Horoscopes by the Fishing Guide to the Stars starting 2.26.2015

“—Pooh! Buck Mulligan said. We have grown out of Wilde and paradoxes. It’s quite simple. He proves by algebra that Hamlet’s grandson is Shakespeare’s grandfather and that he himself is the ghost of his own father.”

Excerpt From: Joyce, James. “Ulysses.”

Last week was Hamlet, this week is a quote about Hamlet from the “Greatest novel of the last hundred years, James Joyce’s Ulysses.”

Horoscopes by the Fishing Guide to the Stars starting 2.26.2015

Pisces: Like the quote from Ulysses, the week starts with a confusing amount of wordplay. Some makes sense, or some makes sense to a particular Pisces, but not to all of us, and therein is the problem. There is confusion, problems, irritation about the confusion, and then, more confusion. Kind of goes around in a circle, not ending any place in particular. Which is a problem. Unless, of course, you’re a true Pisces, and then, the conundrum makes perfect sense to you. Doesn’t to the rest of us, and dealing with us is part of the problem we have in Pisces Land. The problems isn’t Pisces. The problem is dealing with non-Pisces people. They are as confused as you are, but they (we) can’t see that we’ll ever be able to see clearly, ever again. You know, as a Pisces, that in the next couple of days, this personal fog will lift.

No, this week? The problem isn’t Pisces, but it the rest of us.

Aries: I have a family member, nameless and blameless, who can take the easiest, simplest task and make it more complicated. From a simple job, getting from here to there on a certain date, the dates change, the method of transportation changes, then changes back, then we switch the dates again, and finally, another wholly tangential element is introduced. As if it was complicated enough?

As an Aries, there’s a tendency to over-complicate solutions, particularly now. As an Aries, there’s a tendency to have this do that to those, so that those can do this to that so that the little lever swings and that triggers this which all sort of confusing, and I lost track of what was happening.

That’s the problem the solution gets to be too complicated and no one, least of all an Aries, can keep with all the moving parts. You did set this in motion, but in trying to find a simple solution, you get distracted and start making this more and more complicated.

I have fished with “gear heads,” guys with way too much stuff. Don’t turn into a gear head, too many toys and not enough time spent using the hardware you’ve got. It’s like one buddy with a huge tackle box and ten different rods with reels, just for a morning of fishing. Think: you want to have one pole with a hook on the end. All that’s really required.

Don’t over-complicate this week.

Taurus: I started reading James Joyce’s Ulysses in July of 1998. It was just crowned “The Most Influential Novel of the Last 100 Years” by a group that was suspiciously similar to the publisher. Over the intervening years, I carried my copy back and forth across West Texas as totem against boredom. As long as I had that (hefty) novel with me, I was never stranded or bored. I’d read a few pages, forget where I left off reading, and then get attracted to some other diversion.

At the end of 2013, right after Xmas, I sat down, cold winter’s day, and I started all over. Took three-four days, but I read that book, cover to cover. Should be “end to end” because I used a digital copy; although, I still have that massive tome in my book library. I’m not about to pull out every Shakespeare allusion or astrology reference in the book, as I’m sure some scholars have done that already. I clipped that one because it tickled me in context. Reading a massive, academic piece of fluff like “Ulysses” is a major undertaking. Pace, time, place. Start now. Pace, time, place. Set yourself up with some long-standing goal. Almost 15 years to get around to finishing my goal. Hope yours doesn’t take as long, but get a running start, now.

Gemini: For many, long, formative years, my basic attire was shorts with a shirt in hand. Shirt in hand so I could enter normal retail businesses, and shirt in hand because it was hot outside.

This was my attire for decades as it fit the situation, the place, and most important, it fit my pace, with only the barest nod towards convention, that being the shirt in hand. Floating around on the inter-webs, there’s an older image of me, shirtless, scaling some rocks in West Texas. For more than two decades, El Paso was a second home.

With the heavy snows in the American North, Canada, record snow fall in Mass., and so on? Wondering about me being shirtless is a tad strange. This is about adapting and giving in to some social convention, like I would carry a shirt, but I wouldn’t wear it unless I needed to, again, bowing to social convention. Sure, there are places in Austin that still require shoes and shirt for service. Weird, no?

