What is it with those writers in Hollywood? I thought everybody in California had an astrologer. Or even if they don’t have one, surely they’ve been reading Rob Breszny’s Real Astrology column long enough to know the rules of the game. Everything stops dead in its tracks for retrograde Mercury.

Uh-oh, wait a minute, you say. Mercury is not retrograde?!

So what’s wrong with this picture? Hollywood writers have been on strike since 5 November 2007. Writers are ruled by Mercury. If even the intelligentsia of modern society don’t follow the laws of astrological synchronicity, it’ll be total chaos! What the #$%^ is going on?

Don’t these guys know they’re screwing with the Law & Order of the cosmos? And while they’re picketing my House, they’re stirring up my Criminal Minds (yes, plural, because I am a multiple-mutable-sign schizophrenic!), not to mention giving me a bad case of HSA (Helgenberger-separation-anxiety) due to the impending C.S.I. interruptus.

Deal or No Deal? No deal, man. Everybody knows, strikes happen when Mercury goes retrograde. People go back to work when Mercury goes direct. But Mercury has been direct since well before November 5th. Therefore, either Breszny or those striking writers have it all backwards. Hmm. Is this the mathematical equivalent of multiplying two negative numbers and getting a positive? Let`s see. (Breszny’s astro-babble) X (writer’s bad timing) = cosmic order…?

Or is it just that shit happens all the time, and we only think it’s “predictable” when we also notice that Mercury is retrograde at the same time? Last week I had a computer malfunction, my DVD player died, and my car doors iced up. I would have loved to blame that weasel Mercury, but he was nowhere near retrograde. Who am I supposed to attack now – Mars?

All of this should give us pause to think of retrograde Mercury as the astrological equivalent of our stepping on a crack in the sidewalk, walking under a ladder, or having a black cat cross our path. Do we really think the sky will fall on our heads if we stumble across one small event of dubious symbolic meaning? Once upon a time within a certain context, the black cat and the ladder might have had a relevance, but since then they`ve become over-used and ossified (rigidly set in a conventional pattern of behavior, beliefs, and attitudes) that they’re no longer relevant for general application.

Go stand in front of the mirror. Ask yourself, how many of me are real? And which one of us belongs in a support group for a better understanding of astrology? Just don’t avoid your first meeting because Mercury is retrograde, for fear you’ll be the only one there. Unless of course, you’re a multiple-mutable-sign schizophrenic…