#5: sagittarius season (2023)

sad sapphic solstice

Dec 20, 2023

Hi! Thanks for being here. Tomorrow is the winter solstice and the first day of Capricorn season. The days start getting a little longer from there! It won’t really feel like it for a while, but I promise it’s happening.

Here are some takeaways and faves from Sagittarius season this past month. You can find an overview of Capricorn season’s upcoming astrology at the end of this newsletter. If you’d like to support this girl’s blog, you can subscribe and maybe even pay me at the link below, and/or like this post and all my future newsletters too. Seriously though — I crave validation and likes are very validating. Ty lol smh 🩷

🚫cuffing season🚫

It’s cuffing season — but not for me, baby! I am staying single this season. It’s going to be a little bit of a challenge tbh because I’m kind of a lovergirl at heart. I have four Libra placements after all! I believe it’s my Libra moon that influences how much of a fantasy I can build up in my head about people. I had a really sweet first date this morning, and I’m being so chill and down to earth about it (I’ve already written about her twice). I think my Libra moon also contributes to my underlying desire to form and keep deep, intimate connections, even if I think I don’t want that with someone.

A Libra moon story: This person who a friend of mine started dating this year was insistent on adding buffers of space — minimal texting, only seeing my friend so often — when the two of them first started seeing each other. They said they just wanted to date casually and not get too attached to anyone. But after the two of them had been dating for a short time, all of that seemed to go out the window and they starting making some big statements and grand gestures. They wanted more commitment and a more serious connection, and they expressed some hurt feelings when my friend wasn’t already at that level with them. I found out the other day that they’re a Libra moon and it all made more sense. I’m not saying that’s something you’ll catch me out here doing, but I feel like I can understand where part of that comes from.

The Libra stellium in my chart — those four placements, and in my fifth house, no less! — is what I think contributes the most astrologically to the importance of sexual and romantic connections for me. These are topics I will keep coming back to in my writing because there’s a lot to process and it all feels so interesting to me, in my life and others’. And also because for most of my twenties I was monogamously partnered with someone who wasn’t monogamous with me (lol), so I missed out on what could’ve been a formative period of sexual exploration. I’ve been making up for lost time though and having a much better time, so you’re in the right place if you want to read about a lesbian’s thirsty thirties (lol!).

In staying single for cuffing season however, I’ve been running into some problems. The first is that I don’t have a person (or people) to tell all my things to. Who am I supposed to tell that I just ate so much soup? Several friends have said they would happily receive that text and I appreciate that, but it just hits different with a romantic partner. Another struggle is that I, uhh, want to hold and be held? Ever since an ex and I stopped platonically cuddling (and, umm, non-platonically hooking up again) I haven’t really been held, and I miss that. So I’m questioning my decision now that I’m feeling touch-starved!

I’m committed though, partly in a solo polyamory, putting myself first kind of way, and partly because while I do have a lot to give to potential partners, I don’t know how much I actually want to give these days. That’s a feeling I’ve had since the spring. I don’t know if, to put it simply, starting a relationship now in my thirties is a matter of consciously deciding that I want to give and then setting out to find people to do so with; or, if it would be a result of meeting people who I end up wanting to give to as things progress and feelings develop, even if that wasn’t something I thought I wanted. If it’s the latter, I can be honest enough with myself to admit there’s part of me that would readily sit down at the table, knife and fork in hand, to eat my words.

‘tis the damn season

The other season we’re in is, of course, the holiday one. (Cue the jingle bells.) I grew up Catholic and went to church with my family every Sunday, but I stopped believing when I was in 9th grade and became quite the grinch about Christmas and Christianity itself then. For a while, I wanted to keep up appearances with my family though and give the impression that I was still Catholic (and straight), so I joined our church’s choir. I love to sing and my voice is… decent. That gave me something to do during weekly mass instead of just sitting there with my family in the pews, praying the hour would go by faster. Plus from the choir section I had a better view of the pretty Catholic girls I had no chance with. The Christmas masses had the best music and they were a nice break from the same old songs week after week. The choir director broke out the Michael W. Smith arrangements, and some of his songs slap, okay! I think we did a pretty good job each year. All that’s to say despite all the harm that growing up Catholic did to me, there’s still a part of me that misses singing Christmas music in that choir.

I will be seeing my immediate family — and apparently my sister’s new, Fox News-watching boyfriend — for Christmas, and I wish I could just fast forward to the night of the 25th when I’ll be back home, eating cookies in bed. Being around them is a big drinking trigger for me. It doesn’t help that despite not drinking with them at all over the past (almost) three years, they still offer me alcohol and sometimes pressure me a little: “Oh, but this wine is really good, you should try it;” and “The rest of this bottle is going to go to waste if you don’t have any;” and “Are you sure you don’t want anything?” Of course I want it! And I think they know that because of how much I used to drink around them. Drunk in my family’s house is actually the name of one of my oldest Spotify playlists.

