Pisces 16° (March 6)

I am reading about the goddess Eris in preparation for this day. It is indeed putting me in the mood to understand the complexity of the Gemini. Being all over the place. Misinterpreted nature. All the signs have their paradoxes, especially the mutable (every third) sign of the zodiac, but the Twins are by their very nature the most dual, and rather magically so. Yes get into the magic. Get into the fairies. Gypsies. Unexpectedly I awoke feeling really numb in places so not sure what that’s all about but I’m taking it very seriously. I will end up taking a giant nap and working very little but I’m not feeling stressed at the thought of that. I decided (for some reason)…well let me put it this way I saw in my mind’s eye a platter with tofu and avocado which doesn’t sound that great and even S. thought it sounded yucky. Then I did a search and it’s a thing, with raw tofu, like a salad. I decided to bake the tofu and alternate slices of that with avocado all in a line with toasted ginger and scallion and a dressing I made of miso, roasted garlic, rice vinegar, toasted sesame oil and honey. It was pretty damned good, served with some stir fry veggies. I am steering clear of anything bad for me today in anticipation of tomrrow’s beginning of a major detox. And some writing thoughts:

Whether or not it is a result of Gemini’s archetypal assignation and its suffusion of her metaphysical makeup, even the most enlightened individual born under this sign cannot resist her puckish if not prankish nature, something she oft expresses unconsciously. For example, even if positioned to lead a life of leisure, delegating every chore to a staff of domestics, she may still go through the motions of one who is put upon, and in the extreme. Never mind that Gemini doesn’t believe in not letting others see her sweat, often telegraphing how slammed or in the weeds she is, purposefully making mountains out of minutia; even when there are no deals to make, merch to move, or other such ships to launch, she will occupy her time with elective chores that she will undertake with the same amount of import and frustrated sighs designed to instill in others “the fact” that she works harder than you do. The finer point here is that she is manipulating others’ thoughts, making them perceive a reality of her own divining. It might seem that she is running a special-ops raid remotely from her computer, meanwhile, she may just be online ordering stuff she doesn’t need, and will ultimately return, amid those same loaded sighs. It’s actually a great ploy, preventing others from asking too much from, and overloading, her, inspiring loving eyerolls from those who have her number. Truth be told, from within her signature small orbit, Gemini daily makes magic, forever tinkering with, tweaking, adding little touches, making upgrades to her immediate surroundings, physical and atmospheric, the environment and general ambience of a lifestyle. This is how Gemini identifies herself, to self and others, it is through the presentation of a scene, a field of experience. That’s where the metaphor of the Mercury’s marketplace comes in…but, wait let’s back up: The first sign of Aries is objective (masculine) out-put energy, the second of Taurus is subjective (feminine) in-put energy, and Gemini comes along and combines them both, that crossroads, a place, a setting, a happening.  Birds show off their nest building skills and often it’s decoration, they are also the original buskers, putting on a little dance and music festivals, with elaborate vocals, fancy footwork and impressive displays of fanned plumage. It’s their song of self, singing the body electric, how they signal to others who they are and secure a mate. They are looking to strike a deal, form a partnership, putting themselves at the proverbial crossroads, up for sale, to the highest bidder. Gemini woman feathers her nest, hatches her plans, puts together her events, launches her projects and otherwise makes it all happen as a means of self-expression. She literally puts it out there and when we say it we mean her it-factor, her best expression of self.

The following blocks of text are exceprts from my first year of  Blagues, nos. 1691-1695. 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 can’t say I feel all that terrific today. And I’m kind of over the sloppiness of the situation. Apparently the FIL fell yesterday. He came over with MIL and he wasn’t very friendly. First off, he was told last time we were here that this would now be a dry house. He had asked his granddaughter for beer, she’s ten. There is an embargo on, and we have been instructed not to offer wine or even display it. Well it didn’t make for a very jolly evening. Seems no matter what one is going to be taken hostage by the man in the mood. Apparently he BIL if there was any beer and was told no; so he went and grabbed one he brought from his pocket. Imagine asking when you already have a stash of sorts. Then he asked the granddaughter to ask S. if there was any wine. That was also a no and has raised a lot of ire, which it would from the BIL. Anyway, on the bright side, the kid is gorgeous and had a lovely morning opening her prezzies. And there was Irish soda bread from SIL’s best friend whom I love (and who visited yesterday with her kiddies). And we had some fun doing Mad Libs and I made a soup before the harrumphing no helpers retruned and made noise and otherwise lumped around. Aren’t I nice. All I know is that in less than ninety minutes I am heading to the hair-port and can only hope that the loungers will be open. They’d have to be, I imagine. I don’t want to sit there for hours not taking advantage of what might be on offer. I will try not to snore tonight on the plane. I was fortunate enough to have avoided that fate last evening. I’m so glad we are flying upper class on Virgin because it takes all the pain out of the process. In a world where everything has become second rate it is some compensation. Now that we live in a gilded age part of this trip will be about trying to make the new world order work for me and mine. Wherever democracy is safest is probably where I’ll end up going. Once the oldies in my life finishing kicking the bucket it will be easier to escape Merry Christmas.

