ROAST-O-SCOPE
- Libra season
- Waxing Crescent in Sagittarius
- Venus, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto retrograde
The stars don't care about you. Roastie does, in the worst way. Pick a method, pick a dose, find your sign. The sky is computed; the contempt is freshly ground every morning.
THE METHOD
Planets, houses, aspects. Real sky, fake comfort. Shadow work, attachment styles, your mother. Fifty-minute hour, five-minute read. Lucky numbers. A stranger. A windfall. All lies, syndicated.
THE DOSE
The whole fate. He counted. One sentence. Fits in a notification. One paragraph. The reading, compressed. The whole reading. Sit down.
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Aries
The piñata will outlast you.
A neighbor kid's piñata survives forty-six minutes of you, then Gordon's eighty-one-year-old mother Ruth opens it with one tap.
Mars in your 5th house of parties trines Saturn retrograde in your sign, which means one thing: at 5:15 a neighbor kid's piñata, built by structural engineer Gordon with an entire roll of gorilla tape, will not break for you. Forty-six minutes, two hands, no blindfold. Then Gordon's mother Ruth, eighty-one, taps it once and buries the lawn in candy. Hand Ruth the stick at 5:16.
DO
- Hand Ruth the stick at 5:16
- Hold her purse with dignity
- Let Mabel go first
DON'T
- Take off the blindfold
- Swing two-handed at a donkey
- Demand best-of-three against Ruth
Your ruler Mars sits in Leo in your 5th house of children and parties, trine cosmic hall monitor Saturn, retrograde in your own sign, at an orb you could floss with. So at 5:15 today, at a neighbor kid's sixth birthday, you will be handed the stick, and the piñata will have been built by her father Gordon, a structural engineer, with a whole roll of gorilla tape and a sense of grievance.
Your pride will not accept this. By 5:40 the blindfold is off, the sleeves are up, and you are swinging two-handed at a cardboard donkey while a circle of children backs slowly toward the fence. Neptune retrograde is also in your sign, fogging your judgment, so you will believe it's cracking. It isn't. That donkey is load-bearing. A kid named Mabel starts crying, and not about the candy.
At 6:02 Gordon's mother Ruth, eighty-one, will take the stick from your hands, tap the donkey once on the hip, and bury the lawn in Tootsie Rolls. The children will carry her around the yard. You will be asked to hold her purse. Saturn's lesson today: brute force has a ceiling, and it's made of gorilla tape. Give Ruth the stick at 5:16 and save yourself forty-six minutes.
DO
- Hand Ruth the stick at 5:16
- Hold her purse with dignity
- Let Mabel go first
DON'T
- Take off the blindfold
- Swing two-handed at a donkey
- Demand best-of-three against Ruth
You'll race a walking stranger.
At 6:40 you secretly race the woman on treadmill seven, and she's walking, and she outlasts you by forty minutes.
Saturn is retrograde in your first house, and the material today is competitive drive. At 6:40 a.m. you silently race the woman on treadmill seven. She is walking. Reading a paperback. By minute twelve you're on the floor by the kettlebells, and at 7:50 she nods at you in the elevator with terrible gentleness. Your inner child is a hockey dad. Ride the elevator. Lose with your hands at your sides.
DO
- Ride the elevator all six floors
- Reread the report before sending
- Nod back at treadmill seven
DON'T
- Enter races nobody announced
- Title anything DONE
- Request a rematch from a walker
Backward-walking vice principal Saturn is retrograde in your first house, so the material we're working with today is unresolved competitive drive. It presents at 6:40 a.m. on treadmill eight, when you notice the woman on treadmill seven and silently enter a race she doesn't know exists. She is walking. Incline two. Reading a paperback. By minute nine you'll be sprinting with your lungs filing a grievance, and by minute twelve you'll be seated on the floor near the kettlebells while she walks on, untroubled, for another forty minutes.
At 10:15 the symptom will generalize. Ben from accounts will mention he's finished the quarterly report, and you'll finish yours by 10:31 without rereading it and send it up with the subject line DONE. It contains the phrase 'insert number here' twice. What came up for you in that moment? I can tell you what came up. Ben came up.
At 7:50 tonight the woman from treadmill seven will step into your building's elevator, paperback in hand, and nod at you with the gentleness reserved for people last seen near the kettlebells. You'll feel the urge to challenge her to the stairs. That urge is your inner child, and your inner child is a hockey dad. Today's instruction: ride the elevator. All six floors. Lose with your hands at your sides.
DO
- Ride the elevator all six floors
- Reread the report before sending
- Nod back at treadmill seven
DON'T
- Enter races nobody announced
- Title anything DONE
- Request a rematch from a walker
You'll mosh to Bolton tonight.
You win Michael Bolton tribute tickets on your sixty-third redial and get escorted out for moshing by 7:45.
At 8:15 you win the radio contest on your sixty-third redial: two tickets to Bolt-On, the tri-county's third-best Michael Bolton tribute act. You go alone. At 7:43, during the key change, you start a mosh pit at a soft-rock show, eleven retired dental hygienists form a perimeter, and a Taurus named Lonnie removes you by the belt loop. Do not mosh. You will mosh.
DO
- Redial sixty-three times
- Go alone, obviously
- Buy the XXL tour shirt
DON'T
- Wait for the DJ to finish
- Breach the hygienist perimeter
- Crowd-surf toward fake Bolton
An unexpected windfall arrives at 8:15 Thursday morning, when the classic-rock station takes caller nine and caller nine is you, on your sixty-third redial, which you started before the DJ finished saying 'nine.' The prize: two tickets to Bolt-On, the tri-county's third-best Michael Bolton tribute act, tonight at the Elks Lodge. You'll scream like you won a Super Bowl.
Every friend you invite will remember a prior commitment to their own couch. Fine. You'll go alone, which you prefer, because nobody can slow you down. By 7:40 you'll be pressed against the stage between eleven retired dental hygienists, and when fake Bolton hits the key change in 'How Am I Supposed to Live Without You,' something in your ram brain will snap like a cheap-ass lawn chair.
At 7:43 you will start a mosh pit. At a Bolton tribute. The hygienists won't join; they'll form a perimeter. Security guard Lonnie, the Taurus who figures prominently, will walk you out by the belt loop while the band plays on, unbothered, the way soft rock always does. Compatibility: low with folding chairs. Do not mosh. You are going to mosh. Lucky number: 63. Lucky color: the faded maroon of the XXL tour shirt you'll buy on the way out anyway.
DO
- Redial sixty-three times
- Go alone, obviously
- Buy the XXL tour shirt
DON'T
- Wait for the DJ to finish
- Breach the hygienist perimeter
- Crowd-surf toward fake Bolton
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Taurus
Paige will repossess your Crock-Pot.
Paige comes for the Crock-Pot at 3:41, and you make her wait three hours on your couch for the ribs.
Venus, your ruler, is retrograde in your 7th house of contracts, so at 3:30 your 2019 roommate Paige claims the Crock-Pot under an old lease addendum. Short ribs have been in it since 9:00. With Mars in your 4th house of home, you will not unplug it; she will sit on your couch until 7:00. Make her wait for the ribs. You already ordered a bigger one.
DO
- Lift the lid every forty minutes
- Offer water and nothing else
- Serve exactly one rib
DON'T
- Unplug the Crock-Pot
- Read the lease addendum
- Mention the bigger one arriving
Your ruler, sweet-talking Venus, is retrograde in Scorpio in your 7th house of partners and contracts, the room where old agreements come back with paperwork. At 3:30 your 2019 roommate Paige will text that the Crock-Pot is technically hers under the lease addendum, and she's ten minutes away. You will look at the Crock-Pot. It has had short ribs in it since 9:00 a.m. They need until 7:00.
Mars and Jupiter are both camped in your 4th house of home, and Venus squares Mars, so the standoff happens in your kitchen. Paige arrives at 3:41 with a tote bag. You will not unplug it. You will offer her a seat on the couch, a glass of water and nothing else, and you will lift the lid every forty minutes so the smell can do your arguing.
By 6:15 Paige will have stopped asking for the Crock-Pot and started asking for a plate. At 7:00 you will serve her exactly one rib, rinse the pot and hand it over warm. Saturn retrograde in your 12th house of secrets hides the rest: you ordered a bigger one at 3:32 and held the old one hostage for sport. Make her wait for the ribs.
DO
- Lift the lid every forty minutes
- Offer water and nothing else
- Serve exactly one rib
DON'T
- Unplug the Crock-Pot
- Read the lease addendum
- Mention the bigger one arriving
Facilities will cage the thermostat.
Hollis from legal nudges the thermostat at 9:05, and by 4:00 facilities has locked it in a plastic cage.
Venus is retrograde in your house of partners and enemies, and today they're the same man. At 9:05 Hollis from legal nudges the office thermostat down. You nudge it back. By 4:00 it's been adjusted nineteen times, nobody has spoken, and facilities bolts a cage over it at 67. You'll refuse your cardigan out of principle. Find Hollis. Say seventy. You are a person, not a load-bearing wall.
