To whatever poor, tortured soul occupies 

this apartment next, 

You will earnestly swing open the heavy front 

door, gleaming with a streaky coat of clinical, 
blueish-purpleish-greyish paint, and you will 
smell mold. You’ll learn to grow accustomed to 
the scent — no obscene amount of Febreze or 
air freshener plugs will ever succeed in masking 
it — but it will make you flinch upon entry. 
Unfortunately, this will be only the beginning of 
your torrid love affair with Apartment #1. 

You’ll walk into the bathroom and look up at 

the ceiling, only to find it sloping downwards 
to greet you, slick with an impenetrable coat 
of orange stains and stray hairs embedded into 
the paint. You’ll wonder if you had come to the 
wrong address; this is not the shiny, pristine 
apartment you were advertised through the 
realtor’s photos. It’s on you, after all, for not 
questioning why they weren’t willing to let you 
tour any units prior to your arrival.

Do not expect the fridge to always work. Or 

any of the lights, for that matter. Your apartment 
is prone to power outages, water shut-offs and 
a plethora of other issues that are just enough to 
begin eroding your already wire-thin nerves. 
Your “sent” mailbox will become cluttered with 
emails filing for countless work orders so that you 
can shower or wash your laundry or repair the 
flooding toilet that had you and your roommate 
ankle-deep in dirty water for an entire evening. 

Apartment #1 is, for all intents and 

purposes, a hellscape. Your roommate will joke 
that it isn’t meant to sustain human life: it’s the 
seventh circle of hell, or a cosmic joke or some 
bizarre purgatory you’ve been condemned to 
as penance for 20 years of bad karma — it must 
be. No other explanation seems to make sense. 
But if your experience is anything like mine, 
Apartment #1 is not just a subpar place for you 
to reside during your sophomore year. It will 
prove to be so much more than that.

— 

It might be the place where you have your 

heart shattered into a million pieces. 

You’ll get the call on an unassuming August 

morning, rousing you from a deep sleep. (If 
you’re like me, you’re curled up on a mattress 
pad sans mattress, resting atop a half-built bed 
frame). You’ll know what the call is about before 
you answer, and you will never hate being right 
more than you do when you hang up the phone 
a brief twenty seconds later. You come away 
from the call with no flowery summation, no 
eloquence or profundity or understanding, 
nothing at all except the truth: your world is 
heavy and someone you love has just died. 

Your family will leave the country the next 

day for the funeral, and they will be gone for 
months afterward.

Your room will be cold for weeks.

—

You will lie in your bed, finally sporting a 

mattress, one October night. Your body will 
be tugged in and out of sleep, eyes heavy from 
the day’s exhaustion and body heavier from 
the weight of your bones and the world and 
whatever else. They’ll flutter open and peer 
up at the window situated over your head, and 
behind the slits of your shutter blinds, you’ll be 
met with another pair of eyes.

Pressed against the glass stands a man, and 

you’ll realize he has been watching you sleep. 
You will not know how long he had been there, 
or why. But you will never forget the shape of his 
boots, with tattered laces and fresh dirt clinging 
to the worn leather, the eerie stillness of his 
stature, the dark shadows cast over his face and 
the unplaceable coldness behind his unblinking 
eyes. He will not move. Neither will you. 

Then you will scream. He’ll vanish just as 

soon as he realizes you’ve seen him, and your 
roommate will storm out of the apartment 
minutes later in search of him, only to find a 
blanket of darkness.

You’ll write it off as a harmless peeping 

Tom. You’ll blame it on the basement-level 
apartment, call yourself silly for daring to place 
your bed near the window. You’ll tell your 
friends the story, elaborate and humorous, 
frantic hand gestures and laughs masking 
the discomfort that lays beneath it all. But you 
will have nightmares; rolling in your bed and 
strangled by an indiscernible sense of dread, 
you will fight off the insidious understanding 
that you are a woman and that means being 
watched while you sleep, that you are the 
property of everyone but yourself and that even 
your own bedroom cannot belong to you. 

You will buy blackout curtains.

— 

The kitchen has just enough counter space 

for a microwave, and you will have to suck in 
your breath to slide past your roommate each 
day, narrowly ducking towards the fridge or 
cabinets. 

In the months spent shrinking under the 

grim fluorescent light, you will have to eat 
again. Winter is fierce, nipping away at you 
with unrelenting cruelty, and the gnawing 
pangs of hunger will slowly subside into a dull 
nothingness that sits in the pit of your stomach 
for weeks. You will have to relearn the hard-
wired, evolutionary underpinning of survival, 
and you will feel silly and incompetent and 
heavy, so heavy. 

