Pisces 26° (March 16)

Today will get away from me a bit but that’s okay. I’m making an Irish soda bread and also this sort of tofu corned beef for tomorrow’s dinner we shall see how it goes. I am pretty exhausted as it is so not sure how far I’ll get. I was talking to my cousin and she asked a question so I answered: I get it. I just didn’t want you to think I was pushing you. You were first of the cousins I met in 1972 when you came over with Derek, the twins and Anne Marie. We moved to Wyckoff that same year in September. Lisa moved earlier and stayed with friends we had there as she was starting high school where Doreen was at Ramapo. I started fourth grade. My sister always hated me. In Jersey City when she was supposed to be walking with me to school she would make me wait until she was a full block ahead of me. We had to share a room in our apt which sucked for her but didn’t quite explain hatred. She later admitted she just wanted to be an only child and I ruined her life when I was born. Nice. My father who was very much a rage addict was gone in the morning before I woke up and I was asleep before he came home. I only saw him weekends when he would make up for lost time by hitting with a belt. My mother was still drinking (she got sober in 1981 I think) and she was super benevolent but passive with my father who was a tyrrant. I think because I wasn’t born in the shape of a football he didn’t hide the fact that he wasn’t a fan of mine either which may have fueled Lisa’s ability to treat me as she did. In Wyckoff my mother would feed us separately because Lisa couldn’t stand being at a dinner table with me apparently. Peg would just cook and drink and never sat down to eat. She would wait for my father. He was probably messing around who knows. Going to Belmar in summer he only visited on weekends and stayed in Wyckoff alone which I’m sure was convenient. So three months out of the year . So summers I had no parental supervision at all and I started making meals for myself probably around seventh grade. I used to stay home from school just so I could clean out the kitchen drawers (every drawer became a junk drawer in very little time). Lisa was a slob and her room looked like a bomb swent off and I was super OCD. She went to Centenary and took classes like skiing and photography still she skipped all classes and i’m assuming did drugs instead. She got pulled out after one semester and then she was back home which was horrible in different ways. She soon made me her pot smoking friend but it was erratic. She never worked a job for more than a few days. She only had friends that were never seen, never came over, all was secrecy in her world. At the end of one summer I remember that our house was broken into and she somehow knew it was Tommy which turned out to be the case. I don’t think I ever officially met Tommy. He was there that first time I went over and left with my mother’s deconstructed suits from the early 1950s. Lisa just created tension at every moment. She lived at home in Belmar with my parents (but also lived with her boyfriend or husband who was black. They were together apparently 16 years I never met him then he died. My father called to say “your sister’s friend died” I was like what friend? and said you know “the mully.” One Christmas I went home and typical me trying to make things work made an entire 7 fishes dinner for Xmas eve (and I brought all the food to make for Xmas day too. We were sitting down for dinner and no Lisa…she was upstairs…parents kept calling up to her…this was not atypical. I went upstairs and found her on my parents bedroom phone and I said we are waiting and she started beating me with the phone receiver screaming “never again” as if I had been some kind of attacker she had a history with. My father than ran up stairs and tackled me. Only my mother knew it was her and not me. But overnight my father threw away all the Xmas food I brought and my mother, who I realized was advancing rapidly with memory loss “forgot” she had sided with us. We called a car service and went back to NYC Xmas morning. Oh then there was my wedding. Lisa missed her flight and showed up at the end on heroin. That was fun. After that birthday party where I saw you last Lisa threw full bottles of Pellegrino at my head. Then when my father was dying she pretended to me that he was fine and recovering. As she was the only lucid contact she plotted this out. I got a call from my Italian-side cousin Donna yelling at me how could I not be at my father’s bedside where apparently her whole side of the family had been for days and days. This was only after I called the hospital that morning and they told me my father wasn’t there but in hospice. I called my sister and she lied and said “No, daddy wanted a private room and that was the only building that had one.” She actually kept me from knowing and getting to NJ. Lynne and I left the Cape at around 4am in the middle of a Nor’Easter and somewhere around New Bedford the phone rang and it was Lisa saying he died so not to bother coming but she’d let me know when the funeral was. I went to funeral and she was in full performance mode. There was never a will. But suddenly she bought a car and had a nurse for my mom but every time I would call some new nurse would answer and say my sister was in Atlantic City or some such. I did not go to my mom’s funeral because there was no longer a buffer and I think my sister capable of anything. So about 17 years since I’ve had any contact.

