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!!

JANUARY 12TH, 2016

CAPRICORN -

Your downfall is that you demand complete loyalty from your friends and family. As anyone who has studied conflict management will tell you, this is a non-starter. Besides, your decency is perceived by others as a weakness. To inhabit the real world you must start sharpening your fangs.

AQUARIUS -

OMG! Your intellectual life draws far too heavily from a cistern of collective, middle-brow ideas. This has become such a bad habit that you have replaced your emotions with neural emojis. You had no idea this was happening because lately you've been distilling even your most complex feelings into uppercase abbreviations. That all your friends do it as well is a flimsy excuse. LOL!

PISCES -

As certain as there's vodka in the Eurasian Steppe there will be a major change in your romantic life within the next 36 hours. Do everything within your power to welcome this change. Buy new shoes if you have to and clean your filthy car. Aphrodite is soon to cast her mischievous spell and you'll need to be composed. Oh ... and you'll need some cash too ...

ARIES -

If I were a betting astrologer I would say that dollars to donuts you are a bit unsatisfied with your lot. (You wouldn't be reading this if all were Jake in your little insignificant world). OK ... here's a bit of free advice, (you can also upgrade to Yayota Premium for just $6.95 a month): Stay away from other folks who are equally unsatisfied with their lot. There's lot's of other lots out there! That's why they call them lots.

TAURUS -

There's a faint fetid cloud of sulfur and sage that surrounds you as you waltz through your day. This demonic aroma is discernible to the few who know you best. To everyone else you're as cherubic as a chubby hamster. How long do you think you can keep up this pretense? Sooner or later your pantomime of virtue will collapse like a house of ribbons. It would be best to address your character flaws before it gets too costly.

GEMINI -

The pendulum that moves your moods from dark to darker is an oscillating ballast that stalls you into a saturnine cesspool of self-pity. You can do something about this. You could start watching sitcoms or spend some time at the zoo. Unless you're one of those who, through art, can turn melancholy into merriment, you'd better dig yourself out of this melodramatic trench.

CANCER -

Like a clergyman struggling with a flock of apostates you find yourself thwarted by your instinctive dissent. You can't seem to fully identify with any of your endeavors. It all seems so futile to you. The fact that you happen to be right (see Ecclesiastics) should in no way prevent you from pretending that #yourlifematters.

LEO -

From Pierrot to Bozo, a thousand clowns have preceded you. Why are clowns so terrifying? You tell us? Your shenanigans have earned you many friends and have made you a favorite partner for pictionary and charades. Like the kidnapper who drapes his victims in a burlap sack you use your humor to conceal a hurt. Today be serious - it may make you benignly ambivalent!!

VIRGO -

Your boss has gerrymandered your time. You no longer have a life of your own. You're always fulfilling on some sort of vague promise. Nobody ever says thank you. You are unappreciated and under-valued. But the truth is ... you love it. It makes you feel wanted.

LIBRA -

To drown in tears is like waterboarding yourself in the shower. It will make you confess to most of your foibles but confessions made under duress are rarely reliable. Admitting your errors will never quiet the echo of your shortcomings. Instead, it's best to do the best with what you have and as Lorenzo de Medici wrote "... chi vuol esser lieto sia." (see Google Translate - it will sound like baby talk).

SCORPIO -

You're a gangster of Love! Yeah baby! You've got the scent and you've got the touch and your heart is as cold as a penguin's slipper. To your credit you've learned to avoid both tenderness and treachery and embraced the senses like Caligula at a bar mitzvah. Good for you. You could give some useful advice to the Libra upstairs.

SAGITARIUS -

A sense of honor is generally useless when you're buried in a box. You treat life like it was a rehearsal but the band and the jugglers and the trainers of exotic cats have been carrying on for years. Don't count on there being an intermission. In America we don't take piss-breaks!!

JANUARY 11TH, 2016

CAPRICORN -

You're like a rabbit with a vasectomy - you defy your destiny at every turn. You were meant to produce, to promote, to create and to expound upon all that you have generated with your capacious imagination. But instead you're merely obedient to the whims of circumstance and lounge like Oblomov in a cot of malcontent. It's time to wave those cute bunny ears of yours and be fruitful and multiply.