6 — Wednesday, September 22, 2021
Michigan in Color
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

puzzle by sudokusnydictation.com

By Steve Faiella
©2021 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
09/20/21

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

09/20/21

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Release Date: Monday, September 20, 2021

ACROSS

1 Simon __: kids’ 

game

5 Not for kids, 

moviewise

11 Small amount
14 Shopper’s 

memory aid

15 Aviator Earhart
16 Skating surface
17 “I had no __!”
18 It follows 

35-Down

19 Milk grain
20 Imitative bird
22 Pioneering game 

consoles

24 Reaction to a 

strange object

28 Lengthy tales
31 e__: online 

instructional 
guide

32 Shoot well under 

par, in golf lingo

36 App purchaser
37 Serious criminal
39 Actress 

Anderson

40 Everest and K2: 

Abbr.

41 Out of practice
42 Lender’s claim
43 Stick-in-the-__
44 Make like new, as 

old furniture

46 Tater __: deep-

fried potato 
morsel

47 Parisian season
48 Semiannual 

occurrence that 
begins 18- and 
66-Across

49 Opposite of 

WSW

50 Showed again
52 Bandage brand
53 Less adulterated
55 Summoned, as 

the fiddlers three

58 Comfy shoe pad
61 With milk, as 

café

65 Crystal ball gazer
66 In 2021, it begins 

September 22nd

70 Place to 

de-stress

71 Turkey neighbor
72 In twos, like 

socks

73 Nosh
74 Fathers’ boys
75 Gets hot on 

Twitter

76 Many pop-ups

DOWN

1 Lose one’s 

footing

2 Musical based on 

an opera

3 Belgian river
4 Movie with 

R2-D2

5 Dreads sporter
6 Excite, with “up”
7 Thrice, in Rx’s
8 New Haven alum
9 Kitchen dweller 

of song

10 Motley
11 Designer 

Christian

12 Smoothie 

berry dubbed a 
superfood

13 Wagers
21 “I see” words
23 Ring-shaped reef
25 “Same drink as 

always”

26 Semi-annual 

occurrence that 
begins 28- and 
35-Down

27 Black-and-white, 

e.g.

28 It precedes 

66-Across

29 Sharp-witted
30 Word with role or 

identity

33 Hang around
34 Common soccer 

deadlock

35 It follows 

66-Across

37 MHz measure
38 “Eli’s Coming” 

songwriter Laura

44 Kidney-related
45 Describes in 

detail

51 Squirrel’s haul
54 Web address 

letters

56 Jumped
57 Widely known
58 Wife of Osiris
59 Fiddling emperor
60 Actor Connery
62 Away from port
63 Apple tablet
64 Body art, 

casually

67 Former Mideast 

org.

68 Deadlock
69 Keats’ “Ode on a 

Grecian __”

SUDOKU

WHISPER

“God I hate 
you.”

“I love you.”

WHISPER

By Mark McClain
©2021 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
09/08/21

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

09/08/21

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

Release Date: Wednesday, September 8, 2021

ACROSS

1 Chess result
5 “NASCAR on 

NBC” analyst 
Earnhardt Jr.

9 Metalworker

14 Cancún coin
15 A party to
16 Island near Maui
17 *Devoted ESPN 

viewer

19 Uneasy feeling
20 Word after box 

or law

21 Bullish sound?
22 Wail
23 *Spec for 

sandpaper or salt

27 Coll. near the Rio 

Grande

29 Hard rain
30 Dance class topic
31 First name in skin 

care

33 Caddie’s offering
35 Make a wrong 

turn, say

36 *Quarry that 

supplies 
aggregate

40 Guys
43 Jai __
44 Quebec’s __ 

Peninsula

48 Racecourse 

shape

50 Ready for bed, 

briefly

53 Long-running 

CBS series

54 *Garden walkway 

component

57 Malarkey
58 Pachelbel work
59 Treasury 

secretary Janet

61 Sahara features
62 Last player 

selected for 
a Wimbledon 
ranking ... or part 
of each answer to 
a starred clue

65 Locale
66 Heck of a hike
67 Dell rival
68 Brings in
69 Actor Grant
70 Drive-__

DOWN

1 MLB rally killers

2 Researchers’ 

publications

3 To date
4 Klingon officer in 

the “Star Trek” 
franchise

5 ’70s hot spots
6 Strengthen, as 

glass

7 Seuss’ Cindy __ 

Who

8 Suffix with exist
9 Language 

student’s 
challenge

10 Medieval estates
11 Thankless sort
12 Preferable, 

gastronomically

13 Major success
18 Half a mint?
21 Contrived plot
22 Alert for an actor
24 Checkout printout
25 Unload, say
26 “Morning Edition” 

airer

28 Alternative to 

Margie

32 Noted period
34 Important
37 Square up
38 Hotel shuttles

39 Light earth tone
40 Short flight
41 Hurricane 

mandate 
responder

42 Tropical 

grassland

45 Sudden stop 

sound

46 Trailblazer
47 “C’__ la vie!”
49 Umpire’s 

pregame request

51 Olympic star 

Jackie __-Kersee

52 Deceptive
55 Wine qualities
56 Building wing
60 Challenge for an 

atty. wannabe

61 TiVo, for one
62 Agcy. concerned 

with fraud

63 Gershwin 

brother

64 R&B’s __ Hill

When the fall semester commenced, I 

finally had the amazing opportunity to meet 
many of my fellow Michigan in Color writers 
in person for the very first time. Nearly every 
single person I’ve met so far has asked me 
something along the lines of: “So, how do 
you write those horoscopes?” I always try to 
stammer out a response that isn’t too long-
winded but still encapsulates the process, 
even though it always ends up sounding like a 
different language to the other person. 

There is a misconception that horoscopes 

are just completely made up by the writers. 
However, they actually require a lot of research. 
Horoscopes are based on various astrological 
events in a given time frame. In astrology, 
space is divided into twelve 30-degree circular 
sectors that encompass all of the planets in our 
solar system. Each 30-degree sector is what we 
call an astrological/zodiac sign. In my weekly 
column, I mainly focus on planetary ingress 
(planets moving from one sign to another), 
transits/aspects (the angles that planets make 
with each other), retrogrades (when planets 
appear to move backwards) and both full and 
new moon phases (signals of the start or the 
end of a life cycle). 

The first step in my writing process is to 

find out which events are occurring each 
week. I always use cafeastrology.com to track 
each event every week, and then I compile all 
of the planetary movements and the dates and 
times at which they occur under the “Celestial 
Motion” section that appears at the top of 
every horoscope I publish. I use this section 
as a general guide so I don’t need to waste 
space on dates and information applicable to 
all signs in the individual zodiac sign sections. 
However, I don’t put the general information 
into paragraph form until I’ve finished writing 
each sign’s messages so that I know what topics 
I mention most throughout the piece and I 
can ensure my general information will set 
up the readers to understand their individual 
sign messages. I also know that people often 
skip the Celestial Motion section, so I want to 
make sure that everything within the zodiac 
messages can stand on its own.

Up until this point, my process requires 

little effort since I’ve only taken down dates so 
far. Now that I’m ready to write the individual 
zodiac sign sections, I need more information 
that is zodiac-sign specific.

I base my zodiac sign section on the type 

of astrological event, the planets involved, 
the signs of the planets and the astrological 
house(s) (another rotating wheel split into 12 
sectors just like the zodiac wheel). The house 

wheel makes one full rotation every two 
hours, which is why it’s important to note the 
exact time that these transits occur. There are 
different ways to determine where the houses 
start and end, but I use the Whole Sign House 
system, which neatly aligns the houses to the 
zodiac wheel. To find where each planet fits 
into a house, I use a website to draw a birth 
chart for the date and time of each event I want 
to track.

You might know that each sign has its own 

properties: Aries is the sign of passion and 
anger, Taurus is the sign of love and luxury 
and Gemini is the sign of communication 
and intelligence. However, each planet also 
has its own set of properties: Mercury is the 
planet of communication, Venus is the planet 
of love, Mars is the planet of anger and passion 
and so on. Houses also have their own set 
of properties: the first house deals with self-
identity, the second house deals with money, 
the third house deals with communication 
and so on. While signs and planets typically 
deal with areas of someone’s personality, 
houses represent an area in a person’s life. For 
instance, if your birth chart has an Aries Sun in 
the seventh house of partnerships, your Aries 
sun traits of passion and straightforwardness 
will manifest in your relationships.

