A Treatment On Leaning into Mars conjunct Neptune under a Sag New Moon

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Get off work late on Friday.  Find your best friend, who is visiting from the East Coast, at a random hole-in-the-wall bar on Colfax that is so new they haven’t yet had a grand opening.  Taste a tangerine cream draft beer out of curiosity. Have a glass because it makes your heart nostalgic for childhood creamsicles even though your go-to winter beers are dark and heavy.  Watch sea creatures do weird shit on the bar TV in between your BF telling you about the museum exhibits where she spent six hours while you were working. Casually strip off your work t-shirt sitting at the bar, after a couple sips of beer.  Notice the hinged murphy-style tables along the opposite wall and consider the creative inspiration for your to-be camper van.

Drink your beer just a little faster than you would in other circumstances, knowing that your friends are waiting for you at taco night at the local dive bar, all the way down Colorado back towards your home.  Tell your BF that you forgot to tell her that we’d had taco night planned out for weeks. Also tell her that you’re supposed to be home for a dinner party, but you forgot to tell her about that too. She’s not mad.  She knows your sense of timing is never great. Strip off your baselayer in the bar bathroom, because you decided that if you go home now you’ll never make it back out again.

Remember that The Dirty Duck is waiting for you.  Remember that your roommates are also waiting for you at home.  Get the fuck out of that little hole in the wall St. Paul’s Tavern where you could’ve easy stayed the night and hope that next time you make it out of your own neighborhood that it’s still open.  Kindly make jokes with the bartender as you are leaving. Again, realize that your sense of timing is awful.

Have silly conversation with your BF on the ride south, where she reminds you (as if you could forget) that the bartender was very attractive.  Respond casually about how you do have a thing for bartenders.  Laugh because you both simultaneously remember how many bartenders you’ve flirted with through the years.  Never miss a fucking beat in conversation on the ride so that the fifteen minute drive feels like a sixty second float, but remember you have a destination just as the neon signs come into focus.  

Announce your arrival while hoping aloud that there are tacos left.  Also wonder aloud where to park, nearly find no spot, then nearly back the car down a hidden stairwell at the back of the building.  Catch eyes with your friends through a window of the bar, where they have found a single booth in the back corner. Walk through the entryway below hung mistletoe and holly, nod at the bartender, and survey the scraps of tacos left.  Circle around the table to check the second crock pot for scraps and come up short.

Introduce your BF to your table of friends, one of whom’s name you have forgotten.  Play off the embarrassment of wrongly introducing her by resigning to let people introduce themselves.  Pause as your friends giggle and realize that you are probably slightly manic. Realize that you haven’t stopped moving some part of your body for a number of hours.  Shrug it off for now. Let it carry you on past the 12 hour shift and into the night. Never sit down, either because there is no room at the booth or because you are due home for dinner in ten minutes and you need to stop at the liquor store first.  

Leave the bar just a quickly as you arrived, cordially apologizing again for misnaming a new friend and wishing them a great night.  Buzz into the liquor store two doors down, grabbing a six pack because the logo sports a penguin and fits into your idea of a dark winter beer.  Help your BF find the soda water which is hidden behind seltzer in a run-down Pepsi cooler near the entrance. Think the fluorescent lighting in the store makes it seem dingier than it would have been to begin with.  Wait behind a pair of boys, whom you check out to try and figure if they are gay or just good bros.

Make a grand entrance at home, just as everyone is sitting down to eat.  Be assured that you are not late though, because two of the friends you left at the bar have yet to arrive.  Walk back into your room at least twice for various things, forgetting something at least once.  Help bring the last unoccupied chairs in the house to an additional table for seating.

Cheers to another successful Around the World meal and pass plates around until everyone has a little bit of everything.  Run into the other room for some Lactaid when the main dish is announced to be mostly cheese, as company laughs. Cry a little as the pickled habanero onions melt into your taste buds and enjoy it.  

Talk much and loudly with your end of the two tables that has stayed put, but get lost in everyone else’s stories.  Tell an old story about yourself getting wasted and sleeping on the streets of Baltimore for the entertainment of your BF.  Let yourself be kicked off kitchen clean up duty and find friends to listen to again. Express your gratitude that there are guests kind enough in your house to clean up the kitchen after they were cooked for.  

Drink more beer.  Help move the table out of the living room and back to its home.  Let the minutes fade by, while you jump from conversation to conversation until only a handful of friends are left in the house and one of them gives you a 10% beer.  

