"Spankings can raise your intelligence, reports the Weekly World News." That's the beginning of my horoscope for this week, as written by Rob Brezsny. He stresses the need for intelligent thinking and innovative measures, based on the prediction that I have a big life test coming up, and woo-hoo, who wouldn't look forward to that?

Intelligence was probably the most celebrated trait in my family--that is, intelligence was valued over qualities like social skills, business acumen, or fashion sense. My father and his siblings had plenty of intelligence, but little to none of the other qualities, so every family gathering involved a table of adults matching wits with increasing venom and occasional door-slamming, as each tried to prove his intellectual superiority and make up for the indignity of working, say, in the millwork department at OSH.

It was too late that I realized how intelligence really factors into a successful life. It's a nice asset to have, but without confidence, wisdom, and good judgment, you're just going to end up trading quips with your equals in the unemployment line. I'm not smart enough to be a Bertrand Russell, and I'm not simple enough to be happy. I'm somewhere in the middle, where I can gauge my own intelligence and predict, based on my patterns of behavior and my neuroses, where I'm going to end up in life, barring some supernatural intervention that renders me Queen of the West Coast. (Millwork department, OSH.)

I have gotten through life so far with a combination of raw intelligence, subterfuge, and luck. So it makes me nervous when I read the horoscope I should be smart enough to ignore, and see "The preparations that helped you through rites of passage in the past may not work this time." What preparations, I wonder. I've never been much of a planner, mainly because life has been too unpredictable for things I anticipate to actually happen. I've always waited to see what happens, then gone along with it. (And yes, I am enjoying exactly the level of success that you can imagine would come with such an approach.)

Additionally, I don't want a rite of passage or a big life test at the moment. The last five years have been filled with a bizarre array of tests and passages, and what I really want from life is a respite from lessons. I don't want a great learning experience at this time, thank you, especially if it involves chaos, transition, or decisions I need to make. Further, I can't think of any "innovative measures" to make sure I pass this test. Granted, it's hard to dream up "innovative measures" when I don't know what the test IS, but I know already that whatever it is, my corresponding measures will be less than "innovative."

I don't want a test. I want to stay home sick, then possibly take a make-up at some time in the future, when I've had time to rest.

Star of the day. . .Bertrand Russell