Holy crap! That’s me!

I haven’t told you much about my recent palm and tarot card readings, mainly because there’s not a lot to reveal just yet.

That’s true but not completely. I’ve been procrastinating like crazy and should’ve written about the experience two months ago and because I didn’t, I’ve forgotten some important details, which is why this will be fuzzier than usual.

So …

As soon as I walked into Diane Gerber’s Brooklyn Heights apartment on a sunny September afternoon, I knew she was the real deal because the first thing I noticed was a series of small feng shui mirrors in her kitchen. Apparently, she’s also a psychologist and has been doing readings for more than 20 years.

I sat down at her dining room table and after a few minutes of idle chitchat (did you know that prehistoric men left prints of their palms in caves? I didn’t!), she asked me to hold up both of my hands as if she was about to rob me at gunpoint. We started with my left hand and she explained that the left shows what you’ve inherited from your parents as well as serving as your personality’s blueprint, while the right is about your present life and future. Diane then said something about how much I had loved my father so I checked to see if it was really my hand and then told her that she was off-base on that particular insight, so we immediately switched to my right.

I admitted that I was scared for her to look at my life line because it’s kind of short and I didn’t wanna hear that I should’ve kicked the bucket in the mid-nineties. She assured me that length (and why are women forever reassuring dudes like me on that subject?) had nothing to do with longevity and that it’s really more about the quality of your life, which I took as the kind of thing she says to everyone with a relatively short-ass line.

“It looks like you’ve had a few bumps in the road,” she said after studying it for a moment. “There are a few breaks in the line and from what I can tell, you had a really rough time in your forties.”

I nodded in agreement and told her that was when my marriage began to go south and then we moved on to my heart line, which represents your emotional life.

“You’re very sensitive,” she said two seconds after examining it.

“That’s what all the girls say,” I lamely joked.

Diane went on to tell me that I’m also very creative and talked about how each finger represents a different planet (specifically, Mercury, Apollo, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn) and how each planet represents a different aspect of your life. She also talked about different “mounts” on my hand, which are like little warehouses of energy.

The Mount of Venus (located at the base of your thumb) shows how passionate you are and the good news is that I’m an off-the-charts hottie. On the other hand (horrible pun intended), my Saturn finger (which is, not coincidentally, the same finger I use to give the finger with) seems to be dominant and shows a tendency towards depression. Finally, she noticed that my marriage lines (on the side of the palm near the pinky) were fading and far apart. This was enough for me to ball up my hand into a sad fist and ask to move along to the tarot portion of our program.

Here’s how a tarot reading works: As the cards are dealt, they land in positions that supposedly represent your past, present and future and the meaning of any card can be interpreted differently depending on where exactly they land in the spread. This sounded all well and good, just as long as I didn’t see a Death card or find out that I was going to marry a Kardashian.

We only had time for three questions and my first was about my older son Rob’s future employment. I shuffled the deck a few times and then cut the cards into three piles, which Diane picked up and began to lay out. She saw that Rob had gone through some of his own crap and may continue to have ups and downs but will ultimately be okay. The cards also showed that he has a strong work ethic, but is easily led astray. Diane added that Rob has a good heart and that was the precise moment I fully bought into this tarot nonsense.

The next two questions were about me, specifically about my work and love life. I first asked if I was ever going to get rich from writing, and the cards suggested that if I just kept my head down and worked hard, I’d eventually be successful (note to self: don’t bail on this stupid blog just yet).

The read on my love life was far more engrossing. The first card that came up was the Queen of Swords and Diane asked if there had been a strong, independent woman in my life recently.

“That sounds exactly like my last girlfriend,” I readily admitted.

The next card (brought to us by the goddamn Universe) was the Fool.

“Well, I’ve been called worse,” I cracked. “Lately by the Queen of Swords.”

“The Fool represents someone who’s in search of new experiences,” Diane explained. “Someone who is at the beginning of a journey and seeks a fresh start.”

“Holy crap!” I muttered to myself. “That’s me!”

The card that reared its ugly head after that was the Devil.

“What’s my father doing here?” I sarcastically asked. Diane explained that the Devil in this context meant that I’d be having lots and lots of sex.

“It doesn’t look like you’re going to find love so quickly,” she said finally, “but you’re definitely going to have lots of fun and interesting romantic adventures this next year.”

OMG! Tarot is even better than feng shui!