Horoscopes a la Pliny the Elder

I’m reading excerpts from Pliny the Elder’s encyclopedia.  That guy!  He wrote a 37 volume encyclopedia of everything, from his head. His actual head.  Chapters on all aspects of the universe, natural world, magic, medicine, and mining.  An enormous, opinionated compendium of all that he knew.  He lived from 23 – 79, back when the years only had two digits.  He wrote this all without going to the internet or even the library.  It’s lovely and awkward and inappropriately decisive.  About trees:

 “The treasures within the earth were long hidden, and trees and forests thought of as her ultimate gift to mankind.  From trees first came food, and their leaves made mens caves more comfortable; their bark provided man with clothes.  Even in our day and age, some primitive races live in this manner.”

Or this, about portraiture:

“Portraiture, the medium by which exact likenesses of people were handed down through the ages, is completely out of fashion.  Bronze shields are set up as monuments; they bear a design in silver with a faint outline of human figures.  Meanwhile, people cram the walls of their galleries with old pictures and revere the likenesses of strangers. As for likenesses of themselves, their concern for honor only extends as far as the price, so they are quite content for their heir to break up the statue and drag it out of doors by a noose.”

I’m not sure what’s going on there, but I guess lots of people were dragging statues around by nooses, somehow adding value?  The whole project is amazing and inspiring, primarily due to the breadth of his knowledge, but also because he lacked the discipline or desire to separate fact from fiction.  And he was a super disciplined guy, in his own way – he proclaimed that walking was a waste of his time, so people carried him around town in a chair so that he could continue reading.  Which sounds really weird but actually, add a combustion engine and an audio book, and most of us do that every day.  We sit in our chair and get carried around town, being read to.  Although I'd love to try this with an actual chair.  

The structure that he applies to the world is also interesting.  For example, “Mining and Minerals” includes volumes on painting, architecture, and sculpture.

So, Pliny, I take your throw down.  You wrote 37 volumes; I will try to write 12 paragraphs about things I know about, without running to the internet every three seconds.  Hence, the following horoscopes.  And, my dear reader, (or maybe there are two now?), don’t worry, this will not be the last you see of Pliny.  

Horoscopes: The World As I Understand It

Aries (3/21 - 4/19):  King County Zoning Code:  If you want to build anything in King County, you will need to know that per KCC 21A.24.045D 7, you may add up to 1,000 square feet of additional footprint to an existing legal residence, even if it's in a wetland buffer!  I could go on and on reciting the code because this is my only super power.  But I will spare you, because I've learned that many humans aren't particularly interested.

Taurus (4/20 – 5/20):  Pets:  If you're thinking about getting a pet, a dog is the way to go because they are forgiving and enthusiastic.  When you ask a dog if they'd like dinner, they leap up from the napping that they do most of the time, jump up and down for a minute, wagging their tail, and follow you.  When you ask if they need a minute to decide what they'd like, they just wag wag wag, indicating that whatever you offer will be just fine.  They're ecstatic with kibbles dished out of a metal garbage can and into a bowl on the floor.   The humans, on the other hand, sometimes send food back to the kitchen, saying they don't like it, or it's inadequate, or why isn't steak on the menu, or you're not very good at carrying the food from the kitchen to the table.  I beg to differ, but that's a whole 'nother topic, Taurus.  

Gemini (5/21 - 6/21):  More About Pets:  If you don't have time for a dog, and you're sort of boring, you might want a fish.  A fish is a good pet if you don't have the emotional bandwith to love one more being.  This works out because fish aren't very cuddly compared to the dogs.  Fish are really exciting to see in a stream, which happens at this time of year, but not so interesting when they sleep in your bed.  (I don't know for sure if that's even a thing but I promised you that I would not look on the internet.)  Fish need water, so I guess if you have a waterbed you could sleep with your fish.  Gemini, if you don't have the bandwidth to love something, that's the worst thing that can happen.  If it happens to you, try with something easy, like a chocolate eclair.  They are easy to love, especially compared to a pet fish.

Cancer (6/22 – 7/21):  Trees.  There are only five trees that you need to know:  Douglas fir, big-leaf maple, western hemlock, red alder, and Western red cedar (my personal favorite).  These can be divided into two groups: Christmas trees, and regular trees.  If you can't learn the five trees, you should at least learn the groups.  And if you live somewhere hot, you have a third group, the palm trees.  

