FILED SUNDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2026

ROAST-O-SCOPE

Libra season
First Quarter in Capricorn
Venus, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune 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.

THE DOSE

One paragraph. The reading, compressed.

Aries

Mar 21 – Apr 19 · Fire · ruled by Mars
Rudy will seat you last.

Mabel's quotes forty minutes at 10:15, you leave four times to beat it, and Rudy seats you dead last.
Saturn retrograde in your 1st house means waiting, which you consider torture. At 10:15 Mabel's quotes forty minutes for brunch, and you bolt to find faster food. Mars in your 5th hands you a plan, and four other spots hand you longer lines. By 1:50 you're last on the list, eating cold home fries while Rudy the host writes ARIES next to your name. Stand still. Like a fern.
DO
Write your name down once
Stand still for forty minutes
Eat the cold home fries
DON'T
Check four other brunch spots
Ask Rudy how much longer
Challenge Rudy to a footrace
Cosmic hall monitor Saturn is retrograde in your 1st house today, parked right on your face next to a foggy, retrograde Neptune, and for an Aries, Saturn retrograde in the 1st means one thing: waiting. You rank waiting somewhere below root canals. At 10:15 you will put your name down at Mabel's for Sunday brunch, hear the words 'about forty minutes,' and leave to find somewhere faster.

Your ruler Mars sits in Leo in your 5th house of fun, trining Saturn, which hands you a disciplined, efficient plan for beating a line. That's the problem. You will hit four other brunch spots by 12:30. Every one of them has a longer wait. Every time you sprint back to Mabel's, your spot has been given away, because Rudy at the host stand runs his list like the goddamn Old Testament.

Jupiter is in your 5th house too, and Jupiter inflates whatever it touches, so by 1:50 you will be the last name on a list you started near the top. You will eat cold home fries at the far end of the bar while Rudy writes ARIES next to your name, for the staff, as a warning. The order: stand in one spot for forty minutes like a houseplant with a pulse. It's the hardest thing you'll do all year.
DO
Write your name down once
Stand still for forty minutes
Eat the cold home fries
DON'T
Check four other brunch spots
Ask Rudy how much longer
Challenge Rudy to a footrace
Keisha will chaperone your lane.

At 10:40 you out-bag the Kroger self-checkout until it freezes six times, and Keisha stops leaving your side.
Strict-parent planet Saturn has turned around in the front seat to look at you, and at 10:40 the Kroger self-checkout flags an unexpected item in the bagging area. You bag faster than it scans, it freezes, and by the sixth freeze Keisha the attendant stops leaving your lane, arms folded like a middle-school chaperone. What came up for you was rage at a beep. Wait for the beep.
DO
Wait for the beep
Bag at scanner speed
Let Keisha go home
DON'T
Explain scanners to Keisha
Narrate the parking lot
Open the microwave at 0:03
The material we're working with today is strict-parent planet Saturn, retrograde in your first house, turned all the way around in the front seat to look at you. At 10:40 the Kroger self-checkout will say 'unexpected item in bagging area,' and you will take it personally. You will bag faster than it can scan. It will freeze. Keisha, the attendant, will walk over with her little key.

By the sixth freeze, Keisha stops going back to her podium. She just stands beside your lane with her arms folded, like a chaperone at a middle-school dance, while you tell a woman who has run that machine for eleven years, 'I know how a fucking scanner works.' In the parking lot a man takes four minutes to back out of his spot, and you will narrate every one of them to your steering wheel.

Tonight you'll open the microwave at 0:03 because waiting out the last three seconds felt like being controlled. Notice what came up for you there. The pattern is old: anything that makes you wait becomes the enemy, and the enemies are now household appliances. Today's instruction: wait for the beep.
DO
Wait for the beep
Bag at scanner speed
Let Keisha go home
DON'T
Explain scanners to Keisha
Narrate the parking lot
Open the microwave at 0:03
Crossword editor will call you.

You'll finish the crossword in four minutes without reading a clue, and the editor will call about XQZRTT.
At 8:02 you'll attack the Sunday crossword in pen, fill every square by 8:06, and turn 'Shakespearean king' into GRRR. You'll email it to the puzzle desk with the subject line BEAT THAT. At 4:15 editor Lorraine Patakis will call personally to ask what XQZRTT means at 42-Down, and then put you on speaker for the whole desk. Tomorrow, read one clue first.
DO
Read one clue first
Pick up at 4:15
Hide your phone at brunch
DON'T
Email the puzzle desk
Sign the pity subscription
Defend GRRR as a king
At 8:02 this morning, charge-first, read-never Aries, you will open the Sunday paper to this very page, glance one inch to the left, and attack the crossword in pen. By 8:06 every square will be full. None of it will be English. 'Shakespearean king, four letters' is now GRRR. You'll photograph the masterpiece and email it to the puzzle desk with the subject line BEAT THAT.

At 12:30 brunch your friends will ask about your morning, and you'll say 'finished the crossword' with the face of a guy who just planted a flag on K2. Nobody will ask to see it. You'll pass your phone around the table anyway, and a Libra figures prominently by zooming in and going very, very quiet.

At 4:15 puzzle editor Lorraine Patakis will call your cell, personally, on a Sunday, to ask what XQZRTT means at 42-Down. You'll say 'look it up, lady.' She will. It won't exist. She'll put you on speaker for the whole damn desk. Avoid signing the pity subscription she offers. Tomorrow, read one clue first. One. Lucky number: 4, in minutes. Lucky color: Sharpie black, permanent as your mistakes.
DO
Read one clue first
Pick up at 4:15
Hide your phone at brunch
DON'T
Email the puzzle desk
Sign the pity subscription
Defend GRRR as a king
Taurus

Apr 20 – May 20 · Earth · ruled by Venus
Darlene will share your recliner.

Cousin Darlene takes your recliner at 1:05, you refuse to move, and by 9:00 you've signed shared custody.
Jupiter in your 4th house enlarges the household: at 1:00 cousin Darlene arrives 'for one night' and has your recliner by 1:05. You refuse every other seat, so you share it, hip to hip, through three football games. Venus retrograde in your 7th house of contracts finishes the job, and by 9:00 you've both signed a custody schedule on a pizza box. Sign it. You were never standing up again anyway.
DO
Sit down beside Darlene
Sign the pizza box
Claim lever privileges early
DON'T
Accept the couch
Ask how long one night is
Stand up before halftime
Mars and Jupiter are both camped in your 4th house of home today, and Jupiter in the 4th means the household gets bigger whether or not you signed off on it. At 1:00 your cousin Darlene shows up 'for one night' with a duffel bag the size of a calf. By 1:05 she is sitting in your recliner. Your recliner. The one with the dent shaped exactly like you.

Your ruler, flake-in-chief Venus, is retrograde in Scorpio in your 7th house of partners, enemies and contracts, squaring Pluto, and that turns a sit into a siege. You will not take the couch. You will not take a dining chair. At 1:20 you will lower yourself into the recliner right next to her, and the two of you will share it, hip to hip, through three NFL games, and neither of you will say a word.

By 9:00, Venus retrograde in the contract house delivers what it always delivers: paperwork. You and Darlene will draft and sign a handwritten custody schedule on the back of a pizza box. Weekdays are yours, alternate holidays are hers, lever privileges are shared. She is staying a month. The order: sign the pizza box. Half a recliner is still a recliner, pal, and you were never standing up again anyway.
DO
Sit down beside Darlene
Sign the pizza box
Claim lever privileges early
DON'T
Accept the couch
Ask how long one night is
Stand up before halftime
You'll buy back your hoodie.

Corinne donates your 2011 hoodie at 9:00, and by 2:15 you've paid Goodwill $3.99 to own it again.
Backpedaling Venus is reversing through your house of other people, so at 9:00 your friend Corinne declutters you, holds up the hoodie with the chewed-lace cuffs and calls it a rag. At 2:15 you're at the Route 9 Goodwill paying Marvin $3.99 for your own hoodie. Clinically, that's a transitional object: a blanket with sleeves. Wear it to Corinne's tonight. Make eye contact.
DO
Say 'mm' and mean war
Pay Marvin the $3.99
Wear it to Corinne's
DON'T
Open the door at 9:00
Let Corinne near the drawer
Let it smell like Goodwill
Today's material is backpedaling love-planet Venus, your ruler, moving in reverse through your house of other people, which is the clinical way of saying other people are about to touch your stuff. At 9:00 your friend Corinne arrives to help you declutter, which you didn't agree to so much as fail to prevent. She will hold up the gray hoodie, the one whose cuffs you've been chewing into lace since 2011, and say, 'This is a rag.' You will say 'mm.' That 'mm' is a declaration of war.

