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| Cover of The Pocket Muse |
Today's horoscope: Company from out of town could mean trouble.Well, that's vague. I mean, good -- a vague horoscope can apply to anyone, which is why they write it that way. But really? "Company from out of town" could mean anything from my mother-in-law who lives the next suburb over to the Ebola outbreak.
I drop the newspaper into the recycling bin once I arrive at work. I only even get the paper because our airline miles were about to expire, so we might as well blow them on magazines and newspapers. I get most of my news online. Don't you?
My train, assuming it runs on time, gets me to work half an hour early, plenty of time to eat breakfast and augment the newspaper with up-to-the-minute headlines from my phone. I snag a chair in the coffee room and open Facebook. People flipping out over something -- well, that's hardly unusual. I open Twitter for actual headlines. Something sighted in the sky. Could be the Russians. Could be ISIS. Could be a hoax. Probably a drone, but no one knows whose. Obama to make statement this afternoon.
Nothing I can do about it. I have to get to work unless and until I'm told otherwise. I log into my station, then open GMail. I'll keep GChat running in the background, just in case anything urgent happens and I need to touch base with loved ones. But that's the case every day.
The TV is on in the coffee room by lunchtime, and apparently now the scientists are flipping out. The signals this thing is giving out are, quote, "Completely alien."
Do they mean alien alien? The scientists can't seem to decide whether they're delighted or terrified. I guess most are both.
I'm dubious. Even if whoever-this-is is totally benign -- totally beneficent, even -- we're going to screw this up. If not United-States-us -- we might not, I have some slim hope -- then humanity-us.
I check my horoscope again the next day. "Prepare for big changes." Well, thanks.
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