Carry a shirt. Or whatever is necessary for social conventions.

Cancer: I have no loyalty when it comes to cell phone carriers. Phone companies. Services, whatever they are called. Telcos. I finally got on a deal with one company, lovingly referred to, back in the day, as the DeathStar (AT&T). The DeathStar joke was about the older logo, and the way phone company broke apart and then reformed, to take over the world. Anyway, I got caught with a billing, administrative issue that drove me crazy. Seems one of my services with the DeathStar had an email address attached to it, and that’s where all the billing information was going. Except I never accessed that email, and it’s easy to see how this can be a frustrating technology loop. “We sent you an email to the account holder’s email we have on file, you know, it ends with @att.com” said the tech.

The problem being, I have NO ACCESS to that address. Frustrating loop. Stupid tech support, I wasted an hour, and I question whether English was that support person’s first language. As a Cancer, I’m sure you’re going to experience this kind of loop, probably related to technology, in the next few days. Here’s the hint: stop. Put the phone down, walk away. Go do something else. Eventually, with no help from the DeathStar, I got the problem fixed. On my own, in less than ten minutes. No help from AT&T, though. Stupid folks. What I did was walk away from the problem and suggest, “I’ll deal with this — LATER.” I fixed it myself when I calmed down enough to address the real problem. Stupid Telco.

The (mighty) Leo: It’s a little scary, for me, to head into the place where I can get my boots shined up. It’s a barbershop, and I don’t have enough hair to warrant a barber, nor am I interested. But the “boot black” is an excellent shoe mechanic. Shoe detailer. Does a great job. What I try to do, last of the “shoe” season for me, get my boots shined up, then take them off and I won’t wear shoes again until next winter. Weather permitting, of course. I watched as he pulled on latex gloves, this was new to me, then soaped, polished, tinted, colored, treated the weather stripping, then applied another coat of polish, then a finishing rinse, popping the towel and working his way through a myriad of harsh chemicals. I tipped him well because I was very impressed.

A boot shine is a luxury, and I was rather impressed with this one guy. He knew what he was doing. I used to use saliva and shoe polish when I was forced to shine my shoes, hence the term, “spit shine.” I watched an expert at work. I counted 8 or 10 compounds, polishes, tints, treatments, that he used in a fifteen-minute shine. Expert. Boots are good for another year, at least. Do not, my Leo friend, DO NOT hesitate to employ an expert. What that guy did in 15 minutes? I can’t duplicate that care, treatment or shine, myself, with hours of work. I lack proper hardware and skills. As the majestic Leo? Don’t be afraid to call in the expert when you find yourself in need of a task finished.

Virgo: Winter weather in South Texas is sometimes hot, and sometimes cold and sometimes both. Sunburn and frostbite in the same week. Towards that end, I had on a T-shirt, shorts and sandals, and then, wrapped around my waist was a plaid flannel shirt. Flannel, warm and soft; from the back? “Kramer, looks like a kilt, you know?”

From the front, I was wearing a Shakespeare T-shirt.

“With that shirt, Kramer you have the whole British thing going on, you know, the kilt and all?”

The kilt is properly Scottish, and while a subset of the UK, an autonomous group of its own right. The Scottish and the Irish, while sharing the British Isles with the rest of the Brits, no, not of the same grouping. Still, I didn’t bother pointing this out. Distinctions, which are clear to our Virgo selves, sometimes, folks outside of this don’t need to know, maybe don’t understand, the differences.

Libra: Remember the old ad, “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV?” Used to be a famous TV series doctor, and the pitch was for medicine? Well, I’m not doctor, and I don’t play one on TV, but you’ve got enflamed, aggrieved nerve endings. With the love planets, their energy compounded by Uranus, then the Moon approaching full, this adds up to an astrological condition that looks like “enflamed nerve endings.”