AQUARIUS -

Good hygiene and flawless manners have made you a leader among the nitwits you work with. Now try challenging yourself. See if your charm can grease the gears of real, significant achievement. Sartre was a slob as was the great Cuban artist Micah Carpentier. Skip the flossing and the matching socks. Greatness awaits!

PISCES -

That voice inside your head? You know ... the one that relentlessly repeats like a Philip Glass film score: "Imposter, imposter, imposter, imposter." Take it easy on yourself - everyone, from our beloved president to your nephew's art teacher is faking it as well. Dissimulation, through habitual over-use, has a way of righting itself. You're doing just fine. It's called the clique of the counterfeit and we're all charter members. (full disclosure: I'm not really clairvoyant)

ARIES -

First of all, you're not going to win this week's Powerball so your money woes will need a better plan. What's wrong with drinking instant coffee and canceling your cable? Your grandparents were economic vegans who mended their own socks. If you don't want to take in sewing I'm sure you can figure out how to be an SAT tutor.

TAURUS -

No need to give up your vices. The reason why we have them is because they give us so much joy. Never trust anyone with thin lips, wide ties and who drinks cocktails with more than three ingredients.

GEMINI -

Now that you've made a hash of you New Year's resolution it's time to admit that you're an undisciplined sybarite who, like most Gemini, have trouble staying within your budget and are remiss in calling their aging parents. You're typically late and have a tendency toward loquaciousness. You can't expect to change all this by January 2nd (or June 2nd ... 2020, for that matter). As the great thought leader Dahlia Danton always says: "A wise person never makes unreasonable (or any other kind of) commitments."

CANCER -

I smell the rich broth of simmering potential with my Cancers today. The Archiditmidian Constellation is uniquely aligned (approximately 1AM GMT) which is typically fortuitous for raunchy sex and baking complicated desserts. The former, unfortunately, is not always available. Stay tuned for next week's prognostications and you may be in for a stimulating surprise!

LEO -

You have a trenchant penchant for ridiculous puns and silly rhymes. You think skeptically and metrically and fecklessly and recklessly. If you choose prose instead of verse, things wouldn't be any better but they couldn't get worse. Thank you Calvin Trillin.

VIRGO -

Your enviable fortitude is matched only by your unfortunate ability to put on weight. It seems like all you have to do is look at food and your ankles swell like a spadefoot toad. This has led you in the past to follow all manner of fetish diets not to mention those untold hours of misery and angst. Accept this cruel metabolic verdict with solemn resignation. If you have to, start dressing in front of the medicine cabinet mirror.

LIBRA -

You've been asked to perform favors for near strangers only to feel exploited and resentful when the proper gratitude fails to materialize. You can eliminate kindness from your armory of attributes or you can hide behind the pious fiction of your noble and selfless generosity. Whatever you choose, you're being a chump. There's a reason you have a Spam folder with your email.

SCORPIO -

Like a junkie in a pawnshop you're running out of things to redeem. Recognize that the absence of worth signals the beginning of value. From paychecks to rainchecks your spine needs a tune-up. Try doing stuff simply because you enjoy it. If you need a return on every investment then you may as well give up on love.

SAGITARIUS -

Homer famously described conversation as the "sweet... banquet of the mind." You, however, avoid controversy as if it were a form of listeriosis. Stay away from crybabies who take umbrage in everything. Tippy-toe talking is the dry-hump of discourse and it's beneath your intellectual pay grade.

JANUARY 10TH 2016

CAPRICORN -

You've been acting like an adolescent in revolt. If you feel that everyone is against you let me remind you that your high school diploma is a moldy, termite ridden relic and that in fact, nobody even notices you. You'll be treated like an adult as soon as you learn how to ignore ... well .... everyone.

AQUARIUS -

Selfishness has made the world safe for creativity. It's quite alright to work on spec. There's no shame in collecting unemployment or driving for Uber two nights a week. (Or both!) You think you want to make art? Well who's stopping you!!??

PISCES -

Integrity is as rare as the bearded lady. You're being played by everyone from your yoga teacher to your ex. You want to act like a mensch? - Be my guest! Just know that you'll be as lonely as a buffalo nickel and certain to be resented by those you hold dear.