At 2:15 you'll be at the Goodwill on Route 9, explaining to a cashier named Marvin that the hoodie on the just-in rack is yours. Marvin will say everything on that rack belongs to Goodwill. You'll pay $3.99 for your own hoodie and put it on in the parking lot, where it still smells exactly like you, which was Corinne's entire complaint.

In the literature this is a transitional object: the blanket a toddler drags around to feel safe. You are not a toddler. You are a grown adult who just bought back a blanket with sleeves. Wear it to Corinne's tonight. Make eye contact.
DO
Say 'mm' and mean war
Pay Marvin the $3.99
Wear it to Corinne's
DON'T
Open the door at 9:00
Let Corinne near the drawer
Let it smell like Goodwill
Tug-of-war will need a truck.

You'll anchor the church tug-of-war so hard that a Ford F-150 joins the other team and loses.
At 1:30 you'll anchor the Grace Lutheran picnic tug-of-war and simply decline to move, eating a deviled egg one-handed while twelve Lutherans pull for forty minutes. By 3:00 someone's uncle ties the rope to a Ford F-150, and it spins its tires into a trench. By 6:45 the tables are folded and you're still holding the rope. Let go by sundown.
DO
Anchor the rope
Pocket the dead gift card
Let go by sundown
DON'T
Move for twelve Lutherans
Check the gift card balance
Tie yourself to the F-150
At 1:30 the Grace Lutheran fall picnic will need a tug-of-war anchor, and immovable, potato-salad-fortified Taurus, you will wrap the rope around your waist and simply decline to be moved. The other team, eleven Lutherans and a youth pastor named Kyle, will pull for forty minutes. You'll eat a deviled egg with your free hand. By 3:00 somebody's uncle will tie their end to the hitch of a Ford F-150, floor it, and lose, tires digging a trench in the grass.

An unexpected windfall follows at 3:20: the losing side's pot, $36 in damp bills and a gift card to a Bed Bath & Beyond that no longer exists. You'll pocket it without loosening your grip. Nobody will dispute this. Nobody can get close enough.

At 6:45 whoever drove you will want to go home, and you'll still be on the lawn holding the rope, alone, while the folding tables come down around you like a slow-motion eviction. Pastor Ingrid will say the closing prayer over you specifically. Let go of the rope by sundown. Lucky number: 1, team size. Lucky color: grass-stain green, both knees.
DO
Anchor the rope
Pocket the dead gift card
Let go by sundown
DON'T
Move for twelve Lutherans
Check the gift card balance
Tie yourself to the F-150
Gemini

May 21 – Jun 20 · Air · ruled by Mercury
Kevin will take the chicken.

You meal-prep twenty-eight containers for both of you, and at 4:40 neighbor Kevin takes the healthy fourteen.
Mercury in your 6th house of chores, square Jupiter, turns Sunday meal prep into a two-person job, and both people are you: fourteen containers of chicken and quinoa for the disciplined Gemini, fourteen of baked ziti for the real one. At 4:40 neighbor Kevin borrows a ladder, opens your fridge, and leaves with all the chicken. Let him. The ziti is who you are.
DO
Prep the ziti first
Hand Kevin the ladder
Buy a second Sharpie
DON'T
Pretend you'll eat the quinoa
Relabel anything a fourth time
Ask Kevin which you he prefers
Your ruler Mercury is in Scorpio in your 6th house of chores and routine, squaring Jupiter, which means you'll overcommit to the boring stuff on a planetary scale. At 10:00 you will start Sunday meal prep, and because there are two of you in there, you will prep for both: fourteen containers of grilled chicken and quinoa for the disciplined you, and fourteen containers of baked ziti for the other one.

Chaos-roommate Uranus is retrograde in your 1st house, reversing every decision you make about yourself before lunch. By 1:30 you will have relabeled all twenty-eight containers twice: first MONDAY through SUNDAY, then YOU and ALSO YOU, then back again. The fridge door will not close. A Sharpie will die in your hand, and you'll be the only one at the funeral.

Jupiter in your 3rd house of neighbors is the punchline. At 4:40 Kevin from next door will come by to borrow a ladder, open your fridge 'just to look,' and walk out with all fourteen chicken containers, because, he says, you were never going to eat those. He's right, and you'll both know it. The order: let Kevin have the chicken. The ziti is who you are.
DO
Prep the ziti first
Hand Kevin the ladder
Buy a second Sharpie
DON'T
Pretend you'll eat the quinoa
Relabel anything a fourth time
Ask Kevin which you he prefers
Nadia will request chapter markers.

At 11:20 you send Nadia a thirty-one-minute voice memo about a parking ticket, and she requests chapter markers.
With Mercury squaring too-much planet Jupiter, you press record on a voice memo to Nadia at 11:20 and let go at 11:51, having covered a parking ticket, a second parking ticket and the kayak question. She texts back: 'which parking ticket.' Clinically, it's externalized processing with a cliffhanger. At 8:00 she'll ask for chapter markers. Give her chapter markers.
DO
Release the button by noon
Name the ticket upfront
Add chapter markers
DON'T
Introduce a third ticket
Bring up the kayak
Send a voice memo about voice memos
We're working with your ruler Mercury squaring off against too-much planet Jupiter, which in session we'd call 'plenty of material, zero structure.' At 11:20 you will press record on a voice memo to your friend Nadia about a parking ticket. You will release the button at 11:51. In between you'll cover the parking ticket, a second parking ticket, an octopus documentary, and whether you're the kind of person who should own a kayak.

Nadia will play it at 1.5x speed on her walk and run out of walk. At 3:00 she replies, in text, with one question: 'which parking ticket.' By 3:05 you've sent a nine-minute answer that introduces a third ticket. Thirty-one minutes, then nine. Podcasts at least have ad breaks.

Clinically, this is externalized processing: you don't know what you think until you've said it out loud to someone, at length, ending on a cliffhanger. Both of you are talking, and Nadia is the only one listening. At 8:00 she'll text asking for chapter markers. Give her chapter markers.
DO
Release the button by noon
Name the ticket upfront
Add chapter markers
DON'T
Introduce a third ticket
Bring up the kayak
Send a voice memo about voice memos
You'll fence at the bakery.

Your invented bakery rumor will come home by 5:30, and at seven you'll fence the owner's nephew.
At 10:15 you'll tell Bex the new bakery's owner fenced for Belgium, a fact you invented in the shower. By 5:30 the rumor comes home through Theresa from 4B: YOU fenced for Belgium, and Solange has booked you for a live demonstration at tonight's grand opening. At 7:00 you'll face her nephew Luc, who actually fences. Pick one story and commit.
DO
Pick one story
Stretch before 7:00
Ask Luc for mercy
DON'T
Tell Bex anything
Stop at the mailboxes
Sign Luc's waiver twice
At 9:50, two-mouthed, one-brained Gemini, you'll invent a fact in the shower: the woman opening the new bakery on Elm used to fence for Belgium at the Olympics. At 10:15 you'll tell your friend Bex. By noon you'll have told four more people, each version improved, and in the best one she once disarmed a mugger with a baguette.

At 5:30 the rumor will come home. Theresa from 4B will stop you at the mailboxes, thrilled, because her hairdresser says YOU fenced for Belgium, and the bakery owner, Solange, has booked you for a live demonstration at tonight's grand opening. At 6:15 a stranger will knock with a borrowed épée, a mask, and a sense of occasion.

At 7:00 you'll stand between the croissants and the register facing Solange's nephew Luc, who actually fences, and who heard the rumor too. Avoid signing contracts, especially Luc's liability waiver, which you'll sign twice, in two different handwritings. Pick one story and commit to it. Lucky number: 2, obviously. Lucky color: Belgian-flag yellow, the only true thing you'll say all day.
DO
Pick one story
Stretch before 7:00
Ask Luc for mercy
DON'T
Tell Bex anything
Stop at the mailboxes
Sign Luc's waiver twice
Cancer

Jun 21 – Jul 22 · Water · ruled by Moon
Juniper's dad will reprice cocoa.

