Hi! Thanks for being here. It’s the first day of Libra season and the first day of fall. I’m sipping on an oat milk pumpkin spice latte as I’m editing this. Here are some takeaways and faves from Virgo season this past month. You can find an overview of Libra season’s upcoming astrology at the end of this newsletter.
A quick PSA about the PSL: the pumpkin spice syrup at both Starbucks and Dunkin has milk in it! I did not know this until very recently but it explains some things. I still drink them of course, but now I know to take a lactaid pill beforehand. It’s sad for those trying to avoid dairy completely though (like I should) because the alternate fall flavor at Starbucks is apple crisp, which tastes like a candle. A yummy candle, but still.
thirty & flirty
The biggest takeaway from this season is that I am thirty! I had my 30th solar return. (Once we astrology girlies hit our mid-20s, that’s what we’re contractually obligated to start referring to birthdays as.) I’m excited about thirty for a lot of reasons.
Twenty-nine felt so transitional and I’ve been wanting to just round up since last September. Ultimately it was a year of closure that I’m glad I had though. My Saturn return ended in March, and the past six months involved a lot of processing and integration of all of the big and small changes that came about since it started in December 2020. That was such a formative period, as it tends to be for people, and over the last six months I’ve been applying lessons and adjusting to a new sense of self. I’m grateful to be here and to have left my twenties behind, along with people and patterns that I needed to move on from.
I celebrated my birthday week with a dental clinic appointment and a gyno appointment because nothing says happy birthday like medical providers putting things inside you. I celebrated the day itself with friends and exes, bopping around town and having food and tea and non-dairy ice cream. It was a really great day, and I’ve had such fun birthdays the past couple of years in sobriety.
Thirty is hot! Yes, I woke up the day after turning thirty with back pain from sleeping on my side, but I also woke up with the resolve to confront someone about behavior I’d been letting slip because I’m thirty now and I don’t have to put up with shit!
The big 3-0 next to my name on dating apps looks good. I am back on the apps now — here for a long time, not a g– I’m so tired. I hid my profiles for a while this summer while I was recovering from a medical thing because I wasn’t going to be able to meet up with anyone anyway. I felt SO bored, but I think it was for the best because of how much this summer’s Venus retrograde seemed to fuck everyone else’s love lives up. Thankfully the main impact it had on me was just an internal one, a reevaluating and reorienting process that I’m on the other side of now.
One of the things I decided is that I would finally delete the Her app. Her sucks! If you’ve had luck on there I’m happy for you, but it was worse than Bumble for me. The only reason I deleted Bumble first is because Her is explicitly gay and I held out hope. Before you say skill issue, I live in a medium-sized city so there’s fewer gay people overall, and femmes seem to be less in demand here for some reason, whether that’s femmephobia, lack of taste, or because we’re just intimidatingly hot. Despite these factors, I’ve been having a somewhat-consistent good time on Tinder, Feeld, and Hinge, so I’m convinced it was something about Her and not me. You’d think it would be different for a top! I haven’t noticed a difference in my number of matches though between when I say top or switch in my bios. A mystery. An ex recently described me as a top-leaning top — maybe I should try putting that in there instead. Regardless, I’m available :) (Maybe I’m exploring Substack’s potential as a dyke dating platform, who’s to say.)
‘tis the season
I know a Virgo would say this, but Virgo season is the best astrological season. Not necessarily because it has the best vibes (Leo & Libra seasons) or because it’s the best time of year (Libra & Scorpio seasons), but because it has universal appeal like Virgos themselves. It has something for everyone and it’s an energy we can all benefit from. It’s a neutral good season on average and at worst it’s chaotic good — but still good! How very Virgo of me to highlight the season’s practicality as a reason for its superiority. I stand by my Virgo season opinion, and I’ll go even further and say that peoples’ complaints about this season are just displaced grievances against some bad Virgo in their life. Oh, it’s a “persnickety time” where you feel a “judgmental, controlling energy?” Ok sure, so what’s their name? That’s what I thought.
I hit the ground running this Virgo season. On day one back in August, I shared this newsletter with friends for the first time, started working on my 2024 astrology gcal, and outlined September in my new bullet journal for the next year. The only task I meant to get done this past month but didn’t was getting new batteries for my roommate’s TV remote, after I stole them for a vibrator when my rechargeable one died while I was using it. If you’re reading this, roommate, I apologize and I will replace them asap!
This is my 8th year of keeping a bullet journal and it really works for me. I start them in September so they almost neatly align with my birthday. That means I started keeping these when I was about to turn 23. A baby! I like to flip through them when it comes time to add another year’s journal to the pile or when I’m feeling nostalgic. I was primarily using these journals as planners with occasional brief notes on things that happened for me that day or week. It wasn’t until earlier this year that I started jotting down a reflection or takeaway from each day. Looking back through now, it’s easier to get a sense of what I was thinking and feeling at the time, and I wish I had started doing that sooner.