ARIES -

Everybody Wang Chung tonight! Unless, of course you're an Aries (especially if you were born on the cusp). Tonight is decidedly not the time to party. In fact, if you were considering the careful care and curation of your dwindling attention span tonight may be the night to start tackling Proust.

TAURUS -

I told you so is a phrase we irrationally reserve for our loved ones. Let's try an experiment. Let's be polite and superficial to our family and candid and honest with everyone else. The hearth is the last place to make a confession. I'd rather get along with my spouse than spend most of my waking hours crawling up the small intestine of my boss.

GEMINI -

Like a cockroach in search of a damp corner of a refrigerator you'd be better served by calculation and cunning. Why do insects behave so rationally while we constantly defeat our self-interest with stupid and infantile choices? I blame love which is precisely what you claim to crave. Tread with care and be careful what you wish for.

CANCER -

If you find yourself in a dark tavern sitting next to a Gemini staring at a warm and bitter IPA, it's time to make a move. Now, now, now ... I didn't say in which direction. There's a fork right about now and if you've read the entry above you'll know that you need to be careful. Eternal misery may be better than loneliness. Then again, it may not be. Then again, it probably is.

LEO -

Do we have good news for you!! Mortals may be fools but Leos are less foolish than most.  As the great bard went on to explain: "More than cool reason ever comprehends." Your gut is your best guide and if you can read the leaves you'll rarely make a mistake.

VIRGO -

Happy days are here again! The funk into which you have sunk you may now pack permanently into a trunk. Your former gloom you can entomb, your erstwhile sadness can be replaced with gladness. This may be trite, this may be stale but bitter feeling you should impale. Thank you Dr. Seuss.

LIBRA -

Looking at a Flemish tapestry from behind is only a pale reflection of its luster and so it is with you. When you barricade your beauty behind social norms and customs you only project a fraction of your charm. Try to shave the pelt of predictability and show the world who you really are. The results may alarm you.

SCORPIO -

We in the astrological community of seers and street prophets have high hopes for you Scorpios. You've always been treated as a kind of celestial step-child but we think your time is now. Fuck those arrogant Aries', you guys have all the loaded dice now. Please don't make me a liar.

SAGITARIUS -

Your element is fire. Your planet is Jupiter. Your symbol is the archer and my brother-in-law is an attorney. Where would you turn if you had to beat a traffic ticket?

JANUARY 9TH, 2016

CAPRICORN -

It's much more advantageous to suffer a sudden setback than to wade in the same tepid stew of complacent acquiescence day after day after day after day. A collapse is imminent so be forewarned. Just be sure to greet this adversity as one would welcome a distant relative who appears at your doorstep with a tattered duffel fully intending to overstay their welcome.

AQUARIUS -

Life is like running on hot cobblestones wearing tire sandals. If you linger too long in one spot you risk melting into a standstill. Keep a move on! If you were born in the morning you're creative yet stubborn. Get a good friend - preferably a Leo or an Aries - to prod you into action.

PISCES -

Like a fish jerking and gasping with its gills lanced on a hook you feel trapped on a filament of inevitability. You can regain agency in your life but you need to show some teeth. While the choir around you is singing a hymn you're stuck in the dirt humming a dirge. Enough already! Clean your apartment, get a massage, have a strong cup of free trade coffee and rewrite your obituary.

ARIES -

Though your birthday is still a few months away, for some inexplicable reason people are being nice to you. Are they plotting something? Are there polished bayonets poised at the small of your back? How well do you know your friends? Start questioning everyone's loyalty. One can never be too suspicious.

TAURUS -

Regarding you love life - pick one. That's right. Either have and enjoy a life full of autonomy, fulfillment, joy and peace of mind or get tangled up in the frisson of uncertain attraction. This perfect soulmate of yours will break your tender heart. That's of course if they don't strangle you first.

GEMINI -

The reviews are in and the verdict is mixed. Comme ci come ça is how you come off to the world so start getting used to that kind of lukewarm ambivalence. If you really, really want to change people's perceptions (you may want to think about this for a while) then you'll have to get aggressive. You won't be universally liked and in some you may inspire a repugnant form of fear. But you will never be a social Switzerland again. 

