Back home, I have a request for a reading. People normally DM me on Instagram for readings, but this request is in my email. Exalted is pretty popular. I came up with it four years ago after a massive bong hit, at the precipice of the astrological-industrial complex. I’ve always been obsessed with exalted placements, placements where the sign can achieve its highest potential, offering gifts and blessings without much effort. I love the idea that certain people are blessed by the stars. The name Exalted also confuses some people into thinking it’s a Christian account, which translates to more followers.

But the astrology craze is fading, a fact reflected in my bank account.

I don’t want to do this reading, feeling strongly now that astrology is a hack science. But I do it anyway because I’m not sure what else to do. I have no hobbies. I used to love film, but I haven’t been able to watch one since I quit acting. If an actor was talentless, I’d become furious at the unfairness of the world. And if they were good, it was even worse—I’d see red. For a while I watched The Bachelor, because there were no actors, but eventually that became depressing too. Astrology is a scam, but love is the biggest scam of all.

The only media I can consume without an unpleasant emotional reaction is a podcast called Precious Starlets. It’s run by these East Coast rich girls named Hazel and Camilla who met studying theater at The New School, an acting program I would have killed to attend. They grew up with silver spoons in their mouths but are still kind of losers like me—in their early thirties and without boyfriends or IMDb pages. They are off-putting and scathing and hate everything. When I had friends, these were the type of people I flocked to: aristocratic bitches who came with the promise of access.

But there are no new episodes of Precious Starlets, and I’ve listened to every episode they’ve ever released up to five times. Since my OCD diagnosis, I’ve been trying to be less of a crazed fangirl. Trying.

So I open the email—from someone called WtfBeau@ gmail.com—and pull up the chart on Astro.com. As I wait for it to load, I dangle a piece of turkey above Lydia so she’ll like me. It works momentarily; she dances for me with a sparkle in her eye, not unlike the dancers at Mirror Box. Then I drop the slice in her mouth, and boom, I’m invisible again.

When I return my face to the screen, I gasp. Before today I’d never gasped at a chart—most are unremarkable, a random smattering of placements—but now I’ve gasped twice in just a few hours. And this time it’s significantly more pleasant.