This is where things start to get pretty 

complicated; houses in horoscopes aren’t 
exactly the same as house placements in natal 
charts. The houses are labeled from numbers 
1 to12, and the planets fall somewhere in these 
divisions. When interpreting birth charts, you 
simply mark down the number of the house 
that contains the planet. For example, if Venus 
falls inside the house labeled fifth on the birth 
chart, we would say that Venus is in the fifth 
house; it’s pretty straightforward. While I 
haven’t been able to find exact instructions 
on tracking houses in any astrology-related 
articles online, I have read many other 
horoscopes and noticed patterns in the 
definitions of the houses and the descriptions 
of each sign’s horoscope. First, locate the 
planet of interest on the chart. Next, look at the 
sign and the house that contains the planet. 
Regardless of the numbers displayed on the 
chart, I assign this house as the first house for 
this sign. Each sign has its own definition of 
houses, and the house containing the planet in 
question is always assigned as the first house. 

The next numbers in the sequence are 

assigned to each house in a clockwise 
direction. Since I want to know the planet’s 
house number for every sign, I just go counter-
clockwise around the circle. For example, 
let’s say that Mars’ orbit has led it into Libra’s 
sector of the sky. This means that for Libras, 
Mars is in their first house. Virgo is one sign 
counterclockwise of Libra, meaning its first 

house is one house counterclockwise of 
Mars’ current position. Houses are counted 
in a clockwise direction, so Mars is located 
in Virgo’s second house. Leo is two signs 
counterclockwise of Libra, so this means 
Venus is in Leo’s third house. Continue with 
this cycle until each zodiac sign has a house 
number assigned to every planet with a 
notable planetary event.

According to the event type, planet, sign 

and house, I can get an idea of what astrology 
predicts will happen. Using our earlier 
example, we will say that Mars is moving into 
the sign of Libra. Now, I want to know what 
this means for Capricorns. Capricorn is nine 
places away from Libra counterclockwise, 
so we know that Mars is in Capricorn’s tenth 
house. When a planet changes signs, it takes 
on qualities of the sign and house it enters. 
Mars is the planet of passion, Libra is a sign of 
diplomacy and the tenth house is the house of 
career and ambition. From this information, 
I would say that Capricorns will have some 
sort of breakthrough at work, and they should 
communicate their ideas with their coworkers 
and managers in order to progress. Repeat this 
process for every astral event for every sign.

Once I’ve finished writing for every sign, 

I go back to the Celestial Motion section and 
note all the general information that I don’t 

cover in the zodiac sign sections or information 
that I think is useful for all interpretations.

These are pretty much the essential 

components of my horoscope configuration. 
There are other concepts I include in my 
horoscopes such as ruling planets that I didn’t 
include here, and there are concepts like moon 
signs, chiron and minor aspects that I don’t 
even include in my horoscopes because, in my 
opinion, they are too irrelevant and excessive 
for a weekly horoscope. The amount of time 
I spend on each horoscope depends on the 
number of events per week, but they can range 
anywhere between two to six hours.

I cannot speak for every astrologer, but this 

is my method of writing horoscopes. As far 
as I’m aware, there is no definitive guide for 
horoscope writing, and I don’t particularly 
think there should be. While astrology is a 
practice with pretty defined guidelines, I 
think it’s important for people to define their 
belief system for themselves.

Resources:
If you’re completely new to astrology, I 

recommend using Cafe Astrology’s free birth 
chart reports to get familiar with the meanings 
of different planets, signs and houses as they 
relate to your life:

https://astro.cafeastrology.com/natal.php

If you ever come across a word you don’t 

know in astrology, theastrologydictionary.
com has a ton of definitions:

http://theastrologydictionary.com/
If you’re interested in learning more about 

any astrological concepts like houses or 
retrogrades, astrology.com’s “Learn” page has 
great links to different resources:

https://www.astrology.com/learn
I use astrologyking.com for all my 

information on the dynamics of different 
planetary transits. This website also has good 
information on aspects in birth charts:

https://astrologyking.com/aspects/
I use Astroseek’s birth chart calculator 

to draw charts for my horoscopes since this 
website allows you to easily change the date 
and time:

https://tinyurl.com/535c2v9f

If you want to read more horoscopes, I 

referenced these when I was trying to figure 
out how to deduce information for my column:

https://staging.chaninicholas.com/

horoscopes/

https://www.vice.com/en/topic/monthly-

horoscopes

https://www.allure.com/topic/horoscopes
https://www.astrology.com/horoscope/

daily.html

Demystifying the horoscope writing process

ANDREW NAKAMURA

MiC Columnist

Design courtesy of Andrew Nakamura

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

Ode to Apartment #1

YASMINE SLIMANI

MiC Columnist

