“I would not have such a heart in my bosom, for the dignity of the whole body.”
Shakespeare’s MacBeth (V.i.52)
Aries: Ever wonder how you get yourself into this kind of a fix? I do. It was my Aries neighbor, and she’d just picked up a copy of a book about Fang Sway for Trailer Parks. Since her trailer isn’t situated in the optimal position, she was busy putting mirrors outside the back door to make sure everything aligned better. Then she wanted to move around some furniture. Since the kitchenette is built-in, that reduced the options. However, there were still a number of large, heavy objects that could be moved around, and somehow, I got solicited for the task. I believe the correct expression was I “got volunteered,” which, as it implies, doesn’t leave a lot of room for free choice. Working with an Aries, though, it has its upside. Friendly, cheerful, happy, gets along well with my basic Sagittarius mind. But this rearranging of furniture? What was worse, it was more about carrying everything out to the lawn, the gravel lot in front, then putting everything back in — this chapped my backside — in the same place. Lots of work. Manual labor type of work. What was accomplished? Not much, to my eye. “Can’t you feel the difference?” she asked. I’m too nice of a guy to point out the obvious, that no, there was no difference, not to me. Look: if it makes you feel better about the place, or the situation, rearranging and arranging everything back right where it was? Go for it. But I can’t help, my back is now killing me.
Taurus: I was doing some backend work on a website. Twiddling the bits and bytes to make some items run smoother, and I was doing this for a client. But during my little foray into “hacking,” which is really a misnomer, as what I do is more like whacking, during my misadventure, I hit upon a rather interesting piece of information. It wasn’t directly related to what I was doing, but it was rather useful as it was something I could employ elsewhere. Useful data. Not immediately useful, but the information warranted more than just book marking page and hoping I would remember it.
The scene is thus set: you’re working away on project, an assignment for work. You stumble upon some really tasteful information that you could put to work — elsewhere. What you just discovered doesn’t even fall under what you’re doing at the moment, or what you’re being paid to do. Post-It notes are nice, but they get lost. As do envelopes with messages scribbled on the back. But I didn’t just want to leave the information buried as a bookmark someplace, either, since I’ve had one of those bookmark lists of “things to look at” that will scroll off the bottom of the screen. So I clipped the address and shot myself an email. Which begs the question of e-mailing one’s self, but I needed a reminder. You’re going to need two reminders to get something done. The first reminder is “not on company time,” the second is something to jostle your memory so that you can go back and use that good information you just found.
Gemini: “I’ve gotten two calls today. I mean, my phone rang twice. That was it. I must be cursed, right?” I was listening, as usual, to a Gemini buddy, who is nicknamed Bubba, hold forth about the lack of inbound phone calls. He was feeling decidedly unloved. I offered, in my capacity as a seer and voodoo priest, to relieve him of his curse. Cost? A few thousand dollars. Special deal for guys called Bubba. Usually, such matters are dealt with by the roadside, in a shack that has a giant palm out front, usually with a seeing eye painted in the middle of the palm, plus advertising for “Palm Readings. Tarot Cards. Past – Present – Future!” See, the Sun is in Scorpio. And while he’s in Scorpio, that means you’re going to feel a little cut off from the rest of the world. Like your phone doesn’t ring, the e-mail doesn’t chime, no one seems to be talking to you. That’s like, for a Gemini, living in vacuum. Not a good place. There are no easy solutions, as no one seems to be returning your calls in a timely fashion. What to do? A Gemini alone can be in poor company, especially with the onerous weight of too much mental energy not going anywhere fast. It starts with “I’m not popular,” and ends in downward spiraling pit of depression. Solutions? Keep dialing — or whatever it is that you do — until someone wants to play. Just be warned that you might be looking into a little bit of time alone, and that isn’t always bad.
Cancer: One of my favorite eateries has a “composite shingle roof.” When I owned a house, my place had one of those, too. The warranty listed the expected lifespan of the composite tile to be 30 years. Realistically, in the broiling summer sun, those roofs seem to last about ten or twelve years. So the place where I enjoy dining was getting a new roof. It was a late November afternoon, and the food was as good as I remember it always being. However, after a few minutes of the air gun, my head started to hurt. Oddly enough, the pounding in my head echoed the nail gun on the roof. “Pop-pop-pop,” went the air hammer. Following, half a beat later, “throb, throb, throb,” went my head. It was dull, low ache, somewhere around the temporal lobes. Or between the ears. One of those places. I paid up and scooted out the door. Where I’d been sitting, almost like it was planned that way, was right underneath where the roofers were working at that hour. I could get into a small amount of paranoia, about the conspiracy to seat me right under the noise, but now that I think about it, I doubt that was the intention. One of the waiters is a funny guy, and maybe he did plan it that way. But I doubt it. Saturn is like that air hammer, pounding away. Look, as soon as you remove your Cancer self from the situation, the effect of the noise is no longer felt. Two blocks away? Headache gone. All I’m suggesting that it — adjust as need be — if the usual spot doesn’t work? Move.
