This Week's Horoscope

| 11 Nov 2014 | 09:36

    LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22) If your head was a music collection, we'd all be impressed with the beefy new tracks you've picked up recently. In fact, the entire mental CD collection you've been flaunting lately has placed you in league with The Very Cool. What would dazzle me even further, though, is if you whipped out some of that cool old vinyl you used to have. For all our sakes, I hope you haven't tossed it, just packed it in boxes in the deepest basement of your brain. Open up some of those musty crates and serenade us with scratchy record albums. Your new stuff is cool, but some of these old songs?and the dance moves you learned to them?have just come back in.

    SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) Vietnamese potbelly pigs were huge a few years back. It was a wild pet craze that some farmers cashed in on. People would buy these cute little piglets, believing they'd grow a little and max out at the size of a medium-size dog. Instead, they'd discover?some months or years later?that the oinkers they'd purchased were just plain old baby pigs. Faced with the prospect of a 600-pound porkchop in their living rooms, most folks opted to sell their beloved pets to farms, where'd they'd eventually be killed and eaten. See, you never really know what you're getting until you actually take it home and try it out for a while. It's a risk?it might work out perfectly, or you might just have to fry your new friend on a hot griddle and call him bacon.

    SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) I'm reclaiming my nerdhood. Sometime around junior high, I sacrificed smarts to "be cool." It was a good tradeoff at the time, as being cool has much greater value than being a book-obsessed geek in high school. But over the past couple of years, I've been slowly readopting my intellect. Without sacrificing my hard-earned hipness (only adding to it, actually), I'm gradually coming out of the closet as the immodest smart aleck I really am. It's time to show off the Spider-Man underwear you've been sporting underneath all your grownup clothes. I know you thought they'd never see the light of day again, but showing off the parts you hid years back can only please yourself and everyone around you. Don't keep us waiting. We want undies!

    CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) This week your encounters with other human beings ought to be remarkably canine. A little butt- or crotch-sniffing along with the handshake will put you immediately at ease with your new friend. You might feel so comfortable that you'll end up wrestling good-naturedly on the floor, biting each other's faces. When it's time to go, you'll leave without looking back. If reunited with old companions, you'll slide effortlessly back into the rapport you enjoyed last time you were together, whether years or hours ago. Wag your tail, Cappy?this promises to be the best tree you've barked up in a long time.

    AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) Kahlil Gibran wrote: "Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding." That quote has comforted me in my most extreme moments of despair or depression. It's a great solace to consider that all this misery has a purpose?that it can only lead you to a greater comprehension of yourself and life in general. Don't seek out hurt?I doubt you'll need to. But don't despise it, either. It's only one more rock in the path to the fulfillment of your greatest potential. If the path were perfectly flat and obstacle-free, what kind of person would you be at the end of it?

    PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) As an experiment, some guys sat outside a bar one night, armed with a vocabulary of only six words: "Fuck." "No shit!" "All right?" and "Yeah?" These nebulously defined phrases served them well. Most of the loaded patrons of said establishment who engaged our noble social scientists left saying, "You guys are really right on." No one seemed to notice that the guys never actually said anything. Which reminds me?it's not that no one is interested in what you have to say this week. It's just that the less you say and the more you listen, the farther you're likely to go.

    ARIES (March 21-April 19) I love all of you Rams. So does everyone else?for the moment. The difference is, my adoration of your vibrancy remains constant while the whims of your public ebb and flow like streams of drunken piss. You're definitely riding an upsurge in popularity right now?this week is sort of like the climactic moment of a night full of drinking, when you hit a peak of self-perceived lovability and fabulousness. Enjoy it to the fullest, naturally, but keep awareness in the back of your mind that inevitably there will be a hangover. So have aspirin and my phone number handy. You'll need them.

    TAURUS (April 20-May 20) Environmentalism is backsliding. So are you. For example, in some parts of New Mexico, they've stopped recycling glass. Why? It's broken up and used in asphalt, and the roads constructed with it were too efficient, putting road construction workers out of jobs. In Philly, they're not recycling plastic, because it contains too much air, and inefficiently takes up too much space in the recycling truck. Your own excuses are just as ridiculous as these. Don't you think it's time to stop rationalizing and start making some actual progress again?

    GEMINI (May 21-June 20) When faced with a future (in some places it already arrived) where constant, omnipresent surveillance is the standard, it's interesting to consider whose hands the information might be in. If there are cameras monitoring an entire city, essentially, should they only be accessible to the police, government and other enforcement agencies? Should the information be sold to the highest bidder? Or should it be available to anyone who has a cheap computer and a modem? Your game strategy of holding your cards close to your chest is becoming obsolete. Sure, playing with an open hand forces you to give up a fragile illusion (in the case of my surveillance example, privacy). But ignorance as bliss is an outdated concept, sweetheart. Try knowledge as power?I think you'll like it better.

    CANCER (June 21-July 22) Do you want to be rich? How about tall, dark and handsome? You can?in fact, this week you won't be able to help it. Your life ought to be richer than a cup full of imported extra-virgin olive oil. Your achievements will tower over the tallest story. Your sex life promises to be darker than a box full of bittersweet Godiva chocolates and your bonus this week could be more handsome than most British princes. Don't count your lucky stars. Just let them shine.

    LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) Keep things simple. Don't break stuff. Live it up. Maintain your focus. Recognize your goal. Visualize your achievement. Monitor your progress. Breathe deep; deeper. Water the plants. Name a cloud. Smile a lot. Kiss your friends. Extinguish the television. Eat dinner slowly. Write down dreams. Miss your lover. Watch the sunset. Open your heart. Enjoy your life. If you can mostly avoid anything more complicated than a three-word sentence, you'll be doing well this week.

    Caeriel@yahoo.com