Please welcome guest author and Algonquin Astrology Editor, Dan Kennedy. We’ve invited Dan to contribute a monthly horoscope installment for three reasons:

1. to help you, the reader, maintain celestial harmony
2. we could only remember like 9 of the zodiac signs ourselves
3. he’s friggin’ hilarious

So read on. And if you can’t bear the thought of waiting a whole month for your next dose of Dan, go check out his book Rock On: An Office Power Ballad.

Happy birthday, Libras!

-christina

LIBRA (September 23 – October 22)

Fact: There are animals that are essentially hermaphroditic. Fact: A spider wastes no time with worry, it simply operates continually and forever on instinct. Fact: Warren Commission. Fact …wait. I don’t know where I’m going with this one. I started out with a point and now it fees like crazy talk from the stressed-out dude in the basement trying to start a revolutionary magazine. I think this is my way of saying I’m not worried about you. You, you’ve got the stars right where you want them. You, you’re easy and ripe for the universe’s picking. Consider the spider, though, and what I was mentioning about it. I’m sorry if at first this all came off like a stoner creep manifesto.

SCORPIO (October 23 – November 21)

You stole a car from a photo shoot once and almost crashed it drunk. You totaled your father’s sedan sober as a nun. You smoked cigarettes on a lark and quit while you were still young. And now you’ve made a decent showing in adulthood. Well, you and I have much in common. [long pause] Did I get any of that stuff right? Don’t be a jerk, just tell me. And have the decency to consider that maybe I got it all right for you, but metaphorically.

SAGITTARIUS (November 22 – December 21)

Lately you’ve been haunting every place you’ve ever been and a lot of the time you haven’t even left the room you’re in. The people that love you have felt you near and at times you’ve physically been hundreds or thousands of miles away. Jesus, I’m kind of freaking myself out with this one. It’s like I took this horoscope writing gig and made a big joke of it then all of a sudden tapped into something bigger than both of us and I’m really in this, getting the information to pass along whether I want it or not. Like when a Ouija board louses up a good camping trip when you realize the devil is controlling it instead of the ghosts of peaceful and insightful American Indians.

CAPRICORN (December 22 – January 19)

By weeks end you will have won millions. I’m lying, sadly. Like most Sagittarians and Capricorns, I’m prone to going to any lengths to make other people happy, even though their happiness is none of my business. It’s a sickness, and this time I’ve promised you millions. Next time I’ll run up to you like a schoolboy and insist I’ve loved you for years with all my heart despite never having met.  It usually ends in a crush of low-grade depression for both us, trust me. Our best bet is learning to make a modest living off of it. Turning it into commodity if we can. I got a hunch you’ve already hatched a plan to do just that. Why is it that to people like you and I love feels a bit like saying “you’re welcome” and “I’m sorry” at the same time? Anyway, you’re welcome.

AQUARIUS (January 20 – February 18)

“Come what may” is a perfect thing to say when you’re pretty sure what’s around the corner for you is just great. So maybe don’t take too much credit for your breezy attitude with regard to fate. Then again, if you’re half certain a hurricane is what awaits, then jabber away about come what may. I’m just saying: I’ve got a hunch things are better than you say. And I think we both know they’re going to turn out great. Now: see why I’m rarely so upbeat and positive about things? Not exactly where the fun is, is it? I would’ve rather told you that filthy hippies were going to tie you up and steal your family’s guns to go hunt the rich. Alas, we’re encouraged by everyone right from the beginning to smile and have a nice day, and so I caved. I gave you the good news instead of toying with you and predicting the dark stuff. Have it your way.

PISCES (February 19 – March 20)

A little bit of you lives in a thousand towns. You leave a little piece of yourself everywhere you go. And then you come home and they get what’s left of you. That’s the part they never tell you about going out there and giving it your all; that when you come back home there isn’t much left. So one would argue, Pisces, that you’ve got to keep a bit of yourself that’s not for sale. If this sounds a little lofty, understand that it’s the central metaphor in just about every Hollywood movie about a hooker who’s tired of the trade and is coincidentally sober and super pretty. Anyway, I’m not implying that you’re a sex worker, the suggestion is simply that, contrary to proverbial so-called wisdom, it doesn’t take your all to get what you’re looking for – so this maxim of ‘give it your all’ needs to be re-written for you as a line that’s just as ambitious but with an eye toward self-preservation. Maybe something like: give it as much as you want and then a little less than that.

