Friday, March 30, 2007

Age of aquarius

I always wondered why, of all the astrological signs, aquarius had been singled out for this special musical treatment. As a child, I think I had an implicit belief that the "age of aquarius" meant bookstores where you could have your aura read, faceted glass unicorn statues, and usually somewhat smelly, often overly hairy 30 something year old vegetarians flitting about in kaftans or what is now described as "renn fest garb".

I now believe it had something to do with some sort of belief of the super-enlightenment of that generation. Typically arrogant of them, to assume that simply by a span of years around their births they were on a short cut to an enlightened and more highly evolved state of consciousness. I wonder if defaulting on your student loans was part of that?

As this evening turned into this night, I realized my friend Sharon would not be coming over as she had proposed. No call. Just later and later hours in addition to Sharon's typical state of being. Sharon is an aquarius. Not surprisingly, they abound. Yeah yeah, I know, odds are what like 1/12 of us will be aquariuses? Right? Except when I was in 4th grade, I noticed that a very large number of (annoying) girls in my class had birthdays in the late january to mid february range. For years I treated people with birthdays around that time of year with a bit of caution, like they might blow up or dissolve into a pile of goo at any moment and without warning. Eventually I learned to overcome my prejudices and I even dated some. Years later, I married one. And when my marriage broke up, I dated and then co-habitated with one.

I am about to swear them off. Tonight was just such a perfect return to the pile of goo feeling. It sometimes seems Sharon makes plans with me simply to abandon them. Not break, just discard. At some point I will touch base with her, if only because we work in the same lab. If I bring it up, she will have a loose and spotty story about why she wasn't here or couldn't call...it will most likely start with "Oh what WAS I doing that night?" and conclude soon after with "Yeah, so I decided 'fuck it', you know?"

Age of aquarius indeed. Evolved apparently doesn't mean "civilized" or even "domesticated".

2 comments:

WinterWheat said...

I'm married to an Aquarius who has a really messed-up sense of time. He'll say something like, "I'm leaving work at 5:00 and have to hit the dry cleaner, the bank, and pick up some groceries, so I should be home by about 5:20." Huh?

To flake out on a date with a friend, though... that's tremendously uncool. And deeply offends my Libra-on-the-cusp-of-Virgo anal retentive sense of commitment. Don't let her off the hook.

PFG said...

heh heh.
I forgot you and I are so close in birth date. I sometimes use my cuspiness to explain to friends and associates why that kind of flakiness irks me so. It's a convenient short hand for my particular, um, dispositional variation.