CANCER -

The cosmic dance into which we're reluctantly thrown is a dizzying dervish world of senseless vicissitudes. If you're the type that prefers the pliant comforts of predictability (as most Cancers and some Virgos are) then you may have to patiently wait for your mortal curtain to drop. Seeing that there are rarely any curtain calls you may want to try a little excitement ... at least once.

LEO -

Winter, with its open hostility toward the dynamics of urban life, is a Leo's most agonizing nightmare. Bare with it this year and try not to get too disconsolate. Your gloomy moods are perfect for morose introspection and punishing self-pity. Crawl out of your trough and start working on your memoir! As Beckett reminds us, "nothing is funnier than unhappiness."

VIRGO -

Strange silhouettes will start appearing in your dreams. Don't waste your time trying to decode them. Typically this is an early symptom of minor cataracts. You're basically getting old. Remember that age suits your temperament. You no longer need to feign intelligence. People will assume that beneath that snowy dome of yours lies a rare wisdom securely packed like an heirloom in a strongbox.

LIBRA -

You're convinced that everyone is taking advantage of that soft belly of mawkish empathy that has always been your downfall in the past. Nice guys, you keep reminding yourself, melt under the sweltering lamp of their beneficence. Well, if that's how you feel then it's time to toughen up. It takes malice to succeed and in a competitive world someone always has to lose.

SCORPIO -

You've all heard the tired analogies that liken our lives to either sports or war. We're told we need to take command and to swing for the fences. We now need 'coaches' as if our natural existence could never exceed the condition of rank amateur if we fail to avail ourselves of the professional intuition of an 'expert.' Somehow we're convinced that this dependency is 'empowering.' Scorpios - you job today is to holler from the highest perch: THIS IS SUCH BULLSHIT!!!!!!

SAGITARIUS -

The full measure of Sagitarian sagacity is the ability to respond with an emphatic 'NO.' People will ask of you all manner of inconvenient favors, mistaking you for a soft Taurus or an agreeable Gemini. Think again! Sagitarii are solid and will not be budged or buggered by guilt. You don't care if you're liked and with that kind of selfish inflexibility you needn't worry.

JANUARY 8TH, 2016

CAPRICORN -

Being meticulous has earned the begrudging admiration of your envious peers. It's time to make a reasoned choice. Cultivate your friendships by dumbing yourself down or maintain the honest and principled posture of condescension and reproof.

AQUARIUS -

Your mild yet unmistakable regionalisms have hampered your ability to melt into obscurity. No matter what you do (or don't do) people will notice you (or your absence). Deal with it effectively by asking for favors and borrowing money.

PISCES -

You are a sheikh, a shaman, a born leader with a natural talent for persuasion. To use these skills to your advantage ignore your outdated scruples. Colonialism has given exploitation a bad name.

ARIES -

With the rare January alignment of the four moons of Gandara you are well positioned for a calculated risk. Be it love or lucre now's the time to roll the loaded dice.

TAURUS -

Chance encounters will bear unexpected fruit. Be mindful of who you bump into. New doors will open and new possibilities will present themselves but you must be vigilant and alert. Wash basins at public restrooms, elevators and bar stools are your most likely sources.

GEMINI -

Innocuous innuendos is much more than a clever alliteration. Walk between the hail stones and read between the grace notes. Sometimes it's what remains unsaid that uncorks the wisdom you've been craving all these years.

CANCER -

A new jesuitical approach toward life might prove more effective in pursuit of your goals. Hard work and perseverance have their benefits but it never hurts to try a little cunning. There's a reason why the Calvinists had a preference for grey.

LEO -

The news is bleak but why should you care. It's all rosy in the land of Leo. I'd rather be a well-fed superficial narcissist than a deep thinking deadbeat with acne and gingivitis.

VIRGO -

Avoid, by any means necessary, salty foods and rubber shoes. Sashes are fine but only if they're dark. Lactose is intolerable for now but you can gorge yourself on wheat and even stevia. You can walk on cracks but not on tacks. Invest in futures ... whatever the hell that means ...

LIBRA -

When I texted my astrology guru this morning the spell check default switched Libra to Liberia. Instead of helping me with insight on your prospects for the day she hooked me up with an AirB&B in a swanky section of Monrovia. I took it all as a sign. Embrace the serendipitous inscriptions of inadvertent typos.

