When asked my sign, I try to brush off the question:
“The yield sign,” I say with a flirtatious lift of the brow.
Unfortunately, the innuendo rarely distracts the determined astrologist: “What’s your sign, huh? Why won’t you tell me?”
“I am the stop sign, as in I stopped answering that question when I moved to Northern California.”
“Why, are you embarrassed? Are you a Capricorn?” The astrologist gives me a sly look. “What’s your birthday?”
“Why? Do you have a present for me?”
“Come on, tell me, when were you born? What time of day? Where?”
“Okay, okay, I’ll tell you. I am the sign that doesn’t believe in astrology.”
“You’re a Sagittarius, aren’t you?”
I shrug.
“Well, Sagittarius is your rising sign or something. You definitely have some Sadge in there somewhere. Either that or you’re a Taurus.”
“I’m not a tourist. I live here. I just think there are more interesting questions you could ask me, like where I am from or what my story is.”
“Oh, you don’t believe in astrology because you only know about your sun sign, but astrology is more complicated than that. You need to consider your rising sign and your moon sign. I could do your chart for you.”
I try to hold it back. “It’s not how simple or complicated astrology is. It’s not the rising sign or the moon sign. It’s the fundamental philosophical principle that astrology is based on, the idea that the accidental timing of your birth influences your personality more than genetics, culture, or experience. If I tell you I grew up in a white, lower-middle-class, conservative, but fun-loving Mormon family with 10 children and that I left the religion in college and came out as a pagan faggot, and now I am a college English teacher, married to a wonderful Spanish guy, it will tell you more about me than the month and hour and place I was born.”
“Libra! You’re a Libra! I knew it!”
Sigh.