Mercury, Schmercury.

I'm being told, from reliable sources on the Interwebs, that Mercury is no longer in retrograde.

I've also been told that while Mercury is in retrograde, life can go haywire, like riding a creaky Schwinn bicycle into an oncoming shitstorm.

Well if you know me and you know this blog, you know I have no tolerance for that astrological horse-cockery. There is no position of the stars and planets because the universe is not Earth-centric. Everything is relevant. And fluid.

Including, it seems, my previously stated position on the whole Mercury in Retrograde phenomena.

Case in point, my life.

Because in the last two months it feels like I've not only ridden a bike into a shitstorm, I've had three flat tires, a broken chain and I've misplaced my protective mouth mask.

For instance, I understand work is slow for most advertising freelancers, but for me it's not a case of the phone not ringing. It has. It's more a case of getting teased into nice long juicy gigs and then being canceled at the last moment. Often without an explanation. Professional courtesy has gone the way of White House integrity.

To make matters worse, the revenue from those now ghosted gigs could have eased the not so insignificant pain of dealing with my new role as a senior caregiver. It kills me to see my uncle in a shabby facility where the inedible food is served is mercifully served in microscopic portions. Money can't buy happiness but it can get you a decent plate of vegetable lasagna.

And I won't even begin to describe the agony of schlepping out to Palm Springs once a week (sometimes twice) to clean out his house to get it in some kind of rental form.

Then, as I mentioned a few weeks ago, my daughter in Denver took her eyes off the road, as many young people do, and plowed into a pick up truck. The other driver shrugged it off, but her new Mazda 3 was unrecognizably crunched into a Mazda 2.

The insurance company wanted to rebuild the car, with inferior parts, and I had to beg and plead for them to total the vehicle and send me a cash out check. Which they eventually did.

But, not only was Mercury in retrograde at the time, it appears Venus, Neptune and Jupiter were also in cahoots and wanted to get in on that good Let's-Fuck-With-Siegel action.

Because when I ambled down to my Wells Fargo branch they noticed the check had been made out to Richard (my legal name) and not Rich (the name I have been using for 44 years). They put an indefinite hold on the funds and sent my blood pressure into the stratosphere.

Lastly, to get things resolved in Colorado, my wife and daughter drove the aging Acura from LA to Denver to replace the Mazda 2. And naturally, somewhere outside Cedar City, Utah, a loose bolt came off the brake assembly, smashed through the grease boot and damaged the axle.

What in Carl Sagan's name is going on with my universe?

My friend and blogging buddy George Tannenbaum often says that work is Hell and that we have no other choice but to keep our heads down and plow through it. Well, life can be Hell, too...you know in a first world, affluent white man kind of way. My only option is to stick my oversized nose to the grindstone and play the hand I'm dealt.

It's all about perspective.

Consider this. If you were on Luyton 726-8, one of the nearest stars to our planet, and you were looking through a telescope, Mercury would just now be going into retrograde.

Thankfully, we're all here on Earth.

Happy Thanksgiving.