There’s a Christmas tradition my family has where my mom gets an ornament for me and my siblings each year. For most of my twenties, the ornament she got me was something beer-related — a little Christmassy barrel that says Beer on it, a small Christmassy six-pack of beer, etc. I think that speaks to both how little I let them know about me — that beer was the only interest of mine they knew about — and to how much I would drink around them. A Christmassy six-pack of beer was what I would generally have in an evening when I visited. And I know that’s what part of me will be wanting when I’m there next week.

It’s a hard time of year to stay sober, so I’m wishing you strength if you’re trying to as well.

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faves ♡

🎶 My Spotify wrapped

I’m not ashamed to say Spotify wrapped day is fun — I like seeing the stats and graphics for my music listening over the previous year, and I enjoy forming little opinions and judgements of friends and strangers when I see theirs. MUNA was my top artist again and my top song was “Girls Are Mean” by Boyish, neither of which surprised me. My 25th song is “25” by Alix Page, which I thought was neat. Here’s three of my faves from that playlist that I think are worth listening to, by artists with smaller numbers of monthly listeners:

🎞️ Blue Jean

This movie! It was tender and full of emotion, stressful and painful at times, and sooo dykey. It’s on Hulu and it’s worth a watch. The one-line summary: In 1988, a closeted teacher is pushed to the brink when a new student threatens to expose her sexuality. I really felt for Jean as she tried to navigate situations at work and with family, and not only because I’ve dealt with staying closeted at some jobs and around my family. And I want to hang out with her and her lesbian friends! The ‘80s dyke content was great, as were the accents. Hiya! I will be rewatching this.

📺 A Murder at the End of the World

Also on Hulu is this murder mystery show that wrapped up yesterday. It was so good, and there aren’t any spoilers below. If you haven’t watched any of it yet, you’re lucky that you can just watch it all in one go instead of only getting one episode at a time over the past few weeks. I thought about this show a lot after each episode because I was trying to figure out who the killer was — I guessed wrong! — and also because the storyline and the acting stayed with me. Emma Corrin was great, and I don’t know if I liked their present day gay hair or their flashback gay hair more. I want to read their character Darby Hart’s books! Brit Marling was great in it too, and I liked watching Harris Dickinson because he’s interesting to look at. Probably going to rewatch this too.

🛏️ Slumber party!

Some friends and I had an honest-to-goodness slumber party because one of them is moving away at the start of the new year. It was such a cute night. We gabbed and gossiped! We told ghost stories! We wore matching, pink Target PJs and drank Shirley Temples! When we were planning the evening, we discussed the fact that there’s a clear, vibes-based difference between a mere sleepover and a *slumber party*. I highly recommend inviting some friends over for a BYO air mattress slumber party sometime, to have a cute change of pace. Just don’t expect to get much sleep.

👃🏻 The Perfumed Court

Maybe this site is widely known — I’m not on TikTok so I don’t know what recommendations are happening on PerfumeTok — but I’ll share a little about it anyway. I don’t know how I found it years ago, but the first sample I ordered was Serge Lutens Borneo 1834 after coming across it in this ancient Autostraddle article. I didn’t order or wear anything else besides it for a while, and I don’t regret being that girl who filled the stale, basement air of her office job with the smell of patchouli. Over the past couple of years, I’ve ordered many more samples from this site, and it’s been a fun and inexpensive way to try out perfumes. I feel bad going into Sephora and using up all their testing strips only to buy nothing, so this has been a good way to try out some perfumes that I’m pretty sure I’d like and then get slightly larger samples if I do. I had a long skin-scent period starting in 2021 — yes, that included a Glossier You phase — and then veered into some more lively fruity florals last summer. I’m in my gourmand era now though, and I’m loving how often pretty girls tell me I smell good. Some days that’s all I need to keep me going! I’m gatekeeping what I’ve been wearing though, including the new perfume sample I felt so yummy in on that first date this morning. Sorry! It’s not personal, I just don’t want to find out that something I feel cute and confident in is actually a viral fav. Ignorance is delicious-smelling bliss.

🍪 Pepperidge Farm Gingermen

I’ve had a strong gingerbread craving lately, and these cookies are better than the other dairy-free ones I’ve found. They have everything I want in gingerbread: there’s a nice balance of sweetness and gingery kick, they have the right amount of crunch to them, they’re fun and seasonal, and the name is kind of silly — when I search it, DuckDuckGo doesn’t know whether I want to see gingerbread cookie recipes or pictures of Irish men. This fav is prompted by the fact that I forgot to get more when I got some groceries earlier, RIP.