Thursday, February 09, 2012

ODDBALLDOM

This edited post from a couple of years ago is up for re-airing now, during the Sun's current annual transit through Aquarius. It relates to one trait most Aquarius Sun people seem to have in common - and actually, they don't have that many in common! : A tendency to attract, or be attracted by, "oddball" characters or characteristics. In the "balls" hierarchy, oddballs fit a pocket that's slightly more sane than screwballs, and one on a level far above slimeballs.

A version of the post:

Astrologer Jonathan Cainer once wrote in an Aquarius daily forecast something along these lines: "You know some very strange people. It is almost as if you are a magnet for oddballs and eccentrics. Somehow they know that you will accept them as they are." At the time I chuckled to myself. Nowadays I don't mix and mingle much, I'm in a rather isolated 12th house situation here in deepest Oklahoma - happy enough with that. My Aquarius Sun does, appropriately enough, fall in 12th house when relocated to Oklahoma. Natives here would not be particularly friendly anyway, to this atheistic socialist. I have, myself, become the oddball, it seems. Sometimes we're windscreen, sometimes the bug.

Mr. Cainer's words were true enough though, during my younger years in what I've come to think of as "my hotel period", late 1950s early 1960s.

I left home and a steady job in a local government department, where oddballs didn't frequent its corridors, to work in the office of a small hotel in a picturesque part of North Yorkshire. This was, I'd worked out, a way to achieve independence and freedom, but still be provided with a room and food plus wages. What else could a gal wish for? This experience of a few short months left me with a yen to do more of the same. In those days, I found a kind of addiction in working in hotels. I can't adequately explain it now. I met quite a few others with the same affliction in my stints of seasonal interludes (coast in summer, city in winter) in various English hostelries.

Some fellow-hotel staff, and others "passing through" were unusual characters, not truly eccentric, but to my young, small-town sensibilities they fell into that category, and sparked my imagination. There were times when I'd say to myself, with satisfaction: "I don't ever meet anybody who's ordinary anymore."

Let's see....among my special friends there was E., a dark willowy beauty from Dominique who had left her island homeland because she'd fallen in love with her priest - and that's not A Good Thing in a Roman Catholic community. She must have been the lone person in the whole of the UK from far-off Dominique back then, in the late 1950s. There was K. an Irish waiter, charismatic guy who one night broke in to the place where the safe was kept, and managed to extract and abscond with a goodly chunk of the hotel's dosh. There was O., charming young man with whom I instantly fell in love but after a few months he disappeared. I later discovered he had been a fugitive, AWOL from the army, got caught, did his time. Many years later, alerted by his sister, I saw him again in a military hospital, being treated for TB.

Can't forget Mr S., not a colleague, but a hotel customer - a rather withdrawn and lonely, single peripatetic bank manager (very Woody Allen-ish) who took a shine to me, the hotel receptionist. He'd stop at the office window regularly and chat for ages. On the day he left I received a huge, tall bouquet of gorgeous bronze chrysanthemums, sent by him via the local flower store, just because I'd happened to say that I love the autumn. And there was H. the lion keeper from Longleat (a safari park). I kid you not - he wrote to me for some months after I'd moved on, always with a little lion in his signature.

There was the shoe salesman, a boyfriend I managed somehow to get involved with - perfectionist, prone to depression, who some years later committed suicide. A brighter spark was the young guy who became a good friend, who believed he was the illegitimate son of local aristocracy, drove around in a beat-up old Bentley limousine, swore he'd be a millionaire by the time he was 30.

There were more too! Eventually, though, the haphazard hotel lifestyle lost its charm. It was back to a staid government office, regular hours, regular people, cooking own meals, living in own space. I'd had an oddball learning curve, satisfied something of an itch, but it's a time I still remember with fondness.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

GP: Your observation (umbilical) that Aquarians attract oddballs is absolutely right: From my own observations of other Aquarians than you, one is (not being jewish himself) constantly involved with rabbis and rich jews and their mistresses (that is with their finances only, I suppose - otherwise that could not last very long).

Another is "all arts, homosexuals and exquisite descendants of former nazis" in Argentina. He was in banking as well (now retired, turned antiques dealer).

And then I should mention some Leo's I know. Strangly, being the opposite sign to Aquarius, they tend to have sometimes even more exquisite relations/partners than what occurs to Aquarians.

Is it Uranus ruling Aquarians which creates a propitious environment for oddballs to feel at ease? One could maybe say that while other signs, when seing an egg, being more practical, just think of food. Aquarins may think of hatching the egg, giving it a further chance than the obvious...

Twilight said...

Anonymous/Gian Paul ~~

While I think all Aquarius-types have the capacity to be attracted by or to attract unusual personalities not all have the opportunity. It's in "spreading the net wider", moving into new environments that more opportunities arise.
I feel sure there are Aquarius-types who stay within the general area into which they were born, and don't ever meet anyone out of the ordinary - so don't have the chance to try out this capacity to enjoy "oddballs" .

I don't know the reason this should be - maybe, as you say a connection to eccentric-orbit of ruling planet Uranus; or having Sun in what is arguably the most open-minded of the Air signs, Aquarius, leading to a capacity for acceptance of people and things out of main-stream.

I like your egg metaphor, GP !
:-)

James Higham said...

In those days, I found a kind of addiction in working in hotels.

The real ale?

Twilight said...

James Higham ~ Never touched a drop, Guv.....honest!

Mokihana Calizar said...

What a fun way to render a view of Aquarius. Not being one, I enjoyed reading of your hotel times and the many oddities in the human frame. Attracting oddballs from your Aquarian view two airy Aquarian friends came quickly to mind. The one still in the flesh has attracted many, but has stayed in her adopted home for nearly forty years ... so the scope of oddballs is smaller. How many marbles are you keep in a small fishbowl, sort of things. So, I see what you mean.

The other Aquarian has long departed the flesh, was into that addiction hynosis and did attract, as well as live as, oddball. A fun escapade this one, thanks for the read.

Mokihana

Twilight said...

mokihana ~~~ Hi! Thanks for your input - I'm glad you've noticed this peculiar phenomenon too.

I lost touch (apart from Christmas cards) with the two or three Aquarius-types I used to know well, so can't check whether they have experienced oddballdom at all.

My Dad (1910 to 1992)born 8 Feb. , didn't, as far as I know, have many oddball connections. He was a sweet, kindly man. I used to watch hime sometimes dealing with a line of customers in one of the sub-post offices he ran later in his life, and was impressed with the sweet patience he had with some seriously oddball customers. Same kind of thing, different guise, I guess. :-)