Leo: “Hey you want to go and watch some music tonight?” It was a Leo friend, and she was interested in going out, and having some much-needed fun. However, the way she put it across, the vernacular as opposed to what is grammatically correct, that didn’t work. It supposed to be either, listen to some music, or watch some band perform some music. Unless it’s TV, then it’s watch some music, I suppose. I’m not just picking on my Leo friend, or am I — by any stretch of the imagination — acting like a grammar cop. The deal is the trying to convey something with feeling instead of what might be the most absolutely grammatically correct message. Some folks along the Leo pathway in the next few days? Your mighty fine Leo self will run into some grammar cop. Or similar kind of authority figure. The problem? You’re not going to be allowed to get away with some shortcut chatter. Watch the verbal shortcuts, the little catch phrases that sometimes, even though the phrase does catch the intended expression, those phrases might not be absolutely correct. Imagine that you could employ the same annoying attention to detail found in other sign? Use it.
Virgo: I feel like walking up to a Virgo and whispering in her ear, “Hey, can you keep a secret?” Because, although Virgo’s are typically really good at doing what they are told to do, this is one of those times when there’s a secret. And that secret is just busting out all over the place. Or trying to bust out. Conspirators, sidelong glances, knowing nods, a finger gesture, that look. That look like you’ve got something to say and you shouldn’t say it. Secrets are a big deal. Some secrets just beg to be divulged. One of the fastest ways to get gossip to run wild is to say, “Don’t tell anyone, but….” I’ve fallen prey to this twice, at the hands of the local newspaper, I would be talking to a reporter, and I’d say something, parenthetically enclosed, that my point was off the record. Twice just such comments have been used. So, and this is not off the record, I’m warning you about keeping secrets. I know you want to tell someone, but I’m not sure now is the time. Or maybe it is. That’s up to your Virgo judgment. However, for the rest of non-Virgo types, I don’t figure we should be confiding any sensitive data to your fine Virgo self. Unless, of course, we want that story accidentally leaked.
Libra: One news site I used to frequent would riff on tech news about Yahoo! Ever! Time! Yahoo! Announced! Something! It would be headlined just like that. I got an e-mail from a darling Libra the other afternoon, and that made me think about those Yahoo! ™ headlines. Every sentence was punctuated with an exclamation point. It was about hurry up, and get the planets aligned and boyfriend this, and friends that, and the rest of it you can fill in yourself. I was tickled by the overuse, even misuse, of the punctuation. I’ve found that a single exclamation point usually carries enough weight to get a point across. I tend to let the message its self be packed into the words. But that’s me, and that’s how I’d approach this kind of energy. I’m not a Libra, and it seems like your messages aren’t getting taken with the light-hearted seriousness that you would prefer. Not a lot I can do to make other people sit up and listen, or sit up and read, or, at the very least pay attention the way they should. However, I can help with a few suggestions. More like one suggestion. Cut down on the emphatic nature of your the way you express your message. Be cool, quiet, calm and reserved. You will be — pleasantly — surprised at how much more attention you get this way.
Scorpio: I was dining out with a friend, and per my usual behavior, I’d inquired as to the server’s birthday. Scorpio. Now, the girl I was with, and yes, she was girl by most definitions, she giggled and thought I was being forward. Then I fixed my gaze below the server’s chin. Just about everyone would guess that I was doing a typical male thing, and looking at her chest. Yes, but I’m not a typical male, I’m a little odd. That server was wearing a large, ornate, rather sexy, “Green Man” piece. That’s what caught my gaze; get your Scorpio mind out of the gutter. I commented on the piece, correctly identified it as a “Green Man” (Northern European heritage), and since the necklace was new, she took my comment as a compliment. How it was intended. Dinner was served, back to charts and stuff, then, over some coffee, the waitress lingered long enough to let us both get a good look at her Green Man. Only, there was something odd about it, not quite sure what. As we were paying up and exiting, the waitress, in true Scorpio fashion, dropped the hint, “Woman.” It wasn’t a “Green Man,” it was a Green Woman. Two ways to handle someone fawning over something your Scorpio self has done, and even if the adoring fans incorrectly identify the gender, don’t worry about it. Stick to being coy, and you’ll leave a lasting impression.
