NATURAL
Year of the Goats

According to the Chinese Zodiac Jennifer was born in the year of the monkey and I was born in the year of the rooster. This seems strange as I have long thought of myself as an agile goat or spitting camel sorting through trash and digesting dirt at the site of a future community garden. Nope, I’m a mature rooster, a fourth-shadow iron rooster born at the tail end of the 1981 lunar year for Chinese peasants. On the positive side, this nature means I am “very observant: His mind is cautious and skeptical, and with this perceptive gift, Roosters make excellent trouble shooters, detectives,” but I like to “be noticed and flattered.”

We got a membership at the YMCA a few weeks ago and now J-Bird is constantly having me feel her muscles and tell her how much they have changed. Today on our way to a vegan lunch buffet she said, “I can feel my abs all over” and then told me the long story of how she came to know that abs was short for abdominal muscles (she at first thought they signified something obscene). A monkey not only grunts in the gym and demands constant feeding, but according to the Chinese bestiary, “monkeys are fun and loving persons who are always cheerful and energetic. They are very clever. Monkey-types possess acute psychological perspicacity which enables them to read people like books.”

Jennifer is making a CD of her favorite music for our friend Matthew right now. The point is to make him feel a little less sad that his sister died last week. Actually the point is to try to say that we care about him by giving him a whole bunch of songs like flowers which are sad and profound and feel like real life: which is always catching up with nature.