SCORPIO -

Moses had his hands full leading that obstreperous flock through the desert. But the arid air did those folks some good, evidenced by all those Nobel Prizes they seem to win. Moral of the story for scorpios - time to move to Arizona!

SAGITARIUS -

Jeremiads and screeds may seem unseemly but the squeaky axle always gets the grease. Make some noise. Ask to speak to the manager. Demand an upgrade. Have them waive the service charge. Talk your way out of that parking ticket. Renegotiate your raise and refinance your car loan. You have rare leverage today. You may never have an advantage ever again for the rest of your life.

JANUARY 7TH, 2016

CAPRICORN -

You are caught up in knots of conflicted affections. Détente between your friends and rapprochement within your kin are fairytale pipe dreams cooked up by daytime TV producers who have their own messy lives to contend with. Stay real. (translation: It's okay to be pissed-off)

AQUARIUS -

It's time to take a sabbatical from yourself. You change your socks ... why not change your personality? If you're formally friendly try belligerence and loathing. If you're resentful and bitter - and even though you are completely justified - try cheery and blithe. If you like women, try men. If you like men, try women. If you like men who are really women try men who were women but are now both or neither. LSMFT is the new LGBT!

PISCES -

Fantasies of flying compete in your imagination with the terrors of unpreparedness. While you suspect that your full potential has yet to be tapped, you fear success like a leopard fears a hyena. You twitch with foreboding at the most inopportune times. Light a match under your ass ... literally. Your small hairs will singe and will remind you again of our certain return to dust and ash.

ARIES -

You've paid most of your dues in your past-lives. Soon the ledgers of fate will start tipping in your favor. When they do your world will become a perfectly ribbed cantharus shell - which may not be an entirely favorable condition. Hope for something considerably less, like a shit-brown calico clam.

TAURUS -

Release the gloomy and the cynical and seize the sparkle of your élan vital. That animated essence has laid dormant so long that a spiritual moss has you covered, constipated and crying for help. Your future is an unscuffed scratch-off ticket. You'll be amazed what a little friction can do for you!

GEMINI -

What time fails to heal, warm milk and narcotics can surely do the trick ... at least temporarily. Spakle the cracks in your romantic life with magazines. dreams and heated unguents. Break-ups are hard but remember that all your married friends are miserable.

CANCER -

The invention of pain was a cautionary necessity. Pleasure was a much later development and some scholars argue that it never really caught on in the first place. North Korea, one of our most durable behavioral experiments, may represent the truest fruition of our natural aspirations. Now, doesn't that make you feel better about your bank account?

LEO -

Life is just a very long and lingering wait in the lobby. Your turn will eventually come but by that time you will have forgotten what you were waiting for. In the mean time, get yourself something from the vending machines.

VIRGO -

Whistle while you work, just make sure you look busy. Your dream job, the one you get after you've cleared all those prickly weeds and experience that fleeting clarity of complete disambiguation, may never, ever materialize. Renew your respect for beggars, petty thieves and schemers. Your most significant contribution to Western Civilization will probably be your extinction.

LIBRA -

Ever notice how athletes refer to themselves in the third-person. Try it some time. By disentangling yourself from your self you may grow weary of all the angst and you may even learn to tolerate your monotonous complaining. Everyone knows that off the field, jocks become these bumbling anti-social clods who, between bar-fights and product endorsements spend most of their time over-decorating their mini-mansions. Be eternally grateful you're a clod.

SCORPIO -

Today is the day that you stop telling yourself that today is the day for some dramatic, revelatory, transformational epiphany that will turn your life into a redolent meadow of endless possibility. Renewal should be restricted to your cable subscription. If you're running in place remember that thank god, you're still on your feet.

SAGITARIUS -

Avoid all those oily, second-rate friends who crave nothing short of your complete loyalty in exchange for the suspension of your justified suspicion. Do the math. That leaves you with approximately 1.5 people and that doesn't include your parents. Your misanthropy is just a personal expression of your meticulous altruism.

JANUARY 6TH, 2016

CAPRICORN -

Reflect upon your past. Think about what you consider to be your happiest moments. Now be with those thoughts for a while. Ahhh ... Now Snap Out Of It!  Your infantile trances will only lull you into dimwitted optimism. You're at your best when you acknowledge your warts and live by your wits.

