Mars Retrograde to Me: You're Fired. Me to Mars Retrograde: Up Your Nose with a Rubber Hose.

Okay, so Mars is retrograde in Libra and I really shouldn't have been shocked by what happened right after I got to work on Tuesday, on the approaching Moon-Mars conjunction.

But what the hell, the Sun was also exactly trining my Neptune and Mercury (forming a grand trine in water). I thought that would be more than sufficient protection. In fact, I was no longer waiting for the other shoe to drop; I was plenty tense the day before, figuring if there was gonna be any blowback from the events of last Friday night, it would happen on Monday.

I couldn't have been wronger. It was on Monday that my fate was sealed via an upper-management meeting. The so-called team with whom there was some unpleasantness on Friday night (which was not my fault -- it was a design issue, not my department) turned out to be a bunch of turncoats. This Gang of Four apparently didn't complain to my mild-mannered, lower-than-low-key Libra supervisor (who hadn't been there on Friday night when the team gang-up occurred, though the other evening-shift person had been, and she claimed without my asking her that she'd never seen anything like the shit that happened, shit that involved my methods and my competency being called into question, so I'm not crazy). No, the team went straight to upper management to get rid of my troublemaking ass. I even know which one of them was the instigator to throw me under the bus: she was the classic down-masquerading-as-an-up with tacky dyed blond hair and a face that only a Mack truck would love. This was the charmer who had never bothered to learn how to spell my name correctly even though it was right on my work email.

Fittingly, my Libra supervisor was the henchman on Tuesday. Due to some typical snafu my name was not in the corporate reimbusement system, so my supervisor paid me in cash for the cabs I'd had to take home two nights in a row from staying at the office till 1 a.m. to get the tons of absolutely necessary work done, then he wanted to know if we could talk for a minute. I felt like a regularly scheduled prostitute being given the boot after above-and-beyond services rendered.

I was never even given an opportunity to defend myself. That hardly seems fair -- especially since if anyone should've been fired, it shouldn't have been me.

But fairness seems to be in rather limited supply these days. My oldest friend, who shuffled off this mortal coil nearly seven years ago, had some old-school astrology book that claimed when Mars was retrograde, "bullies prevail." That's it in a nutshell.

So much for snitches winding up in ditches. In this case, it's the rats that ratted me out for the heinous crime of wanting to do my job correctly that won. Last Friday night, the Sun was within half a degree of opposing my Pluto -- I was right to be paranoid, but never dreamed I'd get fired over the kerfuffle, and never figured my best defense would be to go on the offensive and complain to my supervisor over what had transpired. The other evening-shifter told me on the phone on Wednesday that Libra Supervisor was "a nice guy, but won't stand up for us when there's a problem." As a result, I am back to square one, where I was in January, newly cut off from EUC, not making enough coin as a full-time freelancer, raising worrying to an art form.

So much for thinking that I wasn't going to have to deal with the fearsome-sounding Cardinal Cross in April, starring Uranus, Pluto, Jupiter, and...oh yes...Mars. Stay tuned (as opposed out out of tune).

Transiting Sun Opposing My Natal Pluto: The Whole World's Out to Get Me

...or is it that I'm out to get the whole world? This topsy-turvy logic may make more sense, and it may not even be that weird; after all, Pluto Rising, c'est moi.

First of all, has anyone out there in astrology-lovin' cyberspace missed me? It's been something like five weeks since my last post. What's changed in those five weeks? Simple, really: I got a part-time (technically freelance) job that feels like a full-time one due to a long commute and fine print attached ("You must demonstrate the same degree of commitment and general gung-ho-osity as this company's full-timers, including but not limited to checking work email early on weekend mornings in order that you may resolve the sphincter-spasming issue of a PM's not receiving a file you sent late last night in order to meet a crucial deadline. Oh, and if you are not a technical wizard, you had better either become one or pray that nothing seriously goes awry after our tech ninjas leave the building for the day. And did we mention you will need to stay late again tonight?")

This is what I wanted, even prayed and burned candles for: steady work. Now I've got it and while there are some definite positives (a steady paycheck that will launch me a notch or two above what NYC considers piss-poor; a cool, laid-back supervisor who answers my many questions with amazing patience; a very nice fellow evening-shift colleague), I am also stressed-out, constantly tired yet too wired to relax, and perhaps most upsetting of all, supremely uncreative. It wasn't too long ago that I was that magic combination of imagination and discipline. Now...fuggedaboutit.

I was really hoping that today would be different; that I'd be able to get some Creative Time in. But with the Sun opposing my Pluto (and, by the way, poised to enter my 7th House later this evening), my laptop became infected with a virus that somehow infiltrated my trusty (Ed) Norton Internet Security, and had to be fixed via remote technician to the tune of $89.98.

And somehow, it's gotten to be almost five o'clock Brooklyn Time. Fuck. If I manage to put away all the laundry I did yesterday before work and get to the grocery store to pick up a few staples, I may still have a chance.

And maybe once the Sun leaves my 6th House and begins to trine my Mars, Mercury, and Neptune from my 7th House over the next few days, life won't seem as bleak, and the Cult of Work that's been up in my grille for the past month or so will ebb at least somewhat.

I can only hope.