Sorry, Dudes, but the only way to achieve wow and delight is to listen carefully. Because it's not really mind-reading that's required; it's just paying attention.

We've already told you the content of our secret wish lists, I can almost guarantee it. But those items won't appear on the lists we've given you. They are the relationship Easter eggs that are yours for the finding, if you've listened enough to know where to look. And as those who've learned this secret know, they are well worth the search.

I know! I told you it was Unfair! This could even fall under the "Game-Playing" heading in the Book of Why Women Don't Make Sense, that catechism I know you love to recite to each other.

But I guess I'm tired of following these stoopid commandments and wish we could just get past all the rigmarole. To that end, I'm risking excommunication to leak this one small key to the kingdom, so listen up. Think back. What did she ooh and ahh over at the mall but you know would never get for herself? What did she admire when you were over at your friends' place that time? What item in that new catalogue did she point out to you for "someday"? Oh, and if you do manage to capture some of these ephemeral moments, fergodssake, write them down somewhere you can find them.

If it's too late or you simply weren't listening, you might have to resort to outside help, but this can still be worthwhile. Talk to her friends. If you humbly confess your sins of not paying attention, they might take pity on you, absolve you, and give you the scoop on a Real List item. Or at least on what you should be listening for.

And here's helpful hint number two: for many—or maybe even most—of us, gifts of time outstrip gifts of stuff by far. We'd love more time with you, more time for ourselves, some time away, more time to sleep, to read, to linger over coffee with our friends. So offer to take over one of our chores; make arrangements to take us to a concert or run off with us for a dirty weekend; sign us up for a couples cooking class or a wine-tasting event; give us a homemade "gift card" for a regular night off to do whatever we want.

Gifts like these are tough to wrap, and take some imagination and commitment—and don't get me wrong, we also love getting stuff (especially toys!)—but anything you can do along these lines will be appreciated more than we can express. Two words. Win–win.

Of course, the whole Christmas gift-giving thing's a clever stratagem that not even Womankind can be blamed for. We know we shouldn't be so focussed on all the stuff and the buying and the list-making and the Secret-Santa-ing in the first place. But let's get real. Most of us aren't quite ready to move to the ashram. For here and now, in this list-crazy world, I hope this helps.

Happy Holidays, and good luck out there.

Joni Mitchell Got It Right

The Butterfly Nebula

Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team

We are stardust / We are golden / We are billion year old carbon

There are certain arcane corners of the human pursuit of knowledge—archeology, philosophy, and particle physics come to mind—that strike me as almost perverse. Most of what their acolytes study is, and will forever remain, in human-race terms anyway, untestable and unknowable.

I applaud these advocates of pure speculation, who must be driven by something like curiosity for curiosity’s sake. I can relate to an unquenchable curiosity for understanding how and why things are as they are, but I don’t think I could wrap my head around the certainty that my best and most solid theories are beyond proof, either due to time (prehistory), distance (the cosmos), or the limits of my own intelligence and instruments (theoretical physics).

But I guess all of scientific inquiry could be said to fit this definition. Anti-science types like to mock studies of climate change or evolution, for example, as “only theories.” They don’t understand that science is about testing, not about proving. Everything called a theory has actually been thoroughly and repeatedly tested—back when it was only a wee young hypothesis. It’s only after exhaustive examination and nitpicking that a hypothesis graduates to theoretical status. And I have no idea, Schoolhouse Rock notwithstanding, how a theory becomes a law.

I find myself mulling all this over as I proof a textbook on astronomy. Understand that physics is emphatically not my strong point, so I’m struggling with all the ionized particles and fusion reactions. But I’m also struck by the author’s clear spiritual, philosophical bent, which does get my attention. “Astronomy is about you,” he says.

I admit I’ve never shared this view, but wait a minute. I DO believe that we’re all fundamentally connected, and astrophysics proposes that this is true for reasons that are well beyond my grasp. But basically the theory says that all atoms get endlessly recycled, so there are bits and pieces of us that were once part of the core of an anonymous red-giant star ten billion years ago. And when our own star, the Sun, finally snuffs out, that’s not the end of us either, atomically speaking, anyway.

There are apparently a couple of likely endings to the Sun’s story, but the Carl Sagans of the world would argue that they’re not really endings at all. If the Sun cools slowly as a white dwarf, it’s likely to expel large amounts of its mass in the form of hot stellar winds that would certainly engulf and incinerate the closest planets, including ours. The resulting conflagration would recombine our atoms with those of the Sun.

Or for a more spectacular version of Earth’s closing ceremonies, as a dying white dwarf, the Sun might still be able to generate enough heat to expel gases that get lit up to form a beautiful gaseous shroud called a planetary nebula. And I’m told it is from such turbulent, element-rich, yet seemingly insubstantial stuff that new suns, planets, and solar systems are born.

The Helix Nebula
credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESA
Check out more.

Now I’m big on recycling, so this is great news. Even better than being fertilizer for a newly planted tree, which is my current post-viability plan. But there’s another perk to this Theory of Ultimate Connectedness, and this one’s aesthetic.

There’s some evidence that a white dwarf star could develop a solid core of pure carbon. And we all know what happens when Superman picks up a chunk of carbon and subjects it to Kryptonian pressure and temperature—it becomes a diamond. So if our own white dwarf sun were to be subject to those same forces, it could crystallize, floating forever as a glittering monument to us all.

Even if that doesn’t happen, just take a minute to marvel at these actual planetary nebulae, some of the most exquisitely knock-your-socks-off sights in the universe. That could be us! You and me and Uncle Irving! Better than a tombstone, better than a pyramid, better even than a diamond.

And that’s a theory I can get behind.