Out of Time

I have often thought, dear friends, that my spark of life was ignited a few decades late. Statistically, I am either late Baby Boom or early Generation Jones. Stylistically, I feel like neither. If I had access to a reliable time machine and a good alibi for my absence in the present, I would set the birth dial to the mid-30’s of the last century.

There I would be hitting my adult stride having missed the rigors of the great depression and the horrors of the greater war, slap-dab in the middle of the fat and happy 50’s. Jazz had yet to go off the rails, and drinking at lunch was encouraged. A quick course of Penicillin would get you past the worst class of STD you might happen upon. Dacron polyester fibers were still locked up tight in the laboratories of DuPont in this peak time for Couturiers and their clientele. And hidden just beneath the full, flared cocktail dresses and harmlessly hobbling pencil skirts of the day glimmered the Golden Age of Foundation Garments.

Yum.

Some of the very earliest posts here on Voyages en Rose were reveries to this not so distant past. The historically inclined of you might like to read them here and over here. The hysterically inclined however are encouraged to hang around here for a question of time with less sweep to it for a few moments.

You see, earlier on today I was busy hammering and sawing a Gemini reference into a different bit of writing. I failed. But then I started thinking about Gemini on its own terms. As little as I know (and truthfully care) about Astrology, I wondered if the heavenly twins might have a special message for people who express and experience as male and female.

Research bore fruit quickly. Here are the opening words of the # 1 ranked Google return for “Gemini characteristics”:

Gemini go everywhere together, hand-in-hand, symbolizing your dual nature. Our world comes in pairs: good and evil, male and female, in and out, yin and yang -- and you Geminis are living proof. Some might say Gemini are an entanglement of paradoxes, but the truth is that Gemini have an easy acceptance of opposites. Gemini world is one of duality. Gemini can like this and that, one thing and its opposite.

Well, that all sounded lovely, and there is more that rings true. You might want to read up on just how ambi Gemini is here. In any event, this skeptic was now paying full attention. Clearly, I am Gemini.

Except that I am not.

I just celebrated my birthday which makes me Taurus. I must tell you that I have never felt comfortable or natural in the constellation of my birth. If there was such a thing as Zodiacal Reassignment Surgery I would take a part time job to pay for it. I suppose I will just continue to live the lie. Alas.

But there is something that will make living that lie easier for me, and this I what I request of you as a belated birthday gift: Take a second, please, to answer this weeks poll. What is your sign?

We should be evenly distributed across the calendar, but we might not be. The more of you that participate in the poll, the more evenly we should be distributed. But, again, we might not be. Would it not be an interesting thing to find a larger than expected number of us gathered in the Third House, under Mercury, dualities and all?

I would not ask except in the furtherance of science. Or sceance. If you happen to write a lovely and popular blog catering to the CD/TG set, would you mind posting a link there and helping me jack the numbers a little? The more the merrier and the more accurate. Results and observations this time next week.

Comments, as always, desired and greatly appreciated.