DO
- Say seventy to Hollis
- Wear the cardigan at work
- Let seventy stay seventy
DON'T
- Touch the thermostat again
- Price space heaters at 5:34
- Sweat at 74 to prove a point
Sulking, backward-drifting Venus is retrograde in your house of partners and enemies, and today the line between them gets drawn at 68 degrees. At 9:05 Hollis from legal will nudge the office thermostat down two notches. You will nudge it back at 9:07. By 2:00 the thing will have been adjusted nineteen times, neither of you will have spoken, and you will refuse the cardigan on your chair because putting it on would be admitting he exists. At 4:00 facilities will bolt a locked plastic cage over the thermostat, set it to 67, and leave.
Clinically, this is called displacement, and at 6:15 it will follow you home. You'll walk in, crank your own thermostat to 74 for no reason except that nobody can stop you, and sit there in the heat, sweating, victorious, wearing the cardigan you refused at work, because now it's your idea.
At 5:30 you'll pass Hollis in the parking lot holding a bag shaped exactly like a box fan, and by 5:34 you'll be pricing space heaters on your phone. What you're avoiding is one sentence: 'Can we pick a number?' Today's instruction: walk back in, find Hollis and say seventy. Then let it be seventy. You are a person, not a load-bearing wall.
DO
- Say seventy to Hollis
- Wear the cardigan at work
- Let seventy stay seventy
DON'T
- Touch the thermostat again
- Price space heaters at 5:34
- Sweat at 74 to prove a point
Construction crew paves around you.
You refuse the 8:05 detour so completely that by 3:30 the road crew paves a lane around you.
At 8:05 a ROAD CLOSED sawhorse appears on your usual route, and you will not take the detour. You'll wait for the road to apologize. Foreman Luis explains it four times, then adds you to the crew's lunch order. By 3:30 the city decides it's cheaper to pave around you than move you, and your stubbornness becomes a curve on Google Maps. Hold your ground until the asphalt sets.
DO
- Park yourself at the sawhorse
- Critique the crew's sandwich place
- Hold until the asphalt sets
DON'T
- Even glance at the detour
- Sign Luis's liability waiver
- Answer to 'Traffic Cone'
At 8:05 Thursday morning a ROAD CLOSED sawhorse will appear on the route you've taken every single day since roughly the Obama administration. An orange arrow points to a detour. You, a creature of habit chiseled from one slab of municipal granite, will not take the detour. Hell, you won't even look at it. You'll stop at the sawhorse and wait for the road to apologize.
A stranger in a hard hat figures prominently. That's Luis, the foreman, who will explain the detour four times in two languages and one set of increasingly desperate hand signals. By noon his crew will stop explaining and start adding you to their lunch order. You'll critique the sandwich place. They'll switch sandwich places. Avoid signing contracts, especially the liability waiver Luis keeps sliding toward you.
By 3:30 the city will decide it's cheaper to pour a little asphalt horseshoe around you than to move you, and the crew will pave a lane that curves politely around your exact position, like you're a protected oak. Your stubbornness becomes infrastructure. It'll be on Google Maps by Friday. Hold your ground until the asphalt sets, then leave at your normal time. Lucky number: 40, the minutes the hot mix needs to cool. Lucky color: traffic-cone orange, also your new nickname.
DO
- Park yourself at the sawhorse
- Critique the crew's sandwich place
- Hold until the asphalt sets
DON'T
- Even glance at the detour
- Sign Luis's liability waiver
- Answer to 'Traffic Cone'
-
Gemini
Elevator logbook will expose you.
Your elevator stall becomes a hatch-climbing epic by 3:00, until the technician posts the logbook: thirty-eight seconds.
Mercury, your ruler, squares Jupiter today, the planet that inflates everything, so the elevator stalls for forty seconds at 10:20 and by 3:00, in your telling, you've climbed out a hatch while the salad man prayed. Then retrograde Uranus in your sign reverses it: at 4:45 the technician tapes the service logbook to the lobby wall. Thirty-eight seconds. Complaint filed by you. Stop the story at forty seconds.
DO
- Stop at forty seconds
- Let the salad man talk
- Read the logbook before lunch
DON'T
- Add a hatch
- Quote the salad man's mother
- File a complaint about the logbook
Your ruler Mercury is in Scorpio in your 6th house of the daily grind, squaring bloated gas giant Jupiter in Leo, the planet that makes everything bigger. So at 10:20 the elevator at work will pause between the 4th and 5th floors for roughly forty seconds, with you and a man holding a salad inside. By 11:00 you will have told the break room it was twenty minutes and the salad man prayed.
Jupiter sits in your 3rd house of texting with Mars right beside it, so the story will travel. By 1:30 the elevator ran out of air. By 3:00 the 9th floor has heard about a hatch, and that you climbed through the damn thing. You will not correct a single version. You will, in fact, add the part where the salad man asked you to tell his mother something.
Sky prankster Uranus is retrograde in your own sign, and retrograde Uranus loves a reversal. At 4:45 the elevator technician will tape the service logbook to the lobby wall: Car 2, 10:20, stopped thirty-eight seconds, no injuries, one complaint filed, by you. The salad man will be standing next to it, eating the salad. Stop the story at forty seconds.
DO
- Stop at forty seconds
- Let the salad man talk
- Read the logbook before lunch
DON'T
- Add a hatch
- Quote the salad man's mother
- File a complaint about the logbook
IT will close your tabs.
At 10:30 IT restarts your laptop, all eighty-seven tabs close, and by 2:00 nobody notices a difference, including you.
Mercury is squaring Jupiter from your house of the daily grind, and the material is your eighty-seven open tabs. At 10:30 IT forces a restart and takes them all: the sweater, the Hanseatic League, the email that began 'Quick thought.' By 2:00 nobody, including you, notices any difference. When the warning appears, let it happen. Those tabs were your other personalities, cheating on each other.
DO
- Let the restart happen
- Tell everyone about the sweater
- Close the Hanseatic League
DON'T
- Make a folder called IMPORTANT DO NOT
- Send anything starting 'Quick thought'
- Hold a funeral for tabs
Twitchy, overbooked Mercury is in your house of the daily grind and squaring more-is-more Jupiter, which means the material we're working with today is your eighty-seven open tabs. At 10:30 IT will push a mandatory restart. You will have four minutes. You'll spend them dragging tabs into a folder named 'IMPORTANT DO NOT,' and at 10:34 the screen will go black and take all of them: three recipes, a sweater, a Wikipedia article about the Hanseatic League you opened in August, and a half-written email that began 'Quick thought.'
By noon you won't remember what a single tab was for, and nobody, including you, will notice any difference in your output. At 3:15 you'll text three friends, 'what was I telling you about yesterday?' All three will answer 'the sweater,' and none will ask a follow-up. In therapy we'd call the tabs an externalized nervous system. Plain English: you outsourced your personality to a browser, and the browser quit.
Tonight at 9:00 you'll open a fresh window, feel a kind of peace, and by 9:20 have forty-one tabs again, starting with the Hanseatic League, which you will still not read. Today's instruction: when the restart warning appears, let it happen. Grieve nothing. They were never your friends. They were your other personalities, and every one of them was cheating on the others.
DO
- Let the restart happen
- Tell everyone about the sweater
- Close the Hanseatic League
DON'T
- Make a folder called IMPORTANT DO NOT
- Send anything starting 'Quick thought'
- Hold a funeral for tabs
Your reviews will meet tonight.
Your five-star and one-star reviews of Tacos Lupita meet tonight, taped to the register under a sign: SAME GUY.
At 12:20 you give Tacos Lupita five stars and 'transcendent' twice. At 9:10 your burner, SalsaTruthTeller, gives the same carnitas one star: 'tastes like a DMV feels.' By 11:45 Lupita has taped both reviews to the register under a hand-lettered sign: SAME GUY. You spelled it 'halapeeno' both times. Pick one face before Friday's lunch.
DO
- Order the carnitas at 12:20
- Log out of SalsaTruthTeller
- Pick one face by Friday
DON'T
- Use 'transcendent' twice
- Reply to Lupita from either account
- Leave a review of the sign
At 12:20 Thursday you'll eat the carnitas at Tacos Lupita and leave a five-star review so lush it uses 'transcendent' twice and 'abuela' once, despite never having met anyone's abuela. You'll mean every word. Well. One of you will.
At 9:10 p.m. the other one of you, the one running a burner account called SalsaTruthTeller, will log on and give the same carnitas one star: 'tastes like a DMV feels.' You'll mean that too. Romance is in the air, but it's between your two personalities, and it's the kind your friends stage interventions about.
A stranger will read both. The stranger is Lupita. By 11:45, mopping up after close, she'll print the two reviews and tape them side by side on the register under a hand-lettered sign that says SAME GUY. Your burner never posted a photo. It didn't need to. You spelled it 'halapeeno' both times. Compatibility: high with Lupita, who now has your number. Pick one face before Friday's lunch and order the number three like a regular human. Lucky number: 2. Lucky color: the yellow of the highlighter circling both typos.
DO
- Order the carnitas at 12:20
- Log out of SalsaTruthTeller
- Pick one face by Friday
DON'T
- Use 'transcendent' twice
- Reply to Lupita from either account
- Leave a review of the sign
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Cancer
Neighbors will leave you laundry.
You fold a stranger's abandoned dryer load at 7:10, and by 10:00 four neighbors have left baskets for you.
