“Are his wits safe?
Is he not light of brain?”
- Shakespeare’s Othello [IV.i.265]
Aries: Everyone is getting addled right now. All shook up, all worked up, getting their danders in an uproar (even I don’t know what that means, but it sounds good and colloquial, too.) And you’re catching their fever. It’s not like a cold, or an actual ailment, what you’re catching is their fevered pitch, the hue and cry, the problems and the noise associated with those problems. Okay, so there’s a lot of noise right now. Ever fall asleep in the recliner, in front of the TV, while the late show was on? And then you miss the National Anthem, the fly by of the Blue angels, and that religious program that airs in the wee hours? You wake up right before the farm report comes on, the TV is blaring what is referred to as “white noise” at you? With cable and what not, this sort of scenario is generally restricted to those of us who don’t have anything but local TV airwaves. But it used to happen a lot. And that white noise, that all worked up over some issue that is really not important? You’re very tempted to add to this. One word of advice: don’t. So that’s really two words joined by punctuation, but the idea is that you don’t need to jump into this noisy scenario right now. You’re just adding to the confusion, and you wind up not being too sure where you stand, but you know that you stand for something. Don’t bite when they sail some verbal bait in front of you. It’s just white noise.
Taurus: One of the girls who lives in Shady Acres Trailer Park — where I live — is this really cute Taurus. Nice looking. Hot. Whatever. But she lives in the same place I live. Now, suspend disbelief, and let’s pretend she would consent to a date with me. It’s my imaginary world, and anything I want to have happen could happen. So let’s pretend she’d go out with me. [I know, I should refer back to the opening quote from Othello.] But in this fantasy, we go out. What happens next? Use your own imagination for that. We go out, we have a good time, we wind up back in her trailer, and her little dog likes me, and we all live happily ever after. Or, so it seems, in this “not real world where my brain is presently located” situation. Your Taurus brain is going to conjure up similar scenarios, and I’m warning you about this. I am, by nature, a dreamer, and not very in touch with reality. You, howsoever, are usually a little more in touch with the real world — except not at this point, like not right now. Understand that fine line between the real world and the imaginary one. Don’t let your dreams carry you away too much right now. Besides, you know the rules, never, ever date someone who lives in the same trailer park you live in.
Gemini: Not long ago, [was that just last week?] I had lunch in fancy place downtown with one of my Gemini Bubba buddies. I stopped by his office, and he emerged from a tangled net of hardwire and cables, muttered a few choice words about the parents of one of the computers, checked his email one last time, answered one girl’s inquiry and we were off to eat. He then launched into a long tirade about this and that, and how things were going at work, and how his last expense check didn’t cover everything, and the new network wasn’t working, and then we got into intimate details about his social life. I’ll spare you the interesting bits. I’m just glad I don’t try dating more than one female at a time. I assumed he was venting. I made some comment about his rant. “Venting? No man, that implies it is necessary for mental health. I’m just bitching. Bitching is something I do for entertainment. Much more amusing. Things really aren’t bad; I just like complaining to sympathetic ear.” With Mars and Venus now in Gemini, I suggest you stick to the entertainment form of complaining. It can be quite intriguing right now. “I don’t want to get off on a rant here, but….”
Cancer: I kept a web journal for a long time, stretched over several years, updating my various coming and going activities. But I used a fake address, and I never let on that I lived in Shady Acres Trailer Park. A lot of people assumed I lived elsewhere, based on that journal. It was an experiment, and I found, at tax time, it was also useful because I was able to figure out where I was, when I was trying to do my taxes. The problem being, I would write something about an unfortunate experience, and I would get a handful of notes expressing concern over my mental well-being. I wrote something down to be funny, and then the readers thought I was about to jump in the lake to drown myself. Nothing could be further from the truth. It was just a web log, catching my sentiments at the moment, those fleeting feelings of despair that occur, those intense periods of internal questioning, that sort of thing. Like I’m really going to throw myself off the bridge here because an editor changed a few words? One, the bridge isn’t high enough, two, the water’s not deep enough, and three, the mud at the bottom is too soft — besides, those editorial cuts were good. Now, follow my lead on this: if you’re going to write and publish what you write, about how you’re feeling, then be prepared for a lot of people to come to your rescue — completely misunderstanding your context. I know how that goes.
