From 2006 – Pedro is a pseudonym.

Ben is a life long friend of mine. 25 years or so. He a Scorpio, and a bi-racial, gay, cello player and teacher. He’s plays with various symphony orchestras and has been the musical director of a school district for more than twenty years. We’re on the phone here.

“Oh, Elsa. I have this one kid. He is such a mess. He’s a terrible mess and his mother doesn’t help. She always saying, wait’ll you get married and have kids, Pedro,” he clucked. “Pedro isn’t going to do that. Pedro is gay!”
Continue reading Conversations With Ben – A Public Service Announcement: Gay Youth

Virgo Avenger started a thread on the board asking who would bail you out of jail – a friend or a family member.  I feel either would bail me out and this reminded me of something, Ben told me when we talked a few days ago.

He said he had given a couple he knows a fairly large amount of money. He doesn’t have a lot of money so basically he gave this couple what he did have and told them if they could not find the rest of what they needed, they should come back and he would try to help them more. I assumed he meant, they should come back after payday and he told me this tentatively.

Continue reading Paying Another Person’s Debts

From 2007… Ben he wasn’t done talking…

“And I teach my students this,” he said. “I let it be known. Don’t come to my class copying someone unless you want to be called on it. Because I will call you on it and I don’t care if you’re embarrassed. Elsa, I don’t care. These kids have to learn this or they will never amount to anything.”

“So how do you call them on it?” I asked.

“Oh! Well I just do it straight away. For example… well there is a girl I have in one my classes, she’s interesting.  She’s a unique person and she works hard to develop herself. She’s a good kid and she tries hard all the time. This is middle school I teach, as you know. It’s the hardest age. Its puberty these kids are in. But anyway this girl is interesting and she’s always out in front a little bit and she struggles.”

Continue reading Conversations With Ben: On Being an (Aquarian) Individual, Redux “Good Morning, Clones Of Mary”

3 years ago on the Elsa blog…

Ben is a Scorpio with Aquarius rising. He has Uranus conjunct his descendant, exacerbating (enhancing) his Aquarian qualities. He’s got this to say:

“I know why they copy me.”

“Why?”

“Well they admire me, of course. But the thing they admire about me is that I am an individual. So rather than absorb this and go out and be an individual themselves, they go out and try to be me!” He laughed. “How can they be that stupid? Seriously. How can a person be stupid enough to think you can be an individual by copying someone else?”

Continue reading Conversations With Ben: On Being an (Aquarian) Individual

Some years ago I was dating a lot of men. There was a huge stream of them but I was unable to connect, over and over and over and over and my friend, Ben and I were analyzing the situation.

If you’re a heterosexual woman it’s very good to talk to a gay man about men because nobody understands men better than homosexual man. This is just a fact. They know a zillion men, they are a man and they sleep with men. How are you going to top that?

Continue reading 4 Years Ago On The Elsa Blog: Learning To Be Comfortable In Your Un-Comfort Zone: Conversations With Ben

My mother came up on the boards. It made me think of this strange occurrence, I wrote about in 2006.  For newcomers, “Ben” is a lifelong friend of mine.

Ben and I met at work. The unusual friendship was growing and we had begun to pal around together outside of work. This was about 25 years ago.

Continue reading Astrology and Synchronicity: My Mother And Ben

I spoke with, Ben last night for 3 1/2 hours per our habit. We routinely go a month or two without talking but when we do talk it is depth. I called him to run my recent psych-minded thoughts by him.

I told him about the pledge of allegiance and the gay bath house connection and in the process realized I had done similar intense probing with the soldier. I have quizzed the hell out of him around some of his missions and in fact detailed this to an extent when I wrote about The Thing On The Other Side Of The World That Changed Our Lives.
Continue reading Conversations With Ben Under The Scorpio Moon

I was talking to Ben about how I’ve changed in the last couple years due what I have gone through with my daughter and my association with the soldier. Ben is life long friend… 10th house Scorpio Sun with an Aquarius rising.

“But I’m happy,” I said. “I am happy.”

“You’re either happy or you’re in a snit,” he said.

I thought a second. “That’s pretty much it, isn’t it?”

“Yep. If I’m not happy it’s because I’m in a snit. Got my panties in a wad. Got to get those panties unhinged, they’re riding right up my crack…”

Could it be this simple?

Are you happy… or in a snit?

Ben is half-white/ half-black, a gay cello player and teacher. We have been very close friends for twenty years. He’s a Scorpio, with an Aquarius rising and an Aries Moon. Here he defends (Saturn) his eccentricity (Uranus).

Ben has taught cello in the local school system for 20 years… barefoot. He plays with various symphony orchestras, same way. Barefoot. I dialed him up one night.

“Hello?”

“How are you, Ben?”

“Okay, Elsa. Except someone called me eccentric, today.”

Aquarius is known to be eccentric. “Yeah?” I asked.
Continue reading Conversations With Ben – Saturn Opposite Uranus: Defending Eccentricity

Dear Elsa,

How do you deal with a friend who’s suddenly become competitive in the workplace? Recently we were both helping a student with a question, and afterward, she accused me of trying to make her feel stupid (the student had finally gotten the right answer from me).

I was shocked that she’d had such little self control to say that to me in front of students. She apologized later, but this behavior is carrying over into the daily interactions with other employees. Does one ignore or approach this one?

Teacher
United States

Continue reading Open Question – Competition In The Workplace: Astrology-Based Advice