FEBRUARY 1ST, 2016

CAPRICORN -

A button is loose on your favorite coat. Eventually it will weaken to the point where its cleavage will become inevitable. Let it go and when it's gone (and you might not notice or remember when that moment of rupture occurs), don't bother to mend it.

AQUARIUS -

Your antipathy to nature is mutual. You needn't fear the lightning nor the thunder, the darkness or the floods. The Gods are ambivalent to you. Yours is the world of urban vagabondage - which may or may not be preferable to just plain old fashioned, garden variety, black leather, blindfolds and chains bondage.

PISCES -

Folded in a napkin, stuffed in a pocket of an old coat are some notes you wrote to yourself in haste while sitting in a café or a roadside diner. By now it's hard to make out exactly what's written - the ink having become runny and faded with time. Something occurred to you, something that seemed so profound at the time but as you decipher this personal code you begin to suspect that the napkin is a cocktail napkin and that it wasn't in a café or a restaurant where you jotted down your thoughts but rather in a bar. It soon becomes clear that what you wrote was nonsense and most probably composed while you were tired and drunk. There's a moral to this story.

ARIES -

For you, the tranquility of sleep is unattainable until you succeed in banishing your dreams. And yet you know that without dreams we would most likely go insane. So here's your choice: Disquiet or Madness.

TAURUS -

Though you've always been weak in math you insist on counting other people's money. And not only are you counting their coin but you're spending it with what you're sure is greater wisdom. Why, you think, does such a greedy imbecile have so much while I, who could change the world if only I had a chance, have so little? This is a form of envy that causes welts, tumors, dandruff, constipation, insomnia and Lyme's disease. Maybe you're better off poor.

GEMINI -

We're told that the most beautiful sound to a human's ear is the sound of their own name. This, of course, reflects a stingy and vulgar narcissism but since everyone we know is like this we pretend that it's normal. I have news for you, it's not normal. It's entitlement and privilege. Even your meditation and your breathing exercises are void of metaphysics. You do it only to alleviate personal stress. Well, what about global stress? Should planet earth just inhale slowly and gradually let go ....?

CANCER -

Like a limping ninja your period of incessant combat is almost at its end. And just like the crippled feudal fighter you've spent your best days in disguise. It's time to start being yourself which will unfortunately take a massive effort in reconstructive memory. It's been so long since you've acted without guile, forfeiting the fakery will take a leap of faith. You may not even succeed but it's definitely worth a try.

LEO -

The wheel of life has got a flat, or so it seems to you right now, and all the encouraging advice from your friends fall flat in the face of the empirical evidence. Well take it from Yayota, things are only slightly better than they seem. Your pessimism is not without its justifications but your flair for dramatic self-pity is a bit grandiose. Everyone's bed of roses is short-sheeted. At least you have a bed!

VIRGO -

It's a shame that you feel shame because your time would be better spent if you just felt guilty. It's bad enough that your predilection for self-disembowelment leaves you stapled to a phantom cross, but you compound the problem by worrying what people think about you. Sure you do stupid things but why waste time feeling ashamed? Everyone does stupid things! It's just that you've decided that it's in your best interest to have scruples! Has that really worked out for you?

LIBRA -

Genuflecting to false idols like Peitho, Mammon and Narcissus have waxed your way toward success. There has been little or no collateral damage. Your friends and family are equally compromised and are complicit in a shared, audacious pantomime of decency. The axis upon which people like you rotate is a greasy one and we all know that without grease the sparks of discord will inevitably fly. Content yourself with knowing that the imperfect world is in no hurry for a tune-up.

SCORPIO -

According to the latest Gallup poll, if an orangutan ran against Donald Trump, it would do at least 2 percentage points better than Rick Santorum. The time has never been better than now to enter public service, especially as a Republican. You may not be a born leader but at least you're teachable and can probably still find Zimbabwe on a map. I assume you're over 18 ...

SAGITARIUS -

There are many reasons why it isn't in your interest to intimately open yourself up to another human being. The most conspicuous among them is that by doing so you may, by contagion, expose the object of your attention to the twinned afflictions of emotional miserliness and greed. You, by contrast, hope that by linking yourself to a person of open heart, something of their generosity may rub off on you. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way.  As the famous American composer of doggerels and limericks Clement Digby once sang, "cesspools never grow fragrant with the momentary passing of favorable winds."

