There is something about silence that doesn't sound right for you today, dear Virgo. Keep talking. Sooner or later someone will say something meaningful. Latch on to lucrative ideas and keep your ears open for new opportunities. Realize that your new best friend could be the stranger that you pass on the street while going to get coffee. Strike up a conversation with the person you are standing next to in line.

I�m normally not one to listen to anything that calls me �dear� something without then remarking on one of my body parts (�dear boy, your heart is large and full,� �dear goalie, your balls are large and full�, etc.). But today, I thought I�d listen. Mostly because that damn horoscope told me to keep talking. This is something I rarely have a problem with, but now, not only am I not being restricted (like my Nazi-loving cube-neighbors attempt to do), I am being encouraged. This is indeed super.

What an awesome phrase, �Sooner or later someone will say something meaningful,� is.

What it really means is, �put up with the usual amount of excrement being spewed forth from the ricockulously stupid masses and an occasional nugget may come out that doesn�t make you want to pound pinecones up someone�s ass.�

Now that I read that, I realize I must sound like an incredibly cynical asshole.

Good.

The fact that my fucking horoscope is telling me that I�m going to go and �get� coffee somewhere involving a �street� should�ve tipped me off that the next vision of my future may not be so clear.

But, I decided to try the �strike up conversation� thing anyway.

I resolved to speak in friendly tones with the next person that I found myself next to while standing in line or waiting for something.

I�m normally a pretty friendly guy, but with strangers, it�s different. I�m too worried about trying to be as cool as I think I am to realize that I am, in fact, not, and my plan is quickly foiled.

I left my cube with the intent of being truly and sincerely friendly to the next stranger I saw. I was soon given the exciting opportunity to have someone waiting next to me.

Even though we were both staring straight ahead and he didn�t seem too social for a possible new best friend, I gave it a shot. With what I thought was a friendly smile, I said, �Hey! How�s it going?� He looked down, shifted uncomfortably and mumbled something like, �Umbr� good� I geazzz.�

Thinking maybe he was nervous because he didn�t know me, I thought I�d try a more social tact, �You don�t look familiar, do you work for MyCompany, or are you in one of the other suites here on the 6th floor?�

Again with the mumbling, again with the looking down and uncomfortably shuffling of the feet, and again with a non-answer answer, �No� I�m nod wizz� MyCompanndhhsh��

Fuck. Those goddam horoscope fairies and their magic-brighten-your-otherwise-dreary-life-dust-sprinkling asses aren�t making this very easy.

C�mon dude, help me out here, I�m working at appeasing the Gods-of-Virgo that could be in command of me getting to talk more. This isn�t something I want to fuck up.

I try again with the big, friendly, grin, �How about all this rain we�re getting? Kind of dreary, but at least things�ll be nice and green for the rest of the summer.�

Now he looks down AGAIN, mumbles even softer and shakes his head slowly.

I give up.

I can�t reach this guy.

He has to be some sort of sociopath to resist the incredible charm and friendliness I have oozing from the smiley glands on my shining visage.

I decide that I can�t take any more of this unbelievable coldness.

I zip up, flush, and head out the door.

Further proof of his sociopathicalness, he�d been done for a while, yet didn�t move, shake, zip up, or flush the whole time I was talking to him. Freak.

I give up on trying to be friendly.

Starting sometime during my time of poopiness, my hockey teams started to suck. The roller hockey team (two-time defending champs) started to take on a thin sheen of Suckage and the ice hockey team stumbled at the precipice of the Valley of Suck for 2 � periods before plummeting headlong into it.

I felt all of this Suck was predicated on me being a downy-dumpster-poopy-pants (hockey term, email me for explanation). I may or may not have been wrong. It�s gone on for much longer than my trousers-of-fecal-matter days, though.

Either A) the Suckage that I exuded during said poopiness clung to the totally-non-Sucking bodies of my teammates and proceeded to leech the Awesomeness through their helpless skin.

Or, B) they too have unconsciously splashed a dollop of Eu De Suck in their hands and liberally applied to their face and neck immediately after shaving.

I have broken out of the vicious vise-like grip of Suck, yet we are still losing and still skating around in a Suck-induced haze.

I�ve decided that I�m going to draw a nice hot bath of Awesomeness, dump in the Stupendous Bubble Bath, and sprinkle the Bath Salts of Superness evenly over the length of the Tub of Glorious Non-Suckitude. Then I�ll take a nice, long soak.

I need to do something, �cause right now, hockey Sucks.