There are no certificates of astrological achievement on my wall, just enough suffering to seek answers and enough fateful meandering to help find a few. And anyone can be starstruck without even looking up. So this is my story.
(but nostalgia is a slippery slope of self-indulgence, so you might wanna skip it)

It was a fateful summer day in Woolworth's, my 14th birthday on the horizon. My big sister Anne and I were wandering the aisles when a tall, shiny weight scale called to us and we approached, lean and unafraid.

It offered up a zodiac scroll, my first, and I anxiously unfurled this curling enigma...."Your perfect mate is Gemini", it began..."Johnny is a Gemini!" Annie blared and we knew we'd found the Holy Grail.

Six months later and Johnny long forgotten, Annie blew my tiny mind with the hot blue bestseller Linda Goodman's Sun Signs. So beautifully written and so brutally true it's laugh-out-loud funny and fully ignited the New Age.

Total gamechanger. Who knew it's only natural to be me and not "more like your quiet little sister"? Why did only I perceive the scheming director of our family drama who quietly assigned me the scapegoat role? I was hardly a match for this wily whopper weaver and fell into every trap with roaring indignation. And the loudest is the wrongest, as the wily one well knew.
Only natural to be her, too. But I'd found the path toward self-esteem.

So I clung to Sun SIgns, my new testament. Through the first years of high school I asked every friendly face "What's your sign?". And I read to whoever indulged me, hundreds between school and the city buses alone. Good times.

The 70s were a heady time and Anne and I hit the hottest astrology lekshiz in Hahvid Squeya. We lucked into one with Ms Isabel Hickey and she singled me out for a public dissection. At barely 17 it was a mortifying intro to my planetary mechanics and a deep EUREKA! Moment.

A burst of serendipity followed. NYC rado astrologer Paul Guercio set up shop in our city, just down the road from Friendly's. And we were two Friendly girls looking for a little enlightenment.

Paul turned up at our double doors like hardcore javaheads do, so Annie and I pumped him with free refills as he leaked his scheme in his radio voice. He'd grill the Cosmic Muffin (no buttah) and show Boston how a serious astrologer operates. Then we heard these fateful words: "Come to my classes, girls.
I'm just down the road and I bet you two love floor pillows." Well duh.
Yes he was but no he didn't.

So we sauntered down to 83 Sycamore to expand our minds in cozy comfort. Life was good and I almost knew it.

Paul and I were roomies. I booked his consults and he mentored me for four instructive years. I witnessed him burn out when desperate seekers bled him dry and I knew it wasn't for me. I struggled to steer my own life, let alone anyone else's, so I pondered a different path to my celestial destination.

And I wondered why people depended on strangers to read their birth chart when who knows you better than you? It's not rocket science. Maybe I could teach or pull off a how-to book one day.

I'd map out the landscape so no one gets lost in the weeds. And I'd stick with the basics and avoid the head spins and eye rolls that plague the woo world. Easier said than done. Story of my life.

So it's '91 and my family is settled in Lexington, when a tall handsome stranger comes to town to open a print shop with a shiny line of Mac rentals. Exactly what I need to develop my concepts!

Fourth dimensional rendering

Three wild seasons pass before this Triple Aries Mac Wizard woos me into his arms and my feet stop touching the ground. Don't judge. You try to resist a triple Aries, let alone a wizard.

More time passes and the Wizard teaches me vital skills to do my thing and even a little (very little) writing, as we raise our beautiful blended brood. Our love child soon makes five, emerging on the summer solstice like he's having second thoughts. But the feeling seems to pass and life is Good_man.

Meanwhile back in '93...
Paul was forecasting politics when a physicist made him an offer he just couldn't refuse: guide his government coders to program a forecasting graph. They called it TimeTraks and made big media rounds as the Merlin Project. Probably a reward for Paul; the physicist had what he'd come for.

In 2016 Paul hired me to field a flood of inquiries after TimeTraks forecasted a Trump v Sanders face-off. No one else saw that one coming. But Bernie backed off and not even the most ruthless will can trump a low energy TimeTrak.

Jan 2016 Trump v Sanders prediction show links: 1 2

In 2019 Paul died suddenly (before it was all the rage) and the physicist departed with the TimeTraks. Paul had taught his students to keep it simple, for more clarity and no less profundity. He left this world a little wiser and his friendship and coattails are missed.