My boss, whom I'll call "Mr. Paul," tossed the Weekly Reader on my desk today, which is what he does with things when he's through with them.

"Did you read your horoscope?" I asked, and he scoffed (his standard response to everything I say, which fails to intimidate me).

"I'm married, with children. The horoscopes don't apply any longer," he yelled from his office. I asked him what he meant.

"Those are all about love, and sex, and finding the right person. Once you're married, you're not in that market any more." (Yeah, Mr. Paul's got it allllllllll figured out. He didn't even know the Pixies--his favorite band of all time--were coming to town until I broke down and told him.)

Unmarried, I opened the paper to see what Rob Brezsny had to say, and as usual was filled with a wholly unrealistic sense of optimism, which is fun, and the reason I read his column every week.

Today, Rob advises that if I'm feeling like I "lost the plot" of my life, and have been floating around in limbo, I shouldn't worry. I'm not going to pick up that story line again, but the good news is, there's a brand new one coming, better than the original. It's like I'm on General Hospital, and my character got written into an extended coma due to my unreasonable off-screen contract negotiations. Instead of waking up, my character will just be killed off, allowing me to start over on a better network.

I'm guessing it is a sign of severe weakness of character, or clinical gullibility, that causes me to feel happy when I read something like "your new life is going to be SOOOOO much better than your old one!!" but the thing is, I have lost my story line--I have been in limbo for a while now, and it's encouraging to think that this totally frivolous and impersonal horoscope could actually herald an upswing. (Why don't I just write, "Because I'm a huge loser who lives to read my horoscope!!!"? because that is exactly what this makes me sound like. I'm not going to erase it, just so I can enjoy the horror of knowing that you, dear friend and reader, can witness my total lack of self-respect. I love the Internet!!)

Star of the day. . .Rodney Bingenheimer