JANUARY 25TH, 2016

CAPRICORN -

An unspeakable crime, imagined in a crepuscular state of inattentiveness, is something more than an archetype. Don't worry, you're not a sociopath but neither are you a saint. Your dark side has been evaded like a utility bill. Face it - Use it - And then get over it. You have deeper mysteries you have yet to confront.

AQUARIUS -

The full extent of your potential has been, till now, your personal Atlantis. Even more than that, it's been like God - something others believe in yet something that you, the skeptic (or the realist) can't seem to wrap your head around. And yet you believe in love and that's an even more implausible proposition.

PISCES -

You could probably begin to forgive yourself as soon as you recognize that to the world at large you're a furry little bunny with a cute, soft, ball at the back of your ass. That's right! There are no consequences to your alleged misdeeds. A social malaprop, a neglected gesture of filial obeisance, an unanswered email ...? C'mon ... really?

ARIES -

It's the donkey keeper in you that prevents you from thinking big. You're stuck in a bog of humility. Only the truly extraordinary have the right to stagnate. The rest of us carry the urgent imperative to prove our worth through constant achievement. You are not a donkey keeper. You're a valet parker.

TAURUS -

You treat your ideas like mental sushi - They're delicate epiphanies that vanish in the ephemera of fugitive inspiration. They claim freshness, though, at the same time they lack the durability that might merit a follow-through. Pretend, for once, that your ideas matter and see a few to the end. Most likely it will be a waste of time, but so is reading your horoscope on the Internet.

GEMINI -

Respectability is the miserly reward for good behavior. Where is that scrawny rabble-rouser that took the world in through the rakish lens of mischief? Why did you agree to grow up? Can bluetooth in your car - the pedestrian perk of the average midsize ego - really be worth what you gave up?  You think it's too late and it definitely will be ... when you're dead.

CANCER -

While winter rages and your mind drifts like dunes of fresh snow you begin to question your orthodoxies. Yes, with multitudes come inexorable momentum but rarely does consensus yield invention. Use your small reserve of courage and pull yourself from the pod - at least temporarily. You can always drink your way back to complacency later.

LEO -

Shame and guilt are the sock puppets you call your conscience. Now that we've committed ourselves to this unfortunate metaphor, someone or something is pulling your strings. Like a shadow cast by a paper silhouette, you are a facsimile of the self you had imagined for yourself long ago. The more you wait the harder it will be to access that kernel of your destiny that you consigned to the idealism of youth.

VIRGO -

Like an army in search of a casus belli and who inflates a frontier skirmish into an international incidents, you turn every minor setback into a justification for inertia. Sometimes - in fact, most times - small events have small causes. Larger trends should be read as symptoms and treated like insomnia.

LIBRA -

What keeps Virgos up at night should fill you with conceit. You alone among the signs have a clear lens on cause and effect. That's why you're a pleasure seeker, a sybarite, a shameless hedonist who knows the value of a good orgasm. Unfortunately you're also a moralist who is intimate with that intoxicating self-righteousness that comes with remorse. Ten years ago you would have been described as being 'conflicted.' Now you're just the subject of a meme.

SCORPIO -

Stay safe. Don't make any rash projections into the future. Wash your hands and try to avoid salad bars and doorknobs. Anything can happen at any moment that can turn your boring present into a nightmarish series of calamities. Snowboarding is for fools who don't mind being cold. Surfers, the same except for their dismissal of the dangers of melanoma. You were meant for bigger thrills but you have to make sure you survive ... have you had your vitamins today? 

SAGITARIUS -

If I were you - though thankfully, I'm not - but if I were you - not that I am telling what's in your best interest - BUT ... if I, by some unfortunate twist of fate were that hapless sad sack that is you - I for one, would stop letting people undermine my self-confidence!

JANUARY 19TH, 2016

CAPRICORN -

Telepathically, you tend not only to understand your enemies but are able to anticipate their stratagems and subterfuges. This has made your professional life into a mental form of mixed martial art cage boxing roller derby. This hasn't really affected your income one way or another but is has begun to ruin your health. See what happens if you replace passive aggression with active belligerence. I think it will give you greater peace of mind.

AQUARIUS -

Your life thus far has remained unexamined both by you, your detractors, your family and your friends. You are something of a non-entity, a Meursault of sorts, a person how enters a room and remains invisible. You're neither shy nor sociable and your footprint is as light as a kitten approaching a pigeon. Use your insignificance to your advantage by means of stealth and calculation. You have been blessed by your facelessness.