Sagittarius: “Eleven Eleven,” what a magic number? Sure, whatever. The problem is, the magic isn’t in you, that magic just isn’t in our Sagittarius selves. The deal is that the usual magic is slid right on over into another sign. To really construct the metaphor properly, I would have to suggest that the “good stuff” just hasn’t arrived yet. What I do when things are like they are? It’s very simple. Nothing. Or a lot, sort of depends on how you look at the work that does get accomplished. For a spell, I was tweaking up a lot of web pages for clients. Not really work that I solicit, but it was income, and it was something that I was “fair to middling” at. By no means am I an expert, but I can get some material launched in the wild world web-space in manner of minutes. Or hours, billable at the usual rates. Most of my web-hacks look just like that. Just a kludge of material, tossed together to serve a single purpose of establishing a toe-hold in the wild web. I was working on one of these the other afternoon. One command was escaping me. There was just one line, a simple command, and I couldn’t figure it out. I stabbed with the cursor, I tried various combinations of directory commands, nothing worked. I gave up, settled in with some delivered pizza and wound up taking a long nap. When I woke up, I tried something that I hadn’t tried, and it worked like it was suppose to. It was an arcane combination of pizza, sleep, petting a cat, and then the little light bulb goes off. All of this is also solitary, just me and the keyboard, kind of work. Strongly suggested, too.
Capricorn: It feels like it’s been forever since I’ve been fishing. It hasn’t been that long, but it sure feels like it was a long time in the distant past. I’ve got to be careful, during the cool, dark days in November. There’s a chance to get a few things straight, and a chance to taker care of some old business you’ve been meaning — I’ve been meaning — to take care of. Instead of remembering fond moments, like that 7-pound bass, start looking towards your future. Up ahead. There’s a signpost. This signage is going to come to you in the form of one of your friends. One of your fishing buddies, one of your beer drinking buddies, one of the guys you hang around with when you let it all hang out. Hint: this is not gender specific, adjust as needed for correct topical terminology. So one of your buddies is going to start talking about fishing trip in January. You think, “Just around my birthday, that would be good….” That’s the key to this whole thing, this time of the year, it’s time to plan. Plan accordingly. Plan that trip. Or least start looking at the map.
Aquarius: One of the best aspects about being Aquarius is that even the average Aquarius refuses to respond in a “normal” manner to a given set of stimuli. What would normally send any other sign over the top, or out to the gym, that’s not going to work on your fine Aquarius self. I was looking at all the planets stacking up in Scorpio, and then I saw Mars and the Sun, both making strong angles to your Aquarius self. When Mars squares you, like he’s doing these days, it’s an energetic boost. Energetic boost laced with a taut line on temper, too. That’s the problem. But seeing as how you’re Aquarius an all, something else comes up, too. My favorite, and this is usually delivered between gritted teeth, thin-lipped version of a snarl, sotto voce, “But I’m not angry.” However, as I’ve previously alluded to, ya’ll just ain’t normal. Instead of getting up and “in someone’s face,” even though that person pretty clearly deserves it, what I imagine happening is that you retreat into a cool, dark place with a single light over your shoulder. Reading a book. Toying with something on the computer. Just sort of messing around with academic, intellectual pursuit. It’s a form of escape. You’re probably not sleeping too well these days, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use that time productively. It’s about how you allocate those mental resources you’ve got.
Pisces: I was cruising in the bookstore. Personally, I’m a big fan of locally-owned & operated establishments. There’s always a character to the business, and there’s usually an oddity or two. This one place, in a nod towards being practical, has a couch right in between the feminist literature and the computer section. I’ve spent a fair amount of time in the computer section, “Programming for Dummies,” and the astrology section isn’t too far away. Not that the two are related in a conventional sense, but like I said, I’m a big fan of the local places. That one evening, just nicest looking woman was sitting on the couch, reading something. Without being too obvious, I developed a new interest in C++ programming books, all on a shelf just in front of her. I’d pick a book off the shelf, flip through it, and then look at the price tag, replace the item, and look for another. I think it would a better world if the computer books were sold by weight or volume. I almost wound up with a moderately priced volume on some web techniques. Looked like something I might be able to use. What I wanted to do was sit down on the couch and strike up a conversation. What I didn’t do was sit on the couch and strike up a conversation. I’m not Pisces. You are. It wouldn’t scare you if the potential target of your affection was reading a book like “Gelding the male myth — the patriarchy will fall.”
