Mercurial madness, retrograde riots

Congratulations, my friends. We survived another one. In that last post, I said something about the sun waiting in line for its macchiato on Mercury. Luckily for all of us, I was just going for the alliteration, because if it really had been on that erstwhile planet, there would have been no dawn that day, the sun arriving late, unable to call and tell us why, all its plans gone out of orbit.

Frickin Mercury, man. Always going retrograde.

Problems with communication and travel?
Signs might as well be in Icelandic then.

I don’t know a whole Hecate of a lot about astrology, but I have learned, the hard way, that when Mercury goes retrograde, maybe three times per year and lasting about three weeks each time, everything goes heels over head. These f’ed up weeks are characterized by miscommunication, transportation screwups, and plans generally going awry.

Do not sign contracts when Mercury is retrograde, cuz you’re misreading the fine print. Don’t buy new gadgets or appliances, cuz they’re going to have problems. And just to be safe, don’t travel, or try to talk to people. Just don’t leave your house. Be a Hermes Hermit.

Miscommunication and travel problems? Mercury Retrogrades are nature’s way of beating up on travel writers, since otherwise that life is absolutely as glorious as one would think it is if they’ve never tried it. Good thing I reapportioned my wordly ambitions, but those weeks are a good time to hunker down and just survive anyway. Batten the hatches, matey.

This year, the first day of the retrograde announced its arrival by putting my phone in airplane mode in the middle of the night, assisting me in missing plans to ride across the Bay Bridge with a friend. The next weekend a guy’s camping trip was weaned down to two of us by transportation and communication problems, that week an epic miscommunicationfest sent a friendship off the rails, a sister returning to Holland had all flights delayed, and bus irregularities abounded, making me late for appointments twice in three days.

I admit, I’m always 5-10 minutes late, but these times it wasn’t my fault. *shakes fist at the heavens*

I was going to use a photo of Mercury from Rome, but my
external hard drive isn't working right, so here's Ephesus
looking confused. Is it tomorrow yet?

It’s useful to know when Mercury’s gone bass-ackwards again. When the bus driver pulled up to the stop, turned the sign to “Out of Service” and said “I got an accident back there” with a thumb jerk over his shoulder, while everyone gushed out of the bus like explosive diarrhea, I didn’t have to ask for the nasty details, I could just shake my head, mutter “Mercury retrograde” and adjust my expectations. Arriving an hour late is still arriving.

I adjusted them further when my ipod decided to auto-erase all my songs and podcasts, leaving me auditorily at the mercy of the girl watching endless youtube videos about make-up products and how, like, totally amazing and stuff they are? Did I mention that technology doesn’t work well during a retrograde? I found sanity through the incorruptible goodness of a book until I arrived at the train station, where I took out the computer to investigate the ipod...and found that the computer had broken too.

Books books books! I frickin love books! No wiring no software no chicanery books!

But now we can all breathe a sigh of relief: it’s over. Or so say certain communications that traveled to me…

Wait. That’s an awkward sentence. Poorly communicated. Let me double check...damnit!

Mercury is in retrograde for one more day. Hold on. It’ll be over soon.