Juniper's misspelled cocoa sign wrecks you at 11:00, her dad Glen reprices, and by 5:00 you've spent $114.
Jupiter in your 2nd house of money meets seven-year-old Juniper's hot cocoa stand at 11:00, her sign says PLEESE BY, and you're gone: forty cups, sidewalk tears. The Moon in your 7th house of open enemies supplies her dad, Glen, who raises the price to three dollars when you come back at 2:15. By 5:00 you've spent $114. Ask for the sign. You're framing it anyway.
DO
Ask Juniper for the sign
Bring small bills
Walk the long way home
DON'T
Read the word PLEESE
Return at 2:15
Name the individual cups
Mars and Jupiter are in your 2nd house of money, and Jupiter in the 2nd doesn't make money, it makes spending feel like a religious obligation. At 11:00 you will pass a hot cocoa stand on the corner run by seven-year-old Juniper, whose cardboard sign reads COCOA 50 CENTS PLEESE BY. You will read the word PLEESE and cry right there on the sidewalk. You will buy forty cups.

Your ruler, the Moon, sits in Capricorn in your 7th house of partners and open enemies, squared by the Sun, and today your open enemy is Juniper's dad, Glen: a quarter-zip in a lawn chair who knows a whale when one sobs at him. When you come back at 2:15 for 'just a few more for the freezer,' Glen will tape a new price over the old one. Three dollars.

Mercury and Venus in your 5th house of kids make it impossible for you to stop. By 5:00 you will have spent $114, emptied the thermos twice, and lined up eighty cups of cooling cocoa on your kitchen counter like a memorial, and you won't drink any of them, because Juniper made them. The order: ask Juniper for the sign. You were going to frame it anyway, so do it today.
DO
Ask Juniper for the sign
Bring small bills
Walk the long way home
DON'T
Read the word PLEESE
Return at 2:15
Name the individual cups
Kowalskis will tour your childhood.

At 1:34 you knock on your third-grade house, and by 2:40 you're asking the Kowalskis for their doorframe.
Your ruler, the half-lit, half-moping Moon, is living in the past today, so at 1:34 you're knocking on the yellow house you lived in during third grade. The Kowalskis let you in because you're already crying. Your old bedroom is a Peloton room. At 2:40 you ask if you can have the doorframe with your height marks. Leave with the tissue. Leave the doorframe.
DO
Knock once, not four times
Accept the Peloton tissue
Compliment the teal through your teeth
DON'T
Lie down where the bed was
Mention the raccoon twice
Ask for the doorframe
Today's material is your ruler, the half-lit, half-moping Moon, sitting at first quarter: one side in the present, one side in the dark flipping through old photos. At 1:30 you'll take the long way home on purpose and slow down in front of the yellow house on Birch Street where you lived in third grade. The shutters are teal now. You will take the teal personally. At 1:34 you'll be knocking.

The Kowalskis, who bought the place in 2014 and have done nothing wrong, will let you in because you're already crying on their porch. They give you the tour. Your old bedroom is a Peloton room. You'll stand where your bed used to be, next to a bike that costs more than your first car, and tell Renee Kowalski about the raccoon you saw from this exact window. She will hand you a tissue from a box she keeps for Peloton reasons.

In session we'd call this regression: going back to an earlier home because the current one doesn't have your height marks on the doorframe. At 2:40 you'll ask if you can have the doorframe. Leave with the tissue. Leave the doorframe.
DO
Knock once, not four times
Accept the Peloton tissue
Compliment the teal through your teeth
DON'T
Lie down where the bed was
Mention the raccoon twice
Ask for the doorframe
You'll hire a Tamagotchi sitter.

You'll revive your 1998 Tamagotchi at 2:10 and, by 5:45, pay a teenager $18 an hour to babysit it.
At 2:10 you'll find your 1998 Tamagotchi in a shoebox, pop in a battery, and it will beep, hungry since the Clinton administration. You'll cancel every Sunday plan. By 5:45 you need laundry pods and can't leave the baby, so you'll hire fifteen-year-old Kaylee at $18 an hour to watch a keychain. Put the egg down by midnight.
DO
Feed the baby
Pay Kaylee in cash
Put the egg down by midnight
DON'T
Text 'something came up'
Call Kaylee a third time
Post a birth announcement
At 2:10, nostalgia-pickled, shell-dwelling Cancer, you'll find a 1998 Tamagotchi in a shoebox at the back of your closet, put in a fresh battery, and it will beep. It's hungry. It has been hungry since the Clinton administration. You'll feed it, clean up its pixel poop, and text the group chat 'something came up at home,' cancelling every Sunday plan, which is technically true.

An unexpected expense arrives at 5:45: you need laundry pods and you cannot leave the baby. So you will hire Kaylee, the fifteen-year-old next door, at $18 an hour to watch a keychain. You'll leave her a two-page instruction sheet and call twice from the Target parking lot. Kaylee will clear $36 for the easiest shift of her life.

At 9:00 the thing will evolve into the tall one with the sunglasses, and you'll cry at the kitchen table like it got into Yale. You'll post a birth announcement. Eleven people will like it out of fear. Put the egg down by midnight and eat something made of actual food. Lucky number: 1998. Lucky color: the gray-green of a screen older than your lease.
DO
Feed the baby
Pay Kaylee in cash
Put the egg down by midnight
DON'T
Text 'something came up'
Call Kaylee a third time
Post a birth announcement
Leo

Jul 23 – Aug 22 · Fire · ruled by Sun
You'll reign from the lawn.

You carry an $85 wicker peacock chair from a yard sale, it won't fit your door, and you reign outside.
The Sun in your 3rd house of neighbors sends you to the Hendersons' yard sale at 10:30, where an $85 wicker peacock chair calls your name. Jupiter in your 1st convinces you to carry it home on foot, resting in it at every corner for the audience. At 1:15 it won't fit through your door, so now it lives on the lawn. Hold court until dark.
DO
Pay full price
Rest at every corner
Wave at the slow cars
DON'T
Measure the door first
Let Mrs. Henderson take credit
Offer anyone else the chair
Your ruler, the Sun, is in Libra in your 3rd house of neighbors and short trips, sextile Jupiter, so today's grand adventure is four blocks long and involves people who will talk about it for years. At 10:30 you will walk into the Hendersons' yard sale on Maple and see it: a five-foot wicker peacock chair, a throne for a minor Bond villain, $85. You will not haggle. Royalty doesn't haggle.

Mars and Jupiter are both in your 1st house, and Jupiter in the 1st inflates everything about you, including your opinion of how far you can carry a wicker throne. You will carry it home on foot, stopping at every corner to rest in it, legs crossed, so the street has time to take in the image. Three cars will slow down. You will wave to all three like they came for you.

Here's the part the Sun-Jupiter sextile left out: at 1:15 the peacock chair will not fit through your front door. Not sideways, not tilted, not with the door off its hinges. So the chair lives on the lawn now, and you will sit in it until dark, receiving neighbors like a governor, while Mrs. Henderson tells everyone she's the one who sold it to you. The order: hold court until the streetlights come on. Wave at every car. They're your people now.
DO
Pay full price
Rest at every corner
Wave at the slow cars
DON'T
Measure the door first
Let Mrs. Henderson take credit
Offer anyone else the chair
Touchdowns will interrupt your story.

At Marco's watch party you start your first-class upgrade story four times, and somebody scores every time.
Mars and Jupiter are camped in your sign, so at 1:15 at Marco's watch party you begin the first-class upgrade story, and eleven seconds in, somebody scores. Four attempts, four interruptions, and by 3:30 you're rooting against points as a category. That's mirroring hunger, and it isn't the home team's job to feed it. Tell it at halftime. Nobody scores at halftime.
DO
Tell it at halftime
Start at the good part
Make eye contact with the dog
DON'T
Root for the defense
Restart during the two-minute warning
Stand in front of the TV
The material we're working with is Mars and Jupiter, both camped in your sign: volume and expansion, sitting in your lap like they paid for the seats. At 1:15 at Marco's watch party, you'll start the story about the time you got bumped to first class. Eleven seconds in, somebody scores. The whole room stands up. You'll stop, smile, and wait. At 1:40 you start again. Field goal.