The following blocks of text are exceprts from my Blagues, nos. 1741-1745. 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.


Paris, Day Nineteen of Sixty.Up at nine, did some work, food shopped and had lunch of arugula plam hearts and tomato and parmesan. This is really strange because I know I already wrote the Blague for today. And now it has all but disappeared. This keeps happening and I have to figure out why. Okay so Timmy the cleaner came over and said there is someone called Miles Godwin that also lives on rue des Archives. I looked him up on social media but found nothing. I might leave a note just to say hi. It was pouring rain but someone didn’t take an umbrella and instead bought one. I totally already wrote all this I can’t imagine where it went. How can things disappear like that it is beyond my comprehension. We bought a chicken for lunch we are meant to eat but it will sit there. Class was quite fun on this day I can’t exactly remember why but I know that it turned out to be something clever. I think what might have happened is we were broken up into groups and we are both pretty much the alphas. I’m getting to know the other kids and they sound really fun. I don’t know what I’m feeling. I’m still in this weird place with Stefan which is beginning to take a bit of a toll. We walk to the Café de la Nouvelle Mairie for dinner and it’s a bit dark and spooky out. I am glad that we are getting a few gigs because we are not printing money in the basement. I must have cut instead of copied today’s entry and then failed to paste it in which just makes no sense. I had a tartare of salmon and avocado followed by a pot au feu and S. had a broccoli soup. I remember typing the word broccoli and dorade I think no cabillaud. I have never heard back from Alex which is a shame. I did book Penny which is great. I have seven more folks to book. I’m still wondering if I should do my own piece. I’m thinking I just might. I’ll have to go down the list. But that’s March. I still have to finish all my book work. I hope to get to that today. There are only so many days in a month and the work is piling up.

Anyway I have this to write today as well. Chez les jeunes, on est tout overt, une page vierge sur laquelle la vie peut ecrire. Dans notre jeunesse, nous sommes les plus impressionables—nos cerveaux se forme encore. Le voyage stimule plus que notre intellect; il engage tous nos sens. Cela ouvre notre esprit et nous permet d’embrasser la diversité. Le voyage élargit nos horizons and nous aide de savoir ce qui est possible dans la vie. Ma troisième année à l’université, j’ai fait mes études en France et j’ai pris des nombreux voyages secondaires dans ce pays et celui-la. Et cela a completement changé le cours de mon existence. Je peux retracer toutes les bonnes chose qui me sont arrivés depuis cette année. Donc, dans la vieillesse, les voyages comprennent plus que les étoffe de la mémoire. Ils sont les auteurs de nos histoires, les architects do nos succès et même de nos échecs, les peintres de nos images imaginaires que nous appelons les memoires. Alors nous sommes nos voyages.

I am feeling a bit weird these days. Somewhat strung out and alone. I made the mistake of looking back and it turned me into a pillar of salt. I’m not being as careful as I should be maybe. I need to give more focus to my health. Blah blah. To be honest I don’t have a best or worst vacation story to relate. But I find most things in life to be paradoxical. Case in point I remember this one trip I took by myself: I had just arrived in Grenoble and decided to take a trip to Florence on my own before classes started. That’s probably not the best story. Maybe I can relate this story instead: J’etais sur un programme d’études à l’étranger. Il y avait dix-sept étudiants en tout. La directrice s’appelait professeur Eileen Julien, qui était son nom de jeune fille—elle était mariée avec un authre professeur appelé Mead Over, alors son nom de mariée était Eileen Over, ce qui, en anglaise, ca veut dire “je me penche.” Anyway that is a start. I just want to lay down some tracks here. It is all going so quickly and I’m very much interested in making the most, not making any more messes. When I get down I tend to retraumatize myself by going over things in the past that I have done wrong or which have brought me strife. It’s terrible. And I get some help from my former friends. I don’t think I have a target on my back or anything but I do feel that I can make it easy for people to pile on because I’m already there. So what needs to happen now is to take back some power and some status and make sure all goes according to plan. We are seeing people this week and I need to be my best self. Many marks to hit and I want the joy of hitting them. Synchronicity only goes so far.


