Emergency Fund = Mercury Retrograde

I first learned about Mercury Retrograde was when I was a student at Temple University.

I wasn’t spiritual. I wasn’t religious. I was into whatever that would stick and that would relate to me. Universally.

One of my favorite conversations I had with my father growing up and while in college is when I told him about Mercury Retrograde. He thought it was interesting that I would tell him something that I would find through another friend or the early days of the Internet. People would not bring this up to him at his Computer Engineering job, no way. I am his first son that would bring up to him the idea of things outside of the world of the big 5 (religions) and say well, the universe says…

My dad is the best. Back then, he would listen to what I had to say that was on my mind. Usually in the car, when I was quiet, he knew something was wrong and would ask, is Mercury in retrograde again? This was the start of his: I care about you but I’m trying to be an asshole funny stage. Sometimes I would say yes and explain what planets were and sometimes I didn’t care. I’m not into astrology like that but I do like to read and play along with it.

As many Mercury Retrograde’s go by, I learn something new each time. It’s mostly negative of course, nothing really good comes from them.

One of the things I’ve learned during this time is that I am always hemorrhaging money. Bleeding money they would say. Graphic isn’t it? I love saying that because it gives a dramatic sense of appeal that money is flowing out of me like water.

I love to save things. Whether it is money or personal items, I was taught at a young age to save by my mother and father. I have saved so much and when I do something good, I treat myself, always. Hoarder mentality is a negative thing but imagine hoardering money? Not so bad.

During Mercury Retrograde, something annoying always happens. Things break, communication goes out of wack, and you need to take things very slow. The biggest thing that stands out to me is money. It’s so noticeable because it will show up in our bank statements. People will invite you to more things and you’ll blow a bag without noticing.

What I learned during this time is that I should take this time to use what’s against me, for me. As well as to take things slowly. Much slowly. Especially living in a big fast paced city such as New York City.

I recently photographed my sister’s engagement photos and how they turned out surprised me. Not only did I not see my sister for a whole year, learning that she’s engaged, and seeing her fiance´ for the second time in my life, I was very proud of how the photos turned out and how happy she is. For her, for everyone, the love poured out via social media, texts, and the common silence from my sister. I assume she loves the photos.

People have been telling me they like my photography so I’m leaning in and buying more gear that works for me. So I bought a camera off of Reddit for the first time. The page is called r/photomarket. I’m dipping back into medium format photography again since the first time was a bummer. I realized why too. I rely on auto focus because my excuse is that my eyes are bad and manual doesn’t work for me. I scored a Mamiya 7 for a reasonable price, sold it to buy another camera, fast forward to now, I bought a Fujifilm GA645Zi and it’s beautiful.

Not only that I have been buying up all these cameras. I had to buy another Contax G2 in Black with a Zeiss 28mm lens.

Even stepped back into the digital game and bought a Ricoh GRii for fun.

So the reason I’m having a little crisis buying up all these cameras is because even during this time, I broke my companion cameras. Yes cameras. My daily driver and my back up Contax T3s broke. Also my Contax G2 also broke while in action. How can this be? There, you said it. Mercury Retrograde.

All good though. Why? Because I have a Emergency Fund. Now rebranded as a Mercury Retrograde Fund.