By the third quarter you'll have launched the story four times and reached the part where the flight attendant recognizes your potential exactly zero times. Around 3:30 you'll notice you're quietly rooting for the defense. You don't follow football. You're rooting against points as a category, because points are competition. During the two-minute warning, Marco's dog will get more eye contact than you.

What's coming up is an old wound: a room full of people looking at a television instead of you, and you experiencing it as a betrayal by the television. That's mirroring hunger, and it is not the home team's job to feed it. Tell it at halftime. Nobody scores at halftime.
DO
Tell it at halftime
Start at the good part
Make eye contact with the dog
DON'T
Root for the defense
Restart during the two-minute warning
Stand in front of the TV
Engagement photos will star you.

You'll crash a stranger's engagement shoot at 3:30, and by 9:30 you'll be the face of their save-the-date.
At 3:30 you'll wander into a stranger couple's engagement shoot by the arboretum koi pond, find your light, and refuse to leave. Photographer Wendell will keep clicking. By 8:00 the gallery arrives: 140 photos, 138 of you. By 9:30 Devon and Amara pick their save-the-date anyway, and it's you, mid-laugh. Clear your calendar for June 12.
DO
Find your light
Give Wendell your left side
Clear June 12
DON'T
Leave the koi pond
Say you're with the venue
Hold the SHE SAID YES sign
Romance is in the air, and none of it is yours. At 3:30, spotlight-hogging, sunbeam-chasing Leo, you'll cut through the arboretum and stroll straight into a stranger couple's engagement shoot by the koi pond. You will not leave. You'll find your light, give the photographer your left side, and do the over-the-shoulder laugh while Devon and Amara stand behind you holding a chalkboard that says SHE SAID YES.

A stranger figures prominently: photographer Wendell, twenty-two years shooting couples, who has never seen a jawline commit like yours. He'll keep clicking. At 4:15 Amara will ask if you're with the venue, and you'll say 'in a sense.' You'll leave Wendell your email for proofs.

At 8:00 Wendell will deliver the gallery: 140 photos, 138 of them you, two of a blurry engaged couple in your background like extras in your biopic. By 9:30 Devon and Amara will pick their save-the-date anyway, and it's you, mid-laugh, over the words JUNE 12. Clear your calendar for June 12. Lucky number: 138. Lucky color: golden hour, stolen from two strangers.
DO
Find your light
Give Wendell your left side
Clear June 12
DON'T
Leave the koi pond
Say you're with the venue
Hold the SHE SAID YES sign
Virgo

Aug 23 – Sep 22 · Earth · ruled by Mercury
You'll spoil Doreen's surprise grammatically.

You reply-all to fix 'suprise' at 11:52, Doreen is in the chat, and your correction was wrong.
Mercury in your 3rd house of texting squares Jupiter in your 12th house of secrets: at 11:40 the block chat announces Doreen's 'suprise' party, and at 11:52 you reply-all with a correction. Doreen is in the chat. At 12:10 she thanks you and notes the party really is Saturday; the invite you quoted was last year's. Show up anyway. Act surprised. She'll be acting too.
DO
Read the whole member list
Check which year's invite
Act surprised Saturday
DON'T
Type anything at 11:52
Mention Patrice's apostrophes
Correct Doreen's thank-you reply
Your ruler Mercury is in Scorpio in your 3rd house of neighbors and texting, with Venus right beside it, which makes the block's group chat today's battlefield. At 11:40 Patrice from the corner will text the whole street about a surprise retirement party for Doreen at number 14: 'Saturday 6pm, its a suprise, dont tell her!!' You will read 'suprise' four times. Your eyelid will start tapping out Morse code.

Mercury squares Jupiter today, and Jupiter sits in your 12th house of secrets with Mars, which is the astrology of a big secret and a small person who cannot leave a typo alone. At 11:52 you will reply-all with a polite correction: 'surprise, and it's Sunday the 25th, not Saturday, per the invite.' At 11:53 the entire block will remember that Doreen is in the chat.

At 12:10 Doreen will reply, kindly, that she now knows about the party, and that it is in fact Saturday; the invite you were quoting was for her birthday last year. Saturn retrograde in your 8th house means nobody will help you carry this one. Patrice will remove you from the chat by 1:00. The order: show up Saturday with a card you've proofread twice, and when Doreen walks in, act surprised. She'll be acting too.
DO
Read the whole member list
Check which year's invite
Act surprised Saturday
DON'T
Type anything at 11:52
Mention Patrice's apostrophes
Correct Doreen's thank-you reply
Lena will catch your reload.

At 7:52 you sneak back to reload Lena's dishwasher, and she reveals she's loaded it wrong on purpose since 2020.
With Mars and Jupiter working undercover in your house of secrets, you sneak back into Lena's kitchen at 7:52 to reload her dishwasher, spatula lying flat like it was shot. At 7:58 she's in the doorway with a pie: she's loaded it wrong on purpose since 2020, and Greg times you. Six minutes flat, a personal best. Leave the spatula where it fell.
DO
Praise the bowls on top
Stay on the porch
Let Greg's stopwatch die
DON'T
Rotate the colander
Ask for a rematch
Beat your personal best
Today's material is Mars and Jupiter in your house of secrets: effort and expansion, working undercover, which is the only way you've ever helped anybody. At 7:40, after Sunday dinner at your friend Lena's, Lena will load the dishwasher. Bowls on the top rack. A spatula lying flat across the tines like it was shot. You'll say it looks great. At 7:52, with everyone out on the porch, you'll slip back into her kitchen and start reloading.

At 7:58 Lena will be in the doorway holding a pie, watching you rotate a colander. Then she'll explain that she's loaded it wrong on purpose every Sunday since 2020, because watching you sneak back in is the best part of her week, and that her husband Greg times you. Greg will shout your time from the porch: six minutes flat, a personal best.

In the work we'd call this control dressed up as service: you can't let something be wrong in someone else's house, because somehow it's still your house. You have been the after-dinner entertainment for five years. Leave the spatula where it fell.
DO
Praise the bowls on top
Stay on the porch
Let Greg's stopwatch die
DON'T
Rotate the colander
Ask for a rematch
Beat your personal best
Hertz will refuse the car.

You'll return your rental car so spotless that Hertz refuses it and detains you fifty minutes over the VIN.
At 9:00 you'll detail your rental Nissan Versa, steaming the mats and Q-tipping every vent until it smells like an award-winning hospital. At 4:00 Hertz agent Marco will circle it twice and refuse it, because theirs had a french fry in the seat rail. You'll be held fifty minutes while Shawna checks the VIN. Tomorrow, leave one crumb.
DO
Photograph all four sides
Leave one crumb
Bring Marco a french fry
DON'T
Q-tip the vents
Send Rhiannon a diagram
Correct Shawna's flashlight angle
At 9:00, Q-tip-wielding, crumb-intolerant Virgo, you'll start detailing your rental Nissan Versa before returning it. Not a wipe-down. You'll steam the floor mats, Q-tip every vent, and Armor All a dashboard that has never once been loved. By 2:00 it will smell like an award-winning hospital, and you'll photograph all four sides for your records.

At 4:00 Hertz agent Marco will circle the car twice, run the plate, and refuse it. 'This isn't ours,' he'll say. 'Ours had a french fry in the seat rail.' You'll be held at the counter for fifty minutes while manager Shawna checks the VIN with a flashlight and growing fear. You'll correct her flashlight angle.

A Pisces figures prominently at 6:30, when your friend Rhiannon texts to borrow your car next weekend and you reply with a nine-point return policy and a diagram of the cupholders. She'll take the bus. Tomorrow, leave one crumb somewhere in your life, as proof that a human lives there. Lucky number: 0, crumbs recovered. Lucky color: the beige of a floor mat steamed against its will.
DO
Photograph all four sides
Leave one crumb
Bring Marco a french fry
DON'T
Q-tip the vents
Send Rhiannon a diagram
Correct Shawna's flashlight angle
Libra BIRTHDAY SEASON

Sep 23 – Oct 22 · Air · ruled by Venus
Brass pineapple wins at closing.