Leo: As it’s been going, as of late, I typically receive close to a thousand individual emails each week, addressing the stuff in the horoscopes I write. I try and answer most of the mail myself. I let my cat answer some, especially if it’s not nice mail. At the very least, I try and ask the cat for advice. At best, she will meow once, and I’m not fluent enough in cat talk to be sure of what she’s saying. Sometimes, she give me that sleepy eye look, then she just turns her head and goes back to dreaming about the birds she’s going to catch one day. Before you answer something in haste, I suggest you check your own cat oracle. Might not be a cat, but I found that cats are very useful in this area. But check your own oracle, whatever it may be, and see if that doesn’t buy you a little time before you dash off a note about how good, bad or indifferent this week’s Leo Scope is. It’s got a little of everything in it, the good, the bad, the indifferent. Concentrate o the good, and maybe the cat will just ignore the bad stuff. I know I’ll try and follow her lead on this.
Virgo: There is a day of reckoning approaching. This is like a performance review. We do that here at the office, but we have slightly different way of working it out. We have an old dart board and we tack up various pictures culled from numerous sources like newspaper stories, old magazines, and sometimes snapshots of ex-girlfriends. It’s not terribly scientific, but it works well for us. Now, with this approaching reckoning for you, you are faced with a terribly difficult proposition: are you a picture on the dart board, like the one here at FGS World Headquarters? Are low-life, no-count, ne’er-do-wells using your image as a target? Or, are you the one the slinging the pointed little arrows at the dartboard? Which one do you want to be? You can make a decision, and this weekend, the one coming up, is a good time to gather up some of the ammunition that you’re going to need. I suggest you pick up supplies, things like a few extra darts, and maybe some tacks, just to make sure you’re well armed for pinning your expectations to that dartboard. Then take aim.
Libra: I know you like to soft-peddle your agenda. The one Libra guy I fish with always tries it like this, “Don’t you think that the fishing will better over there?” Notice how he manages to push the decision off on me, while it’s really his idea. Pretty sneaky, if you ask me. Now, I’m onto his tricks, but that has never stopped him from trying. The next thing he tries is, “I was reading your weekly the other day, and I liked what you said about….” Notice how I’m getting buttered up? Hit the target (me) in weak spot, use a little candor, maybe do some background research, and then let your target draw their own conclusions, based upon exactly what you’ve suggested. Works like a charm. In my family lore, it’s suggested that my paternal grandfather could actually think like a fish. Try it some time, think like your target. Get them in their weak spots. Catch them a little unaware. Be overtly sneaky. A little social grease at this point, especially this weekend, goes a long way towards getting you just what you want. What you want is for the rest of us to agree with your insights. Now, if you follow my plan for you, you’ll find that we can’t help but agree with you. See how easy that is? Think like the fish, or think like whatever your target is.
Scorpio: I know you’ve been working extra hard to get things done. I know that you’ve been pulling some extra hours, burning up the phone lines, trying to get everything arranged just so. I realize that you’ve been making this extra effort right now. You do realize, that I’m the only one who appreciates your extra effort? You do understand that some silly Sagittarius astrologer is the only one who really and truly understands that you have been overworked? Of all the people who should be appreciating your extra expenditure of energy, I’m the least likely one to notice, and yet, after looking at your chart, I realize that you do deserve some extra play time. Grab your schedule, your datebook, your PDA, or whatever it is that you use to make these appointments, and try to pencil in a little extra play time. I’d even go so far as to suggest you take part of this coming weekend off. Schedule nothing. Pencil in a big blank spot. Before you get too worked up over this scheduled inactivity, consider that you might like to do like I do, I sit in front of the TV during these times. Looks like I’m watching something important (like my favorite fishing program) but a upon closer inspection a few people realize that the set’s not even on. So as hard as you’ve been working lately, a little time spent in front of the TV set is a good thing. Just to make sure, I’ll explain again, you don’t even have to turn it on. I just hope your home movies are as good as mine.