Paris, Day Twenty of Sixty. None of what I hoped will happen today will happen today. We have a chat with Meg today after my massage. And I will spend the morning working on this box; S. has yoga and I will put out some chicken and green beans for lunch. I have to write about the transition from Aquarius to Pisces because the one I did the other day was too wound up. The metaphysical transition from Aquarius to Pisces is that of a revelation opening onto a transcendent state. Not to say that Aquarius people are in a constant state of revelation (they are) or that Pisces people tend to inhabit another reality entirely (they do); but the fixed-air sign of Aquarius, symbolized by a star or a galaxy of infinite points of light, is all about truth and conviction, the sign’s motto is “I know”, while the mutable-water sign of Pisces, symbolized by mists, fog, seafoam and all forms of vapor, is about the power of the etymologically linked imagination, imagery and magic. Its motto is “I believe” which points to the as yet unknowable. Aquarius is the glaring white-light of often shocking realization of the undeniable, while Pisces is being lost in a pliable state of reverie where all is possible and can be dreamed into being. I had to skip an entire degree point. Not that it matters or that you even know what that means. It’s just that there are more days in a year than degrees on a circle—not by much but still. It is my grandmother’s birthday but I won’t remember that. My dreams are crazy this week. I had these dreams of all these famous women—SJP, Jennifer Aniston, Chelsea Handler, Charlize—with all of whom I was hanging out in the city. I was trying to think of the name of the restaurant in Soho back in the day owned by that former model guy who is friends with Derian. Kelly something maybe. I still don’t know how that all came tumbling down and why it is he has the nerve to be all kissy kissy with S. Makes my blood boil, but time is a great equalizer; and the truth is he was always super uncool and hung out with the wrong people. That Kun character? Kin Khoa I think the restaurant was called. Those were the days. I don’t need anything to make sense today I really don’t. I’m going to go back out and have some more fun today after the calls with Meg and so forth. Looks like the ball is rolling and I will stop the hemmoraging at a later date.

So I’m going to take my notebook and head out to the Clip Clops or whatever it’s actually called. N & G arrive tonight probably around midnight. Again I had written all this down already. It is a shame that I keep losing precious words. Anyway it what it is. Today is actually five days later than this post but there is truly nothing I can do about that. There isn’t a whole hell of a lot to say at this very juncture. I’m pretty much caught up on my school work and have just a bit more of the book prep to do; but I could use some serious momentum when it comes to getting things checked off the list. We have a pretty social week this week. And it can get kind of boring in the process. The massage was fine but weird. She is a young woman and it was a mixed bag of reflexology and acupressure and so forth. I actually fell asleep twice even though it was also pretty painful. She wanted to put needles in me but I declined. I probably should have let her do it. We had a call with Cricket who is interested in moving forward which is great. I just need to get an idea of what she wants and what the budget will be. It’s all good as they say in the business. What business? We have a bunch of clients at the end of next week as well and I have to be up to date by then. This weekend will prove to be kind of fun but also kind of weird. I stayed out too late. We just ended up finishing the cheese I brought home from the Nouvelle Mairie last night.

Paris, Day Twenty One of Sixty. Nancy and Genevieve will come over today. I am making myself a little stew. I will add it to next week’s stock because I will never get through it. I think we are being a bit gluttonous these days, but there is nothing that can be done. Tuesday, going to class, was super rainy and we had to duck in a few places. We had a lovely time at Calvert. Again I wrote all about this but everything I’ve put into words here seems to have disappeared. I can’t understand how that is possible but it’s happened before and I’m going to keep my eye on it. I did my homework and had a lot of fun with it. Class will be enjoyable. We will do speed dating for the best kind of partner for going on vacation. It is now clear to us that the entire gist of the course is hinged on travel and nothing else but. I need to start cracking my own books. I need to make this stay here work for me. I’m looking forward to getting some facts and figures. I truly want to make this an experience that I can remember for a life time. We took a nice long stroll to class today and got there basically just in time. I’m a bit dressed up because we are going out to Voltaire. I will end up footing the bill which is fine, but probably not totally necessary. I don’t know, we shall see. The girls spent the morning at Merci and had lunch there. I am really trying not to overdo any of this. It won’t be easier. The next couple of days will see me getting a bit lost on my own. But before long I will reel it all in. I have plenty of work to do that is for sure and much to accomplish on this trip and I really do want to feel my best. It is up to me. I can do this. Voltaire was a total trip:


