This was not the original plan ...
The plan was to match up my number of posts here -- or 'annual output' -- with the number of each corresponding month. For example, June, when I started, should've seen six posts ... August, eight, right (because that's the eighth month)?
October, there should have been 10 posts, etc.
So here we are now, at the end of November, and I've only had seven things to say!
Seven seems to be the mean: the overall average of monthly posts that time (or inspiration) allows me ...
I was wandering around a carnival once, or maybe it was some street fair or boardwalk / hippie part of town (like Santa Monica Pier or Pike's Place) some place ... and these Jesus freaks were pummeling people with pamphlets promising redemption.
One pimply prophet, someone's young runaway, ran up all saying, "Sir! Sir! Can I just talk to you for a minute?"
It was the first time I remember ever being called "sir" - so it must have been about twenty years ago ... right at that tipping point between Youth and Now.
"Not now!" I remember clearly snapping. I was snapping photos, and wanted then, like now, to be left alone doing it (buildings and night skies and moods much more vital than people to me, even then, like now). "You're like the seventh person to come up to me here. What part of town is this?"
The pimply young prophet did not miss a beat! "Seven ... You mentioned seven," he says to me, eerily. "What's that about?"
"Well," I begin, mustering enough patience to be able to feign. "Seven is a natural number following six and preceding eight. It's the first integer reciprocal with infinitely repeating sexagesimal representation ... and in quaternary, seven is the smallest prime with a composite sum of digits.
"It's also a purty little glyph...". I reach down and unzip my fly, and that does the trick!
The pimply prophet's off and running, not looking back.
I was telling this story to Kléber the other day, this guy who lives in the apartment below mine. I was jockeying for a parking place (i.e., crossing several lanes of traffic while down-shifting, finishing a pretzel (wiping mustard off my tie) and sending a text message) when I ran into Kléber -- literally -- stepping off the curb in front of our building.
As I was helping him to his feet, we started talking about numerology. Kléber was all pissed, because his wife had just accused him of removing some photographs from a family album, and he wasn't looking where he was going (that's why he ran under my Volkswagen) ... We started talking about numbers, and I told him about my run-in with the meaning of the number seven.
Then it occurred to me, while we were chatting, that each month since July -- July of course, being the seventh month -- I've posted more or less seven items ... except September, the ninth month - when I correspondingly posted nine.
... I have no idea how any of this all ties together (seeing as you asked) ... but it wasn't the original plan.
