The Dawning of the Age of Precarious

Aries (3/21 – 4/19): Diana Nyad, coolest woman evah, says that the goal should be “to live a life with no regrets and no worries about what you are going to do with your time. Fill it with passion. Be your best self.”  Do that, Aries.  Or, you could be like me and play lots of solitaire online and think about all the stuff that needs to get done like contacting the exterminator and the people who fix leaks and stuff.  You decide, Aries.  But swimming to Cuba definitely exposes you to more sharks.

Taurus (4/20 – 5/20):  I saw a headline today, "Google May Finally Bring Chrome to Android."  If you fell asleep ten years ago and just woke up... Taurus, don't become obsolete.  Keep up.  You absolutely cannot afford to fall asleep for 10 years. Drink coffee, breathe into a paper bag -- whatever it takes.

Gemini (5/21 – 6/21): When I talk to young people, I sometimes ask what they want to be when they grow up, and the usual answer is, "I want to review permits."  You've probably noticed this trend yourself.  If you have any influence on the youth of tomorrow, encourage them to keep that as a hobby. Making work out of an avocation, well, we all know how that ends.  Tell them to make music, fight fires, or write books for a living; save permit review as a fun hobby to pursue on the weekend.

Cancer 6/22 – 7/21: I'm sitting in a coffee shop, and there's a Chinese lesson going on next to me.  A middle-aged man is learning the language from a younger woman.  It seems so freakin' hard, and now he's asking her how to say, "what if the hand made the mistake?"  Is that my problem, cancer?  I barely know how (or more importantly, when) to say "what if the hand made the mistake" in English, and I can't even conjure up a circumstance when I'd need to say it in Chinese.  Is that a good horoscope?

Leo (7/23 – 8/22): The problem with having a facial recognition disorder is that every white guy looks like D.B. Cooper.  One of these fellows believes that evolution is a theory that's out there, one believes that corporations are people too, one has already been in and out of the presidential race, and one jumped out of an airplane with $200,000 in 1972.  They all look alike to me.  Oh, and then there's Dow.  But seriously, the only Republicans who don't look like D.B. are Newt and Michelle, don't you agree?  Your horoscope, my friend, is change it up a little.  Be recognizable.

Virgo (8/23 – 9/22):  I hope all time travelers are as courteous as the one who posted this sign.  Be that considerate this week. 

Libra (9/23 – 10/22): Apparently, there are two types of intelligence, fluid and crystallized.  Fluid intelligence is the ability to solve problems, recognize patterns, do puzzles.  Crystallized intelligence is the ability to use knowledge, skills, and experience.  People are supposedly made up of both kinds; I'm pretty sure I'm 95% fluid intelligence and 5 percent Wikipedia, but I haven't actually taken a test.  Libra, this week, take a few tests.  See what you're made of.

Scorpio (10/23 – 11/21):  I've spent so much time on Regretsy and Kickstarter that I barely have a horoscope for you, poor Scorpio.  I wouldn't recommend getting hooked in there; swim to Cuba instead.  I see a beach vacation in your future.  Oh, and is that your mother in the bushes? 

Sagittarius (11/22 – 12/21):  Does it seem creepy that they advertise Bing with the fact that your search results will include the preferences of your Facebook friends?  I tried to test it, and either my friends have no opinions, or it doesn't work.  But as Mark Z. said, "[Microsoft ] is incentivized to go out and innovate."  This made me look for more quotes from him, and I'd like to officially pronounce him the Least Quotable Guy ever.  Sag, be quotable.  Please don't change"incentive" into a verb.  I'm pretty sure that's not god's plan.

Capricorn (12/22 – 1/19):  Today, I purchased afternoon coffee, because it's what I need.  Also what I need in the afternoon, but am reluctant to confess here, is two packets of turbinado sugar, whateverthefuck that is.  I'm a firm believer that coffee should be consumed black, unless I'm drinking it, in which case it should have half and half in it, and, in the case of the afternoon coffee, it should also have this raw organic sugar in it.  Today when I reached for it at the little station where you decorate the coffee, the bin was empty.  The man next to me pulled a giant wad of these sugar packets from his pocket.   "Would you like one," he asked  I must have given him that "wtf, are you some kind of pure organic cane sugar hoarder?" look, because he looked quite sheepish.  "Take two if you want," he said awkwardly.   Take two yourself this week, Capricorn.

Aquarius (1/20 – 2/18):  My boss returned this week, after a month in Norway or something.  At least that's what he says.  When asked him about his trip, he gave me a list of plants and animals that he saw, and then started being upset about the whole debt ceiling, which the rest of the country has already forgotten about.  "I just don't understand middle America, Betsy.  I just don't get it.  The whole anti-tax fake christianity thing.  What's that about?"  "It's possibly about our mortality," I pronounce.  "We're sad about that, and take it out on the world by joining the Tea Party."  He gives me the, "why do you work here, again?" look, and its like he never went to Norway at all.   Aquarius, we're all gonna die, and it's not going to be fun, and we'll miss each other unbelievably, but we'll carry on; don't use any of that as an excuse to be miserly or mean-spirited now.

Pisces (2/19 – 3/20):  The sky was dark in a way I couldn't quite remember this morning.  Dark gray, but I wasn't sure if that just meant we weren't officially in dawn's early light yet, or something ominous was ahead.  So far, so good.