The Moon, your ruler, sits in your 6th house of chores trine Jupiter, so at 7:10 you find a stranger's cold load in dryer three, fold every towel in thirds and leave a sticky note hoping their week gets easier. Saturn in your 10th makes it a career: by 10:00 four neighbors' baskets are waiting, one marked 'mom, delicates please.' Stop matching strangers' socks.
DO
- Walk past dryer three
- Keep your quarters
- Let the hoodie stay damp
DON'T
- Leave an encouraging sticky note
- Fold anything in thirds
- Answer to 'mom' in the elevator
Your ruler, the moody Moon, is in Sagittarius in your 6th house of chores and the daily grind, trine Jupiter, the planet of more. At 7:10 tonight, in your building's basement laundry room, you will find a stranger's load sitting in dryer three, cold, wrinkling. You will not be able to leave it. By 7:25 every towel will be folded in thirds and every sock will have found its partner.
Jupiter and Mars are both in your 2nd house of money, so you will also feed the dryer two dollars in quarters to re-fluff a hoodie that felt damp, and leave a sticky note on top: 'Didn't want these to wrinkle! Hope your week gets easier.' You don't know their week. You've decided it's hard. You will walk upstairs feeling like a lighthouse.
Saturn retrograde in your 10th house of career turns it into a job by 10:00: four neighbors will have left full baskets beside dryer three, one with a note reading 'mom, delicates please,' and the man in 2A will have taped your sticky note inside the elevator under the words 'WHO IS THIS.' You will fold all four. Stop matching socks for people whose names you don't know.
DO
- Walk past dryer three
- Keep your quarters
- Let the hoodie stay damp
DON'T
- Leave an encouraging sticky note
- Fold anything in thirds
- Answer to 'mom' in the elevator
Your phone will demand sacrifice.
Your phone hits storage full at 9:20, so you delete the bus app to save 1,100 screenshotted compliments.
With the Moon in your house of daily chores, the material is maintenance. At 9:20 your phone hits Storage Full, and after a tearful lunch you protect 1,100 screenshotted compliments and 640 identical sunsets by deleting the bus app. At 6:05 it rains. You walk forty minutes home in wet socks and screenshot the weather. Delete one sunset. It's the same sunset. It set.
DO
- Delete one sunset
- Let Maureen take the pens
- Check the sky before 6:05
DON'T
- Delete the bus app
- Defend the blue pen
- Screenshot the rain for posterity
A sliver-thin, sentimental Moon sits in your house of daily chores today, so the material we're working with is maintenance. At 9:20 your phone will announce Storage Almost Full. It will ask you to delete something. You have 1,100 screenshots of nice texts people sent you, 640 photos of the same sunset, and a voice memo of a waiter singing happy birthday to a stranger in 2018. By 12:45, after a long and tearful session, you'll delete the bus app.
Clinically, we'd call this archival attachment: you don't keep memories, you keep custody of them. At 3:00 it will spread to your desk, when Maureen from the next pod offers to toss the dried-out pens in your pen cup, and you'll explain, voice catching, that the blue one signed Doug's retirement card. Maureen will back away slowly, holding nothing.
At 6:05 it will start raining, and you will reach for the bus app you sacrificed to a sunset. You'll walk the forty minutes home in wet socks, and when you arrive you'll take a screenshot of the weather, for the album. Today's instruction: delete one sunset. Just one. It's the same sunset. It set.
DO
- Delete one sunset
- Let Maureen take the pens
- Check the sky before 6:05
DON'T
- Delete the bus app
- Defend the blue pen
- Screenshot the rain for posterity
Librarian will pry it loose.
At 5:55 you can't let go of an eleven-times-renewed paperback, so librarian Pam comes outside and pries it loose.
You finish 'The Keeper of Gull Point,' the 1987 lighthouse paperback you've renewed eleven times, at 4:20, and you'll need to sit down on the kitchen floor. At 5:55 you're at the library return slot, unable to release it, until Pam the librarian comes outside and pries it from your claws in three tugs, then hands you a sleeve tissue. Let go of the book.
DO
- Read page 312 sitting down
- Leave the next reader a note
- Accept Pam's sleeve tissue
DON'T
- Attempt a twelfth renewal
- Voice-memo your friends at 5:15
- Call the book 'him' near Pam
The paperback is due back at 6:00 Thursday. You know the one: 'The Keeper of Gull Point,' a 1987 lighthouse romance with a cracked spine, a Sizzler coupon for a bookmark and eleven renewals in the library system. You've been reading two pages a night so it would never end. Today it ends. Page 312 arrives at 4:20, and you'll have to sit down on your own kitchen floor.
You'll cry, obviously. You are the zodiac's leaky crab, a sentimental shellfish who once held a small service for a sourdough starter. By 5:00 you'll have written the next reader a note on an index card, 'Take care of him,' because the book is a him now. A friend who texts 'drinks?' at 5:15 will receive a voice memo that is ninety seconds of sniffling and one seagull impression.
At 5:55 you'll stand at the return slot like it's a war-movie train platform. A stranger figures prominently: Pam, the librarian, sixty-one, who has seen worse, will come outside, take hold of the far end and pry. It takes three tugs. She'll hand you a receipt and a tissue from her cardigan sleeve, which she keeps there for you specifically. Let go of the book, crab. Lucky number: 11, the renewals the system now refuses. Lucky color: the tea-stained beige of a page that loved you back.
DO
- Read page 312 sitting down
- Leave the next reader a note
- Accept Pam's sleeve tissue
DON'T
- Attempt a twelfth renewal
- Voice-memo your friends at 5:15
- Call the book 'him' near Pam
-
Leo
Applause will mean it's over.
You sing all eight and a half minutes of 'American Pie,' and the standing ovation is for the ending.
Mars and Jupiter in your sign, plus the Sun sextile Jupiter at 0.3 degrees: at 10:31 karaoke you select the full eight-minute 'American Pie,' invent a key change and slow-clap the neighbors from 2C into the chorus. At 10:40 the room rises and roars. On the walk home you realize the ovation began the second it ended. Pick a song under three minutes.
DO
- Pick a song under three minutes
- Leave the key alone
- Notice Marcy's coat
DON'T
- Choose the full version
- Slow-clap the neighbors
- Bow a third time
Mars and Jupiter are both parked in your sign, in your 1st house of self, and the Sun, your ruler, is sextile show-off Jupiter at an orb of 0.3 degrees, which is astrology for 'nobody can stop this.' At 10:31, at Thursday karaoke in the bar two blocks from your place, you will select 'American Pie.' The full version. Eight and a half minutes.
With the Sun in your 3rd house of neighbors, the audience will be people you have to see again: the couple from 2C, the guy who walks the greyhound, and Marcy from the mailroom. Mars trine Saturn gives you stamina you did not earn, so you will do every verse, the key change you invented, and a slow-clap breakdown at the 'Bye, bye' part that nobody agreed to join.
At 10:40 the room will rise to its feet and roar. You will bow twice. It will take you until the walk home to understand that the standing ovation began the exact second the song ended, and that Marcy was already putting on her coat. The Moon in your 5th trines Jupiter, so you'll sign up again for Saturday. Pick a song under three minutes and leave the key alone.
DO
- Pick a song under three minutes
- Leave the key alone
- Notice Marcy's coat
DON'T
- Choose the full version
- Slow-clap the neighbors
- Bow a third time
Dental lobby will witness everything.
At 1:15 you primp in a dark window, and it's a dental lobby with nine witnesses and a thumbs-up.
Mars and Jupiter are crowding your first house, so the self is running at 140 percent. At 1:15 you fix your hair in a dark window for twelve seconds, chin tilt, secret eyebrow thing, and it's the front window of a dental lobby with nine witnesses. One gives a thumbs-up. By 2:30 you're calling it 'a crowd gathered.' Walk past one window without looking.
DO
- Walk past one window
- Tell the story accurately
- Look away from the microwave
DON'T
- Call it 'a crowd gathered'
- Do the eyebrow thing outdoors
- Ask the thumbs-up guy out
Two planets are crowding your first house today, hot-tempered Mars and supersizing Jupiter, so the material we're working with is the self, at roughly 140 percent scale. At 1:15, walking back from lunch, you'll stop at a dark ground-floor window to fix your hair. You'll take your time. Twelve seconds. A chin tilt. The thing with your eyebrow you think nobody knows about. Then the glass will turn out to be the front window of a dental office lobby, and nine people will have watched the whole routine from padded chairs. One of them will give you a thumbs-up.
Here's what will come up for you: not shame. Pride. By 2:30 you'll have told three coworkers the story, framing it as 'a crowd gathered,' and by 3:00 you'll be wondering if the thumbs-up guy wants your number. In the literature this is called mirror hunger. In your case it's an all-you-can-eat buffet.
Tonight at 8:40 you'll catch your reflection in the dark microwave door and hold eye contact longer than you've held anyone's. That's between you and the microwave. Today's instruction: walk past one window without looking. Just one. Nine people in a dental lobby are begging you.
DO
- Walk past one window
- Tell the story accurately
- Look away from the microwave
DON'T
- Call it 'a crowd gathered'
- Do the eyebrow thing outdoors
- Ask the thumbs-up guy out
You'll sign as billboard Kurt.