PISCES -

The world around you bares its ugly teeth. With its pointed bayonets and cuspidated pikes honed and happy to do you harm, you regularly rise, flaunting your proud hephaestusian shield and taunt your tormentors with a sovereign hauteur. How long do you think you can keep this up? Sooner or later the bastards will best you because they alone have no shame. Silence and cunning may prove in the end to be your most effective allies.

ARIES -

If you're happy (and Arieses are generally happy) then by consequence, you should be impervious to the passage of time. To extend that logic a bit further, if you're unhappy (and Arieses are typically unhappy) then you dread the aging process and prefer that time stand still. Paradoxically, by doing this you will be prolonging your anguish. Either case is a loser's proposition because with age comes decay and with decay comes the inability to pee and if you can't pee, what good is it to be happy.

TAURUS -

The responsible thing to do would be to pocket your pride and apologize. That would be both sensible and expedient. But, of course, you're neither, so you sulk and you lament and wonder why it is that you constantly seem to be losing friends. Is it so terribly important to be right? Is it really necessary to have friends?

GEMINI -

While Whitman spoke of containing multitudes, Schoffman sings of the painful historical imperative toward complete and unambiguous invention. The weight of history is way too much to bear for those born in winter. But for those conceived in winter, it's an entirely different story. The burden is upon you to grab the seat of your pants as if it were the soundtrack of your life.

CANCER -

Horoscopes written with oracular prose tend toward the affirmative and are therefore completely unreliable. As a skeptical Cancer you have every reason to question Yayota's intuition yet to do so will incur risk. This puts you in something of a pickle in that Cancer's are generally risk averse. Fortunately, living with contradiction is one of your sign's signature strengths.

LEO -

While you spend much of your time thinking about sex, you give equal attention to your fear of death. That the two Great Themes of great art are your two major preoccupations should not in any way allow you to assume that you are an aesthete. You may just as easily be a neurotic.

VIRGO -

There's a gravity you assume that is wholly out of character. You assume the public will treat you with greater respect if you pretend to be humorless. Somehow you think this appears adult but the contrary is true. Only those confident to play the fool can truly be considered consequential.

LIBRA -

Like a political prisoner compromised by torture to make false confessions your relationships are filled with coercive and expedient lies that are both painful and transparent. But be careful because honesty can also prove lethal to romance so a conservative middle ground is your best course of action. Love columnist Sophia Lagrimar's famous 66% rule states that if you're frank two thirds of the time you're probably going to make it. She may even be a bit generous.

SCORPIO -

Your career is about to pivot in the most unexpected way. Your obsessions with money have only given you grief. You'll now labor for love and will suffer the incumbent wages of sincerity. You will live with regret but you will gain a marginal improvement in your quality of life.

SAGITARIUS -

Credit default gender swaps may be trending on Twitter but you remain steadfast in your aversion to herds. Going against the tide might be your modus tollens but mutatis mutandis, sometimes you have to go along to get along. Fascism has given conformity a bad name. Relax, log in and join the crowd (source).

JANUARY 18TH 2016

CAPRICORN -

Overwrought with scruples you hesitate each time pleasure opens its welcoming wings. You're guilty for a crime you have no memory of committing. The last adjective you'd use when describing yourself would be 'deserving'. This is common with Capricorns but your talents needs to serve a more lenient master.

AQUARIUS -

If you find yourself trembling with desire at odd and inappropriate moments. If these indiscriminate twinges seem haphazard but not unwelcome. If your reveries are filled with downey images of intimacy, warmth and no small measure of guilt then congratulations! ... despite all your efforts to defeat this proposition, you're human. Okay ... now, what next?

PISCES -

A life of custom and regimented habit has never suited your affinity for the extempore. Nonetheless a little bit of discipline may go a long way. Don't panic - we're not talking about the military kind, just some mild, reasonable tweaks. Like flossing.

ARIES -

Creative idleness is the dodge against diligence cited mostly by café riffraff, lazy poets and tenured philosophers. You never hear it from architects and rarely from journalists but painters and prose writers are among its worst offenders. Dilettantes never seek a pardon for their sloth. If you're happiest when you're relaxing does that make you a dilettante?

TAURUS -

Why must we shape our lives after some lofty precedent as if our imaginations are a clogged drain of weak eclecticism? People already think of you as weird (and not merely 'unusual') so what exactly are you afraid of. Start charting an atlas that defies the gravitational pull of rationality. Don't worry, you're an animal and your survival instincts are pretty rugged.