AQUARIUS -

Be promiscuous with your praise. People will believe anything you tell them. Persuasion is always more effective than mere competence and professionalism is about as powerful as an overworked gum. You're good at gloss and better at bullshit.

PISCES -

Tell the world about your talents. Don't worry, it won't take too long. If you still have their interest after you get to the part where you lost your virginity then you clearly have the gift for radiant hyperbole. Milk it. Make stuff up. These skills may come in handy if you ever need to change jobs.

ARIES -

Your mouth carries a faint aroma of iodine and camphor. In the Middle Ages this would have meant that you were either an inbred member of the nobility or were suffering from gout. Nowadays it only indicates an allergic reaction to gluten. If you can afford it, think about adjusting your diet.

TAURUS -

You have a messy history of unsatisfied desire. Maybe you aim too high. 'Settling' has such a bad reputation but when you think about it, accommodation is just the step-child of heroism. HBO has inflated your hopes. Leave the 'hero' and the 'quest' for the elevator pitch. You, my friend, are slightly above average!

GEMINI -

Maybe we're just a fragile link on the cosmic food chain. Or maybe we are the center of the universe. Maybe Yaweh chose us to repair the world. Or maybe he just chose us to live in it. Don't feel guilty. Start taking tennis lessons and go and buy yourself a small boat.

CANCER -

Obey the harbingers as if they were street cleaning signs. The auguries are all aligned, the tea leaves are unusually explicit. One moment of reflection and your opportunities will vanish like vapor. He who hesitates is a cretin and we both know that you're not a cretin.

LEO -

The edifice of your supposed singularity is in need of desperate retrofitting. The fashion world has caught up with you. Now everyone is self-congratulatory and ironic. Try a new approach, like vanity. If that doesn't suit you try silence and humility. People who are silent are most often feared.

VIRGO -

Your life is a lyric, your death is a dirge. Or so claim the Romantics. Keats is coming back and with him comes the return of beauty! Hurrah!! Just hope that doesn't mean that tuberculosis is lingering just around the corner.

LIBRA -

People have always complimented you on your athleticism. You're toned and trim so people also assume that you're stupid. Prove them wrong! Take a coding class and rub their muzzles in the brine of your success when your new app becomes indispensable to their dating hopes.

SCORPIO -

Religion has given prayer a bad name. Would it confuse Jesus if we prayed to annihilate faith? Scorpios lead the way!! You're resilient and would probably survive a big bad bolt from the clouds. Don't confuse the Son of God with Son of Sam.

SAGITARIUS -

Game theory, string theory, the theory of relativity, the theory of everything. It's all theory and since it's all theory nothing really matters. And if nothing really matters than all is permitted. And if all is permitted then there's no guilt. And if there's no guilt then there's no satire and if there's no satire then why are you reading this?

JANUARY 5TH 2016

CAPRICORN -

A damp, balled-up paper towel has more buoyancy than the average chiropractor, so why do you trust them? Stop chanting and start ciphering your hopes into what was once called 'language.' Intelligence is far from contagious but stupidity is viral.

AQUARIUS -

Due to your advancing age and the fact that Jupiter is now longer as aligned with Mars as it was when you were in college, what once seemed terrible is now tolerable and even amusing. Isn't life more fun when you lower your standards?

PISCES -

With a cluster of delinquent moons inching their way toward your favored constellations the time is propitious for change. Gather your worldly possessions and start counting your shoes. The sum should be even. If not then maybe change can wait.

ARIES -

Fishing for compliments from your co-workers and friends has yielded an encyclopedia of fabulous lies. Taken together and flipped you can parse together what people really think about you. If you care then you're not a true-blooded Aries.

TAURUS -

Shame on you! You took yesterday's prognostication far too seriously! You can't take a joke. Do you want to buy a bridge? Try not to spend any money today. Stay home if you can. Have a good cry. Feel sorry for yourself. You need the sympathy.

GEMINI -

To life, to life, l'chaim. You have much to celebrate. You car started right away and the tempeh line at Whole Foods was practically empty. You've been so good you can afford to spoil yourself. Have some recreational drugs!

