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.
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