The PISCES Woman

The PISCES Woman

'Well, what are you?" said the Pigeon. "I can see you're

trying to invent something!" "I-I'm a little girl," said Alice, rather doubtfully.

She found herself at last in a beautiful garden, among the bright flower-beds and
the cool fountains.

The line forms to the right. And please don't crowd. There may not be enough
Pisces women for every man, but that's no reason to be unruly. You'll have to take




your turn, and hope for the best.

Even without astrology, rumors have spread about the charms of a Pisces female.
She has her negative points, to be sure, but at first glance she's every man's grade
school valentine, with maybe just a touch of a Playboy bunny to add some pepper.
We might as well admit that the modern, emancipated woman, with her cast-iron
image, has made the Pisces girl's value shoot even higher. With all that freedom
from the feminine mystique clouding the air over lover's lane, the demure, pretty,
helpless Neptune creature has to beat off the men with big sticks.

It's hardly surprising that she's at a premium. The Neptune female seldom tries to
overshadow her man, married or single. She hasn't the slightest hidden, neurotic
desire to dominate him in any way. He can pull out her chair, put on her coat,
whistle for the taxi, light her cigarette and talk about how wonderful he is to his
heart's content. All she wants is that he should protect her and care for her. She's
happily content to lean on his big broad shoulder and let him know, with wide-eyed
wonder, how strong he is, and how much she needs him in this scary world. Just
think of all those wolves out there, waiting to devour Red Riding Hoods. It's enough
to make a girl get out her smelling salts. Even if she isn't quite as Victorian as all
that (though plenty of girl fish are), she'll be a charming listener to all his troubles,
and what is referred to as a good egg through every crisis.

A Pisces woman thinks her mate, lover, boy friend, brother, father-in fact, any man-
can lick the whole world with one hand tied behind his back, and it takes a
surprisingly small amount of her touching faith to convince them of the same thing,
men being the way they are. And you wonder why she's so popular? The Pisces girl
is a cozy, calm haven of tranquility for her proud male, far from the noise of the
frame and the ticker tape machines. The lights in her fish pond are soft and dim.
They soothe tired eyes which have been blasted by neon and all those silly little
figures at the stock market she couldn't understand to save her life. (Though if it
would really save her life, she would sharpen her pencil.)

In the winter she wears fluffy angora mittens. In the Spring she wears dainty, full
skirts. Summers will find her in a brief bikini. In the fall she'll look adorable sitting
beside you at football games, with her hands in your pockets to keep them warm,
and asking you the score. She is eternally feminine in all seasons. At the risk of
making an understatement, men are drawn to her like bumblebees to a honey pot.

A short conversation with her, and a man instantly relaxes. He pictures a glowing,
crackling fire on a chilly night, or he sees himself in a hammock on a balmy spring
day, with no one to nag him. She makes it clear that she'll never blame him for any
problems in his career or any accidental mistakes. It's always someone else's fault.
Not her man's. Shell never press him to get ahead faster. His own pace is perfect
with her. Need I explain why the female fish makes the most dangerous other
woman of all the Sun signs? Flash! Maritime warning: After marriage she may
nudge a little. To be truthful, she may nudge a lot. In a way, it serves you right for
letting yourself be so blinded by her charms. Lots of times she'll even be bitterly




sarcastic, but every woman has to have some flaws, and the Pisces girl will be
gentle far more often than she's quarrelsome. She has to be goaded by extreme
cruelty or laziness in a mate to be a shrew-and who's to say a cruel or lazy husband
doesn't deserve it? Not me. I'm with her.

Besides, her delectable femininity covers any minor deficiencies, and most of the
time the typical Neptune girl is soft, dreamy and womanly. Since the fish swims in
both directions at once, she adapts beautifully and quietly to conflicting situations
that would turn other women into nervous Nellies. Of course, now and then, some
cranky words and irritable chatter may bubble up from her normally placid stream
of thought. Occasionally a sensitive Neptune female who has suffered harsh
treatment at an early age will allow bitterness to break the two symbolic fish of her
sign apart-and this can be very sad. She becomes a lonely, miserable Piscean,
always swimming furiously, and meeting herself everywhere she dives down to
escape-never realizing that the turning inward of her endless love and sympathy
toward herself is the real poison. Drugs and drink and false illusions hide the truth
from her and blind her to the rocks in the river that might destroy her. But the
average Neputune girl keeps both symbolic fish joined firmly together in smooth
action, gliding softly first back, then a little forward, so you're never quite sure
exactly which way she's headed. Pisces is said to be a deep, mysterious sea, into
which all rivers flow. You'll have a better chance of catching her if you know some
of her elusive secrets. What makes her swim?

First of all, she's subtle. Ask Nicky Hilton, Michael Wilding, Eddie Fisher and
Richard Burton-each of whom married a Pisces. As a matter of fact, the same
Pisces. She is not only subtle, she's sometimes a bit deceptive when she practices
her art of wrapping you around her emerald earrings.

Now, you may know a Neptune lady who wears a gingham apron and a shy smile,
and who is the epitome of the devoted wife, homemaker and tender mother. You're
thinking that she's neither subtle nor deceptive. Forgive my directness, but you are
wrong. As for that Pisces lady you think is different, I know her, too, or one just like
her.

