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.