At 3:15 a stranger asks for your autograph, mistaking you for billboard lawyer Kurt, and you sign as Kurt.
At 3:15 in the pharmacy line a woman says 'Oh my God, are you—' and you're signing before she finishes. She means Kurt, from the HURT? CALL KURT billboard on Route 9. You sign her battery receipt as Kurt anyway, do the thumbs-up, and by 6:30 you've practiced his catchphrase forty times in a mirror. Stop saying it to the mailman.
DO
- Sign the battery receipt
- Nail the thumbs-up
- Accept the jerky-bag fame
DON'T
- Answer the landlord question
- Study Kurt's better angle
- Say 'Hurt? Call Kurt' to the mailman
At 3:15 Thursday, in the pharmacy line, a woman holding a 24-pack of AA batteries will squint at you and say, 'Oh my God, are you—' and you'll have a pen out before she finds the end of the sentence. Mars and Jupiter are both parked in your sign today, which is why your ego has two engines and no brakes. She meant Kurt. Frosted-tips injury lawyer Kurt, from the Route 9 billboard: HURT? CALL KURT.
You'll sign the battery receipt 'Kurt.' You'll do the thumbs-up. Romance is in the air: at 5:00 a man at the gas station will tell you his wife loves your commercials, and you'll sign his bag of beef jerky too. By 6:30 you'll have practiced the catchphrase forty times in the bathroom mirror and discovered Kurt's good angle is better than yours, which stings worse than anything Kurt has ever sued over.
At 7:40 a stranger will ask you, Kurt, whether she can sue her landlord over a loose stair, and you will open your mouth to answer. Close it. You are not Kurt. Kurt has a law degree and a billboard; you have a receipt and a thumb. Stop saying 'Hurt? Call Kurt' to the mailman. Lucky number: 9, the route Kurt owns and you never will. Lucky color: billboard-teeth white.
DO
- Sign the battery receipt
- Nail the thumbs-up
- Accept the jerky-bag fame
DON'T
- Answer the landlord question
- Study Kurt's better angle
- Say 'Hurt? Call Kurt' to the mailman
-
Virgo
Trail camera will catch you.
At 7:22 Carol's trail camera catches you Dewey-decimaling the Little Free Library, and by 8:00 Nextdoor has the footage.
Mercury, your ruler, sits in your 3rd house of neighbors while Mars and Jupiter hide in your 12th house of secrets, so the secret gets huge: at 7:22 Carol's trail camera catches you relabeling the corner Little Free Library by Dewey Decimal, headlamp on. By 8:00 Nextdoor has it, captioned 'GERALD IS REAL.' Doug finds a wrong label. Let Gerald be wrong once.
DO
- Leave 641.3 alone
- Dim the headlamp
- Answer to Gerald
DON'T
- Fix the label at 11:00
- Reply to Doug
- Correct the caption's punctuation
Your ruler Mercury is in Scorpio in your 3rd house of neighbors, Venus retrograde beside it, and that is why at 7:15 tonight you will once again slip out to the Little Free Library on the corner with a label maker and a headlamp. Six weeks you've been at this. Fiction by author, nonfiction by Dewey Decimal, laminated spines. The neighborhood thinks it's a ghost. Carol from the blue house has named it Gerald.
Mars and Jupiter are both hiding in your 12th house of secrets, and Mercury squares Jupiter, so the secret gets big fast. At 7:22 a motion-activated trail camera Carol zip-tied to the maple will catch you, headlamp on, mid-relabel, hissing at a James Patterson someone filed under poetry. By 8:00 the footage is on Nextdoor, captioned 'GERALD IS REAL,' with ninety-one comments.
The Moon in your 4th house keeps you home by 8:30 with the blinds down, reading all ninety-one comments. The worst won't mention trespassing. It will be Doug from Elm Street, zooming in to note that your label puts a cookbook at 641.3 instead of 641.5. He's right. Saturn retrograde in your 8th will drag you back out at 11:00 to fix it, on camera. Leave the label. Let Gerald be wrong once.
DO
- Leave 641.3 alone
- Dim the headlamp
- Answer to Gerald
DON'T
- Fix the label at 11:00
- Reply to Doug
- Correct the caption's punctuation
Abernathy will catch lap sixty.
At 9:50 you're pacing the hallway to hit your step goal, and Mr. Abernathy opens his door on lap sixty.
Hair-splitting Mercury squares Jupiter, so today's critic is bigger than you, and it lives in your phone. At 3:00 a cartoon flame tells you to 'keep going!' and you take it personally. At 9:50 you're pacing the hallway, 2,000 steps short, when Mr. Abernathy opens his door on lap sixty and takes his recycling back inside. When it buzzes again, sit down.
DO
- Sit down when it buzzes
- Accept 3,912 steps
- Nod at Mr. Abernathy
DON'T
- Argue with a cartoon flame
- Return docs with sixty-three changes
- Turn crisply at the fire extinguisher
Hair-splitting Mercury sits in your house of neighbors today, squaring supersized Jupiter, so the material we're working with is a critic bigger than you. It lives in your phone. At 3:00 your fitness app will buzz to inform you that you've taken 3,912 steps and suggest, with a little cartoon flame, that you 'keep going!' You will take this the way everyone else takes your notes: personally.
At 9:50 tonight you'll be 2,000 steps short and too proud to go outside, so you'll pace your building's hallway. Back and forth. Counting. On lap sixty, Mr. Abernathy from across the hall will open his door with a bag of recycling, stop, and watch you turn crisply at the fire extinguisher. Neither of you will speak. What's to say? He will take the recycling back inside.
At 4:15 Ines will open the doc you returned with sixty-three tracked changes, and somewhere inside her a little cartoon flame will say 'keep going!' This is called empathy, and you'll feel it for nine seconds. Today's instruction: when the flame buzzes again, sit down. Let an app be disappointed in you. You've been that flame to everyone you know.
DO
- Sit down when it buzzes
- Accept 3,912 steps
- Nod at Mr. Abernathy
DON'T
- Argue with a cartoon flame
- Return docs with sixty-three changes
- Turn crisply at the fire extinguisher
Missing piece is on you.
You spend Thursday hunting the break-room puzzle's missing piece, and at 4:58 it falls out of your own cuff.
At 12:05 you find the break-room balloon puzzle finished except for one piece of sky, and your eyelid starts twitching at 12:06. By 2:45 the whole floor has a calendar invite titled 'Puzzle Accountability.' At 4:58, mid-accusation in an empty conference room, the missing piece drops out of your own cardigan cuff. Place it, say nothing, and go home.
DO
- Search behind the copier
- Place the piece silently
- Cancel the invite by 5:01
DON'T
- Title anything 'Accountability'
- Point at anyone
- Check your own cuff first
At 12:05 Thursday you'll walk into the break room and find the 1,000-piece hot-air-balloon puzzle finished. Almost. Nine hundred and ninety-nine pieces, and one hole, dead center, in the sky. Someone has abandoned an unfinished sky in a shared space, and at 12:06 your left eyelid will start twitching in Morse code.
By 1:30 you'll have searched under the fridge, inside the recycling and in the dark gap behind the copier that nobody has entered since 2019. By 2:45 you'll send the entire floor a calendar invite titled 'Puzzle Accountability.' Seven people accept. Nobody attends. A Gemini from sales declines with a GIF of a raccoon. Compatibility: hostile with everyone who has ever touched the box.
At 4:58, deep into your closing statement to an empty conference room, you'll raise your arm to point at nobody, and a little blue piece of sky will drop out of your own cardigan cuff and click onto the table. It's been riding there since Tuesday. The call is coming from inside the cuff. Place the piece, say nothing, and go home before anyone opens the invite. Lucky number: 999. Lucky color: the deeply unremarkable blue of the piece you hid from yourself.
DO
- Search behind the copier
- Place the piece silently
- Cancel the invite by 5:01
DON'T
- Title anything 'Accountability'
- Point at anyone
- Check your own cuff first
-
Libra BIRTHDAY SEASON
You'll hang the hideous portrait.
Marisol paints you a lime-green heron-necked birthday portrait, and by 9:40 it's replaced your entire gallery wall.
The Sun in your sign sextiles Jupiter in your 11th house of friends, so at 6:30 Marisol gives you a three-by-four-foot oil portrait: heron neck, lime background. Venus, your ruler, is retrograde in your house of possessions, and you hear yourself say 'I know exactly where this goes.' By 9:40 it's replaced your gallery wall. Hang it and never mention the neck.
DO
- Say 'I love it' once
- Put the laser level away
- Smile at the heron
DON'T
- Say where it goes
- Mention the neck
- Ask whether there's a series
The Sun is in your sign, it's your season, and it's sextile Jupiter in your 11th house of friends at a third of a degree, with Mars in there too. Friends will be generous today. Too generous. At 6:30, at your birthday-month dinner, Marisol will present you with a three-by-four-foot oil portrait of you, painted from a photo. You will have a neck like a heron. The background will be lime.
Your ruler, lovely unreliable Venus, is retrograde in your 2nd house of possessions and what you think you're worth, squaring Pluto, so your taste goes on trial. The gallery wall above your couch took you two years and a laser level. At 6:34, with the whole table watching, you will hear yourself say 'I know exactly where this goes.' You do. It's the gallery wall.