She's a widow who lives in the Bronx, and her name is Pauline. She also wears a
gingham apron and a shy smile -the whole setup. How can such a Fannie Farmer
image be subtle or deceptive? I'll tell you. First of all, she wraps everyone around
her apron strings. (She doesn't have any emerald earrings. Next year, maybe.) She's
a short woman who has managed to stand up to the loss of a dear child, heartbreak,
boredom, tragedy, fear, poverty, and even the confusion of sudden, very brief
riches. She's coped with little boys' bruised knees, braces, lost galoshes; a

husband's
sloppy Sunday cook-ins in her neat kitchen-and the biggest mixture of in-laws-all
speaking eight languages at once-you ever saw outside the United Nations. She has
faced all this mishmash of fate like Rocky Graziano. That's gentle? That's delicate?
To this very moment, her two sons think of her as a charming, girlish, helpless,
fluttery and soft little creature, who needs to be protected, and who can't quite




understand how the lock works on the front door.

She's delightfully vague and dreamy. She doesn't know a thing about economics, but
she manages to dress as though she was turned out by Sophie of Saks, cook

frequent
seven-course dinners for assorted grandchildren, pay the rent on time, and send
exquisite gifts on holidays and birthdays- all on a monthly income about the size of
one of Jack Benny's tips. She has the open love and affection of two daughters-in-
law, and an incongruous group made up of the librarian, the super, the owner of the
comer delly, the fruit man, half a dozen stray cats and children, the butcher, the
newsboy, and would you believe it, even the landlord. She may have one enemy.
The man she turned down before she married her husband. He probably joined the
Foreign Legion in disappointment, and now I doubt if she even remembers his
name. Heartless females, these Pisces women. Subtle and deceptive. (But don't try
to tell their neighbors that.)

Like the March winds, your Pisces girl will have many a mood. She's terribly
sentimental, and when her feelings are wounded she can cry buckets. She'll look at
you so reproachfully you'll feel as if you'd just shot a small rabbit. Pisces females
sometimes get the idea they're hopelessly unequipped for the fierce battles and
driving ambition required to survive. Then deep depression sets in. At these times
you'll have to tell her she's admired for her deep, mysterious wisdom and her
blessed understanding by every single human she has ever graced with her
friendship. It's usually the gospel truth. The hardest lesson she has to learn is to
overcome her timidity and her doubts. If the fears go deep, she'll shut herself off
from others, then wonder why she's lonely. She's often afraid of imposing, pushing
too hard, taking advantage, when such thoughts are in no one's head but hers.

Now and then a Pisces girl will cover her shyness and vulnerability with wisecracks,
a sophisticated veneer and a frigid independent personality, but it's merely a cloak
of protection, worn to hide her uncertainty from the prying eyes of rough people
who would bruise her genfle heart if she exposed it. I know one who pours out her
real soul by writing lovely song lyrics with a secret message woven in the shades of
her soft, very private dreams. When she's not writing, she's the picture of the brittle,
callous, career woman she wants people to see. Yet, even this type of Pisces is
unable to fight her Sun sign. With all her make-believe independence she waits on
the curb and lets the man whistle for the cab. There are some things one just

doesn't
do, as far as Neptune women are concerned; not acting like a lady in public is one of
them. She fools a lot of men who could quiet her inner fears and make her take back
her frequent claim of, "Who needs a husband? They only mess up your life."
Imagine a statement like that from a Piscean, who needs to belong to someone more
than she needs to sleep, eat or breathe.

A Pisces girl will give all of her heart to her children, except for the large chunk she
saves for you. She'll love them all, but the ones who are uglier, weaker, smaller or
sicker may have a slight edge with her. Only a Pisces movie star would pass up the
little dimpled darlings and adopt a tiny, crippled tot with frightened eyes. Female
fish are the greatest women in the world for understanding the shyness of small




boys and the growing pains of awkward adolescent girls. A Piscean mother spins a
thousand wispy, cobweb dreams over each bassinet. She'll sacrifice anything so her
children can have what she was denied as a child. She may be too permissive.
Administering discipline is difficult for her, and she must realize that a lack of
firmness is often as bad as severe neglect. In a way, it is neglect, of building the
small characters in her care, who need firm guidance to leam to swim alone. If she's
guilty of too much softness, explain it to her kindly. She'll comprehend without
bitterness, and begin to give the hairbrush a workout. Still many Neptune mothers
manage a happy medium between discipline and kindness, and their offspring do
them credit.

A Pisces woman will gladly let you cam the bacon and cggplant. She'll probably
prefer not to enter the brutal competition of the commercial world, unless you
desperately need her to. She had enough of that (if she's a typical Neptune girl)
when she worked for that big, confusing company while she was waiting for you to
rescue her. Some, not all, but some Pisces women are a wee little bit extravagant.
She may need some help figuring out why the bank's balance doesn't reconcile with
her stubs, written in Sanskrit. Still, when an emergency forces her to adapt her
champagne taste to a skim milk pocketbook, she'll manage.

She listens to the ocean, and it tells her things. In the> midst of the city, she still
hears the waves of Neptune whispering to her Pisces heart more, perhaps, than she
wants to know. Don't forget her birthday or your anniversary or the day you
proposed. She won't. I'll always remember the Pisces friend I went to school with in
West Virginia. She was tiny, with long, dark hair and those strange Neptune lights
in her greenish brown eyes. She married (among several other men) a big football
star; it was a totally unexpected elopement. I remember when she asked him why he
proposed. She was curious. "Well," he told her, "it was the funniest thing, Shorty. I
didn't have the slightest idea of proposing that day. We were in the park, near the
pool. The chicks who were lying around getting a tan had wet, stringy hair from
swimming, and they looked all hot and sweaty on the benches. You were sitting
there under that tree in a white lace dress, and you looked so cool and different from
the others. You looked like-well, I guess you sorta looked like a girl." That's the
subtle secret of the Pisces woman. Whether she follows Neptune's call as a
dedicated nun in a convent or as a sultry songstress in a noisy nightclub-she's a girl.
All girl. One hundred percent.