I often wonder how people get to where they are and if you do too...

this bud's for you

So here's the story...no certificates of asrological achievement on my wall. just enough suffering to seek answers and enough fateful meandering events to help me get a clue. And it just goes to show that anyone can be starstruck anytime, anywhere, even here. So good luck with that. I mean it.

It happened to me in my 14th summer, on a hot, fateful day in Woolworths. My big sister Anne & 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, the words burned into my memory: "Your perfect mate is Gemini..." it began..."Johnny is a Gemini!" Annie exclaimed and we knew we'd found the Holy Grail.

Six months later, Johnny was long forgotten and Anne brought home Linda Goodman's Sun Signs, the sizzling bestseller that ignited the New Age. Not only is it beautifully written, it's so brutally true it's laugh-out-loud funny.

Total gamechanger. Now I knew it was perfectly natural to be unruly me and not "more like your sweet little..." diabolical sister, committed to playing my nemesis in the family drama she wrote. Perfectly natural to be her, I guess.

"I didn't do it Ma, I swear!"

So I clung to that book like a lifeline through the early years of high school. "What's your sign?" I'd ask anyone who indulged me, hundreds between school and the city buses alone. That's a lotta laughs.

The 1970s were a heady time and Anne and I hit all the hottest astrology lekshiz in Hahvid Squah. Imagine, if you will, the late, great Isabel Hickey publicly singling you out for analysis. CHILLS.

Then in 1974 NYC radio astrologer Paul Guercio came to town and settled in just a stroll down the road from Friendly's, and we were two Friendly girls looking for a little enlightenment.

So we pumped Paul with coffee and he confided his scheme to make the Cosmic Muffin toast no buttah and show old Boston how a real astrologer operates. Then he said these fateful words: "Come to my classes, girls.
I'm just dpwn the road and I bet you two love floor pillows. "Well duh.

So we sauntered down to 83 Sycamore to expand our minds in cozy comfort. Life was good. (apart from the usual slow-healing wounds of childhood)

One seven year Saturn cycle later, Paul and I were roomies. I booked his consultations and he (ahem) mentored me for four instructive years. Annie went off to make babies and awhile later I did too. It's what Somerville townies do. Paul said so. I don't think it was a compliment.