Pisces 21° (March 11)

I will make some inroads today with a new chapter which is always a good feeling and yet I will underdeliver. It is baffling to think that in just about ten days that I will begin the seventh year of this Blague. I need to keep it simple and might just do a sort of Bluebook thing to get that party started. It could be nice, and link back to the original year for fun. I was feeling pretty upbeat about the real estate angle of things but I have freaked myself out a bit. Oh well: Onto other thoughts: The Moonchild is the most self-protective of men. He needs strong emotional defenses because he is highly sensitive, and so he chooses his company carefully, just as he secures professional positions for himself where he will largely be left to his own devices. As walled-in as he may be, he is, as a rule, exceedingly ambitious; he thus tends to oh, so subtly, target individuals he feels can speed his trip toward success, often becoming a darling to influential people who will take up his cause. He is very good at playing the proverbial game in his career, even when just starting out, especially charming those of an older generation to whom he shows such promise. Though typically cool as a cucumber himself, by astrological design, Cancer man elicits emotional responses from others. When young, he specifically works on the feelings of nostalgia that older men have for their own lives when they were his age, while women of all ages are simply charmed by his signature gentlemanly demeanor and behavior, which isn’t in the least disingenuous. Regardless of their gender or sexual orientation, Cancer men love women who typically make up the bulk of their friendships and associations. One feels safe in the Moonchild’s presence, and he prides himself on being polite, courteous, even, chivalrous. He is not one to act out or up, a master at quelling and disguising anger, upset or sorrow, though he’s quick to laughter, which he isn’t above feigning if he finds it might be endearing, just as he will hang on every word spoken by someone he wants in his corner. He wouldn’t consider himself calculating—he assumes everyone is as purposefully charming as himself. Anyway, pouring it on, as he does, comes naturally to this premier water sign, just one of the many ironies endemic to the Cancer male experience (he just has none about himself). His façade is one and the same as the protective Crab shell, any phoniness is thus a byproduct of shielding himself emotionally. Only those who know him well will recognize this and forgive him for it, for they understand how tender this guy can be. Besides, there is a certain comfort and joy in gaining close access to the Cancer man when knowing how measured, mannered and decorous he remains in his more formal bonds. He expects

The following blocks of text are exceprts from my Blagues, nos. 1716-1720. I am reading through all of my Blagues, five per day, and posting some samples here. Now, in my sixth year of writing this Blague, by the time I get to my seventh, I will have journeyed through all the daily Blagues of my first five years. If that’s confusing I apologize. Year seven, I’ll only have to read through year six, once a day.

I dreamed last night, or rather this morning, that I was in the desert. In Wonder Valley specifically. There was some kind of weird conference and someone threw their rotted cancer hands that they kept in the freezer or something at me and I had to leave. I know that this will make no sense. They were dried and green and horrible. I can’t explain any further. Someone from the art world was interested in working with us. I was aware of the fact that might know Jack and I thought, well, that could be an area of confusion or represent a certain rift. What else is new. All I know is that I am looking for repair and for truth. And I will wait until I am back stateside to deal with those evil little wads in publishing—I am the embodiment of justice this year, wielding a terrible swift sword. Sorry not sorry. I feel quite frustrated today. And like everything is flung everywhere. If I stick to my owners manual it might work out fine. Possible titles: Unwritten Stories. Written Off (Funny Trials and Tribulations in the Publishing Word). Mightier Than The Sword is another one perhaps. Something like that. And why not? I have to put my anger and frustration some place and let it channel fully through me. Anyway there is much to do today. We have a big afternoon and evening planned and I’m super psyched to get out and move around today. There has been much work and just sitting in and writing, dreaming and scheming and my old carcass needs to move around a bit.

So we set off for A.’s studio which is only about a twenty minute stroll up Bethnal Green Road then hanging a left toward Old Bethnal Green Road LOL. The studio was cute and worky and we went over some colors and stones and other details. We are still tweaking to get it right. Then the three of us headed toward Bethnal Green, past the Town Hall where we will move on Sunday, and then we headed up the Old Ford Road (I think it’s called toward and through Victoria Park which was quite beautiful. It is a part of town to which we haven never been; and it was a long stroll through the park along the canal. We ended up at a bar/café/pub/restaurant called Crate where we had some chill drinks and talked more about the collection and packaging and so forth. It was good to get a bit of a jump on all that. As I’m writing this I think I am watching a Harry Stiles video (is that who everyone is always talking about) and he is in the group of people, mainly men, naked from the waist up, writhing about with them. There has been some talk recently within the community that he is gay baiting or whatever. Honestly I just think he’s pansexual like so much of the younger population. Anyway, we got some good ideas on paper and I’ll need a follow-up on that score this week.

