Uber scopes

Pisces (2/19 – 3/20):  I'm not much of a traveller -- I'm okay with the being somewhere else part, but the airport part, not so much.  Every time I travel, the planes are delayed by serious amounts, like, 3 or 4 hours at least, and sometimes days. No one else I know has such trouble.  Example: I got snowed in overnight in Atlanta on my way to Nicaragua.  Who gets snowed in in Georgia?  And so on.  It took us about 12 hours to get home from SF the other day, and it's almost as quick to walk.  But the main reluctance I have is that I really like this planet, and lifting off terrifies me.  I spend my time in the aiplane switching wildly between sheer boredom and fearing that I'm going to die.  Fight or flight!  No, fall asleep.  Fight or flight!  Fall asleep!  As my daughter says, the plane makes me more hamsterish than normal.  Pisces, don't let this crazy holiday season make you even the tiniest bit hamsterish.  Use your very mature nervous system for good.

Aries (3/21 - 4/19):  You know that saying, "I never gave it a second thought!" -- who does that?  Who thinks about something exactly once?  I don't believe that situation exists.  Like, "Yeah, I thought about that once, and then decided to never think about it again. Just about every thought I've ever had, every thing I've ever noticed, swirls around and around like a whirlpool, maybe eddying out for moments or even weeks or years, but eventually getting swept back into the tide of things I think about.  Each thought sets up a household, sometimes a whole village in my brain.  Aries, see if you can find things to think about exactly once, and then never again.  Let me know what you find out.

Salmon skin shoes.  As if feet
don't smell already.

Taurus (4/20 – 5/20):  It's that time of year again, when everyone gets all "year-in-review-ish".  I even got a knitting e-mail, "A look back on what we knit in 2014."  Really?  I'll tell you what we knit, Taurus:  the same things we knit in 1814: sweaters and hats, and for the people with the persistence to knit two of the exact same thing, socks and mittens.  Just like every other year since Mesopotamia, the cradle of knitilization, and birthplace of looking back over the year.  Taurus, let's not be too rear-view-mirrorish. Stay in this moment, right here, full of optimism bias.

Gemini (5/21 - 6/21): Yesterday I went to the grocery store, and it was all mingly at the checkout line, reminding me of the way I feel at the end of an airplane ride.  I want to hug all the other passengers, as if we'd lived through something harrowing, but they're usually not aware of just how close to death we came, so instead of being all, "Keep in touch! Don't ever change!," I patiently wait for like a week or two while everyone reunites with the overhead bins, and I can finally exit my Row 18 seat.  I try to act cool and not inappropriately mingly.  Anyway, back to the grocery store.  I get in line with my 18 items, and the person ahead of me, a woman of about 60, gets carded for buying one bottle of wine in the midst of a typical suburban glob of purchases.  She doesn't even make a joke -- just obediently gets out her dl.  I get  panicky because I have no idea where my dl is, and I'm buying brocolli and beer, (do they card you for brocolli?) The man behind me sees my little look and suggests that I go into a different line.  I feel grateful again, just like at the end of the plane, maybe because it's still so close to the surface.  Gemini, keep grateful close to the surface this week.  

Cancer (6/22 – 7/21):  So in the new line, the checkout man says, and he seems to really

mean it, "So, how are you?"  The way a friend would, not a clerk who's said that 6,000 times in a row.  I'm caught off guard, and possibly get a tiny bit weepy.   Sometimes in the big giant world, you're hurtling along in your own orbit, and the attention of a stranger is all it takes.  I say I'm doing alright, and turn the question around.  He stops scanning and says, "It's been a long week in this business, and it's only going to get worse.  People don't know this, but we

sell a lot of cleaning supplies at this time of year.  You probably knew about the roasts, but did you ever think of all the cleaning stuff people purchase?"  He seemed so tired from selling cleaning stuff, as if it's harder than the other things.  Cancer, try not to buy any cleaning supplies this week.  (Is the difficulty due to mops, do you suppose?)

Leo (7/23 – 8/22): So, is Adnan guilty or not?  I think not.  But why did Jay know where the car was?  I know.  It's confusing, Leo, but let's just assume the best of everyone and everything for now.  Why not?  

Virgo (8/23 – 9/22):  I'd like to say that Uber is my favorite new thing, because the parts of human engagement that are annoying (like the phone, for example, where people are known to tell the most lies) are removed from the transaction.  Click "request" on your phone, and the phone knows right where you are, and a car arrives, and then you can chat with the driver if you want.  Virgo, chat with the humans all you want, all week long!  
Libra (9/23 – 10/22):  Wait!  What if we had an uber-like app for everything?  Picture this: you're sitting on the couch and want a sandwich - just click the app!  Or you want to change the channel but the remote is just out of reach -- click the app!  Need that spot on your shoulder rubbed?  Click the app!  It could be kind of a bidding situation, where you'd put the max you'd pay if someone were to show up and cook you a nice dinner, for example.  And everyone out there with the app could decide if it were worth it.

What's not to love about a moth?

Scorpio (10/23 – 11/21):  R. told a joke the other day, not to be funny but to dissect it with us, to see what we thought was funny.  It's from Mitch Hedberg:  "One time I saw a wino eating grapes.  I told him, 'Dude, you hafta wait."  None of us thought it was hilarious, just mildly funny.  But R. has a friend who thinks it's the funniest thing ever, and the funny part, for him, is the alliteration.  The Wino who has to Wait.  (I'm a little more amused by the word "hafta", myself.)  But Scorp, it all goes to show that funny isn't always where you mean it to be, and can't be bought or sold.  Laugh where you can.

Sagittarius (11/22 – 12/21):  As we know, the world is full of guilt and misery.  (Who said that?)  Anyway, it's also full of sighs, and I think it would be kind of cool to make this, eh?  What do you say?  We could put it in the workplace and show it on a webcam, how much sighing is going on.  Breathe in, breathe out, all week long.  Save the sighs for another week.

Capricorn (12/22 - 1/19): Wendell Berry said this:  The shoddy work of despair, the pointless work of pride, equally betray Creation. They are wastes of life. For despair there is no forgiveness, and for pride none. Who in loneliness can forgive?  
Yikes, Wendell.  I'm going to think about that for a while (actually that phrase has just set up a tent in my brain with a rainfly, a campfire, and two little folding chairs.) Keep doing what you do, Cap.  Create!

Aquarius (1/20 – 2/18):  Is this the coolest thing ever?  Having the bees make art for you!  Oh, right, honey!  That's why we have the bees, as Winnie the Pooh knows.  (Did anyone else hear that podcast about the guy who's mom commissioned a giant replica of his head when he went to college?  Anyway, I digress, as they say.  The point here, aquarius, is that it's christmas time.  It seems like a season that happens to others -- I don't really participate, except to notice that traffic is a little worse, the lights are a little more abundant and sweet, and there are more inflatable plastic camels than I'm accustomed to.  Aquarius, tolerance in all matters.  We're all just how we are, deserving of love and clean air and being forgiven for our failures.  May it be so.