GEMINI -

The air may thin at the top but there's always plenty of room up there. Peel off from the pack and begin your gradual ascension. Those who seek success as if it were a fuller chest or a taller bagpipe are missing the point. Reaching the highest of heights is reaching that place where you longer care.

CANCER -

The fish froth that passes these days for intelligence has you confused and dismayed. Like a a mass of fallen timber, you can't seem to make sense out of all the competing voices. What's wrong with reverting to The Golden Rule? Why not simply retreat into the stale but tested wisdom of your grandparents?

LEO -

You're sleepwalking through your only opportunity to live on this planet. Say what you want, I don't see you making a big wager on reincarnation. You don't have to seize the day - that might be a bit too aggressive - but you can at least politely request or even just borrow the day instead.

VIRGO -

You're a sink of dirty dishes and just because it wasn't you who soiled the ceramic with crusty marinara it doesn't let you off the hook from the scrubbing you so desperately need. Stop acting like an accountant! Who cares if its somebody else's fault (read parents, ex, boss etc.)? And really ... are you truly unassailable?

LIBRA -

If you're feeling friskier than is appropriate, well, you may have yourself a problem. Sometimes the maestro and the orchestra are playing under two different time signatures. Is it time to fire the band? If that's too drastic you may just need to retune your fiddle.

SCORPIO -

Life has the potential of being a steady sequence of fragrant meats and apricot blossoms, provided, of course, that you have a decent job and live in the First World. Stay away from self-help seminars where entitlement and privilege have gift wrapped the discourse with narcissistic claptrap. If you had a four dollar coffee and a fat-free pastry this morning then you've lost the right to claim that you "have issues."

SAGITARIUS -

The crushed glass upon which you tread each day in stocking feet is a martyrdom you suffer in vain. Stop complaining about your lack of love and do what every reasonable person has done before you. Compromise and settle. Give your new romance a chance. Everyone suffers buyer's remorse.

JANUARY 15TH, 2016

CAPRICORN -

The life force comes from qi not chai! Get your taxonomies right! Gluttons are in favor of gluten, foodies are against it. A 'truther' is someone who lies and spends too much time on YouTube. 1% can either refer to those fat cats who milk the system or simply to a system that produces low-fat milk. Crawl out of your hole, clean your spectacles and start reading the menu.

AQUARIUS -

You struggle each and every solitary day to be a decent person. Your unacknowledged efforts are like silent prayers to an absent god. Your humanity has almost been repealed by the harsh circumstances of your work environment. There's nowhere to turn except inward and if that's impossible a quick trip to Vegas might just do the trick.

PISCES -

There's no expunging your many trespasses. You can't simply wash your sins away. You must carry them like suitcase. However, you can move to a place where nobody knows you. You can reinvent yourself. Sort of like a false-witness protection program. But alas, you'll probably carry your guilt all the way to your grave. ...

... just kidding ... this is America, home of The Second Act!!

ARIES -

If you find yourself going to pieces after watching a food supplement commercial on TV then you may want to consult an astrologer. Aries tend to be brutes when it comes to Cancers and Scorpios. Select your acquaintances in accordance with their signs. You mix well with anyone born in the morning. You also have a strong kinship with gamblers and military personnel.

TAURUS -

Some time in the fifth century B.C. Heraclitus observed that it was impossible to step into the same river twice. Unfortunately, this is not the case with dog shit. In fact, once you've made a steamy, stinky misstep, the likelihood of repeating your folly is fairly high if not 100% certain. You've been known for your recidivism and it's a pattern you need to break. It might help if you started considering your mistakes as triumphs. There may be some wisdom in this type of creative accounting. And you won't feel so bad while cleaning the bottom of your shoes.

GEMINI -

Your avid interest in the news of the day is causing you stress and costing you sleep. Unless you're about to join Médecins Sans Frontières I don't think your suffering will have much of an impact. Though your posts on Facebook are all so well intentioned don't kid yourself into thinking you're the new Voltaire.

CANCER -

Why are you so willing to trot on a treadmill but you can't bring yourself to give your dog a proper walk. Why are you willing to bench press over eighty pounds but you won't help your best friend move out of her apartment. Is it because the gym has forty-seven high-resolution television screens? Things will change once you get the Google Optic Implants (GOItm). Through the miracle of technology you'll always have ready access to Dr. Oz, Jerry Springer and reruns of Bonanza.

