This Week's Horoscope

| 16 Feb 2015 | 04:39

    Leo (July 23-Aug. 22) Being king or queen won't yield the specific combination of freedom and power you crave right now. But neither will denying your royal nature. How about dropping to the rank of prince(ss)? Prince(sse)s can still wear fantastic clothes, consort with interesting people and get into all the best parties. You may not get called Your Majesty, but Your Highness is better anyway. Stop taking yourself so seriously. Trade in the tedious responsibilities of Supreme Sovereignty for the delicious freedom of second place. In other words, lose the majesty and get high. Virgo (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) Ah, the evils of entropy. Chaos and disorder are your sworn enemies. It's a constant battle to simply maintain the level of organization you're accustomed to. Do you have any idea how much time and energy you waste this way? It's inefficient to be so efficient. A certain degree of slack can increase your output tenfold. But I'm not touting the virtues of mess simply to improve your efficacy. Chaos is creative. It's fertile. Order is stifling. Look at the military. Not exactly a fount of new ideas. Maybe those extremes of discipline are necessary for training killers, but not for someone who's ready to give birth. Okay, your pregnancy is more metaphorical than physical, but the idea that's waiting to be born is just about as messy and allergic to rigid structure as any newborn. So loosen up?for the sake of the "baby," if not yourself. Libra (Sept. 23-Oct. 22) You're so attuned to others at times that your own emotions seem as faint and distant as a crackling signal over a radio phone. Oh, you're in touch with your feelings. You make sure you call them at least once a week, like a nervous relative. At times you receive their signal with crystal clarity. Your problem is consistency. I'm not saying shut down your connections to the outside world for the sake of your inner one. I'm just saying prepare for more stimulus: As long as you don't make deliberate efforts to sabotage it, this week will be like getting hooked up to a high-bandwidth ground line straight to the source. Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) You just can't help stinging people sometimes, you say. Your regret is so sincere-seeming, I almost believe you. It's a compulsion, you protest, a disease! You villainous crybaby. I apologize to all the more evolved Scorpios who'll be able to resist the evil temptation to poisonously stab those they call their friends. To all those who sting and deliver lame excuses later, you're forgiven in advance, though hardly excused. Heat of the moment? Heat, shmeat. Don't expect me (or anyone else) to take all your underhanded commentary without paying you back with at least a sharp slap on the wrist, if not what you really deserve. Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) Whoooeeee! You might want to break that one up before you flush it down. You probably feel like you gave birth to a baby planet, or at least a new moon. Not literally, thank God?it would take an entire plumbers' convention to help that shit negotiate through your building's pipes. Better to have it hauled out in a truck. Luckily for you, the dump you're due to take this week is a mostly mental one (though it could be accompanied by a, thankfully, smaller physical reality?I find that shitting is a great time to let go of stuff). But the relief is real, even if the poop isn't, so please enjoy it. Capricorn (Dec. 22-January 19) Your totem animal is a creature with the front half of a goat and the rear of a fish. It might seem a little awkward and cumbersome at first glance (as do you, at times), but its efficient versatility becomes apparent the longer you examine it. Imagine a creature composed of the leftover halves. It'd lose those horns (for butting) if not its horniness (also for butting?). Gone would be the fishlike agility (replaced by a watery indecisiveness) and the goatlike resourcefulness (transformed into inefficiently flailing hooves). Why this preposterous reflection on a purely mythical creature? It's no more ridiculous than the internal changes you've been contemplating. Change is good, and should always be considered. But the bottom line is: If it ain't broke, don't fuck with it. Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) For geniuses, some of you Aquarians have a hard time making your synapses fire on cue. They seem to be hooked up to three-to-eight-hour delays. This can be embarrassing at dinnertime when you suddenly blurt out the name of the actor you'd been discussing at lunch with another group of people. Instead of boring folks with a tedious explanation for your absurd behavior, recalibrate your inner clocks. Bring up the data in a reasonable amount of time, or let it go. If you can't turn on a dime, don't bother turning on a dollar. Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) When I worked in a group home, one of the guys who lived there loved to run his washing machine, dryer, radio, television and CB radio, all while talking on the phone. I found the resulting cacophony hard to take for even short periods of time. I understand you better now. It often seems that you sweet, gentle Fish experience the world as a similarly overwhelming melange of stimuli. No wonder you can't be tempted to leave the house sometimes. Wearing rose-colored spectacles is no solution, though. They just screen out the bad stuff. This week, practice the skill you need most?filter out the irrelevant, and leave the rest in, good or bad. You'll know you've mastered this trick when what's left is just a little less than too much. Aries (March 21-April 19) One of the reasons your sign has a reputation for flaring too brightly, then burning out too early, is this ego crash-and-burn you seem to enjoy. At least, you keep going along with it; I don't know why you would if you didn't like it. Really? You'd rather not go there in the future? Okay, listen up then. First, you're special, extraordinary and talented. Second, so are lots of people who are just as unique as you are. Lastly, the main thing that holds you back from being even more gifted and wonderful is your judgment of other people?not their judgments of you. Taurus (April 20-May 20) My porn star ex-boyfriend confided the secret to a long?career in the blue movie business: controlled exposure. Since he's made more than 60 movies, he probably knows what he's talking about. Avoid being pictured on the box, especially the cover. It's a tricky question of balance. This week, work on your social exposure levels: You want people to see enough of you to notice you, become intrigued. But you've also got to keep them wanting more. In other words, when trying to decide between the leather pants and the short shorts, don't choose the short shorts. Gemini (May 21-June 20) I just spent the last hour and a half squeezing into and out of various latex confections. I'm just exercising my superhero fetish. I look forward to the day when I can afford to go nuts in kinky clothing shops. I just hope I still have a body that'll look good in painted-on outfits. On a similar note, you're not utilizing one of your best (and, unfortunately, most perishable) resources. Better start taking advantage of that slim, girlish figure of yours while you have it. You never know when your metabolism will change and leave you a bloated old toad. [Caeriel@yahoo.com](mailto:caeriel@yahoo.com)