A. wanted to take us out so we just had to head upstairs in the same building to Silo which was an English version of Portlandia which I fully enjoyed. The only ingredient that made me go hmm was a “spruce sauce” because I would sear on my life that this was made from discarded Christmas trees found on the street. And I don’t actually say this lightly because the entire philosophy of the place is hinged on non-waste. So, I think my theory is correct. It was a set menu projected onto the wall, so you just get what they give you, with some vegetarian options that I didn’t opt for. The first course was a radish cannelloni. When it arrived I thought it was a mise bouche, it was so tiny. Of all the things in nature it recalled a clitoris, and you know how hard those can sometimes be to find, so that should give you some idea of the portion size. The tables had silos in them that contained cutlery and a wine cooler, the cork lids of which you raised with a giant magnet. They had the best beef dish I’ve ever tasted—it was “aged” to the consistency of pudding, that’s how tender. And a pumpkin ice cream that was served two ways. It was wonderful and ridiculous in equal measure. And they had some very good organic wine which places really all must now have. There is no alternative in this new world. I’m now watching Jamie Oliver on the Uks food network. He is kind of handsome again. I missed his lisp. We went over to A.’s flat just after and met her daughter who shares a name with S. I really like her husband and we talked about film and drank some orange wine. A. fell asleep and I realized she bloody well works too hard. I hope that she can begin to do less and be more.

Probably two hours of sleep. I am getting to the point of exhaustion. We came back from A.’s house and I fell around one but was up by four. I’m just sitting here writing until eight when S. rises. I have quite the day planned and am a bit daunted, even though it is all about and at my leisure: On A.’s recommendation, I have booked a two-hour Ayurvedic massage. I don’t know what to expect but I know the place I’m going is a barge on the other side of the Thames at Tower Bridge. It’s quite cold today but I head out across Bethnal Green Road down past the Shoreditch overground through Spital fields and White Chapel across the bridge along the river. I think I know where the place is so I just sort of loll about; then I think maybe I’m not in the right spot after all, which I wasn’t. So I kept looking and couldn’t find address until I realized a large truck (lorry) was blocking the entrance to the whatever-it-is-you-call-the-metal-thing-you-walk-down-to-the-boats-on-the-river. Suj met me at the locked gate and led me down the slippery gang ways (they’re called gang ways?) to a warren of low barges. I am mainly walking on wooden planks, after a while, covered in chicken wire to make the going less slippery. (What he will tell me later on my way out is that I’m actually walking atop barges, and that the gardens’ plantings on either side of me are rooftop gardens in effect. There is even a large tree growing from the roof of a barge.) We get to his barge, a one-hundred-year-plus-old Dutch number, painted a dark teal. It takes some doing getting onto it. And then we enter this incredibly barebones kitchen behind which is the massage studio, consisting of a very old practice table covered with a towel, and a simple wooden stool, facing a mirror atop a sofa. There is a tele from which is coming plinky plunky music while images of some monk or Rinpoche glowers reassuringly. There is a smell of incense but none currently burning. I have to take a pee which requires a bit of acrobatics to “go below.” One must travel vertically, backwards, as if by ladder.

The massage begins with me naked but for my underwear, seated in the stool, as Suj says he will start with head massage. I have never felt anything in my life like this, my entire nervous system is a-tingle. Feeling as exhausted as I do I have that much more drastic a reaction, I think, than I might otherwise. This goes on for over ten minutes and I’m getting slightly uncomfortable. I’m almost aware of the nerve patterning from my head all the way down my legs, and my left one feels its age-old damage, or at least that’s what I’m imagining. Finally, it is time to move to the massage table where Suj instructs me to lie face down. I slip off my underwear for the rest of it. There are familiar elements to the massage, the symmetry of doing to the right what one does to the left; and of course kneading the muscles, but there is an extra element of covering the same territory, warming it up for starters, and then massage the same areas, over and over again, for extended periods of time. On the left side of my back all goes swimmingly, while it is usually my trouble side; but on the right something isn’t releasing, and with this form of massage, which is repetitive, the resistance is being met over and over again, which is only making me sieze up more and more, like when you try to get into a cross legged position and your hips sieze up, only it is my shoulder complex and I can’t seem to lie flat; so I riase myself off the table a bit on my right side and I’m making noises designed to tell Suj to back off but he doesn’t. I’m feeling a bit panicky, now, but it is subsiding slowly. He remarks on how tense my right side is; ad will tell me how much better my left is. He is all intuition while having perfect technique. He’s now doing those long stroke moves, standing at my head, down my back and ass which he keeps opening up on his way back to starting position. Of course the reflex is to clench and maintain integrity, in all senses of the word, but the repetition forces me to let go and now I’m worrying that my anus is actually going to prolapse. I’m exaggerating slash kidding but not really. He then changes places and starts to do my legs but on this score he will dig so far into my groin, in the process, increasing blood flow, shall we say, to the point of now all I can feel is the worry that he’s going to say turn over while I have an all but raging boner. Oh fuck. It isn’t very relaxing when you’re fretting about showing your full extended manhood. The panic is back now with a vengeance. There might also be a little leakage. Holy Hardon, Batman.