Don’t say ‘goodbye’ because you’re determined to stay conscious through the night even with a 10% beer in hand.  Have a conversation about racism and institutions and ancestral trauma while still sipping on a 10% beer.

Wind up in the living room on a couch surrounded by friends for a card game.  Finish your 10% beer during said card game and switch to red wine. Feel totally at home sipping red wine because she is your keeper.  Participate, but also forget all the specific reasons for full belly laughter while playing with your friends. Don’t forget the way it feels in a warm room full of laughter.  Remember honestly complimenting the good looks of one of your guy friends and the gorgeous smile spread across his face upon taking the compliments.

Eagerly enjoy the idea of drunk pilates and find yourself a space of the floor.  Begin to lose memory about half way through, but not before the keywords ‘anterior pelvic tilt’ and ‘3:30 am’ and wake up face down on the leather couch wondering why you hadn’t gone to bed.  Stagger in and curl up next to your BF who you assume must be sleeping soundly by now.

Wake up around 10 with a splitting headache and growling belly.Acknowledge you must’ve drank twice as many calories than you’d eaten the day before.  Roll over and know you’d go back to sleep if it weren’t for a fully awake human also in your bed who is asking what we’ll do today. Mumble ‘breakfast’ and roll over again, away from the door this time.

Wonder aloud what your best travel buddy (BTB) is doing and tell your BF we’re gonna try the new/reopened brunch spot across the street.  Call your BTB, have a playful conversation comparing our friendship to that of Franco-Rogen, where I assign her Franco because she’s hot and she reassigns it back to me saying I’m the hottest.  

Resolve to meet at Morning Story in 10 minutes but don’t arrive for closer to 20.  Invite your also-hungover roommate and chef of the previous night to brunch. Dress yourself most comfortably and walk casually down the middle of your neighborhood street to the adjacent strip mall.  Laugh more while recounting yourself passed out on the couch, where apparently your BF had tried tediously to get you up but you refused.

Order a trifecta of beverages, that is water, coffee, and orange juice, just like you used to every morning back in Baltimore after you’d been out drinking.  Wait a few minutes for your BTB to show up and try to grab her attention awkwardly with your hand in the air as you watch her peer out across the restaurant floor.  Let your smile extend to each ear when she sees you, as hers has done the same. Eat food and make jokes and affectionately lay your head on the shoulder of your booth-mate.  

Awkwardly add a fifth friend to the table about halfway through your meal.  Talk a little about politics and viewpoint diversity and cultural backgrounds.  Hate declining an invitation to a quinceanera in the mountains because you’re feeling so much like you need to be still, like you need to be home.  Forget your bill on the table as you go to pay the cashier and joke with the cashier’s trainer about being lively hungover women. Know that the lovely energy you’re putting out into the world is affecting others in a positive way.  

Stumble back home where you feel so full of food and drink and love that you’ve forgotten about the hangover.  Share a joint in the backyard to assure that the hangover won’t creep back in. Film your cat playing with a tarp, using his claws to bounce shriveled leaves up into the air to watch them fall.

Decide you need to spend time with the Earth today.  Feel the low winter sun on your face and see the long shadows she casts and feel witchy.  Survey the plot of bare ground at the back of the house and the tiller you snagged from your ex and the dead goat heads that invaded the garden space and know that you want to build something there.  Hug your BTB the best goodbye, regretting missing the quinceanera but knowing you want to be here now.

Express your gratitude that it’s Saturday and that there’s a whole other day of freedom ahead of you.  Ask your roommate if she wants to have a permaculture garden this year and fill up with joy when she agrees. Till the garden plot, little by little.  Imagine the plants that will grow there in spring.

Listen to your BF and your roommate talk about life, about taxes, about old relationships, and chime in when you see fit.  Spread around the ashes from the fire pit that your roommate lays in the garden plot. Switch tilling directions after some time, when you feel the muscles of your shoulder tire.  Make goals for short breaks, where you check on the fire your roommate is building and appease the desire for your BF to be involved in the creative process.

Agree to do a pallet project but choose not to lead it.  Gather craft materials from around the house and the garage with which your BF creates.  Finish tilling the garden plot, both shoulders sore now. Clean out the pots of last years’ plants.  Give the stalks of the plants to your roommate for burning and chant them back to the Earth. Continue light chanting as you pour the leftover soil into the freshly tilled garden patch.  Repeat until all pots are empty and stacked neatly by the grill.