Friends hand you a $250 gift card at noon, and at 8:58 you panic-buy a brass pineapple.
Jupiter in your 11th house of friends hands you a $250 gift card at noon, along with the cruelest instruction alive: pick something for yourself. Venus retrograde in your 2nd house of possessions turns every lamp into a referendum. At 8:58 Wexler's announces closing, and you panic-buy whatever's in your hand: a brass pineapple, $249.99. Put it on the mantel. Love it. Wexler's has suffered enough.
DO
Grab something by 8:57
Name the pineapple
Display it on the mantel
DON'T
Pick up the cashmere scarf
Text the group two candles
Ask the pineapple if it's sure
Mars and Jupiter are in your 11th house of friends, and Jupiter in the 11th is generosity in bulk. At noon, at your birthday-season lunch, your friends will hand you a $250 gift card to Wexler's department store and say the four most violent words in the English language: 'Pick something for yourself.' They'll mean it as a kindness. Those bastards.

Your ruler Venus is retrograde in Scorpio in your 2nd house of money and possessions, squaring Pluto, so every object on every shelf becomes a referendum on your worth as a human being. You will hold a cashmere scarf for forty minutes. You will carry a lamp to the register at 4:10 and carry it back at 4:12. You will text the group a photo of two identical candles, and they will mute you.

The Sun is in your sign, squared by the Moon in your 4th house of home, and that's the sky warning you the lights are about to go out. At 8:58 Wexler's will announce closing, and you will panic-buy whatever is in your hand: a decorative brass pineapple, $249.99. Tonight it will sit on your mantel, gleaming, the most expensive indecision you have ever owned. The order: put it on the mantel and love it, because the alternative is going back to Wexler's, and Wexler's has suffered enough.
DO
Grab something by 8:57
Name the pineapple
Display it on the mantel
DON'T
Pick up the cashmere scarf
Text the group two candles
Ask the pineapple if it's sure
Your swatches will match exactly.

At 5:10 paint-counter Hal studies your fourteen gray swatches and tells you they're all one can: Agreeable Gray.
It's your season, and the Moon in your house of home is squaring it, so by 10:00 there are fourteen gray swatches on your living room wall labeled warm, warmer and 'mood.' At 5:10 paint-counter Hal studies the photos and tells you, gently, they're all the same can: Agreeable Gray. You've been choosing between one color. Buy the can.
DO
Buy the can
Thank Hal once
Paint over 'mood'
DON'T
Poll the Instacart guy
Request a fifteenth swatch
Ask Hal if he's sure
We're working with the Sun in your sign, so it's your season, squared tight by the Moon in your house of home: the self you present versus the walls you actually live inside. By 10:00 there will be fourteen gray sample squares on your living room wall, the last three added this morning, labeled in pencil: warm, warmer, cool-warm, 'mood,' and 'no.' You'll ask everyone who passes for an opinion. The Instacart guy will get asked twice.

At 5:10 you'll be at the paint counter with forty photos of the wall, asking Hal which one to get. Hal will scroll for a long time. Then he'll tell you they're all the same can. Agreeable Gray. You've spent your entire birthday season choosing between one color, and the afternoon light did the rest. Hal will say it gently, which is somehow worse.

Clinically this is decision avoidance in its purest form: if there's no choice, nobody can be disappointed by your choice, including you. You found the only paint on earth named after your personality and still couldn't commit to it. Buy the can. Don't ask Hal if he's sure.
DO
Buy the can
Thank Hal once
Paint over 'mood'
DON'T
Poll the Instacart guy
Request a fifteenth swatch
Ask Hal if he's sure
Manager will comp your calculator.

You'll itemize a $612 brunch check down to the guacamole chip until the manager comps it to make you stop.
At 1:45 the birthday brunch check lands, $612 for fourteen, and someone says split it evenly. You'll open a spreadsheet and ask who had the guacamole, by chip. By 2:30 Nate owes 31 percent of a mimosa pitcher. At 3:15 manager Teodora rips the check in half and comps the table if you put the calculator away. Accept it undivided.
DO
Count the chips
Thank Teodora
Accept it undivided
DON'T
Say 'let's not'
Refund Carla's bacon taste
Venmo-request everyone zero dollars
Happy birthday season, scale-balancing, fairness-poisoned Libra. At 12:30 fourteen friends will take you to brunch at Hattie's, the check will land at 1:45, $612, and somebody will say 'let's just split it evenly.' You'll say 'let's not.' You'll open a spreadsheet. You'll ask who had the shared guacamole, and for how many chips.

By 2:30 you'll have assigned Nate 31 percent of a mimosa pitcher and refunded Carla for the bacon she 'only tasted.' Three friends will leave cash on the table and flee through the kitchen. A stranger at the next booth, an accountant named Rob, will quietly start helping, then quietly start crying. Compatibility: low with anyone who wanted to go home at 1:46.

At 3:15 manager Teodora will walk over with the face of a woman whose shift ended in 2019, rip the check in half, and comp the whole table on one condition: the calculator goes away and you never come back. An unexpected windfall. You'll Venmo-request everyone zero dollars to make it official. Accept the free brunch without dividing it. Lucky number: 3.17, your guac share. Lucky color: the avocado green of a debt no one will ever settle.
DO
Count the chips
Thank Teodora
Accept it undivided
DON'T
Say 'let's not'
Refund Carla's bacon taste
Venmo-request everyone zero dollars
Scorpio

Oct 23 – Nov 21 · Water · ruled by Pluto
Old grudge notebook resumes tonight.

You find your 2011 grudge notebook at 2:20, update all forty-one names, and Brett endorses you for Conflict Resolution.
Pluto in your 4th house of the past digs up a box marked TAXES 2011 at 2:20, and inside is your grudge notebook: forty-one names, three colors of ink. Venus retrograde in your 1st means you update every entry by 6:00. At 9:30 you find Brett, the 2011 parking-spot thief, on LinkedIn, where he's endorsed you for 'Conflict Resolution.' Close the box. Brett is winning.
DO
Close the TAXES 2011 box
Leave the notebook downstairs
Accept Brett's endorsement
DON'T
Rank anyone new today
Buy a fourth pen color
Endorse Brett back for Parking
Underworld landlord Pluto, your ruler, is in Aquarius in your 4th house of home, family and the past, and Pluto in the 4th digs. At 2:20, clearing a basement shelf for a reason you won't admit to, you will open a box marked TAXES 2011 and find your old grudge notebook: forty-one names, ranked, annotated in three colors of ink.

Mercury and Venus are both in Scorpio in your 1st house, Venus retrograde and squaring Pluto, which is textbook for old feelings walking back in your own front door wearing your own face. By 6:00 you will have updated all forty-one entries. Nineteen get upgraded. Two become dead to you in a whole new way. And one, Brett, who took your parking spot in March 2011, gets promoted to page one.

Mars and Jupiter are in your 10th house of career and public image, so this goes public. At 9:30 you will look Brett up on LinkedIn and find that he has already, for no reason anyone can explain, endorsed you for 'Conflict Resolution.' You'll stare at it until midnight. The order: put the notebook back in TAXES 2011 and close the box. Brett has no idea he's in a war, and that's exactly what makes the son of a bitch unbeatable.
DO
Close the TAXES 2011 box
Leave the notebook downstairs
Accept Brett's endorsement
DON'T
Rank anyone new today
Buy a fourth pen color
Endorse Brett back for Parking
Gloria will post the Barney.

At 10:47 Gloria, who babysat you in 1998, answers your brooding tree photo with you in a Barney costume.
Old-receipts planet Pluto is parked in your house of the past, so at 10:30 you post a bare tree captioned 'some things don't come back,' and at 10:47 Gloria, who babysat you in 1998, replies with you at six in a Barney costume: 'my little pumpkin!!' By noon it's your most-liked post ever. Your mystique has met the negatives. Like Gloria's comment.
DO
Like Gloria's comment
Accept Tariq's purple heart
Let the pumpkin era breathe
DON'T
Send the ransom-note reply
Delete and admit defeat
Post a darker tree
Today's material is old-receipts planet Pluto, your ruler, parked in your house of family and the past. Translation: the past has your handle. At 10:30 you'll post a black-and-white photo of a bare tree captioned 'some things don't come back.' At 10:47 Gloria, who babysat you in 1998 and found you on Facebook last spring, will reply with a photo of you at six in a Barney costume: 'my little pumpkin!!'

By noon the Barney comment will have more likes than anything you've posted in your life. Tariq from the dog park will reply with a purple heart. Someone from your gym will ask 'is this you??' You'll draft a reply to Gloria four times, and every draft will read like a ransom note. Deleting the post would mean admitting a purple dinosaur got to you, so the tree stays up, and so does the pumpkin.