Ultimately he does have me flip over and I simply say: “okay, do erections happen?”, to which he responds, “don’t worry.” Ironically, this makes me worry more because it crosses my mind that his reassuring words carry a meaning along the lines of: I will take care of that. Uh, oh. But, no, thankfully, he had no intention of it going there. And my front now receives just as much attention as my back did; and when it comes to the legs bit, he’s digging back into where my lower body attaches to my top; at one point I think he just took my dick and moved it over as if it were an errant branch he encountered while weeding a garden. The real transcendence begins with the torso massage and ending with the face massage, which includes this move where he makes an opening motion from my third eye out, like opening curtains, over and over again. I have to say for a moment there I saw the face of some blue god, I kid you not. Two hours later and I was completely altered. I hadn’t noticed that the rocking of the barge which was minimal to begin with had completely halted. It was low tide and we were wedged in the mud at a slant. It was tricky enough getting up after this intense massage without having a dizzy spell and passing out, but the entire boat was at a major slant. My Batman reference now seems very apt as that show was so often filmed on a diagonal. I dress as best I can and am walked out back through the warren of boats getting more history of the place. I retrace my way back through Spitalfields where I purchase a reassuring pricey swimsuit, on sale. And S. is still at the flat. She soon sets off to see another friend (I should get one of those at some point) and I will have a pint at the George and the Dragon and do a bit of shopping at the Grocery before returning back to make a pasta sauce and pack up, both of which goes quite successfully.

Wake, clean, pack, leave for Bethnal Green. The owner of the building comes over and he and his wife are contrite about the noise that came from above, but nobody makes any move to compensate us. We do have their direct connection though so we could rebook it but we won’t. We take an Uber to Town Hall and set ourselves up in the lounge. I’m getting all our ideas onto virtual paper. There is a wait for the room for a couple of hours, then when we finally do get in, we see we are in the back of the building which would be fine except we are atop the dumpsters and I’m concerned. We are shown a room in the front which doesn’t have a bath and so we opt for another room in the back that does, but one which is further the way along from what might be dumpster noise. It won’t prove to be brilliant but that won’t be our fault. What we don’t know is that a film crew is moving into the hotel on Monday and they will begin load in at an ungodly hour. Meanwhile we are just happy to unpack—they gave us a giant rolling rack so that we can hang up most of our clothes that require it. We have a reservation for one of the two restaurants but I’m concerned as the wait staff so far have not proven to be all that swift. Never mind, it’s low stakes. And what it might lack in service it makes up for in proximity.

We head out and first walk along the Roman and Globe roads, the latter being kind of a woo-woo enclave of a Buddhist center and metaphysical bookstores, just around the corner from a vegetarian restaurant. With that under our belt we decide to go further afield, up to Broadway market. We pass a pizza pop up along the way which turns out to be a bit of foreshadowing. Upon discover of the Broadway market, we had no idea it was such an oasis and we actually end up requiring a snack and so stop at Franco Manca for a delicious pie to share along with some olives and wine as a late snack. Then uh oh, S. isn’t feeling great. As we make our way back to the hotel she is feeling more and more ill—her stomach is the culprit. So by the time of our reservation she is taking to ed and I head down on my lonesome. I have carafe(s) of wine to accompany my sirloin with cabbage, and a side green salad, followed by a yang (which I realize is a cheese) something I’d never heard of. There is a slightly Asian bent to the restaurant and the crackers that come with the yang almost feel like a sort of wonton. There is an Asian boy eating on his own in plaid pajamas and the slippers provided in his room. He is photographing his food; then again so am I. I will show S. when she is in a place where she can actually look at food. I take my last bit of cheese and wonton and quince jam, in sandwich form wrapped in a napkin, upstairs with a full glass of wine and I finish it while I cue up Netflix. The next thing I know I’ve fallen asleep and wake before one o’clock, having slept maybe three hours in total. So I watch the final episode and a half of the Star Trek series which was only two seasons long.