When you have no family and friends are hard to find, you can become quite cynical on a holiday such as these. And you think and say things like what the fuck is this mass hallucination that sees us still celebrating some guy’s birthday when, if he even actually existed, wouldn’t have been his birthday but an existing pagan holidays with toys and trees and nothing to do with a supposed Messiah. And this year, especially, gathering with family who aren’t family, while the authoritarian forces are slowly taking over? Yeah okay: Gather with your friends of misfits and pretend everything’s alright. That’s fine. No, there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just that we don’t really live in a democracy anymore. But don’t worry, you have really cute cats and your new creative project is just stunning. I am going to get some major perspective during the coming months. It’s going to be slightly difficult to go without my usual crutches, but I know that in the end this is exactly what is needed. It will all come right in the end. I will write for five more minutes and then I will start moving my baggage downstairs. I made that soup, as I said. I’m having a bit of wine in the room. We will get a ride from Dobie and drop his mother off first, much to her seeming disappointment. Check in took forever as there were no workers at their posts. We ended up talking to this couple—he’s English, she’s American—they live on the South Shore. He seems like the English equivalent of a townie douchebag and that will turn out to be very much correct.

We arrived at the lounge and the lovely lady checking us in was dressed something like a yankee chic Mrs. Claus. What will happen during the first part of this trip is a rupture and all the underlying stresses will surface along with all the suppressed annoyances and resentments. Meanwhile we don’t know that so it feels fine. I took a picture of the lady and had a vegetarian Tiki Masala. Those people said they couldn’t use the lounge because they were in economy plus but suddenly they were there. They said they talked their way into it because they are semi regulars (or he is). Things were going sort of fine. He is a Scorpio and she is a Virgo, so we should have known something wasn’t going to be right. And indeed it was clear he was a thumb-headed blowhard and she the personification of acquiescence. She shook a lot. She mentioned she had had a child before they met and that the child had cerebral palsy. Fast forward to how the evening ended when I showed them a picture of Nancy Pelosi I had on my phone and the douche ws obviously an impersonation of the orange menace doing an impersonation of the journalist who had a like disability. To be clear, he was doing an evil impersonation of Nancy to suggest she was somehow neurologically disabled as if he was swallowing whatever kind of speak was coming from the fake right news. That was that. I told them they had to get the fuck out of my face. They did. Soon we were called for our flight. It was late and we were exhausted. I had them make up my bed in the herringbone class of Virgin and I ordered food but I was asleep before it arrived.

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I was awakened by talking and was aware there was turbulence. A flight attendant had sat down to talk someone through it. It was a sibilant monologue. Apparently I shot her a look. Sorry but not really. I had an almond croissant. Soon we landed and I realized I had already lost my first item of the trip, a much needed pair of reading glasses. I will have to replace those. These things seem small but they do make for a sad and empty feeling, something I am struggling with anyway this time of year, having no family and friends who are hard to find. At the baggage claim the Virgo talked to us and I was having none of it. As I’m writing this I feel like I’m having some kind of allergic reaction. It feels to be all in my head, quite literally. I mean to say I’m feeling a physical sensation inside my  head somewhere near where my throat meets my ears. Anyway. I’m sure it will pass (like the morning dew). Our driver will be late and unapologetic. I realize he’s just kind of not very bright. I sound like such an asshole and I’m not not. Especially today. The drive was fine but slow. London looked good to me on this quiet morning. We arrived at Myddelton Square but driver only took cash so S. had to set off to find some and returned to inform me that our cards weren’t working at multiple banks. Typical. I arranged the bags and drank some sparkling and we set off in search of lunch because it was not time for it. The only things open in Exmouth Market were the Greek deli place and a delicious Italian restaurant where we (I) got into a state. I’m not good at directly communicating my feelings at this point and am being weird and exaggerative, two euphemisms for something worse. I just want to shed some skin and don’t know how to do it. The point is I’m terribly disappointed in what transpired with agent and all that and I simply cannot process it. It is eating me from the inside out. I will reach out to make a plan to speak on the sixth. I really can’t say more about the date at hand other than I came back to sleep and returned to the restaurant at around ten o’clock and overate and overspent and am just plain over myself.

I had this weird dream that I was acting in a play with Lucille Ball. She lived in my (parents’) house in Belmar, New Jersey. And I had to visit her first to pick her up or something. It was sort of like she was coming out of retirement. It was an uneasy dream. I had to drive along the turnpike or parkway to our house in Wyckoff as well. I have a strange numbness. I’m sure from carrying all our bags and so forth. I need a bit of recuperation. I don’t know where I left the bag of food. All I know is I didn’t have it when I returned. And really the last thing I needed was a hit off a joint from strangers. I was having a sort of out of body experience I think. I do not want to repeat this. I forgot to take the necessary required. Tomorrow will be quite a dip as a result of all this. I will have that very scary kind of feeling I won’t know how to shake it. I am definitely not in tiptop form now. I did hope that I would sail into this new reality feeling a lot better than I do. Anyway I have to transcend the cause of all this which is still this crappy book situation. What a lousy bunch of people work in that industry. Honestly, it has never been fun to work in any aspect of publishing. I do have a sort of funny idea of what kind of book I could write but it would be a rather ironic publication. Waking Nightmares Working in Publishing. I do think it could be rather fun to put out there. The stories would run chronologically. The first one would be about Paris 1985 working at Passion (and would include meeting all the friends we now have; Dizzy Place, and the do you sell Passion question, fashion shows, Princess Caroline, Clic, the mini tell, Ilene Rosensweig, Andree Carroon, Stephen Daly (was that his name?) Robert, Maia, Mimi, Stacy Madadam. I applied for an internship I guess. I do believe I remember writing a letter saying why I wanted to be an intern, having no money and having to leave, going to Tilburg in any case; there being a staff party and going to Le Palace, taking Jackie and Lawrence, going dancing at the club privé, David Clark was also an intern, writing about the biologique market. Hanging out at La Palette.

