Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Horoscopes: The taco truck edition (corrected)

Pisces (2/19 – 3/20) How about that, Pisces, you're first!  

I went to the new taco truck yesterday, and since I was at my booty call job, I was in The Man's truck.  There are a few men sitting at the picnic table, and one said, "So, you work for the County?"

"Yep."

"Oh.  It's just weird to see your trucks so far off the beaten path.  Usually I just see them on the freeway."

I was kind of happy with this conversation, because for route talk, it was way better than the usual, and I was already sort of amused. The beaten path?  


We did the 'what do you do, what do you do thing, and I learned that he delivers appliances.

"Weird coincidence.  My son has a washer and dryer," I replied.


He turned to his coworker, as if I were invisible, or at least deaf.  "Did she just say her son has a washer and dryer?"


"Yup."


He turned back to me.  "Did you just say your son has a washer and dryer?"


"Yes. He's sort of a man of means.  Or at least the means to wash some clothes."


I could tell he didn't think it was funny at all; quite possibly he thought I was not quite right in the head.  In the gentlest, most pitying way, he said, "You can have lunch with us if you need to."


(Of course I said yes.  You knew that though.)  


Pisces, in the least pitying way ever, you can totally have lunch with me if you need to, or even if you just want to.


Aries (3/21 - 4/19):  I downloaded some new podcasts, and I picked one called, The Why Generation, because truly, isn't "why" the best of the question adverbs?  So I listened to a few, and at first it seemed kind of random.  One about the hosts childhood experience with a pervy stalker, then one about Amanda Knox (sort of local, sort of timely).  And then one about Jon Benet Ramsey.  (Does she ever sleep, you may wonder about me?)  But then I get to one about Ted Bundy, and I realize that this is a true crime thing.  


Aries,  in your opinion, would listening to tales of young women being raped and murdered be a reasonable cure for  insomnia, or even a pleasant way to pass the time?   Your horoscope:  claim the question adverbs as your own.  Use them for curiousity but try not to stray into prying.  


Taurus (4/20 – 5/20):  Meanwhile, back at the taco truck, my buddy looks up at the sky.

"So, what do you think about the contrails?, he asked.

(By the way, I'm quite pleased that already, we're on some weird topic and no one has even taken a bite of a tacos yet.)


"Hmm.  I'm not sure.  How 'bout you?"


"Well, my friends say that the government is seeding the air to help prevent asperger's and alzehimers.  I don't know about that."


"Hmm.  So you think they're just starting with the A problems, and when they have those licked, maybe they'll move on to the B's?"


"Maybe so.  I just wish they wouldn't do it.  I wish I could look up at the sky and think it was pollution."


He was dead serious, Taurus, and that's the kind of earnest joyfulness I wish for you this week.  Get to a place where pollution is the bright side, and mean it.


Gemini (5/21 – 6/21):  I was at a little party the other day, and the bucket list topic came up.  One guy said that he doesn't have a bucket list; as soon as he thinks of something for it, he just does it.


"So, what are some of the things that you've done?" I asked.


"Well, one thing is I learned to fly."


"That's so cool! Can you do a demo for us?  Just fly around the room a little?"


"Oh, I learned to fly an airplane," he clarified.


I can hardly begin to describe my disappointment.  I'm still not over it, in fact.  But Gemini, you people actually can fly.  I've seen it!  Keep it up.


Cancer (6/22 – 7/21):  I was on a walk in the woods behind my house yesterday, and as I've mentioned, it's a weird sketchy vortex and although there are millions of signs of humans, many in the form of shotgun shells and budweiser cans, I hardly ever see any people.  But I was walking up the hill, and it was getting close to dusk, and I heard the very distinctive sound of someone digging a hole.  I stealthily crept a little closer, and could see a guy in the woods, about 100 feet off the trail, digging.  I hid behind a bush for a while, watching, but I was too far away to really see him, or what he was doing 

But I thought it out.  There are two reasons to dig a hole:  excavate, or bury.  What do people excavate?  Valuable minerals, or things they buried in the past (for example, if one were to rob a bank and bury the loot, they might return to exhume it after they break out of jail.)  I'm pretty sure there aren't valuable minerals here.


What they bury is things they revere (like pets), or things they don't want anyone to know about (like murder victims.  I learned about murder victim burying in my all night true-crime podcast extravaganza, in case you're wondering how I know so much.


I sat crouched in the woods for a while with no plan, and then after a bit, got up and walked home, because I couldn't really think of anything else to do.  I'll go back today or tomorrow and maybe dig up whatever it was, and hopefully I won't get implicated in a crime.
Cancer, is "why" your favorite adverb too?  If so, come with me on this expedition!  I may need an alibi or at least a witness.

Leo (7/23 – 8/22):  I asked another person at the party what was on her bucket list, and she said skydiving.  That's the most cliched bucket list item ever, but it also made me realize why I don't have one.  To be on a bucket list, the thing has to be something you could die doing.  It turns out I'm not that interested in doing that stuff.  My bucket list involves dying quietly in my sleep before it's too late. Leo, you can be a hero without a bucket list.  You can even be a hero without a bucket, but get one, because we might need it for crabbing this summer.  