I think head to bed, it’s around three, and already people are making noise out back. I will awake the next morning to a cacophony of sound and will ask to be shown another room in the front. I go and check it out and it is really quiet though smaller. S. can’t move rooms in any case so it is a moot point. She is truly ill and we will have to cancel plans we had with Neil and Debs. Stella will write to say that I could still join them but they won’t want that as I rightly suspect. I will spend the entire day tomorrow in the room. It is a warm and sunny day. I will write to Matt and say something funny. I will watch the UK Food Network and watch Jennifer Saunders in a celebrity bake off with Joanna Lumley, Lulu and Dame Edna after the lisping of Jaime Oliver. S. will sleep until two in the afternoon. I will still be writing this a day late in preparation for coming back, after a swim in the pool (hopefully), because tomorrow’s post, as I promised myself, must be in regard to the “text box” copy that I am preparing for our agent before she takes the book out for a second round of pitches. We are definitely seeing a production company on Wednesday which is bizarre because they are based in London but didn’t know that we were here when they reached out to us about some work together on a project. WE have been down this road before and would be happy to do something like this for sure. We shall see what we shall see. I suspect I will eat dinner again alone downstairs tonight which is fine, but not fantastic.

I could talk about grey being neutral, a state in which Virgo finds herself all too often, stasis being less an issue of indecision than it is of making the wrong move. The first order of business will be to see if we can isolate some action items in the process. Shut down the self help. We know you and you go from this book to the next, searching for external answers. So guess what you’re going to start your own self-help guide based on your experience. This could be a good approach. This day Monday is all about transition. I stayed in as S. was super ill then went by the little spa and there were definitely guys checking in ahead of me for the final three hours of the evening. There was this one dancer boy. I said something like, hey have you been here before and he did this sort of skeptical half turn like you talking to me? And I was like yes. Have you been here before is it nice, fun, do you like it. And he was like uh huh. So shady. I realized it may perhaps be a bit gay up in this place at the end of men’s day, which it turned out to be. So said the nice lady who was helping people at the desk. She was good natured and gave me an eyeroll after dancer boy sashayed away. I got all the info. The staff seems to be all women. I don’t think that if there is gay stuff going on in there that it would be too overt. That was my read. They have a ton of treatments so I’ll go the next time we pass through this way. Another idea is: You are the appropriator of the Zodiac. So we want to turn this from a liability into an asset. Own the fact that you are open to influence and see it as a positive aspect of your superpower, but do be conscious of giving credit where credit is due, not just for others, but for yourself. You may be surprised by, and wake-up to, the fact that you rather unconsciously borrow from others all the time. You don’t even know you’re doing it.

I went to The Camel on the Globe Road and the boy at the bar near me lives on a barge in Hackney Wick. It’s fun to have conversations with strangers, ones you can’t strike up in places that’s for sure. And yet it is quiet in this world in the only way it can be in a giant city like this one with so many nooks and crannies. Unlike New York where the only place to go is up. Anyway I had a couple of beers and just hung out and chatted with folks for awhile which was a good break after being in the suite all day. I came back and S. is still feeling poorly so she is going to sit out dinner once again. I went down and spent a small fortune overindulging. I was chatting with other folks and ended up being down there many hours which did not go over well as you can imagine. We have booked our trains to Venice which is cool. Richard Godwin will write to say he knows a journalist who wants to interview us. She is from New Zealand and mentioned The Luminaries. This is sending us down a bit of a rabbit hole. We have never read the book which is characterized by one of us as being asleep at the wheel. There is something magical that happens when you go away. We have this television production company interested in our work and it makes me realize that this New Zealand interest might actually dovetail with the conversation this week with the Madelbach folks. I need to read the twelve-step idea for information on what might make for these text boxes I’m writing.

This week is going to fly by of that I am well aware. Dane Martha Keckler Erin. The City Wintery wrote to say they have a gig open, but they need to find someone who might be able to fill the room to capacity. I don’t really know who that could be. I could reach out to a few more folks to see but I did give a shout to Martha. I have a lot on my mind but I’m feeling rather stilted in terms of the writing. I need to be more lake than shed as we say in our family. I had some steak tartare and a green salad and I ordered the pasta but sent it back because it tasted like water. I got the fish instead. And then the cheese and little cookies. I am a bit overwhelmed with dread about what that bill will come to. I made a booking for the hotel and it comes to a hundred pounds more a night than what I’m paying now. I will need to find other digs I think unless they can make this place work out. I’m rambling but that’s the way that goes. I really wanted to have a little more fun this week but it wasn’t meant to be. It is a busy time and I have to make sure I look and feel my best for all these meetings. I really should have read The Luminaries.

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree point of the Sabian Symbol may at times be one degree higher than the one listed here. The Blague portrays the starting degree of for this day ( 0°,  for instance), as I typically post in the morning, while the Sabian number corresponds to the end point (1°) of that same 0°-1° period. There are 360  degrees spread over 365/6 days per year—so they nearly, but not exactly, correlate.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go! Copyright 2021 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved. Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2021 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox.