Zodiac Profiling

I’m wondering — is there such a thing?

Here’s the set-up:  Ben and I were sitting at Wine Down on 28th, conversing with other patrons as well as the staff and the owner.  And I quickly understood that my presence was being pointedly ignored by the only other female sitting at the bar at this time.  She sat, unaccompanied as having arrived stag, and was talking to all the guys there — and only to the guys — including my guy, as she leaned forward to speak around me to talk to him, without once acknowledging my presence, going so far as to deliberately avoid eye contact with me.

As she droned on [and on and on] about her wonderful self, she was soon going on about how useful the Zodiac is for typing people and their personalities, and then announced to all the men present that her sun sign was Cancer.  In some amusement I watched her cadge drinks like an expert barfly, while asking all the men [including mine] what their signs were –

[That line was old when I was a kid.  Which decade is she living in?]

– and refusing to acknowledge the presence of the other woman, myself,  sitting at that same bar.  Being me, I piped up and volunteered that I’m a Gemini, thus forcing her into awareness of my existence [at last].

She immediately sat back, eyes wide in theatrical horror, and crossed her index fingers at me.  I kid you not.  She then proceeded to tell me to my face — with all the male patrons and staff as witness –  what horrors all Geminis are: ‘talentless, two-faced losers’.

Wasn’t that ever-so clever of her, to work an iconic aspect of the Gemini sign into her accusations against a total stranger?  And that was just the beginning of her diatribe against the sign of the twins,…

Oh, well — so much for open minds among those claiming to be enlightened.  But I don’t know whether to [A] laugh at the blindly generalizing hostility of a lone, schnockered twit; or [B] weep in general for the allegedly civilized world.

On the behalf of Geminis everywhere, let me share with you a wee smattering of the folks who share my birthday:
Richard Wagner — composer, conductor and essayist
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle — poet and novelist, creator of Sherlock Holmes
Mary Cassatt — painter and print-maker
Harvey Milk — politician and gay rights activist
William Sturgeon — physicist and inventor
Richard Benjamin — actor and director
Betty Williams — Nobel Laureate
Naomi Campbell — model, singer and actress
Laurence Olivier — actor, director and producer
Hergé [Georges Prosper Remi] — comics artist and writer, creator of Tintin

Geminis, one and all.  Alright, it’s my birthday, so I’m opting for Plan A. In the immortal [and deliciously smug] words of Admiral Kirk:

“Khan,… I’m laughing at the superior intelligence.”

Happy birthday to all my zodiac siblings!

– Ryl

p.s. I freely admit to being easily distracted — it’s only because I have such a low boredom threshold, and who doesn’t like shiny stuff, after all?  It’s the magpie in me.  Not all Cancers are so quick to  judge [and damn] as that one proved.  Most of the Cancers I have the pleasure of knowing are not only keenly intelligent, but polite and courteous, as well — and they know how to hold their own when it comes to wine.