Thirteen

This is not in fact the thirteenth post.

It's the thirteenth day, but the fact that I got overeager and posted twice on one day means that I have successfully avoided doubling up the thirteens. And since I'm lying about the date on which this was written anyway, Thirteen seems like something of a misnomer for the title. I just wanted to talk about the number, and it was a flimsy pretext. I should have called the blog that: A Flimsy Pretext. But then people might have thought I was talking about Iraq. That stupid war will overshadow our entire lives and whether you love it or hate it, you won't be able to ignore it; it will inject itself into every context. So I guess it's a good thing that I didn't use that name.

Why thirteen? It's not the first prime, or the first double-digit prime. It's a number which comes up much more frequently than, say, 67. It must be a great source of sadness to students of the occult and numerology that there is no thirteenth month in the Gregorian calendar. But for all of that lack, there are at least thirteen days in every month, there are at least thirteen hours in every day (we avoid the obvious by operating our common clocks base-12, but the 24 hour clock is coming on strong, unlike the decimal time system, which is, I think it is safe to say, dead and unlamented), thirteen minutes in every hour (at least, remember), seconds in every minute, and so on. So, by rights, it could be the thirteenth of the month at 13:13:13, and if it happened to be the year 1313, that's five of the buggers right there.

It's a superstition, I know, and it probably dates back to Pythagoras being unable to figure out what the divine nature of thirteen was (I don't know, and frankly, Pythagoras gets really good press, so I'm all for taking him down a few notches, since he was a crazed, bean-fearing wack-job by many accounts). But what's so wrong about thirteen?

And yet you'll notice that I've managed to keep it from being over-present here. From a fake thirteen, signing off.