Sagittarius: The last time I saw planets like this, I wrote these horrid things for Sagittarius, and then, I got a ton of mail asking me why I hated Sagittarius. Look: I don’t hate myself. In fact, besides being Number One Food Source for the cat, I think I love me the most. It’s just a bad week. I can make pretty, blow smoke in your face, or just shoot you straight: life in Sagittarius land, is, at best, trying. What’s that mean? That means everyone is trying to get you worked up. Every time you turn around, someone is going for your throat, your backside, your wallet — going for something that you hold near and dear to yourself. This is not a bad thing, this is an “is” thing. It’s at lot of planets in the sign opposite you. It’s a test, of sorts, to see how well you deal with problems. Not even big problems, just stupid, little, everyday, you know, the kind of mistakes some guy makes, and it really irks you? But you’re powerless to change his error? Don’t be sending me hate mail because you don’t like this horoscope, either. Take all of this stuff in stride. Remember, you are a SAgittarius, and you are above this petty problems. You don’t have to let them get to you. Me? I’m going to be mad, and out at the lake, to cool off, by myself, before too long. I think I’ll go out on Monday, to avoid to the weekend crowds. Join me?
Capricorn: Texas is a strange place to live. We get these days and nights, and it’s not so unusual to run the air conditioner and the heater on the same day. In the same 24 hours, it’s cold enough to require some heat and hot enough to require some AC. All in the same day. Since this trailer has nothing more than a glorified window unit, and something that’s nothing more than a glorified space heater, I have no trouble. Just last week, matter of fact — I left the back door open, and had to run one, then the other. And it doesn’t matter just where your Capricorn self is located, either, you’re going to find that you need something to cool you off because you’re hot and then, all of sudden, it’s cold and you need something to heat you up. One hot subject is work and one hot subject is that special relationship. Or I might have the order reversed on some of this, but one it never seems to come properly staggered. You might want to concentrate on both right now. And when that happens to me, I run the AC and the heater. Makes it a little easier. If your work and romance are like they’re supposed to be, you might find yourself doing the same thing. Here’s the convenient excuse you can use, “Hey, there’s this guy down in Texas, and he said it was okay; he said this might happen.”
Aquarius: The weekend gets off to such a good, rousing start, you know, it just looks like everything is going to be okay, and then, when this coming weekend is over, we run into troubles. The other day, I was walking alongside the hike and bike trail in Austin. There was a pick up game of soccer going on, and I almost joined in. Of the half dozen or so players, two of the guys really know what they’re doing. There’s a good 15 or 20 degree slope to the playing field. And then there’s the goal markers (no goalie, either), at one end there were a stick and hat to mark the goal. At the other end, there was stick stuck in the ground, and then this other place. “Where the T-shirt was,” they told me, “not where it is now.” Right, makes perfect sense. Ever play with a goal like that? Whatever it is that you’re working towards, it sort of moves around. Not where the T-shirt is now, because we ran over it on our last goal, but where it was when we started. And don’t forget, I was about to join the game half way through. I never had a chance. So, even if you get off to a good start, sometime next week, there’s going to be this shifting set of boundaries, and that makes it a little more difficult to hit your goal. The only way to win is learn to cuss in Spanish, or even better, our border patois. That’s you’re only hope.
Pisces: One of my favorite Latin quotes, that’s Latin as in the dead Italian language, not Latin as in Latin America, so anyway, one of my favorite quotes has a variety of endings, but the beginning is the same, “Been there, done that.” [Ibam ibi, feci id.] The beauty of this quote is that it leaves the ending open for any number of endings. Been fishing, got the T-shirt, bailed out. The way you choose to end the fancy Latin quote is up to you. And there’s a conventional bit of wisdom that suggests anything said in Latin sounds erudite. Got that? There is a lot of gratuitous Pisces button pushing going on right now. No reason to let any of this get to you. There is a lot of folks out there, bound and determined to raise the hackles on the back of your lovely Pisces neck. Don’t let them. Throw a little Latin at them, that usually provides them with a moment or two confusion. “What did you just say?,” your would be tease asks. You give them that tired, “you’re not going to push my Pisces buttons right now” look, and you think to yourself, “Self, if they can’t figure that out, it’s not worth the trouble.” This will help you through any number of problems in the coming week.