CANCER -

I know it's out of character (after all you are a Cancer) but go out to a lively bar and sit next to someone cute. Think of it as a sociological experiment. Strike up a light conversation. Try something like "hey ... so what's up with those crazy Saudis?" I bet you'll have some fun.

LEO -

Being suspicious has kept you safe and has detained your tediously predictable life for years. Now's the time for unreasonable risk. It's opposite day. Ride your bicycle against the traffic, talk back to the boss, order a pint of artisanal beer and a plate of chili cheese fries. Belch out loud. Don't say 'excuse me.'

VIRGO -

Love, love, love is in the air. Too bad you're wearing a dust mask. You're as glacial as a martini and as formal as a prom. Lighten up, will ya!! Do you even find yourself entertaining? Next time you shower, try undressing before you get to the bathroom. Practice. There, there ... you can do it.

LIBRA -

Overeating is one of the last great pleasures we all can agree upon. Here's a case where thinking inside the bento box works wonders. Snap out of the winter doldrums and have a big plate of nachos.

SCORPIO -

Crying won't help. Too bad we can't successfully tickle ourselves. Find someone with a feather. It doesn't really matter who. You need company and you're being way too picky.

SAGITARIUS -

You've deluded yourself into thinking that somehow you know what you're doing. You're a fake, just like everyone else. The difference with you is that you care. Nobody is recording your calls for customer service. Feel free to improvise. Lying is more fun but admittedly there's more to remember.

JANUARY 4TH, 2016

CAPRICORN -

Your eyes are glazed with too many soft-focused memories of things that barely happened. Your best corrective lens would include more sweets and less screen-time. Hypnotherapy might work but why stir the broth too  much.

AQUARIUS -

You bore easily but that's because much of what you do is boring. Take a chance and get yourself a library card. You might meet someone by the DVD racks.

PISCES -

Stop hanging up on those poor telemarketers! You lack empathy which makes you toxic around toddlers. Go to your nearest park at 6AM and watch the octogenarians practice t'ai chi. That will restore your mild sense of awe.

ARIES -

Yeats warned us that the best lack conviction and you're a case in point. Why in the world would you be wasting your time reading your horoscope if you had even the remotest sense of agency in your life?

TAURUS -

Quoting poets is the imbecile's fast-pass to culture. Stop pretending you're a sensitive intellectual. There's a reason you changed your major from anthropology to accounting. Leave the brainy heavy-lifting to all those unpaid dreamers (who are typically Capricorns and Cancers)

GEMINI -

Life is a deli counter with too many choices. But like the cold cuts, most choices are pretty bland. The secret is always in the mustards. Pay closer attention to the incidentals. You may be surprised.

CANCER -

The wages of sincerity are way too steep. A calculated nonchalance is a more suitable trope for someone as alienated as you. Don't worry - it's not dishonest. Think of life as a syndicated adult animated series on Comedy Central. Try to avoid cancellation at all cost.

LEO -

Your sock drawer is a direct reflection of your shoe tree - or so claims Oprah. Life's impenetrable secrets are not worth your time. Concentrate on your retirement fund.

VIRGO -

Chance encounters with clerks and small children may yield unexpected insights. Pay attention to the rounded vowels and the hesitant pauses. So ... ya know .... like there's great wisdom among the inarticulate.

LIBRA -

Ancient languages have a term for it. The Assyrian word ashqatria means 'dissonance despite hope.' Think about that as you reflect on your most intimate relationships. You may learn to forgive.

SCORPIO -

You gallop through life as if it were the Preakness. Pretend you already won and see if you enjoy yourself more. Pretend the race was fixed by the mob and see if you can deal with the disillusionment.

SAGITARIUS -

Never underestimate the significance of omens. A little attention to coincidence may prove critical when it's time to make important decisions. If you're thinking about marriage I suggest you flip a coin.

JANUARY 3RD, 2016

CAPRICORN -

Stay away fro slot machines and metal detectors. Most other technology is fine as long as your intentions are honorable. Heavy equipment should be fine, even if you're impaired. Your life, hitherto, is charmed.

AQUARIUS -

If you develop a rash within the next few days, stop reading these horoscopes. Like everything, it's not for everybody. Playing dumb suits you well. Never punch above your weight.