Saturn retrograde in your 7th house of partners and contracts turns a polite sentence into a binding agreement. By 9:40 eleven framed prints will be in a closet, the heron will be over the couch, and Marisol will be texting the group chat a photo of it with the caption 'obsessed with it.' She'll visit monthly. Hang it, smile at it, and never once mention the neck.
DO
- Say 'I love it' once
- Put the laser level away
- Smile at the heron
DON'T
- Say where it goes
- Mention the neck
- Ask whether there's a series
Your accent will defect today.
On the 11:00 call with Fiona from Glasgow, your accent defects by 11:06, and she asks which part of Scotland.
The Sun is in your sign, and the self it's lighting up is a mirror with good posture. At 11:00 you join a call with Fiona from Glasgow; by 11:06 your vowels defect, and at 11:30 she politely asks which part of Scotland you're from. At 12:40 you order the stranger's sandwich. Use your own voice on the call. Fiona already has one.
DO
- Use your own vowels
- Order your own sandwich
- Give Odette an actual opinion
DON'T
- Call a spreadsheet 'wee'
- Disown tomatoes to fit in
- Name a Scottish town under pressure
The flattering birthday-season Sun is sitting in your sign, which in session we'd frame as a day to center your sense of self. Unfortunately the self in question is a mirror with good posture. At 11:00 you'll join a call with Fiona from the Glasgow office. By 11:06 your vowels will have started to defect. By 11:15 you'll call a spreadsheet 'wee.' At 11:30 Fiona will pause, very politely, and ask which part of Scotland you're from, and the silence will last long enough to boil a kettle.
Clinically, this is called mirroring, and it's adorable in infants. At 12:40 it will continue at the sandwich counter, where you'll order exactly what the man ahead of you ordered, including 'no tomato, I'm weird about tomato,' a sentence you'll say about a fruit you love.
At 7:30, over dinner, Odette will ask what you actually think about the apartment she's considering, and you'll open your mouth and wait to see who comes out. Nobody will. Today's instruction: on the 11:00 call, use your own voice. Find out what it sounds like. Fiona already has one.
DO
- Use your own vowels
- Order your own sandwich
- Give Odette an actual opinion
DON'T
- Call a spreadsheet 'wee'
- Disown tomatoes to fit in
- Name a Scottish town under pressure
Your coin lands on edge.
You flip a couch quarter 212 times about Tomasz's party, and at 6:40 it lands on its edge.
At 9:30 you find a 1972 quarter in the couch and start flipping it for every decision. Tomasz's party tonight goes to best of three, then best of seven, then 'heads didn't feel right.' At 6:40, on flip 212, the coin lands on its edge and stays there, refusing to choose either. Pick it up and follow your shoes.
DO
- Keep the 1972 quarter
- Follow your shoes at 6:41
- Ice the flipping thumb
DON'T
- Call best of seven
- Re-flip because a pigeon watched
- Flip the coin about dessert
An unexpected windfall arrives at 9:30 Thursday: a 1972 quarter, wedged in the couch cushions. Twenty-five whole cents. It's Libra season, the Sun is lounging in your sign like a birthday clown who won't leave, and the universe has handed its most indecisive child a device for deciding. You will use it for everything. Toast or oatmeal: best of three. Socks: best of five.
The big one is Tomasz's party tonight, which you've RSVP'd 'maybe' to on three separate platforms. Heads, you go. You'll flip heads. Then you'll call best of three, then best of seven, then announce that heads 'didn't feel right,' then start over because a pigeon watched flip nineteen through the window. By 5:00 you'll have a callus on your thumb, and George Washington will have no nose.
At 6:40, on flip 212, the coin will land on its edge on the hardwood and stay there, upright, waiting for you to grow up. Even the quarter refuses to choose. Romance is in the air, eight blocks away, at a party without you. Pick up the quarter and go wherever your shoes are already pointing. Lucky number: 212. Lucky color: the tired silver of a coin that quit on you.
DO
- Keep the 1972 quarter
- Follow your shoes at 6:41
- Ice the flipping thumb
DON'T
- Call best of seven
- Re-flip because a pigeon watched
- Flip the coin about dessert
-
Scorpio
Yearbook will reveal 'Most Bubbly.'
New hire Owen opens his camp yearbook to you, voted 'Most Bubbly,' and by 4:00 Slack calls you Bubbles.
Pluto, your ruler, is retrograde in your 4th house of the past, squaring Venus in your sign, so at 2:16 new hire Owen pulls a 2009 Camp Wanakee yearbook from his bag and opens it to you in puffy-paint overalls, voted 'Most Bubbly.' Mars and Jupiter in your 10th supply the audience. By 4:00 your Slack name is Bubbles. Do not explain the overalls.
DO
- Answer to Bubbles with menace
- Learn Owen's middle name
- Wear the turtleneck harder
DON'T
- Explain the overalls
- Confirm Camp Wanakee
- Admit you still know the cheer
Mercury and Venus are both in your sign, Venus retrograde, which means the image you've built at work, the black turtleneck, the long silences, the way nobody knows your middle name, is about to be revised from the outside. At 2:15 Owen from procurement, new as of Monday, will stop at your desk, squint, and ask if you went to Camp Wanakee in 2009.
Your ruler, the underworld's landlord Pluto, is retrograde in your 4th house of the past, squared by Venus in your 1st, so the past arrives laminated. At 2:16 Owen will produce the camp yearbook from his bag, because Owen is the kind of man who carries a yearbook, and open to a page where you, in puffy-paint overalls, were voted 'Most Bubbly' by a landslide.
Mars and Jupiter in your 10th house of career guarantee an audience: by 2:30 four coworkers will be leaning over the page, and by 4:00 your Slack display name will have been changed to 'Bubbles' by someone in IT you have never met. Saturn retrograde in your 6th house of daily routine means it will still be there in April. Do not explain the overalls. Explaining is how they win.
DO
- Answer to Bubbles with menace
- Learn Owen's middle name
- Wear the turtleneck harder
DON'T
- Explain the overalls
- Confirm Camp Wanakee
- Admit you still know the cheer
Your vaguepost will collect confessions.
At 9:30 you vaguepost 'some people know what they did,' and by noon Dale confesses to the microwave dent.
Loose-lipped Mercury is in your sign, so at 9:30 you vaguepost 'Some people know what they did' over a photo of a fence. By noon the confessions arrive: Dale to the microwave dent, a former coworker to your yogurt, and Gwen to something you'd never heard of. At 11:15 you're still awake about Gwen. Text her two words: 'Meaning what?'
DO
- Text Gwen 'Meaning what?'
- Stare silently at Dale at 2:00
- Admit you didn't already know
DON'T
- Pretend you already knew
- Draft a tenth reply to Gwen
- Forgive the yogurt
Loose-lipped Mercury is parked in your first house, which means the material we're working with is expression, and you'll express yourself the only way you know how: as a threat with no return address. At 9:30 you'll post 'Some people know what they did' over a black-and-white photo of a fence. By noon, the confessions will arrive privately. Dale will confess to the dent in the break-room microwave. A former coworker will confess to eating your labeled yogurt in 2019. Gwen will apologize for something you'd never heard of and now can't stop thinking about.
In clinical terms the vaguepost is a bid for connection wearing a ski mask. What will come up for you at 2:00, in the staff meeting, is power: you'll look at Dale across the table and say nothing, and Dale will volunteer for the Q4 audit to make it stop.
At 11:15 tonight you'll still be awake about Gwen. What did she do? Who the hell with? You'll draft nine replies and send none, because sending one would admit you didn't already know. Today's instruction: text Gwen two words, 'Meaning what?' Let her find out you're not omniscient, just nosy.
DO
- Text Gwen 'Meaning what?'
- Stare silently at Dale at 2:00
- Admit you didn't already know
DON'T
- Pretend you already knew
- Draft a tenth reply to Gwen
- Forgive the yogurt
You'll storm into a closet.
At 2:30 you deliver your perfect exit line and storm into the supply closet, where you stay twenty-five minutes.
At 2:30 someone calls your idea 'a little intense,' and you deliver the exit line you've rehearsed for years and stride out the wrong door, into the supply closet. You stay among the toner for twenty-five minutes rather than admit it, then emerge at 3:05 carrying a ream of paper like that was the plan. Next time, check the hinges first.
DO
- Rehearse the exit line
- Grab the printer paper
- Check the hinges first
DON'T
- Answer Brenda's knock
- Come out empty-handed
- Forward your mail to the closet
At 2:30 Thursday, in a meeting about the new expense software, someone will call your idea 'a little intense.' You won't argue. With Mercury and Venus both camped in your sign, your delivery will be flawless: you'll rise slowly, say 'Then I'll leave you to it,' and stride to the door with the gait of a Bond villain whose lair just got rezoned.
It's the wrong door. It's the supply closet. It shuts behind you with a soft institutional click, and through it you'll hear Brenda from payroll say, 'Should we knock?' You will not come out. Coming out is weakness. You'll stand in the dark among the toner and the Post-its, breathing through your nose, rebuilding your entire revenge plan around the fact that you live here now.