Leo (7/23 – 8/22): Cleaning.  A lot of the humans worry about being clean, and having a clean environment, and keeping everything tidy.  This is misinformation.  Its best to keep everything out where you can see it or get back to it if you have a free minute.  Like, if you're in the middle of creating a fake portable miniature fire pit, and you're making paper mache logs for it with tiny wire armatures, and then you're also going to draw a bug, and maybe there's some laundry happening, all of that should be out where you can see it.  This builds trust between you and your stuff, and trust is the key to everything.

Virgo (8/23 – 9/22): Yoga:  If you want to be a lot healthier and happier than you already are, do the yoga.  The dogs do it automatically upon waking.  The humans wear special clothes and drive to a little room and set up their own little personal mat like a Montessori preschool, and do it all together.  It's cozy and sweet, and involves breathing, pushups disguised as other things, handstands, and sometimes, my personal favorite, which I call "one minute one minute one minute."  

Libra (9/23 – 10/22):   Walking:  We're all supposed to walk 10,000 steps a day, which is pretty easy if you picked a dog for a pet.  If you picked a fish, it will be harder but you can do it, though you'll have to leave the fish at home in the waterbed.  It's especially easy if you're a server.  Server is the term that replaced waiter and waitress, in case you've been MIA for a while.  A server goes on hikes every day, but instead of being in the woods and seeing things like waterfalls and mountaintops, they walk around and around the same little room, carrying things, and enjoying the view of leftover pizza crusts and empty glasses.  If you picked a fish as a pet, this job will help you understand their predicament.  On Sunday, I walked 8.5 miles inside a small room.  Anyway, Libra, the Fitbit is a craze that started about 5 years , when everyone attached a monitor to their wrist so they knew how many steps they walked.  I just joined up yesterday, late to the party as usual, but so far it's pretty fun and I'd recommend it.  It used to be that I was so busy counting all day that I couldn't even stop to say hello to anyone. Now, whatever!  Hello hellow!  That's what I will say to you while the counting happens automatically.

Scorpio (10/23 – 11/21): The World As We Know It:  It appears to be end times for lots of reasons.  The planet is crowded with people and plastic, the whales are dying, the droughts are bad, the storms are worse, a red cow was born in Jerusalem.  Oh, and Trump.  The pussy-grabber has control of the Situation Room and that can't possibly end well.  But cheer up Scorp!  We've had a good run as a species, and it's time to turn it all over to the rats and termites and Himalayan blackberry.  Did you know, btw, that a female termite can live for a decade or more?  Rejoice!

  

Sagittarius (11/22 – 12/21): Entertainment.  Most people do these things for entertainment:  they draw bugs, walk in the woods, watch The Detectorists (which is the most popular tv show), make flutes from plume poppies, and organize parades of vegetables.  Oh, and sometimes, they try to create little lanterns out of stuff.  And grow vegan leather pants from the skin of kombucha.  I think someone also went to the movies once but I don't know much about that.

Capricorn (12/22 - 1/19):  Magic:  Magic has gotten kind of a bad rap since Pliny's day, but there's still a lot of mystery and wonder out there.  I would explain but that's the whole point of magic -- it's unexplainable!  Just enjoy it.

Aquarius (1/20-2/18):  Me Too:  This is a movement where women have become more outspoken about the fact that they'd prefer not to be touched, groped, penetrated, etc. without permission.  Some percentage of men don't get this, so it's an actual discussion, rather than just a "duh".  

Pisces (2/19 – 3/20): Money:  People seem pretty interested in money.  Getting it, showing it off with the things they wear and do, and spending a lot of time trying to get it.  One time, some people tried to rob the Starbucks in Monroe in order to get money, but because they came so early in the morning (you gotta get up early if you want money!) there wasn't much in the till.  So they tied up the employees and ran the drive-through lane for an hour or so to get more money.  It seems like it wouldn't be very hard to actually get HIRED at Starbucks, especially if you're willing to run the drive-through.  But you probably shouldn't mention your prior barista experience if it involves tying people up.  The point is, people go to great lengths to get the money so that they can take vacations and get away from the jobs they have to do to get the money.  And they need lots of money to retire from the jobs they hate, so the go hard at the job while holding their noses and longing for it to be over.  I don't really have any money but I do like to work, which is related but different.