zeptember

This has been the worst Mercury retrograde in ages.

Friend A was suicidal - I finally got ahold of his friend and together we intervened and talked him down for 48 hours, until finally he willfully sent himself to the city hospital psych ward. He’s committed now, and will be transferred to the state-run facility in the near future for indefinite lockup until he is better. He is on medication, too, and feels he has multiple personality disorder, but is going to be run through a battery of psych tests. I was a ball of stress and anxiety throughout this ordeal - I can’t bear to lose another friend.

Friend B had a death in the family, and doesn’t have a car, so I’ve been driving her around town to run errands and today will drop her off at the train station to head up north to be with family and do the funeral. I’ll be driving up on Saturday to attend said funeral, as I followed her journal for quite some time, and met her in person a couple of times, and honestly I want to be there at my friend’s request.

Friend C’s husband left her, and I hear Friends D and E are also talking divorce.

Friend F threw out her back in a BAD way and has been doped up on percoset for about a week now.

Friend G *and* my upstairs neighbor both accidentally tried to cut off their fingers in the past week while preparing food - Friend E required three stitches and neighbor requires one but has neglected to go to the hospital for it so far…

Friend A, F and G were all supposed to help with setup for Halloween at our place and because of the above circumstances now cannot.

Friend H’s mom has been totally psycho over her daughter’s upcoming wedding, and now it’s come to the point where we wonder if mom is now not invited to the wedding. Yes, it’s that bad. It seems that this mother is freaking out because she can’t have the dream wedding she always wanted for herself, projected through her daughter. Good times. Can’t wait til my wedding planning really gets under way.

What else…my man’s boss/friend got fired, Paul Raven died and I found out on October 21, and that’s the same day I began hearing from friend “A” that he was suicidal.

And of course I lost my job on October 12 - the first day of the retrograde. I feel like I missed something… I feel like there’s more that’s happened. Ugh. So stressed out.

Mercury will go direct tomorrow, which means it stops going retrograde, but the pain is not over. The pain is over on November 17, when Mercury begins forward motion again - also known as Mercury Return.
THEN I can stop holding my breath, wondering what else will come crashing down.

There was fun this month, I swear.

• A friend’s birthday party on October 18
• Another friend’s birthday party on October 20
• I attended a local meeting for “Metaphysics and the Healing Arts-Build Your Practice into a Thriving Business” on October 25
• On October 26, when the movie was listed to be shown again, I saw the movie my friend is listed as a producer on - the movie opening that I missed back on September 29 and freaked out about on the 30th…so I felt like I’d righted a wrong and that made me feel better.
• On October 27, not one… but two Halloween parties!
• I had my unemployment interview on October 29 and it appeared to go very well.

But overall, despite the good stuff, the bad stuff SUCKED HARD and this month is still fired.

And now I prepare to help ring in the new year by doing more setting up of our lovely haunted backyard for tonight. Let’s get things off to a better start, shall we?

Forgot to mention that I had my third trip to Dr. Yan on October 24, and I told him how much pain I was in as mentioned aboveafter each of the first two visits, so he withheld the electricity to the needles this time. I was not in much pain on the 24th, so I was able to lay on my right side without throwing my shoulder, thankfully. Dr. Yan put the needles in my neck and lower back for about ten minutes, then had me lay on my back and put one needle in each of my ankles for another ten minutes.

My neck and shoulders have been great since then - my lower back still grumps a lot at me when I go dancing or when I do dishes. But that’s mostly I think telling me I need to do back strengthening exercises.

Regarding unemployment:
Today is Day 12 of it. Yesterday I had the phone interview with the Employment Development Department (EDD, a.k.a. unemployment office), and I lucked out. I got a woman interviewer, whose cousin has endometriosis, so she was HUGELY sympathetic and told me I should have no problem getting the unemployment pay. Woohoo!!

I’m hoping to have my first check in the next ten days, which will hopefully be a two-week check by the time they decide to release the friggin money.

I’ve been wrapping up unfinished projects promised to people with the time I now have available. I will need to implement my goal of bicycling three times a week Real Soon Now, but with Halloween upon us, I’m too busy between home/backyard decorating and the projects to get much exercise on the bike. And then the first weekend in November, I’m already bedridden again from the pain. Intermittent sharp pains began last night - it’s “normal” for it to start off this way before the actual do0m.
Sooooo…bicycling…hmmm. Probably not til November 10th/11th.

Now I’m off to start my day, zo0m!

Two days ago, on Oct 24th, I corresponded with a coworker about meeting him for lunch on Friday at 11am. I sent a copy of the email to another email account, which I check more frequently, so I’d not forget.

What I failed to do was set a phone alarm reminder, as well as set a date in my iCal program.

And lo, I forgot all about lunch today and left him hanging.

So, things keep slipping through the cracks. I need to get better at remembering to even set a fucking reminder IN my phone AND on the iCal AND on sticky notes AND in as many places as possible.

I just now realised I’d forgotten about lunch with my coworker. I went into the email account to send an apology, and scrolled down to see his cell #. I left the room for a sec to get my cell phone, came back, and upon seeing my mail window open, had no idea why I needed my cell phone. But the number was right there in front of me in my mail window, and I had the cell phone in my fucking hand.

I put the cell phone down and went to reply to the email, and then realised that I had forgotten to plug his cell # into my phone…so I did that.

I can’t stand this. I feel no control over myself. My brain won’t remember things.