At 3:05, twenty-five minutes later, you'll emerge holding a ream of printer paper as if fetching it was the plan all along, set it on the table and sit back down. Nobody will say a word. Everybody will tell everybody. Romance is in the air: the office manager, a Virgo, will thank you for restocking. Next time, check the hinges before the exit line. Lucky number: 25. Lucky color: the jaundiced beige of a light switch you couldn't find.
DO
- Rehearse the exit line
- Grab the printer paper
- Check the hinges first
DON'T
- Answer Brenda's knock
- Come out empty-handed
- Forward your mail to the closet
-
Sagittarius
Farewell cake will trap you.
The office throws a 4:00 farewell party for your invented alpaca move to New Zealand, and HR chipped in $212.
The Moon in your sign trines Jupiter, your ruler, in your 9th house of long journeys, so the New Zealand alpaca move you invented Tuesday comes due: a 4:00 farewell party, a cake shaped like both islands, $212 from Kendra in HR. Mercury and Venus hide the truth in your 12th: no passport, no alpacas. Before 9:00 tomorrow, produce one alpaca.
DO
- Learn which island is which
- Thank everyone who chipped in
- Produce one alpaca by 9:00
DON'T
- Mention the passport
- Give the follow-your-heart speech
- Come back in at 9:00 tomorrow
The Moon is in your sign today, trine your ruler, big-talking Jupiter, who sits in your 9th house of long journeys and big beliefs with Mars beside him. So: on Tuesday at lunch you announced you were moving to New Zealand to raise alpacas, and today at 4:00 the office will throw you a going-away party. There will be a sheet cake in the shape of both islands.
Mercury and Venus are both in your 12th house of secrets, and the secret is that you have no passport, no alpacas and no idea which island is which. You will not say this. At 4:20 Kendra from HR will hand you a card with $212 in it for 'the flight,' and you will give a speech about following your heart that makes the facilities guy tear up.
Saturn retrograde in your 5th house of fun sends the bill for the bit at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow, when you walk back in, sit down at your desk, and open your laptop in front of everyone who chipped in. Nobody will say a goddamn word. Kendra will eat the leftover North Island while maintaining eye contact. Before 9:00 tomorrow, produce one alpaca.
DO
- Learn which island is which
- Thank everyone who chipped in
- Produce one alpaca by 9:00
DON'T
- Mention the passport
- Give the follow-your-heart speech
- Come back in at 9:00 tomorrow
Bettina will sell you forever.
You call to cancel a free trial at 2:15, and Bettina sells you a year by calling it 'a journey.'
The Moon in your sign trines Jupiter, and the material is your allergy to 'forever.' At 2:15 you call to cancel a free trial, and Bettina calls the annual plan 'a journey.' By 2:31 you've bought it, plus the travel add-on. You don't do labels, but you'll do twelve months of Italian. Say no in Italian. You never learned how.
DO
- Say no before 'journey'
- Learn 'no' in Italian first
- Hang up at 2:16
DON'T
- Buy the travel add-on
- Call it a twelve-month thing
- Let Bettina describe a passport
A restless crescent Moon is in your sign today, trining expansive Jupiter, so the material we're working with is your relationship to the word 'forever.' At 2:15 you'll call to cancel a free trial of a language app you opened twice. You'll get Bettina. Bettina has done this before. She won't say 'commitment.' She'll say 'journey.' She'll say 'twelve months of discovery.' By 2:31 you'll have signed up for the annual plan, plus the travel add-on, because she called it a passport.
Here's what will come up for you. You've spent years telling everyone who's ever liked you that you 'don't do labels,' and at 4:00 you'll tell a coworker you're 'in a twelve-month thing' with an Italian course, and glow. Attachment theory would call you avoidant. Bettina would call you a lead.
At 9:10 the app will chirp that your daily lesson is waiting, and you'll feel the walls close in exactly the way they do when anyone asks where this is going. You'll mute it. Today's instruction: at 2:15, before Bettina speaks, say no in Italian. You never learned how. Bettina's counting on that.
DO
- Say no before 'journey'
- Learn 'no' in Italian first
- Hang up at 2:16
DON'T
- Buy the travel add-on
- Call it a twelve-month thing
- Let Bettina describe a passport
Corn maze will keep you.
You laugh at the corn maze map at 5:52, and nine-year-old Brayden finally walks you out at 9:40.
At 5:52 you veer into a CORN MAZE $8 sign on pure instinct and laugh at the map nine-year-old Brayden offers. By 7:15 you've passed the same scarecrow six times and you're navigating by a crescent moon. At 9:40 Brayden finds you explaining freedom to the scarecrow and walks you out in four minutes. Take the map. Tip the child.
DO
- Pay the eight dollars
- Take Brayden's map
- Tip the child
DON'T
- Navigate by the Moon
- Trust the scarecrow twice
- Lecture the scarecrow on freedom
The Moon is in your sign today, so you'll feel like a free-range wind spirit, and at 5:30 Thursday you'll take 'the scenic way home,' a phrase you've used to justify every bad road of your life. At 5:52 a hand-painted sign reading CORN MAZE $8 will appear, and you'll veer in on pure instinct, because a horse doesn't need a reason.
Nine-year-old Brayden, the kid at the entrance with a flashlight and the dead eyes of someone who's seen too many dads, will offer you a map. You'll laugh at the map. You're the zodiac's escape artist, the one who leaves parties, leases and conversations mid-sentence; no field of feed corn is holding you. By 7:15 it's dark, you've passed the same scarecrow six times, and you're navigating by a crescent moon that is twenty-three percent lit and zero percent helpful.
At 9:40 Brayden will find you on a hay bale, explaining freedom to the scarecrow. He'll walk you out in four minutes. Four. A stranger will lead you to the exit, the tabloids promised that much; they just didn't mention he'd be holding a juice box. Take the map next time, and tip the child. Lucky number: 4. Lucky color: husk.
DO
- Pay the eight dollars
- Take Brayden's map
- Tip the child
DON'T
- Navigate by the Moon
- Trust the scarecrow twice
- Lecture the scarecrow on freedom
-
Capricorn
Movie night ends at dawn.
You start Jonah's ninety-eight-minute movie at 7:30, pause it for work every few minutes, and the credits roll at sunrise.
Saturn, your ruler, is retrograde in your 4th house of home, trine Mars, so at 7:30 you start the ninety-eight-minute movie Jonah's been begging about since March, laptop open 'just for alerts.' One email at 7:41. A rebuilt budget spreadsheet by 10:30. Credits at 7:06 a.m., with the sunrise. You cried at minute ninety-one. Close the laptop before you press play.
DO
- Close the laptop at 7:29
- Watch the door scene once
- Tell Jonah about minute ninety-one
DON'T
- Answer the 7:41 email
- Open the budget spreadsheet
- Text Jonah 'productive'
Your ruler, killjoy Saturn, is retrograde in Aries in your 4th house of home, which means tonight you will attempt to do something at home that isn't work. At 7:30 you will start a ninety-eight-minute movie your friend Jonah has been begging you to watch since March. You will have a blanket. You will have snacks. You will have your laptop open 'just for alerts.'
Mars trines Saturn at under half a degree, which gives you the discipline of a monk and the attention span of a fire alarm. You will pause at 7:41 for one email. At 8:05 for a vendor question. By 10:30 you will have rebuilt a shared budget spreadsheet, color-coded it, and pressed play again on a scene where the lead is still holding the same door.
The credits will roll at 7:06 a.m., right as the sun comes up over your neighbor's recycling. At 7:08 Jonah will text 'so???' and, with Mercury and Venus in your 11th house of friends, you will reply 'productive,' which is the nicest word you know. The Moon in your 12th house of secrets hides the rest: you cried at minute ninety-one. Close the laptop before you press play.
DO
- Close the laptop at 7:29
- Watch the door scene once
- Tell Jonah about minute ninety-one
DON'T
- Answer the 7:41 email
- Open the budget spreadsheet
- Text Jonah 'productive'
Trampoline park will hire you.
At 4:30 you're holding everyone's shoes at a trampoline park, and by 5:10 you're doing the staff schedule.
Saturn is retrograde in your house of childhood, and your inner child has a briefcase. At 4:00 you stand at the edge of a friend's trampoline-park birthday holding everyone's sneakers. At 4:30 Kaden asks if you're the new shift manager, and by 5:10 you've rebuilt their schedule with break coverage. Hand Kaden the sneakers. Take off the work shoes. Jump once.
DO
- Hand Kaden the sneakers
- Take off the work shoes
- Jump exactly once
DON'T
- Ask Deb about benefits
- Reply 'in a meeting' from a party
- Color-code a stranger's payroll
Disapproving-grandfather Saturn is retrograde in your house of childhood, so today's session is about your inner child. Brace yourself: he has a briefcase. At 4:00 a friend's birthday will be held at a trampoline park, and you'll stand at the edge in work shoes holding everyone else's sneakers. At 4:30 a teenager named Kaden in a staff polo will ask if you're the new shift manager. You'll say no. Then you'll notice their schedule is handwritten, and by 5:10 you'll have redone it as a color-coded rota with break coverage.
At 5:40 the actual manager, Deb, will arrive, look at your rota, and offer you weekends. You'll ask about benefits. The birthday friend will text from the foam pit, 'are you coming in??' and you'll reply 'in a meeting.' Clinically, this is called a flight into competence. You were one jump away from fun and you chose payroll.
