This particular existential crisis all began over dinner at Tantra in Silver Lake. (Tantra is this hip quasi-Indian restaurant with excellent hipster ambience, which I enjoy in this snide, ironic, too-cool-for-this sort of way.) Joce was in town very briefly—I hadn’t seen her since my (naturally) ill-planned trip to the Big Apple some nine months ago. Joce was the de facto leader of our little clique back in college, and we all had some interesting adventures way back when. Chriscelle, another of my friends from college who is actually the one that I’ve known the longest, came out as well. I haven’t seen her since December. (I am a terrible friend.) She had recently started dating some guy, and somehow, the talk turned to my social life (or the lack thereof.)

All I can say is that I am in the process of learning to like living in my own skin.

But the gist of their advice: get a life.

Carpe diem, and all that jazz.

Interestingly, this advice was echoed by S, whom I met up with on Saturday.

But back to the “return of Saturn” thing, something which I really didn’t think of until now, quite randomly. The concept came up in the discussion between me, Joce>, and Chriscelle, and at the time the idea was a little fuzzy—all I know about the god Saturn (also known as Cronos) is the adjective “foreboding.”

The return of Saturn is an astrological phenomenon that describes Saturn coming back to the position it was in when you were born. For example, on the day I was born, Saturn happened to be in Leo, and now that I approach 30, Saturn is once again in Leo. More specifically, in astronomical terms, Saturn has completed a revolution around the sun (which takes roughly 29.5 earth years) since the day I was born. Which may very well have some animistic/druidic/shamanistic significance, since Saturn was the final planet visible to the naked eye. While the physical force that the planet exerts on the earth is infinitesimal compared to the gravitational effects of the sun and the moon, and the electromagnetic effects of the sun, surely the ancients found that particular “wandering star” now known as Saturn to be particularly ominous.

Not that I truly believe in astrology (although I find this apologia for astrology quite interesting.) But the concept of the return of Saturn is a nice encapsulation of this existential dread that I’m feeling about turning 30. However, if you go by how long Saturn stays in Leo (Saturn’s position when I was born), technically this period is supposed to last between July 2005 and September 2007. By then I will have turned 31, meaning that Now™ is still somewhere in the middle of this period, and which likely means that I haven’t yet experienced all of the existential torment that is due to me. Fun times.

Still, I found myself flying down the I-5 quite happy. I really didn’t do much this weekend except hang out a little with my brother and my sister. Mostly I played with the dog and did some laundry and listened to some tunes. Oh, and I hung out with S for a bit. I found it quite disturbing that it has been around 100°F for most of the time, even when it was 8 p.m., and I don’t remember California being this humid in the summer. But I feel the groove, I guess. Summertime is on. I guess it’s time to take my friends’ advice and start living.