There is no real astrological prescription for this. The symbolism indicates that there’s way through this, but this “cure” might not be as easy as you would like it to be. Confront and address the core problem, and part of what Mars wants you to do is to strip away the outer-wrappings until we arrive at the real source of the pain. Have to know what is aggrieved before we can put some astrological balm on it.

I had to stop eating peanuts so I could quit having a rash. Issues, tissues, all tied together today. The “cure,” as if there really was one, the cure is to figure out what the source of the irritation is. What has your nerve endings enflamed?

Scorpio: “Wow, Kramer, I’ve never seen you in long pants before.” One of my neighbors, making a statement, as I was headed towards the street, catching a ride to Austin. Part of it was because it was cold out, at least, cold by my South Texas standards, and in part, it was because I was headed towards work. Sit in an office, meet clients, read charts all day. This was a few weeks back. The comment tickled me. “Never seen you in long pants before,” as that’s the type of comment I like to hear. The sad part, to me, is that it was sign that I was going to work. As a Scorpio, there’s a concession that’s required, a nod, a hint, a simple gesture. For me, that simple gesture was long pants, jeans really, if you’re going to ask, black, Levi jeans. Still, long pants, sports jacket, and I look like I’m suited for an office job. Which I was on that one, fateful morning when my neighbor said he’d never seen me in long pants before. Guy’s lived next door for more than two years. Are you seeing a thread here? Suit up and show up, my Scorpio buddy. Suit up — pull on them big boy pants like I did.

Sagittarius: We start this week with Mars trine Saturn, along with a host of planets in Aries, except for the Sun, who squares us sternly. It’s a testy time, but if we fall back on our Sagittarius good natures, dig a little deeper and find that charm, it works. There’s always a phrase I’ve liked, “If I can’t bury them in facts and charm, maybe I can baffle them with (organic male bovine byproduct).” I’d adhere to that idea. Simple set of guidelines, try charm, try facts, try stories. Of the three, maybe also, it is a Saturn thing, maybe some hard work is in order. I’m not a fan of hard work. So try the other three, first, charm, facts, organic male bovine byproduct. Then, if none of those work, the last option is hard work. I might have to rethink this as it’s not going the way I wanted it to go. Definitely not a fan of the only other option. However, on some occasions, the hard work might have tangible results.

Capricorn: “San Angelo, I’m from San Angelo,” guy was explaining to me. He was looking for a BIG CITY to live in. Most kids in Texas run away to Austin, if only for a short while, a liberal, hippie enclave, where weirdness rules. He tried Austin, but wound up in San Antonio. “San Angelo has no major highway. No interstate.”

That was the clue. I’ve liked San Angelo, as a waypoint for my westward travels, and, on occasion, as a destination. But it is in the middle of no where. No big highway, very remote in that way of understanding. I think there’s an Air Force base there, “Goodfellas,” maybe? Not much in the way of excitement by “city” standards.

Buried on the website someplace, I have a picture of the Bordello Museum in San Angelo. With Mars and Venus, in Aries, there’s something that needs to distract you from where you’re looking. Venus lines up with Uranus, and that makes this a little more of a punch. There’s no major highway, but still, there’s something there.

Aquarius: Saddle shop, West Texas. Little town in West Texas. Legendary, at least, according to the local chamber of commerce, yeah, who are you going to believe? The locals? I watched as a woman, best guess? She was a rancher, and as she sat on a saddle and asked about returns. “No returns on custom goods,” was the store’s policy. However, she held the attention of a young cowboy, and her, in her tight jeans and boots, there was a levels of “frission” in the air between the two of them. He was patiently explaining that the saddle maker would do whatever was required to get the saddle to fit her. But no, no returns on custom made saddles.

Have to remember, my dear Aquarius friend, there is no return on custom made saddles. Most of the pawn shops in Texas will have a saddle — or two — but those are hocked at a fraction of the original buying price. Not a good investment.

So think about it, okay, there’s no way to get your money back if you buy a custom-made saddle. Or boots, or anything. No money back on the custom work. However, like most of my own custom-made, hand-crafted astrology charts, we can make adjustments so you’re pleased with the fit and finish. Same with the saddle, I’m sure.