Here are some highlights I saw in my journals from Virgo seasons past:
Sept 2016: I adopted my cat: a perfect, sweet, needy little tabby tux who jumped right into my lap at the shelter and didn’t want to be anywhere that wasn’t on me for the entire time I had him. Sadly, he passed away a little over six months ago and I’m still so heartbroken 💔
Sept 2019: I passed all of my finals for the first half of the program that I went back to school for, so I could work the job I have and love now
Sept 2020: I fractured my foot while skateboarding, which landed me in a boot for the rest of the year and ended my brief but thrilling skater girl era
Sept 2021: I helped my partner with a cross-country move and saw a lot of sights, successfully snuck their cat into all the hotels, and had more fun in Oklahoma City than I thought was possible. I also celebrated my birthday sober about nine months into sobriety, for the first time since I was probably sixteen
Among others, a big little highlight from this Virgo season is that I am no longer a septum piercing girlie. I got it pierced in my mid-20s and had been wearing a gold ring there since, but I had to take it out for something recently and decided I like how my face looks more without it now. It’s kind of a big shift because it was my only piercing. Wait, can I still say girlie now that I’m 30?
faves ♡
I was looking forward to several new music releases this month and all of them exceeded expectations. One of these was Olivia Rodrigo’s new album, and I ranked the songs by how relatable they felt to me. I also love Chappell Roan’s album and I may or may not be working on a piece about it. Another new release:
🎵 “Girls Are Mean” - Boyish
This was the first single from their new EP and it’s still my fav out of the six on Little Demon Boy (love the name). “I was so good, but I could get better!” Ahh! Love to turn up the volume for that outro. Their song “Smithereens” has been my Tinder anthem for a while now. Sad lesbian music: my fav genre.
🎶 “Tore” - Mali Velasquez
This is my fav of the songs she’s released so far from her album that comes out next month, and I’ve been playing it on repeat. I came across this song in Samia’s insta stories, which is how I’ve found a lot of songs and artists I end up being really into.
🎥 Bottoms
Sorry Barbie — Bottoms is the real movie of the year. Reviews said it was funny, campy, bloody, and horny, and it didn’t disappoint on those fronts. Lesbian raunchiness is a beautiful thing to behold. There needs to be more queer girl content in general, but there especially needs to be more horny queer girl content. Add mine to the chorus of lesbian voices saying we’re not all tender and soft all the time (if at all)! I did think the sex comedy would have more sex though, or at least sex that wasn’t distinctly sapphic. (I say sapphic not in a derogatory way, but rather to point out that the sex scene is tender and soft in contrast to how the movie is billed, and in contrast to what the director herself purportedly wants from queer sex scenes.) Seeing Bottoms unlocked the memory of sparring with another camp counselor at a summer job I had years ago because I wanted to sleep with her. The movie isn’t as over-the-top as it seems — exchanging punches can lead to exchanging bodily fluids.
📘 Wild Geese - Soula Emmanuel
Loved this novel! The writing is pretty, if a little too flowery sometimes, and it made me feel nostalgic for experiences I haven’t had in a place I haven’t been to. A woman’s ex girlfriend visits her unexpectedly in Copenhagen, where she’s moved to get her PhD, and the two reconnect over the course of a weekend. It’s a very reflective book and I related a lot to the main character, Phoebe, in her being newly 30 and a late bloomer. It’s funny to me that the premises of the novel are big stereotypes for queer women: processing with an ex, and traveling hundreds of miles to have sex with an ex. The two women are aware of this though, and it’s sweet to see them rekindle their connection years and a transition later.
💄 Gloss Tournament - @ savbrads
This medieval-themed spreadsheet ranking top lip balms is great in vision and execution, and I agree with her rankings of the many I’ve tried. I’m excited to try the one that’s currently top ranked that I have somehow never tried despite it being around for forever: Smith’s rosebud salve. My current go-tos, unexciting as they may be, are Burt’s Bee’s lip balms. I’m a fan of their tinted ones too but they aren’t flavored, so I feel less kissable when I’m wearing them. And I want to feel kissable!
🎧 I am so over chill lofi beats. That was my go-to background music for writing because if there’s lyrics that I know, I will be singing or humming along, and if there’s lyrics that I don’t, I will be distracted trying to listen to them. Enter chill lofi beats to study and relax to, the classic ambient music to… study and relax to. I can’t take another chill beat though, so I put up an insta story asking for recommendations. I’m trying dark academia jazz currently and it’s working for me so far, and I’m loving the autumnal vibes too.
🎂 I was gifted two delicious cakes this month for my birthday: a dairy-free chocolate espresso cake and a vegan carrot cake. Cake feels so celebratory! I’ve been eating so much cake over the past couple weeks and my stomach isn’t hurting at all because the cakes don’t have dairy in them. I usually get myself a cookie cake and suffer a little because lactaid pills really only work so well. On which note, after an early pandemic breakup I discovered that you can buy a cookie cake and icing with SNAP benefits. The more you know! I redecorated it so Happy Birthday became Sad Bitchday. The comments are open if you want to wish me a Happy 30th Bitchday ♡
Libra season astrology: Sept 23rd – Oct 23rd 🌠
Sept 23rd - Fall equinox & Libra season starts 🍂 2:50 am eastern
Sept 29th - Full moon in Aries 🌝 5:57 am
Oct 4th - Mercury → Libra ♎ 8:09 pm
Oct 8th - Venus → Virgo ♍ 9:11 pm
Oct 12th - Mars → Scorpio ♏ 12:04 am
Oct 14th - New moon & solar eclipse in Libra 🌚 1:54 pm
Oct 20th - Mercury cazimi (conjunction with the sun) in Libra 🌞 1:37 am
Oct 22nd - Mercury → Scorpio ♏ 2:49 am
Oct 23rd - Scorpio season starts 🦂 12:21 pm
Thanks for reading and happy fall!
𝒞 🩷
Here’s my fav piece I wrote this past month:
And here’s the previous astro season post: