The atmosphere around here got pretty charged last Thursday night as the folly of my thinking this event was going to have some kind of benevolent effect on my playwriting career became clearer by the second. I'd been thinking -- (HOW long have I been studying astrology?) -- that I might get confirmation of a go-ahead from the artistic director interested in producing one of my plays, and instead, after not working for her for about three months, was asked by a friend if I could help out and transcribe a sudden rush job that had come into her agency.
If you're looking for a definition of a solar eclipse on the Midheaven to an Aries (this one, at least), Thursday's is about as literal as it could get; tether yourself to a machine by putting on headphones, complete subsume your own personality to the requirements of the task at hand, type verbatim whatever it is you hear on the MP3 file and stay tethered until the job is finished, as there's always a deadline.
By the time the file arrived in my mailbox, I'd been on the phone with my friend/boss several times, getting updates on how quickly the uploading was going and, my normal foghorn voice at top pitch, telling her what I had been dopey enough to think might happen. (She's astrology friendly-- she's the friend who told me to start this blog.)
It was once I'd downloaded the MP3, transferred it to the transcribing software, put the headphones on and started working the foot pedal that the fun started in earnest. The sound on the file was super fast -- so speeded up that it was unintelligible and impossible to understand, let alone transcribe. Slowed it down, using the software - still too fast. Shut the software down, restarted - still too fast. Took several deep breaths, reminded myself I was but a little piece of stardust experiencing the ineffable As Above, So Below workings of the universe and called my boss, telling her the problem.
I got the expected answer - the file was fine when she sent it to me - said I'd try again and call her back.
Tried again, sound still chipmunky. Picked up foot pedal, cleaned off dust, blew on it, clicked the moving pieces once or twice to see that they connected, put it back down on floor, pressed right pedal -- 150 watt light bulb appears over head and strangled moan escapes mouth as I remember this is the foot pedal I'd used the week before when using analog transcribing machine with cassette tapes and the foot pedal I ought to have been using - the one that works with the transcribing software - was in the bottom drawer of the file cabinet. Changed out foot pedals, called boss, explained lack of brain cells and finally finally finally began to work.
The cats, in the meantime, had picked up on the imminent absence of the three billion megawatts of electromagnetic energy they're used to being bombarded with and had been chasing each other up and down the apartment even more furiously than usual, with Sweet Pea getting braver and braver (or more and more crazed) the more charged the atmosphere got and taking fiercer and fiercer bites at poor old Patches' heels, tail and underbelly. At one point the skirmishes escalated to such a level I took off the headphones and untethered myself, stood over the two writhing bodies, clapped my hands and said "Stop", which to the amazement of all three of us they did, Sweet Pea skulking away into a corner and Patches standing shaking in shock. I of course chose this moment to say "poor old boy" and reach my hand out to Patches, but the cotton balls, Peroxide and Neosporin now live handily accessible on a shelf in the bathroom and I've learned you have to squeeze the saliva out of the teeth marks and run water over them.
Things calmed down a bit after that. I only got a bit of Neosporin on the keyboard, the cats retired to separate ends of the apartment, I transcribed the file and was in the middle of spell-checking it when my mailbox pinged and there was the bi-monthly newsletter from the Dramatists Guild, to which I belong. (Another of my unvoiced to the world *predictions* about the eclipse had been that notice of publication of one of my plays in a special edition, with a foreword by me, would appear in the next DG Member News section, not too surprising as I had just sent the notice in myself, a mere four months after the event.)
Of course I had to stop spell-checking to go and see my name - if not in lights, at least on a computer screen and not on an invoice I was sending out - but it was definitely not the night for this little piece of cosmic matter. Not a mention of me and my play appeared, for reasons which became apparent as I read properly for the first time the instructions for submitting material. Future events only were to be sent to the newsletter, past events should be emailed to the webmaster to appear on the website, the eclipse is in Capricorn and that means Saturn and there are rules here that you have to follow....
And there ended the eclipse on my Midheaven. That was more than a week ago. The Leo full Moon at the end of this week sextiles Uranus in Gemini for me, while the Sun trines it. Mars is with the Moon in the sky, Jupiter will be beginning to trine Saturn for me, and I would say it's a pretty sure bet notice of the special edition of my play will be appearing on the Dramatists Guild Website before the week is over. Always assuming, of course, that I remember to email them and tell them.
Showing posts with label Eclipse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Eclipse. Show all posts
25 January, 2010
14 January, 2010
Solar Eclipse with Venus on the Midheaven
For days now I've been wondering if I dared post a prediction about this. With an email on Monday telling me an amateur theatrical company in the U.K. wanted to produce one of my 9/11 plays and asking about who to contact re rights, etc., (and, of course, with my having immediately passed on the information) I thought, if the confirmation was coming, it may well have come today. I mean, solar eclipse with Venus on the degree of my Midheaven - something has to happen, right? Admittedly, Capricorn isn't the first sign of the Zodiac that comes to mind when you think of someone flinging themself around on a stage, but Saturn is in Libra now and Venus is right up there with the Sun and Moon.
I took myself off to Drama Workshop at the senior center this morning and sat around the table in the library with several other over-60s, stumbling over the words and reading the wrong lines and turning over two pages at once with the best of them, but no one appeared to offer me a Pulitzer or anything and I came home, stopping at the supermarket on the way back, also a place where no one seemed notably impressed by my presence.
The butcher was definitely immune to my supposedly very visible Venusian charms and my request for four ounces of chicken livers, which he took at first to be a request for four pounds and started balancing plastic containers of the stuff on his arm, trying to find some that added up to what he thought I'd asked him for. Once we'd sorted that out and I'd explained what four ounces was and why I wanted it - one of my cats likes the livers but can't eat them quickly enough before the rest of the container goes bad - he was politely regretful and told me he'd like to but his boss wouldn't let him. Recognizing a fruitless cause when I see it, I didn't press the issue. It did make me realize I could buy a pound or so and split it up into little plastic bags and freeze it, defrosting it when I needed it (which would probably have occurred to someone else far sooner than it did it did to me), so all was not lost.
With Jupiter sextiling Venus in two days time I've been in no mood this week to do any of the editorial work which is my bread and butter. Google and Dr. Phil helped me squander the rest of the day and at seven, with no incoming emails confirming my status as an internationally produced playwright, I was all set to watch Jeopardy but picked the phone up when it rang. (It was only 2:00 am in the U.K and the director may have decided to tell me in person.)
It was my friend who runs a transcription agency and as soon as she said "You're going to wish you had Caller ID" I knew what it was about. Yes, I said, I would do the rush job for the morning, just send it to me (thank God for MP3 files) and I'll get it done. I was, of course, forgetting the mysterious ways of television news producers, and it turned out the file had not yet been sent to her but the producer definitely wanted it transcribed for the morning.
That was 90 minutes ago and I'm still waiting. Presumably the file will arrive in my mailbox an hour from now when the Sun conjuncts the midheaven exactly, and I'll probably finish the job on the solar eclipse four hours after that after sitting here all that time with headphones on channelling work for someone else's career. Really, with a natal twelfth house Sun (and Venus and Mercury), how could I have expected anything else? Thank God for a sense of humor as well as MP3 files.
I took myself off to Drama Workshop at the senior center this morning and sat around the table in the library with several other over-60s, stumbling over the words and reading the wrong lines and turning over two pages at once with the best of them, but no one appeared to offer me a Pulitzer or anything and I came home, stopping at the supermarket on the way back, also a place where no one seemed notably impressed by my presence.
The butcher was definitely immune to my supposedly very visible Venusian charms and my request for four ounces of chicken livers, which he took at first to be a request for four pounds and started balancing plastic containers of the stuff on his arm, trying to find some that added up to what he thought I'd asked him for. Once we'd sorted that out and I'd explained what four ounces was and why I wanted it - one of my cats likes the livers but can't eat them quickly enough before the rest of the container goes bad - he was politely regretful and told me he'd like to but his boss wouldn't let him. Recognizing a fruitless cause when I see it, I didn't press the issue. It did make me realize I could buy a pound or so and split it up into little plastic bags and freeze it, defrosting it when I needed it (which would probably have occurred to someone else far sooner than it did it did to me), so all was not lost.
With Jupiter sextiling Venus in two days time I've been in no mood this week to do any of the editorial work which is my bread and butter. Google and Dr. Phil helped me squander the rest of the day and at seven, with no incoming emails confirming my status as an internationally produced playwright, I was all set to watch Jeopardy but picked the phone up when it rang. (It was only 2:00 am in the U.K and the director may have decided to tell me in person.)
It was my friend who runs a transcription agency and as soon as she said "You're going to wish you had Caller ID" I knew what it was about. Yes, I said, I would do the rush job for the morning, just send it to me (thank God for MP3 files) and I'll get it done. I was, of course, forgetting the mysterious ways of television news producers, and it turned out the file had not yet been sent to her but the producer definitely wanted it transcribed for the morning.
That was 90 minutes ago and I'm still waiting. Presumably the file will arrive in my mailbox an hour from now when the Sun conjuncts the midheaven exactly, and I'll probably finish the job on the solar eclipse four hours after that after sitting here all that time with headphones on channelling work for someone else's career. Really, with a natal twelfth house Sun (and Venus and Mercury), how could I have expected anything else? Thank God for a sense of humor as well as MP3 files.
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