Paris, Day Twenty Two of Sixty. I don’t where they went this morning I really do forget. Oh I know, S. simply went to yoga. I had to do a little bit of shopping but not much and I will make some soup today but I don’t think I’ll ever eat any. Spoke to the chef guy Yannick (sp?) who says he is a personal chef for a number of clients including folks in the south of France. Sounds quite interesting actually. S and I end up eating downstairs at la Fronde again though I’m not totally clear as to why since there is food in the house. Or maybe there isn’t, I can’t remember. I manage to sneak out to get some Valentine’s flowers. And at the end of the day we will meet Richard Godwin for some wine at Barav which will be fun and S. will go off to meet G. and N. early at the creperie and I will be late for dinner and that won’t go over terribly well but well enough. And then we will go for some gelato and I will get to see their room. The hotel doesn’t quite send me but it’s fine. That part of the Marais is so terribly noisy. I will add in more here about what needs doing or my ideas for the book intros. That is probably the best tack to take.

ARIES Woman

Aries, the first sign of the Zodiac is ruled by planet Mars, named for the god of war and representing the masculine principle in the cosmos; Aries woman archetypally draws on the decidedly un-femmy, though fiercely feminist, armor-clad Athena, goddess of prudent war, strategy and, of course, wisdom. Also called Pallus (read: phallus), you might say this steely goddess was the original chick with a metaphoric dick. She is the “first born” of Zeus, and is thus the primordial daughter, likened to Lilith, the biblical Adam’s “first wife” who was much too much a top for his taste. Indeed, Aries women do wear the pants, particularly in partnerships. And they surely don’t subscribe to the notion of being the second sex. They are not subject to men, but can be rather objectifying of them, if anything. Like Hemingway heroines, they are living-breathing animus with a primal, nearly primitive brand of beauty—typically athletic, with strong jaws, and often cute cave-woman underbites, owlish eyes and heavy brows, a nod to Athena’s godhead of wisdom, for which the eyebrow is a symbol. While the Aries male is objective in the sense of being directive, assertive even aggressive, Aries female is objective in the sense of being impersonal, detached, keenly strategic if not defensive in nature. In a nod to her sheepish Ram symbol, there is no pulling the wool over Aries’ signature bushy brows.

If you know your mythology, you’re aware that the male gods were no match for iron-clad Athena. And in Aries women, her signature upstanding stature as a righteous female, with a principled if not political agenda, is personified. Athena (Roman:Minerva) is the original feminist, going toe to toe with male gods in competitions while punishing mortal women for a surplus of feminine frivolity, vanity and passivity. In her famous feud with her uncle, the sea god Poseidon, over the patronage of what became her namesake Athens, she offered the native people the olive, which became both food and fuel, two elements to ensure their survival and literal enlightenment. Human empowerment! And, of course, the olive branch is a symbol of peace, that which Athena and Aries women seek to preserve, particularly that of their own minds. Artistically depicted and described as strong featured and steely eyed, Athena at once portrays the physical prototype of the Aries woman as well as her directive nature and steadfast resolve.

