Mercury Retrograde is in full swing around here, man, ( and isn't due to leave til the 29th!!) where all manner of mayhem has kept this faithful blogger off-kilter for almost a week now. Gosh, where to begin.

All the stuff has been record-breaking weird, I mean with friends saying stuff like, "Jesus, Jessica, you've GOT to write a script!" I'll get right on that, after I recover from all of it. Or drop dead from shock.

Let's start off with my last new job. I say "last", because I don't have it anymore. ( I know - it's like a motif, isn't it? If I were writing a novel -- or a script!-- it would be quite nifty, but since it's my LIFE, I don't know that I find it all that entertaining). I had it for a day. A DAY. Why? Wheretofore? Well, it's like this: Debra, Jeannie's boss is a really cool lady. I almost went to work for Debra, but at the time she offered me an interview, I was working for Dee and making the bling so I passed on it. I recommended Jeannie, and they're happy as clams. Debra felt badly about the timing of the way things turned out with Dee, though, and has been kind enough to keep me in mind for anything that might come up.
Debra has a friend named Keely, who's an independent filmmaker that lives in Venice ( soooo far on the other side of the hill, it's next to the ocean). Keely desperately needed a personal assistant, as her life was an absolute mess: she had a deadline for Sundance looming on a documentary she's been working on, and she'd just kicked out a psycho ex-roomie who had stolen her production company's tax ID # and was running all over town racking up bills. Additionally, she'd been through her last bout of severe illness and was just back up on her feet from a hospitalization in May. She needed help and was willing to pay for it. This is where I come in.
Keely and I talk and she's great. She is willing to pay me not only my hourly fee, but pay for my gas to drive to Venice a few times a week to do the job. I'm thinking this is great! I got en exciting new job working for an indie filmmaker, for good money, FREE gas, and I can go to the beach every day when I'm done with work. WOO-HOO!!

Uh, no.

My first day of work was-- and I kid you not-- the single worst workday of my entire life. I'm searching my brain for any other day, including when I was a waitress on the graveyard shift at Denny's, that was as bad. Nope. Sorry. Doesn't exist.
It wasn't Keely. It wasn't the work. It wasn't anything to do with anything like that. Because if it were, I could say, "hmmpf. Dammit. Bullshit", and all manner of indignant interjections.
No.
It was Keely's house.

I walked into it halfway through my first day, after I was done running errands. Keely and I sat down to talk in her office, and everything is fine. After about half an hour, I have this sense that Something Is Terribly Wrong. I shake it off, thinking maybe that I'm just tired, it's PMS, I need a drink, etc.
After about an hour, I have an almost uncontrollable urge to bolt. Run. GET OUT. That doesn't happen alot to me EVER, ( and when something like that does, it's a little tingly " you should probably leave" sort of thing), so my hackles are up. My little Spidey-Sense intuition is going, and I'm trying hard to figure out what is going on.
After about another 30 minutes, I start feeling like if I don't get out of there, I'm going to throw up. All over the rug, no questions asked. This is about when I decide to start asking questions.
I'm trying to keep my cool and not freak this woman out, because do ya just walk up to new people and say, "hey, I don't mean to sound WEIRD or something, but, um, ya know, I'm kinda psychic and I just thought you should know....". This IS California, ( and that will come in later, so take that as a motif) but hey, some normal people live here too, and they're not easily distinguishable from the nuts and flakes. BUT, earlier that day she had her "healer" come over and work on her, so I know I can at least slide a few 'woo-woo' things in, so I ask her when the last time she's cleansed the house.

Never, she says. Why, do you think I should?
Maybe, I say. I don't want to put anything into your head that isnt there, but I mean, you've suffered alot here. Maybe you need to get some good energy flowing through.
Hmm. She says, Can you feel something?
Well, I say. I have a sensitivity. You don't have to believe in it, though.
What is it? she asks.
I don't know, I say. Why don't you tell me?

( I'm such a good little half-trained therapist, aren't I? Don't suggest, just ask. I should be third-party billing, I swear). This is when she tells me that she recently found out that decades ago, some little girls were raped and murdered there. Oh. Oh. OH.
I'm sitting there thinking, "Is THAT all? NO big then! Let's get back to work! Just excuse me while I go check on something in my car. Don't mind the squealing of tires. " I mean, she SAID it like she was telling me what to go buy at CostCo, and I'm flipping out. What's worse, the second it came out of her mouth, the thought 'they're buried under the house' popped into my head. That's usually a sign to me that it's intution, because while that might make sense after watching a million episodes of "Law and Order", answers to anything, let alone murder cases do not typically just 'pop in' unless it MEANS something. I mean, I don't KNOW how I know these things, I just DO, and I've tried really hard to learn to tell the difference between something intuitve and something logical. Yes, it would be logical that bodies might be buried under the house if some sort of murder took place there. But it's not assured. I'm sure, ( after watching a lot of "Law and Order", thank you), murderers dispose of their victims all sorts of ways. But I knew, I just KNEW that's what the deal was and I told her.

Of course, all manner of drama ensues. I'm on the phone to every witchy, woo-woo, Dionne Warwick-Psychic- Friend I have, asking what there is to be done. I'm on the phone with R, asking him how to get the plot records from the county. And that's when it hits me: I cannot work in that house. I WON'T work in that house. I don't want all that stuff in my head, in my heart, on my personhood when I leave. The kind of energy I would have to personally expend to just try to not FEEL it alone would make me exhausted and sick.
But I go home and try to think it over. I come to the conclusion as I'm speaking with friends about it that there's just no way. I can't fix this problem, which frankly, belongs on a show like "Medium" or something ( and wacky as it sounds, I had a fleeting idea to call the woman that show is based on- I mean, she lives in Arizona, only one state over!), and I am not working in there til it IS fixed. Keely wasn't AGAINST getting it fixed, but let's face it: CAN you fix something like that? Maybe. But I don't know what it takes, short of razing the house and returning alleged bodies to a rightful resting place. I mean, what IS this, and episode of "CSI"? And do I want to get involved?

No freaking way, is what I decided.

So I resigned. The very next morning. And Jeannie, upon hearing this, says, "JESSICA. You have to EXPLAIN to this poor woman WHY. You cannot just ditch her. Her life is really fucked up already, and to her, it will be jsut another good person leaving her. And if you have this gift, you need to ADVISE her accordingly. You were put into her life for a reason. I mean, this IS California. It's not like she's not gonna understand, or call the looney bin on you." ( See, I told you this was going to come up again!). I was none too happy about doing whatver my duty was, but I had to admit she had a point. So I rang Keely up, advised her to a.) hire a shaman ( and gave her a number), b.) do some basic cleansing things to keep herself balanced til she could c.) pack up and get the fuck out.

She took it well. By the time I had called her, she'd started thinking along the same lines herself. She was sad to lose me as an assistant, but there were no hard feelings.

Except, I, of course, was out of a job, yet AGAIN. Debra was sweet enough to recommend me to another friend of hers, so I'm hoping that will pan out, and I have a job interview tomorrow with someone else. But CHEESEANDRICE, what do I put down at the unempolyment office? "Lost job because of haunting"? "House posessed and made me vomit"? COULD IT BE ANY WEIRDER???

DON'T answer that. I don't wanna know.