Sit down at the patio table and begin to envision a natal chart painting that is not yet realized.  Fuck it up about halfway through with the wrong paint brush and abandon your work. Admire the recycled art your BF has made while you’ve been tilling and join her beside the fire as she elaborates her sculpture.  

Eat frozen pizza that your roommate has cooked and sit together around the fire.  Watch the Yule log burn into the night that comes so early this time of year entranced by the process of burning, and feel overfull of the wonders of the Earth.  Talk about when to start seeds and what to grow. Talk about the Solstice party you want to have in a couple of weeks. Move around the fire, soaking in its warmth on different sides of your body as the frigid night air sets in around you.  Speak of the difference in temperatures aloud while fully experiencing them.

Let the fire die, or rather endorse your roommate’s question to put it out.  Watch the embers glow faint and bright again for a few minutes, seeing all of the cosmos right there in the small fire pit.  Feel the cold run you back inside the house.

Change clothes and leave the house for an ornament decorating party.  Don’t wear a real bra. Wear your glasses. Grab a beer to go and wait for a Lyft. Chat casually with the driver on the short ride over.

See friends on the awning porch and give big full loving hugs.  Smile like you mean it because you do. Stand outside a little longer than is comfortable but eventually find your way in.  Notice the hostess across the room, slicing cured meats for the food platters that line the kitchen counter. Grab a few snacks, feeling the warmth of her smile when she sees you.  Chatter with old friends around the room about basically anything and introduce your BF only half of the time. Eagerly wait for the ornament decorating table to clear up because you still have creative juices left.  Watch friends interact across the room as you listen to other friends chat beside you.

Pull a chair up to the decorating table and get to work.  Paint five ornaments and make yourself stop because you feel you are being antisocial.  Make a new friend over ornament aesthetics, your host’s coworker, and invite her to your Solstice party.  

Join the group of friends who has begun playing King’s Cup across the room, where your outfit is not suited to sit on the floor so you awkwardly keep changing positions.  Make a mental note that even wearing boyish clothes can be uncomfortable. Chat with a friend about his foot injury and about work and about life. Remember that you are still very attracted to him.  

Tell your BF to take a nap on the couch since she is tired.  Forget that she is sleeping behind you. Recognize that within a fifteen minute window, everyone has cleared out except for a small group of rugby players who have now transitioned to On the Bus from King’s Cup.  Realize that you have an enormous amount of love and affection for every single human that is left in the room with you.

Try to play along with the card game, but continuously get hung up in a side conversation or with passing around bottles of wine.  Pour another glass of a particularly tasty cab sav that you won’t remember the name of. Ditch the game of On the Bus because you’ve have been trying to beat one round for what seems like an eternity and have barely made it past the center point.  Have your attention grabbed by a plea for karaoke requests by your host and the offbeat rapping of your friends. Try to hear the music over drunk gargling but spend half the song partially laughing and partially shaking your head for the lack of rhythm in the room.  Sing along to your favorite Christmas song next.

Come back to reality, your BF directly in line of sight with a look of agony on her face, like she is on the verge of a full mental collapse, pleading to know when you are going home.  Order her a Lyft and take the four minutes it takes for them to arrive to stand next to her and wait.

Resume Christmas caroling when she is gone and for hours on from there.  Swig a bottle out of a friend’s hand, the wonderful cab sav, before another friend hands you your own bottle.  

Kneel by the fireplace beside the hostess and wrap your arm around her as she has hers around you and sway back and forth with your bottles and your songs.  Dance along rapping to an old hip hop hit while she twerks across the room. Notice an encore of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” with a beautiful closing statement from the host to “Go the fuck home” cause again you’ve made it to 3:30am and it’s time to call it quits.  

Stumble into bed a second night in the row but not after hanging your two favorite new ornaments on the Christmas tree in the living room, this time cuddling up next to your BF, and hoping that you weren’t too loud while drunkenly trying to navigate your house and your room.  Sleep like a baby whose been so overstimulated by laughter and love that they don’t wake up for 12 hours. Feel the love still when you wake up the next morning, but don’t forget to feel the hunger too. The hunger for food, yes, but also the hunger for sustenance. The hunger to connect with each other.  The hunger to be with the Earth. The hunger to be kind and to have fun and to be free, and the hunger to continuously feel the love that radiates around you, whether it be Christmas season or not.