Think of the handsome, angular beauty, not to mention the heavy jaw and bushy brows—tweezers not included—of Paulina Porizkova, Patricia Arquette, Keira Knightly, Elle McPherson, Jennifer Garner, Robin Wright, Kristen Stewart, Leslie Mann, Reese Witherspoon, Lady Gaga, Maisie Williams, Victoria Beckham, Fergie, Mariah Carey, Catherine Keener, Michelle Monaghan, Lucy Lawless, Rooney Mara, Sara Jessica Parker, Diana Ross, Amy Sedaris, Tatjana Patitz, Jane Adams, Joss Stone, Norah Jones, Claire Danes, Emma Watson, Jessica Chastain, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Natascha McElhone, Claire Danes, Robin Wright, Emma Thompson, Celine Dion, Elle Fanning, Jessica Lange, Maria Sharapova, Saoirse Ronan, Julie Christie, Dusty Springfield, Emmy Lou Harris, Claudia Cardinale, Julia Stiles, Keri Russell, not to mention such beauties with blatantly uplifting, individualist agendas, like Jane Goodall, Isak Dinesen, Vivienne Westwood, Linda Goodman, Gloria Steinham, Erica Jong, Maya Angelou, Brooke Astor, Marguerite Duras, Doris Day, Betty Ford and Sandra Day O’Connor.

ARIES Man

The Mars-ruled sign of Aries is all about not ignoring the obvious. It is primal, impulsive energy. Objective, yang, “masculine”, the sign’s celestial symbol “spear and shield of Ares” (the Greek name of Mars) is a unsubtle representation of the male genitalia that is ubiquitously plastered on men’s room doors around the globe. There is little irony being a man born under this sign. Aries views his raw animal appeal as both a blessing and a curse. He should ultimately learn to embrace and embody his outsized drives, harnessing and honing their power. He may even attempt to transcend his true nature—part rutting animal, part Superman—by way of channeling his native aggression into some Zen, Spartan or his planet’s namesake martial-arts devotion. The beautiful irony being that spiritual warriorship helps him to more fully accept his irrepressible Self, the premier principle of the astrological 1st house that is Aries man’s birthright to personify. Here is a list of objectifying Aries hunks of burning love, some of whom, drawing on their war-god archetype, can be downright belligerent: Ryan O’Neal, Russell Crow, Alec Baldwin, Piers Morgan, Hugh Heffner, Gary Oldman, Vincent Gallo, Angus Young, Serge Gainsbourg, Herb Alpert, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Quentin Tarantino, Vince Vaugn, Adrien Brody, Sean Bean, Jackie Chan, Steven Segal, Russ Meyer, Roger Corman, Steve McQueen, David Lean, Omar Shariff, James Garner, William Shatner, Ram Dass, Elton John, Eddie Murphy, Eric Roberts, Scott Eastwood, Luke Evans, Sung Kang, Marlon Brando, James Woods, Marvin Gaye, James Caan, William Holden, Crispin Glover, Tommy Hilfiger and, on the cusp with Taurus, Adolf Hitler.

Being associated, and indeed personifying, this first-house attribute of Self, , people born under the sign, males especially, tend to be very comfortable in their skin. Ruled by the red planet Mars, Aries in turn governs the muscles and blood—pure red is the sign’s color—and the sign also rules the element of iron, which is a life-giving element in our blood, as it provides the protein hemoglobin, binding to oxygen, carrying it through our tissues and muscles. (Is it more than mere coincidence that the red of planet Mars was only relatively recently found to be red due to a surplus of the iron element? It’s surely fascinating how these sign-assignations to body parts and elements pre-date modern biology or chemistry, all such information being already encoded into the ancient Zodiac, as if it were a metaphysical time capsule designed to transcend chronological Time). Anyway, Aries men are especially corporeal, if not rough and tumble, tending to boast rather un-ironic butch physiques. They often use their bodies in extraordinary ways, too, not just as athletes or in their proclivity for martial arts, or even as the proverbial action man— as actors, for instance, they generally possess what is known as “a great physical life” on stage or in films. Of all the male signs in the zodiac, Aries have a way of using their physiques in ways that seem to defy physics, their bantam bodies being the tangible stuff via which they achieve certain transcendence. Just look at this list: Martin Short, Andy Serkis, Harry Houdini, Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin, Robert Downey Jr., Marcel Marceau, Jim Parsons, Bill Irwin, M. Emmet Walsh, Jackie Chan, Steven Seagal, Frank Gorshin, David Blaine, Eric Idle, Martin Lawrence, Eric McCormack, Peyton Manning, Merce Cunningham, Matthew Broderick, Christophe Lambert, David Hyde Pierce, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Leonardo Da Vinci.

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.