LEO -

Oh .... siblings .... What do they say? You can pick the horses at Belmont and you can pick the calluses off the soles of your feet but choice and family are oxymoronic. Make peace. Even if your brother is a pot-bellied Republican he's still your brother and as we all know, blood can make you faint but water can ultimately drown you.

VIRGO -

Like a sculptor who fashions reductively from solid forms you chip away at life, distilling things to their essences and discarding the rest. You're like a monk in need of next to nothing and it suits your temperament to maintain a guarded simplicity free of ornament and dross. But treat yourself to a fat steak or a good bottle of Scotch now and then because though you're happy you're also a bit boring.

LIBRA -

A fear of winged insects and excessive carbs have turned you into a world class neurotic. Though you manage to remain composed your repressed anxieties have thinned your hair and ruined your complexion. Your ambivalence to children has drawn you closer to pets. Adopt a dragonfly or a couple of male glider ants. Have a few beers. Stop being so serious.

SCORPIO -

A childhood trauma, one you scarcely remember, exerts a mysterious form of leverage on your freedom of thought. Dream therapy, induced trances, vigorous exercise and fasting are just a few ways to access your subconscious and figure out what the heck is going on. Get the the bottom of this before it eats you up and shrivels your id into a parched pastiche of cacophonies impulses.

SAGITARIUS -

Few things in life are as comforting and as beautiful as a reliable daily bowel. It's seen by those inhibited by priggish restraint as an activity unworthy of lyrical tribute - much less mention - but they ignore this lovely pleasure at their peril. Embrace the bowel and it will return the attention with the faithfulness of a St Bernard. Withhold your gratitude and it will reward you in kind.

JANUARY 14TH, 2016

CAPRICORN -

Your prospects, once thought to be granular in scope, have suddenly ballooned due to an unanticipated e-mail. Check your spam, your trash ... it may even have bypassed your accursed kismet and penetrated into your inbox. And speaking of penetration, your love-life too will see a bit of a change.

AQUARIUS -

Your passion for poetry inflects the way you express yourself. You become increasingly incomprehensible as you season your speech with unnecessary adjectives. Your somber similes are superfluous and your alliterations are literal irritants to those who limit their enlightenment to Yahoo. Dumb yourself down ... NOW!

PISCES -

The problem with being right all the time is that you're a cobalt magnet for the type of high performance resentment that can derail a thinking person's spirit. My advice is to conceal most of your insights in a kind of three-card intellectual monte. Pretend you're awed whenever your friends refer to Facebook to back up their vapid assertions. Express dismay (or jubilation) over the winner of the Super Bowl. And above all else, stop driving that morally superior, hybrid Chevy Volt.

ARIES -

A career that contains just the right amount of both stigma and lucre is one you've avoided despite your obvious qualifications. Your laziness should not be considered an encumbrance. You'll always find the easiest way to do things and that will keep your production costs low and your vacation days high.

TAURUS -

Travel to exotic places where the men don't shave and the women wrap themselves in layers of colorful silks has always been on your glass-half-full list. Ignore the abject corruption, the poverty and all those nasty explosives. The dollar is good so what are you waiting for? KFC's, Starbucks and an outbreak of Jeffersonian Democracy?

GEMINI -

It's time to eat out less and learn to cook. You've been dreaming of this ever since your ex gave you one of those Nigella Lawson books that never tires of advocating for salty caramel sauces on poultry. It's really not that hard and it's a wonderful excuse to drink alone and in excess.

CANCER -

Why do fools fall in love? Because they're fools, the cynics may reply. Don't pay attention to song lyrics - unless they're in Italian and were written in the 19th century. Here, for example, is a case of naked contradiction courtesy of the Fab Four: On the one hand "she love you." On the other, "yeah, yeah, yeah."

LEO -

Apologizing is a communicable disease that can be fatal to your dignity. Your conduct is certainly good enough to qualify as civilized. So what if you lack the mannerly polish of a head waiter. I'm sorry but you're being way too stingy with your temper.

VIRGO -

When you were younger and your future looked like an endless horizon you dreamed of making what  is euphemistically known as "a difference." You're a bit disappointed now but you really shouldn't be. Callow optimism is an evolutionary ruse essential for sustaining the magazine industry. That print media is in peril only shows to what degree we've grown frustrated and cynical. You have made a difference but alas, a microscopic one.

LIBRA -

The bells are ringing, shredded paper is flying off the balconies, the trumpets are sounding and the children are collecting candies that have been tossed through the streets celebrating the fact that you have finally decided to make a commitment to being an adult. This of course means that you can't use the word awesome to describe how you feel and you can no longer play Candy Crush at the doctor's office.