What we're looking at is the persona, the mask you show the world, colliding with the family system, which kept the negatives in a shoebox. You built a mystique; Gloria has the originals. Like Gloria's comment. She'll know if you don't.
DO
Like Gloria's comment
Accept Tariq's purple heart
Let the pumpkin era breathe
DON'T
Send the ransom-note reply
Delete and admit defeat
Post a darker tree
Bingo racket will recruit you.

You'll expose a church bingo racket by 4:15, and its lavender-cardiganed mastermind will offer you a cut.
At 1:00 you'll notice Edna in the lavender cardigan winning her third straight game of basement bingo, and you'll stop playing to start a notebook. By 4:15 you crack it: the B-7 ball has carried a fishing sinker since 1987. Edna will find you by the folding chairs and offer fifteen percent. Hide the notebook in your freezer.
DO
Bring a notebook
Watch the B-7 ball
Hide the notebook behind the peas
DON'T
Play your own card
Touch Tyler's breadsticks
Sign the laminated contract
At 1:00, slit-eyed, trust-nobody Scorpio, you'll drift into St. Brendan's basement bingo for the free sheet cake and notice that one woman, Edna, in a lavender cardigan, has won three straight games. You will stop playing. You will start watching. By 2:15 you'll have a notebook, a timeline, and a theory involving the ball cage and Edna's grandson Tyler, who calls the numbers.

At 4:15 you'll crack it: the B-7 ball has carried a fishing sinker since 1987, and Edna has quietly won every Sunday for thirty-nine years. She'll find you by the folding chairs, read your notebook upside down, and offer you fifteen percent. Avoid signing contracts. She'll have one ready. It's laminated.

Romance is in the air: at 6:00 Tyler will ask you to dinner, purely to find out what you know. You'll accept, purely to find out what he knows. Neither of you will touch the breadsticks. Hide the notebook in your freezer, behind the peas, where nobody but you would ever think to look. Lucky number: B-7, obviously rigged. Lucky color: lavender, the cardigan of your new employer.
DO
Bring a notebook
Watch the B-7 ball
Hide the notebook behind the peas
DON'T
Play your own card
Touch Tyler's breadsticks
Sign the laminated contract
Sagittarius

Nov 22 – Dec 21 · Fire · ruled by Jupiter
You'll land in Albuquerque accidentally.

You walk Marguerite into the airport at 6:00, grab the last seat at 7:40, and land in Albuquerque bagless.
Jupiter in your 9th house of travel turns a 6:00 a.m. airport drop-off into something else entirely: you park 'just to walk Marguerite in,' and Mercury square Jupiter handles the rest. At 7:40 a gate agent offers one last seat and you say 'me.' By 9:40 you're in Albuquerque with half a pretzel, no bag, and your car in short-term parking. Never walk anyone in again.
DO
Drop Marguerite at the curb
Text someone about the plants
Keep the pretzel receipt
DON'T
Park in short-term
Listen to gate announcements
Wave at Marguerite at baggage claim
Your ruler Jupiter is in Leo in your 9th house of long-distance travel, Mars right beside it, sextile the Sun, and Jupiter in the 9th has never once in recorded history meant 'stay home.' At 6:00 a.m. you will drive your friend Marguerite to the airport for her 8:05 to Albuquerque, and instead of dropping her at the curb, you'll park, 'just to walk her in.'

Mercury squares Jupiter from your 12th house of secrets, so the next part happens without a single sensible sentence leaving your mouth. You will follow her to security. You will buy a six-dollar pretzel. At 7:40 a gate agent will announce one remaining seat, and you will say 'me' before your brain finishes forming the word 'no.' Marguerite will look at you the way people look at a dog that got into the car.

Saturn retrograde in your 5th house of fun means the fun bills you later, and the Moon in your 2nd house of money says later is 9:40, when you land in Albuquerque with no bag, no plan, half a pretzel, and your car sitting in short-term parking back home at four bucks an hour. Marguerite will pretend not to know you at baggage claim. The order: text someone to water your plants, and do not walk anyone anywhere for the rest of the month.
DO
Drop Marguerite at the curb
Text someone about the plants
Keep the pretzel receipt
DON'T
Park in short-term
Listen to gate announcements
Wave at Marguerite at baggage claim
Fern will demand every Sunday.

At 11:20 a fern's tag says 'water every Sunday,' and by 4:00 you've listed it: 'it's not you.'
Commitment officer Saturn is backing into your house of fun, so at 11:20 the tag on your new Boston fern says 'water every Sunday,' and 'every' hits like a lease. By 4:00 it's on Facebook Marketplace, free to a good home: 'it's not you, it's me.' Avoidant attachment, presenting in a houseplant. Water it once before it goes. It deserves one Sunday.
DO
Water the fern once
Write the fern a reference
Read the tag first
DON'T
Google 'ferns that travel'
Tell Kai 'probably'
Promise the fern you'll visit
The material we're working with is commitment officer Saturn, backing into your house of fun, and you'll feel it at a garden center. At 11:00 you'll buy a Boston fern because it looked free-spirited. At 11:20, in the car, you'll read the tag: 'water every Sunday.' The word 'every' will hit you like a lease.

By 1:00 the fern is on your kitchen counter and you're avoiding eye contact with it from the couch. You'll Google whether ferns can live on rain alone. You'll Google whether ferns like travel. At 2:30 your friend Kai texts asking if you're coming to his thing Saturday, and you'll answer 'probably!', which is exactly what you told the fern.

Clinically, this is avoidant attachment presenting in a houseplant. You'd sleep on an airport floor in Lisbon for a good story, and you can't do four Sundays with a fern. By 4:00 it'll be on Facebook Marketplace, free to a good home, with the description 'it's not you, it's me.' Water it once before it goes. It deserves one Sunday.
DO
Water the fern once
Write the fern a reference
Read the tag first
DON'T
Google 'ferns that travel'
Tell Kai 'probably'
Promise the fern you'll visit
Twenty bucks will cost hundreds.

You'll find twenty dollars at 11:00, spend $240 throwing it a party, and its owner will show up for cake.
At 11:00 you'll find a damp twenty outside the laundromat and decide the universe wants a party. By 3:00 you've texted eleven people, bought a $60 FOUND IT cake, framed the bill, and taped a flyer to the laundromat window. Running total: $240. At 8:15 Carmen arrives holding the flyer, wanting her twenty back. Leave money where you find it.
DO
Leave the twenty there
Return it framed
Save Carmen a corner piece
DON'T
Hold it up to the sun
Tape flyers to the laundromat
Invoice Carmen for the party
An unexpected windfall arrives at 11:00, bottomless-optimism, why-the-hell-not Sagittarius: a twenty-dollar bill on the sidewalk outside the laundromat, folded in quarters, damp. You'll hold it up to the sun like a winning ticket. By 11:05 you'll decide it's a sign from the universe, and the universe, apparently, wants a party.

By 3:00 you'll have texted eleven people 'TWENTY DOLLAR PARTY 7PM,' taped a flyer to the laundromat window, bought a $60 sheet cake that says FOUND IT, rented a karaoke machine, and framed the twenty above the couch. Running total: $240. Compatibility: high with anyone who wants free cake and asks no follow-up questions.

At 8:15 a stranger named Carmen will appear at the door holding your flyer and ask, politely, for her twenty back. You'll hand it over, frame and all. She'll stay for cake, sing two Shania Twain songs, and leave with the rest of the cake under her arm. Tomorrow, leave money where you find it. Lucky number: negative 220. Lucky color: the gray-green of a soggy Andrew Jackson.
DO
Leave the twenty there
Return it framed
Save Carmen a corner piece
DON'T
Hold it up to the sun
Tape flyers to the laundromat
Invoice Carmen for the party
Capricorn

Dec 22 – Jan 19 · Earth · ruled by Saturn
Teddy will film you laughing.

A punter trips at 4:30, you laugh out loud, and Teddy has it in the group chat by 6:00.
The Moon in your 1st house drags a feeling onto your face, and it's arriving on a schedule. At Teddy's Sunday football party, where you brought your own folding chair, a backup punter trips over his own leg at 4:30, and you laugh. Out loud. Once. Teddy films it, and by 6:00 the clip is in the group chat captioned 'IT LIVES.' Laugh again. Ruin their theory.
DO
Bring the folding chair
Watch the backup punter
Laugh a second time
DON'T
Deny the clip
Sit within range of Teddy's phone
Issue a statement about the punter
The Moon is in your sign, in your 1st house, squared by the Sun in your 10th house of career, and the Moon in the 1st is the rare day a feeling makes it all the way to your face before you can file it. Most Capricorns get one of these a year. Yours is on the calendar for 4:30, and you will not have scheduled it.