ARIES (March 21 – April 19)

So not so long ago I was visiting my parents’ house on a weekend. And I was sitting in the living room. And at some point I realized I was wearing a jacket that I bought from the woman down the street who was having a garage sale of her husband’s stuff since she was recently widowed. So there I was wearing the dead neighbor’s jacket and reading an old back issue of Ladies Home Journal, and it occurred to me: I know where my Dad keeps his morphine. I guess what I’m trying to say is that sometimes the most everyday places are where your wildest realizations can happen. So while the world falls under the spell of your normal appearance and tameness, you’re just as close as anyone can be to semi-violent petty crime or greatness. I might argue that you’re a step closer than the rest in either direction.

TAURUS (April 20 – May 20)

This life continues to challenge you with borders and lines that don’t suit you. For instance, co-workers who seem to think everything you say is “inappropriate” and “controversial”. So while you may be passionately curious about cult orgies, I’m afraid these working stiffs are going to keep you down when it comes to speaking the truth about things that inspire you. You may as well fake it and act like you’d rather join the discussion about the latest sitcom on television, otherwise they’ll just march you down to Human Resources again. They treat you like a child and it breaks my heart. I’m in the same situation.

GEMINI (May 21 – June 20)

There have been times in your life when you’ve briefly hit your stride. It was beautiful when it happened but so far it’s only lasted a few steps — like when a drunk on a sidewalk accidentally syncs up with eight measures of Stravinsky, or when a doe gracefully and intuitively gathers her fawns to safety. That is to say, by the time we all realized what we saw you do, it had vanished again. Why is it like that? I’ll bet you twenty bucks it’s because the last of your hostility has decided it’s fun to deprive you and the ones you love of more than a quick glimpse of greatness. Whatever, man.

CANCER (June 21 – July 22)

I’ve got be honest with you. I haven’t really been with the others here, because – and I would never tell them this – I don’t think they can handle honesty. Again, it’s something they shouldn’t hear, but rest assured the astrological signs preceding yours are narcissistic enough that I’m confident they won’t read anything not directly related to them, so here in your forecast we’ve got a little hiding place. Anyway, here’s the truth: I am in no way qualified to be writing these. I mean, I have a little bit of a system in place here, it’s not all B.S. And in a way, each horoscope is for everybody, really, no matter what your sign is. But I just had to come clean on that a little bit. And look at you. Not even phased by this news. That’s why you’ve come all this way unscathed. And I have to say my hat is off to you for remaining kind and not jaded in a world that must feel so fraudulent.

LEO (July 23 – August 22)

You come here looking for direction. You read something like this hoping to find inspiration. I am going to tell you for the last time: everything you’re looking for is inside of you. You already have it. That’s the last time I will say it. And by that I mean, next month I will you tell you this again. That’s the deal with all of us, really: we’re told, we realize, we forget, we repeat. And then one day, according to the movies, we basically have sex with a stranger and it fixes us forever. Fair enough, I guess.

VIRGO (August 23- September 22)

Here’s what I’m recommending for you: five weeks of travel. And not this sort of American thing of packing a suitcase the size of a refrigerator then dropping anchor at a Hyatt until you’re ready to get back on a plane. I’m talking about five weeks of never staying in the same place more than, say, four days. A lot of the places you go, I’ll expect you to pull in, explore, then leave that night or the next morning. The easiest way for you to achieve this kind of schedule, I suppose, would be to join a decent funk band. It would at least be a way to break even or make some money while you’re out there. But the point is, after about three weeks straight of being constantly on the move there are moments when you honestly, for a flash, totally forget who you are and what it is you do. And that is when things get interesting. That is when you’re truly open to brilliant change. The only downside is that your house and car may get repossessed. Nut-up, as it is said in circles where one expects to hear things like that.

Dan Kennedy is the author of Rock On: An Office Power Ballad. His essays appear regularly in GQ Magazine, and he’s a regular host of The Moth StorySLAM events in New York as well as the Moth podcast, and radio hour. Twitter: @dankennedy_NYC