PISCES -

It takes two to have a good argument. Play dirty when you can. Children will get in your way. Sever your ties to tradition. Move west. If you already live on a west coast move east, wait a few years and move back.

ARIES -

Cover your head with a sack cloth. Rend your garments, go on a juice fast, go to the desert and drink teas laced with hallucinogens. Come back, buy a few lottery tickets and a gallon of expired milk. If that doesn't change your luck at least you'll lose some weight.

TAURUS -

Carry yourself with greater circumspection. Folks are beginning to take you for clergy. Dyslexia could be a problem. I once heard a meteorologist mistake vaginal for regional.

GEMINI -

If you drive faster you'll get there sooner and the sooner you get there the quicker you'll get it over with. Then you'll die but at least you'll have some time left over.

CANCER -

Update your profiles on social media. Let the world know that the 'new you,'  though similar to the 'old you,' has taken some incremental step toward the attainment of a vague goal that you needn't bother explain.

LEO -

Your lust-life is looking a bit tawdry. Clean it up lest your colleagues get covetous and tamper with your timecard. Remember, it's you against the world. 2016 is the year (once again) of unabashed schadenfreude.

VIRGO -

Bowling alone is not so bad.  Bowling alone when you're broke is. Let someone else - someone with a degree in gender studies or performance art - change the world. Go out there and be rapacious!!

LIBRA -

Are you still patting yourself on your back for getting through the holidays without weeping uncontrollably for no apparent reason? Stop being so emotionally smug. Just wait till it's pouring rain, it's a weekend and you've lost your wifi connection

SCORPIO -

Scorpio's have all the luck. Good luck, great luck, undeserved great luck and catastrophic crappy luck worthy of a Job. Start a spin class so you can finally twist those shins into a lotus position and chant your way toward equanimity,

SAGITARIUS -

Your courage, that queasy approximate sensation when you start considering doing something really, really stupid, is finally back! Enjoy and be careful of the inevitable consequences.

JANUARY 2ND 2016

CAPRICORN -

Till now life's been a ratty mattress stained with embarrassing history. It's time to turn your back on the past and assume a new gender. ... Okay ... maybe that's a bit extreme. Have you considered adopting a pet?

AQUARIUS -

Being deliberate has caused you much anguish. Spontaneity has yielded only the meager rewards of happiness and gratitude. Expectancy and entitlement and intemperate impatience are the true conditions for success. Try it ... you'll like it.

PISCES -

Never underestimate the creative potential of sluggish hangovers and indigestion. Triumph comes of adversity and till now your biggest problem has been your in-laws.

ARIES -

Righteous sermons and listicles have stiffened your resolve toward self-improvement. The Internet is one big biblical parable. You will find all the wisdom you need at the University of YouTube.

TAURUS -

Shamanism has been sorely overlooked. Exotic plants with poisonous roots, burning sacred plants in abalone shells and talking in analphabetic tongues make terrific dinner party diversions.

GEMINI -

Look for false signs in spayed cats and infants. Such purity of intent is the three-card-monte of enlightenment. For greater insight see the obituaries.

CANCER -

You've stayed away from good food for far too long. Stop mistaking you car for your kitchen. While we're on the subject, an audiobook is not a book.

LEO -

Career change!! The devil has departed the details and has taken firm residence in the facts. The icecaps have turned into Slushies and the buzzsaw has overtaken the quill. The only thing left for a Leo is prophecy as a profession.

VIRGO -

Vagabondage is the new domesticity. Time to hit the road. On the other hand, bondage is the new tenderness. Time to get a new partner.

LIBRA -

An unhealthy keenness for extreme cleanliness will only distance you from your peers. Spend more time at the shvitz baths. Let yourself be whipped by a stranger with a damp and slightly worn eucalyptus branch. Germaphobia is for wimps and middle aged Germans.

SCORPIO -

You say you want to fall in love? Stop being so hopelessly naïve. Love is a contract. It's sort of like a lease. The best you can hope for is a pleasant partner with rent control.

SAGITARIUS -

Just because your birthday falls near Christmas there's no reason to feel cheated. The best sales are after New Years. Go ahead and buy yourself something nice.