16 Thoughts - May
Eyebrows, 2006
These 30 days between 16s went by in a blur for me. Taurus is my 12th house of the subconscious, so I went into it thinking I will be dreaming a lot but actually, I’ve only had nights of Nyquil intoxicated dreamlessness. A cold that began on the Scorpio Full Moon has gripped me since and I’m just now, 16 days later, putting down the mucinex. I write this blog now from Minnesota on the Taurus New Moon where I woke up thinking, where and when am I?
I count 2006 as when I moved away from Minnesota. Yes, I stayed at my parents house periodically through college or into my 20s but really I left when I was 18. Now I’m back at 38 to go to my high school reunion later on today. Go Governors.
Why is water so important? One of the things I love most about Deb is she has such a beautiful curiosity about her and a few weeks ago we stumbled upon, “why is water special?” Clearly, being made up of mostly water I’m quite biased. (Plus, I would argue with this cold and subsequent inflammation and mucus I am made up of more water than usual.) But water really is special not just because of the bonds between the hydrogens and oxygens, which are stinking strong, but also because of their magnetic fields. They can link together in a structure so uniform that as a solid it keeps the same density as its liquid form. And that’s why ice floats. Here’s the youtube we watched.
Speaking of fixed water, how was that Scorpio Full Moon for everyone? It was April 30-May 1st and she was bright and I couldn’t stop staring at it. It fell on 11 degrees of Scorpio which is where my natal Pluto is. I had a fever of 102 the next day.
Medicine and pill technology is so incredible, I can take a tylenol and feel better soon. Suffering from a fever was cause for death only a few generations ago. And that’s just tylenol, the medicines they have for heart disease and cholesterol literally adds years and years on to peoples lives.
Everyday is a day to sing until you can’t. Our voices change so much throughout our lives and you can’t take one day of your body working for granted. On 4/17 Emily Saliers of the Indigo Girls revealed she has two neurological movement disorders that affects her voice and breathing. The band are going to continue on their tour dates but she wanted to be open and honest about what is happening and what her fans should expect in her performance. So much love to her and her bandmate Amy Ray as they navigate all this. Here’s the full story from them.
I like to block open seats on trains so black women have more leg room. They may not even notice I’m doing it, but I can box out a bro like nobody’s business. The awareness on trains is at an all time low and people are standing all over the place anyway, so I stand to protect the womens’ comfort.
Speaking of the MTA, I am noticing many older people who weren’t so old a few years ago. I know that’s a silly sentence but you know what I mean? Someone you knew a few years ago and you see them now and you go oh wow yeah that’s a difference in ability due to age. There’s a lot of people who have apparently suddenly gotten old riding the trains. I’ve caught 3 of them since my Aunt Claudia died. Two I saw coming, but one just fell right into my arms on the busy train just as it started moving. I was trying to help him to a seat and had to ask the 20 year old to get up not once but two times. Which brings me to my next point, I am noticing many younger people on the MTA as well. Is middle age just catching old people and yelling at young adults to help me?
Anything I do in the name of progress is worth it. I think I rely on that thinking a lot. It’s why I continue practicing, it’s why I continue writing, it’s why I continue… because it’s all in the name of artistic progress. I do think maybe I could get more productive in my practicing or rehearsal time but sometimes the distractions and tangents are exactly what I needed to progress that way. Gress vs Ductive - I’m pro both.
I think of the year broken into two chunks, April 16th - October 5th and October 6th-April 15th. The time Erin was alive and the time she wasn’t. I’ve thought about the first 6 months of my life a lot and I’ve heard the stories of her entire life a lot. When people are skeptical about astrology and their big gotcha moment is when they ask me about identical twins that have completely separate lives, often not knowing I am embodying their hypothetical. It’s funny - Erin and I have the exact same birth chart and obviously have had different experiences in our different lives. But a lot of our birth chart keeps hammering the wounded healer Chiron in Gemini right under the surface of our ascendant. So having a dead twin with the exact same birth chart understanding astrology enough to communicate it feels pretty spot on.
I’ve had many names in my life. Today at the reunion most people will call me Becky, spelled Bekki. Biggest troll of my life - I used to hate the name Becky but once it was inevitably what people were going to call me I made them spell it weird. Plus, then I could write Bekkidnie. Anyway - I have had many names in my life and I love the ability to chameleon through friend groups as Rebecca, Rebby, Kidnie, Bekki. But my first name is something no one would ever dream of calling me now. My first name was Erin. My parents knew they were having twins, but they didn’t know the sexes so they had four names picked out and the first born girl was to be named Erin. The real Erin was born with omphalocele and exstrophy of the cloaca seconds after I was born. If you don’t know what that means, it’s basically all her everything below her diaphragm developed on the outside of her body. She didn’t have any genitals hence the cloaca, making her more like a bird than me, which I will never get over. Because the doctors didn’t know and it was 1988, they assigned male at birth and my parents chose the name Joshua. It’s the classic story of doctor cried male to early, because in the first surgery the doctors found a uterus which makes all the difference in name choosing. Most of the switching ended up being moot anyway because either through miscommunication, or initiative, the nurses had taken to calling me Rebecca the entire time, claiming I looked more like a Rebecca than my identical twin who is more like a bird than I am.
I am at the point where I’d be more likely to have sex with a tree than a human man. Not that I would be so presumptuous as to seduce a tree but I think they’re trying to seduce me! And let the record show it is working, the way they gush with sap and their beautifully textured bark I long to touch and their heavy branches. So yeah, I’m not sure what stage of lesbianism this is but here we are.
Springtime sneezes have hit me for the first time in a few years. I had a great acupuncture therapy in 2023 and learned so much about allergic reactions. Without my allergies over the last 3 years, spring took on a different smell and I could actually enjoy the wind blowing instead of having my face buried in a kleenex. Unfortunately, I think I need another session because this year has been noticeably sneezier, not to mention the upper respiratory infection that gripped me for a fortnight. 2026 has been quite triggering and our bodies react often without our conscious input. I would love to be a little less reactive but without losing any perceptiveness, in fact I think having less reaction could increase the perception. Plus, I liked getting stuck with needles.
Chris Brennan at the Astrology Podcast did an amazing deep dive into Neptune and Saturn conjunctions and the history of oil, if you are so inclined here is the link. The history of oil is as fascinating as the material itself and has contributed to the creation and destruction of the world as we know it. Who’s ready for something new?
Rita Libretto is: The Ring Cycle is having a performance at Summer at the Center with Towson University on June 20th at 7pm. I’m very excited to get a real shot at putting this thing together with a team and I hope to get a FANTASTIC recording so we can get it out and more people can see what we’ve been cooking up. If you’re in the Baltimore area please come see it! And if you’re not you can just venmo me directly to contribute @Rebeecca-Kidnie all art donations are tax deductible, of course. This is going to be the raunchiest and silliest Ring Cycle the world has ever seen and then we’re going to burn it down just like Brunnhilde. <3<3<3
On this day, the day of my 20th high school reunion I am going to channel the bad ass I am and always have been. I want to be the best version of myself as always but that may mean I keep my last thought to myself. The thumper rule.