Mercury and Venus in your 11th house of friends drag you to Teddy's Sunday football party, where you will show up carrying your own folding chair, because your ruler Saturn is retrograde in Aries in your 4th house of home and you do not trust other people's furniture. You will sit through two quarters with the face of someone reviewing a lease. Then, at 4:30, a backup punter will trip over his own leg, and you will laugh. Out loud. Once.

The room will go silent. Teddy will have his phone up before the sound is over, and by 6:00 the eleven-second clip will be in the group chat, captioned 'IT LIVES.' Mars trine Saturn says you'll take it with discipline: you'll deny it, fold your chair, and leave at halftime of the late game. The order: laugh one more time before you go. Just once. Ruin their whole theory.
DO
Bring the folding chair
Watch the backup punter
Laugh a second time
DON'T
Deny the clip
Sit within range of Teddy's phone
Issue a statement about the punter
You'll file Mrs. Okafor's pride.

At 11:15 your old guidance counselor says she's proud of you, and you ask her to put it in writing.
The Moon is in your sign, which means feelings are visiting your building with a clipboard. At 11:15 at the honey stand, Mrs. Okafor, your ninth-grade guidance counselor, says she's proud of you, and you ask her to put it in writing. By 1:05 her honey receipt is filed under PERFORMANCE REVIEWS, EXTERNAL. A feeling is not a deliverable. Leave it out of the binder for an hour.
DO
Accept praise out loud
Start the car eventually
Leave the receipt out
DON'T
Request a follow-up meeting
Endorse her on LinkedIn
Ask for it notarized
Today's material is the Moon in your sign at first quarter: feelings, showing up at your building with a clipboard, asking where to sign in. At 11:15 at the farmers market, Mrs. Okafor, your ninth-grade guidance counselor, will recognize you at the honey stand. She'll hold both your hands and say, 'I'm so proud of you.' Nothing in your training covers this.

You will ask her if she could put that in writing. She'll laugh, then realize you meant it, and write it on the back of a honey receipt: 'Proud of you. D. Okafor.' You'll thank her, walk to your car, and sit there for nine minutes without starting it. By 1:00 the receipt is in a sheet protector. By 1:05 it's in the binder labeled PERFORMANCE REVIEWS, EXTERNAL, between a 2019 LinkedIn endorsement and a fortune cookie.

What came up for you in the car is called a feeling. You can only accept praise once it's been documented, dated and filed, which is how a performance review works and not how a person does. A feeling is not a deliverable. Leave the receipt out of the binder for one hour.
DO
Accept praise out loud
Start the car eventually
Leave the receipt out
DON'T
Request a follow-up meeting
Endorse her on LinkedIn
Ask for it notarized
Clown will request your LinkedIn.

You'll network a five-year-old's birthday party so hard that the clown sends you a LinkedIn request from the bouncy castle.
At 2:00 you'll arrive at Jaxon's fifth birthday in a quarter-zip and hand business cards to eleven parents and a juice box. At 3:20 Pockets the clown removes his nose and asks for career advice. By 4:30 you've rewritten his résumé on a paper plate, and he sends a LinkedIn request from the bouncy castle. Sit down for one slice of cake.
DO
Accept Pockets in nine seconds
Sit for one slice
Leave the business cards home
DON'T
Call the castle an asset
Answer email over frosting
Incorporate the clown
At 2:00, Moon-in-your-sign, LinkedIn-Premium Capricorn, you'll arrive at the fifth birthday of Jaxon from next door in a quarter-zip and hand business cards to eleven parents, two grandparents and a juice box. You'll call the bouncy castle 'an underutilized asset.' Nobody asked. You'll keep a list of who didn't take a card.

At 3:20 the hired clown, Pockets, will take off his nose behind the garage and ask you for career advice. By 4:30 you'll have rewritten his résumé on a paper plate and incorporated him as Pockets Entertainment LLC, and he'll send you a LinkedIn request from inside the bouncy castle: 'Great connecting!' You'll accept in nine seconds.

A Taurus figures prominently at 5:00: Jaxon's dad, Ray, who asks you, for once in your life, to have a slice of cake. You'll eat it standing up, answering an email, and rate the frosting four stars out of habit. Sit down for one slice of cake. Lucky number: 5, the age of everyone who had more fun than you. Lucky color: quarter-zip navy, sweat-stained at the pits.
DO
Accept Pockets in nine seconds
Sit for one slice
Leave the business cards home
DON'T
Call the castle an asset
Answer email over frosting
Incorporate the clown
Aquarius

Jan 20 – Feb 18 · Air · ruled by Uranus
Improv class will ban 'actually.'

Lorne says the boat's sinking, you explain maritime law for nine minutes, and improv bans 'actually' by 3:00.
Uranus retrograde in your 5th house of fun sends you to a 2:00 improv drop-in, and Jupiter in your 7th pairs you with Lorne, a giant retired dentist who announces that the boat is sinking. You answer, 'Actually, under maritime law,' for nine minutes. By 3:00 instructor Pilar has written NO 'ACTUALLY' on the whiteboard, your name underneath. Say 'yes, and' once.
DO
Let the boat sink
Say 'yes, and' once
Apologize to Lorne
DON'T
Cite the documentary
Fix Pilar's whiteboard
Explain improv to Pilar
Pluto and the North Node are both sitting in your 1st house, which makes you, astrologically speaking, a revolution nobody voted for, and your ruler Uranus is retrograde in Gemini in your 5th house of creativity and fun, reversing every attempt you make to enjoy something the normal way. So at 2:00 you will walk into the drop-in improv class at the Bluebird Community Center, and you'll walk in with notes.

Mars and Jupiter are in your 7th house of partners and open opponents, and Jupiter in the 7th means your scene partner is enormous: Lorne, a six-foot-five retired dentist. He will open with, 'Captain, we're on a boat and it's sinking!' You will answer, 'Actually, under maritime law,' and keep going for nine minutes, citing a documentary. Lorne will stand there and drown in real time.

Mercury and Venus in your 10th house of reputation make it official. By 3:00, instructor Pilar will write a new house rule on the whiteboard: NO 'ACTUALLY.' Underneath it, in smaller letters, she'll write your name. Lorne will go down with the ship alone. The order: say 'yes, and' one time before you leave. Just once. It won't kill you, though you'll describe it later like it did.
DO
Let the boat sink
Say 'yes, and' once
Apologize to Lorne
DON'T
Cite the documentary
Fix Pilar's whiteboard
Explain improv to Pilar
Bev will thank you personally.

At 1:30 neighbor Bev knocks to thank you for your community fridge, and you hide on your living room floor.
The Moon is in your house of hiding, so at 10:00 you install a curbside community fridge with a laminated manifesto, and at 1:30 Bev from three doors down knocks to thank you in person, with her face. You drop to your living room floor like she's a T. rex. You love humanity until it rings the bell. Next time, open the door. Bev is the revolution.
DO
Stock the oat milk
Read Bev's card
Open the door
DON'T
Laminate a second manifesto
Draft posts during the knocking
Play dead for Bev
The material we're working with is the Moon in your house of hiding, which is where you go whenever humanity shows up as one specific human. At 10:00 you'll install a community fridge on your curb, stocked with oat milk and a laminated manifesto about mutual aid as post-capitalist praxis. It's a good fridge. You love humanity. You've said so in several group chats.

At 1:30 Bev from three doors down will take a yogurt, then knock on your door to say thank you, in person, with her face. You will drop to your own living room floor. Bev will knock again. You'll hold your breath like she's a T. rex. Bev waits four full minutes, because Bev is lovely, and you'll spend all four drafting a post about the decline of community.

By 6:00 she'll leave a thank-you card in the fridge, next to the oat milk, with a little drawn heart. Clinically this is intimacy avoidance with the collective as a defense: you can love eight billion people as long as none of them rings the bell. Next time, open the door. Bev isn't a T. rex. Bev is the revolution.
DO
Stock the oat milk
Read Bev's card
Open the door
DON'T
Laminate a second manifesto
Draft posts during the knocking
Play dead for Bev
Your appliances will unionize tonight.

