Exalted

by Anna Dorn

I ordered an ancestry report from this website called ChromoZone in hopes of discovering Finnish or Estonian blood, something glamorous to explain my cosmic irises. But no such luck. I am 98.9 percent Irish. ChromoZone really fucked me.

Aries sun, just where Aries is supposed to go, where it is exalted.

Aries: Turkey. Necessary, the most important, big dick energy.

But now I am back in his dumb Volvo, taking a deep hit and feeling sort of momentarily happy. Grating music travels through the car and snatches my bliss. “What is this shit?” I ask, pointing to the stereo. “Vampire Weekend,” he says. I make a hacking noise, and he laughs his cloying laugh. “Their new album is pretty good.” I can’t think of a single thing to say to that.

Unexpected guilt hits again. My Gemini moon, desperate to be liked. Or maybe I’m just a human being.

This text reminds me of when I used to watch Q&As with directors all the time on YouTube. Freud always came up. I am proud that my dad can talk articulately about film, even though I am sort of over Freud, who just feels like this secret language old white men use to make whatever they are talking about seem inaccessible. Freud just gives cloaked terms to universal aspects of the human experience, kind of like astrology.

I see two patrons in fedoras, which makes me deeply uneasy.

When Thomas opens his front door, I wrap my hands around his neck. “I’m very into this, Em,” he says, “but it isn’t the best time.” I squeeze harder so he knows this is not a sexual flirtation; it’s a homicide attempt.

He said the Arctic Monkeys were the second coming of the Beatles, and my other coworker—a communist—said British people said that about every band. It all felt so cool. I was eighteen and working in Hollywood with a British person and a communist.