Monday Memes

Love Matches Astrology!

My first experience with astrology began with a $1 kiosk inside a movie theater in 1994.

"Is it True Love? What's in the Stars? Your Love Match By Astrology!"

The sign beckoned me. It was next to a kiosk with a golden turbine bearing statue behind the glass which was offering fortunes for $1.

Ahh, Zoltar, why didn’t I go to you instead?

I was 15 years old and was on a group date along with the boy from my math class who would become my high school sweetheart. I had just recently learned what his birthday was. The theatre area was packed for the big hit summer blockbuster The Lion King.

I put the $1 bill into the machine, then punched in my birthday of March 18, 1979, followed by his birthday of December 12 of 1979. My hands began to shake as I read the printed slip, then I started to cry. It was horrible.

I don't remember the exact wording on the Pisces female-Sagittarius male printout that emerged from the machine, but I'll paraphrase it roughly. It was a bad match:

"Although both sides may engage in a quick witted banter, this is a good match for business but a poor choice for romance. The Sagittarius mind will have difficulty understanding or penetrating the Pisces depths and will eventually give up on doing so. Ultimately he is likely to move on to a more suitable partner."

I'd never had feelings for anyone before, but the boy's gregarious charm had been winning my hormone fueled teenage heart over. I got butterflies in my stomach being around him and he'd recently admitted to feeling the same way about me. I needed him to be THE ONE TO HAPPILY EVER AFTER. I wanted the whole thing with the happy marriage and the white picket fence and the two story house and the kids and the pets and everything. That sounded perfect. We weren’t even really a thing yet, but, but, but…

I mean was he really going to cheat on me and leave me for someone else?

At some point during the movie I am sure my date noticed how upset I was. I wasn't crying because Mufasa died. I showed him the crumpled up astrology reading at some point that night.

He responded as any teenage boy could be expected to respond. "This is all bullshit." He said angrily as he discarded the paper readout.

Now the boy, let's call him Steve because that was his name, went farther than that. There was no google search bar back in those days but we did have a library and microfilm. He went there in search of scientific studies regarding astrology and reported his results back to me. He was sure that astrology was all complete bunk nonsense and science had proven that beyond any shadow of a doubt.

"There is absolutely no correlation between a person's sign and anything that happens to them. Including with romantic matches." Steve assured me confidently.I needed to be convinced. What about people like the older couple next door to my house, who were born on the same day?

"It’s statistically common for people in the same class at school to share the same birthday with someone else in their class at some point in their schooling.” That made sense as the older couple next door had mentioned meeting in school. He continued. “The rest is all psychology and self fulfilling prophecies."

Steve was sure. "They say something vague that could apply to almost anyone and then your mind fills in the blank to complete the picture." This was true to a degree with the bad Pisces-Sagitarrius readout. Steve was charming, approachable and good at talking to girls. The boy formerly from my math class might have been a geek, but he was like the alpha nerd. I constantly needed to be reassured that he would never leave me.

Steve talked for hours as he often did. In recounting the studies he had read regarding astrology Steve mentioned another one on the related and also debunked by science subject of prophetic dreams. "It's amazing how much we fill in the blanks after the fact. Like did you know that humans don't even dream in color?"

"Wait they don't?" This struck me as wrong immediately. "I am sure that I dream in color." I told him back.

I had just had a dream regarding my choir friend Candie and I where we on a seaside cliff staring at the deep blue waters and we both jumped. Plus what about the houses? I'd had dreams about three different houses: one dark blue, one red brick, and one light yellow, which I had never seen before but which I thought existed somewhere in the real world. I've found two of them, incidentally, in very incongruent would have never guessed it locations (Las Vegas 2019 and Phuket 2020, respectively). I'm still looking for the yellow farmhouse with the fields of golden wheat in front of the railroad tracks. I’ll know it when I see it, if I ever do.

My soon to be high school sweetheart was sure that those things were nothing but fantasies of an overactive mind. I’d probably seen the houses in movies or something but had forgotten it. "Maybe you just filled in the blanks later. I mean the sea is supposed to be blue and red bricks are red."

How does that even work? And how would one go about determining that people don't dream in color to begin with?

Me and Steve had a good run of things for around three years but after the breakup it seemed that the most accurate predictor of our entire relationship had been a $1 love match by astrology printout from a movie theater. Perhaps I had just made that so. Thus chastened I kept the birthdays tucked away for all future romantic relations, not to predict but to inform. I know all of my lovers birthdays. It became part of the story.

“I sometimes feel like Steve was a normal guy trying desperately to be extraordinary.” I lamented to my BFF1 later. “And I was an extraordinary girl trying desperately to be normal.” She sent me copy of a book she thought I’d love, though I never read it. The title was “Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal?”

I mean how could you even have a past at 15 years old? I suppose some of us do…

Meh. Too furry for me. And does that include fur anyways?

So do I believe in astrology? Well I haven’t even started down the rabbit hole of Pisces-Scorpio, which began for me, of course, with a Pisces lover born with a birthday one day from my own and then his Scorpio brother talking shit. Because where else would it start?

Here’s a look at my astrology, courtesy of Isaac Middle:

I am and have been long aware of the grand water trine in my chart, but even the short responses Isaac has given otherwise have been mind blowing to me, so I’d highly recommend him. See most astrologers wouldn’t even give the basic picture of a Pisces Sagitarrius challenging relationship that I got from my $1 movie kiosk printout nowadays. In their desire to not offend anyone they end up offending everyone.

There’s another side to it which I should point out. AI generated shit on free astrology readings is basically baffling you with bullshit. I can read 10,000 words which often cancel each other out about how my Jupiter in Saturn (I am aware that’s not a real example exactly) means that I am an introvert and an extrovert at the same time. My human understanding of my human condition has gotten precisely nowhere with that crap.

Some relationships have headwinds and some relationships have tailwinds. It’s up to you to build the rest out. You can mess up the best or make work with the worst.

Regarding construction on the restaurant, here is some updates in pictures:

Of course many in the space of prediction are charlatans. When in doubt follow the money. God made life and man made money: which do you think is greater?

I believe that there are many things we don’t know and don’t understand, and that many times we are asking the wrong questions to even begin to answer them. Clearly the stars play some part in our Earthly existence or else we woudn’t have the sun rise and the sun set every day, nor would we see some influence by the moon’s cycle on the tides. Always begin and end with your own experience.

Happy Birthday to fellow Pisces Jeff Childers, by the way. I don’t always agree with him but I think he is a skilled writer and I routinely check his posts. Sometimes his optimism wins me through the day.

I have a lot to say on Internet disfunction, stock market crashes (the calm before the storm), and clathrin graphene interfaces with 6G, but I shall save it for later. I’ve been feeling better since I got a new spirit guide. I like him very well.

I can’t change who I am…

Buy me a ko-fi