Horoscopes

Cancer (June 21-July 22)

You have a thing for Capricorns. Admit it. It's kind of a love-hate magnetic attraction, like you despise them but want to jump their bones or smother them with kisses anyway. Luckily, it's mutualthey pretend (or even think) that they can't stand all that moist attention, but deep down they'd be sad if it wasn't there. Luckily, this week, you can both not only admit it but enjoy it, with a minimum of eye rolling and snappishness, especially between the 11th and 14th. It may not be exactly harmonious, but it should still be fun.

What happened to you, Leo? You're not becoming a Virgo, are you? You're usually a big believer in imperfections. The cracks in the wall are what make it interesting, not the smooth expanses in between. You know this; you live your life by making big sweeping, dramatic efforts, without getting too caught up in the details, which you trust to sort themselves out. So why are you becoming so obsessed with making this project perfect? You'll just screw it up trying. Go for beautiful, dramatic, expressivebut don't bother with boring old perfect.

My neighborhood has terrible cell phone reception. I commonly spot dozens of people standing outside on the sidewalk trying to converse via their tiny mobile phones. All this effort makes me think of you. You don't know it yet, but you're just out of range of the kind of attention you want to receive. That invisible zone is just a few steps to your right, or maybe your left. Well, I don't know exactly where it is, but it's close. Start moving around, whispering your mantra ("Can you hear me now?"), and soon you'll have at least four bars of loving and crystal-clear sweet nothings, right in your ear.

Whether you sign on to Friendster or just lay it out on a piece of paper, I want you to list all the people you know this week, and the people they know (that you know about). It's important that you see how you affect the world, without even tryingjust by being. Everything you do is rippled out through your friends, to their friends, to their friends, and so on. Get my drift yet, Libra? I'm doing my best to counteract your absolutely false self-denigration. All I'm trying to say, really, is there's no way you could not matter, no matter how hard you tried. You've already irrevocably changed our worldalmost entirely for the better. We, the friends of your friends' friends, thank you. Now thank yourself.

You may wish you could just hit SAVE this week, in real life instead of on your computer. That way you could start over if things went sour. I wish you could, too. You're at that point where you've done pretty well so far, but if you continue to try to finish the task at handwhether it's an actual project, a conversation, or a marriage proposalyou could really screw things up. Of course, you can't really leave things half-done; you've got to finish the job. Take a deep breath, plunge in, and remember: You have every chance of failing miserably and irredeemably, but you also have every chance of success that equals your wildest dreams.

Your realm of the possible just shrank, didn't it? Poor thing. Accepting new limitations is always hard. Lose a foot, and it may seem like your days as a long-distance runner are gone forever. Rest assured that despite the wall you've hit, there are ways beyond your new constraints. You just can't see them yet, because you have to mourn your foot first (or whatever it was you lost). Once you've finished suffering, thoroughly, your brain will finally begin to see options that it refused to look at before. (For example, prostheses are super-high-tech and badass now.) Yes, things suck for the moment, but you'll be running marathons again, I promise. You just need a little time.

People are judgmental about being judgmental. How dare you have rigid standards or stick to your first impressions of someone? They're so quick to condemn you for your occasional lack of tolerance, Cap. Fuck 'em. Tolerance isn't always a good thing. It has its place, and it's probably better to err on that side of things, but trusting your gut, and acting on it, is important, too, even if it's not politically correct. Since your instincts are in profound disagreement with most of those around you this week, stick to your guns. Trust your judgment. Don't fold like a house of cards. Sometimes, it's good to be flexible. Other times, like this week, it's better to simply be right.

You're a Swiss army knife covered in rust. You have tools to address all your current (thankfully very minor) predicaments; you just can't get to them. They're all fused together and unusable. So what? So you drop the ball on a couple of dinky dilemmas. Don't start rethinking long-held self-perceptions and replacing them with a version of you that's inept or ineffectual. You are one of the most versatile and capable people around (along with the Sags and Caps who precede you). You're just having a bad week. Do your best, but when things go screwy, just shrug, let it go, and walk away. Before you know it, your tools will again be rust-free, shiny, and ready for use.