And Then Came Leo

I was not always the sign-crazed astrology buff my 6.8 readers know; once I was an innocent child who lived in the 70’s, when it was perfectly normal to have a wastebasket with the signs of the Zodiac emblazoned on it in psychedelic colors. I LOVED that wastebasket (which is long gone, and I can find nothing like it on eBay, can you believe that?) but I didn’t really understand what it was, something about pictures in the stars and I was the mergoat one called Capricorn. I was vaguely aware my brother was the fishy one called Pisces and my dad (who of course had to explain that all their names came from Latin) was the two people called Gemini – BORING!! (I preferred animals) – and my mom was another goat. But for reasons I cannot explain, the only other sign I was really aware of was Leo. Why, I don’t know. Because lions are cool?

I was considered one of those “smart” kids and had to go to honors classes, which meant we got to leave school and do slightly more interesting things. Once when I was about eleven we went to a planetarium, which of course was way cool, and beforehand the director was asking what we knew about astronomy. He asked us to name the constellations in the Zodiac and I said, “Capricorn,” and he said yes, that is the first one (which is technically not true, Aries is), so I looked all brilliant and stuff. Buoyed by my success, I continued to guess that the next constellation was Leo, but oh my goodness there sure are a lot of signs between Capricorn and Leo! Finally I gave up, and just then the director looked right at me and said, “And what do you think the NEXT one is?” so in a tiny little voice I guessed, “Leo?” And I was finally right. And then… there were still even more after that! What?? And I got hung up on the question of what Libra the Scales has to do with libraries, which the adults dealt with in their usual manner, by ignoring me. So I went home and asked my mom, who got me a big book about astrology from the LIBRAry, and the rest is history.


Famous Hat