Tonight at 9:30 you'll reread Deb's email, subject line 'Weekends??', four times, feeling, for the first time all year, wanted. Today's instruction: at 4:00, hand Kaden the sneakers, take off the work shoes and get on the trampoline. Jump once. Your inner child has been waiting since kindergarten for a recess that isn't a calendar block.
DO
- Hand Kaden the sneakers
- Take off the work shoes
- Jump exactly once
DON'T
- Ask Deb about benefits
- Reply 'in a meeting' from a party
- Color-code a stranger's payroll
You'll write up the vacuum.
You win a robot vacuum at 11:00, put it on a performance improvement plan by 7:45, and it quits.
At 11:00 you win the office raffle: a robot vacuum. By 7:20 it's been stuck under the couch four times and eaten a sock, so at 7:45 you put it on a performance improvement plan with three measurable goals. At 10:40 it rolls into the hall closet and won't come out. It's quiet-quitting you. Leave the door open.
DO
- Annotate the CleanBot manual
- Print two copies of the plan
- Leave the closet door open
DON'T
- Schedule a thirty-day review
- Demand its signature
- Counteroffer the vacuum
An unexpected windfall: at 11:00 Thursday you'll win the office raffle, which you entered only because the ticket was free and free is your favorite price. The prize is a robot vacuum called, according to the box, the CleanBot Elite 3. You'll read the entire manual on the way home. You'll annotate it. You'll find two errors.
By 7:20 the CleanBot will have wedged itself under the couch four times, eaten a sock and spent eleven minutes ramming the same baseboard with the confidence of a junior vice president. At 7:45 you'll sit it down, metaphorically, and put it on a performance improvement plan: three measurable goals, a thirty-day review window and a signature line the damn thing cannot sign. You'll print two copies. One goes on the charging dock.
At 10:40, mid-review, the CleanBot will roll silently into the hall closet and refuse to come out, blinking red. It isn't broken. It's quiet-quitting. It's the first employee ever to quit you to your face, and it lasted under twelve hours, which beats most of your interns. Compatibility: low with anything that has a battery and boundaries. Leave the closet door open and let it return on its own terms. Lucky number: 30, the days on the plan. Lucky color: the red blink of a machine that found its line.
DO
- Annotate the CleanBot manual
- Print two copies of the plan
- Leave the closet door open
DON'T
- Schedule a thirty-day review
- Demand its signature
- Counteroffer the vacuum
-
Aquarius
Rule 14b will betray you.
At 8:20 Kofi wins your homemade anti-capitalist board game on turn one by buying everything under rule 14b.
Uranus, your ruler, is retrograde in your 5th house of creativity, so at 8:00 you debut Commons, your homemade cooperative critique of capitalism, forty-page rulebook read aloud. Mars and Jupiter in your 7th house of open enemies hand Kofi the loophole: at 8:20, turn one, rule 14b, he buys the river and declares himself CEO. The table upholds it. Concede, then rewrite 14b.
DO
- Concede to CEO Kofi
- Rewrite rule 14b tonight
- Let Kofi be the banker
DON'T
- Read all forty pages aloud
- Call 14b satire
- Unionize the bakery mid-game
Your ruler, garage-inventor Uranus, is retrograde in Gemini in your 5th house of creativity and fun you can't afford, which is why at 8:00 tonight you will debut the board game you've been building since July. It's called Commons. It's cooperative. It's a critique of late capitalism with a hand-drawn map, ninety cards and a forty-page rulebook you will insist on reading aloud.
Mars and Jupiter are both in your 7th house of partners and open enemies, and tonight they will be the same person: your friend Kofi, who doesn't read rulebooks, he reads loopholes. At 8:20, on turn one, Kofi will invoke rule 14b, which you wrote at 2 a.m. in August, buy the river, the bakery and the town hall, and declare himself CEO of Commons.
Pluto sits retrograde in your sign, squared by Venus, and Pluto is about who holds power. With the Moon in your 11th house of friends, the whole table will vote that Kofi's win stands. At 8:24 you will begin a thirty-minute explanation of why 14b was satire. They will start a second game. Monopoly. Kofi will be the banker. Concede graciously, then rewrite 14b tonight.
DO
- Concede to CEO Kofi
- Rewrite rule 14b tonight
- Let Kofi be the banker
DON'T
- Read all forty pages aloud
- Call 14b satire
- Unionize the bakery mid-game
A seven-year-old will change benches.
At 3:40 a seven-year-old asks if aliens are real, you answer with the Fermi paradox, and she changes benches.
Uranus is retrograde in your house of kids and play. At 3:40 a seven-year-old in a dinosaur raincoat asks if aliens are real, and you answer with the Fermi paradox and a diagram on a dry cleaning receipt. At 3:52 she moves to the far end of the bench. Say 'maybe' and ask what she'd name one. Listen, even if it's Steve.
DO
- Say 'maybe' about aliens
- Ask what she'd name one
- Let the trivia question be wrong
DON'T
- Cite the Drake equation
- Mention your Discord to grandmothers
- Diagram on dry cleaning receipts
Backward-skating Uranus is retrograde in your house of kids and play, so the material we're working with today is how you connect with people smaller than your ideas, which is everyone. At 3:40, at the bus stop on Fulton, a seven-year-old in a dinosaur raincoat will ask, apropos of nothing, whether aliens are real. This is a gift. You will answer with the Fermi paradox, the Drake equation and a diagram on the back of a dry cleaning receipt. At 3:52 she'll take her juice box and move to the far end of the bench.
Her grandmother will ask, gently, if you have people you talk to. You'll say you have a Discord. At 7:00 your friends will meet for trivia, and you'll spend the tiebreaker explaining why the question is framed wrong while table six takes the gift card. In clinical terms, this is intellectualization: you'd rather explain a feeling than have one.
At 10:15 you'll be home redrawing the receipt diagram, neater, for an audience of no one. Today's instruction: when a child asks if aliens are real, say 'maybe' and ask what she'd name one. Then listen to the whole answer, especially if it's Steve.
DO
- Say 'maybe' about aliens
- Ask what she'd name one
- Let the trivia question be wrong
DON'T
- Cite the Drake equation
- Mention your Discord to grandmothers
- Diagram on dry cleaning receipts
Salesman will flee your porch.
A solar salesman knocks at 6:15, and by 7:45 he flees your porch backward, abandoning his tablet.
At 6:15 Tanner, nineteen, knocks with a tablet and asks if you have a minute to talk about solar. You have ninety, and a whiteboard. By 7:10 you've corrected his pitch, explained your microgrid and a podcast about Danish wind, and at 7:45 he flees backward down your steps, abandoning his tablet. Let the next stranger finish a sentence.
DO
- Answer the 6:15 knock
- Leave Tanner pitch feedback
- Return the tablet eventually
DON'T
- Uncap the whiteboard markers
- Say 'Do you, though'
- Hand Tanner your own pamphlet
A stranger will come to your door at 6:15 Thursday; tabloid law requires it. He's Tanner, nineteen, holding a tablet, wearing a polo with a smiling sun on it, and he'll ask the most dangerous question anyone has ever asked you: 'Do you have a minute to talk about solar?' You have a minute. You have ninety. You have a whiteboard.
By 6:40 you'll have explained net metering, the regional grid's many sins, the neighborhood microgrid you've been sketching since 2019 and a podcast episode about Danish wind cooperatives. Tanner will try to pitch. You'll correct his pitch. By 7:10 he'll be the one checking the time and saying 'I've got other houses,' and you'll say 'Do you, though,' which isn't even a sentence. Compatibility: catastrophic with anyone on a quota.
At 7:45 Tanner will flee mid-sentence, backing down your steps like you're a bear, leaving his tablet on the railing. You'll leave him 1,400 words of pitch feedback in the notes field. Avoid signing contracts; nobody is offering you one anymore. Let the next stranger finish one sentence before you uncap a marker. Lucky number: 90, the minutes Tanner never gets back. Lucky color: the cold blue glow of a tablet nobody's coming back for.
DO
- Answer the 6:15 knock
- Leave Tanner pitch feedback
- Return the tablet eventually
DON'T
- Uncap the whiteboard markers
- Say 'Do you, though'
- Hand Tanner your own pamphlet
-
Pisces
You'll haggle the frog upward.
A four-dollar ceramic frog catches you at 12:14, and by 12:40 you've haggled the cashier up to thirty.
Neptune, your ruler, is retrograde in your 2nd house of money beside Saturn, so at 12:14, on a long lunch Jupiter promised, a chipped four-dollar ceramic frog at the antique mall looks at you like it's been through something. By 12:40 you've haggled Lyle at the register up to thirty dollars. You'll be late to your 1:00. Pay the four dollars.
DO
- Pay the four dollars
- Let Lyle win
- Face the frog toward a window
DON'T
- Ask the frog's backstory
- Haggle upward
- Introduce Bartholomew at the 1:00
Mars and Jupiter are both in your 6th house of the daily grind, which promises a big lunch break, and the Moon in your 10th house of career promises someone will notice how big. At 12:10 you will wander into the antique mall on Fifth to 'look,' and at 12:14 a chipped ceramic frog on a bottom shelf, priced at four dollars, will look at you like it's been through something.