Virgo (8/23 – 9/22):  I was in the field yesterday, and some customer wanted to tag along, which used to be fine but now that I listen to true crime at night, it has the potential to be creepy.  Anyway, we're crashing through the bushes, and he falls down, or maybe he sits down, and says, "OH, my hip, my hip."  [Do you remember that crutches thing that Bundy did?]  And I sit there for a minute with him until he can get up, and he does and we walk back to my car but I'm just thinking what a weird life it is, the kind of thing where one minute, you're talking contrails with a guy at a taco truck, and the next minute, you're sitting in the woods with a stranger with arthritis of the hip, and then, I dunno, one thing to the next.  Is that good?  Is there any continuity, Virgo?


Libra (9/23 – 10/22):  I'm eagerly awaiting this book, which should arrive in the mail any minute now.  If anyone else wants to read it, we can have a tiny little book club.  It's written by a brilliant, hilarious, and remarkable friend, the kind of person who only comes along once in a long while, and her writing is exquisite.  I hope you all buy it.


Scorpio (10/23 – 11/21):  Speaking of digging things up, it did occur to me that maybe that guy in the woods had some sort of vision, like the lady who got a feeling about where Richard III was, and dug up a parking lot to find him.  More than 500 years after he died.  Maybe that's what was going on in the woods, Scorpio?  


Sagittarius (11/22 – 12/21):  R. has asked me to draw a bee that he and his sister M. can get as tattoos.  "Why a bee?"

  
"Well," he said, "we're hard working, community minded, and make sweetness out of whatever we get handed."

That seems to be absolutely true.  Sag, continue to make the sweetness whereever you go.



Capricorn (12/22 – 1/19):  I was at an art class last week, and the teacher asked, "what makes us women, and different from men?".  I wanted to raise my hand and say, "Oh, OH, I know!  We have vaginas, commit fewer murders, make less money, and report significantly less happiness than men. Can we go make art now?"  But it wasn't that kind of thing, we were supposed to get in touch with the ancestors, and listen to one another's thoughts on womanhood, ponder the women who came before us, and talk about how our needs are really never met because of our caretaking instincts, and it went on and on and on until I wanted to cut off my arm, because I thought that might get us moving along towards the actual painting.  After a while I stopped listening and started thinking about that guy who sawed his arm off with a swiss army knife when he got stuck in a rock.  It all served as a reminder of what an impatient human I am, and why it's a good thing that I don't carry a knife.  (Hey, interesting fact:  the present, which we're all supposed to live in, is three seconds long.)


But one of the people answered the question by saying she got tested and has a really high percent neanderthal, and she feels really kindred with her cave woman ancestry.  That was a rather unexpected answer, so just like that, I was happy again.  I didn't want to tell her that we're pretty sure the Neanderthal didn't make art, but I did seek her out to learn what her percentage was, and she had no idea.  Couldn't remember.  Grr.  Cap, find your percentage.  Bonus points if NH#>LH#, whatever that means.


Aquarius (1/20 – 2/18):  Speaking of caves (were we?) I just learned that 30 million people in China currently live in caves.  So there's a much higher cave man population today than there was during the stone age.  Anyway, Aquarius, step out of the metaphorical cave and into the springtime!



8 comments:

  1. This month's Esquire Magazine did a big feature on The Life List. I loved most of it. It started out with a little piece beginning: "Apologize." And in it it said this, "Now, apologize isn't a thing you'll find on most life lists. But then, most life lists require you to exit your life, or your good sense, to execute the list items- parachute from outer space, visit the Titanic, sit through a whole season of Girls. Not that you'd be tempted, but don't do those things. They require you to be someone that you're not, and in any case, you'll die and any decent life list requires that you be alive to finish it. And it is the things that you would never think to put on a list that are the hardest, that teach you the most, and that bring the most pleasure. Taking down a wall with your own hands doesn't require crampons or oxygen tanks (for most people, anyway), but it is a journey all its own. And bonus: You get to be yourself along the way and not somebody else."
    I loved that. So very much. I think it's sort of, in a way, what you were saying too.
    Wise is wise. Smart is smart.
    You're both.
    No. 27 in this article was another favorite of mine. It simply said: "Hold a newborn's hand."

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    1. Oh, I'll hunt down that article. That's exactly my point! And yes, apologize. That's always the hardest. Owning our shit.
      xo
      b

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  2. Once I had wind surfing on my bucket list. Then I forgot about it. I remembered it the other day and realized I am too old to run down a hill behind a big sail, hoping to go air born.

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    Replies
    1. Yes, if we wait long enough, everything changes! I'm curious what else is on your bucket list....

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  3. I just can't do this week's Taurus, I really can't, so I will join the discussion on bucket lists instead. The only thing on mine is to get healthier before I die. That doesn't sound like the correct order, but really it is.

    Good reading as usual, Betsy! I especially smiled over the flying comment. It sounds so much like the kind of joke our family makes.

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    1. Get healthier before you die does seem like a complicated goal. But I don't think the reverse order would work either (die, and then get healthier?). I know, Taurus was a big throwdown challenge this week....

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  4. I am a man of means aren't I? Also, don't forget: Bees like to dance, and so do we!

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  5. Pisces was first!!! I was so happy about this I snorted tea out my nose. (It's ok, Jasmine my acupuncturist made it). Anyway, I could hear you mentioning your son's appliances as a real conversation hook, if you know what I mean. And the painting class-as you recall I wanted to hammer nails into my eyes. I think cutting off your arm and me with nails in my eyes would have stopped the goddess ancestor conversation COLD. We should do that next time. I'm down.

    PS. I'm still your fan.

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