This Week's Horoscope

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 18)

Your luck is failing. This is not a good week for those mad adventures that require legendary escapes, like the sprint-and-slide-under-the-lowering-garage-door move. Also skip the ones that call for gambling your entire fortune on the bet with the longest odds. This week, the door will catch you, and you'll lose your wad. It'll just be humiliating. You'll have to limp home with an empty wallet, dejected. However, there is one small stroke of good fortune to go along with the crappy black-cloud-of-doom-and-gloom: your ability to spot a sure thing just increased exponentially.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)

Her Majesty is coming to your town. It doesn't even matter which country she's a figurehead of. Nor does it matter whether you're one of her thrilled fans, ready to line the streets with her other pennant-waving worshippers, or if you're just going to roll your eyes with jaded bemusement and try to go about your day as usual. Whether or not you buy into the arbitrary royalty bullshit is irrelevant. What matters is you won't be able to ignore this visit. The whole town is going to be turned upside down by her arrival. Traffic will be snarled for miles, and her paparazzi will be everywhere you want to go. What to do, when you can't ignore or prevent something? Pretend it's a giant ocean wave, coming your way, and duck beneath the crest, hold your breath and ride it out.

Aries (March 21-April 19)

Elitist mentality, be gone! It's time for a belated New Year's resolution. I didn't mention it last month, because you weren't emotionally positioned to give it a go, but you are now. Cut down on your snootiness. It's no major fault; Rams are generally unpretentious and personable. But you are opinionated, and those few who still bear the brunt of your judgment suffer, big-time. For your own sake, as well as those unfortunates, reduce the amount of contempt you feel by at least 20 percent. Stop looking down on whoever it is you look down on, whether it's a group as a whole (inbred Appalachian hicks, Staten Islanders or the French), or individuals (your boss, an anorexic friend or your roommate the cat-lover). Be more egalitarian than ever?and don't look down your nose at those who aren't quite so evolved.

Taurus (April 20-May 20)

Your body knows. It's hard to really "get" some things, like snowboarding, swimming or riding a bike, until they physically sink in. Vividly imagining a process is way less tricky than commanding your limbs to manifest it. Some intentions operate the same way. Until they become automatic, it's easy to lapse into less-healthy or -fruitful patterns. Fear not. The knowledge you've struggled to learn is burrowing ever deeper. Soon it will inhabit your bones, and flow through your veins, not just your head. Remember when Dad taught you to ride that bike? You fell down every time he let go of the seat, until one time, you didn't?and you almost never fell again.

Gemini (May 21-June 20)

Real monsters are virtually extinct. Most things people fear these days, by way of monsters, are unlikely possibilities generated by overworked minds. Yawn. You know this. So why have you been cringing and dramatically limiting your behavior based on fiends that are as imaginary and ridiculous as the furry creature that lives under your bed and the ghoul who inhabits your closet? There are only about five actual bogeymen left in the world, and you're not in immediate danger from any of them. Go back to your old habits of living fearlessly. If you have trouble remembering how, just remind yourself with this terror-squelching mantra: "I am the bogeyman."

Cancer (June 21-July 22)

Wiping the mental blackboard clean is a good start. It was covered in primitive chalk doodles dating from kindergarten, practically?very basic stuff you absorbed and outgrew ages ago. But don't stop with updating the lessons you had scrawled there?trash the whole damn thing. You don't just need new material to learn, you need new methods of learning?faster, more exciting, better ones. A scrubbed blackboard is so limited. Replace it with a huge plasma touchscreen with millions of colors. Forget the dated material you'd been working with, and prepare yourself to absorb the cutting-edge lessons you're finally ready to learn.

Leo (July 23-Aug. 22)

Become what you love. It's simple, once you believe it's possible. Leos excel at self-fulfilling prophecies. Many forces conspire to make us become what we despise. Hate is a powerful and perversely magnetic emotion. But that trap is avoidable. Take what and who you adore and admire off their pedestals. They are amazing?but so are you. You're their equal?all you need to do is admit it to yourself, and trim some of the self-sabotage, like excess fat on a side of beef, from your life. It's that simple: replace longing with being, and become what you love.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sept. 22)

According to my calculations, you'll encounter more hair-raising adventures, close scrapes and deliciously tight spots in the next few weeks than will any two other signs, all in the course of your day-to-day routine. They should design a videogame about you. Of course, only other Virgos would be able to beat it, and what Virgo has time to play Xbox? Still, try to remember that you're at your best when you're playing your life, not stressing about it. Treat it like a videogame, with each obstacle simply the challenge of the next level, and you'll not only get more done than you would if you were exasperated and struggling, you'll have way more fun, too.

Libra (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)

Too often, we look outside ourselves for what we feel is lacking in our lives. Sometimes, that works. Most of the time, our quests just screw us up. This week, don't bother hunting what you think you're missing. It's not out there, and you could end up squandering huge amounts of energy and resources searching for it. Don't bother asking anyone else where to find it, either. They'll just be clueless, annoyed and helpless, because they won't know this one fact: You are already what you seek, even if you haven't realized it yet.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 21)

Arctic terrain is complicated to navigate; snow is treacherous, and obscures landmarks. Since your inner world is buried under massive drifts, you need strategies to get around and avoid getting stuck. Constantly digging yourself out will exhaust you unduly, and numb you with emotional frostbite. One way to keep from sinking into the powdery depths: lighten your load. Near-frozen travelers need their equipment to survive; the unjustifiably heavy emotions weighing you down are more easily shed. Explorers also tie themselves together to avoid losing one another in the glaring white. There's at least a friend or three who'll temporarily tether themselves to you. Take them up on the offer, so you can cross that tundra together, not alone.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 21)

Feast or famine, the cycle dictates. Sometimes things are as uncomplicated, predictable, exuberant and bountiful as a parentally supervised Easter egg hunt. Other times, you're stuck wandering a vast expanse of featureless desert, hunting an elusive oasis, blistered by the sun. There's no simple way to avert this pattern of alternating extremes. However, I can share one tip that will help you stay on the fortunate side longer. You know how grateful, relieved and ecstatic you are when you find one of those infrequent watering holes during the arid-wasteland half of the cycle? The more you can evince that appreciative bliss for every cheap chocolate egg you discover on the bountiful side, the longer you'll be blessed enough to stay there.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19)

Most people have them, but Capricorns are especially prone to what I call soulmate dreams, in which you experience ecstatic union with another being, who's often not even the gender you're usually attracted to?occasionally not even human (a tree, river, mountain)! Naturally, these dreams aren't predictive. If such exist, don't expect to necessarily view your actual soulmate during your oneiric journeys. They're not prophecy, they're practice. This week, manifest as often as possible the kind of enlightened and all-encompassing love you feel in those dreams, please. The fallout will be richer and better than you ever imagined.