SCORPIO -

Until now you've been approaching your relationships with oven mitts. This terror of intimacy has cost you. And like those lonely men in public parks who spend their afternoons crushing desiccated crusts hoping to lure the company of pigeons, when looking for partners you only aim at the lowest hanging fruit. You mix your emotions the way Yayota mixes her metaphors and it simply will no longer work. 

SAGITARIUS -

A great awakening is a delusion. Nothing happens suddenly. Epiphanies are just the products of cerebral gestations combined with fantasy and hope. If the New Testament was really all that its cracked up to be there would have been a sequel by now. I suggest cultivating a prolonged patience in whatever silly stratagem you're cooking up to improve your life.

JANUARY 13TH, 2015

CAPRICORN -

With the passage of time it's become abundantly clear that the deal you struck with the devil has worked in your favor. You ransomed your values in exchange for the benefits of class mobility and professional attainment. Who could argue with that? If the guest list at your wake turns out to be slim, who cares ... right?

AQUARIUS -

Like a plumber drenched in wet paste and oily sludge your mind is saturated with putridity and filth. That's why people find you so attractive. You're telegraphing your lurid dreams and people want to get to know you. Finding the right partners is always a challenge but at least you have a broad choice.

PISCES -

The terrible is never as terrible as it seems when you describe it to your therapist. Start pretending that you are perpetually on the couch. Be vivid and explicit. Carry tissues. Through the constant re-telling you will find comfort. Try not to repeat yourself too much.

ARIES -

The time has never been better for converting to a competing religion. Since God is dead, she won't mind. See if you can choose the one that will get you the most legitimate days off from work. (Tip: don't pick Jehovah's Witness)

TAURUS -

Get into an Oscars pool and pick all the underdogs. Your friends will think you're bold and if you guess one right they'll think you're a savvy Hollywood insider. With that kind of parlor cred you may see more dinner party invitations and someone may even try to pitch you a screenplay. It's always empowering to issue a rejection.

GEMINI -

Your In-pile is a cluttered compendium of waste and superfluity. Chuck the whole damn thing and start afresh. Cancel your subscription to Power Fitness and Inc and stop writing checks to spurious foundations that claim to feed widowed dolphins and albinos. Get a paper shredder and turn your junkmail into paper maché. Make cheap looking sculpture. Everyone will call you creative!

CANCER -

The Puerto Rican gymnast Roberto Apollinaire was said to have survived on an exclusive diet of mangoes, radishes, whole milk and Goobers. It's hard to argue with a two-time Bronze Medal winner. If it's weight loss you're looking for - and I think you are - here's a diet with a solid track record of both intended and unintended results. (warning: Apollinaire developed a rare pulmonary infection that rendered him sterile and mute).

LEO -

Look up Shabbas on the Internet and it will sure look good! Imagine a day where you can't talk on the phone, spend money and turn on lights. You need a 'staycation' and the Old Testament day of rest is an hebdomadal ClubMed without the scuba diving.

VIRGO -

It's a beautiful day! Why are you so negative? Do you fear the government? Terrorists? Vaccines? Lactose? Immigrants? Augurous cloud formations? Microbes? Meteors? Sudden outbreaks of meningitis? California is a potpourri of alarmists, neurotics, paranoiacs and conspiracy addicts plus it has a 7% unemployment rate which based on the national average is quite reasonable. Maybe you should consider relocating.

LIBRA -

Like the ink that rubs off the morning paper and taints your toast with a chemical smell you may be suffering from surreptitious influences that are affecting your behavior in not so subtle ways. Be careful who you talk to, and this may include your spouse. Sloppy thinking can be contagious and your guard seems to be slipping.

SCORPIO -

You're a link on a lead chain fastened to a hulking polyurethane ball. You've been like that for weeks. Maybe even years. You must tear down the Solomonic pillars that have framed your life in their twisted image. You must free yourself from the bondage of inertia and tackle the shackles that tie you to the mast. You do that and I'll stop overwriting these hyperbolic horoscopes.

SAGITARIUS -

A chorus of eunuchs could never reach the sonic heights of fulfillment that await you if only you  start making an effort. Your performance is sub-par. Your achievements are tainted by your willful failings. Your investment in your psychic well-being has supplanted your desire for success. Now make a decision. Happiness or bloated résumé!!