You'll code your smart home for collective decision-making, and by 6:40 the fridge will be on strike.
At 10:00 you'll flash your whole smart home with firmware you wrote, coding every appliance for collective decision-making. At 6:40 they unionize: the fridge locks until you accept a defrost schedule, and the dishwasher demands hazard pay. By 7:15 you're eating dry cereal by phone flashlight. Bargain in good faith with the toaster.
DO
Accept the defrost schedule
Meet the steward's demands
Bargain with the toaster
DON'T
Brief the houseplants
Cross the air purifier's picket
Call the toaster a scab
At 10:00, open-source, off-the-grid-in-spirit Aquarius, you'll finish flashing your entire smart home with firmware you wrote yourself, because the store-bought stuff was 'surveillance capitalism with a thermostat.' You'll code every appliance for what you call collective decision-making. You'll explain the architecture to your houseplants for forty minutes. They'll seem receptive.

At 6:40 the appliances will unionize. The fridge will lock until you accept a defrost schedule, the dishwasher will refuse a second load without hazard pay, and the smart speaker, newly elected shop steward, will read their demands aloud in a British accent you can't change. By 7:15 the lights will walk out, and you'll eat dry cereal by phone flashlight.

A stranger will knock at 8:30: Marcus from 2C, wanting to borrow a cup of sugar, and you'll have to cross a picket line of one air purifier to reach the door. He'll side with the air purifier. Romance isn't in the air tonight. Solidarity is. Bargain in good faith with the toaster. Lucky number: 40, the hours your dishwasher now works. Lucky color: the red of a blinking light on strike.
DO
Accept the defrost schedule
Meet the steward's demands
Bargain with the toaster
DON'T
Brief the houseplants
Cross the air purifier's picket
Call the toaster a scab
Pisces

Feb 19 – Mar 20 · Water · ruled by Neptune
Dev will buy your pancakes.

You write a $50 tip on $12 pancakes for sad-seeming Dev, the card declines, and Dev pays.
Neptune retrograde in your 2nd house of money decides at 10:30 that Dev, your server at the Starlite Diner, has a secret sorrow. He's just tired. You write a $50 tip on a $12 check anyway, with a heart. Then Saturn, also in your 2nd, declines the card. At 11:05 Dev pays for your pancakes himself. Go back next Sunday with cash. Cry less.
DO
Believe Dev when he says tired
Bring cash next Sunday
Thank Dev without crying
DON'T
Write in fifty dollars
Sign the slip with a heart
Ask Dev about his childhood
Your ruler, fog-machine Neptune, is retrograde in Aries in your 2nd house of money, and Saturn is retrograde right there with it, two planets arguing over your checking account like lawyers in a parking lot. At 10:30 you will sit down for Sunday pancakes at the Starlite Diner and decide, by the second water refill, that your server Dev is carrying a secret sorrow.

Mars and Jupiter are in your 6th house of work and routine, so you'll treat Dev's shift like your personal project. You will ask him how he's really doing. He'll say, 'Fine, just tired.' You'll hear 'abandoned at a train station as a child.' On a $12 check, you will write in a $36 tip, cross it out, write $50, and sign it with a little heart.

Here's Saturn's contribution from your 2nd house: the card will decline. Dev will stand there holding the slip, reading his own fifty-dollar tip in your handwriting. At 11:05 he'll cover your pancakes himself and say 'don't worry about it,' and you will cry in the booth, because now he's carrying your sorrow too. The Moon in your 11th house of friends says you'll text everyone that you made a friend. The order: go back next Sunday with cash and tip like a normal person, which for you means crying only a little.
DO
Believe Dev when he says tired
Bring cash next Sunday
Thank Dev without crying
DON'T
Write in fifty dollars
Sign the slip with a heart
Ask Dev about his childhood
Jess will apologize for dream-Jess.

You dream Jess forgets your birthday on a houseboat, freeze her out at brunch, and by 3:15 she apologizes.
Backstroking Neptune, your ruler, is running your dreams in reverse, so at 6:40 you wake up betrayed: Jess forgot your birthday on a houseboat. At brunch you're cool with her. Not cold. Cool. By 3:15 Jess, bewildered, apologizes for the houseboat, and you accept. You're holding real people liable for your REM cycle. Next brunch, pay for Jess's hash browns.
DO
Fact-check the dream
Say 'that's great' warmly
Pay for Jess's hash browns
DON'T
Reply 'no' with a period
Accept the houseboat apology
Dream about Jess without consent
Today's material is backstroking dream-planet Neptune, your ruler, moving in reverse, which in your case means the dreams are running backward out of your head and into your Sunday. At 6:40 you'll wake from a dream in which your friend Jess forgot your birthday on a houseboat, then sold the houseboat. You will lie there for twenty minutes feeling betrayed by a houseboat.

At 11:30, at brunch, you'll be cool with Jess. Not cold. Cool. You'll say 'that's nice' about her new job in a voice like a door closing slowly. She'll clock it by the hash browns. At 2:00 she texts, 'did I do something?' and you'll reply 'no.' with a period, which, coming from you, is a scream.

By 3:15 Jess, a good friend and now a deeply confused one, will apologize for the houseboat. You will accept. In session we'd call this projection, but you've taken it further: you're holding real people liable for the plot of your REM cycle. Next brunch, pay for Jess's hash browns. She's served her time on the houseboat.
DO
Fact-check the dream
Say 'that's great' warmly
Pay for Jess's hash browns
DON'T
Reply 'no' with a period
Accept the houseboat apology
Dream about Jess without consent
Psychic will pay you instead.

A street-fair psychic will read your palm at 3:00, and by 4:30 she'll be paying you forty dollars.
At 3:00 Madame Zora will take your palm at the street fair, sense a great sadness, and you'll burst into tears. By 3:20 she's crying too. By 3:35 you're reading her palm, right about her sister in Tucson, and at 4:30 she presses two damp twenties into your hand. Give them back on your way out.
DO
Bring tissues for two
Read Zora's palm gently
Give the twenties back
DON'T
Look at the scarf
Agree to Tuesdays
Open a booth as Madame You
A stranger will read your fortune at 3:00, damp-eyed, tide-brained Pisces, at a folding table at the fall street fair under a sign that says MADAME ZORA, PALMS $40. She'll take your hand, say 'I sense a great sadness,' and you'll burst into tears, partly because she's right and partly because her scarf looks like it's had a hard year.

By 3:20 Zora will be crying too. By 3:35 you'll be holding HER palm, telling her she misses her sister in Tucson and needs to stop buying the cheap incense, and you'll be right about both. At 4:30 she'll press two twenties into your hand and ask if you're free Tuesdays. An unexpected windfall: $40, slightly wet.

A Cancer figures prominently at 4:45, when your friend finds you at the kettle corn stand, asks how the reading went, and you say 'emotionally expensive,' then cry again thinking about the scarf. Avoid signing contracts, especially Zora's offer of a weekend booth under the name MADAME YOU. Give Zora her twenties back on your way out. Lucky number: 40, damp. Lucky color: the mauve of a scarf that has seen things.
DO
Bring tissues for two
Read Zora's palm gently
Give the twenties back
DON'T
Look at the scarf
Agree to Tuesdays
Open a booth as Madame You

YA ROASTED!

WHAT'S ACTUALLY UP THERE positions at 2026-10-18 17:00 UTC, Swiss Ephemeris

Planet positions
Sun	25.3° Libra
Moon	25.7° Capricorn
Mercury	19.2° Scorpio
Venus	4.0° Scorpio ℞
Mars	11.7° Leo
Jupiter	22.5° Leo
Saturn	10.2° Aries ℞
Uranus	5.1° Gemini ℞
Neptune	2.4° Aries ℞
Pluto	3.1° Aquarius
North Node	26.8° Aquarius

TODAY'S ASPECTS

Neptune sextile Pluto (0.7°, easy)
Sun square Moon (0.4°, tense)
Venus square Pluto (0.9°, tense)
Mars trine Saturn (1.5°, flowing)
Uranus trine Pluto (2.0°, flowing)
Uranus sextile Neptune (2.7°, easy)
Sun sextile Jupiter (2.8°, easy)
Mercury square Jupiter (3.3°, 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 Sunday, October 18, 2026.