Everyone Who Had a Rough 3 Weeks, Raise Your Hand...

Don't all y'all fuckers lie. The last 3 to 4 weeks have been tough. If you didn't have weird email/computer/electronic/appliance/car issues, you either forgot or weren't paying enough attention. If you didn't experience delays and minor/major miscommunications, have many points of irritability with random people in your life, you're lying. This last Mercury Retrograde was brutal, and the fact that it was in Gemini which rules communication and all things mental and mechanical, it made communicating especially hard. For example, my home computer barely turns on right now, and our work email has been on the fritz the entire retrograde so that we can't send outgoing emails. That stuffs classic. Not to mention poor communication with important people in my life.

The good news is that today's the last day of it, though today might have been difficult as the retrograde is always at it's worst when Mercury is stationary at the beginnings and ends of the retrograde. There will still be some lasting effects until the 14th, but after that, you'll see life pick up and your projects resume at a good pace.

In fact, the funniest thing just happened. Brian and I have been sitting at Starbuck's, each working on our laptops. We've been here for about 2 hours, and Brian just said to me, "Have you noticed that everyone who's walked by has been arguing?" YEAH. Everyone is having a heated discussion on their cellphone, or couples are walking in having arguments or very serious discussions. I just explained to him that today is the last day of the retrograde, and things tend to be even more tense than the rest of the retrograde. Today has been a tense day, which was why I was hiding out in my office, trying to talk to as few people as possible.

Hopefully your relationships with others didn't suffer too much. There's always a lot of introspection and retrospection during a retrograde. You run into old friends and acquaintances, or people contact you out of the blue. You think about your past, mistakes that you've made, things that parallel your present, and you have an opportunity to decide if there are certain things in your life that are holding you back, or negative cycles that you tend to repeat. You can think about projects that are looming, and take the time to carefully plan out your steps. Overall, it's a time when life forces you to slow down and take stock.

Well, we made it. It's officially over tomorrow so pat yourselves on the back for having not killed yourself or any of your malfunctioning gadgets or acquaintances. Tomorrow and on will be a much better time to sign contracts and purchase electronics or appliances, but if you can wait until after the 14th, that would be even better, as there are still some influences in the air. Just think of the retrograde as an occurrence in which a large invisible magnet jumbles everyone's brains as well as anything with wiring. And now that magnet is lifted.

Fuck. I'm just so glad it's over.

By the way, here was a conversation I had with my bank today that's totally a mercury retrograde conversation.

Me: Yes, hi, I'm calling because I'm locked out of my account.
Customer Rep (CR): Yes I see that. Are you entering the wrong login information?
Me: No I'm not. I'm logging in the way I usually do but it's asking me a security question that's not the one I set up.
CR: What's it asking you.
Me: It's asking me, "Where did you get married?"
CR: Did you forget the answer?
Me: No, that's not my security question. I'm single so there's no way that would be my security question.
CR: Well, we don't touch your security question. You're the only one who could have set it up.
Me: I've never been married, so why would I make my security question where I got married?
CR: I don't know.
Me: Well, that's not the security question that I set up.
CR: Again, you're the only who can set up the security question, unless someone has hacked into your account. Did you check to see if you have money missing?
Me: You know, I would...except I CAN'T GET INTO MY ACCOUNT TO CHECK.
CR: Oh, that's right. Okay. Well, I don't know why your security question would be wrong unless someone hacked in and changed it.
Me: Well, if someone's hacking my account, I definitely want to know. Is there a way for you to check on your side?
CR: No ma'am.
Me: Then would you like to unlock my account so I can check if I have money missing?

So we go through a process to unlock my account on the phone. Then he says:

CR: Maybe you put in the wrong password. How many characters is your password?
Me: 8.
CR: Oh, that's the wrong password.

I count.

Me: No, it should be 8.
CR: Wait, let me see.........oh no, you're right, it's 8. Hmmm...that's so weird. It must be a hacker.

I wanna shake the shit out of him at this point. So he unlocks my account, and I log in with the exact same information.

Me: Okay, I'm in. It didn't ask me where I got married.
CR: Yeah, that's really weird why it did that. Maybe it's a glitch in the system or something, but I would keep an eye out to see if money starts turning up missing.
Me: Okay, thanks.

*sigh*

Thanks, man. You're a peach.