Astrological ratings summoned from the moon’s zodiacal energy, plus some month-old Halloween candy’s energy.
By Susan Anspach
Northern Virginia, you’ve had quite the year.
Take the stress headache that comes with being a swing state in an election year, add to it our resident Real Gatecrasher’s bid for governor, stick it all in an oven set to the third-highest temperatures on weather-record history, wash it down with Frankenstorm, and that was 2012. That’s to say 2012 was attack ads and suffering butt-status on running PerezHilton.com jokes while we baked in a fever heat high enough to cook children. That’s to say pat yourselves on the back.
Now, in the nano-beat of rest between campaign seasons, I’d love to tell you lasting relief’s on the way. Imagine a 2013 with traffic cleared from the roads, rising job rates, and reverse global warming. Imagine puppies for everyone! A shower of iWonders! Halloween candy all year!
Still, it can’t be rainbows and roses for everyone. If 2012 taught us anything it’s that you can’t have a winner without a loser, a reference I make only to some Halloween candy I ate (win) and don’t have anymore (lose). If we look to the tides of our political temperament and appetites for orange wax paper-wrapped nougat, we know moons shift. Seasons change. Mercury’s energy ebbs and wanes. No one can say what the next year holds for sure, discounting a few select turbaned women and one very select woman who’s less into turbans and more headbands with flowers but it’s working for me. (More creds for headband: I have a college degree and stopped burning incense the day I got it. I also don’t do tarot cards—name me one movie made for TV where that hasn’t ended on the picture with a scythe and face with sockets for eyes.)
Anyway, it’s a new year, hopes are high. Astrology’s bunk. Let’s take a look.
Aries
According to the third eye that is Google Images, Aries is a goat or something that looks an awful lot like a goat. I get that! I like to eat, too. Kidding, Aries. No one’s calling you fat. Just maybe you’ve dreamt about opening a pizzeria some day with red walls and Chianti and vents piping with the oven-baked scent of oregano because who hasn’t done that? Only don’t do that. Market’s flooded. Check back next year.
Taurus
Great news, Taurus! After six years of spotless attendance, your trivia team wins bar trivia night at last—on bonus round! Congratulations! It was a question about bar trivia night, but still. It was also almost definitely worth missing that one Christmas dinner for bar trivia night, or that one birth of your first born for bar trivia night. Only hindsight’s twenty-twenty, assuming you weren’t reading horoscopes back then. The prize is 20 percent off two appetizers and you’re back next week.
Gemini
Twinsies, Gemini! I’m a Gemini, too! We should do twin stuff like swap prom dates and take each other’s SATs and flip coins for who gets to be evil like Jessica except for that one book when Elizabeth loses her memory. Twins means we match and if my New Year’s resolve has anything to do with it, in 2013 we grow two inches, start very successive urban gardens, and go on our first geocache. You should already be blonde. Also we write 12 columns and our editors laugh themselves silly, but not too silly. Only the exact right amount.
Cancer
Bad luck, Cancer—come to think of it, a lot like the name of your sign name. No, but seriously, bad luck: In February you’re riding the Metro when the train breaks down at—in a bizarre twist of fates—the exact same time someone hacks your Twitter account. The good news is the hacker just so happens to be on the same train, one car ahead, so all the Tweets are about what you would have said, anyway, hashtag ugh, hashtag seriously?!! (Pro tip: Things might go better for you with a twin.)
Leo
You finally get the company go-ahead to telecommute, Leo, and spend the first two weeks of the new year eating kid cereal in footie pajamas. Rock out; for 10 days it’s as good as it sounds. It could go on but they run out of flavors of Captain Crunch around the time you realize you miss the office more than you thought you would. To compensate you start calling the admin assistant “just to chat” and post a job ad on the Web for an “intern-friend.” No one bites but who needs ‘em; in late spring you organize a team-building day of one and even though you feel a little strange solo bowling at 11 a.m. in footies who’s to say you don’t play a perfect game? No one sees everything. Maybe you do.
Virgo
Remember, Virgo: When life you gives you lemons, make lemonade. Then pour that lemonade in pre-ribbon-wrapped mason jars, stick it with straws stabbed through peonies, and post 18 wide-lens professional-grade photos of it to Facebook. Your sister will be beside herself but don’t even fake like that wasn’t the point, that and your 3-year-old’s wedding-themed birthday fête.
Libra
Libra! Drop everything and open a food truck, NOW NOW NOW! A food truck’s a mobile kitchen trend that takes off like wildfire and brings green to your future—lots of fat wads of green. (P.S. This horoscope recycled from 2008.)
Scorpio
Your ambitions haven’t all come to fruition, but that doesn’t mean that you’ve failed. How do we measure “failure,” anyway? Solo bowl games in footie PJs? Interns you hired as friends? Yes, those are the measurements precisely. Steer clear of them, and you’ll be OK.
Sagittarius
When you have that electric connection, you will know love is right, love in all its mushy, yummy, heart-glowing glory. Big love. Love for the ages, with romance and babies. Seriously, got to have that connection, though. Start saving now for a computer so you can finally sign up for that online dating site.
Capricorn
I hate to be the one to tell you, Capricorn, your dog runs away … but love to be the one who tells you it comes back! At least, we think it comes back. It’s not wearing a collar, and to be honest you’re never 100 percent sure if it’s the same dog since your old dog’s name was Boy. “New Boy” eats vacuum bags, a trick that freaks out the kids but proves popular on YouTube, so you roll with it.
Aquarius
Running away from your problems doesn’t ever work, so try faking them out by skipping or jogging or even alternating gaits. Try running backwards. Challenge your problems to a duel. Rock-paper-scissors your problems. Rock-paper-scissors them again. Best three out of five. Try running backwards, again.
Pisces
You find a dog that looks just like that one dog on YouTube. Nice! Things weren’t so hot for you before but this is one hell of a dog: You start to lose weight on walks; a lady at the dog park catches your eyes. The dog brings joy to your days and brightens your life, and that’s before it tracks down your estranged father who was waiting for the opportunity to reconnect to tell you he loves you. Wow, Pisces, looks like you’re in for a great year! Whatever you do: Avoid Capricorns.
@CitySprawlNVMag was born in a year of the rat on a Friday. In her future she sees you following her Twitter account.
(December 2012)