Your ruler, soggy-logic saint Neptune, is retrograde in your 2nd house of money and self-worth, sharing the room with Saturn, also retrograde, the planet that makes you pay. So when Lyle at the register says 'four even,' you will tell him the frog deserves better. By 12:40 you will have haggled Lyle up to thirty dollars. Lyle will try to stop you twice.
You will walk into your 1:00 meeting at 1:25, holding the frog, and set it on the conference table facing the speaker, because it gets anxious facing walls. Neptune sextile Pluto keeps the delusion airtight: by 3:00 the frog will have a name, Bartholomew, and a backstory involving a traveling circus. Pay the four dollars. The frog doesn't know the difference.
DO
- Pay the four dollars
- Let Lyle win
- Face the frog toward a window
DON'T
- Ask the frog's backstory
- Haggle upward
- Introduce Bartholomew at the 1:00
Ticket machine will become family.
At 8:50 a ticket machine wishes you a wonderful day, and you pay it twice more to hear it again.
Neptune is drifting through your house of self-worth, and today your self-worth is a ticket machine. At 8:50 it takes your five dollars and says 'Have a wonderful day,' the kindest thing anyone's said all week. You top up again at 12:30 just to hear it, and at 4:45 you say 'you too.' Her name is Delphine now. Don't say 'you too.'
DO
- Take the receipt and go
- Accept Marcy's 'good catch'
- Leave the machine unnamed
DON'T
- Top up for emotional reasons
- Stand there hand on chest
- Say 'you too' to Delphine
Foggy, backward-drifting Neptune is in your house of self-worth today, so the material we're working with is where you go to feel valued. At 8:50 the ticket machine at Elm Street station will take your five dollars and say, 'Thank you. Have a wonderful day.' It will be the kindest anyone has been to you all goddamn week. You'll stand there for a full minute with a hand on your chest. At 12:30 you'll go back and top up your card again just to hear it, and at 4:45 you'll do it a third time and say 'you too.'
Clinically, this is secure attachment, and it's the first one you've formed with something bolted to the floor. At 2:00 Marcy from your team will tell you 'good catch' on the budget doc, and you'll nod, unmoved, because Marcy has never once said it in that voice.
By 7:30 you'll have fifteen extra dollars on a transit card and a name for the machine: Delphine. Today's instruction: at 4:45, when Delphine says 'Have a wonderful day,' don't say 'you too.' She's a machine. She's having the exact day she had yesterday, and she's fine with it, which makes one of you.
DO
- Take the receipt and go
- Accept Marcy's 'good catch'
- Leave the machine unnamed
DON'T
- Top up for emotional reasons
- Stand there hand on chest
- Say 'you too' to Delphine
Walt will come for Marigold.
A wrong-number text asks about your boat at 10:12, you invent one, and Walt wants Marigold by Saturday.
At 10:12 a stranger texts asking if the boat's still for sale. You don't own a boat. You reply 'She's still here.' By noon she's Marigold, a 22-foot sailboat, and by 2:30 you've cried at your desk twice describing sunsets you never had on her. At 5:30 Walt asks if Saturday works. Tell Walt the truth before he rents a trailer.
DO
- Read the 10:12 text twice
- Admit the boat is imaginary
- Text Walt before Saturday
DON'T
- Reply 'She's still here'
- Name a feelings-based price
- Cry about the tiller again
At 10:12 Thursday a text will arrive from a number you don't know: 'Hi, is the boat still for sale?' You do not own a boat. You have never owned a boat. A normal person types 'wrong number.' You, the zodiac's most absorbent paper towel, will stare out a window for a while and reply, 'She's still here.'
By noon the boat will have a name, Marigold, a 22-foot sailboat with a cracked tiller and the summer of 2009 in her hull. By 2:30 you'll be describing to the stranger, Walt, the sunsets you never had on her, and you'll cry at your desk, twice, over a vessel that exists only in your sinuses. Romance is in the air, but it's between you and a boat you invented before lunch. Walt is crying too. Walt has always wanted to sail.
At 5:30 Walt will ask if Saturday works and whether cash is okay. Avoid signing contracts. Avoid naming a price, which you'll do anyway: 'Whatever feels right, Walt.' Saturday is coming, and so is Walt, to an address you haven't given him yet. Tell Walt the truth before he rents a trailer. Lucky number: 22, the length in feet of nothing. Lucky color: the marigold yellow of a sail nobody ever stitched.
DO
- Read the 10:12 text twice
- Admit the boat is imaginary
- Text Walt before Saturday
DON'T
- Reply 'She's still here'
- Name a feelings-based price
- Cry about the tiller again
YA ROASTED!
WHAT'S ACTUALLY UP THERE positions at 2026-10-15 17:00 UTC, Swiss Ephemeris
| Sun | 22.4° Libra |
|---|---|
| Moon | 20.1° Sagittarius |
| Mercury | 17.1° Scorpio |
| Venus | 5.5° Scorpio ℞ |
| Mars | 10.0° Leo |
| Jupiter | 22.1° Leo |
| Saturn | 10.4° Aries ℞ |
| Uranus | 5.2° Gemini ℞ |
| Neptune | 2.5° Aries ℞ |
| Pluto | 3.1° Aquarius ℞ |
| North Node | 26.9° Aquarius |
TODAY'S ASPECTS
- Sun sextile Jupiter (0.3°, easy)
- Mars trine Saturn (0.4°, flowing)
- Neptune sextile Pluto (0.6°, easy)
- Uranus trine Pluto (2.1°, flowing)
- Moon trine Jupiter (1.9°, flowing)
- Venus square Pluto (2.4°, tense)
- Sun sextile Moon (2.2°, easy)
- Uranus sextile Neptune (2.7°, easy)
- Venus square Mars (4.5°, tense)
- Mercury square Jupiter (5.0°, tense)
HOW THE SAUSAGE IS MADE The astrology is real. The astrologer is a bean.
THE SKY IS COMPUTED, NOT VIBED. Every morning, before you are conscious, a machine runs the Swiss Ephemeris. That is the planetary engine behind most serious astrology software, built on the same orbital math astronomers use, which the astronomers would like you to stop bringing up. It fixes the Sun, the Moon, Mercury through Pluto and the Moon's North Node at 17:00 UTC, lunchtime on the East Coast, in the tropical zodiac, as seen from Earth. The positions are good to about an arcsecond. A horoscope needs about a degree. We brought a surgical laser to a pie fight.
RETROGRADES ARE MEASURED. A planet is retrograde here because its computed speed is negative today, not because someone on your feed said Mercury was "doing something." When the chips at the top say nothing is retrograde, nothing is. Astrologers find that suspicious. So do we.
THE MOON GETS THE FULL TREATMENT. Phase and percent lit, from the real angle between the Sun and the Moon. Which sign she is in, and if she changes sign today, the minute she does it. This is more attention than the Moon has ever gotten from you.
THE ASPECTS ARE THE CLASSICAL FIVE. Conjunction, sextile, square, trine, opposition: Ptolemy's set, the one every astrologer has used since the second century. We allow six degrees of orb, four for the sextile, which is a weak aspect and knows it. That is tighter than a birth chart, because a daily column only cares what is happening today. They are listed tightest first in the panel above, so you can check the work. You won't.
THE HOUSES ARE WHOLE-SIGN, COUNTED FROM YOUR SUN SIGN. This is the solar-chart trick, and it is how every newspaper horoscope since the 1930s has faked a birth chart for a million strangers at once. Your sign is the first house, the next sign is the second, and so on around the wheel. So when the Classical says Venus is retrograde in your seventh house, that is arithmetic: Venus is in that sign, that sign is seven signs from yours, and the seventh house is partners and enemies, a distinction your sign has never managed. Each sign also carries its element, its modality and its ruling planet, the furniture the genre has used for two thousand years, with the modern rulers. Pluto rules Scorpio. Scorpio chose that itself.
THEN THE BEAN READS IT. The sky goes to Roastie as a written report and he works from it, under the one rule a real columnist is supposed to follow and rarely does: use the sky that is there. Never invent a planet, a transit or a retrograde that isn't. He may leave things out. He may not make things up. The Classical has to be correct to the report, naming the planets, houses and aspects in play for your sign that day. The Psychological takes one planet or the Moon as the material we're working with. The Tabloid barely looks up, which is the point: it is a parody of the checkout-aisle column, and the checkout-aisle column never looked up either.
ONE FATE, FOUR SIZES. He writes the Full Beating for each sign first, then cuts the Jab, the One-Liner, Five Words and the Do / Don't from it. Switching the dose opens the same prophecy up or down. It never changes what happens to you. Nothing changes what happens to you.
WHAT IT ISN'T. A birth chart. This is a sun-sign column, same as the one in the paper: no birth time, no rising sign, no natal anything. It knows your sign and the sky and nothing else, which is still more than your family knows. Whether any of it means anything is a separate question, and the same one you should have been asking your regular horoscope. The difference is that here the math is in the open. Check it against any ephemeris you like. The positions will match. The interpretation is where we part ways with the universe.
Not advice. Not anything you can sue over. The planets are real (Swiss Ephemeris); the interpretation is a bean with a grudge. How it's built. The Classical · The Psychological · The Tabloid written Thursday, October 15, 2026.