I suppose the next chapter would be Avenue magazine and the move to New York. This would include the Mikail Barysh story, also DV8 and that whole world. It would include acting and Uta and maybe New York Social Calendar which actually happened before the book of the month club and comedy class and all that jazz; perhaps it would bridge into the next wave of working at all the magazines like Detour and InStyle and YM and Paper. I think Paper might have happened before National Actors and all that but probably not. I will need to work out something of a timeline. And then all the fashion show era and pitching to the Face and all that perhaps and working for City TV and the Darren Star bit. All of that would probably go together nicely together. Something about losing all my notebooks at Florent. The rest will have to be sorted out as we go. We know it involves the crap our publishers pulled. People are basically really awful in that industry. We will see what happens next.

Today will be a fun day because it is Louie day. We will go for a long walk and the plan was to hit the Portrait Gallery then The Wollesely, but we were so starving by the time we started walking we decided to eat first and at J. Sheeky instead. A rocket salad and fish pie for me with a bottle of Chablis. That works. The drinking is going to have to stop. I will learn in two days time that there is something called dry January. That’s for me this year me thinks. Seems counterintuitive being away and all that but the fact is I’m here to work. But for today we will enjoy ourselves. The Portrait Gallery was fine. Not everything was to my liking but mostly I would say. And I could tell neither of us was really in the mood for a lot of museum action. We decided to stroll back and stopped at Lambs Conduit to make a little detour only to stumble upon Noble Rot, which we will likely circle back and visit. There was a tiny side road where people kept potted plants right on the street. London is a wonderful place even in its grimness. I am feeling fairly low by this point and upon our arrival back at Sadler’s Wells we went to suss out the butcher’s schedule—he won’t reopen for days. We went to the French wine shop and found something really good and were directed to Camden Passage to check to see if the cheese shop was open. It was. Coq Epicerie.

It is one of those December days in London, mild, the street lights reflecting off the wet cobble stones. If ever I could live here I would live right here. I am looking forward to Shoreditch too but mostly this is where I would stay. We are ridiculously blessed that we have friends whoare so generous with us. So with our cheese in tow we headed back to Myddelton Square and had a lovely time playing records and snacking in the sitting room. John Coltraine, Millie Jackson. We talked through some of the stickiness we encountered, mostly generated by me I really don’t want to be the cause of that sort of thing. But I too often am. We talked through the entire entropy of the publishing process. I realize on this day more than any other just how incredibly sad I am. I wanted so much to make this move. And now we will have to confront the situation head on, for real. I am no longer in the bravado phase. I am really truly upset and we will have to address it. I am actually hurt by the initial suggestion by M. in the process. I know these things will happen in waves, coming and going, the feelings of disappointment and rejection. One of my pet peeves is people who type really loud on their laptops, or as I like to call it slaptops.

I am really needing to let go of all this and more. The friendships; the feeling that I’ve made so many connections for so many people and they seem not to care enough to keep me in the picture. I’ve been a happy connector for people and I just don’t see why it is that I am so damn dispensible. But I have to not fight it. I must accept and move on. I am truly ready to do that now and I want most to triumph over what used to threaten to bring me down; there are so many more good things to look forward to and I cannot continue to try to get blood from stones. I will put my mind to the positive things and what that actually requires is severing all the emotional ties of the past. I have had the fantasy of disappearing into the ether. We shall see what people are made of. Espeically those who might just want to make money from us and nothing more. That will be eye opening to say the least.

I think what added to my sense of depression and loss was my sense of depression and loss. Losing things has been a theme, whether it applies to my ready-readers or opportunities passing me by to friendships that need falling away by the force of their own weight. I will spend New Year’s Eve writing out my affirmations and getting a fix on my finances and finding a way to further my aims and speed the plow. We are obviously being funneled in one direction and it all comes down to that. I will do a little math and I will make all the cash myself. Not only that I will make sure that people are properly dealt with and, not only that, but I will make it my goal to get my rights back. Examples will be made and the justice will be swift. We shall see that it is wielded because we are not afraid. People are not going to be able to get away with what they determine to get away with. And at the same time I will let the past be the past and move forward that much more singlemindedly. What is working is going to work really well. And we have time and inclination and energy and fortune on our side. I will make a success of all of this and I will live somewhere where it will all make sense and all be empowered.

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.